What the British Empire Has Done—The Missionary and His Schools—The Evangelist and the Doctor at Work—Encouraging Progress
By ARTHUR G. DANIELLS
Pastor G. W. Pettit, superintendent of our Bombay mission, and his wife.
The city of Bombay is the headquarters of our work on the west coast of India. On our way to this city from South India, we spent a day in the city of Madras.
STRONG EDUCATIONAL WORK
To me the most interesting feature of Madras is the work carried on by the government and the missionary societies for the education of India's young people. One cannot visit such centers as Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta without being favorably impressed with England's endeavors to give the millions of India educational advantages. It is a stupendous task. India had no system of education for the masses when she came fully under the rule of Great Britain in 1858. Such education as was given could be secured by only a few, while the great masses were left in a shocking state of illiteracy.
MANY COLLEGES AND OTHER SCHOOLS
As soon as England assumed the full responsibilities of the government of India, she introduced a modern, useful, up-to-date educational system. Steady progress has attended this department of government, until now India has five universities, 176 arts and professional colleges, 3,285 secondary schools, and 102,947 elementary schools. In addition to these, the government gives financial aid to thousands of private and mission schools.
The total number of students in all these schools is about eight million. This, of course, is a pitifully small portion of the millions of India's children. Yet it is a vast improvement over the condition that prevailed half a century ago. When we consider all the obstacles surmounted, this is a good showing.
KALYAN MISSION SCHOOL.—When Elder Daniells visited this school, the teacher had these children sing a Christian hymn, and repeat the Lord’s Prayer and a psalm.
THE MISSIONARY AS AN EDUCATOR
But whatever credit may be due the British government for the work it is now doing along educational lines in India, the early missionaries to this country were the ones who began this good work, and the many missionary societies now operating in India are still doing a most commendable work in behalf of the education of the people.
A century ago, William Carey founded an institution at Serampur. To-day the various missionary societies are conducting 15,000 schools, in which more than 500,000 pupils are receiving some measure of education. These schools are divided as follows: 38 colleges, with an attendance of 5,500 students; 87 theological schools, with 1,850 students; 127 training schools, with an attendance of 21,000; 283 high schools, having 61,000 students; 880 boarding schools, 40,000 pupils; 160 industrial schools, giving 9,000 young people a practical training; and 13,000 elementary schools, which are molding the 446,500 children and youth attending them.
It is a great and imperishable work the Christian church is doing in this one line of endeavor in India. In most of these schools, “the Bible is extolled, and its truths are held in highest reverence by teachers and by missionaries, and they thus become of supreme value to the young pupils.” Thus hundreds of thousands of India's children are receiving what is meant to be a Christian education.
On our arrival at Bombay, we were met by Pastor George W. Pettit and wife, formerly from Oregon; Pastor W. R. French, from Texas; and Sister R. E. Boose, from Iowa. We had known these dear fellow workers in the home land, and were happy434to find them looking well, and thoroughly interested in their work.
TWENTY-FIVE MILLION CANNOT READ
Pastor Pettit is superintendent of the Bombay mission. The territory of this mission lies along the eastern shore of the Arabian Sea. It is one thousand miles long, with an average width of about one hundred miles. The population of this district is twenty-seven million.
Two principal languages are spoken by these people,—the Marathi by eighteen million, and the Gujarati by nine million. To a visitor from a land of general education, it seems appalling that less than two millions of this great mass of humanity can read and write. It is hard to imagine what must be the life of twenty-five millions of people, in this age of enlightenment, who cannot read a line in their own tongue. We need not say that this state of illiteracy greatly adds to the already difficult task of Protestant missionaries.
Twenty-one millions of the people in the Bombay mission are Hindus, five millions are Mohammedans, one half million are Jains, eighty thousand are Zoroastrians, one hundred and fifty thousand are Roman Catholics, and fifty thousand are Protestants.
A BEAUTIFUL, UP-TO-DATE CITY
Bombay is the principal city in this mission, having a population of one million. As regards population, institutions of learning, beautiful residences, large, up-to-date public buildings and business blocks, wide, clean streets, sanitation, etc., it ranks among the best cities of India. We were glad to find an aggressive evangelistic work carried on in this important center. Our workers have secured the exclusive use of an excellent hall in a good location.
PANWEL MISSION BUILDING
We had the privilege of meeting with our brethren and sisters on the Sabbath, and of speaking to a full house of interested people Sunday night.
Although this effort in Bombay has been in progress only a little more than a year, fifteen new believers have been baptized, and a church of twenty-five members has been organized. The interest is growing, and the workers are following up every avenue, with the fullest confidence that God will give them a strong, useful church in that city.
AT THE BOTTOM OF HEATHEN SUPERSTITION
We spent a day at Panwel, where our missionaries A. G. Kelsey and wife, from Michigan, are in charge of a station. This is a large village thirty-five miles from Bombay, but only sixteen miles from the railway. My heart was touched by the devotion, self-sacrifice, and courage of these dear workers. They are working in the midst of as dense, dark heathenism as exists anywhere in India. After looking around the village, I asked the brethren if there was anywhere in India a lower stratum of human existence, and I was relieved by their assurance that there was not.
A Group of Native Workers and Believers at Our Kalyan Mission
Here we are working at the very bottom of heathen superstition and degradation as it exists in India. Although British influence has been established in Bombay since 1661, and missionaries have been working in the city for nearly a century, yet no missionary effort has ever been made in the region of Panwel.
Here we are conducting a day school for the children of the village. The attendance averages fifty, of about an equal number of boys and girls. Of course, they are all heathen, but the teachers are constantly endeavoring to give them the light of the gospel. Two Christian native teachers are employed to assist in this work. Recently two converts were baptized at this mission.
Sister Kelsey had just opened a neat little dispensary. This was greatly needed, and they hope that their ministry of love to the suffering will draw the people to God's message of salvation. May the good hand of our God be with these dear workers in their difficult field!
A BUSY DOCTOR IN INDIA
Another day was spent at the Kalyan mission, with Pastor and Mrs. M. D. Wood and their helpers. This place is on the railway line, forty miles from Bombay. The people here are like those of Panwel—enshrouded in the darkest heathenism. Ours is the first Christian mission ever established in Kalyan.
It was a great pleasure to meet again Pastor and Mrs. Wood and their associate workers. They have a large work on their hands, which taxes their strength to the utmost. Here we have one of the largest and best organized medical dispensaries in all our mission fields. It was opened in February, 1913.
We reached Kalyan early enough in the morning to see the work of the day start. There was a great crowd waiting for the doors to open. Before beginning the medical work of the day the missionaries gathered as many as possible in the large waiting room. A native brother connected with the mission then read a Scripture lesson, gave them a twenty-minute talk about the gospel, and offered an earnest prayer for them. Most of them paid the closest attention to all that was said. Then the dispensary work began. Between fifty and seventy-five persons received attention that day. Some were disposed of in a few minutes, while others were in a serious condition, needing the most thorough, skillful treatment.
In a register specially printed for our dispensaries in India, a record is kept, showing the name, age, sex, religion, disease, etc., of every person who passes through the dispensary. In glancing over the register, I gleaned the following: number of patients treated during 1914, 16,421; visits to homes, 978; villages represented, 85; minor surgical cases, 312; different diseases, from sore throat to leprosy, 26; gospel talks, 312; pages of literature distributed, 11,820; expenditure, $375; receipts, $482.
Every detail of the work is so well arranged, and all the assistants know so well the part they have to do, that a large number of patients can be treated every day, week after week. Besides the work at the main dispensary, the workers itinerate in the villages near, and one day in the week they do dispensary work in a large town about sixty miles away. A free pass is granted Sister Wood in a first-class compartment over the railway line, to do this work.
VILLAGES STILL UNTOUCHED
Pastor Wood has two schools in operation, with an attendance of forty. As he speaks the Marathi, he is able to preach to the people in the surrounding villages. He took me to a hill just out of Kalyan, from which we could see villages in all directions. In these were living millions of people without any knowledge of the gospel of salvation. No missionary efforts have ever yet been made for these lost souls. They have no schools, no doctors, no civilization. To me, the situation seemed terrible. But we have made a beginning, and our workers are hoping and praying that their ministry will lead many of these suffering, sorrowing people to Him who died for them. Our church at Kalyan now numbers fifteen, and the hearts of the workers are set on building up a large, strong center there.
The workers in our Kalyan dispensary. Pastor M. D. and Mrs. Dr. Wood in the center.
The two churches in this mission field have a membership of forty. In addition to the tithes paid by the missionaries, these churches pay an annual tithe of $2,000. They are also faithful in the matter of offerings for the support of the cause, and are active in home missionary work. The outlook is encouraging. This helps the workers to toil on with good heart.
