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CEYLON

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 23, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 17.

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CEYLON

By D. L. Pierson

BY D. L. PIERSON.
“INDIA’S Pearl” presents a prosperous field for mission work; medical and educational work are especially prosperous, and the only cloud on the horizon is that of threatened failure of support by Christians at home. Everywhere the call for “retrenchment” brings sorrow and apprehension to the missionaries’ hearts; for it not only means hardship and trial to themselves, and inability to reap the fields which are white to the harvest, but it means that the unconverted will have another occasion to scoff, and heathen communities and weak Christians lose faith in the stability and truth of Christianity. Calls come for funds for medical dispensaries for women, and for schools to educate the youth. Over 200 have professed their faith in Christ during the past year, and many others are inquirers. The mission schools contain 14,868, and the Sunday schools 6,405 children. Jaffna College has 160 students, and the high school 391.
One hundred dollars will support for a year four native village schoolteachers in Ceylon. Each teacher would have on the average 50 pupils in his school, so that $100 would prevent the giving up of four schools, and therefore keep 200 children in Christian schools, under Christian instruction, for a year. Twenty-five dollars would keep 50 children in school; $10, 20 children; $5.00, 10 children; $1.00, 2 children. “Quick help is double help.”
The dispensary for women at Chavagacherri (opened in July, 1894, through the self-sacrificing efforts of Miss Leitch) has now over 100 patients daily, patients who had previously been shut out from European medical treatment, owing to native female modesty, which prevents them from consulting male physicians. Rich and poor consult the lady physician, and receive spiritual as well as temporal aid. Many evince their appreciation by their contributions to the sustenance of the work.—Missionary Review.