AN APPEAL FOR A MISSION IN THE MOUNTAINS OF INDIA.
By J. L. Shaw
SEVERAL years ago the readers of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES manifested their substantial interest in the people of India. It was in the year 1898, when India was severely stricken with famine, and the large family of readers responded in a generous way, and a goodly sum of money was raised. By this money, food and clothing were brought to starving boys and girls. Comfortable Christian homes were found for destitute orphans, where since they have been taught the Word of God. Some of them are now reaching manhood and womanhood, and can now tell others of the love of Jesus that brought to them salvation of body and soul. Eternity only can reveal the far-reaching results of the gifts of the SIGNS family at that time.
The publishers of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES have now listened to another call from the “Land of the Indus,” and again they throw open the columns of their valuable paper and make another appeal to its large circle of readers; and they make it believing that there will be a generous response. The plea this time is for money to establish a mission in the mountains of India, that the sons and daughters of India, who are hid away in the secluded recesses of mountains may have the Gospel.
For years our Mission Board and band of workers in India have heard the cry of need in the mountains, and again and again to this appeal for means a deaf ear has been turned. There are the 87,000,000 Hindu people, for whom we have scarcely raised our hand, more people than in the whole United States, and many of these people dwell upon the slopes, and in the valleys of the Himalaya Mountains, which form the northern boundary of India.
Among the strongest and most sturdy people of all India are there. As a rule the morals of people are higher in the mountains where the climate is cool and bracing, than in the plains. Among the strongest and most sturdy people of all India are the mountain dwellers. The Sikhs, physically the most manly men of the British Empire, and from whom England gets her best Indian soldiers, live in the foot-hills and adjacent plains.
The plan of establishing a mission is to procure land in a thickly settled community in the mountains and open a school. We have found from experience in India that a Bible school for young men is one of the best means of getting our work started in new places. At Simultala among the Santhals we have such a school. For several years our workers at this mission worked without seemingly very much progress until a school was started. This school has now been running three years, and good results are following. Last year there were more applicants than could be accommodated. Young men from the surrounding country attend the school, and work three or four hours a day in the garden for their board, and during that time the Bible is made the basis of study. In this way they get a knowledge of God’s Word and can return to their friends and relatives and tell what they have learned. By establishing a Bible school in the mountains where young men can come and board, and learn to read and study the Bible, a beginning can be made. The purpose in making it a boarding school will be to take away, so far as possible, heathen surroundings and substitute Christian influences. There should be enough ground in connection with the mission so that pupils may be given work to do to help earn their food while attending school. An orchard would do well in the mountains. Fruit growing, when superintended by Europeans or Americans is profitable. Apples, oranges, peaches, pears, and strawberries do well, and there is a good market for them.
A VIEW OF THE HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS, NORTHERN INDIA.
Work should be started for women as soon as possible. They are in a pitiable condition. Of the 145,000,000 women, but very few know even how to read, and fewer still know anything about the Gospel of Christ. They are kept in ignorance, and, knowing no better, hold tenaciously to a religion which makes them little more than prison-slaves. A son of India has said: “If you want to win India, win the women of India, and all India will be Christians.” It may not be possible to open a school for them at first. They are timid and secluded. Lady workers having learned the language can press their way into the homes and teach them there. Here, too, they can reach the widows whose condition is even more pitiable than ordinary women. Many of them become widows when they are only children. The death of their husband, who is often a man of forty or fifty, is laid to their charge, and as a penalty for their sin, they are made household drudges the rest of their lives. With shaved heads and coarse garments, often half-starved they must endure the taunts and abuse of those who should be their bosom friends. Their condition is a loud appeal for help.
At a mission in the mountains where the climate is cool and refreshing, our missionaries of northern birth can work with little difficulty and keep their health from year to year. During the ten years that we have been carrying on mission work in the plains, several have lost their health and some have died. Together the number reaches a full score. This has been a great hindrance to the work, and the situation calls for assistance. It costs a large sum of money to transport so many workers to and from India, and a mission in the mountains, so planned that workers in the plains could go and revive their exhausted energies would do much in lessening traveling expenses of so many workers to and from India, and would promote the health of workers as well.
A mission in the mountains would then serve a twofold purpose. Educational work could be carried on in the immediate community for men and women, and at the same time such a place would serve as a retreat for workers from different parts of India, who need rest.
As people in the mountains hear and heed the Gospel, they can be trained as workers and go with less susceptibility of disease to the hot and more trying climates of India—a suggestion worthy of consideration in mission movements in India.
At least $5,000 is needed for such an enterprise. Aside from purchasing the land, a substantial house will need to be built for workers; a schoolhouse for the school, and a small dispensary for treating the sick. Could the readers of the SIGNS but see the missionaries in the plains of India during the heated season which lasts for nearly eight months, from the middle of March until the first of November, and see how weary, worn, and washed-out they become from months and months of heat, incessant day and night, they would clearly see the wisdom of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES and Mission Board in establishing a mission in the mountains. Such a move spells progress to13the cause in India, and will go a long way in solving some of the knotty problems we have been called to meet in that field.
Five thousand dollars is a small amount for so great and imperative a need. Only a bare statement is placed before you at this time. The need, the dire need of consecrated men and means in India is greater than we can tell, and now, just now, is the time to carry the Gospel to her people. For a hundred years and more the hand of Providence has been going on before, preparing the way for this very time. Before British rule prevailed, scarcely a year passed by without thousands of India’s sons shedding their blood in war. Now all is peace from one end of India to the other. When Queen Victoria took the throne there was not a mile of railway in India. Now there are 26,000 miles of railway extending to all parts of the country. The means of communication, both by the postal and telegraph system, is no less remarkable, and education is making marvelous strides. There were, in 1901, 147,344 schools and colleges. The people are willing to study and anxious to learn.
The people are looking westward for help, and while doing so, infidel literature from the West is being scattered broadcast everywhere. The enemy of truth is determined to keep that sea of people in darkness and doubt. While they are looking, anxiously looking, westward, shall we not send them the Gospel? We come to you, dear friends, with this appeal, and we have faith to believe that you will make a liberal gift for this worthy purpose. What will you do? What can you give? Remember, friends, that one-fifth of the population of the globe is in India, and few of them know of God’s love. Remember, too, that fully half of these are women, held in ignorance and superstition, of whom twenty-five million have come to the deplorable condition of widowhood. Let us make a real sacrifice and raise the money at once for a mission in the mountains of India. What will you do? What can you give?
