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ASIA i.|^.^

By
J^ARY&/^AI\G/{f{ET. W.

Leitch.

JSlOt^lES

ISSIONARY
%I FE.

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

FROM

'lis Aur^usta 'Villiams
and
'Ts.J.E. Tanner

Cornell University Library
DS 489.L53

Seven years in Ceylon :stories of missio

3 1924 023 977 741

Cornell University
Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023977741

SEVEN YEARS IN CEYLON.

A HINDU WOMAN

even ^ica^^

stories of Mission Life

MARY AND MARGARET W. LEITCH

FOR KLEVEN YEARS MISSIONARIES OF THE AMERICAN BOARD OF
COMMISSIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS

OUR TWO DEAR BROTHERS,

WHO, WITH UNFAILING KINDNESS,

HAVE CHEERED AND SI'STAINED US IN ALL Wc; HAVE ATTEMPTED TO DO

FOR THE FOREIGN FIELD,

Mc affectionately 5eMcate tbis bool?.

Xttfvo6ucfion.

IND friends have often asl-
why, at the many meetings

which we have addrcbsed in behalf of the work of the
Jaffna College in Ceylon, and the General Medical
-Mission about to be inaugurated in connection with
it, we have not told more about the specific work in
which we ourselves were engaged during the seven
years which we spent in Ce) Ion as missionaries.

Our reply has been that, as we came to Great
Britain with the special object of securing _,r3O,00O for
this College and Medical Mission, the time at our
meetings has usuall)- been consumed in presenting
the claims of these special causes.

But while this was so, we have often wished that
we had a compilation of some of the letters written from Ce\'lon at different
times, giving our actual every-day experiences, to present to such kind
Iriends.

Then again young ladies have often said to us, " Now please tell us about
your own labours in Ceylon, and just what work we women can do in the
ioreign field." We have often felt an unspeakable longing, as we have looked
into the bright, intelligent faces of the young ladies of this favoured land,
that they might know more fully about the great opportunities of the present
day for giving the Gospel to 'their sisters in heathendom. We believe that
Christ is calling to the consecrated Christian young women of to day, as He

Iiitrodiictioii.

has perhaps never called before, for the breaking of alabaster boxes of precious
ointment on His feet, in this work of giving His message to those who are in
heathen darkness.

Love will count no gift too precious, no service too great. Does not
Christ say to each one of us to-da}' as He said to Peter, " Lovcst thou Ale?"
" Feed My sJicepr

And He says again, " Other stieep I have which are not of this fold ; THEM
ALSO I MUST BRING, and they shatl hear My voice, and there shall be one
fold and one Shepherd."

There are many of His poor, lost, wandering sheep on the dark mountains
of heathenism, and they have ne\'er heard of the good Shepherd or of the
heavenly fold. Constrained by love, shall not His disciples go out after these
lost ones with the prayer in their hearts, " Let my WHOLE LIFE be a SEARCH
for them " ?

MARY AND MARGARET W. LEITCH.

XTT.
XIII.
XIV.

aBl'c of ^oxxtexxie.

CH ^PTl K

I Arrival and First Impres-
sions IN Ceylon
II. Revival Meetings
III. Two Little Pariahs
First Year's Review
A Visit to a
Heathen School .
A Great Heathen
■ Festival
Hopeeul Signs .

MurTHUCH\hD\ s MONEY-BoX

The Sivite Preacher

Little Thankam

Second Year's Experience at the Great
Heathen Festival
A Brief Visit to the Pulney Hills .
A Contrast ....

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

Third Year's Experience at
Festival
Letter from a Christmas-Tree
The Week of Prayer
Protection in Time of Danger
A Christian Wedding
Persecution and Deliverance .

HE Great

Heaihen

7
II
i6

26
30

35
42

45
48

58
61
64
67
70
73

VIU

Table of Contents.

CHAPTER

XX. A Brief Visit to Newera Ellia

XXI. Itinerating on the Islands ....

XXir. Gnanamutthu .......

XXIII. Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour

XXIV. Precious Pearl .......

XXV. Meenatchie, the Island Girl ....

XXVI. The Liquor Traffic, a Great Eoe of Missions

XXVII. Farewell Address from the Native Christians, and Lyric

XXVIII. Miss Eliza Agnew ; or One Woman's Work in the Foreign
Field .....

XXIX. Topsv and the Fakir Woman .

XXX. Dasammah, the little Heroine

XXXI. Jaffna College ....

XXXII. Medical Mission Agency .

XXXIII. Appendix ; Maria Peabody .

87
90

94
96

lOI

113

116

123
126
129

155
16S

SEVEN YEARS IN CEYLON,

CHAPTER I.

Arrival and First Impressions in Ckylon.

Udupitty, Jaffna, Ceylon, Feb. blh, iSSo.
\V. arrived here safely from Colombo on Jan. 14th, As we neared the shore
of Jaffna we saw several handkerchiefs waved at us by missionaries who
had come to meet us, and the words "Welcome home ! '' came over the
water. We had supposed we were among strangers, but from that
morning to this we have felt that we were at home with our friends. The bandies
were waiting to take us to the mission-house at Udupitty, which is to be our home for
the present. It seemed strange to be seated in a carriage before the horse had been
attached ; but we saw our mistake when six stout coolies (native runners) laid hold of

An Ode of Welcome.

the thills of the bandy and started off at a rattling pace, which they kept up nearly all
the way. They passed over the sixteen miles between Jaffna town and Udupitty in a
little over two and a half hours, preferring to go all the way themselves rather than
be relieved by another set of coolies, because they wanted, as they said, to take the
new missionaries home themselves.

When we were within a mile of the station, one of the coolies was despatched to
herald our arrival. As we reached the mission premises we found the children of the
station boys' school on one side and the station girls' school on the other, dressed in
their best clothes, and the missionaries on the veranda steps ready to greet us. The
veranda entrance-door and sitting-room had been adorned by the native Christians
with festoons and wreaths of flowers, in honour of our coming. The native pastor
and others were waiting to speak to us, and, in true Oriental fashion, the girls of the
Udupitty Boarding-school, twenty-five in number, with their teachers, had prepared a
lyric of welcome. Both words and tune were original with thena, and they sang it
very sweetly. AVe were deeply touched by this so unexpected and kind a reception.
I translate the lyric here-.

CHORUS.
"Come, let us sing — welcome !
Let us sing rejoicingly — ^joy ! hurrah ! *

SUB-CHORUS.

"Ye united members of the church,
The girls of the boarding-school,
Come," etc.

VERSE.1.

'* May the new missionaries prosper.
They have come, with warm attachment,
To show the heavenly way to the multitudes of people, by

pouring
In their ears the honey of the teachings of the Gospel.

Joy ! hurrah !
Come, let us sing — welcome, etc.

"That the knowledge may increase and the darkness be
e.xpelled,
And all sing hallelujah to the almighty Father,
The Son, and the Holy Ghost. Joy ! hurrah !
Come, let us sing — welcome, etc.

" Praise the Lord for ever for the mercy of giving them
A safe arrival in Jaffna, passing over a long voyage. Joy \

hurrah !
Come, let us sing — welcome," etc.

]AM:i, girls.

First Sabbath in Udupitty. 3

The second day after our arrival the annual business meeting of the mission was held
at Udupitty. This gave us an opportunity to meet the other missionaries in the field.
Among them were the Rev. and Mrs. W. W. Howland, who came out in 1846 and have
grown old in this work. They have been called by some here a second Zacharias and
Elisabeth, who walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
There was also present Miss Eliza Agnew, the veteran missionary, who has been here
forty years without going home, and who is a model of energy and decision. The
magnitude of the work carried on here far exceeds our expectations. As we heard
one report after another, reviewing the labours of the year, the schools supervised, the
training of native catechists and teachers, the village vvork, the baptisms, and the
communicants, the house visitations, tent meetings, etc., etc., we were filled with
wonder, and could only praise the Lord and take courage, thanking Him that we
were to be fellow- workers with such a band of noble men and women.

We are hard at work upon the language, with a native Munshee. Besides our
regular lesson in the grammar and reader, we are learning some portions of Scripture
and hymns. We can sing already, " Come to Jesus," " The Sweet By-and-By," and
parts of other hymns in Tamil. We think in a week or two we shall pronounce vvith
sufficient correctness to be able to join in the congregational singing.

The Hymn "Come to Jesus," Sound of the Tamil words

IN Tamil. in English.

GujarODCi^c) Gsti'. Yea-su-vayt chare.

1. Qiumzisteiis- Car — ^einGp. i. Yea-su-vayt chare — eun-day.

2. iSi^uiTif s^eirSsur — ^eirQp. 2. Meurd-par une-ney — eun-day.

3. jijeki-f s^iituiTir — gjemQp. 3. An-pu koor-var — eun-day.

4. /bwlSI '^uGpesr — ^sinQp. 4. Num-pe va-rane — eun-day.

5. j^snOeogiSTturr .' — ^Ouxsm. 5. Al-le-lu-iah — ii-men.

The first Sabbath we were here, Mrs. Howland gave me the care of the
infant Sunday-school class. They come from the chapel to my veranda, and all sit
round me on a large mat, and look up with such bright, intelligent faces, that already
I am beginning to love them very much. They number sixty little girls, all under
ten years of age. Perhaps some people would laugh at me for calling them pretty,
and say something about beauty unadorned; but though many of them wear only a

Tent Meetings.

single garment, yet their eager faces and attractive quiet ways make up for a good
many deficiencies.

About forty native children come upon my veranda every afternoon to sew, and I
talk to them, through an interpreter, and teach them Bible verses. My brother, sister,
and I have gone out several times into the villages with the native helpers. The
natives seem glad to see us, and ready to listen. Some of them say they do not
believe in idols, and would become Christians if it were not that they would lose caste,
and be persecuted by all their friends.

Tire missionaries of this station, the Rev. and Mrs. S. W. Rowland and Miss Towns-
end, go out often in the morning and in the cool of the evening to hold meetings
in the different villa-ges. They have mothers' meetings at the mission-house, which are
well attended by the heathen women. Sometimes they go out with the tent, remaining
several days at a time m one place, and thus gain access to those who could not be

reached in any other way.
A few days ago they had
the tent pitched at Thande-
mannar. In the afternoon
the girls of this boarding-
school went down in a body
to sing, as the natives are
very fond of music, and can
often be moved by Christian
songs. After they had sung,
several hymns, as there were
a large number of heathen
women and children pre-
sent, Mrs. Rowland sug-
gested that each girl should
take one or two women
and talk with them for a
little while. They received
and acted upon the sugges-
tion most beautifully, each
girl sitting right down on the mats by the side of the one she was going to talk with,
and one or two of the high-caste girls of the school gathering some of the little fisher-
caste children around them. They talked very earnestly, and when, after a time, the
missionary lady changed the order of exercises, they came to her, one after another,

A Day at Oodooviilc.

with such glowing faces, saying, " Oh, arnma ! I did have
such a pleasant time with the little children!" or, "Oh,
amma ! the woman I was talking with promised to begin to
pray to-night ; and oh ! won't we pray for her when we get
home ! Won't we all meet together and pray for these
women ! "

A few days after our arrival we had the pleasure of
spending a day at Oodooville, seeing Miss Agnew and
visiting the boarding-school. Here also they had prepared
a lyric for us. ^\'e listened to five recitations, and we were
all much pleased with the appearance of the school. New
buildings are in process of erection, and the corner-stone is
to be laid on February loth. We also attended the annual
examination and commencement exercises of Jaffna College.
It was a most interesting occasion. All the examinations
were in English, and considering that whatever the boys
knew concerning the sciences, mathematics, philosophy and

history, had been learned and must be repeated in a foreign tongue, the boys did great

credit to their instructors.

I should like to tell you of the commencement exercises of the Ijdupitty Girls'

Boarding-school, and of the monthly missionary meeting, where we met all the

missionaries from the VVesleyan and Church Missionary Societies as well as our own,

but I am writing too long a letter.

This is harvest-time, and the fields are full of reapers and gleaners. The work is all

done by hand, the grain carried home on the heads of men and women, and threshed

or trodden out by cattle. I am glad that our first impressions of the country should

be received now, after the rainy season, when the island is covered with verdure, and

looks fruitful and inviting.

1 close with the following letter of greeting from Miss Agnew, which was given us

soon after our arrival at Jaffna : —

My dear Mission.vrv Sisters : — With a warm heart and inexpressible delight do I
give you Ehezer's welcome, — " Come in, thou blessed of the Lord."

For two years past have we sent the Macedonian cry, " Come over and help us."
Though I was so anxious for two, yet my stinted faith would not allow me to revel
in the anticipation that' more than one would be added to our mission circle.

I do rejoice that our heavenly Father has sent you to this Eden of the East, and

6 A Letter of Greeting.

that you are allied in the ties of nature, and that you have a brother to aid and
counsel you. This society may prevent loneliness from usurping even a small
corner of your hearts. Every day prayer was offered for your safety while journeying
on the sea and on the land.

You are coming to a goodly country, " where every prospect pleases " — no Anakims
to fear. Your necessary weapons will be the living coals from the altar of the Lord
in your hearts and upon your lips, and the sword of the Spirit in your right hands.
Fear not : let timidity have no place : press forward ; and in the spirit and with the
anguage of the chief apostle to the Gentiles, say, in strong faith, " I can do all things
through Christ which strengtheneth me." Necessity is laid upon every missionary to
inscribe upon his breastplate, " Look unto Jesus," and to follow the example of the
disciples of John the Baptist, who. after the burial, "" went and told Jesus." The
blood-bought mercy-seat will appear to you a more precious place in a heathen than
in a Christian land. Deprived of so many of your spiritual aids, you will be more
inclined to enter the holy of holies, where Jesus answers prayer.

I hope that you are as highly favoured as Heman's three daughters, who could sing
in the house of the Lord. And though you may not understand ho\v to strike the
C) mbal, or make melody on the harp, I trust you can handle the organ, and thus
enhance the sweetness of our music whenever we frequent the gates of Zion.

I know of no other individual in any mission who has, like myself, remained at one
station forty years. In relation to my work, in spirit I know no change, but physically
I am weary, weary, weary, and need, as Jesus did, to " turn aside and rest awhile."

Yours, affectionately,

Eliza Agnew,>

A CLUMP OF BAIIBOOS.

CHAPTER 11.
Kevival Meetix'gs.

■ Udupitty, .4/;7V7//;, iS8o.

|E left home last week, Tuesday, starting out in the early morning, and reached
the Rev. and Mrs. T. S. Smith's, of TilHpally — having gone a distance of
ten miles — in time for breakfast.

Can you imagine our ridethat morning ? The misty morning air was cool
and invigorating. Our way lay through several villages. The road was level and well
kept, and here and there shaded by Deautiful clumps of bamboo, or by banyan, olive

8 Suffering Perseattion for Christ's sake.

mango, margosa and other trees. The birds were singing merrily ; the cocoanut and
jack trees were laden with hanging fruit ; and here and there a man might be seen
climbing a smooth, tall palmyra palm. . We studied Tamil all the way, while our coolies
flew over the ground, needing no word from us except now and then a request not to
go so fast. It is their pride to go fast, and they laugh and joke on the way, chaffing
each other for going so slowly. When we reach our destination they usually eat
their rice and curry, and then lie down on the ground to sleep in the shade of
some tree, until we are ready to go on again. If we hold a meeting, they come in
and listen.

From Tillipally we went to Oodooville. The special revival meetings commenced
on Wednesday evening. Those who knew the people said that many came who had
never been inside a church before. There were quite a number of requests for prayer
sent in. They were given, in some instances, by people with tears running down their
faces, so much in earnest were they that their friends might be brought to Christ.
One man arose, his voice choked with emotion, and intimated that he had long
been convinced of the truth of Christianity, and asked our prayers that he might
become a Christian that day. One after another, prayed for him, as they knew better
than we his circumstances and the trials to which he would be expjosed. It seems that
he belongs to quite a good family, and his wife has a considerable property. Before
he reached home the word had gone before him that he had asked for prayers, and
his wife and family shut the door upon him, and drove him from the house. He has
to sleep out of doors, and prepare his own food, while his friends either scoff and jeer
at him, or refuse to notice him at all. We have just heard that he is standing firm,
and that his younger son has joined him and wishes also to become a Christian.
The elder son sides with the mother.

I notice by the American papers that during the month of March Jaffna was made a
subject of prayer ; so that while we were holding these meetings the people at home
were bearing us up in their hearts before God. I have not the least doubt that those
petitions were answered, for it was the opinion of all the missionaries present that the
Spirit of God was wonderfully manifested. Native ministers and workers came from
a distance of sixteen or eighteen miles, and they said they were going back to their
people to hold special meetings among them. There were many workmg-women
present, who were helping to erect the new school-building. They work as hard as
men, from seven in the morning till six at night. But they attended the half-past six
morning pra)er-meeting, and went quietly out to work at seven, coming in again at
seven in the evening and staying till nine ; then they went into^ my sister's room, and
listened eagerly while she talked and prayed with them. Nearly all expressed a desire

A?! Aged Convert's Prayer.

to become Christians, and some
said they had begun to pray for
tliemselves. They were so much
in earnest that they did not seem
to know that they were tired, and
showed no inclination to leave,
until my sister, quite worn out
with the labours of the day —
singing, playing on the organ,
etc. — would tell them they might

go.

Some of the women of a higher
caste came into my room and
i)rayed for one and another of
their friends. Two came who
had just decided to become
Christians. One asked us to
])ray for her two daughters.
"Oh!" she said, wringing her
hands, " I have given them to
heathen husbands, and if they
are lost it will be my own work!"
We tried to tell her that if she
would strive for them, and pray
in faith, God would hear her
prayer. One woman prayed very earnestly that the Lord would make her duty plain.
She said she loved Jesus Christ with her whole heart, and wanted to serve Hira, but
if slie came out openly as a Cliristian.her friends would discard her, and she was too
old to earn her own living. What would she do in her old age ? She would die of
starvation. We could only pray that the Lord would guide her. I wish you could
see how these people listen ; how they lean forward to catch every word ; how
earnestly they pray. They seem hungry for the Bread of Life, and I am sure the
Lord says, "They need not depart; give ye them to eat." When His discijjles are
ready to take the bread and give it to the people, and they are ready to give it to each
other, all will soon be fed.

My sister and I had a meeting with the boarding-school girls at OodooviUe, those
who were Christians coming to my room, and those who were not to my sister's. The

NKST OF THE TREE TERMiiE {Tnnies arborvnt).

Yotmg Men deciding for Christ.

Christian girls promised me th<.,t they would each take one or two of the non-Christian
girls and pray specially for them till they became Christians. Those who were not
told my sister, with tears in their eyes, that they wanted to become Christians that
day ; they were sorry to see the meetings close.

I have just received word from the Rev. Mr. Smith that four of the young men of
the training-school, who attended the meetings, have decided to become Christians,
and three from the Chunnargam boys' school. It is said that many men, especially
those who iTiive been educated in mission schools, would gladly become Christians,
but are kept back by their heathen wives. These women, when not educated, are
extremely bigoted. They tell their husbands that, if they become Christians, they will
throw themselves into the well ; and they mean what they say. These mothers take
their young children to the temple and teach them to bow before the idol, and smear
their faces with ashes. All this shows the importance of the education of girls in
boarding-schools.

The people seemed to be more and more interested in the meetings each day. We
hope to have another series of special meetings before long.

jiitty, June \sl, iSSo

a|OR several days, as I sat studying by my
window, I noticed two bright little faces
peering at me through the hedge. The new
Ammas with their white skin and European
dress are a great curiosity to the little brown-skinned
children of this country. Some days after, my attention
was attracted by a little coughing near my window.
This is the way the Tamil people knock. When they
wish to call upon us or among themselveSj instead of
knocking at the door as we would do, they stand outside
and make a little noise, scraping with their feet, coughing,
or sneezing. Looking up I saw the same two little faces
which I had noticed before through the hedge.

These two little boys were not dressed like children in
America or England, but, like all little children here,
wore only a strip of cloth about their loins. Their hair,
which is generally allowed to grow long, was done up in
a knot on the left side of the head over the left ear.

PARIAM CIlII.nREN AT ri.AY.

Caste.

But their little graceful bodies, and their bright, eager faces, soon made one forget any
peculiarities of colour or dress.

" Amma ! Amma ! " they said when I had called them to me, " we want to study

why do you not speak with the teacher

reading at the boys' school." "Well," I said,
about this ? " " 'We cannot, we do not dare
go into the yard, we are ' Pariahs,' " they
said, as a pained look came into their eyes
— a look sadly out of place in such young
faces. •

The system of caste runs through the whole
fabric of society here. In each caste the
descendants must follow the occupation of
their parents. If a man is a carpenter, for
example, his sons must all become carpenters,
and his daughters must marry carpenters.
The different castes have no opportunity to
rise, but are doomed to remain in the con-
dition in which they are born. They do not
intermarry, do not mingle together socially,
do not eat together, but are essentially
different communities of people.

There is the highest, or Brahmin caste,
who are priests — thick, fat fellows, who never
do any work ; then the farmers, their
servants, carpenters, blacksmiths, goldsmiths
and their washers ; and next the tree-
clirnbers and their washermen ; and lastly

the weavers, drum-beaters and their washermen. Each keep to their own work, and
each are heartily despised by the caste above them, and in the same way look down
upon the caste below them. Even the drum-beaters' castes have a caste under them
to do their washing. It was to this, the " Pariah Caste," these two little boys who
stood by my window said they belonged. A century ago, in the darker days of Ceylon,
this caste of people were never allowed to leave their houses except in the night, and
then they were obliged to drag a large branch behind them, so that any one of a
higher caste walking in the street might hear and call upon them to turn aside until
they had passed ; for to touch, speak to, or even look at a person of this low caste
vi'as considered a pollution.

A CARPIiNTER.

A Scant/ Wardrobe.

What a disgrace to put upon a human being made in the image of God ! Shame on
the rehgion of Siva which upholds and fosters such wickedness. Under EngHsh rule
the Pariahs have liberty to go and come as they please ; but they are everywhere
scorned and oppressed.

They have some queer customs. Often poor tree climbers own only a single cloth.
In order to wash this they ask the washerman, and he
does not refuse, to lend them the cloth of some other
person which he has taken to wash, while he takes and
washes theirs ; thus it is not an uncoaunon thing for one
to see his cloth, which he has sent to be washed, worn
on the person of a stranger. The
washerman stands knee-deep ni watei
and bleaches the garments b> knockmg
them over the stones, swingmg them
over his head as a thresher does his
flail; to dry them he spieads them bj
the road-side on the hot --ind, and
places a few stones on the corners to
keep them from blowing aw a) He is
rarely paid in money, but is generall)
given the leavings of table food and a
little rice and curry stuffs

We told the
two little boys,
whose names
welearnedwere
Kassappu and
Kadpeyal, that
if they would
come the fol-
lowing day,
with their
bodies bathed
and their hair
nicely combed,
we would go
with them our-

\VA-,IIEKME.N.

1 4 Breaking down Caste Barriers.

selves to the school. The first thing which I saw on looking out of my window
early the next morning was the two little boys watching for me. I went with them to
the school, but could hardly induce the little fellows to enter ; they fairly trembled
with fear as they stood in the presence of higher caste boys. After years of persistent
effort, the missionaries have succeeded in inducing the children of a large number of
castes to study together in the schools, though it is amusing to see the highest caste
boys sometimes bringing little mats with them on which to sit, and so preserve their
tottering dignity. The teacher, a Christian native, willingly promised to receive and
do his best for the little boys. We passed through the school bungalow with its
thatched roof, where the higher standards were studying, through the veranda where
the middle standards were reciting, and came into the yard, where, under the trees,
sat twenty or more little boys busily engaged writing out their lessons with little sticks
in the sand.

I motioned Kassappu and Kadpeyal to sit down with the others, when lo ! as
quick as lightning, these twenty little naked morsels of society scattered on all sides
as if they had been poisoned, crying, " Cha ! Cha ! " while one gave the youngest little
boy a vicious pinch, and another actually spat at them. How strange that children five
and six years old could imbibe and cherish such bitter prejudices !

The two little boys sat that day in a corner of the yard by themselves, but the next
day brought word that the whole school was threatening to leave, and even the Mani-
agar or head man of the village had sent word that, if these low-caste boys came, he
would not allow his child to come. I decided that rather than break up the school I
would for the present teach the boys myself. This storm of public sentiment was
a great surprise to me. The upper caste said, " If this caste be educated, who
will do our washing?" — the old spirit of slavery which has only lately been wiped out
in our own land.

The little boys came to our veranda each day for a lesson, and learned well, mastering
the 247 letters of the Tamil alphabet with surprising quickness. They learned many
things outside of their books, among others to say "Good morning/' and "Thank
you." One day we showed them a pioture-book. They had never seen a picture
before in all their lives, poor things, but when I pointed out to them the children
and trees and animals in the pictures, they caught at the idea. You should have
seen their delight, and have heard their shout when they themselves discovered a cat
and a dog.

One day, while they were with us, a class of fourteen large boys, whose Bible lesson
in English my sister had kindly offered to teach through the term, came in. When they
saw these two poor little washer-boys they fairly glared at them. Sister said, " Why do

Our L At tie Parialts. 15

you look so angry?" They answered, "Those boys have no right to come here.
They are low caste. If we should take up a little stick they would run from us. It is
not the custom of the country to show them any attention." That is the excuse here
for every kind of evil practice. " It is the custom of the country, ma'am." Sister
went up to the little boys, and putting her hand on the head of the older, said, " God
made this little boy as well as you. He gave to him an immortal soul as well as to
you. Jesus Christ died to save him and you. You will both stand together in the
judgment. God says He hates pride, and if you are proud and despise this little boy
for whom Jesus Christ died, you sin against God."

The next day the school boys did not come, and the reason given was that my sister
had disgraced herself by touching these boys of a low caste, and they did not wish
to be taught by such a person. We said nothing, knowing that the class enjoyed
coming too well to deprive themselves of it long. And we were right. They came
the following morning with a shamefaced look.

Kassappu and Kadpeyal continue to come to us, and are just the brightest,
funniest, most affectionate little boys I ever saw. They are philanthropic little fellows
too ; for finding themselves well received, and expanding under kindness like flowers
in the sunshine, they came bringing three other little boys and two little girls, who
they insist^ with all earnestness, must also learn to read.

What a shame that all their caste, from no fault of their own, should practically
be shut out from social privileges, and condemned to be always poor, ignorant,
and despised, with no bright future before them in this life, and with no prospect in -
view for the life to come, according to Hinduism, but to live again on earth, perhaps as
an insect or a snake !

In contrast with all this how should we thank God for giving to the world His dear
Son, a Saviour to the poor and the lost ! The sight which I saw a few days ago, of
three hundred Christian natives sitting down without regard to caste at the common
table of our Lord, gave proof of what the Gospel has done, and a promise of what it
will do yet more abundantly in this land.

As sure as God's word is true, so surely may we rely on the promise, " The whole
earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God."

MANEPY MISSIOV lIOtlSE AND PUPILS FROM THE STATION SCIiriOLS.

CHAPTER IV.

First Year's Review.

Mancpy, D,-ieiiiber l6t/i, iSSo.

riME has flown so swiftly of late that I cannot realize that it is a year and
three months since we left America, nearly a year since we landed in
Jaffna, and ten weeks since we came to Manepy. This year has been
the busiest, and I think, all things considered, the happiest year of my
life. I can truly say that I have never for one moment regretted my coming to
Ceylon, but have felt thankful to God for permitting me to be a co-labourer with the
missionaries in this land.

As you may know, there are over 300,000 people in North Ceylon. Labouring
among them are two families under the English Church Mission, two under the
English Wesleyan Mission, and five under our own ; which allows an average of over
30,000 people to each missionary family. What would any pastor at home think of
such a charge ?

Manepy is one of the smaller stations, and we have within its boundaries only
about 10,000 people.' There are two Christian churches — one here at the station,
the other at Navaly — numbering together one hundred and four communicants.
There is one pastor, and another to be ordained very soon. As helpers, there are

A shiirt time after lliis tlie station of Panditerippu also was given into our care

JVork at Mancpy. 17

two catechists and two Bible-women. These do much faithful house-to-house work
in the villages, hold cottage meetings and Sabbath services, and assist in our large
tent-meetings. The church-members, as a whole, are active and earnest. They
have surprised us by their willingness to co-operate with us and act upon our sugges-
tions. As far as I have means of knowing them personally, I am led to think that
they are truly God's children, really changed by the floly Spirit. The missionary
work would not have been a failure here had it done nothing more than save and bless
these men and women.

AVe have within the Manepy district eight Sabbath-schools, with thirty-four teachers,
and an average attendance of eight hundred scholars. Three of these have been
organized during the last two months, and all have increased in their attendance. The
station Sabbath-school has increased from not quite one hundred to two hundred and
thirty-five, and will, I hope, number three hundred before New Year's Day. If you could
look in upon us with our eighteen teachers and classes nicely graded, our " Inter-
national Lesson Leaves," and Sankey's hymns in Tamil, our organ and black-
board, you would forget for the moment, I think, that you were in a heathen
land.

There are in the Manepy district ten day-schools, supported mainly by Government
grants, but under the direction of a Board of Education, composed of native
Christians and missionaries. In these schools are thirty-one teachers, the majority of
whom are Christians. This is an important field, and we hope to make the most of it.
The teachers, both Christian and heathen, were delighted with our proposition to visit
the schools once a week and devote an hour in each to the study of a Bible lesson.
We sold several hundred copies of the Gospel of Matthew in Tamil, selected a verse of
scripture to be learned and a portion to be read each day, secured the co-operation of
the teachers in teaching the lesson every day during the first hour in the morning, and
mapped out the schools for our weekly round of visits.

The plan has succeeded thus far beyond our highest expectations. The teachers
have entered heartily into it, for they feel that our weekly visits will prove a real
encouragement to the schools and an honour to themselves, so highly are the mission-
aries esteemed throughout Jaffna. The moment we are seen approaching the school,
all lay aside their books, and when we enter they rise and give us salaams. The
seats have been already arranged, and we take our different classes and go over the
different lessons of the week, which have been so well prepared that only once have
we had reason to complain. We try to make the lessons enio)'able, and slowly, but
surely, we hope to win our way into the confidence ot the children, and make them our
friends. The aim of all our efforts is to win them to Jesus Christ.

i8 Young Men and theii' Difficulties.

Sixteen young men are studying in a select school at the station. As they come from
heathen homes, they lind, after having Hved under Christian influence for some time,
that their old faith is shaken, and their minds are full of doubts. To meet these
doubts we asked them to write out any points that were troubling them, or questions
they would like to ask, and we promised on each Monday afternoon to answer them,
as far as we could. Since then the questions have poured in upon us, and the eager-
ness with which they lean forward and listen to our answers, and the remarks
they make in return, show that the difficulties are real, and their minds alive and
active.

I will give you a few specimens of their questions : " What is religion ? " "What
is the cause of the existence of the different religions?" "What are the evidences
that the Christian religion is true?" "What are the external evidences that Christ,
rather than Mahomet and Buddha, was a revelation of God ? " " If Christ paid the
penalty for our sins, why did He not suffer to all eternity ? " " Why did God place
the forbidden fruit in the garden, when He knew Adam would disobey? " " Why was
Jacob blessed instead of Esau ? " " Why did the angels fall from heaven — is it a
place of temptation ?" " What will become of the soul between death and the judg-
ment?" " If the doctrine of transmigration is not true, why are men born blind or
deformed, if not for some former sin ? " etc.

Since they themselves ask these questions, we have an opportunity to
tell them some truths from which they cannot get away, and which are destined
to stay in their minds until they are either answered or accepted. We
have had their cheerful assent, thus far, to all we have said. We have allowed
them perfect freedom of speech, and have endeavoured never to leave a point until
it was fully understood. Our hearts yearn over these sixteen young men in their
opening manhood. Will you not pray with us that they may truly find the light of
life?

We have a meeting for native Christian mothers and children on Tuesday after-
noons, which usually numbers fifty or sixty. The Christian women lead in prayer,
repeat verses, and take turns in leading the meeting and explaining the Scripture
lesson. Our great desire and hope for Manepy is, that every Christian woman may
take it up as her work to teach some three or four heathen women to read the Bible.
This would be a permanent influence, reaching out into the heathen homes, and, step
by step, the heathen mothers might be led to pray to God, to come to church, and,
finally, to Jesus. The seclusive and exclusive habits of Eastern women, together with
caste distinctions and their strong prejudices, make it very difficult to carry out this
plan: still, "with God all things are possible." The women have already made a

Our Coolies and Otir House. 19

beginning, and twelve pupils were reported at our last meeting, besides those whom
the Bible-women reach regularly.

In the moonlight evenings, through half of the month, we have tent meetings, which
are quite largely attended. We have a good-sized tent, received from Madras, which
our coolies can put up in forty-five minutes, and take down in fifteen. If we go out
with the tent, organ, lamps, hymn-books, etc., we are sure to have a good audience in
almost any village. We have had from one hundred and fifty to two hundred at these
gatherings.

The rainy season is upon us now, which makes it a little difficult to get about
through the muddy fields and lanes. The rice-fields are flooded, but our coolies are
always ready to take us anywhere and in any weather. These coolies are really
a great comfort, and are useful in many ways besides drawing the bandy. They have
begun to learn to read, and are making good progress. It is interesting when we are
in the schools to see them sitting outside, studying their books in the interval of
waiting. The three whom we employ regularly have learned the Lord's Prayer in
Tamil, and their voices join with ours every morning as we repeat it at the close of
family prayers. They go to church and Sabbath -school It is our prayer that they
may soon truly know our Saviour, and give their hearts to Him. They seem qiiite like
friends to us now, and we are so accustomed to them that we do not notice, as we
did at first, their dark skins, shaven heads, or the absence of all clothing except a
yard or two about the waist. They cannot be induced to wear more, both on account
of the heat and because it is not the custom among their caste. Their only food is
rice and curry, which they cook themselves. Their whole expense amounts to about
$2.25 in American money per month for each.

Our home in Manepy is a very pleasant one. The compound is large, and has over
forty kinds of trees. Near the house we have the flambo, now just ready to burst
into a glory of scarlet blossoms; the cork-tree, with its white clusters of sweet-smell-
ing flowers, which cover the ground like snow ; and on the other side the tamarind,
with its acid fruit-pods. There are mahogany, olive, margosa, teak, iron-wood, ebony,
mango, jack, wood-apple, and many other kinds of trees in the yard. Above them
shoot up the cocoa-nut and Palmyra palms, with their magnificent tall trunks and great
tufted heads.

Our house has three large and four small rooms, all on the ground floor, which is
raised about four feet above the ground. The walls are of stone and mortar ; the
floors are of the same, to prevent the invasion of white ants. We have only a few
glass windows ; the other windows, as well as the doors, are supplied with shutters,
which may be used at night to give security, and a free access of air at the same time.

7 lie Pleasant Rainy Season,

Our furniture is the plain,
cane-bottomed kind ; some of
it brought from America, the
rest made here by native car-
penters, who imitate Enghsh
patterns with great exactness.
We have learned to Uke rice
and curry, and nearly all the
native fruits and products.
Our dress for the whole year is
of white material, plainly made.

Our flower-garden in front
of the house provides our table
with fresh roses daily ; and
our vegetable garden con-
tains over forty plantain-trees.
There is nothing dreary about
the rainy season ; it seems to
us the pleasantest part of the
year. Everywhere the new
srass is very green and fresh,
and the sun shines out brightly
after the heavy showers. The
mercury stands at about Ss"'
in the shade without much
change. In the house m the
hottest season the mercury
seldom rises above 93% and rarely falls in the coolest season below 76°.

THE JACK TRIiE, SHOWING FRUIT.

SHRINE OF THE GOD PULLIAR.

CHAPTER V.

A Visit to a Heathen School.

Manepy, March nth, iSSl.

UDGING by what we can learn from the experience of the missionaries

who have been here longest, it would seem that the work among the

young is followed by the most encouraging results.

We visit our schools every week, giving a Bible-lesson. Many of the

children can now repeat the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the greater

part of the fifth and sixth chapters of Matthew : they are at present learning the

seventh. Some have committed to memory the twenty-third and one-hundred-and-

third Psalms. We take our little organ with us, as they have learned many of the

Sankey hymns, and many Christian lyrics. I rejoice to think, when these boys and

girls shall have grown to be men and women, how very precious these hymns will

become to them.

22 A Too Zealous Teacher.

Our great desire is to get all tliese children into the Sabbath-school, and we are trying
to enlist the teachers on our side. In one school, we have succeeded better than we
wished. Only last week we discovered that the teacher was in the habit of calling up
the scholars every Monday morning to ask if they had attended Sabbath-school the
day before, and if they had not, they would receive a whipping ! When we asked for
an explanation, we were told that they had tried the plan of giving a good mark to
those who had attended, and a bad one to those who had not ; but as some of the
scholars were always at the foot of the class, this had no effect upon them, and so they
thought they would try something else. Of course, we. explained that however effective
this might be in one direction, it utterly failed in accomplishingour main object, which
was to win the love and sympathy of the children for the Sabbath-school ; and that we
would try to make the place so attractive that they would want to come.

In one school, a private school not connected with our mission, situated in
Santilipay, which is the strongest Sivite community in this field, we have not yet
obtained a permit to teach. We visited the school, a short time ago, with a
permission, or rather with an invitation, from the manager to do so. A relative of
one of the teachers volunteered to accompany us ; but it seems that the teachers,
knowing that we were coming, had determined that Christianity should be kept out
of their school. When we entered three of the teachers received us courteously, but
the fourth seemed more opposed to Christianity than the others. After we had
listened for awhile to various r.ecitations we asked : —

■■' Is English taught in this school ? "

"Why should we teach English.?" he asked. "It is not a primitive language.
Sanscrit is the primitive language."

" Don't you think there are many valuable books in English ? "

" The most valuable books are in Tamil," he answered. " The books in
English are not true. The works of the greatest writers who have ever lived are in
Sanscrit."

"You are an educated man," we replied, "and you know that the most valuable
books in science — those which you accept and believe — are found not in the Tamil or
the Sanscrit, but in the English."

" What do we care for science ? " he asked in reply. " Our religious books are in
Sanscrit."

" Well, this is not a matter on which we need to dispute," we said. " You have
studied English, and we are learning Tamil."

At this point one of the teachers said, " We have a class in English, and we would
like to have you examine it, if you please." So he called up a class, and my brother

A Moonlisrhi Meetins:.

examined them in their studies, commended them a little, and interested them in
some subjects of which they had not thought before.

As we had been visiting other schools in the morning, we had our little organ with
us, and had let our coolies carry it into this school-room. We noticed that the organ
had been regarded with considerable curiosity, and we asked if they would like to
have us sing something. "Nothing religious," said the teacher before spoken of; but
the others all said, "Yes, yes ; please sing something." So we sang, '^' There's a land
that is fairer than day," in Tamil. The children were delighted, and at once gathered
around as close as they could get to us. When we had sung a little we proposed to
go, not wishing to infringe upon their time. We said to the teachers that it would
give us pleasure to have them call on us, when
they felt disposed to do so.

When coming away we noticed that the teacher
whom we had talked with had trouble with his
eyes, and on inquiry we were surprised to learn
that he was totally bhnd. The moment we
showed interest in his eyes his manner changed,
and his anxiety was very great as we examined
the eyes. Oh, what would he not give for sight \
We told him that possibly his sight might be re-
stored ; but he did not know that it could be, as he
has been doctoring with native drugs. We asked
him to come to our house, and we would note
down his symptoms ; and he consented with great
eagerness. He came a little time
afterward, and we had considerable
conversation with him. If his sight
could be restored by going to
Madras for an operation, it would
be a great event in favour 01
Christianity in the region wher(
he lives.

The same day that we visited
the Sivite school, we had a
moonlight meeting in the village.
We felt some anxiety with regard to
it, as there were so man^' educated

24 Caste Troubles.

people in the place who were strong Sivites. We noticed, also, that the Christians
looked troubled, and they told us afterwards that several heathen had come — as they
said — to break up the meeting ; but as He arranged it who cares even for the sparrows,
who numbers the hairs on our heads, and who holds the hearts of all men in His
hands, we were not molested. Fortunately there was a Christian man of high caste
with us, who had considerable influence over the people. As my sister and I spoke,
it was something so new to hear ladies speak that they listened not only with attention,
but seemed to lean forward to catch every word. They even paid us the compliment
of saying to one of the Christians that we were " very clever speakers ; " meaning, I
suppose, very clever for women.

We have tried to win the confidence of the children, and they are proving our best
allies. When we wish to hold a meeting in any place we have only to tell the
scholars, and they come, and bring with them their parents and friends. Almost
every day the children come to our house and ask, " Where is the next meeting to be ? "
The little things seem to have much confidence in us ; if any of their friends are sick
they come to us at once, expecting that we will certainly come and visit them. We
cannot disappoint their faith in us, and so we have a busy life.

It is one of the trials of a missionary to see so m_uch sickness and poverty as
I suppose there must always be in a country so thickly populated as this. People
at home can hardly appreciate the difference between the higher and lower
castes of this country. "What!" it is said ; "will not the people in India even sit
together in church ? " But is it really such a strange thing ? I have worshipped
in handsome churches in America, but I never saw one of the elegant members lead
into church by the arm an Irishman direct from his work on the streets — his feet
covered with mud, and his clothing guiltless of contact with soap and water — show
him into his seat, and share his hymn-book with him. But the difierence between
these two people would not represent that between a Brahmin and a Pariah. The
Brahmin is fastidiously clean ; it is a part of his religion. His clothing is washed every
day : he bathes before every meal ; the things by which he would consider himself
polluted, should they touch him, are almost innumerable. His mind — in a certain
sense — is highly cultured.

But the low caste — God pity him ! — how hard a lot is his ! Plis struggle for
existence is so great that his spirit is broken : he has no courage. He very seldom
washes his clothes — at least so I judge from their appearance. I speak to him of the
love of God, of His fatherly care, of His pity and sorrow for us, of Jesus Christ as his
Saviour, and he surprises me by saying, " I will become a Christian if you will tell me
where I will get something for my children to eat." I begin to think that he who

Breaking Caste Barriers. 25

could make two spears of paddy grow
where only one grows now would be a
benefactor indeed. There is not a
plough in this province. They still
use a crooked stick, which only
scratches the surface of the ground ;
and when a drought comes every-
thing is burnt up, and we have a
famine. I am mistaken ; there is
one plough here, but it is too heavy
for use.

I am sure that the great poverty
of many is a hindrance to their
becoming Christians. We are trying
to fight against the spirit of caste.
We are endeavouring to teach the
higher castes to pity and help the
lower castes, and treat them as their
brethren in Christ. We have succeeded in getting a good many of the low-caste
women and children, and some men, to attend the church and Sabbath-school. We
tried to have them sit on the benches. ^Ve said, " When we come into God's house
let there be no difference." But the lower castes would not sit on the benches ; they
are not accustomed to it : they have not such a thing as a chair in their small houses.
They sit on a mat spread on the ground, and if we should insist on their sitting on
seats, they would not come to church ; so we have spread nice clean mats on the
right and left side of the pulpit, and they are very happy sitting there.

Our Christians, who are mostly of high-caste, strive very hard to help the lower
classes. I hardly know of a Christian woman in Manepy who has not pledged herself
to give a part of one day each week to go out into the villages to teach and help
those poor people. They do this although some ot them have large families, and hard
work to do at home.

My letter has grown long, and yet it seems to me that I have scarcely spoken
about our work. I will simply say that we love it ; that we feel strong and well, to do
it ; and that we like the field at iManepy very much.

A TKEACHING SERVICE.

A HINDU TEMPLF,.

CHAPTER VI.

A Great Heathen Festival,

Manepy, May \st, 1881.
HE great annual heathen festival of the temple here, lasting twelve days,
began the ist of April. This temple, which is now one of the most
celebrated in Jaffna, was forty years ago only a little hut at the base of a
large tree, and was supposed to be inhabited by the god Pulliar.
Superstitious and ignorant people vowed, in times of sickness, to make offerings to
this god if he would cure them. Gifts began to pour in ; the story of imagined cures
spread : and thus in forty years a large and richly endowed temple has grown up, to
which thousands of devotees flock yearly from all the surrounding country. Perhaps
the fact that it was just opposite our Christian church and mission premises helped
its growth, for many Sivites gave toward it for the purpose of showing their ofjposition
to Christianity. It is one of eight large temples in this peninsula, besides which there
are five hundred smaller ones, each with priests and daily offerings, not to mention the
ihousands of family shrines and household gods.

The daily exercises of the twelve days' feast are as follows : At six o'clock every
morning the bell is rung, and people gather at the temple. The stone idol of Pulliar
is in the innermost court ; it represents the god as having an elephant's head, four
arms, large abdomen, and two dwarf legs, on which he sits Turkish-fashion. The
idol, bathed carefully with milk and perfumes, is then clothed and decorated with
jewels, and his forehead marked with the sacred ashes, and the third eye of Siva.
The veil is then opened, and fruits, rice, etc., brought by the worshippers, are offered
before him. Incense is burned ; prayers unintelligible to the people are uttered
by the priests ; and songs to his praises, instrumental music, &c., complete the
ceremony.

The Worship of Pulliar. 27

Some sacred ashes and pounded sandal-wood offered to the god are passed to
the worshippers, who mark themselves on forehead, neck, arms, breast and back with
the stripes of Siva. As these things are offeied first to the highest caste, and thence
downward, many quarrels arise as to which families are the highest in rank. The
priest gives each one a flower, which is placed behind the ear or in the coil of hair.
The same process is next gone through to a flagstaff, standing in the middle of the
courtyard ; and thirdly to a small brass image of Pulliar. Every morning or evening
some of the more devout, wishing to atone for sin or to perform a work of merit,
roll on their almost naked bodies around the temple, over the earth and stones ; the
women, bowing and touching their hands on the ground, wipe their faces in the dust,
rise and place their feet where the head touched before, fall forward again, and so
measure their length around the temple.

During the festival the ceremonies are repeated at noon, and the brass idol is taken
out for a ride around the court of the temple. He is carefully fastened on the back
of a large painted wooden rat or peacock, or some other animal — each day a different
one — which is borne on the shoulders of men. At night— beginning at midnight and
lasting till two o'clock in the morning — with torchlight and music, the god is given his
ride around the outside of the temple. For twelve nights our rest has been entirely
broken by the deafening horns, drums, and cymbals, mingled with the shouts of the
people and the explosion of various kinds of fireworks. All through these midnight
festivals a troop of dancing-girls of the most abandoned character dance before the
idol and the populace.

The twelfth and last day of the feast was the great car-drawing day. By eight
o'clock in the morning people on foot or in ox or horse-bandies began pouring in from
all sides, until the lanes, roads and broad rice-fields on two sides of the temple
swarmed with more than ten thousand people. The air grew blue with the smoke of
hundreds of fires, where on every hand food was being cooked in the open air for the
idol. Only the steam or odour is acceptable to the god, so the cooked rice is carried
home, or given to the priests or to mendicants^ which is considered a work of merit. The
low caste people cannot be allowed even to enter the court of the temple and make their
own offerings ; some high-caste person must carry the food in and present it for them,
bringing it back afterwards to the donor. To the large temple-tank hundreds of people
go to drink the muddy, stagnant holy waters ; wash away their sins by bathing their
bodies; and wash their clothes preparatory to making their offerings. In the same
tank the heated oxen stand, cooling their bodies and being washed by their owners.

After a time the cavadies began to arrive. These are fantastic wooden frames
decked with flowers, peacock-feathers and tinsel, carried on the head and shoulders

All Animal Feud.

of the individual from his house to the
temple, in performance of a vow in
time of sickness. The bearer prepares
for the ceremony by some days of
fasting. He is accompanied by a
band of music, and comes whirling and
dancing as if possessed with a spirit.
The people suppose him to be filled
with the spirit of the god, and so to
be specially holy ; but alas for the
holiness of which this is a type ! A
year ago a quarrel took place between
a cavady bearer from Batticotta and
one from Anikotty ; and it was rumoured
year.

HINDtJS BATHING.

that the quarrel would be renewed this
In the middle of the festival shouts were heard, and thousands upon thousands
of people left the temple and the idols and rushed to the scene of action. It was a
stampede such as I have never before witnessed. Instantly, as it seemed, four hundred
or more Batticotta men, seizing sticks from the nearest fences, began to assault about
half as many Anikotty men, and before they could be separated several were severely
wounded. These were brought bleeding to our dispensary, and my brother and a
native Christian physician were left to undo the work which heathen passion had done.
In the case of one poor man it was all in vain ; he died the next day. We have used
this as a warning and a sermon in many of our talks with the young people, who admit
at once that going to the temples and washing in sacred waters do not make the heart
holy. The older heathen, however, do not seem troubled by what was done, but hope
that the excitement will be twice as great next year. It is not strange that those who
worship such cruel gods and goddesses should in a measure become like them.

To return to the car-drawing : The huge old car on cumbrous wheels had been
decorated with flowers and flags and cloth ; the small brass idol was placed within,
and many Brahmans attended, to burn incense before it. Eighty men or more
seized hold of the two thick ropes, and thus it was drawn around the temple,
followed by rolling devotees. When half-way round it paused before a pile of a
thousand cocoa-nuts, which one man had vowed to break with his right hand before the
idol by throwing them one after another on a stone. This finished, the car returned
to its place, afld the people began to disperse.

But what were our Christians doing during all this time? Over thirty of the leading
Christian workers from this and the neighbouring stations, by our invitation, met

Good Seed Sown.

together at our house in the morning, and after a season of earnest prayer for God's
help and blessing, they took bundles of tracts, handbills and books, and went out in
various directions on the different roads and lanes leading from the temple, in order
to meet and talk with the people on their return, and sell or gi\'e away tracts and
books. Then we, with five prominent native Christians, took our stand on the veranda
of the medical-room, which is just across the way from the temple, and where mats
and benches had been arranged. We opened all the stops of our organ, and began
singing praise to Christ in a strong, full chorus. Soon a crowd of from three to four
hundred people gathered around us. Our method was to explain a verse of a lyric,
and then sing ; then another verse and sing, and so on. We kept this up for four
hours, a large and interested crowd being by us all the time. We noticed in our
audience Brahmans, Sivite preachers, and the editor of a Sivite paper ; all listened
respectfully without a particle of disturbance, and some faces here and there showed
marked interest. Our book-stand near by was doing a good business in selling tracts
and portions of the Bible ; and word came back from several companies that they had
nearly sold out then- tracts, and that more were wanted.

Our workers were thoroughly aroused, and spoke and sang their very best. One
good Christian from a neighbouring church, who had said in the morning that he did
not think it was of much use to try this kind of work — the festival had gone on for a
long time, and not much if anything had ever been done about it — now, talking to
his audience, became so interested that he refused the offer of lunch ; and at night went
away declaring that this was just the way to do, and that next year many Christians
from all the stations must come, and we would have meetings on five or six sides.
The Christians returned encouraged, and we could see that the effort had done them
good, if no one else. All seemed surprised at the readiness with which the people
bought religious books and tracts ; and many were seen reading them in companies
under trees and in their bandies, on their way home. In all, diu-ing this one day, two
thousand nine hundred and fourteen tracts, snuill hooks, and portions of Scripture were sold
by us and our helpers, and tJiree thousand six hundred and ei^s^liteen were given away.

May the seed sown by the wayside, with God's blessing, spring up and bring forth
fruit to His glory !

CHAPTER VII.
Hopeful Signs.

Manepy, October -^Ist, iSSl.

ilHILE we long and pray and hope that God's Spirit may be poured out
among us in an unusual manner, yet it seems more probable that the
blessing will come quietly through the widespread and faithful teaching
of the truth, and the inclining of more and more hearts to accept it. I
confess that I find myself greatly perplexed to understand the mental processes of, for
example, our older English-speaking school-boys. For a year, in day-school,
Sabbath-school, and in private talks, they have heard the truth, and have understood
it. They can tell the story of Christ's life nearly as well as I can. They have had
the nature of prayer, the duty of faith and repentance, clearly explained.

Why then do they not become Christians ? They have not yet given up their old
beliefs. These beliefs are ingrained into their literature, their history, their song, their
every-day duty and thought. They say that, although we are right, there is much that
is right with them also. They are bound to their friends by the strongest ties, and the
fetters are riveted by caste. It is a terrible wrench to break away from all.

All these things, and many more, bear on the probable future. Yet of one thing
we are sure, that the steady, faithful, earnest teaching of God's own word in church

Nicodeviiis in Ceylon.

and school, in public and private, must be followed
by a steady growth of conscientiousness and love
for truth throughout the community, and by a
larger and larger number of individuals turning
to God. The Gospel has all along in the
past been moulding this whole community.

Is it nothing that we have almost the whole
educational work in our hands, that nearly
every house is open to our visits and those
of the catechists and Bible-women ; that the
attendance at church and Sabbath-school is
increasing ; that moonlight^ village, and Sab-
bath afternoon meetings are so largely attended ?
All the educated men and women, and the
older children in the schools, are ashamed of
the ceremonies connected with the Sivite worship and the great festivals, and do not
participate in them. All through the villages there are men and women who do not
rub ashes or visit heathen temples, and many of these in their hearts worship the true
God and try to serve Him, but, like Nicodemus, they fear to confess Him openly.
Yet frequently such persons boldly confess on their death-beds that they are Christians,
and we trust many names not enrolled on our church books will be found in the
" Lamb's Book of Life."

We rejoice and thank God for all this, and yet, with you, we are not satisfied, but
we long with almost a painful earnestness for more to come to Christ.

HINDUS WORSHIPPING AN IDOL.

e^aJ^, ¥^%

^^^ 9<Ba^u,rn^

.LorrnrS^

suS(®

a\5U6^ cat-

.g,nLosi^

sri^

JOHN III. 16, IN TAMIL.

ERACELETS, AXKLEl'S, AND RING.

CHAPTER VIII.

Mutthuchardie's Money-box.

Manepy, Noz^eviher wih-, lS8l.

OULD you like to hear a story of what a Tamil boy did one Sabbath in
church, and what came of it ?

Some years ago, the native Christians of this mission in Jaffna, Ceylon,
formed themselves into a missionary society for the purpose of sending
teachers and preachers to the people of seven small islands lying west of Jaffna.

A few Sabbaths ago, in Panditerippu, the native preacher was urging his people
to give towards this society. Some of the congregation looked indifferent, thinking
perhaps they had enough to do to support their own schools and church ; but one
little boy, named Mutthuchardie, sitting close by his mother, was listening very atten-
tively, and when he heard that there were many little children on these islands who
had no schools, no kind teachers, no books, as he had — that, worst of all, they had
no Sabbath-schools, no Bibles, and did not know of the Saviour whom he loved^

he looked up quickly in his mother's face and whis-
pered, " Oh, my money-box ! You said I might do
whatever I pleased with it. Oh, mother ! give it,
give it ! " The mother was astonished that her
little boy had understood all the preacher had said.
She now began to listen more carefully herself; and

' A Little Child shall Lead Them

every now and then, as if to emphasize
the speaker's words, she felt a soft httle
pinch on her arm, and heard an eager
voice close beside her whisper, " Give
it, give it, mother." And, along with
the words of the sermon, some other
worils, spoken lono ago, kept coming
to her mind: "Whosoever shall not
receive the kingdom of (Jod as a little
child, he shall not enter therein."

The little boy had hi^ request, for
the next Sabbath, when the bag came
ari'ound, he dropped into it two little
fists quite full of cents, half-cents,
quaner cents, and eiglith-cents ; for we
have such small coins here, where so
many people are poor and money is
scarce. But, when the bag came to
his mother, great was the child's sur-
prise to see her quietly slip off her two
gold bracelets from her arms and drop
them both into the bag. They had
come down to her from her mother and
grandmother and were part of her
marriage-portion, and worth ^5. But
the words of her only child had rung
in her ears all the week, and she said
to herself : " I also will give to (iod
and His cause something precious."

Now, as of old, the words of the
prophet are true: ".And a little child
shall lead them."

" And Jesus called a little child unto
Him, and set him in the midst of them,
And said, Verily I say unto you, exce|)f
ye be converted and btcome as little
children, ye shall not enter inio the
kingdom of heaven."

A CHILnRRN'S HYMN IN THE TAAHT. LANGUAGE.
Siibiirt : Praise to Christ who 7uas bcvii in Bethlehe?n

^ Veiisk.
-^-\ —*---* — -<p — m-

-»--m — *-

I l^i time. \ ~n<i time. \

l-: --iq ' ^'^ j-^^ T^

Hi tiine. I 2nd U/ne. j

^;^m^m^^m^m=^

SoujLit flj tlie Tamil zuords m Eiiq/isli.

Chorum

Bet-tha-la-yel |iLT-On-tha-va-day
Pot-te tlifi-thte man-a-inav. en-niu

X'EKSli 1.
Sad-du-val-tiii-um par-ilil-tliarji-da
Sad-dij-va \al-]a-\'ar. eng-ka)-,

Thail-iid-ul-la ihi-vi-ut-til,
Thaldi" ^ikd<a-la-nar. t-iic^-kay

X'kksk 2
Sing-ka^-san-aiTi vt'ct-ie-duk-kuni
Ther-van mm -than -ar eng-kay
I'angdvam-ut-la, pas-ut thod-dedeel
I'ar clni the duk ker ar tng kay.

CHAPTER IX.

The SiviTii Preacher.

Manepy, Februarv 'th, 1882
THINK our heavenly
Father, when He allows
us to feel peculiar trials
and discouragements,
sends also peculiar encouragements to
counterbalance them. Such was your
letter to me this morning, for, truly, I
was weary in body and mind with the
conflicts of a week which has been the
hardest I have ever known in Jartna.
I think God knew I should need help,
and so put all those loving, helpful
words into your heart for me a month
ago — another proof of His great,
tender, ever-watchful care I thank
Him, over and over, with glad tears,
for you and for loving Christian hearts
wh(j are praying for us and for Jaftna

We need your prayers more than
ever. fust when in all our schools
and villages there was unusual inierest,
and we seemed almosj: on the eve of a
blessing, what should Satan do but
raise up what the heathen call a learned
man, a holy man, a great Sivite preacher,
who IS a most bigoted, bitter, and

A HOLY MAN AMOM; THE HI.NDUS.

36 Sivite Objections Met.

unceasing enemy of Christianity ? He has sprung up quite suddenly, hke a mushroom
in the night, and is going about the country breathing out blasphemies and misrepre-
sentations of Christianity, and abuse of missionaries and Christians. Preaching is a
new thing to the Sivites. Their priests never preach, their religion consists in forms
and ceremonies, and knows nothing of spiritual worship or of edification. His plan of
preaching he has copied from the missionaries. Because this is something new, and
because he appeals to men's worst passions — pride, hatred, selfishness — he draws great
crowds. I suppose he has preached ten or fifteen times in the last few weeks to
audiences of from one to three liundred. So long as he attends to all the ceremonial
purifications, bathes his body if he touches a low-caste man, eats neither flesh nor salt,
and can speak in high-flowing Tamil, which four-fifths of his audience cannot under-
stand — so long as he does all this the people think he is a very great man, and the
temple managers throw open their doors to him.

This preacher has spoken twice in the Manepy temple. He began at seven in the
evening and continued till nearly twelve o'clock — this is his custom. Do you wish to
know what he said? These are his principal points against Christianity: The God of
the Christians is not omnipotent, for he took si.x days to make the world, when it
might have been made in one. Jehovah is not omniscient, for He put Adam and Eve
in the garden of Eden with Satan, and He ought to have known that they would sin:
because He did not prevent tlieir sinning. He is not all-powerful nor all-holy, and
therefore Satan is stronger than God. Tne angels sinned, and fell from heaven :
therefore heaven is a place of temptation and sin, and hell is the better place of the
two. God is not all-good, because He saves only Christians. It is said that Christ
came to bring peace to the earth ; but at His birth Herod killed thousands of infants,
while He did nothing to prevent it, but ran away to Egypt to hide.

You can imagine what an effect these and similar things would have upon a crowd
of the low and ignorant at home. How much greater is the effect on the seething,
ignorant, and unreasoning masses here ! His last talk was on Saturday night ; and on
Sabbath morning we found our Sabbath-schcjol boys full of his arguments. We
thought that, as wise doctors, we should take the disease in hand at once ; so,
after hastily going over the lesson, we told them they might ask questions ; and for
half an hour or longer we answered one after another, until they seemed to' see that
there was another and better view on all the points. We carried them with us in every
step, and never left a point until they understood it. It was the same at Arnikotty,
where vve teach a Sabbath-school class at half-past ten o'clock, and at Navaly, where we
teach one at three o'clock. In this way we met, in the course of the day, between
forty and fifty upper-class boys whose minds are in a formative state, and who are

The Stvite Altstakeu.

I \X-RA TER.

peculiarl)- subceplible of impressions.
The next (nw days we visited some of
our large English schools ; and, being
prepared, we took up the Sivite
[jreacher's points one by one, and
answered them. We were surjjriscd
to see how full they were of his sceptical
teaching, and how " men love darkness
rather than light, because their deeds
are evil."

We told them there were two powers
contending for their souls - good and
evil ; that they might know which was
good, because it was always unselfish,
and the e\'il, because it was always
selfish. We told them how much had been given and done for them, freely and
unselfishly by Christians, and asked if they could show a parallel in Sivism. We told
them that the teacher who sent them away with new reverence and love for God. with
new longings after a holy life, a lieterniination to tight against sin, was their truest
friend, arid asked if they left the Si\'ite meetings with these feelings. We took up the
great prciblem of why God permitted sin, and tried to explain it as best we could, and
show how it was better and grander for us to personally, freely, gladly choose the
right anri refuse the wrong, than to be mere machines compelled to do right without
will or thoice. ^Ve tried to meet the other points, also ; but it was a hard task,
because the tide against us and Christianity was so strong. Think for yourself what it
would he to go into a school of one hundred, all but half-a-dozen of thenr strong
Sivites, from Sivite homes, all bristling with objections, and whether your heart would
not be faint and trembling. My -sister was the strongest of us all. She has a
wonder/ul way of winning the love and trust of the older boys, anii in these days
her wbiole soul has been in what she said ; and it was a strange sight to see tears
glistening in the eyes of those who were almost men, as she pictured the grandeur
of a lii^e devoted to ("lod, urging them to choose that life, and live not for self but
for Jesuit.

f here ,was one cheering circumstance: the Sivite preacher had said among other

things, " 'irhe missionaries do not really care for )'Oii : they are not your true iViends," &c.

Over and 'over again, however, the teachers and the buys, and e\'en bitter heathens,

have assur'cd us that he was mistaken ; that he did not knc)W us ; that everybody in

i4*

A Hic-Ji-coste Avrli'^

Manepy knows that we really love the people, and ari. their friends. I think God has
blessed us in winning the confidence and love of this ■people. To His dear name be
all the praise. I realize more than ever the importance of character to support our
words, and I am resolved to be doubly careful in all my words and actions, that in
everything I may honour Him. My sister sa)s : "Our woik for a few days has been
in sucking the poison out of the veins of Mios; who have beea bitten by the serpent;
and we must keep on, da\- by day , and week by week, until it js thoroughly done."

We are planning to ha\'e some of the best speakers in Jaffna go round to the central
points in the field and hold large open-air meetings, answering the Sivite's arguments.
There is much work for us m the future, for we cannot know just what his movements
may bring about, or whether others will join or copy him ; but if we will be true soldiers

we must contest every inch of ground, and the sight
of the enemy will only rouse us to fresh endeavour.
We are on the winning fide ; there is no fear of
the result ; but the thing that troubles us is the
harm that may come meanwhile to some of these
boys and girls who are not wise enouglr to distin-
guish the false from the true.

Whether it was that by sucking the poison from
others we have had a touch of it ourselves, or
whether it was being out many days in the midday
sun, when the thermometer runs up tO: 140° —
whatever was the cause, last night and this morning
I was feeling very tired, and, I confess, a little
desponding ; but your letter came to do me a
world of good.

L aUr.

I think this movement on the jiart rif the Sivites is resulting in good to the
Christians. It is stirring them up to be more prayerful and earnest, and to watcli
more carefully over tlieir lives, I do not think they are at all affected by the arguments
brought forward — they went all over the ground for themselves before they became
Christians — but, with us, they are troubled for the results such preaching may have on
the young. \\'e arranged two meetings for tlie 6th and 7th. Two of our best native
workers, men of recognized ability and learning, came lor both nights. One meeting
wa,s held in Manepy, and one at .Arnikotty. The total attendance was between two
hundred and fifty and three hundred, a majority of whom were high caste, educated
people. The low-caste people- -men women, and children — were, in great numbers.

THE HANYAN IKKE.

]h-. Poor.

luisv in the harvest fields, whore the
rice harvest has just begun, and where
they work during the nioonhght. So
our audience was a thinking one of the
higher classes. Two addresses in each
meeting were candid, caretul answer.,
to questions ; the third gii\"e some
strong reasons in favour of Chris-
tian itv , and the fourth was an earnest
apiteal to seek salvation and a Saviour
now.

We Were much interested at these
meetings in noting the hne of argu-
ment ol'ten followed by the native
ministers. (Jne of them, at one of the
meetings, laying his hand on the Bible
and addressing his audience, said lo
them, "Many of you do not know
what is C(jntained within the lids of
this book, but you do know the lives
of the missionaries who for so many
years have gone out and in aniung
you." He referred to the time when
the cholera was prevalent in the peninsula, and asked his hearers to remember what
happened at that time. Pie said, " Many of the jieopie were panic-stricken and lelt
the plagiie-smitten districts ; fVequently the relatives of those who were ill fled and-
forsook them, leaving them to their fate. But what," he asked, "did the missionaries
do at that time.-' Did they forsake those who were in such dibtress ? By no means ;
they ministered to the sick, they sat by the bedside of the dying, they buried the
dead, they counted not their lives dear to them if so be they might render the
necessary service. One of the missionaries, the Rev. Dr. Poor, after the most
incessant and prolonged service to the sick^ at the last fell a victim to the disease and
died. His latest breath was spent in praising Christ." d'he s|jeaker asked, " Is it a
good religion or a bad that can [jroduce such a result as that ? "

This same Dr. Poor had been tor some time stationed in the Manefiy district. The
speaker asked, "Is there a house in this district which Dr. Poor did not visit over
and over again?" He told many touching incidents o\ this beloved missionary, who

C.IRI.S I)KAWlN-(-, W VI Kl;

40 The Sivitc s Labour in Vain.

laboured in Jaffna for over forty years. Among other things he related how that on
one occasion Dr. Poor had been out all day visiting in the villages, and when returning
in the evening lost his way. He called to some one who was passing by and asked
him if he would sliow him the way. The man went to get a torch, and when he
returned found Dr. Poor on his knees, praying aloud for a blessing on Jaffna. The
speaker asked, " Is it a good religion or a bad that can make a man forget his weari-
ness and hunger in the earnestness of his desire for a blessing on the people of another
race ? "

The speaker referred to the boarding schools, and said, "You feel quite safe in
allowing your daughters to be under the care of the missionaries, but would you trust
your daughters to the care of a Brahmin ? You know you would not, not even for a
single night Is it a good religion or a bad that can make men moral and trustworthy ?
You alwa)s trust the word of a missionary, but you do not trust each other. When
you go on a journey, you often prefer to leave your jewellery with the missionary
rather than with your own relatives. Is it a good religion or a bad that can make men
truthful and honest? Have we not before our eyes the proof that Christianity has the
power to do what Hinduism and Buddhism have shown themselves unable to do, to
change the heart and to mike the man a new creature ? " The native minister
continued for some time in this strain, and his words, appealing directly to things
which all knew, produced a great effect.

On account of the harvest, we shall delay further meetings till the new moon.
People ^Yho would not otiierwise come may perhaps be attracted to hear objections
answered, and so be brought under the influence of earnest appeals on behalf of the
truth. Will )'ou not pray that the result may be a new awakening in religious matters,
and a real turning to God? Oh, that He would make the wrath of man to praise Him
by bringing many new souls into the kingdom of His dear Son !

March i8. — I think God has heard our prayer. Our meetings seem to have affected
the sober-minded people, and the temple manager nas said that he will not invite the
Sivite prcai.her to speak again ; that he only deals in abuse, and that the missionaries
are the true friends of the people, and ought not to be disturbed in their good work,
though they may be wrong in their religion. One boy who has tried to induce others
to stay away from Sabbath-school, came yesterday to say he had done wrong, and
he was very sorry.

Best ot all, the children have been roused to work for Jesus. Last week several
came to us privatel)', asking us to kneel down and pray with them for their class-
mates, who, they feartd, were being drawn away from Christ. \Ve had a number of
little seasons of |)rivate prayer with them. Last Sabbath, in the afternoon, the

Child-workers f 1^7- i hrist.

children prayed specially for their friends ; and at four o'clock three little companies,
of their own accord, went into the villages to hold children's meetings. One company
had eighteen, and another twenty-four children, as an audience. They came back
very much encouraged. I felt that Jesus here, as of old, had taken a child and set
him in the midst, and was 'elling us to be more child-like, earnest, hopeful ; and I
remembered that other Bible saying, '' If these should hold their peace, the very stones
would cry out."

Oh, that our lives and words may more clearlv ring out the glad cry, " Hosanna !
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ! "

CHAPTER X.

LlTTLK TH\NK.\M.

Jliinepy, April 2S7>, 1S82.

li) you ever see an idol temple, and a
great many people boiling rice for the
god ? This is just what we see every
day in Ceylon.

Just across the road from our home here in Manepy stands a large idol temple
dedicated to the god PuUiar. This god has the head of an elephant. He is called
tlie god of wisdom, and when heathen mothers take their children to school, they
always bring them hrst to an image of this elephant-god, that he ma)- give wisdom to
the child and make it a good scholar. This is the first god which a great many
children are taught to worship. What a pity that they do not know of Jesus, the
friend of little children !

In this tem|)le tliere is a man called a Pandalidam, whose business is to bathe the
stone and brass images with milk, cocoanut water, and jjerfumes daily. He also
receives offerings [jresented to the god. Now this man has one little daughter, and it
is of her that I want to tell you. Her name is Tliankam Mutthu, or Thankam "for
short." The meaning of the name is Gold-pearl, and the child deserves the name, for
she is the head scholar among sixty girls in our station girls' day-school. Since she
began to come to school she has regularly attended the Sabbath-school, and learned
many Christian hymns and Bible verses. Past Christmas, when the Sabfath-school
children were examined, she was one of three girls who could say the Golden texts for the
whole year, without a mistake. How many children in the home land could do that ?
She received a prize — a 'Painil New Testament— from the Christinas Tree. When she
first came to school she used lo have some sacred ashes, the marks of the heathen god,
rubbed on her forehead, but she lett that off after a time, and she studied the Bible so
well that she could repeat the whole of the fifth chapter of Matthew without prompting.

Thankam's Sabbath-school teacher — a very lovely native Christian woman — took a
great interest in the little girl ; and 'Phank^m would steal into her house sometimes

A Brave Cliild. 43

and beg her to pray with her and teach her how to serve Jesus. She feared to let her
father and mother know of the^e visits. They wanted that she should learn to read, but
they did not want her to become a Christian. They despise the Christians, and con-
sider them polluted because they partake of the Lord's Supper with the loiv-caste
people who have joined the church. They were so very particular that, when
Thankam came home from school, both at noon and at night, they would not let
her come into the house till she had bathed her whole body at the well. They were
afraid she might have touched a low-caste or a (Christian child during the day,
and so would defile the house.

As Thankam was on her way to school one morning, she called to see her Sabbath-
school teacher. While she was there she said :

" I have found a beautiful verse ; it says, ' When my father and my mother forsake
me, then the Lord will take me up.' That means me, doesn't it ? "

Poor child ! she did not know how soon her courage would be put to the test. Her
father had seen her go into a Christian house, lie hurried to the gate and called out,
loudly and angrily :

" Thankam, Thankam, come to me."

Thankam looked out and saw him cutting a long switch from the hedge. He
seemed to be in a terrible passion, and was uttering the worst kind of threats and
abuse.

The poor frightened child clung to her teacher, and the teacher went out and begged
that he would not whip the child ; but it did no good. He grew more and more
angry every moment, and nothing could soothe him. He dragged the child out into
the road and there he whipped her very cruell)'. The women and children who were
standing near could not help weeping as they saw him ; they all felt ver)' sad as the
little girl went slowly away, and they knew not what would become of her.

For a whole long month Thankam's father and mother kejJt her shut up in the
house, and no Christian was allowed to see her or speak to her How I wearied to
see the dear little face ! But it was of no use ; to try to see her would only have
made her parents angry and made Thankam suffer more; so we and her Sabbath-
school teacher who loved her, and the Christian girls in the day-school, told Jesus all
about it and asked Him to help her. We knew that He could and would.

After a time the father and mother said they would let her come back to school if
she would rub ashes and promise not to be a Christian ; but Jesus must have helped
her, for she would not promise. She cried so much that at last her lather and mother
relented and said, " Why should we make our only daughter miserable?" So they
allowed her to return without making any conditions.

Tliankavi as Pupil-teacher.

You would have hardly known her when she came ; she looked half starved and so
sad ; but as soon as she found herself among us you ought to have seen her face
shine with joy ! From that time blessings seem to have followed the brave little
girl, and she has now become a pupil-teacher in the station school.

Will you not pray for the child who begged so hard to come to us, and for the
father and mother who are serving Satan so blindly ?

PULLIAK, THE GOD (IF WISDOM.

had

m our compimnd
very near the temple ; an awning had
been put up before the veranda of the
medical-rooms, comfortable seats pro-
vided, and two bookstands had been
arranged, giving us in all four preaching-
places. At nine o'clnck in die morning
about twenty Christians gathered together
at our house, and after prayer for God's
blessing, they took packages of tracts,
Bible portions, &c., and went out a mile
or more on the different roads to begin
their day's work. My brother, with
several helpers, took charge of the book-
stands and the supply of the sellers ; my
sister, with a chorus of twenty children
and three speakers, took the tent ; while
the other workers and singers came with
me to the medical veranda.

At a few minutes after nine we were all
ready, and made two openings in our
hedge to admit the people, who had begun
to arrive in large numbers. Immediately
from fifty to a hundred people came into
each place ; but we had not spoken or

CHAPTER XI.
Second Ye.^r's Experience

AT THE GRE.'iT He.'VTHEN FESTIVAL.

Manepy, May lo///. 1882

A R L Y i n

the morning

our tent

been pitched

HINDUS y.-VI'HING AND WORSUll'l'lNG MUD IDOLS.

46 The Heatltoi Festival Declining.

sung many minutes before we noticed a commotion in the road. A few bitter Sivites
had collected, and, placing themselves in eacn opening in the hedge^ began to sing
and shout at the top of their voices, at the same time declaring that no one should go
through or enter our yard. At my side of the compound they seated a number of
Sivites right across the opening, and at the other side they filled the gap with thorns.

Soon a crowd of hundreds of persons had collected at each place, attracted by the
disturbance, and all the more anxious to come in because they were forcibly prevented.
Without appearing to notice them, and going right on with our singing, we called our
coolies and said, " Oi'en six places immediately in the hedge." It was done, and
our opposers seemed rather non-plus^ed, for they saw that this could go on indefinitely,
and tliat we would cut down the whole hedge rather than give up. There might be a
handful of men who would Mt all day in the burning sand to stop a gap, but it would
need a thousand to encircle a whole compound.

Listeners be_an to come through the new entrances, and after a little while the
whole crowd which had collected broke away in a body and came pouring in upon us.
From that time onward we spoke and sang without ceasing to solid audiences of from
two to four hundred people. It was very noticeable that they stayed longer and
listened better than last year. They enjoyed the speaking and singing, and seemed
in no hurry to go. I was also struck with the fact that thev were not Manepy people.
They were from the islands and distant villages. I saw a'most no faces in the
audience that I had seen before, and perhaps many present heard something of the
gospel for the first time. Tliere was very little disturbance. The general feeling
toward us seemed to be a very kind one. I knew they liked what we said ; and as we
had opened our yard, they gladly availed themseU'es of it, sitting under the beautiful
trees, and thanking us for the shade from the scorching rays of the sun. This insured us
good audiences, and our colporteurs had plenty of work visiting and speaking with them.

It is estimated by our workers that one-third of the people did not go to the temple
to worship at all, but spent the time with us in the compound. The income of the
temple was very small this year — not as large as last year. A reliable man gave me
the various items, and the whole came to less than Rs. 140, the total gifts of ten
thousand people ; while the single Christian church of Batticotta raised at the thank-
ofl'ering meeting Rs, 180. Our workers are quite jubilant over the day, and say that,
if we have two or three more tents and preaching-places next year, we shall absorb a
large share of the festival, and many people who appear to be coming to a heathen
festival will really be commg to a gospel meeting.

I want to tell you what gave me the most plea.sure in this day's experience ; it was
the way the school-children from six dilferent schools came voluntarily to help us sing.

^i Voluntary Choir.

I wish you could have heard their clear youn^ voices ring out the
wordSj and have seen tlie interest in the faces of those large
audiences, many of whom were listening to those sweet Christian
songs for the first time. During those long five hours some of
the workers became tired, and asked to be relieved ; but the
singing children, with few exceptions, stayed by to the last, and
their bright faces, so eager and willing, were an inspiration to us.
At the close they came and said, " Oh, Aniraa, it has been a happy
day." They were having their tirst taste of working for Clirist,
and for those whom He loves. Many of them were from heathen
families, and two years ago would have worshipped idols them-
selves. Some of them were children of the Faudahda/ns, who
were that very day offering incense to the idol god. These and
other children have been severely beaten for not going to temples, and they know that
they may be again ; but " none of these things move them." The love of Christ has
made them brave and strong.

I know that the Good Shepherd will care for them through the rough way, and
bring them into His fold at last. Dear friends at home, pray for these boys and girls
that they may be faithful, and for tlie hundreds of other boys and girls who have not
yet given their hearts to Christ.

A TAMIL (URL

CHAPTER XII.
A Brief Visit to the Pulnicy Hii.ls. |^

I'uluey Hills, South India, June lyh, 1S82,

jEr me tell you, first of all, about the annual meeting of the Native
Missionary Society, and a concert of Christian songs and hymns in the
Tamil language Both were held on the same day — the ist of June —
at Batticotta Church, the largest one in North Ceylon. All the morning
the church and the mission compounds were gay with the arrival of crowds of happy
people in hackeries, horse bandies, o\-bandies, and on foot. The men were dressed
in rtowing white and the women in gay-coloured robes, and there were a great many
little children. These, with the boarding-school girls all in white like vestal virgins,
and the yjung men from the Jaftha College with the unmistakable wide-awake air
peculiar to college-boys, made a very pretty picture.

It was an .all-day meeting, and both the forenoon and afternoon sessions were full of
interest. The audience was a fine one — over six hundred men, four hundred women,
and several hundred children. As I sat on the platform, to play the organ, I had a
good view of their faces, and a more intelligent gathering of people I never saw. Of
the one thousand and twelve communicants in this mission there are only about thirty
who cannot read. Most of the audience had been through the higher schools, and
were well educated. This N.itive Missionary Society, which carries on work in the
neighbouring islands, has been otficered and managed by natives for the past thirty
years. It is probably the oldest missionary society in Ceylon or India which has been
supported and conducted by native Christians for so long a period. For the past year
the funds raised, mostly from native sources, amounted to Rs. 872.13, On this day the
collection came to Rs, 150 The reports of work done in the islands during the year
by one pastor, one catechist, and several day-school teachers, were encouraging. A
fine large map, twelve by sixteen feet, of the seven islands, the field of the society,
drawn by the secretary and hung before the audience, was an appeal through the eye

A Native Missionary Society. 49

to the heart. 'Hie addresses by the four native speakers were very good ; and those
by Rev. S. W. Hovvland, of Oodooville, and Rev. J. C. Chandler, of the Madura
Mission, were specially interesting. At the afternoon session the Lord's Supper was
administered.

As the concert was to be on the same evening, about two-thirds of the people
stayed to attend, and the native Christians of the Batticotta Church most kindly and
generously provided for all an abundant meal of rice and curry. It was their own
plan, carried out with true hospitality, and with the putting aside of caste pre-
judices, which was a real triumph of grace. In the meantime^ bandies from all
directions, and crowds of people, began to arrive for the concert. The church was
brilliantly lighted ; the organs and choirs of singers were arranged in the centre, and
the rest of the large church was filled with every available seat that could be obtained
within a circle of three miles. The ])eople poured in until every seat and every inch
of standing-room was taken, and then they overflowed into the road. More than two
thousand people were present. The singers, in all, numbered over one hundred, being
choirs from the two girls' boarding-schools, the training-school, and the Jattna College,
with some little children from Manepy and Oodooville day-schools, who sang some
songs specially adapted lor infant voices. For instruments we had two organs, played
by the Rev. Mr. Chandler and myself, three violins, one fiute, bagpipes (native make),
arum, and cymbals. ^Vhen all the instruments and all the voices came in on the
four chorus pieces it was ver\' stirring. There were no failures, and everything passed
off better than I e.xpected. The little children from Manepy sang out as sweetly and
clearly as little bells, and were repeatedly cheered by the audience. The thirteenth
lyric, sung by three tiny boys between si.K and seven years old, with two older boarding-
school girls from Oodooville, and a violin accompaniment played by a boy about
eleven, was very prettily rendered. This hvmn represented a conversation between a
mother and child about the slaying of the infants by Herod and the escape of Christ
into Egypt. The tenth lyric, which was very long, more like an oratorio, and
contained twenty-four different movements or tunes in four different keys, was sung by
the students of Jaffna College. The audience was very quiet and attentive through-
out, and we felt that they spent an enjoyable and profitable evening. To the
multitude of heathen present a pleasant and attractive phase of Christianity was pre-
sented, and the sweet story of Jesus told in song could not fail to open a door in some
hearts.

The same evening we, with Mr. Chandler and his singers, went on board the boat
for India. At our last helpers' meeting in Manepy, when they knew we were going
to be absent from them for a little time, instead of being discouraged, they gathered

In India.

around us, and said : " We will do our very best when you are gone. We will keep
up the moonlight meetings and the school-work just as it is going on now, and you
will find everything all right when you come back." \Ve have had some very good
letters from them since we reached the Pulney Hills. We landed at Negapatan, in
India, about noon on the following day, and left in the six o'clock train. Train !
Was it not grand to feel one's self flying away, propelled by steam once more ! It was
a beautiful moonlight night, such as only those in the tropics know, and I sat hour
after hour watching, as we flew on and on past trees, and lields, and towns^ intoxicated
by the swift motion, and the wild, free, glad feeling which it brought, as if some heavy
burden had been dropped — an anchor lifted, a cage-door opened, and I, a white-
winged ship or a bird flying before the wind. In the morning we found ourselves
passing through an interesting country. I could hardly realize that I was in the great
country of India — this strange, this storied land.

Coming up through the hot plains of India, what a joy it was to catch sight of the
glorious mountains, towering up between seven and eight thousand feet, and to think

■w:'*

E^O^^i''-

A BATHING-PLACE.

Mount a in Fo rests.

GOING UP THE MOUNTAIN.

These Indian mountains ascend almost perpendicularly. We were carried up, as the
custom is, in chairs borne upon the shoulders of four coolies. They go, in a zig-zag
path, right up the side of the mountain, the whole length of which, from base to top,
is twelve miles. We started from the foot at about four o'clock in the morning.

How delightful it was to hear again the sound of roaring mountain brooks dashing
over the stones ; and bow good the pure, cold water tasted ! What a luxury ! I had
forgotten that water could be so cool, or taste so refreshing.

How can I describe to you the delights of that cool, misty morning? The fresh
mountain air fanned our brows. The birds overhead, as if in rivalry to the singing
brooks, broke out in melody ; every little throat seemed bursting with song. The
mountain-tops loomed up majestic and mysterious in the mist.

Now we came into the heart of the jungle, and great forest trees, many of them
entirely strange to me, stretched out their large arms over us, their stateliness relieved
by the many kinds of creepers that in tropical luxuriance ran and clambered every-
where, makiag the thickets dense and shady; and underneath I spied the most
beautiful kinds of ferns. The^ say there are eighty different varieties of ferns

m these woods Strangest of all,
to rriL were the hu^je tree-ferns
tossin.; their ^lant plumes high in
the iir

N iturc here constantly
hlls me with wonder at
her liMshness. There
were nian^i wild-flowers.
I begin to count, and
before we reached the
top I had counted over
■■ fifty different varieties

and kinds. Many of them were entirely new to me, and
very curious. Others were those which I had been
accustomed to see growing in hot-houses, but now for
the first time saw growing wild — begonias ; heliotrope ;
every variety of geraniums; roses, white, climbing, and
yellow ; and great white lilies.
Here, on the very summit of the mountain, our mission has
a home, a little cottage, and from the front veranda we can
look away down upon the plains— seven thousand feet. It is
a grand sight to see the clouds gathering and rising below us,
and the lightning, m a storm, glittering and flashing at our
feet, and we here, high and calm above it all. The sunlight
gilding the mountain-tops about us, and the play of sunlight
and shadow on their slopes, is very charming. Below us, to
the norths and only a few rods away, the ripples are laughing
and sparkling on a charming lake three miles in circumference,
where we mean to have a boat-ride soon. To the south-west
is a beautiful cascade, that goes winding down the mountain-
side — a stream of molten silver. At one place it dashes over
a precipice of a thousand feet, and falls in feathery spray at the foot. In the
midst of this grandeur, and sublimity, and beauty, one seems to come very
near to God, and to be filled with adoration at the thought of His power, and
wisdom, and love.

A HEATHEN FAMILY.

CHAPTER XIII.
A Contrast.

Manepy, yamiaiy 14///, 1S83.
HREE years ago we lan-
ded in Jaffna. Three
very short years, and
yet as I look back on
them the retrospect seems full of
encouragement. " These anniver-
sary days are not like tombstones
of the buried past, but like mile-
stones, marked on the other side,
'so much nearer the goal,' or like
triumphal columns, trophies of
victory 'won for Jesus.' "
Shall I tell you some of the changes which have taken place in Manepy and
Panditerippu, the fields under our immediate care, in these three years, as they have
come to my mind this morning?

Three years ago we had a station Sunday School of 100 scholars and 5 teachers.
Now we have 395 scliolars on the roll, 200 average attendance, and 21 teachers and
officers. There is now a native pastor, and our station church annual contributions
have increased R.s. 257, besides which the church has been, furnished with 10 seats,
9 lamps, new mats, &t , by its members. We have a fine new building for the
Station Boys' English High School, costing Rs. 350, also a new building for the
Station Girls' School, and an additional teacher, and there are more children in each.
In two private schools near the station, numbering together i6o pupils, no Bible
lessons were taught three years ago. But now the Bible lessons are regularly taught
in them, both on week-days and Sundays. Three years ago, at Arnikotty, our Tamil
Bo\s' School was nearly dead, and a large heathen Anglo-vernacular School had
usurped its place. Now we have regained our footing, and liave a large Anglo-
vernacular School, with 5 teachers and 125 boys who are taught Bible lessons, and are
brought to the Sunday School.

Figures of Progress. 55

A new girls' school of 60 children has been organized at Suthumalay, for which a
new school building was erected and furnished. We also have a new building for the
Arnikotty Girls' School. We have an additional teacher at the Arnikotty South
Mixed School, and 2S more scholars. The Bible is taught in the Arnikotty West
School of 68 children, where it was not three years ago. In Navaly Station Girls'
School we have an additional teacher and 36 new scholars. The Navaly Church
building has been finished and repaired, and new seats and mats added, at a cost of
Rs. 162. We have there a Sunday School of about 175 average attendance, against
75 three years ago.

In North Navaly we have a new Girls' School, with new building and furniture, and
60 pupils. We have a similar Cjirls' School with new building and furniture, at
Santillipay. A compound has also been bought there, and a bungalow erected at a
cost of Rs. 265. A new catechist is stationed there, who conducts regular Sabbath
and week-day services, and superintends a Sabbath School with an average attendance
of 50.

At Panditerippu Station, the average attendance at Sunday School is increased by
25. The church building has been repaired and the floor relaid at a cost of Rs. 721,
also new seats and a new pulpit introduced at a cost of Rs. 75. In the Panditerippu
Station English Boys' School we have an additional teacher, and a much more
flourishing school than three years ago. In the Sirruverlan School we have a new
building, an additional teacher, and 31 new scholars.

To sum up in a few words, we have under our care 3 more day-schools, total
27; 14 more teachers, including sewing teachers, total 57; 395 more pupils, total
1865. The above does not include two private schools before mentioned, which
also co-operate with us. The Bible lesson is taught in seven schools where it was
not taught three years ago. At the close of last year, a most carefully conducted
review Bible-e.xamination showed 1565 scholars examined, and the total of Bible
verses recited from memory 8S31, and of questions of various catechisms 42,736. We
have now in our Sabbath Schools 94 teachers, and 1529 pupils on the list, a gain
of 881 over three years ago. In the annual review examination on the International
Sunday-school Lessons, held in last December, 244 pupils recited the golden texts for
the whole year, 27 for three quarters, 49 for two quarters, and 125 for one quarter.
Our church membership has increased 40, total 190. The contributions of the three
churches in our field were Rs. 454 more this year than three years ago.

We have sent from our field to the Jaffna College, Training School, Girls' Boarding
Schools, and other higher institutions of learning, 49 young men, 38 young women.
Many of these decided to give themselves to Christ while in our day and Sabbath

A CHRISTIAN FAJIILY ; THE KENWAR AND KENWARANI, OF KAPARTHALA, AND THEIR BOYS.

A Hopeful Future.

schools, and 54 of them have already joined the churches connected with these higher
schools, or have applied for church membership. 757 Bible portions in Tamil, and
about 50 New Testaments in English, were bought from us by the day and Sunday-
school children. Many more were bought from the depository, besides several
hundreds given out as Christmas rewards. 468 religious tracts were sold, and 5565
tracts and 1514 handbills distributed during the past year. Three years ago we had

only 4 Bible-women, now we have 9. They
report having visited 409 houses regularly
during the past year, besides teaching Bible
lessons, sewing, and singing to the girls in
nine day-schools, and holding many cottage
meetings. They are teaching 125 women
grown girls in their homes to read
Bible. These have memorized alto-
gether, during the year, 2070
Bible verses, 209 hymns, and
[45S questions, which must have
given them employment and food
lought in many otherwise vacant or
ihappy hours. Of these women and
have begun to pray to Christ, and,
we hope, to love Him. If you read between
the lines in these statistics, if you try to
lake the facts real in your mind, 1 think you
vill be encouraged, as we are, and hopeful and
prayerful about the future.

CHAPTER XIV.
Thipd Year's Experience

AT THE GREAT HeATHEN FESTIVAL.

Manepy, April Vlih, 1SS3.

HIS is the day after
the great car- draw-
ing day and tempie
festival; and perhaps
you would like to hear about it
and our meetings on that day.

We had hoped some of the
missionaries would be with us
and assist this year, but as it was
the day of the quarterly business
meeting they were not able to
come. Even our brother, called
to America by our dear father's
illness, was not with us, but we
were not alone, for the Elder
Brother was with us, and we
seemed to feel His presence all
the day, and He made good His
promise, " I will never leave
thee." About 30 of the leading
Christians from our own and
various other stations came ti-
gether in the morning to organize into companies for work. Some came with us by
invitation to the tent and preaching pandal, others went to book-stands, and others
went out a mile or so on the roads as last year.

Also about 40 children from our day schools, whom we had been specially preparing
for this occasion, came early with hymn-books and bright faces. After refreshment

THE CAR OF JUGGERNATH.

No Opposition.

BRAHMAN FAKIR ENGAGED IM MEDITATION.

and prayer we all began work at lo a.m. My sister went to

the tent, and I to the medical veranda, where a large pandal

had been erected and seats provided. Our children's voices,

joining in a bright ringing hymn accompanied by organ,

\iolin and cymbals, soon brought us large audiences.

We had eight of the best speakers we could get in
Jafiha, four with each of us, and they did indeed
speak well, so simply and earnestly, relieved every
little while by the children echoing their words in
some appropriate song.

This year — although there had been some talk
beforehand that there would be opposition, that
Sapapathipullai the Sivite preacher would be present
(0 speak, that heathen tracts would be distributed,
that they would not let any one enter our vard, that
they would dispute at our meetings — although there
had been some such floating talk and some articles published in Sivite newspapers
to that effect, yet God mubt have been specially with us, for none of all these things
happened, and we had altogether quieter and better meetings than last year. No one
tried to hinder people from coming, or to disturb our meetings, but people came in large
numbers and stayed longer and listened better and went away more quietly than last
year. Many stayed from an hour to an hour and a half and even longer. Many
thousands of people found a refuge from the burning sun in our veranda, lent, an<l
under the large shade trees, and some spoke gratefully to us for allowing them the
privilege. Thus we won much good feeling and man)- seemed to enjoy our meetings,
and I hope some carried away real good.

On the white wall of the veranda we had painted in Tamil in large scarlet letters
these verses : " God is love." "-^ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.''
" There is Joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." " Conte unto Ale, and I volll
give you rest." Those who came from a distance toward the meeting seemed struck
with these verses shining out from the white wall, illuminated by the noon-day sun.
They would begin to read, and I could see their lips move and their eyes follow the
lines as they read one and another, and they would come nearer and look inquiringly at
the speakers as if to say, " Can you explain these ? " And the speakers explained
them, weaving all they had to say about them, and pointing to them and reading them
over and over again. Thus they served a second purpose of which we had not
thought when having them written — they unified all the addresses. These four

A Sticcessful Day.

verses were silent preachers of repentance, purity, peace, and love to thousands
during the day; surely they must be remembered ia some hearts. Our little
singers did beautifully ; they sang off and on for five hours, their little throats
growing tired at last, but their faces still shining.

Mr. Tvvynam, the English Government Agent of this province, came on from town in
the afternoon to see if all was quiet, and if the headmen were at hand and preserv-
ing order ; for there are disturbances among the people at such large festivals ; and
I think our opening our grounds and calling in so many of the people, thereby
lessening the crowd about the temple, has tended to preserve quiet and to prevent
fights.

He drove slowly past the temple just at the time when they were drawing the
car, and instead of the people opposing his passing, to our astonishment hundreds
upon hundreds forsook the idol car to walk after his carriage, a mark of their high
respect for him, and their really small reverence for or faith in the idol.

Mr. Twynam sent his salams to us, said he was glad we were having meetings, and
told us to go on, and all the headmen he.ard him say so. He asked to hear my
little folks sing, so I sent fifteen or so of my station school children in the care of a
pastor to him. The great crowd which was about him was attracted by the sound
of the violin, cymbals, and the children's voices, and thus my little folks held for
a quarter of an hour the largest service of Christian song during the day, with the
highly respected Government Agent as the centre. We thank God for the success
of the day, and pray that He may bless all that passed to the good of some of the
many who were present.

■WORSHIPPING KALI.

A STREET IN CEYLON LINED WITH TAMARIND, COCOANUT, AND OTHER TREES.

CHAPTER XV.

A Letter from a Christmas Tree.

MaiiL-py, Deceinbe7' 25///, 1883.

|EAR CHILDRF-X, — I am a Christmas tree which you helped to plant in
Santillipay.

I am not a spruce-tree such as you use in your country, as I am told,
but a tamarind-lree with very beautiful soft foliage like a fern, and a very
valuable and plentiful acid fruit. K tamarind-tree is one of the largest kintl of trees in
this countr}', and one of the most valuable ; a full-grown tree sometimes produces ;£i
worth of fiuit in a year. But a tamarind C/iristnias tree produces still more valuable
fruit, for the toys with which I am covered delight a hundred little eyes, and the
Tamil Bibles and Scripture portions and hymn-books will feed the heart.

I grew in the mission compound in Santilhpay, and after the roof of the large
preaching bungalow was all lined by the teachers and native Christians with white
cloth, and after a beautiful arch of strung red and white oleander blossoms was
erected and other decorations put up, I was brought in and planted. Immediately the

62 Christmas at the Mission-school.

children brought more flowers, hmes, plantain fruits, &c., to decorate me. Then the
gifts sent by you, and prepared by the missionary ladies with the name of the future
owner written on each, were hung upon me, as well as lots of little bags full of popcorn,
roast peas, roast rice, native sugar and sweet cakes. These were brought and hung till
my branches were bending down with the heavy load. But the merry shouts of the
children helped me to keep up a stout heart and not give way.

Then the missionary ladies arrived, and to their surprise they were met by a large
company of people, and a native band of music consisting of five instruments, two
flutes, large and small, a kind of native bagpipe, a drum, and cymbals.

A canopy of red cloth decorated with flowers was carried over the heads of the
missionary ladies, rose water from silver vases was sprinkled over them, and flowers,
two large baskets full, were strewn before them. This was all arranged as a pleasant
surprise by the people, to show their goodwill and love. Was it not a great change
from the year before last, when at some moonligiit meetings the missionary ladies and
Christians were stoned, the fruit-trees belonging to a Christian family robbed, and theii
fowls killed ? At that time all the boys in the place were studying in a Sivite school in
which the secular lessons were taught on the Sabbath as well as on week-days, and where
the students were taught to mock at Christianity. Now there is a Mission-school
here with 120 children, where the Bible lessons and Christian hymns are daily taught,
and the children are brought on the Sabbath to Sabbath school and church service.

These children were all present around me, and they were seated on ola mats
spread on the floor. They Avere all dressed in their best clothes, and, as bright colours
are much liked by the people, they looked like a flower garden. Their little baby
brothers and sisters came also, and many of the fathers and mothers as well.
These were all seated around the four sides of the building. The boys and girls
were prepared with many dialogues, recitations, compositions, &c., appropriate to
the occasion, in English and Tamil, all of which they recited very well, I thought.
Some were about Christ, His birth, His teachings, &c., and one boy in the midst ot
his address opened the Bible and read a part of the Sermon on the Mount, and all
the heathen present listened with attention to those beautiful and lofty words. There
was much singing, Miss Leitch had her " American baby organ " with her, and also a
part of the Manepy children's choir with violin and cymbals.

Then several persons present gave addresses. After this the presents were
distributed. Quite a number of boys and girls whose names were found on the " roll
of honour," because they had recited perfectly the 145 Bible verses, twelve hymns and
lyrics, and fifty-two golden texts, which formed the Bible lesson for the year, as well
as shown a perfect or nearly perfect Sunday School attendance, received prizes of

Fate of the Christinas Tree.

New Testaments or hymn books. Have any of you little girls and boys to whom I
write done as well as they, and do you stand on the roll of honour ?

After the meeting all the men, women, and children escorted the missionary
ladies half a mile on foot toward their home, walking in procession and headed by
music.

My work is done. A coolie has come to cut me up for firewood for the catechist's
family, so in death as in life, I am,

Your faithful

Christmas Tree.

a viFMir IN CEYLON.

-''^^,

A BANYAN TREE.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Week op Prayer

Manepy, January \^th, 1884.

8IKE the banyan tree, the Kingdom of Christ seems to be growing and
extending here, taking deeper root downward, and sending new shoots
upward.

We were much encouraged this year during the week of prayer. The
Enghsh-speaking children from our large English schools at Manepy and Arnikotty
came into the meetings, not reluctantly as last year, but always with a glad rush. On
the last day, after several addresses, in which they were urged to decide for Christ now,
they were asked how many wished to give their hearts to God at the beginning of
the new year, and many hands were held up.

The Christians took new courage, and in their evening meeting said, " Let us save
the children, and in ten or fifteen years, instead of one or two hundred Christians in
this field, there will be thousands." The Christians consecrated themselves anew to

Wanted — Reapers.

Christ's service with earnest prayers and tears, and we are looking for a blessing on
the work this coming year. We distributed during the past year twenty-four copies
of D. L. Moody's book of sermons, and a large number of his tracts, and we see they
are having an excellent effect. We expect to have the book translated into Tamil, and
printed before next Christmas. You ask, " Do you see signs of His coming foot-
steps ? " I answer, " YeSj yes ; there are everywhere signs of His, coming. I can seethe
fields white for the harvest." The question I would send back to my friends is, " Where
are the reapers ? " During the past week, which was the week of prayer, my sister
and I attended thirty meetings. But there were calls from villages for Gospel meetings
which we could not attend. How are my sister and myself to direct the teaching of
the Bible lessons to nearly 2000 children in schools ? In our field are nearly 20,000
people, and every village open for the Gospel, and calling for moonlight meetings.
We have had the Christians, not only men but women and children, organized into
companies to go to these meetings, but they are not enough. At any of these meetings,
if sister or I can go, from one to five hundred will attend. Formerly a missionary
had to go through a village and call the people, and he thought he was successful if
he could get a dozen or two to listen to him ; but now, when the fields are ripe for the
harvest, we are short of labourers.

I am just now enjoying very much
accompanying our dear native Bible-
women, and visiting the homes usually
visited by them, and going over the Bible
lessons taught by them during the last
three months. I think they are doing
very good work. I see real progress in
the women whom they visit — not only that
they can say more Bible verses, but that
they show more earnestness and more
desire to know God, and more wish to
serve Him. I have hope that in many
hearts there is true love for Christ. Though
fear of husbands and friends and custom
keeps them from coming out to Church,
or openly acknowledging Him by joining
the C'hurch, yel they do ad;iiowIedge Him
in their hoiries and before their families and
friends, and are /mown in their homes as

A BIBLE-WOMAN.

66 Helpers at Hoine.

women who do not go to heathen temph's or rub ashes, hut who study the Bihle and pray.
Let us rejoice vn this, and pray the Lord to give thtm strength lor the other part,
which is, oh, so hard in this country ! You at home cannot know the strength of
customs and caste prejudices here, or how difficult it is to breali away from these. 1
wish you could go with me to these homes and see these bright faces, and hear the
words of welcome, and see the serious earnesiness with which they at once sit down
and recite their Bible lessons. I cannot help thanking God, again and again, that we
are granted the great privilege of sowing the precious seed of His Word in so many
willing hearts. I hope our friends at home will continue in prayer for this work.

At the annual meeting of the Jaffna Auxiliary Bible Society, recently held in the
town of Jaffna, I heard an English Church missionary relate an incident which had
been told him by a missionary from China, and which has been in my thoughts a
great deal since. He said that in the Chuia Inland Mission the work in some places
seemed very hard and discouraging, but in one native church, under the care of a
native pastor, there were always inquirers and conversions and additions to the
Church, and this was so remarkable as to excite the attention of many of the workers
in Chma. One of the missionaries of that mission on going home to England was
met by a gentleman from Bristol, who invited him to his house, and surprised him by
asking him the most careful fiuestions, showing a remarkable and thorough acquaintance
with the work. In the course of the conversation it became known that this Bristol
gentleman had undertaken some time ago the support of the native pastor before
mentioned, and had sent the funds regularly through the society on condition that this
pastor should send him very frequent accounts of the work in all its details. The
missionary said he understood the secret of the success of that work when he heard
this gentleman pray. He prayed for the young converts by name, he prayed for the in-
quirers, stating their various dihiculties, he prayed for the pastor and for the native Chris-
tians. He prayed as one speaking to a dear and tried friend, and sure of an answer.
And he was answ-ered. God had in a wonderful way honoured that man's intelligent
and believing prayer. When I heard it I could not keep back the tears. We want such
believing prayers offered for Jaffna. It seems as if we could net do without them.

"The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot fave, neither His ear heavy that it
cannot hear." Is it indifference and unbelief which have kept back the blessing
which He was willing and waiting to give ?

" God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us."
That Thy w.^y may be known upon earth, Thv saving health a.mong all
NATIONS, Let the people praise Thee, O God: let all the people praise Thee. O let the
nations be glad and sing for joy.''

CHAPTER XA^I.

Protection in Time of Danger.

Wnnep)-, July i\lli. 1.S84.

UST fi\'e years ago to-day we left our
Vermont home and turned our faces
toward Boston and the foreign field.

\\'e are celebrating the day in what
is to us a ver)' jo\'fuI manner, viz. in
seeing twelve persons examined by the committee for Church
membershi]:) They will join on profession of faith on the coming
-Sabbath. There are a number of others who have asked to be received, but it was
thought best for them to wait till ne.xt occasion, in order that the Christians may
have time to know them better and have fuller proof of their sincerity. I trust they
may prove true.

Last April and May tlie small |)0X broke out in several of the villages around us,
making it necessary for us to i lose a number of our day-schools for a time, but not
one of our Christians or Sabbath School children, as far as we know, has suffered. At
the time nearly 2000 children were learning the 91st Psalm : " He that dwelleth in the
secret place of the Most Higli shall abiile under the shadow of the Almighty," &:c.
This lesson had been fixed months before for this time. \Vas it a coincidence
only that the precious words should come to give courage in time of danger ? ^Vas it
not a special providence that none of our dear people were stricken ? Yes, the special
Providence whose love plans every moment of our lives, and therefore in life or death
nothing can go wrong with us.

A few months ago a Christian girl lay dying of fever. She said, " I do not want
to stay ; I \\ant to go, for heaven is better." A little later she said, " INTother, I see in
heaven they are giving in their accounts," and a moment later, '■ I see my little
sister there ;" and stretching out her hands she died with a glad smile. Her father a
native Christian lawyer, has just given Rs 750 in memory of his two daughters, to found
two scholarships in the Wesleyan Girls' Poarding-School where they studied.

This is an index of how true a hold Cnristianity has on the hearts of native

5S Mourning tvithout Hope.

Christians here. Many in years to come, in the name and for the sake of these dear
departed ones, will receive the blessings of a Christian education m this Girls' Boarding-
School.

After reaching Ceylon one of the first things which affected me very deeply was
the sight of a heathen funeral. On going to the house where a little child had died,
I found the mother beating her face on the ground and wailing most pitcously. The
human lieart is just the same all the world over, and mothers love their children. This
poor nudher had no hope of ever seeini:; this child again or taking it in her arms or
knowing it as her child, and her heart 'was breaking. Soon the little body which she
pressed so convulsively to her bosom would be carried away by the men of the
village and reduced to ashes in the burning ground, and the ashes would be strewn in
the sea. She thought the child she loved was lost to her for ever, and the future
seemed all dark to her. Very often mothers, under such circumstances, will refuse
to eat food for days together, and sometimes a mother's hopelessness and despair
are such that she commits suicide.

Dear mothers in the home land, some of you have lost a little child. What did
you do in that sad hour ? You went into )our closet and looked up into the face of
your Christ, and poured out all your sorrows before Him. You remembered that He
had said, " Suffer little childreu to come unto Me, and forbid them not : for of such
is the kingdom of Heaven " You thought how He had taken up little children in
His arms and blessed them, and you believed that your little one was safe and happy
with Him, that He was caring for it better than you could care for it, that you would
see it again, and your hearts were comforted. Was it not fo? Remember there are
other mothers who need the same comfort luliich comforted you in your hours of
threat sorrow. Oh, make haste to tell the heathen mothers of Jesus, the Alaiighty
Saviour, the infinitely compassionate One, for they need Him as much as you do.

Some time after we landed in Ceylon I attended a Christian funeral. Again it was
a little child that had died. I looked into the faces of the father and mother, and
although their eyes were full of tears, I saw a look of hope on their faces. A number
of native Christians had come to the house, and we joined together in singing Christian
hymns. The native minister came and held a brief service. Then all followed the
body to the grave-yard, walking in procession and singing in the Tamil language ; —

"There's a land that is fairer tlian day, and by faith we can see it afar,
For uur Father waits over tlie way, to provide us a dwelling-place tiiere.
In the sweet by-and-by we shall meet on that lieautiful shore.
In the sweet by-and-by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore."

Gur Dead riot Lost.

We stood around the open grave, and the native minister opened the Bible and read
those words of Christ's-. "I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that beheveth in
Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Marvellous words ! Surely none
but a Divine Saviour could have spoken words so suited to meet the needs of the
human heart. I looked again at the faces of the father and mother ; they were
upturned to heaven, and I saw in them a look of resignation and peace. In my heart
I thanked God that we had such a Gospel to give to the heathen — a Gospel which
presents such glorious hopes. Our dead are not lost, but gone before. We shall meet
them again on the other side, and there shall be no partmgs there, " and God shall
wipe away all tears from all eyes."

CHAPTER XVIII.

A Chrisiian ^\'I■XlDIN(;.

]\Iane|jy. y«/r wtli, 1S84.

had a very large
Christian wedding
in our church the
other day It was

■^'^^•^/T,

attended by at least Soo people,

many of them from amongst

the highest lamilies in Jaffna.

The father of the bride years

ago came from a high heathen

family, to study in the mission

boarding-school. To enter there, one of the subjects for examination was the Scripture

catechism. Although his father was a stiff heathen and had his son taught in a

private heathen school, yet he sent him to a Christian village school for a few months,

just in order that he might learn the Christian catechism and pass a good examination.

This was the beginning of his knowledge of Christianity. He then went to study at
the Batticotta Seuiinary (a school which preceded the Jaffna College), and while a
student there he became convinced of the truth and was brought to Christ. When
his parents knew this they were very angry, and threatened him with the loss of his
inheritance On the Sabbath, when he was to have been baptized, they shut him up
and took away all his clothes. When, later on, he received baptism, he was cast off
by bis parents, but our mission sent him to Manepy, where he studied medicine under
the late Dr. Green. He is now the leading native Christian doctor in Manepy, and
has a large practice and wide re|)utation.

He married a Christian girl, having refused offers from the parents of much richer
heathen girls. He has now a large, fine stone house, and an interesting family of
children. His wile is a very lovely woman, beautiful in person, in mind, and in heart.
It is a joy and satisfaction to have her company and help in village meetings, or in
visiting in the homes of tlie pupils of the Bible-women. She teaches a class of girls in

A NATIVE GIRL.

Dead to Heathenisvi.

A LITTLE BRIDESMAID.

Sunday School, though most women with a family of six children,
three of them little ones, would not thmk they could come
promptly at 8.30 a.m. on Sabbath mornings as she does. She
goes out every Sabbath afternoon to hold a women's meeting in
the neighbouring village, taking her little children with her.

The eldest daughter, about whose marriage I began to tell you,
is a beautiful girl, nineteen years old, educated in the boarding-
school, speaking English, able to read music and play on the
organ, and a good singer ; she sews and embroiders, and is a
good housekeeper ; but more important than all, she is an earnest,
loving Christian.

A young man related to a high heathen family, who studied in
the Jaffna College and became a Christian, asked for the daughter
in marriage, because she was a true Christian. When this young
man's parents heard of it, they were very angry. They wished
him to marry a rich heathen girl, and return to heathenism.
They offered if he would do this to give him ^£^300, and the relatives offered ^100 if
lie would marry with heathen ceremonies. He refused, and chose to cast in his lot
with the Christians. The persecution of his friends was so great that he felt he must
either accede to their wishes and become a heathen, or else leave his home, which he
did. His mother threatened to throw herself into the well, and his father threatened
to disinherit him, and finally they sent him word that they regarded him as one dead.

It was very trying that not one of his immediate relatives was present at his marriage,
but the Christians and the missionaries and many educated and influential natives
were present, to the number of Soo. The marriage was celebrated in the Manepy
church. I was glad that so many should have the opportunity of seeing a Christian
marriage, and hearing the words of the native pastor and our missionaries. It was
nearly dusk when they left the church, Christian lyrics in Tamil composed for the
occasion, and sung with accompaniment of native instruments, having very pleasantly
filled up the time.

As the bridal party left the church, garments were spread before them the whole
way to their home, an arch of flowers was borne over their heads, a band of music
preceded them, and the whole company of i)eople accompanied them on foot in the
brilliant glare of torches, blue and red lights, rockets and fireworks, provided by friends
to grace the occasion.

We hope that they may have a very happy and useful life, and carry out their intention
of devoting themselves directlv to Christian work in connection with t'nis mission.

,^i«-il^-.

THE OODOOVILLE GIRLS HOARDING-SCHOOL.

CHAITER XIX.
Persecution and Dklivkrance.

Ooilooville, Jamtary, 1885.

iiEAR the close of last year we were stationed at Oodooville, a place about a
mile distant from Manepy, and in addition to our other work we were
given the charge of the Oodooville Girls' Boarding-School. Will you not
pray that grace may be given us to meet these added responsibilities ?
The past year has been one of much encouragemtnt. Fifty-nine persons have
united with the three Churches in our field, namely forty-five in Manepy, eleven in
Navaly, and three in Panditerippu. Besides these, quite a number from our field,
former members of our day and Sabbath schools and inquirers' classes, have been
received on profession of faith in the Wesleyan and Church Mission churches, and
are now students in the boarding-schools of those Missions. In all this we rejoice.
Our native Christians, at the beginning of the year, during the week of prayer, united
together to pray that fifty might be brought to Christ within the year. Some thought

74 ChelappaJi.

it was a very large request, but it was the prayer of faith from more than one heart.
They now feel that (Jod has heard this prayer, and they take courage to ask for great
things this coming year. We do not forget that dear friends in the home-land have
been praying especially for this field and work, and we are glad that these prayers
have been and are being answered, and we believe that we shall rejoice together at the
last great ingathering.

Another encouraging feature of the year has been the forming of several new
inquirers' classes. There are now held weekly seventeen such classes, with a
total average attendance of about 150. In these meetings the portion of Scripture
appointed to be read during the week is explained. Eacli one is expected to repeat a
verse of Scripture and to offer prayer. The leader also inquires after and encourages
each one in the class in regard to habits of daily prayer, Bible study, and church
attendance. The classes are conducted by the native pastors, catechists, leading
native Christians, and by ourselves. To join one of these classes helps the young
people to take a step toward confessing Christ, puts them under the care of older
Christians, and thus, by meeting together from week to week, they become a band of
friends to encourage each other. They also become known in their villages as
inquirers. Inquirers' classes are rallying points to which any one showmg signs of
interest is at once invited. In countries where to leave idolatry and come over to a
public profession of Christianity is so vast a change, such a class as a stepping-stone
is a great help. It is our desire to see an inquirers' class, however small, in every day-
school before the end of the coming year. For God's help in this, and for these 150
inquirers, we ask our home friends to pray.

The religious history of some of those who joined the church this year seems to us
interesting. I will mention a few instances.

Chelappah, a man in Arnikotty, was led to Christ by the persistent efforts of a young
Christian boy. He has shown so much earnestness in regard to bringing up his family,
as quite to put to shame many of our older Christians. He brought his wife and
children to church. He did not make the common excuse of want of jewels and
beautiful clothes, and tliough the heatlien relatives persecuted and ridiculed him, he
took no notice. He had his children baptized. He bought a whole Bible and began
family prayers. He sought the Bible-women and invited them to teach his wife.
He brought his daughter often to the girls' inquirers' class, walking the mile both
ways and waiting patiently outside during the meeting. He had the joy of seeing his
wife join the church at the close of the year.

One of the inquirers, a young man of a high heathen family, has lately achieved a
great success in being married without heathen ceremonies. The parents of bo h

A Brave Christian Pariah. 75

parties were strong Sivites, but the young man never for a moment wavered. The
bride had formerly learned the Bible lessons in our day-school, and again, when too
old to go to day-school, i.e. after the age of twelve, she had been taught in her home
by one of our Bible-women, so she also favoured a Christian marriage — one of the
many good results of ISible-wonien's work.

Another, a young man of the Pariah caste, who had studied in one of our day-schools,
was threatened by the higher-caste heathen people, his former masters, with dreadful
punishments if he should join the church ; for the old system of master and serf,
though under the English Government it is done away with m name, still exists m a
greater or less degree, and the I'ariahs stand much in fear of, and are in subjection to,
the higher castes. For three years he hid the light in his heart, living privately as a
Christian, but fearing to confess Christ. At last the light would not stay hid, and he
joined the church. The ne.xt Sabbath he was stopped on his way to the morning
service and ordered to work, and beaten because he refused. He still continued to
attend church, and because of this, one day when on his way to town with a bundle
of cloth to sell, he was caught, robbed of his cloth and earrings and waist-chain, com-
pelled to walk ten miles in the hot sun, and left in a strange village, with threats that
if he ever returned to his home he would be imprisoned. This was done, it appears,
to intimidate other low-caste i)eople from becoming Christians, lest they should
become enlightened and no longer submit to lieatheii control. The youth stayed
away some weeks, and then ventured back and still contmued to attend church. His
late masters then instituted a false case against him in court, but through the efforts of
our native Christians it was abandoned, though both parties were fined a considerable
sum for non-appearance. The heathen people were enraged that they had to pay
this sum, and forthwith dragged the youih to their house and made him stand for
three hours in the mid-da)' sun, with his face turned toward the sky and holding a stone
on his forehead — a most cruel torture. C)n learning this, we warned the people that
if they committed another act of violence toward him they would be prosecuted. On
the next Sabbath the youth, notwithstanding threats and punishments, was found in
his place in church both morning and evening. The lesson in Sabbath School was
about Paul's willingness not only to be bound but also to die for the name of the Lord
Jesus, and I noticed, while teaching it, that his face was shining as if with the very
light of heaven. Poor youth, I little thought how soon another trial would come to
him! On the very next day those men took him to their house, and, tying his hands
and feet, beat him in the most shameful manner and left him bound in that way for
some hours. My sister was called by a relative and saw him in this state. The
moment she had left him in -order to seek for help, they, fearing she would take a case

Persecutors Fined.

ajrainst them, dragged the youth for some distance over the dust and stones on his
bleeding back, which was unprotected by any clothing, and then marched him off to
town over iields and fences a round-about way, for fear that others would see them,
their object being to get a false case into court before we could enter a true one.
But their plan did not succeed, for my sister saw the police inspector the next
morning, and the magistrate at once gave orders to have the men arrested and sent to
jail, with the prospect before them, if the case were tried, of being sent to prison for
a term of years. They begged for mercy, which for the sake of peace in the village
we thought best to grant, but they had to pay fines and costs, &c., amounting to about
Rs. loo, I think, and they have promised in future to let the youth alone. The
incident has proved a complete success, for if any low castes wish in future to join
the church, they will feel at liberty to do so. The people of that village have learned
several lessons. And I want to say that all along the self-control, firmness, and
courage of the youth were admirable, and showed what Christianity could do even for
a Pariah.

T.\PAL RUNNERS.

ELEPHANTS EATHINT,,

ER XX.

Newera Ei.lia.

Newera Ellia, July jOtli, 1S85.
OU will see by the heading tliat I am not at this moment
in J&ffna, Init in the interior of tlic i.sland, on the top
of hills over 5000 feet above the sea. I have come here for a
few weeks of rest at the invitation of a lady, the wife of a
missionary of the Church Missionary Society. T hey were in
JafTna for some years, our neighbouring fellow-workers. 'I'he)-
are our dear friends, and " esteemed very highly in love for
their works' sake "

1 was very glad to est ape for a little while from the trying heat of Jaffna. The hot
season, February to May, was unusually long this year, for the wind was late in coming ;
and as we had more than the usual amount of work on our hands, three of the
missionaries being absent in America on accfiunt of health, I suppose I must have
overworked a little, for I began to be very easily tired, and to feel unable to go on
with my duties. Now, after a little perfect r|uiet and freedom from care, in this
delightful climate, with the beautiful wooded hills all about me. reminders of the dear
home land, and a pleasant change from Jaffna which is quite fiat, I feel my old
self again, am able to eat and sleep well and to take long walks of two or three miles
morning and evening. I shall soon return to Jaffna, and when this letter reaches \ou,
you may think of me as back again at Oodooville with our io8 girls in the boarding-
school, and with sister, who has been finding it a little hard to be without me. l!ut
she has been going on with the work nobl\', having large moonlight meetmgs and
women's meetings, also a thank-offering meeting, besides the Sabbath-school, whose

A VltW li\ L'ENLON.

A TREE FERN.

numbers have now swelled to 340. I long to be back again. I shall return with
new courage, and hope to make up for my short holiday by the renewed vigour with
which I shall be able to go on with my duties. Sister has had three Christian singers
over from India during my absence. Two were from the Madura Mission and one
from Trichinopoly, South India. The latter chants the psalms beautifully, using the
Gregorian or Free Chants, which are very easy, and which are liked much by our
native Christians, and thus God's words are becoming more known and precious.
The Madura men have been teaching some of the beautiful new Christian hymns
and lyrics lately composed in South India, adapted to native tunes, collected and

go Sunstroke Dangers.

arranged by the Rev. J. S. Chandler, of the Madura Mission, and published in Madras
by the Religious Tract Society. The singers brought over 3000 copies, which are
beino- eagerly bought up by our native Christians, day-school children, and even
the heathen community. These new songs are being widely learned and sung— one
of the easiest and best ways of diffusing Christian truth. When I return to Jaffna
we hope to arrange for a large public concert of Christian song, such as has been
held on two previous occasions.

Now I will tell you a little about my present surroundings, which I think are very
beautiful. The house in which I am is situated on the shore of a litde lake, some
four miles in circumference. This lake is nestled in the lap of the hills, which
surround it on all sides. There are three beautiful little waterfalls in sight, winding
down the sides of these hills like silver threads, and reminding me of the waterfalls I
saw in Switzerland when we were on our way to Ceylon. There are many well-kept
carriage drives and walks all about, for this place is the Government Sanatorium of
the island, and there are about forty European residences, besides the native village.
The Governor and his suite come here in the season. Then the place is very gay.

My hostess — when the pony is at home and not in use by her husband on his
preaching tours in the surrounding estates — takes me out for long and pleasant drives
of from six to twelve miles in the afternoons, which I much enjoy, and we come home
with our hands full of wild flowers and ferns. The air is mild, and the thermometer
is at 65° in the middle of the day indoors. So we sit with doors and windows open,
and the perfume of flowers floating in and filling the air with fragrance. Flowers grow
here so easily, and many varieties are in bloom in the garden surrounding the house.
Some of them are old home friends. The most lovely budded roses of all varieties
thrive well. Mignonette, fuchsia, and geraniums grow here into tall shrubs higher
than my head. Peach-trees have both blossoms and fruit at the same time. Orange-
trees hang golden with oranges. Several kinds of Australian trees, having been intro-
duced into the country some time ago, now grow and flourish everywhere. Great tree
ferns, tossing their huge soft feathery plumes twenty to thirty feet high in the air, grow
all about, and are my constant wonder and admiration. There are many kinds of
ferns here ; I am making a collection in my walks, and pressing them to send home.

The tropical sun retains its old power even here, and one cannot long be out under
it unprotected without getting a headache. Some people, deceived by the cool air,
go out in the middle of the day and get sunstroke. One man, a little while ago, was
struck down to the ground, had to crawl home on his hands and knees, and was ill
for a long time afterwards, all because he walked out in the sunshine without a pith
hat or umbrella.

In tlie Interior.

All this interior part of Ceylon has by English industry and cajjital been converted
into huge tea and coffee and cinchona estates. Thousands of Tamil coolies come
over from India, and are employed on these plantations. There is a railroad from
Colombo to this place, and a small steamer goes round the island twice a month. It
is by this steamer that I will return from Colombo to Jaffna.

THE COFFKE PLANT IN FLOWER AND FRUIT.

A NATIVK BOAT.

CHAPTER XXI.

Itinerating on the Islands.

Oodooville, March 31, 1886.
IITHIN" the fourteen months since we wrote to you, sixty have joined the
Oodooville church on profession of faith, thirty from the villages, and
thirty fiom the boarding-school. It was an interesting thing to see
)'oung girls with bright, earnest faces, young lads in the promise of
manhood, fathers and mothers with their litde children in their arms or clinging to
their garments, old men and women feeble and bowed with age, one leaning on his
staff, all standing up together, the rich and the poor, the high and the low, together
confessing before all the congregation their faith in Jesus the Saviour of the world,
their one Lord.

At present the list of inquirers connected with this church alone numbers 130. A
copy of the list is given to each of the leading church members, with the request that
they will pray for and encourage these individuals. Two meetings for inquirers, one
for women, the other for men, are regulariy held every Sabbath immediately after the
morning service.

Prirjc-day nt Oodooville. 83

In Oodooville, Manepy, Navaly, and Panditeripu, we had altogether ten Christmas-
trees, and gave away to the Roll of Honour children 102 Tamil New Testaments.
Will you not pray with us that God will bless His own Word to these young hearts
and in so many homes? The well-filled home-boxes received from America just
before Christmas lightened our labours greatly, and made the occasions very happ\'
ones to hundreds of ])leased recipients. Could the children at home who prepared
the gifts have seen the joy of all the little ones here who received them, I think
they would have felt repaid for their trouble. The more expensive picture-books,
beautiful scrap-books, work bags, &:c., which seemed too choice for the village
children, proved just the thing for prizes for the girls of the boarding-school^, who
were glad to carry them home and show them with jjride to their friends. The
total attendance at all our Christmas-trees was over three thousand — men, women, and
children.

On February 15 the Oodooville Girls' Boarding-school closed its school year, gradu-
ating a class of twenty-four girls, all professing Christians. The public exercises were
attended by several missionaries and by a large number of native friends, including
many of the leading educated men and women of Jaft'na. One could not help noting
how large a number of the women present were graduates of this institution. Their
faces showed the pleasure they had in revisiting their Alma Mater, and listening to the
recitations and songs of their children now in the school. All the graduating class
took part in the exercises, eighteen giving short English recitations, and six reading
Tamil essays on the following subjects ; The Women of India, The Wonders of the
Nineteenth Century, The Po.ver of Christianity, Lord Shaftesbury, The Duty of the
Women of Jaffna in Regard to Temperance, and The Class History and Valedictory.
The exercises were varied by frequent songs — a Tamil lyric, amotion song, a children's
English play-song, a tonic sol-fa round, a chant, two English part songs, and a good-bye
lyric composed for the occasion and sung respousively by the graduating class and the
school. Six girls also in turn played on the organ, accomi)anying the singing. At
the close, the chairman^ the Rev. Dr. Hastings, made some appropriate remarks, in
which he pictured the condition of things in Jaffna in 1816, when the missionaries
first came. Then not a single v/oman or girl in the whole ].)eninsula could read.
Now there are nearly 5000 girls studying in mission schools, 400 of whom are studying
in Mission Girls' Boarding-schools, and there are over 1000 Native Christian female
communicants in the different mission churches, many of them actively engaged in
work for Christ. We may well exclaim, " What hath God wrought ! " He then
presented to each of the class a diploma, a Tamil Reference Bible, and a lyric and
hymn-book. Nineteen prizes were awarded for general scholarship, as well as for

SHORE LINED WITH PALMS.

needlework and deportment ; eight for punctuality and attendance ; three for instru-
mental music ; four for neatness of person and dress ; and two for cooking. The
occasion seems to have been enjoyed by all. In the Government Grant Examination
held a few days ago, the school passed eighty-four per cent., and earned 2450
rupees.*

The day after the graduating exercises of our boarding-school, I took a trip to
islands lying south-west of Jaffna. These have a population of 28,000 people. I
took with me our tent, foldmg organ, violin, cymbals, and five singing children, a
native pastor, a catechist, a Bible-woman, and two young men, one a student in

* This school receives no aid from any missionary society, excepting the superintendence of the
missionaries. The expenses of the school are met hy the Government grant, the fees of the pupils,
and the interest of an endowment and scholarship fund. We liave secured subscriptions toward tliis
fund, mostly from native sources, of Rs. i 5,000. Ofthis Rs. 7100 have been already paid, and the remain-
der is to be paid in monthly or quarterly instalments through a period of years. Friends of this school
in America have most kindly sent to us or paid to our iirother sums amounting to /^l6o, which has
been invested lor the school.

Canapatky. 85

the Theological class and one a teacher in the Tillipally Training School, also our
magic-lantern and Bible pictures. We visited and held meetings at three of these
islands^ but spent most of our time on the island of Delft. This, on account of the
meeting of different currents within a mile or so of the shore, is quite difficult of
access, and although sometimes visited by missionary gentlemen, it has never before,
within the knowledge of any one living there, so I was told, been visited by any white
lady. The people seemed delighted to see us, and we had on the evening of our
arrival a meeting of perhaps one hundred and fifty — men, women, and children. We
showed our magic-lantern pictures ; first, the birth of Christ, explaining about the
coming of Christ and our need of a Saviour ; then the beautiful pictures of Christ
blessing little children, raising the dead, and giving sight to the blind^ the Sermonon the
Mount, the returning prodigal^, &c. All listened with attention and great interest.
After this we held meetings each morning and evening, and visited the people in their
homes during the day, but not in the middle of the day, as the sun was too hot to
permit our going out ; but at that time the people, at our request, visited us. This
island contains about 2000 people. The most of the lower castes have become Roman
Catholics, but all the others are Sivites. There is a good school here, supported by
tlie Native Missionary Society, with an attendance of about fifty children taught by a
Christian teacher. There are as yet no converts on the island, except a young boy,
Canapathy Pullay, belonging to one of the highest families. He was converted while
studying under this teacher. He is now studying in our English school at Manepy,
and we hope when he shall have finished his studies he will go back as a catechist to
work on his native island. This young boy was at home while we were there, and
was very diligent in helping to arrange for our meetings and m calling his friends to
attend them. His grandfather is the most influential man on the island, and is now
engaged in building an expensive heathen temple. I passed it in company with
Canapathy Pullay as we were calling people to a meeting, and as we looked at it he
brushed the tears from his eyes and said : " I wish my grandfather would become
a Christian." It is said that, if this man should become a Christian, most likely many
of the people of the island would give up heathenism. It has been a great joy to us
to know the firmness with which this young boy, Canapathy Pullay, has adhered
to Christianity^ refusing in any way to participate in heathen rites or ceremonies. The
grandfather said to me : "Take the boy; he belongs to you ; he has given up his old
religion." The boy's mother and her four sisters, all respectable married women and
much adorned with jewellery, came to see me. They told me the boy had said I was
his mother, and that I was kind to him, and so they wanted to see me. I told
them that if I was the boy's mother, then it must follow that they were my sisters.

86 Reluctant to Part.

They seized the idea with apparent dehght, and, putting their arms around me, covered
my hands with kisses in the native manner, that is, smelling them as if smelling a
rose or something fragrant. I told them that if they were my sisters, they must
become Christians. They have consented to let Canapathy Pullay's sister and cousin
join our boarding-school next year. His sister is a beautiful girl, and has as sweet
a smile as any perhaps I have ever seen on a child's face. We also took with us on
our return to Jaffna a cousin of this Canapathy Pullay^ to join the Tillipally Training-
school.

I think our meetings were greatly blessed. Of those who attended, eleven
expressed a wish to be baptized, and to be known thenceforth as Christians. We
formed them mto an inquirers' class, and asked them to go regularly every Sabbath
morning to the teacher's house to be instructed. One of the mquirers, when asked
why he believed in Christ, answered with emotion : " I have heard of our gods fighting
great battles and doing many wonders, but I have never heard of their loving us
and dying to save us." These high families seem to be all related, and I believe
that when they begin to become Christians they will all come together. The people
were very kind and hospitable to us. When we visited a house the first question
usually asked was : " What can we give you ? " and forthwith they would have a
cow or a goat, or perhaps. a buffalo, lassoed and brought to the door and milked, and
would give us fresh milk to drink. They drew the milk into a hollow bamboo-stick
and we drank it from a folded plantain-leaf.

We enjoyed our stay very much, and the people seemed sorry that Ave should leave.
Some of the women clung to me and said : " You must stay with us." This I would
dearly have liked to do but for my much-loved work in Jaffna. But I thought of
my wealthy sisters in more favoured lands, some of whom could be spared from their
homes. They are spending their time perhaps over music, painting, or such things, all
well enough in a way, but I wished they could know something of the supreme joy of
having a child or woman with a dark skin, but bright,,intellectual face, look up into theirs
with a grateful gaze and say : " You have made known to me my Heavenly Father."
Could you bring from the piano a strain of music as sweet as that ? Could you draw
on a canvas a face that would shine like such a face ? A painter once said to me :
" My great grief is that my pictures cannot breathe or speak, that the heart cannot
beat or feel." But you might draw pictures on faces that speak, and on hearts that
feel. We bade the people farewell, promising to viait them soon again if possible.

CHAPTER XXII.

Gnanamutthu.

(3odoo\'ille, April, iSS6.
the 120 girls who are now studying in the boardin;;-school, fit'ty are
Church members and seventy are not. Many of those who ha\e entered
the school this year were from heathen families, and some had never really
heard of Christ before. A little girl from one of the islands, when we
told her of heaven, asked in great wonder if we had come from there.

To lead these girls to Christ, and to form in them a Christian character which will
stand the test of the sore trials to which they will surely be e.xposed hereafter — "Who
is sufficient for these things?" and the time so short. Every year girls drop out from
the different classes, never to return to the school. Often our girls are taken out of
the school to be married. 'I'heir heathen parents will try to marry them to heathen
relatives. ^\'hat we do must be done quickly and well. Will you not specially ask
for us and ours God's blessing ? ^^'e thank Him daily for giving us so large a number
of dear ones to train for Him. It is a happy work. It is His work.

April T,ot/i. — Jesus has called one of our dear girls home to Himself. She was a
day-scholar of the boarding-school, and lived with her parents, who are Christians,
only two or three conijiounds from us. She was sick but a few days and her death
was quite unexpected, but the Master came and called lor her. It is a joy to us all to
teel sure that she was ready to go. Though only nine years old, she had learned to love
her Saviour and to work for Him also. Her older brother joined the Church at the
last communion, and this dear child Gnanamutthu begged hard to join, but her parents
thought she was too young. Now they are very sorry. Gnanamutthu (Wisdom Pearl)
was a member of the Young People's Society of Christian Endea\our and one of the
" Look-out Committee," and a faithful little worker. The subject for our next meeting,

HISS M. W. LEITCH AND TAMIL GIRLS.

Idols Poiverless. 89

appointed at our last, is " Heaven." How little we thought that before the next
meeting came to be held one of our number would be called to enter there ! How
dear and real has the place now become !

Gnanamutthu used often to call her school-mates and hold little prayer-meetings in
her own or neighbouring homes. The priest of a neighbouring Sivite temple told us
that when his little son was very sick, Gnanamutthu came to the house, and kneeling
down by the sick child prayed so earnestly for his recovery that all who heard it said
it seemed as if she were talking with God, and as if He were very near. The child
recovered, and the father believes it was in answer to her prayer. This morning, on
going to the funeral-house, I found there thirty or forty of the heathen neighbours who
had come in of their own accord, according to the custom of the country, to mourn
for the dead. These women were beating their breasts and tearing their hair,
and swaying their bodies back and forth, and all together uttering piercing shrieks.
This they will do for seven days, gathering together morning and evening. Their
cries can be heard a long distance off. At my coming they became quiet, and I spoke
to them of Jesus, the triend of little children. I told them of this child's faith in Him,
of the joy and peace He had given her in sickness, and of the glorious happy home to
which we believed He had taken her. 'I'hey gathered close around me and listened
with eager, hungry looks. Many of them had lost little ones, and they asked if I thought
they would ever see them again. One said her little babe had died, but she supposed
it would come again to this world in the form of a snake or a rat, or some other
animal. The Hindus believe in 8,400,000 transmigrations. How glad I was to tell
those hungry mother-hearts of a better hope, a hope that their dear infants were
gathered in the Saviour's arms, to " go no more out," but to be for ever safe and
sheltered in His bosom, and that this Saviour vi'as their Saviour too if they would but
come to Him, and that He had taken their little ones in love that they might follow
after.

When I left the house one of the women walked home with me. She said
that, since the death of her two Christian children, she had lost faith in idols and had
left off going to temples, and now she wanted to worship the Saviour they worshipped,
and to meet them in heaven.

" Let sorrow do its work.

Send grief and pain ;
Sweet are Tliy messengers,

Sweet their refrain,
When they can sing with me
More love, O Christ, to Thee,

More love to Thee."

A children's outdoor meetino.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Young People's Societv of Christian Endeavour.

T is a striking truth which is embodied in the familiar saying, " The boy of
to-day is the man of to-morrow." If we as Missionaries and Christian
worlcers wish to win and hold this country for Christ, we must win and
hold the children, for the boys and girls of the present will be the men
and women of the future, the not distant but near futilre.

A little boy, when asked derisively by some one^ " What are little boys like you
good for ? " replied, " Please, sir, littie boys like me are the stuff they make men of"
His answer was one which every worker for Christ and humanity would do well to lay
to heart. Work for the children is the strategic point in our campaign. Men and
women m heathen lands, are bound by the trammels of custom and habit, their minds
are darkened by superstition and worldly wisdom, and their consciences hardened by
sin. But the child's heart is open and tender, and if saved and won to Christ it is
not a half-wasted life but a whole life saved and won.

Two questions had long been pressing on our minds in connection with the work
for the children, viz. how could we best foster the spiritual life of the native Christian
children and train them into useful and active Christian workers ; and how could we
lead heathen children to take a first step toward Christ, by giving up heathen practices
and voluntarily placing themselves under Christian influences ? On reading a book

Christian " Endeavourers." 91

entitled "The Children and the Church," by the Rev. F. E. Clark, of Boston,
founder of "The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour," we were led to
feel that the methods of this society, which had proved so successful in America,
were adapted to heathen lands as well, and as a result three societies bearing this name
and having the constitution and bye-laws of the parent society, and with a membership
of 170, have been formed m different parts of our field. The object of these societies
IS, " To promote an earnest Christian lile among the members, to increase their mutual
acquaintance, and to make them more useful m the service of God." The members
consist of two classes. Active and Associate, and the President, ViceT^resident,
Secretary, and Treasurer, are chosen from among the active members. All candidates
applying for active membership are required to sign tlie following pledge (I append
the revised version) : —

Trusting in tlie Lord Jesus Christ for strengtli, I promise Him tliat I will strive to do whatever He
would like to have me do ; that I will make it the rule of my life to pray and to read the Bible every
day ; that 1 will support my own church in every way, especially f)y attendirii; all her regular Sunday
and mid-week services, unless prevented liy some reason which I can conscientiously give to my
Saviour, and that, just so far as I know how, throughout my whole life, I will endeavour to lead a
Christian life.

As an active member, I promise to be true to all my duties, to be present at and to take some part,
aside from singing, in every Christian Endeavour prayer-meeting, unless hindered by some reason which
I can conscientiously give to my Lord and Master. If obliged to be absent from the monthly
consecration meeting of the society, I will, if possible, send at least a verse of Scripture to be read in
response to my name at the roll-call.

In the three societies formed various committees have been appointed from among
the membership, viz. the Prayer-meeting Committee, Sabbath School Committee,
IVIissionary Committee, and, most important of all, the Look-out Committee.

It is delightful to see how heartily the young people enter into the spirit and work
of the society. Oftentimes the native pastor, catechists, and teachers attend the
weekly prayer meetings, and when they see in the one brief hour of the meeting every
member as far as possible present and taking soilie part either by offering prayer,
reciting a verse of Scripture, or speaking a few words relative to the appointed
subject, a look of renewed hope comes into their faces, such as might be seen on the
faces of old veterans when they behold the approach of reinforcements.

On Sabbath mornings all the Endeavourers are present in their various Sabbath
schools, which are growing through their efforts. After the Sabbath school comes the
morning service, when the native pastors give to their people good, plain, gospel food,
and the Endeavourers sit with their Bibles in their hands ready to turn up the passages
read or quoted. But in order that the native Christians may not get " spiritual
dyspepsia" by eating too much gospel food and doing too little gospel work. Sabbath

92 The Forest and the Axe-heads.

afternoons are devoted to direct efforts in behalf of the heathen around. At about
3.30 p.m. small companies of Christian men may be seen going out in different
directions, north, south, east, and west, to hold evangelistic meetings or to conduct
Sabbath schools in the surrounding heathen villages, and with each company of men
may be seen three or four Endeavour boys, who go to help in calling in the people
and with the singing. In the same way companies of native Christian women, three
or four in a company, may be observed going out in different directions every Sabbath
afternoon to hold meetings in different villages among the heathen women, and with
every company of women go three or four Endeavour girls to carry the Bibles and
hymn-books, to help gather together the heathen women and girls, to aid in the
singing, and to act as little nurses to any crying babies, so that the mothers may be
able to listen without distraction. Many meetmgs are thus held every Sabbath
afternoon by the native Christians, attended by hundreds of heathen.

We earnestly desire to see a large working force developed in our Churches. In
the great fight of light against darkness, truth against error, we must gather together
and enlist the young, fresh energies of the Church. "Trained under the arch of a
solemn covenant daily to read the Scriptures, and pray in secret to God, and weekly
either to offer public praj'er or bear public testimony in honour of Jesus Christ as
their only Redeemer," we trust they will go out to fight the good fight of faith as
brave soldiers of the Cross. If India and Ceylon are to be won for Christ, and won
soon, every native Christian, high and low, rich and poor, old and young, must be
enlisted as a warrior. It has been said that seven-eighths of all who have been brought
to Christ in China have been won by the efforts of converted Chinese, and perhaps
the same proportion would hold true of converts in Ceylon and India. A Hindu
gentleman, after listening to an able address from a native pastor, made the following
comment: — " Once a forest was told that a load of axe-heads had come to cut it
down. ' It does not matter in the least,' said the forest, ' They will never succeed.'
When, however, it heard that some of its own branches had become handles to the
axe-heads, it said, ' Now we have no longer any chance.' So," said this gentleman,
" as long as we only had foreigners to deal with we were safe, but now that every-
where our own countrymen are enlisted on that side, certainly our faiths are doomed."
This utterance is significant as showing the impression made upon the Hindus when
the Gospel is preached to them by converted Natives.

If the hope of the speedy evangelization of India and Ceylon lies in the native
agency, then surely the training from earliest childhood of those on whom are soon
to devolve such great responsibilities is a task worthy of the best efforts of the most
devoted missionaries.

The JMaister and the Ba

We all remember the story of the famous master at Eisenach, John Tribonius, who
used to give his lessons to his pupils with uncovered head, and when asked why he
did this, he replied that it was to honour the consuls, chancellors, doctors, and
masters who would one day proceed from his school. " Though you do not see them
with their badges," he used to say, " it is right to show them respect." And in that
teacher's school at that time was a boy whose words, when a man, were to shake the
world ; the boy Martin Luther. I think, as I look into the faces of the young people
of the Endea\'our Society, " These boys will some of them be pastors, catechists, or
teachers one day, and these girls will be wives and mothers in the homes, teachers
in the Sabbath schools, Bible -women, and Christian workers." Now, when their
religious instincts are so strong, their consciences so tender, their young hearts so
willing and eager, with what care, with what prayer, with what love^ should they be
nurtured and trained for the service of Christ and the Church.

In this great work for the conversion and Christian nurture of the children, may we
not confidently look for the blessing and help of Him who took up little children in
His arms and blessed them, and who said, " Suffer little children to come unto Me,
and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of hea\en " ?

'I'HE MAISTIlR and THE HAIRNS.
?!v A 'S'ouNG Scottish Port.

The Maister sat in a v.'ee i:ot hoose

Tae the Jordan's waters near,
An' the hsher fowk crush'd and croodit roun'

The jMaister's words tae hear.

An' even the bairns frae the neav-lian' streets

War mixin' in vvi' the thring,
Laddies an' lassies wi' wee bare feet,

Jinkin' the crood aman^^

An' ane o' the Twal' at the Maister's side

Rase up an' cried alood —
" Come, come, bairns, this is nae place fur you,

Rin awa' hame oot o' the crood."

But the Maister said, as they turned awa',
" Let tlie wee bairns come tae J\Ie ! "

An' lie gaithered them roun' Him whar He sat,
An' liftit ane up on His knee.

Ay, He gaithered them roun' Him whar He sat.

An' straikit their curly hair,
An' He said tae the won'erin' fisher fowk

That croodit aroun' Him there —

".Send na the weans awa' frae Me,

Rut raither ibis lesson learn —
That nanc'll win in at heaven's yett

That isna as pure as a bairn."

An' He that has ta'en us for kith and kin,

Tno' a' Prince o' the Far Awa',
Gaithered tire wee anes \\\ His airms,

An' Ijlessed them ane an' a*.

O Thou who watchest the ways o' men,
Keep oor feci in the heavenly airt.

An' bring us at last tae Tiiy hame abune,
As pure as the bairns m he'rt.

PEARL FISHING.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Precious Pearl.

HEN the Society of Christian Endeavour was started in Oodooville, a. little
boy who Uved near the church was attracted by the singing, and always
attended the meetings. When others were joining the society he came
forward and said he wanted to join. He was a very little fellow, and
his two front teeth were fallen out, so that he spoke with a lisp. His head was
all shaven except a little round place on the top, where the hair that was left
was tied up in a knot. He wore a yard of doth about his loins and that was
all. This little half-naked person, with his head only a little higher than the table,
begged to join the society. He was from a heathen family. My first thought
was that he was too young, and did not know what he was asking, but when I

Pearl Fishers. 95

told him so, tears began to gather in his eyes. He did not know how to pray, so one
of the " Look-out Committee " promised to teach him. He said he could read, but
had no Bible portion. I told him he must buy one. The ne.\t day, to my surprise,
he came bringing some vegetables with which to buy a Tamil Gospel of Matthew.

At the next meeting of the society he again asked leave to join. He showed his
Matthew's Gospel in which, according to our rules, he had read ten verses a day. He
had learned and recited the Lord's prayer. He said he would soon be able to pray
in his own words like the other children. He begged to join the society. Seeing
his earnestness, we did not like to discourage him, and as the " Look-out Committee "
favoured it and said they would look after him, we let him join. So he came up
proudly and wrote his name, Vidamucthu, in large Tamil letters. His name means
" Precious Pearl." At the next meetmg he brought in two of his companions.

One evening that week, as I was taking a moonlight walk, I heard a little voice
laboriously reading something aloud. I stO|iped to listen. It was the Sermon on the
Mount. I peeped through the hedge and saw a family circle : a father, ir other, and four
children, all listening, and this little seven-year-old Vidamuttliu reading aloud by the
aid of a dim native lamp. I thought of Jesus taking a little child and setting him in
the midst. After reading, he sang the verse of the Christian lyric taught in the day-
schools that week, and then he prayed a little pra_\"cr and at its close recited the
Lord's prayer. I stood listening without, and all the family sat quietly listening
within. The next Sabbath his mother came to church. I liad often before asked her
to come, and so had our Christian women, but she had always refused. After church
a Christian woman brought her to the inquirers' meeting. I askeil her what had led
her to come to church. She said that her little son had begged her so hard to come
that she could not resist, that he prayed for her every night, and that she had decided
to be a Christian. Since then she has come regularly to church, 'i'his is the story of
how one little " pearl " has began to reflect Jesus.

There are pearl fisheries off the coast of Ceylon. I'hey are a Go\-ernment
monopoly, and nobody can fish for pearls except those appointed by Government.
But there is another kind of fishery in Ceylon, in which all are free to engage. It
belongs to Him who said, " Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men," and
every little boy and girl in the home and who gives and prays for Ceylon has a share
in this pearl fishery, and can gather gems for the Saviour's crown.

CHAPTER XXV.

Meenatchie, THE- Island Girl.

When my sister made a tour among the islands west of Jaffna she
found a very bright Httle girl named Meenatchie, about twelve yeais
of age, who had been studying in a heathen school and had learned

to read, but who had never heard of Christ. She asked the

parents to allow this little girl to be educated in the Oodooville

Girls' Boarding-school, and they consented.

There is a custom in this school that, when a new class is

received, each of the older girls who have been pupils in the

school for two or three years selects a girl from the new class

as one for whom she will specially care ; and the older girl

" mothers '' the little new girl, caring for her comfort, instruct-
ing her in the ways of the school^ and above all reading a

portion of the Bible with her morning and evening, and

teaching her to pray. There is a row of small rooms called

" prayer-rooms" built off from the school, into which the girls

can go and be quite alone for private prayers as often as they

wish. When the new class was received into the school, one

of the elder girls chose Meenatchie as her special charge, and

began to teach her the wonderful stories of God's love for us,

of a Saviour who died for us, and of a heavenly home. These

were all new stories to the little girl. After a few days she

came to us saying, "The other girls have Bibles of their own,

MEENATCHIE (SE.VrEO) AND HER
FRIEND.

Earnest Alecnatchie. 97

I have no Bible. My father did not give me a Bible with my other books ; what
shall I do ? '' We gave her a copy of one of the gospels in Tamil. A gospel costs
just a penny ; you see what a penny will do if drojjped into the collection-bo.x by
some child in England or America. It will give a gospel of Matthew or Mark or Luke
or John, in the native language, to some boy or girl in India or Ceylon. A gospel,
telling the whole story of the life of Christ and the words of Christ. Is it not a good
use to make of a penny ?

We told Meenatchie that when she had read this gospel through, and could tell
something of what it said^ we would give her a New Testament. We noticed her
afterwards diligently reading it aloud to herself out of school-hours. A few days later
she came to us, saying, " I have no hymn-book of my own, and I do wish I had
onCj so that I might learn to sing these beautiful hymns." We gave her a little book
containing twenty-four Christian hymns in the Tamil language. This also costs just a
penny. The ne.xt morning, when we sang the opening hymn, Meenatchie found it in
her new hymn-book, and began to sing with the others at the top of lur voice, though
she did not in the least know the tune : such was her eagerness to learn. I told
her she must sing softly and listen to the others. She did this, and having naturally a
good ear for music, she soon learned to sing very well and became a member of
our school choir.

A weekly prayer-meeting for members of the boarding-school is held on Friday
afternoons. At the first prayer-meeting in the new term there was much interest
manifested. The older girls felt the great responsibility which rested upon them with
regard to the younger ones, many of whom had come from heathen homes^ and had
not yet given their hearts to Christ. Some of the younger girls had begun to see
their need of a Saviour, and many earnest prayers were offered. At the close of the
meeting, I said, "Are there not some here who would like to give their hearts to
Christ to-day? If so, will they not come to my room, and we will spend a little
further time in prayer?" At once little Meenatchie came to my side, and, slipping
her hand into mine, said, " Amma, I'll come." Others followed her example, and
more than thirty girls came to my room ; many prayed with tears for themsehes,
and for the conversion of their heathen parents and relatives. It moved me
strangely that those who had just begun to know a little of Christ's love themselves
were longing so intensely that their parents, brothers, and sisters should know it too.
\Ve continued to have a second meeting for inquirers after the first for some time,
and I think these meetings were blessed to the girls. Day by day.- as we taught
Meenatchie, it seemed to us that her heart was opening to the truth, just as a flower
opens to the sunlight.
8

98 Mcenatchie the Missionary.

After Meenatchie had been in the schoul a month, her father came from the islands
to see her. As she saw him coming in at the gate she ran from the playground to
meet him, and my sister, who was standing near, heard her say to him, " I am so
glad to see you, O father ; I want you to become a Christian." This new-found light
and joy was in her little heart, and she never thought of keeping it all to herself;
she wanted her father to possess it too. She had only known of Christ one month,
but already her heart had come in some measure into harmony with the great loving
heart of Him who said, " Other sheep I have which are vot of this fold, them also I
mint liririgi"

When Meenatchie had been two months in the school, the Sacrament of the Lord s
Supper was celebrated one Sabbath in the church, and some of the older girls of the
school were among the number received into the church-fold on profession of faith.
Meenatchie had never seen a Communion Service before. It was all new to her.
At its close she came to us and said, " Please tell me what they were doing in the
church to-day." We explained that we were commemorating Christ's death, because
He had asked those who loved Him to do so in remembrance of Him. She said
eagerly, " Arama, may I join with the others ne.\t time ? " She lovcd Christ, and when
she learned that He had told us lo do this, her little heart responded "yes " to His
call ; so she said, " May I join next time? " VVe told her she might join the candi-
dates' class first of all, which she did.

At the end of three months a brief vacation was given to the school, and before
dismissing the girls, my sister told them she hoped that during the vacation they
would all attend the Sabbath services in their various villages with their parents, and
tliat she hoped they would all try to be present at the great Annual Meeting of the
mission, which was to be held at Batticotta. In giving these injunctions she did
not think of them being carried out by Meenatchie, as her parents were Hindoos,
and attended neither the Sabbath services nor the Annual Meetings. But Meenatchie
never thought my sister meant her remarks for others, she was so busy taking them
all home to herself.

On going to her island home she took her Tamil gospel and hymn-book, and the
first evening, after the family had eaten their evening meal of rice and curry, and were
all seated on the veranda enjoying the quiet and bright moonlight and resting after
the labours of the day, Meenatchie said, " When I was in the school, I learned to
sing some sweet songs. May I sing them now ? " They readily assented, for the Tamil
people are all very fond of singing. Then the little girl sang from memory several of
the beautiful Christian hymns which she had learned. After this she said, " In the
school 1 read some good stories out of a book. May I read some of them to you

Led by a CI did. 99

now ? " They assented, as Tamil people are always very fond of stories, and often at
this, the resting-time of the day, amuse each other by telling stories and riddles.
Meenatchie lighted the little lamp, which is of the simplest construction — a small
earthen vessel with oil and a bit of twisted cloth for a wick, and read to them from
her little gospel the story of the birth of Christ. Then she said, "I learned to pray
to the true Lord in the school, may I pray now ? " There was a dead silence in the
family circle, as all were worshippers of idols. But the brave little girl knelt down
and prayed aloud a simple childlike prayer, asking the true God for Clirist's sake to
forgive her sins and help her to do right, and bless her dear grandmother and father
and mother and brothers and sisters, and help them all to know Him and love Him.
This she did night after night all through her vacation, reading, singing, praying aloud,
leading the family devotions by the light of a little flickering lamp — herself a little
lamp struggling to shine for Jesus in the gloom. .

When the Sabbath came she said to her father, " The Ammas told me that I
must go to the church on the Sabbath, father; please take me to tlie church." But
the father said, " No, daughter, I cannot take you to the church ; I worship PuUiar,
and Vedavan, and Kanther Swami, and Siva. If I went to the Christian church all the
neighbours would laugh at me and say I had become a Christian." But she said,
" Oh, pkasf, fattier, take me to the church, for I promised the Ainma that I would go
to the church ; " and she began to weep so bitterly that she was unable to eat her break-
fast. When her father saw this his heart was touched, for you must know that the fathers'
hearts in Ceylon are just about as soft as the fathers' hearts in England or America,
and they love their children just as well, and are as ready to make sacrifices for them.
So the father said, " Do not cry, my little daughter ; I will go with you this one
time." He went, and heard the singing, the reading, the prayers, the addresses by the
native Christian catechist, noted the quiet, reverent behaviour, and had no fault to
find ; so at the invitation of the catechist he came again the next Sabbath.

When my sister and I went on the day appointed to the Annual Meeting at
Batticotta, who did we see, to our astonishment, standing in the doorway of the church,
but the little Meenatchie with her father on one side of her and her mother on the
other, her face radiant with joy as she said to us, " Amma, I've brought them." And so
she had ; yielding to her daily entreaties, they had come across the water in a small boat,
and then a good many miles on foot, and the loving earnestness of a little child had
been the motive power. They enjoyed the Annual Meeting, and were much impressed
by the services, and by the large orderly assemblage of native Christians — a striking
contrast to the noisy crowd which surrounds the heathen temples on festival occasions.
When the new term commenced the father and mother both came, bringing Meenatchie

lOO

Mcenatcliic the Goddess.

back to the school, and they brought a sheep and a bottle of melted butter as a
present, saying that their daughter had improved very much while in the school and
had been a good girl in the vacation, and they wished to express their thanks to us.
We earnestly begged the father and mother to attend the Christian church on their
island, and they promised to do so.

Meenatchie was received into the Christian church before the end of the year. It
is not the custom to receive those who come from heatlien homes until they have been
in the school a longer time, but an exception was made in the case of Meenatchie, as
all her teachers and tlie native pastor and the church committee felt convinced that

she was truly a converted child, and
that in her daily life she was trying
to serve Christ.

I shall never forget the look of
joy on her face, or the shining in
her large, beautiful black eyes, as
she stood up to be received with
others into the visible church. Did
the " Father of lights " see the
shining too, and rejoice with His
child ? The joy of that day. and of
others like it, a hundred-fold more
than repaid us for any little sacrifices
we may have made in going to the
mission-field.

When Meenatchie was baptized
she took the English name, Clara
Kirnball, and dropped the name
Meenatchie, which is the name of a
heathen goddess, whose great temple
stands in Madura. Little Clara
still studies in the Boarding-school,
and we hope that when she gradu-
ates she may go back to her island
home, followed by your prayers, to
be a blessing to her own people.

A TOWER OF THE TEMPLE OF THE GODriESS MEENATCHIE.

THE COBRA.

Strong drhik a more deadly foe to India. " ,-7/ lasi it
biteth liJz^ a serpent and stingclh like an adder."

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Liquor 'Iraffic a Great Foe

OF Missions.

|E found the liquor traffic, autho-
rizL-d and licensed by the British
Government, a great foe to
Christian work in North Ceylon.
'I'lie voices of Rachels weeping for their
children and refusing to be comforted fell
on our ears and aroused our hearts. Broken-
hearted wives and mothers, whose husbands or sons had fallen through the drink
curse, asked us wliy such temptations were placed in their midst? 'uitre these aluiays to
continue ? must tliey suffer them ? The Government certainly does not dream of the
bitterness, of the sorrow and despair with whicli many of the natives look upon this
absolutely ruinous traffic, thrust upon them against their wishes for the sake of a
revenue. In India and Ceylon the liquor traffic is purely a Government monopoly.
The right to sell liquor in a district is sold at public auction to the highest bidder.
When some one has bought the right and promised to give the Government a large
sum of money for the same, he does not wish to be a loser by the transaction, so he
opens as many liquor shops as possible in the district. These are located in the
towns and villages near the tea and cinchona estates, in the mining districts, and on
the roadsides along which there is most travel, and by means of these multiplied
places of temptation "a nation of abstainers is fast becoming a nation of drunkards."

The religions of the Hindus, Mohammedans, and Buddhists forbid the use of
strong drink, and formerly the people of India and Ceylon were for the most part
total abstainers. Formerly spirits were high-priced and hard to get, and drunkenness
was uncommon because there was little temptation to drink. But in any country it
the facilities for obtaining strong drink are increised the consumption is increased;
if the facilities for obtaining strong drink are diminished the consumption is diminished.
In India and Ceylon the facilities for obtaining strong drink have been abnormally
increased. The British Government for the sake of a revenue has made strong
drink to be cheap and plentiful. In Ceylon nine times as much is spent for strong

102 England's Shame in India.

drink as is expended by the Government for education. In Bengal, where the
" outstill " system prevails, " llhuli " is sold for four annas and less per quart bottle.
In that province the excise revenue has in ten years increased twenty-nine lakhs of
rupees. In Assam the excise revenue has trebled in ten years. In the North-West
Provinces the excise revenue has more than doubled in ten years. In the whole of
India the excise revenue has increased in thirteen years seveiily-five per cent I

Archdeacon Farrar said in a recent address, "It is now a considerable time ago
that an .Archdeacon of Bombay, with whom I was acquainted, gave the shocking
testimony in public that for every Christian whom we (Great Britain) had made in
India we had made loo drunkaids." What do these figures mean? They mean that
tens of thousands and hundrtd of thousands of people in India, who formerly were
total abstainers, have fallen before the multiplied temptations placed before them. Is
this to be wondered at? If men and women in Great Britain and America, with
centuries of civilization behind them, with Christian influences all around them,
cannot withstand the temptation of the open public-house and liquor saloon, how
could It be hoped that the poor ignorant people of India could withstand such
temptations? Is it not a shame to place such temptations in the presence of heathen
peoples ? It is the glory of the strong to protect the weak. Should not the great
British nation protect rather than tempt its subject races? It is the province of
Government to make it easy to do right and hard to do wrong, but in, India in the
matter of this liquor traffic Government has done just the reverse.

It has been said by a great English stattsman in the House of Commons that
" the combined evils ot war and pestilence and famine are not so great as those evils
which flow from strong drink ;" and it has been estimated that eighty-four per cent,
of the crime is caused either directly or indirectly by strong drink. If' this be so, has
not poor India crime enough of its own, sorrow and ];Overty enough of its own, without
having this, the curse of Great Britain, imported into India and fostered there against
the wishes of the people, for the sake of a revenue? Another of England's great
statesmen has said, " Gentlemen, I refuse to consider a question of revenue alongside
of a (]uestion of morals," and he has said again, " Give me sober and industrious
people, and I will soon show you where to get a revenue."

The Government in India for the sake of a revenue creates a class of men whose
business it is to push the traffic in strong drink. Surely a revenue should be paid by
men who are able to pay it. We should not tempt men to give up their purity and
allow their homes to be destroyed for the sake of a revenue. Some one has said, " I
feel less shame for the savage who, with rude conscience and untaught life, turns
cannibal and picks the bones of human beings that he may live, than for those who

Intemperance spreading in Ceylon^

103

stand up and plead that this traffic may exist which shall take the money out of the
pockets of the poor^ and destroy hearts and homes, in order that their own taxation
may be lessened."

tionietimes it is said by Englishmen when speaking of India and Ceylon, " It is
true that the liquor shops are there, but the natives are not forced to drink. ' Yet we
cannot help leeling that a great wrong is being done, because those ignorant people
are being tempted. Is it riglit to tempt t The devil does not lorce people to do wrong,
he only tempts, yet the devil is tlie divii because iiis business is to tempt.

W'c were grieved to find tliat intemperance was s|i1-eailing among the people in
North Ceylon^, that many were using tountry-niade and imported liquors, that many
families were in great sorrow because a husband, or son, or brother, having gone to
some of the larg; towns m Ceylon or India and adopted the drinking cus'oms now
prevailing in those towns, had learned to drink. We frequently heard the most pitil'ul
tales from weeping wives and mothers in many villages around us. We began to hold
temperance meetings among our people. In so doing we felt a lack of temperance
literature in the native language ; we had a little book of thirty-seven temperance
hymns prepared in the Tamil language, and 5,000 copies of this book printed. We
wished to have temperance tracts to circulate among the people ; we therefore had
several of John B. Cough's temperance lecures translated, and circulated in Ceylon a
few thousand copies which had been printed in our mission press. But as Tamil is
spoken by 'sixteen millions of people in Southern India, and as we knew that drinking
habits were spreading there, and m all parts of India as well, we wished that tliese
temperance lectures might be circulated among these millions, so that they might not
drink blindly, but might know what ruin and degradation would follow. We therefore
made arrangements with each of
the five great Tract Societies of
India to have these lectures, in
whole or in part, translated and
published by them in six or seven
of the leading languages of India.
The Madras Tract Society has
also agreed to publish a temper-
ance catechism of 137 questions
and answers which we had had
prepared in the Tamil language.

We held many temperance
meetings in our district, and at

A WAYSIllF, INN.

104 Abolition Deinanded.

these meetings over 1400 pledges were taken. But although we have worked earnestly
for this cause, u'e feel as if while ive have been trying to rescue one drunkard tlie liquor
shops have btcn making ten. The petition of the World's Women's Christian Temperance
Union was sent to us for circulation. We had it translated into Tamil and Singalese
and circulated in those languages, and in English, circulating at the same time a some-
what similar petition to be signed by men. We sent these petitions to various mission-
aries in Ceylon, who gave them into the hands of their native pastors, catechists,
teachers, and Bible-women, and they were thus circulated by responsible parties.
The natives in general expressed great eagerness to sign the petitions. We were told
that many Hindus signed these petitions with a prayer. Raising their hands and eyes
to heaven, they would say, "Thervan ethu say-ert-thume," i.e. " May the Lord prosper
this." In traversing India in 1S86 we had this petition translated and circulated in
ten of the leading Indian languages through the medium of the five great Religious
Tract Societies of India. We secured from India and Ceylon over 33,000 signatures to
these petitions. These have been forwarded to the secretary of the World's Women's
Christian Temperance Union. We also secured the insertion of temperance articles
in many of the leading newspapers of India, and we had the opportunity of seeing
much of mission work, and of addressing various assemblies, mission schools, &c.,
during our visit. We have great pleasure in stating that throughout this tour, in
which we met over 200 missionaries and were entertained in many mission homes,
we never saw a drop of strong drink on any missionary's table ; and we found many
missionaries to be earnest temperance workers, having total abstinence societies in
their churches and schools. \\'e pray tliat the day may come soon when every foreign
missionary may be a pledged total abstainer. We believe these petitions voiced the
real desire of the people, viz. the entire abolition of the traffic. They wonder that
the British Government is willing to take a revenue from such a source ; they remind
us that their Hindu and Mohammedan rulers did not take a revenue from the sale of
intoxicating drinks, but instead forbade the sale, and they suggest that Indian seas
and Indian soil furnish better sources for obtaining a revenue than the liquor traffic ■
they would ask the Christians of Great Britain, who have sent them the Scriptures in
which they are taught to pray, "Lead us not into temptation," that ihh great
temptation may be removed from them. Can nothing be done to give the people a
voice in this matter which so closely affects their homes? If the natives of Ceylon
and India had local option in regard to this matter, they would, we believe, very
quickly shut up these liquor shops.

Surgeon-Major R. Pringle, M.D., of Her Majesty's Bengal Army, after thirty years
experience in India says, " I can speak for ten millions in the North-West Provinces

Goveritmcnt fostering Evil. 105

when I state thit, if local self-government were granted, not a grog shop would
remain in twelve months ; the Mohammedans would not soil their fingers with rupees
gathered by 'shame-water,' and the Hindu would gladly avail himself of the
opportunity of showing his contempt for and disgust with the co-rehgionist whose
thirst for silver was so great that he bought at a public auction the privilege to sell the
Government ' shame- water.' "

A native of India, Nauda Lai Ghosh, a Barrister-at-Law, says: " The temperance
question is not only a question of morality, but also an economical question. About
forty inilliotis of people in India do not have enough of food from year's end to year's
end, and when this poison of drink is spreading among them, what will be the
economical condition of India? We have statistics, and know well that the people
are in abject poverty, and yet there comes the demon of drink to intensify their
misery, introduced by a Christian Government. I do not wish to blame the
Government too much, but I hold it is the duty of all F-nglishmen, who hold the
destiny of two hundred and fifty millions of their fellow-subjects in their hands, to
stop the current of that poison, and to give to India true moral teaching instead. I
appeal to you to abolish the poison of drink, "We have municipal institutions en the
elective and nominative basis, and I think it is high time the Government took the
matter into serious consideration and allowed local option instead of selling licences to
the highest bidder."

Js tlie liquor traffic to be allowed to entrench itself in India ? Is a cnrse to come to
India through this traffic similar to that which has come to China through the opium
traffic forced upon her by the British Government 7 There are those who say that the
amount of strong drink consumed in India in proportion to the population is small
as yet. Perhaps it is, but it is a grou'ing evil, and this is surely cause for the gravest
concern. When the opium traffic was begun with Chma, the amount sent from India
was zoo cases, and though some protested against the traffic, the public conscience of
Great Biitain was lulled to sleep by being told " two hundred cases is a small amount.
The traffic is a little thing." But can we ever say of any evil " It is a little thing " ?
Now the amount sent annually from India to China is not merely 200 cases, but
85,000 cases, containing over 5,000 tons of opium I All this is exported from India,
and sent to debauch the Chinese. The British Government is responsible for this
traffic, since the opium in India is a monopoly of the Government, from
which it derives a revenue of over ^,^5, 000, 000 annually. It has been said by
the missionaries in China that if the people of England could see for one
hour the poverty and wretchedness, the ruin and death caused in China
by the use of opium, they would be horrified. What notion of the justice

io6 The Opium Barrier against Christ.

of Him who rules the world must he have who supposes that a nation can
commit such exceeding wickedness and yet escape retribution ? " Be not deceived':
God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man (or nation) soweth, that shall he
also reap." There is no power on earth can escape fiom this sentence. Returned
missionaries from China tell us that this traffic is " one huge ministry of vice,"
and is one of the greatest obstacles to the evangelization of China. When the
poor opium victim, to satisfy his fearful craving, has sold one artick after another, till
all his property is gone, he will, in many instances, sell his children into servitude and
his wife into a life of shame. Missionaries have told us how, powerless to interfere,
they have stood outside of Chinese homes in the dead of nighty and heard the screams
of women and girls who were being sold by a husband or father into a life worse than
death, because the opium-smoker must have money with which to buy the drug.
To-day, while we sit in our comfortable homes, there are tens of thousands of families
in China suffering unspeakable misery on account of Great Britain's dealing with that
nation in this matter. \Vhen one of the missionaries in China was preaching to a
company in the open-air, and speaking about hell, one in the crowd replied, " Yes,
we know about hell : since England sent us the opium China has become a hell."
On another occasion, when a missionary was urging some Chinese hearers to accept
Christ, one old woman said, 'MVas it not your country that sent us the opium?
Well, we don't want your opium, and we don't want your Christ." Oh ! what a blot
is thus put upon that Name which is above every name, because a so-called Christian'
nation engages in this accursed and soul-destroying traffic! The Rev. J. Hudson
Tajlor, Director of the China Inland Mission, at the great Missionary Conference
held in London in 1888, said, "When we look back to eighty years of missionary
labour in China, and compare it with the results of eighty years of commmercial
labour, I am afraid our brows must be covered with shame and our hearts filled
with sorrow. After eighty years of missionary labour we are thankful for thirty-two
thousand communicants. After eighty years of commercial labour there are one
hundred and fifty millions of the Chinese who are either personally smokers of the
opium or sufferers by the opium vice of husband or wife, father or mother, or some
relative. You may go through China, and you will find thousands — I can safely say
tens of thousands — ol towns and villages in which there are but small tiaces of the
Bible or of Christian influence. You will scarcely find a hamlet in which the opium-
pipe does not reign. Ah! we have given China something besides the Gospel;
something that is doing more harm in a week than the united efforts of all our
Christian Missionaries are doing good in a year. Oh, the evils of opium ! The slave
trade was bad ; the drink is bad ; the licensing of vice is bad ; but the opium traffic is

THE STACKING ROOM IN THE GOVERNMENT OflUM FACIORY AT FATNA.

the sum of all villanies. It debauches more families than drink, it makes more slaves
directly than the slave trade, and it demoralizes more lives than all the licensing
systems in the world. Will you not pray, my friends ? I entreat you to pray to the
mighty God that He will bring this great evil to an end. The common reason brought
forward in extenuation of the traffic is this : — ' England cannot afford to do right.'
Now, I would say, England cannot afford to do wrong. Nay, you must not do one
wrong thing to escape another. It is said you must not starve India in order to
deliver China. My dear friends, it is always right to do right, and the God in
heaven, who is the great Governor of the Universe, never created this world on such
lines that the only way to properly govern India was to curse China. There is no
curse in God's government. The Indian Government has taken this ground — that it
has the right to prevent the production of opium, exceiit at the Government factories.
Let it add to this, that it shall not be produced at the Government factories, and we
ask no more."

The late Earl of Shaftesbury well said, " Let every missionary, and every lay agent,
and every woman, and every child, refrain from being silent upon that question " (the

lo8 British Churches Responsible.

opium question). Henry Richards on one occasion used these words : — " I am not
ashamed to say that I am one of those who believe that there is a God who ruleth in
the kingdom of men, and that it is not safe for a community, any more than an
individual, recklessly and habitually to affront those great principles of truth, and
justice, and humanity, on which, I believe. He governs the world. And we may be
quite sure of this, that, in spite of our pride of place and power, in spite of our vast
possessions and enormous resources, in spite of our boasted forces by land and sea —
if we come into conflict with that Power we shall be crushed like an egg-shell against
a granite rock."

This opium traffic between India and China, for which the British Government is
responsible, is a great national sin, and, if unrepented of, will surely be followed by
national judgment, for the government of God is just, the government of God is retri-
butive, and if God calls Great Britain to an account, will He not call every man and
woman in Great Britain to an account ? For the nation is made up of individuals,
and will He not hold each one responsible — not only for what they are doing, but for
all they might do ? What makes it possible for these great evils — the liquor traffic in
India and the opium traffic with China — to exist under British rule? Public senti-
mertt in Great Britain makes it possible. The British Government is a government by the
people ; therefore these great evils exist because the people of Great Britain are willing
that they should exist, and the work to be done by those who love India, and China,
and Great Britain herself, is to arouse a Christian public sentiment in Britain which
shall demand the overthroiv of these evils. Have not the Chi-istian Churches of Britain
the power, if they were thoroughly awake and in earnest, to create a public sentiment
which would demand of Parliament, in the name of God and of humanity, that these
two great iniquities should be prohibited? They have the power, and if these evils go
on in the future it will not be because the Churches of Great Britain could not stop
them, but because these churches were asleep, and would not stop them, and God will
hold the Churches responsible for the continuation of these evils.

Some one asked the venerable Dr. Beecher, " How long must the liquor traffic
continue ? " His reply was, ''Just as long as the Christian Churches are willing that
it should, and not a day longer." "The measure of our ability is the measure of our
responsibility." Not to protest against this evil — not to act — is to acquiesce, and
that is complicity with the evil. " To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not,
to him it is sum." We are accustomed to thi^nk that at the last day we shall be judged
on account of what we have done. Perhaps we shall rather be judged for what we
have failed to do. Christ has told us He will say to some at that day, " 1 was an
hungred, and ye gave Me no meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink ; I was a

Demoralization of Native Races. 109

stranger, and ye took Me not in ; naked, and ye clothed Me not ,• sick, and in prison, and
ye 'oiiited Ale not. Jnasniiieti as ye did it Nor to one of tlie leas'I' ok these, ye did it
NOT JO Me."

Look at the magnitude ot the evil of the Hquor traffic. See, for example, what is
going on in xVtrica. It has been said that for one missionary sent to Africa to
evangelize its heathen tribes there are sent 70,000 barrels of rum for purijoscs of
barter. It was stated in the Chin-cli Missionary Inttlligcncer that on 250 miles of
coast-line in the tropical region of Africa — on the west coast — no less than twenty
ships a year arrive there, with, on an average, a thousand tons of intoxicating drink
on each of them. Think of it — tiventy tlwiisand tons of intoxicating drink every year
poured in on that li]nited tract of country ! One of the missionaries connected with
the Church Missionary Society says, " If this thing is continued, it is only a question
of a few years for me and my people." Sir Richard Burton, the great African traveller,
writeSj " It is my sincere belief that if tlie slave trade lucre revived, Toitli all its horrors,
and Ajriea could get i id of the white man, with the gunpowder and ruin which he has
introduced, Africa would be a gainer in happiness by the exchange P Sir Charles Warren,
late Commissioner to South Africa, has said, ''The blood of thousands of natives is at
the present time crying to heaven against the British tace, and yet, Irom motives of
expedienc}', we refuse to take any action."

From a memorial sent out by the \Vorld's Women's Christian Temperance Union
the following statement is made: — " It is a fully authenticated fact that, through the
operation of a few merchants and trading companies in America, Germany, Holland,
England, France, and Portugal, a iiood of deadly, intoxicating liquor is being poured
into the Congo Free State and the Basin of the Niger. During the year 1S85 (the
last year for which we have full statistics) more than ten ///////('//.^"-(///^v/j of the cheapest
and vilest spirits ever manufactured were sent from these six Christian countries to the
ignorant savages of Africa." Mrs. Mary C. Hind, speaking on the subject of this
memorial before the gi eat Missionary Conference held in London in iSSS, said: —
"We have been trying to keep the Atlantic back with a broom too many years. We
want to get at the great basal XxM^h, prohibition, so that the liquor does not goto these
parts. This memorial is sent out by the W.C.T.U. of the World. They have nothing
to do with any other parish than the world. Beloved, it is too late m the day for us
to do anything else than sound the note of prohibition. And as to the matter of
revenue, God forbid I should mention it. It is a burning shame to our Cluisdan
nations to talk about a revenue that comes from the blood, and tears, and cries, and
groans, and moans, and the damnation of thousands of precious soulsP

Is It nothing to us that whole nations are being demoralized by this iniquitous

1 lo A Revenue of Blood Money.

traffic % It some one were to tempt and ruin your sons and daughters, you would feel
it, but these are the sons and Jaughters of the Living God. He made them. He cares
for them. He gave His Son lor their redemption. Will He not call professing
Ciiristians to account for their negligence and indifference towards this evil, which
is causing the ruin of millions for whom Christ died ? Paul says : — " To the weak
became I as weak, that I niigJit gain the iceak. I am made all things to all men,
that I might by all means save some." And he admonishes us : — " IVe, then, that
a?-e strong ought to hear the infirmities of the loeak, and not to please ourselves. For
even Christ pleased not Himself I' Remembering the ^«a/ sacrifice which He made for
us, would that those everywhere who profess His name might make the little sacrifice
of banishing strong drink as a beverage from their tables and homes, and give the
influence of their example, as well as their prayers and most earnest ejforts, to the
overthrowing of the great evil which is ruining so many millions of mankind. When
Christ our Lord and Master was on this earth, He gave us the great command : —
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God unth all thine heart, and thy neighbour as thyself."
Love will not sit idly down in despair. Be the task never so gigantic, " love will find
out a way."

Clarkson, m contemplating the horrors of the slave trade, said to himself that " if
these things were true, it was time that somebody should see these calamities to an
end," and forthwith he went to work, with heart and soul and mind on fire, with an
energy that never tired, and faith that never faltered, till God crowned his Herculean
efforts with success. He had to work in the face of fierce opposition. Cool-headed
and cool-hearted men pronounced against the enterprise. Boswell, in his " Life of
Johnson," said that "to abolish the slave trade would be to shut the gates of mercy
on mankind." We are told by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her " Sunny
Memories/' that, " As usual, the cause of oppression was defended by the most
impudent lying. The slave trade was asserted to be the latest revised edition of
philanthropy."

It was said that the poor African — the slave of miserable oppression in his own
country — was wafted by it to an asylum in a Christian land ; that the middle passage
was to the poor negro a perfect elysium, infinitely happier than anything he had ever
known in his own country. All this was said while manacles, and handcuffs, and
thumbscrews, and instruments to force open the mouth, were a regular part of the
stock for a slave-ship, and were hanging in the shop windows of Liverpool for sale.
It was perfectly well known that in very many cases slave traders made direct
incursions into the country, kidnapped and carried off the inhabitants of whole
villages, but the question was, how to prove it. A gentleman whom Clarkson

'\]'aiited — a Llarkson. ill

accidentally met on one of his journeys informed him that he had been in company

about a \'ear before with a sailor — a very respectable-looking young man — who had

actually been engaged in one of these expeditions. He had spent half an hour with

him at an inn. He described his person, but knew nothing of his name or place of

abode. All that he knew was that he belonged to a ship of war in ordinary, but

knew nothing of the post. Clarkson determined that this man should be produced as

a witness, and knew no better way than to go personally to all the ships in ordinary

until the individual was found. He actually visited every seaport town, and boarded

every ship, till, in the very last port and in the very last ship which remained, the

individual was found, and found to be jiossessed of just the facts and information

which were necessary. For seven years Clarkson maintained a correspondence with

400 persons with his own hand. He annuall)' wrote a book on behalf of the cause.

In that time he had travelled more than 35,000 miles in search of evidence. By the

labours of Clarkson and his companions an incredible excitement was produced

throughout all England. Pictures and models of slave-ships, accounts of the

cruelties practised in the trade, were c\xc\AaXt^',vitli an iiiJiistry which left not a mati,or

U'oinaii, or child in England nninstnicted. After the committee had published the facts

and sent them to every town in England, Clarkson followed them up by journeying

to all the i)laces to see that they were read and attended to. Of the state of feeling

at this time Clarkson writes :— " First, I may obser\e that there was no town through

which I passed in which there was not some one individual who had left off the use

of sugar. In the smaller towns there were from ten to fifty by estimation, and in the

larger from 200 to 500 \i'ho made this sacrifice to virtue. These were of all ranks

and parties. Rich and poor. Churchmen and Dissenters, had adopted the measure.

Even grocers had left off trading in the article in some places. In gentlemen's

families where the master had set the example the servants had often voluntarily

followed it, and even children who were capable of understanding the history of the

sufferings of the Africans excluded, with the most virtuous resolution, the sweets to

which they had been accustomed from their lips. By the best computation I was

able to make from notes taken down in my journey, no fewer than 300,000 persons

had abandoned the use of sugar." It was the reality, depth, and earnestness of the public

feelim;- thus ronsed which pressed ivith resistless force upon the Government, for the Ciovern-

ment of England yields to popular demands quite as readily as that of America.

After years of protracted struggle^, the victory was at last won. The slave trade was

finally abolished throughout the British Empire. At this time the religious mind and

conscience of ?:ngland gained through this very struggle a power which it has never

lost. The principle ado|)ted by them was the .same so sublimely adopted by the

112 The Victory Sure.

Church in America with reference to the foreign missionary cause : " The field is the
world ! " Shall not those who love the Lord Jesus Clirist and care for the welfare ol
their fellow-men, encouraged by the example of such heroic toilers as Clarkson, zcw/t
loith like self-denying earnestness, unwavering faith, and ivhole- hearted devotion toward
the emancipation of their brothers and sisters, all the world around, Irom a more
tearful slavery, the slavery of strong drinlc and opium, by the entire abolition of these
traffics ? We believe in the possible and final overthrow of these traffics, just because
we believe in God. We have the glorious promise that one day " the earth shall be
full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Let us work m hope,
because, " if God be for us, who can be against us ? " Though few in numbers, we
are not in the minority ; we are in the majority, for " one with God is a majority."

" Iliitory's pages but record

One death-grapple in the darl^ness,
'Twixt old systems and the Word.
Truth for ever on the scaffold —
Wrong for ever on the throne.
Vet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God withhi the shadow.
Keeping watch above His own."

If He is but watching over us and caring for the cause so dear to us, then we cah
labour on in boundless hope, knowing that the truth and the right are sure to prevail.
" He shall not fail nor be discouraged till He have set judgment in the earth."
Christ taught His disciples to pray, " Thy kingdom come ; Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven." All down the ages men and women have been praying that
prayer. Would Christ have taught us to pray that prayer if He had never intended
to answer it ? Surely He is the hearer and ansiverer of prayer. Surely He means to
answer that prayer, and the time will come when men on earth will do His will
according to their measure, as the angels do it in heaven. One day the glorious vision
foreseen by the beloved disciple shall be realized. " The kingdoms of this world arc
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and
ever." (Rev. xi. 15.) Those who in Christ's name and tor His sake are working for
the ennobling and the purifying of humanity are " labourers together with God," and
the victory they fight for is sure.

" There is no liopeless sorrow ; .

Wrong ever builds a tottering throne.
And Christ shall reign to-morrow."

y^A^i^Jv^v^-^^^jg^^

THE MISSES LEITCH AND A GROUP OF NATIVE CHKiSUANS.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Farewell Address from the Native Christians.

I EAR MISSIONARY FRIENDS,— We are ass-embled here to trespass a
little on your valuable time on the eve of your departure home, and desire
to be allowed to give expression to the sentiments of respect and esteem we
entertain for you.

Your connection for the past seven years with the American Ceylon Mission, and
consequently with the Christians and other residents of Manepy and Panditerippu whom
9

1 1 4 Farezvell.

we represent, we are happy to say, has been altogether pleasant and successful in a
missionary point of view.

You have always evinced a deep interest both in our spiritual and temporal welfare,
and the occasions in which your guidance and advice and prompt help have benefited
us have been many. The progress our young men and women especially have made
through your efforts in several departments of social Christian life is prized by us
highly. The catholic spirit with which you went through your work, and the tolera-
tion of views that we noticed in you in all your dealings with us, have been two pro-
minent points of admiration to us. Your presence in the schools where our youths
are taught, in our church meetings, improvement societies, youths' associations, &c.,
have inspired always a new life into them. It may not be amiss to mention that
you have made the Christmas-tree a regular institution with the Sunday-school
children. Christian and heathen, for whose efficient training in Bible linowledge we are
much indebted to you.

Your efforts to spread a taste for Christian music, both vocal and instrumental, in
our district, and your work in connection with the temperance movement, and the
Endowment Fund of the Oodooville Girls' Boarding-school, will by themselves repay
all the sacrifice you made in leaving your home on a missionary enterprise. But it is
unnecessary here to mention the numerous ways through which your missionary spirit
and social kindness have shone in our midst, and above all the meekness and
patience with which you hive reflected the life and doings of the Great Master. All
these, dear friends, we assure you will ever be remembered by us with heart-felt
gratitude and thankfulness.

Although your short absence from our midst will be felt by us, we hope your trip
home (" Home, Sweet Home ") will eventually prove beneficial to Christian work here,
ivhen, in the providence of God, you may return with redoubled energy and health.

We would take this opportunity to tender our compliments to your dear brother,
Mr. G. W. Leitch, who had, we are sorry to say, to cut short his work amongst us. At
the same time we would send through you our hearty thanks to tlie Christian churches
m America, which have contributed their mites towards Christianizing this land, and
ask of them still to continue in their wrestlings for us before the throne of Grace, as
the work already accomplished in Jaffna will not bear comparison with the mountains,
of Satan's raising, that are yet to be removed.

We also beg you to accept the accompanying presents of two Tamil Bibles, as tokens
of remembrance from us. We will not take up more of your time how, but wish you
a safe voyage forth and back, and a hearty good-bye.

115

FAREWELL LYRIC No. I.
{Translation Jrom the Tamil.)

1. O gentle ladies, wlio have come from a distant

land ;
Who have left relatives and friends lor our

sake;
Who have come over in ships and boats ;
Who have shown us the path to the distant

world ;
How shall we bear it if you leave us ? How

shall we bear it ?

2. O pious and chaste ladies ; O pure treasures ;
Who have opened schools in different places ;
Who have taught sinners the way of redemp-
tion ;

How shall we bear it if you leave us? Mow
shall we bear it ?

We have prospered by the good done by you?
It is difficult to reward you ;
We bless you, O dear jewels ;
We have been brought to life ;
We will not forget you ;
We have come to thank you heartily ;
How shall we bear it when you leave us ?
How shall we bear it?

FAREWELL LYRIC No. 2.
( TranslatioJi from the Taviil. )

1. O ladies, good mothers.

Good-bye to you.
We prostrate ourselves at your golden (eet.
Good-bye to you.

2. Your love did bind us like a cord.
We cannot bear separation,

The moment for which has come.
Good-bye to you.

You dealt with us like parents ;
You forgave us our faults ;
You fed us with knowledge ;
We bid you good-bye lovingly ;
(iood-bye to you.

4. Our spirit trembles, we faint :
We have lost our comlort ;
Yet it seems necessary that you should go.
We bid you good-bye lovingly ;
Good-bye to you.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Eliza Agnew, or one Woman's Work in
THE Foreign Field.

|NE day the teacher in a day-school in
New York City, while giving a lesson in
THE traveller's palnl gcography, pointed out to her pupils the heathen

and the Christian lands, and she must have
spoken some very earnest words to them, for then and there a little girl, eight years of
age, named Eliza Agnew, resolved that, if it were God's will, she would be a missionary
when she grew up, and help to tell the heathen about Jesus. She never forgot this
resolve. Until she was thirty years of age she was detained at home, because there
.were near relations who needed her care. But when she had reached that age, and
her dear ones had been called away from earth to heaven, she was free to leave her
home, and she went as a missionary to Ceylon.

Some years before this, when the first missionaries reached North Ceylon, they
could not find, among the more than 300,000 people there, a single native woman or
girl who could read. There were a few men and boys who could read, but the people
did not think it worth while to teach the girls. They said, " What are girls good for,
excepting to cook food?" &:c. " Besides," they said, "girls could not learn to read
any more than sheep." The missionaries said to them, " You are mistaken. Girls
can learn to read as well as boys." So they opened mission day-schools not only for
boys, but for girls also.

Beginning of the Boarding school.

117

Though the parents willingly allowed their sons to attend these schools, they were
very unwilling to let their daughters remain long enough to receive an education, as it
was common for parents to give their daughters in marriage when they were only
ten or twelve years of age. Seeing this, one of the missionary ladies wished to
commence a boarding-school for girls. She wished to have the native girls separated
from the influences of their heathen homes, and brought under daily Christian
influence. But none of the people would send their daughters to her.

One day there were two little girls playing in the flower-garden in front of the
missionary's house at Oodooville. Ceylon is in the tropics, only nine degrees north
of the equator. In North Ceylon there are two seasons, the " ivet " and the " dry."
The dry season lasts nine months, and during that time there is scarcely any rain ;
but in the wet season, November, December, and January, it rains nearly every day,
and sometimes the rain falls in torrents — between nine and ten inches have been
known to fall in twenty-four hours. While these two little girls were playing, there

TAMIL GIRLS IN A HOARDING-SCHOOL.

1 1 8 Forty-three Years ivtthout a Holiday.

came on a heavy shower of rain, and as they had not time to go home, they ran for
shelter into the missionary's house. It continued to rain all that afternoon and
evening, and the little girls became very hungry and began to cry. The missionary
lady gave them bread and bananas The younger girl ate, but the older girl refused to
eat. After a time, when the rain ceased a little, the parents went to look for their
daughters. They had supposed they would be in some neighbour's house, but found
them in that of the missionary. When they heard that the younger one had eaten,
they were very angry, for they said, "She has lost caste." They found fault with the
missionary lady, and the mother said, " You have given my child food, and it has
broken caste and is polluted, and now we shall not be able to arrange a marriage for
it. What shall we do? You may take the child and bring it up."

The missionary lady had been wishing for native girls to come to her, whom she
might educate in a boarding school, and here was a mother actuallv saying she might
take her daughter, so the missionary lady thought that perhaps this was the Lord's
way of enabling her to start the boarding-school. She took the little girl, fed and
clothed her, and began teaching her the 247 letters of the Tamil alphabet. She
sprinkled a little sand on the floor of the veranda, and taught the child to write the
letters in the sand. By-and-by, some of the playmates of this little girl came to see
her, and when they saw her writing the letters in the sand, they thought that this was
some kind of new play, and they also wanted to learn. The Tamil children have
good memories, and in a very short time they committed to memory the 247 letters
of the alphabet, and were able to read. Their parents seeing this, and that the little
girl was well cared for and happy, soon began to entrust more of their daughters to
the care of the missionary lady. This was the beginning of the Oodooville Girls'
Boarding-school, which was, perhaps, the first boarding-school for girls in a heathen
land, having been commenced in 1824.

After Miss Agnew went to Ceylon, she became the head of this boarding-school.
She remained in Ceylon for forty-three years without once going home for a rest or a
change, ^^'hen friends would ask her, " Are you not going to America for a vacation ? "
she would always reply, " No ; I have no time to do so. I am too busy." Through
all those forty-three unbroken years, during which God granted to her remarkable
health, she was too busy even to think of going home.

In the Oodooville Girls' Boarding-school she taught the children, and even some of
the grandchildren, of her first pupils. More than 1000 girls have studied under her.
She was much loved by the girls, who each regarded her as a mother, and she was
poetically called by the people, " The mother of a thousand daughters." During the
years she taught in the school more than 600 girls went out from it as Christians. We

believe that no girl
having taken its whole
course has ever gradu-
ated as a heathen. Most
of these girls came from
heathen homes and
heathen villages, but in
this school they learned
of Christ and of His
great love, and surren-
dered their young hearts
to Him.

Miss Agnew lived
with us in our home the
last two years of her life,
when she had grown
feeble and was no longer
able to retain the charge
of the boarding-school.
We felt her presence in our home to be a daily blessing.

Near the close of her brief illness, and when we knew that she had not many hours
to live, one of the missionaries present asked her if he should offer prayer. Slie
eagerly assented. He asked, " Is there anything for which you would like me specially
to pray ? " She replied, "Pray for the ivomen of Jaffna, that they may come to Christ T
She had no thought about herself All through her missionary life she had thought
very little about herself Her thought was for tlie women of Jaffna, that they
might kno'iv Christ; that they might know that in Him they had an Almiglity
Saviour, a great burden-bearer, a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, one who had
borne their griefs and carried their sorrows and could give their troubled, hungry,

THREE GENERATIONS.

1 20 The Passing of Miss Agnew.

sorrowing hearts His own peace. At the very time when she was asking prayers for the
women ot" Jaffna, every room in our house was filled with native Christian women
who, when girls, had been her pupils, and they were praying for her — that if it were the
Lord's will to take her then to Himself, He would save her from suffering and pain.
God heard their prayer, and she passed away like one going into a sweet sleep. The
attendance at the funeral service was very large. Many native pastors, catechists,
teachers, lawyers. Government officials and others, the leading men of Jaffna Peninsula,
who had married girls trained in the Oodooville Girls' Boarding-school, came to the
funeral service, bringing their wives and children. As we looked over that large
audience and saw everywhere faces full of love and eyes full of tears, and knew that to
hundreds of homes she had brought the light and hope and joy of the Gospel, we
could not help thinking liow pixcious a life coinecrated to Cltrist may be.

In hundreds of villages in Ceylon and India there is just such a work waiting
to be done by Christian young women as that which, with God's blessing. Miss
Agnew accomplished in the Jaffna Peninsula. Heathen lands are open to-day as
they have never been open before. The women of heathen lands need the Gospel.
The stronghold of heathenism is in the homes. Many of the men in India have to
some extent lost faith in their old superstitious creeds, but the women, who are secluded
in the homes, cling to the heathen worship. What else can they do ? They must
cling to something, and the majority of them have not heard of Christ. They are teach-
ing the children to perform the heathen ceremonies, to sing the songs in praise of the
heathen gods, and thus they are moulding the habits of thought of the coming
generation. Some one has truly said, " If we are to win India for Christ, we must lay
our hands on the hands that rock the cradles, and teach Christian songs to the lips
that sing the lullabies, and if we can win the motliers of India to Christ, her fiitu?-e sons
will soon be brought to fall at the feet of their Redeemer."

There are in India 120 millions of women and girls. How many lady missionaries
are there working among these ? In the report of the last Decennial Conference, the
number is given as 4S0, counting those of all Protestant missionary societies. Might
not more be sent to that great work? We are told that there are a million more
women than men in Great Britain. Could not many of these be spared from their
homes, and could not some posses-ed of private means go on a selfsupporting
mission to this great field?

Think of" the 2 i millions of widows in India. What a terrible lot is theirs ! They
are regarded as under a curse. They are doomed to innumerable hardships. It is
deemed meritorious to heap abuse upon them. It is thought the gods are angry with
them, and that the death of their husbands is a punishment on them for some sin

Work for Women.

121

committed either in this or in some previous life.
Their lot is so hard to bear that again and again
they have said to the missionaries, " Why did the
Enghsh Government take from us the right to be
burnt on the funeral pyre with our dead husbands?
for that were better tlian what we have to endure."
But Christian women could give to these widows
of India the Gospel with its message of hope, and
before the brightness of its shining the darkness of
their despair would flee away. The knowledge of
the love of Christ would help them to bear their
otherwise intolerable burdens. Let us remember
that Christ has told us that whatsoever service we
render to the least of His little ones, He will
regard it as done to Him, and that whatever we
leave undone of that which was in our power to
do, He will regani the neglect and slight as shown
to Him. Are there not many in darkness to-day
who might have had the Gospel had Christians done
what they could for them ?

Failure to realize responsibility does not diminish
it. Zenanas which forty years ago were locked
and barred are to-day open. Especially is this

the case in towns where there are Christian colleges. Wherever the Hindu men have
been educated in these mission colleges, they are now willing and even desirous that
their wives, daughters, and sisters should be taught. We have been told by Hindu
gentlemen, that there are many educated men in India to-day who are convinced of
the truth of Christianity, and would confess Christ, were it not that a wife or mother,
who has never been instructed about Christ, would bitterly oppose their doing so.

Shall not Christian women, who owe so much to Christ, be foremost in doing the
work allotted to them ? What a consummate blander to live selfishly in this generation !
Are we giving the best we have to Christ and to His cause? Christ says, "Whosoever
he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hatli, he cannot be i\Iy disciple," Did
Christ only mean that for those who lived hundreds of years ago, or does He mean
those words for us to-day ? In the presence of a thousand million heathens and
Mohammedans needing the Gospel, with multitudes in heathen lands losing faith in
their old beliefs and asking for the new, does He not mean those words to-day ?

MOTHER AND BABES.

T22 Grander than tlie HallehijaJi Chorus.

Does He not ask that our time, our money, our influence, our friendships, and our
entire possessions should be laid at His feet, consecrated to His service, placed
absolutely at His disposal ? Opportunities such as we have to-day, if neglected, may
not come again.

It is said that when the decisive hour m the battle of Waterloo came, the English
troops were lying in the trenches, waiting for the onslaught of the enemy. They had
been ordered not to fire until the French were close upon them, and while they lay
there in silence, Wellington rode up and down the lines saying over and over again,
" What will England say to you if you falter now ? " One old officer declared that
he said it a thousand times, but it is no matter how many times he said it, it was
burned into those waiting troops till tbey felt as if they were lying under the very walls
of Parliament, and when the command was given, " Now up, and at them," every man
felt that the honour of England was in his hands, and he was invincible.

Do we not hear the voice of a greater Leader saying, " Be thou faithful unto death,
and I will give thee a crown of life"? What will the result be if we falter now, if
Christians are worldly now, if they are Christians only in name but not in deed, if they
only say " Lord, Lord," but do not the things which Christ says ? What will Christ
think of us if we are not brave and true now?

Let us, at Christ's command, be ready to go forward, for the battle is not ours, but
Christ's. Surely we will do well to place ourselves on His side, for we know that in the
end His cause shall prevail. We know that all darkness and every evil thing shall be
swept away, and that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our
Lord and of His Christ. Lord Northbrook recently, at the meeting of the Church
Missionary Society, referred to his feelings at hearing Handel's " Hallelujah Chorus "
sung. He said it was not so much the music as the words and thoughts that thrilled
him. The greatest of all musical creations was inspired by the faith that from sea to
sea, and to the ends of the earth. His dominion shall extend, and that from every
part of this earth shall yet arise the choral shout, " Hallelujah, for the Lord God
Omnipotent reigneth." That is the grander chorus, of which Handel's Hallelujah is
but the faint and distant anticipation. It will combine the voices of all loyal, loving
saints of all ages, nor is there in all the world, in the obscurest hovel of poverty, one
humble soul that prays " Thy Kingdom come," that lays consecrated offerings on the
altar of missions, who shall not join that final anthem as one who has helped forward
the great consummation,

CHAPTER XXIX.

TOPSV AND THE FaKIR WoMAN.

|OPSY was the name given playfully by a
missionary lady in Midnapore, India, to
a little girl in her orphanage (whose real
name was Sudean), because, like the
Topsv in " Uncle Tom's Cabin," she seemed as fuL
of mischief as an egg is full of meat. Her ingenious
pranks and practical jokes, perpetrated with a face of
intense gravity, eaused her school-mates and teachers
much annoyance, and drove the missionary lady
almost to her wits'

end, because she
feared that her
example might
prove contagious
among the others.
Yet the lady could
not dismiss her,
for the chilli, like
most others in the
school, was a
famine orphan,
without father or
mother or a home
of her own^ saved
from starvation by
the kindness of
the missionaries.

124

A Learned Fakir Woman.

One Sabbath, when the missionary was preaching about Christ's death on the cross
for us, he noticed Topsy, usually so restless, sitting strangely quiet, and two great
tears gathering in her large lustrous eyes, which were fixed upon him. That night
Topsy gave her heart to the Saviour who had so loved her as to lay down His life for
her. The Good Shepherd had sought and found another of His restless straying
lambs. The missionary and his wife rejoiced that night that their labours had not been
in vain. From being their greatest cause of anxiety, Topsy became little by little a real
comfort and blessing to ihe orphanage. All her restless energy seeined now turned
into channels of service. She asked and obtained permission to go out every day
after school hours with an aged Bible-woman^ to help her to teach the Bible lessons
and Christian hymns to the Zenana women whom she visited.

One day as they were going through the streets, the little girl walking a step or two
behind the Bible-woman, as is often the custom in India, Topsy espied a very strange-
looking object seated by the roadside on a tiger skin. It was a fakir woman. She
was dressed in a very odd yellow dress, her hair all matted as if it had never been
combed, her face and arras rubbed with sacred ashes, her neck loaded with numerous
necklaces of a kind of sacred nut which fakirs wear, and those who passed by stopped
to worship her as a goddess, giving her money, and rubbing the dust from her feet
and placing it as something sacred upon their foreheads. Topsy sat down beside her
and asked her if she had ever heard about Christ. The fakir woman said she had
not, so Topsy began to tell her the story, but before she had finished, the Bible-woman,
who had gone on for some distance without missing Topsy, came back to look for
her in some alarm, and when she found her, blamed her for stopping behind. Topsy
in great distress said to the fakir woman, " 1 can't stop to tell you the rest now, but
if you will come to the house where the missionary lives, this evening, he will be at
home then, and he will tell you all about it much better than I can. Be sure to come.
I will tell him to expect you." When the Bible-woman and Topsy returned from thi;ir
daily rounds, Topsy told the missionary about the strange woman who was coming to
see him ; and though he hardly expected her, sure enough she came, drawn by the
magic earnestness of the little girl. Was it not God's answer to the child who prayed
and now watched for her appearance ?

The missionary received her kindly, and when she was seated told her about Christ
and what He had done for us. The fakir woman had never heard this before. He
discovered that she was a Brahminee named Chandra Lilavati, and possessed a
remarkable education, being able to read in four different languages, viz. Nepalese, Origa,
Bengalee, and Hindi, and familiar with many of the sacred books of the Hindus.
Her husband, who had been a noted man, a learned Brahmin Pundit, had instructed her

Seeking to Undo. 125

and since his death she had wandered during many years all over India on pilgrimages,
visiting numerous shrines and temples, and everywhere, on account of her learning and
piety^ she was worshipped as a goddess. The missionary gave her a gospel in the
language most familiar to her, and she went away, only to return again and again, to
learn more and more, until she was led to believe in Jesus as the Son of God and to
accept Him as her Saviour. On the day when she publicly professed her faith and
was baptized, throngs. of people came to witness the ceremony, and to see her whom
they had formerly worshipped as a goddess renounce all her worldly honours and
privileges, and give up her lucrative profession to become a humble follower of Jesus.

After this she begged to be allowed to come daily while the missionary was instruct-
ing his class of young Theological Students, and to listen to his words. This was
granted to her, and day by day she was found sitting at the missionary's feet with lier
large-print Bible open on her laj), studying the sacred pages as he tried to expound
the precious truths contained in them. It was an inspiration to the missionary to
look at her eager, upturned face. Among all his students there was not one who
followed him more closely, or who searched the Scriptures more earnestly than she, to
see whether these things were so.

When the students were ready to enter upon their work, he said to the woman, " If
you would like to become a Bible-woman, I would provide you with a house and give
you a salary sufficient to meet your living expenses ; " but she answered, " No, no, I must
go back, and /// ez'ery city iclicre I have told tlie lorong story, I must tell the rigJit one."
And she who had so long been an object of worship and received every honour and
attention, lifted up and placed on her head the heavy basket of Bibles and tracts
and religious books with which she had begged the missionary to supply her, and
started on foot, though an old woman with white hair, to revisit the cities she had
previously visited, and put right what in ignorance she had put wrong.

The missionary heard of her from time to time in Calcutta, Burdwan, Monghir,
Lucknow, Cawnpore, Delhi, and other cities in India, the missionaries in these
places writing that she had visited them and greatly revived and stimulated their native
Christian people by her presence and words, causing great astonishment among
the Hindus who had formerly known and worshipped her as a very holy and learned
fakir. From time to time she returned to the missionary at Midnapore, bringing
back at the end of each journey every penny of the value of the books which she
had carried away, and, asking for and obtaining a new supply, she again and again set
off on her journeyings, rejoicing in God who had called her to this His work, and
who sustained her in it by the conscious presence of His Spirit in her heart.

CHAPTER XXX.

Dasammah, the Little Heroine.

I SHOULD like to tell about a girl who studied in a mission school in India. I
will call her Dasammah, though that was not her real name. When she came
to the mission school she was about twelve years of age. She was married, but her
husband allowed her to attend school. She was a very modest girl, and used to
take her seat back in a corner, and draw her cloth closely over her face, so that she
should not be much noticed. When questions were asked of her she seemed to he
very timid about answering, but the missionary lady noticed that when she was teaching
the Bible lesson, this girl seemed always to lean forward and to be drinking in every
word. One day when Dasammah went home she told her husband that she did not
believe that the idols which they worshipped were true gods, but that she believed
that Jesus Christ was the true Saviour. When her husband heard this he was much
alarmed, for he feared she would become a Christian. So the next morning he said
to her, " Get your things ready quickly ; I'm going to take you to live at my mother's
house ; be ready to leave in an hour."

If you who read these lines were to be told that you were to leave your home and
go to a distant village to live, and that you were to be ready to start in an hour, what
are the things you would select to take with you ? This girl thought of her Bible.
But she must not be seen in the street at that time in the morning. So she called a
little neighbour girl of lower caste, and said to her, " Run quickly to the missionary's
house and get that book we study in the school — the Bible." And the little girl ran to
the missionary's house and got a Bible and brought it to Dasammah, and she hid it m
her cloth, and that was the on'y thing she took with her when she went to a distant
village to live with her husband's mother. She was the only Christian in that village ;
there was not a missionary there, or a native pastor, or a native Christian. But day
by day she studied her Bible, and day by day the Christ of whom it told became more
real and more precious to her.

"■ I am a Christian" 127

After a time her husband died suddenly, and then, as is the custom in India, her
relatives treated her very cruelly, and charged her with the death of her husband,
saying she had used charms or something which had caused his death. The girl said
that she had done nothing to cause the death of her husband, but that it was the
will of God that he should die at that time. Then they said, " It is because you have
given up worshipping our gods, and are worshipping the Christian God. Now you
must come back and worship our gods, and promise that you will not become a
Christian." The girl said, " Oh, how can I promise that ? I do believe in Christ. I
am a Christian." They spoke with her many times on the subject^, but she could only
give them the one answer — " I am a Christian."

One day the men of the house banished all the women to the women's apartments,
and taking this little girl out into the yard, .drove four stakes into the ground, and
tied the girl's hands and feet to these stakes. Then they said to her, '■ Now we will
bring fire and burn your feet, unless you promise that you'll not become a Christian."
And the girl answered, " I do believe in Christ. I am a Christian.'' 'I'hey put the
fire to her feet and let it burn them, and the pain was very great. Then they said to
her^ " Now will you promise that you'll not become a Christian ? " The girl answered,
" Oh; I cannot promise, I am, / am a Christian." Surely He who walked with the
three children of Israel in the burning, fiery furnace, was with this poor girl, and
strengthened her in the hour of her grear trial. After a time, the pain was so great she
could not bear it, and she fainted away. When the men saw that, they were afraid
she would die, and that the English Government might call them to account for their
conduct. So they untied her hands and feet, and then carried her away into a dark
room, and left her there. In the middle of the nig"ht consciousness returned to her,
and she got up and felt for the door, and found it was open. She went out and
made straight for the missionary's house. It took her that night, and the nextday, and
late into the next night, to reach it. She walked part of the way, as well as she could,
on her poor sore feet, and when she could not travel thus any further, she got down
and crawled on her hands and knees. When she came to the missionary's house, she
knocked. The missionary lady came to the door and looked at the girl; but did not
recognize her, she was so covered with dust and looked so wretched. She said to
the girl, "Who are you?" The girl told her. Then she asked, "Why did you
come ? " The girl said, '• / believe on tiie Lord Jesus Clirisf, and I want to be baptized."

The inis.sionary lady took her in, and when she saw what a condition her feet were
in, she was very sorry for her. She dressed her feet, and all the time she was doing
this the girl never uttered a single murmur or complaint, but only said, " Oh, how
good you are ! how you must love Jesus Christ, to be so kind to a poor girl like me I''

128

She Desired to tell Others.

After a time her feet healed, and she said to the missionary lady, " You have a
Bible-woman who visits in the homes and teaches the women ; I should so like to
help her to tell the women about Christ. I could live on very little, all I should w^nt
would be rice and salt ; two shillings a month would be quite sufficient to buy my food.
If you could find some one who would pay that for me, I would spend my whole
time teaching the women in the homes." The missionary lady furnished her with the
needed means, and she is now a Bible-woman, and very happy in her work. This
girl had only known about Christ a short time, but He was very precious to her, and
she desired to tell others about Him.

I wonder if you who read these lines love Christ as much, and if you are letting
your light shine as brightly. If Christ were to stand before you in bodily form, and
say to you as He said to His disciples, /'^i My Father hath sent Me, even so send 1
you" how would you feel in His presence? Would you be able to look into His
dear face and say, " Lord Jesus, I do desire to be in the world as Thou wast in the
world. Make me moie and more to be like TheeT

01Ltt\ H-\LL, JAUNA COLLEGE

CHAPTER XXXr.

The Jaffna College.

HE Jaffna Co!legi\ situated at Batticotla in Norlli Ceylon, is, as far as we
kiioiv, the fiisf attempt of a Clirislian community in a hcatlicn land to
cstablisli a college of their own.

It originated in a spontaneous effort, made by the native Christians of
faffna in 1S67, to establish a Christian College, which should give a SLi|jerior
education bjth in the English and vernacular languages. A meeting of educated
Tamils was called, and was largely attended. At this meeting a scheme ^^as
adopted, and a committee appointed to collect funds and take initiatory steps
toward establishing a Chri.-jtian College. Principally through the efforts of this
native committee, ^1700 loerc raised in Ceylon — a large sum, when it is remembered
that in Jaffna the wage of a labouring man is only sixpence a day. The people of
America, hearing of this effort on the part of the native Christians, and believing those
most worthy of help who try to help themselves, contributed p/^6000, and the
10

l^O

Dr. Hastinscs.

American Board of Missions gave, for the use of the College, land and buildings
worth /^5ooo,

Early in 1S72 the College was started under the general management and control of
a Board of directors. This Board of Diredors is at present coi/iposed of the senior
missionaries of t lie three AJissions ivorkiiig in Jaffna, namely, the Cliurch of England
Alissiitn, the IVesleyan Mission, and the American Mission ; along juith the Government
Agent of the Northern Province, and representative native Christian gentlemen of the
comnumity.

The Jaffna College, it will be noted, is not a denominational institution. It is not
controlled by any one missionary body, though it has the sympathy and direction of
the three missionary societies which :«re at work in Jaffna. It is a thoroughly Christian
institution The Rev. E. P. Hastings, M.A., U.D., who had been for twenty-five years
a missionary of the American Mission in Jaffna, was invited to preside over the institu-
tion as its first Prmcipal, and he continued to fill the office with great acceptance for
seventeen years. His unwearied devotion for over forty years to the people of Jaffna
enabled him to win the confidence
and affection of the whole com-
munity. Having resigned his posi-
tion in June, 1S89, the Rev. S. W.
Howland, M.A., for si.xteen years a
missionary of the American Mission
in Jaffna, was chosen as his suc-
cessor.

Besides the Principal, there are
in the College two foreign professors
who hold the degree of B.A., and
five able native professors, all oj
ivhom are Christians. There has
never been a heathen teacher employed
in the College, and it is hoped there
never will be, for it is believed that
one heathen teacher in an institu-
tion like this could undo the work
of many Christian teachers. It is
desired that this be first of all a
Christian College, with the current
all one wav.

KEV E. p. IIASTIMGS, D.I).,
For nineteen yeare Principal of Jaflna College.

A TROFF.SSOR AND STTIDENTS IN JAFFNA rO[.LEGE.

There are ai present 167 students, with seven teachers, in the High School, a pre-
paratory school for the College, and about 100 students in the College itself.
It is a rule of the College that all the students reside on the premises. They arc
thus separated from heathen iiifliietice, and are under the strow^est Christ/an influence
eon/inuousiy, refraining from all heathen practices, even from wearing the idolatrous
marks on their Jorelieads. Yet so great is the desire for education in the community,
and so highly is the edu( ation prized which is given, that many Hindu young men of
high-caste are willing to enter this Christian Col'e<^c as hoarders, paying the full cost
of board, also ^i as entrance fee, and ^3 for tuition annually. These high-caste
Hindu young men are accustomed to eat, sleep, and live with the Christian students, to
be present at morning and evening prayers, to study the Bible daily, to attend the
weekly prayer-meetings, also Sabbath-school, church service, and Bible-class on
Sabbath.

So greatly has God blessed the College that, of the 326 who have entered its doors,
142 have gone out into the world as professed Christians and communicants ; others have
professed Christ sifter leaving the College, and the majority of tlie nearly 1 00 students at

132 A Preacher s Fay and Frospects

present in the College are Christians. Many of the gradaates of the institution have
beeoine pastors, catechists, and teachers., not only in missions in Ceylon, hut also in India.

It has been said, " Whatever you would put into the life oj a natio?i, put into its
schools.'' The teachings of Christ are given the first place in the College, and He is
held up as the one perfect model for imitation. His words, " I came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister," and " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent
Me," are sounded as the key-note for every one who would make his life harmonize
with the Divine ideal.

There is in the College a?i active Young Men's Christian Association. The members
of this association not only labour for the conversion of the Hindu students in
the College, but also do much valuable work outside. On Sabbath afternoons they
regularly go out and conduct six Sabbath schools in the neighbouring villages. These
Sabbath schools are attended by nearly 400 children. Not content with this, they
have originated and for the past three or four years supported a school in an island
lying near Jaffna, called Ninathevu. They have built a school-bungalow, and have
paid for several years the whole salary of the teacher. It may be interesting to know
how the young men are able to raise the money for his support. There is a piece of
land belonging to the college grounds which the members of the Y.M.C.A. cultivate
as a girden, selling the produce for the benefit of the school ; and while some of their
companions are playing cricket or other games in the recreation hours, they are hard
at work, hoeing, watering, walking the well-sweep, &c., &c.

A number of young men, graduates of the College, have studied theology and
entered upon evangelistic work. Were they to engage in secular employment under
the Government, they might expect to receive a salary of from ^k, to ;£io a month,
Nvith a prospect of promotion, but they have voluntarily chosen the work of preachers
of the Gospel, with a salary of £,i los. to begin with, and a prospect of not more
than /,'3 or £4, as few pastors in Jaffna receive more than ^4 a month as salary.
We feci that they have made this choice out of love to Christ, and a desire to serve
Him. They show a similar spirit to that shown by a Burmese boatman who, when
converted, was earning £6 a mionth. Perceiving that he was a ready speaker and clever
withal, the missionary said to him one day : "Can you give up your business and
preach to your countrymen? I may be able to give you half-a-pound a month for
this. Can you do it?" The man thought a moment, then replied with a beaming
^ face and tears in his eyes : " No, I can't do it for the half-pound a month, but I can
do it for the love of the Lord Jesus Christ." We believe it is the same spirit which is
animating many of the Jaffna College graduates.

Abnut five years ago there came a request from the missionary at Indore, Scindia,

Mr. Chanmukam.

133

India, for a graduate of the College to come as a teacher of English in the Mission
High School there. Mr. Chanmukam, a graduate who had been converted during his
College course, consented to go. In the meantime there came a second letter from the
missionary, saying that as they were in the territory of a native prince who was
unfavourable to the introduction of Christianity, they met with much opposition in
their mission work ; that they were not allowed to buy or rent a house in the city, but
had to live and teach in buildings outside of the city ; that when they held preaching
services, the native police often broke up the meetings, dispersing the people, and
even taking the native helpers to prison. Mr. Chanmukam was called, and the letter
was read to him. While he listened, tears began slowly to gather in his eyes. At its
close he looked up with a radiant and determmed face and said : '" If that missionary
can leave his home and come all the way to India and endure all that for the sake of
Christ, I think I ought to go and help him."' And he went with a true missionary
spirit to a country 1600 miles distant from Jaffna, among a people who speak another
language, and where the climate, food, dress, religion, all are different.

The missionary wrote as follows of him and of another Jaffna College graduate who
has more recently gone to the same place ; —

Indore, Central India, OiJober I, 1886.

In reply to your letter, I most gladly bear testimony
in regard to Mr. Chanmukam and Mr. Charles, two
Jaffna graduates at Indore, the former of whom I
have had ample opportunity of testing, as he has been
with me now for about two years.

Mr. Chanmukam is very well up in English,
Mathematics, History, Geography, Grammar, &c., as
is seen from the fact that he so easily at the last
Entrance Examination of the Calcutta University
stood first in English and Mathematics, and fourth in
all the subjects. His knowledge of the first two is
superior to that of many of the B.A.'s that we have
about us here. As a teacher, he has been most
successful both in winning the confidence of the boys
and in imparting knowledge, and is to-day the favourite
teacher in the school, as well as the best. So much
confidence have I in him, that as soon as his place
here can be filled, I intend to send him to Ujjain to
start and take charge of a new High-School which I

I'ORTKAir OF MR. CIIANMUKA.U.

IQ*

134

Testimoiiials.

hope soon to start there. What especially ha? pleased me has been his .modest,
earnes*- consistent Christian life — an example that alone has done much to help us
here. His duties do not allow huir much time for direct Christiin work, yet where
he gets opportunity he does not fail to use it. My earnest wish is for more such
men, and my warmest thanks are due to the Institution which trained him, to you for
sending him, and to the Grace of God above all, which has in him so manifestly
shown to the heathen its power.

Though of Mr. Charles I cannot speak so fully, as he has been a shorter time with
us, yet we all like very much his earnest, faithful efforts, which as time goes on will be
more appreciated I doubt not.

With thanks for your kind interest in our work, I remain, yours sincerely,

J. WiLKiK, Canadian Mission.

More than five years ago a call came from a missionary at Ahmednagar, in the
Deccan, India, for a teacher in the mission college there. Mr. Lee, a graduate of
the Jaffna College, a native Christian of the third generation, accepted the call. The
missionary wrote of him : —

Abmednnyar, Deccaii, India, June 28, i8S6.
Two years ago you sent a young man to help us here — Mr. (i. C. Lee. We are
more than satisfied with him as a scholar, teacher, and above all as a Christian. I
congratulate you on turning out such a man. He is more than I hoped for, and has
become by far the best man I have or have had. Had I some more like him, with a
good knowledge of Marathi, I could have tlie best school in India. As it is, his work
could not be better done by any one, and besides, he is always at my elbow to do
anything ;md everything.

With best wishes, yours very truly,

J.^iMES Smith, American Missionary,

Principal, Ahmednagar College.

After this young man had been in Ahmednagar for some time on a salary of ^4 a
month, he received an offer of ^^10 a month if he would go elsewhere, but he said,
" No ; I think I can do more good here," and he stayed. He teaches large classes of
high-caste Hindu young men, and he has so won their friendship and esteem that
students of his classes often go to his room in the evening for conversation on religious
subjects, and for Bible-reading and prayer. His brother, also a graduate of the Jaffna
College, is likewise now employed in the same Institution.

Numbers of Jaffna young men are employed in similar capacities and with much

G. C. LF.E (in the CEN'TRF.) AND A FEW OF HIS STUDENTS.

acceptance in Bombay, Madras, Ujjain, Coimbatoon, Roha, Madura Passumallui,
and other parts of India, as well as in Rangoon and Singapore. God lias given to ?nany
of the graduates a missionary spirit, and a willingness to leave home and go to all parts
of India on small salaries, to engage in the work of teaching in mission schools. In this
fact seevis to lie an indication of Providence as to the work before the College in the
future, to which we should take heed, and in which we should rejoice.

It is now proposed to make the Jaffna College a First- Grade College; to e.\ tend its
course of study ; to add to its staff of foreign and native professors ; enlarging and
improving its building accommodation, reducing the general expenses, and providing
permanent scholarships in aid of necessitous students. At the present time the Jaffna
College enables its students to pass the Cambridge Junior and Senior Local Examina-

1^6 Government Education m India.

lions, and gives a select course of study be3'ond that. But if larger and larger
numbers of the graduates of the Jaffna College are to find places as teachers in
Mission Schools in India, this College must be affiliated with a University, for the
Educational Department of the Madras Presidency has lately passed a resolution that
only those who have matriculated or who hold degrees will bo eligible to receive
salary grants from Government. As it is by these grants that Indian Mission Colleges
are largely supported, Indian missionaries will be unable to employ Jaffna graduates
hereafter, to any large extent, unless they comply with this Government requirement.
The Mission Colleges in India are doing a great work in giving a Christian education
to the youths of India, and stemming the tide of infidelity which is coming in
like a flood, owing to the fact that only a secular education is given in Government
Colleges.

Major-General F. T. Haig, R.E., writes as follows respecting Government education
in India : —

" There is a great thirst for education throughout India. Education is spreading
like wildfire. Hindoos are already beginning to tax themselves for education, and
that will be the most popular tax in the country. But observe wlut is being done.
The Government are in earnest in this matter. They are going in for the education
of these 250 millions. But it will be a gcdless education. There is not even the
Bible in the Indian scliool ; it is utterly put aside, and the education given is
absolutely secular. What is to be the result ? What mil be the vast social and
political movement that will take place among 250 iidllions of people^ whose faith in their
own ancestral religion has been destroyed by their education, and to whom ive have given
nothing else? A statesman, however worldly, might be appalled at the prospect of
having to deal with such a people, and yet that is what we have got before us, unless
the Christian Church will do its duty, and impart to the people that religious
instruction which cannot be given in the Government schools.

" We have in India 250 millions of people, 200 millions of whom are our fellow-
subjects; for they are really and truly subjects of the Queen. The remaining 50
millions are the subjects of the feudatory States, in each of which we have a resident
without whose permission nothing can be done. For all these millions, udio are
practically our fellow-subjects, 7ve are doubly responsible before God. We have
subdued tlie country in the most perfect manner, and we are responsible before God
for the welfare of its people. We cannot put this thought aside. We may ignore the
remainder of the heathen world if we will, but these 250 millions of India we cannot
set aside. We must feel that we are responsible before God for tliem and for their
salvation. What is the spiritual provision that we as a Christian people are now

One Minister to 450,000 People ! 137

making for the people of India ? Let us just for one moment remember the provision
that we make for our own spiritual needs at home : —

" In England we have 20,000 clergymen of the Church of England and at least as
many more ministers of the different Nonconformist denominations. Then for each
one of these clergymen and mmisters you must allow several additional classes of
Christian workers, like city missionaries, Sunday-school teachers, visitors, Bible-women,
and every conceivable form of paid and unpaid Christian labourers. Taking simply
the clergymen and ministers who are specially ordained for this work, we have at
least 40^000 in this little island ministering to the religious wants of 26 millions of
people, or one to eveiy 650 people.

" Now^ let us look to British India. What have we got there ? Six hundred and
forty ministers, or one to every 450,000 people. Please note these facts. The facts
with regard to the heathen world at large are very few and simple, but of enormous
power. We send (o India, where we have been these two hundred years, only 640
ministers ! Is there not something monstrously wrong there? "

We would like to insert also an extract from a non-Christian Hindu paper, the
Indu Frakasli of Bombay : —

" Education provided by the State simply destroys Hinduism ; it gives nothing in
Its place. It is founded on the benexolent principle of non-interference with religion,
but in practice it is the negation of God in life. Education must destroy idolatry, and
the State education of India, benevolent in its idea, practically teaches atheism. It
leaves its victims faithless. Our young men are, many of them, forced by it into the
unhappy position of the sceptics and infidels of Europe. As soon as this is generally
perceived and felt, the cry will go up to England, ' Father, Father, give us faith ! '
Knowledge alone does not suffice men, nor material prosperity, nor good government ;
the things of this life are fleeting, the life to come is eternal ; and men and nations
can only be happy in recognizing and acting righteously on this Divine fact. Without
faith, life is without an aim, death without hope, and there can be neither individual
happiness nor national greatness. If England will not hear our cry, and indeed
anticipate it, then will the shriek go up to our Father in heaven, ' Father, Father, givf
us faith.' "

Is not this appeal most touching, considering the source from whence it comes ?
Will not Christians respond to it, and do more to support the Christian Colleges of
India and Ceylon, and Christian work in every department?

A missionary in Lucknow, India, writes : —

" We in India are in the midst of a great educational movement. The intellect of
these people is awaking from the sleep of twenty centuries, and everywhere the youth

may be seen thronging toward the school-
room. We have boldly entered the
country and challenged Buddhism, Ma-
hommedanism, and Hinduism to combat,
and now we have no alternative short of

TRICHINOPOLY ROCK AND TEMPLE.

Christian Teacliers Wanted.

139

retreat It ft us save that of manfully trying to meet the momentous responsibilities
\vh:ch the intellectual awakening has imposed upon us. We cannot confine our work
to preaching alone. As well try to persuade the churches at home to abolish their
colleges and seminaries. We have no choice. To shirk our responsibility would
be to postpone the final triumph of Christianity for generations to come, and consign
the intellect of the country to a depraved infidelity compounded of the superstition
of the Hindu, the bigotry of the Mahommedan, the lethargy of the Buddhist, and the
Sadducean heartlessness of the European rationalist. Christianity must at once assume
her full responsibility in trying to guide this educational movement, so as to make it a
blessing instead of a curse to India."

The missionaries in India are thus striving in a devoted spirit, and with a large
measure of success, to impart a sound religious and secular education to the vast
number of youths who throng into their institutions. But it is widely felt that the
Indian Mission- Cot/ei^es Icihoiir as yet under one great dilfuulty. vi::. the laclz of a
sufficient number of abte Christian teachers of good caste.

While recently in India we visited the following colleges : — Wesleyan College,
Negapatam ; S. P. G. College, Tanjore ; S. P. G. College, Trichinopoly ; Free Church
College, Madras ; Free Church College, Bombay ; Free Church College, Poena ;
London Mission College, Calcutta ; American Methodist Mission College, Luck-
now. We found in these great institutions, in the preparatory and collegiate depart-
ments, altogether 5030 students ; of these 374 were Christians. We found 163
native teachers, fifty-one of whom were Christians and 112 of whom were non-
Christians. These facts speak for themselves as to the need of additional Christian
teachers for the mission colleges of India. The Hindu and Mahommedan teachers, as
a rule, outnumber the native Christian teachers. It is not unusual to find, in Indian
Mission Colleges and High Schools, Brahmin teachers, with heathen marks on their
foreheads, sitting before their students in the class rooms teaching B.A and F.A.
subjects, while the native Christian teachers take lower subjects, and sometimes a
Pariah or Shanar native pastor teaches the Bible lesson. This, as can be easily seen,
tends to make an unfavourable impression on the minds of the students in regard to
the value and importance of Christianity. It may be partly as a result of this that many
Indian Mission Colleges have to report so comparatively small a number of conversions
among their .students. Mission Colleges will never be such powerful evangehzing
agencies as they ought to be until this state of things is rectified. Tlie •nissionaries
themselves deplore it, and would most gladly fill the places of these heathen teachers
with Christian men of influence and thorough education, if enough of such could be
obtained. The Principal of the Lucknow American Mission College writes in a

I40 Jaffna, a Key to India.

recent annual report, speaking of that large mission : " The demand in all parts of
the field is rapidly increasing ; we could employ two hundred Christian teachers at
once were they available ; as it is we are obliged to employ Hindu and Mahommedan
teachers."

It is to be borne in mind that the Christian community in India is comparatively
small as yet (one in looo of the population), and is composed mostly of converts from
the low caste or outcast classes, and not from those who are Hindus proper. The low
castes, having been ground down by poverty and oppression for centuries, are mentally
inferior to the high castes, and many would not be intellectually able to take a full
B.A. course in English. Besides, the low caste as a rule are poor, and therefore most
of them have not the means to give their sons an extended education.

JSlow, tiirni7is, and viewing tlie fads i>i Jajfiia, ive find an almost opposite state of
things. Tlie English a?td American missions, l)y God's providence and hltssing, have
been aide largely to evangelize the upper castes. There are in the churches of the
three missions in Jaffna over 2500 communicants, or nearly one in 100 of the popula-
.tion, mostly of high caste, and there are in the Christian day-schools of these missions
15,000 children, also mostly of high caste. Educated Jaffna Christians are, as a rule,
able and reliable men. A former Governor of Madras, Sir Charles Trevelyan,
said that he found no young men so useful to him in administration of affairs as those
trained in the College (Seminary) at Jaffna. We believe that this is Jaffna' s great
opportunity to help India, aiid that with God's blessing Jajfna may prove to be a key
to India in reaching its npper castes. India is very accessible from Ceylon, and native
boats can cross to India in a niL;ht.

Were the Jaffna College vi'ell equipped and affiliated with a University, Christian
graduates could be sent as helpers to many missions in India. Who can tell how great
a service this would be rendering to missions, and to the cause of Christ in India ?
Just as formerly missionaries from the little island of lona went over Scotland, and
Scotland is now a Christian land, so from the island of Ceylon .shall go, we trust,
in the future, many native Christian workers to India, and, by God's blessing, help to
make that great land one day a Christian land. With 15,000 children, mostly of high
caste, in the Christian day-schools of the missions, a large proportion of whom are
bright, promising lads, eager for an education and able and willing to pay for it in
whole or in part, should not the College endeavour to train as many as possible for
Christian work in Ceylon and India?

Almost the whole education of the peninsula is in the hands of the missionaries, and
the parents, as a rule, do not object to their children learning the Bible le.=90ns and
Christian songs, nor to their attending the Sabbath-school. Young men and women

Persecution of Christians Declining. 141

from heathen Camihes of good caste, on becoming Christians and joining the Churchy
seldom meet now with any great persecution from their relatives, but are generally
allowed to live as Christians in their homes, eating with the other members of ihe family.
Child marriage is not practised as in India, and widow re-marriage is becoming more
common. The Zenana system of India does not prevail^ though girls and young
women of good families are kept in some seclusion. Caste prejudices are not so
strong as in India. The people are not so priest-ridden, and many are losing faith in
idolatry. Almost every house is open to visits of the missionaries and native helpers,
and Christianity, instead of being bitterly opposed and looked down upon, is generally
respected in the community. These and other advantageous circumstances fit Jaffna
to be a nursery for Christian worlcers. In this favourable atmosphere they may develop
strong, vigorous, well-balanced Christian characters.

Missionaries alone cannot accomplish the vast work of reaching and evangelizing
the 250 millions of India. The missionary force on the ground is small (one oidained
missionary to 450,000 people). It is by natives that the bulk of the work must be
done. Hence the urgent necessity to train and send forth a large and well-qualifred
staff of native agents. A native can get nearer to the people than a foreigner, can
understand better their difticnlties, feels more free with the language, and is not
affected by the tropical sun as a foreigner is apt to be. Viewing the matter also from
a financial standpoint, we find that the cost of educating and maintaining native
workers is trifling compared with the cost of educating, sending out, and maintaining
foreigners.

The cost of educating a student in tlie Jaffna College, including food, clothing,
books, incidentals, and tuition, does not exceed J^\o a year. It need scarcely be
said that care is taken not to allow the students to learn extravagant habits. They
wear the native dress, eat the native food of the country, and live in the simplest
native style Hence the graduates are willing to become pastors, catechists, and
evangelists on small salaries, supplied entirely by native churches. Of the twenty-two
natfive churches in Jaffna, the majority are self-supporting.

In a recent conversation with a missionary from India, who had been for many
years connected with a missionary college in one of the Presidency towns, he said,
" Our rrreat difficulty is that, though we have native Christian young men graduating
from our college every year, we cannot secure them, as a rule, for mission helpers.
The reason is that the Government offers twice or thrice as much salary as our mission
is able to give, and the temptation proves too much for them, so they enter Govern-
ment service."

But the glory of the Jaffna College is that many of its graduates do not want to

MR. EDWIN R. yiTCH (A GRADH^.TE OF THE JAFFNA COT.T.KGE). FEAr> MASTER TN THE ENGLISH

MIDDLE SCHOOL UF THE CANADIAN MISSION IN UJJAIN, AND SOME OF lIlS

ASSISTANTS AND PUPILS.

engage in Government service, but seek mission work, even though the pay may be
only one-half or one-third of what they could get in secular employments. They have
found something better worth living for than making money. It has been said, " There
has never been such giving toward religious objects as has been shown by Hindus in
their worship, and if they have done this for false gods, what may we not expect of
them when they know the true God?" May we not hope that the native Christians
may more and more in the future possess the Spirit of Him who said, " I have
meat to eat that ye know not of," and " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent
Me."

It was most touching to note in the Church Missionary Intelligencer lox September,
3887, that two young men, natives of Syria, graduating from the American Mission
College at Beirut, on hearing of the martyrdoms taking place in Uganda, offered
themselves to the Church Missionary Society for mission work in Africa. They knew
the difficulties and dangers of the work, the climate, the degradation of the people, but

Educated Helpers Needed. 143

they said, " We have taken all this into account, and we wish to go to Africa and to
live and die if need be for that people." They made no stipulations as to salary or
kind of work. They were mindful of their Master's last words, " Ye shall be witnesses
of Me . . . unto the uttermost part of the earth." Obedience is simply a question of
supreme love to Christ.

When Garibaldi had been defeated at Rome, he issued his immortal appeal ;
" Soldiers, I have nothing to offtr you but cold, and hunger, and rag?, and hardships;
let him who loves his country follow me : " and thousands of youths of Italy sprang to
their feet. If the young men and young women in Christian lands love their own
ease and comfort too much to follow Jesus to the mission-field, surely the time
is coming when the very stones will cry out, and from among the converted heathen
those shall arise who will improve the great opportunity, which others have despised,
of evangelizing the whole world.

Jaffna College graduates could readily engage in evangelistic work not only in
Ceylon but all over South India, as the Tamil language, which is the vernacular in
Jaffna, is the language of sixteen millions of people in Southern India.

" In towns and villages much work can be done by those whose scholastic attain-
ments are not high — earnest, humble workers, labouring among their own relatives.
But besides these, we must have for the larger |jlaces well-educated helpers, able to
answer the numerous and often difficult objections which their opponents bring forward.
But, apart from the growing demand for first-class preachers, the country urgently
requires a class of educated native Christians, capable in different spheres of
usefulness of influencing other educated natives all around them. And it must not be
forgotten thai our plans, having for their object the perfect independence of the native
churches, are sure to prove abortive if native Christians are not prepared by superior
education for the responsible and remunerative posts which have hitherto been
monopolized by Hindus. Mussulmans, Buddhists, and Eurasians."

There are in Jaffna over 2500 native Christian communicants. "A well-equipped
college would be the greatest boon to this raipdly-increasing native Christian com-
munity, insuring to the sons of native converts educational facilities which otherwise
they could not enjoy, and thus giving them a preparation which would fit them for
hves of the highest Christian usefulness. We want not only a warm-hearted but a
strong, intelligent, clear-headed native Church. We would not be content to have
our converts and their children remain on the same low level of intelligence where the
Gospel found them. We wish for them growth, advancement, success ; and one of
the wisest methods of insuring these is to build up this college, the uplifting influence
of which will be felt for generations to come."

144

REQUIREMENTS.

Endowment for the Salary of Principal

Endowment for the Salary of one Married Foreign

Professor
Endowment for One-Third Salary of Married Foreign

Medical Professor
Endowment for the Salary of Native Medical Professor...
Endowment for the Salaries of three Native Professors...
Permanent Scholarships of ^'loo each for 60 Students
(Ten of these Permanent Scholarships are for
Medical Students.)
General Endowment

House and Furniture for Married Foreign Professor_^6oo
Building Sites and Houses for Three Native

Professors ... ... ... ... ... 300

Improvement of College — Dining Hall ... 100

Laboratory and Physical Science Hall with

additional Apparatus ... ... ... 300

New Dormitories ... ... ... ... ... 200

Library Building and Library ... ... ... 200

General Improvements on existing Buildings ... 200

Fund.

5,000

2,000
1,100

4,500
6,000

4.500

1,900

Yearly
Income.

250

ICO

55
225
300

225

Total sum required ,.."^30000

The foregoing Estimates of Requirements received the sanction of the Board of
Directors of the Jaffna College

NAMES OF DIRECTORS.
Foreii^ji Residents.
\V. C. T\VYN\M, Esq., C.M.G. Government Agent, Northern Province.
Rev. E. P. H.\STiNGS, D.D , M. A., American Missionary, Principal Jaffna College.
Rev. W. W. HowLAND, M.A., American Missionary.
Rev. R. C. Hasiings, M.A,, American Missionary.
Rev. E. M. CiRii'FiTH, M.A., Church Missionary.
Rev. ^V. R. Wins ION, Wesleyan Missionary, Chairman Northern Ceyloni District.

I'eacheys and Salaries. 145

'Native Rtsidejits.
C. VV. Cathiravalu PiLLAi, Esq., Magistrate.
R. Breckenbridge, Esq., Sub-Inspector of Schools.
Rev. E. Champion, Native Pastor, Church Mission.
Rev. B. H. Rice, Native Pastor, American Mission.
J. R. .\rnold, Esq., Joint Editor, Morning; Star.
Rev. T. P. Hunt, Native Pastor American Mission.
T. C. Changara Pillai, Esq., Proctor, Supreme Court.
T. M. Tambu, Esq., Proctor, Supreme Court.
L. S. Strong, Esq., Medical Practitioner.
Wm. Paul, Esq., Dispenser, Friend-in-Need Hospital.
J. P. Cooke, Esq., Head Master, Batticotia High School.

We hope that friends of education and of Christianity will aid this enterprise.
^30,000 may seem to be a large sum, but is it large considering what is proposed to
be accomplished by it, viz. the e.'^tending and permanently endowing of a Christian
College, and a General Medical Mission ? A lady in Glasgow gave recently ^12,500 to
endow one additional chair in the Glasgow University, where already they have 50
professors and teachers.

It is proposed to have 180 students in the College. Of these, 120 will be required
to pay the whole cost of their education, viz. J^\o a year, and the remaining 60, or
one-third of the whole number, we wish to be able to aid by scholarships to the extent
of one-half of their expenses, or ^5 a year.

There are in our Missions pastors and catechists of good ability receiving only ^,2
or ^3 per month, who might have been receiving, had they sought Government
employment, ^8 or ^ro a month, and yet, from love to Christ and to His cause,
they have chosen Christian work. Scholarships could sometimes be used in aiding
the sons of these Christian workers, for they must find it very difficult to pay the
whole sum required to give their sons a college education ; and we have reason to
hope that such boys, if taken into the College, would become useful Christian workers
in their turn, having been from earliest childhood brought up in the atmosphere of a
Christian home.

Over 50 Bible-women are employed under the three missions in Jaffna. They
receive from 8j-. to Yds. a month as salary. .\ considerable number of these are
widows who support themselves and their little ones on this small sum. To aid sons
of these Bible-women by scholarships would be a truly Christian deed. When a
native Christian mother, a widow, has dedicated her most precious treasure, her eldest
il

146 "Aye be Stickin' in a Tree, Jamie."

son, to mission work, surely it should be a joy for fathers and mothers in a Christian
country to help such a one pecuniarily in the education of that son, and so share in
the blessing which is sure to follow.

p/^ioo will found a permanent scholarship. It might bear the name of the founder,
or, if given by a congregation, Sunday-school, or Bible-class, the name of the pastor,
school superintendent, or teacher. When not convenient to pay the whole sum at
once, it might be paid in instalments of ;^2o a year for five years. Many who cannot
themselves afford such sums, yet out of love for the cause might be able to interest a
circle often friends who would each undertake to give £2 a year for five years ; thus
a whole scholarship would be secured. An annual subscription of ^5 would be equal
to a temporary scholarship. Students will write yearly letters to their patronsj giving
accounts of their studies and progress.

Oiilv Christian yoitn::; men wiil Im aided by scliolarsliips or annual subscriptions.
Eacli young man so aided luill sign an undertaiang tliai lie will engage in mission, work
under some Mission in Ceylon or India J or a period of years after his graduation ; or
that, if he is in any way prevented from doing this, he will refund to the College all the
money which he has received from the scholarship. Thus the scholarships will aid in
training up native Christians pled^^ed to mission work.

A Scotch laird once said to his son, " Aye be stickin' in a tree, Jamie ; it'll be
growin' when ye're sleepin'." We think that to be endowing a scholarship in a
Christian college in a heathen land is to be sticking in a tree which will be growing
while we are sleeping in the dust, or rather when we have left this earth and are
rejoicing in the presence of our Saviour.

A missionary of long experience in India, when at home on furlough, wrote as
follows : —

"The people in heathen lands can worship in private houses^, or under trees^ or in
the open street with little aid from outside, but they imperatively need help in the
matter of Christian education. Without it the churches cannot flourish, their children
will grow up in ignorance ; there is no assurance that the Christian life which has been
begun in them will retain its hold upon the next generation. The honest, earnest cry
for a training which shall produce a native evangelical agency, both as preachers and
teachers, is coming up from all quarters. In some cases it is a piercing cry ! It is a
call not for a luxury but for a necessity. It ought to be heard and heeded. Mission-
aries who are temporarily at home open the papers and find every week or two, perhaps
oftener, the record of a gift of ten or twenty thousand pounds sterling to this or that
college or other institution of learning. Perhaps it may be for a professorship, in addi-
tion to the twenty, or thirty, or forty others now secured. Perhaps it may be for an art

IV/iy We Undertook this Work. 147

gallery or a gymnasium, or some other desirable thing in connection with the institu-
tion. They are not narrow-minded men and women who do not appreciate the im-
portance of having everything that may tend to the development of the generations to
come. But they cannot help saying within themselves^ " That gift of ^20^000 ; it
will add something to the value of a prosperous college^ but it would found for all
time a whole institution in our field. It would at once open the way for a Christian
education to scores and scores of young men^ who^, without it, will have no opportunity
to fit themselves as preachers or teachers. If missionaries do not ask that some of
the luxuries which are provided for institutions of learning in this country be curtailed
a little, is it not right that they should ask for some of the crumbs that fall from the
table, so that the people for whom they labour may not be left to starve? "

We have been sometimes asked how we were led first of all to undertake the work
of securing the needed funds for this institution. In North Ceylon there were ten
missionary families among a population of 316,000 peoijle. Each family had charge
of a disfa-ict. We were the only missionaries in a district of 20,000 people. There
were in our district twenty-six day-schools, with about 2000 children in them. Of
these, several were English schools. Two of these, with a total attendance of about
200 students, were situated near the mission house, and the majority of the students
attended our station Sabbath- school. The upper classes from both schools also came
to our house daily for a Bible lesson in English, and for help in their secular studies.
Having them thus with us daily, both during the week and in our Sunday-school
classes, we became deeply interested in them, and regarded them as younger brothers.
Most of them came from heathen homes, and wore the marks of the god Siva on their
foreheads, yet we noticed, as we went on teaching them the truth, that without our
asking them to do so, one after another began of their own accord to leave off the
heathen marks. Many of them began to attend the church services, several joined
the inquirers' class, and some from time to time professed faith in Christ, and were
received into the Church. We knew that many more were, in their hearts, really
convinced of the truth of the Gospel, and were just at the turning-point of their lives.

Many of these boys, on leaving the English day-schools, were desirous of a higher
education. What would they do? Some would go to the Jaffna College and ask to
be received, but the college has at present limited accommodation, and perhaps they
could not pay the required fees. Perhaps of twenty boys leaving the Enghsh day-
schools in our district each year, two or three would be received into the college.
What would the others do ? They were detenniiied to have a higher education.
They would go to India, to study in heathen or non-Christian schools, where they
could live in the houses of their heathen relations, and be aided in their expenses by

IMAGii OF UNK OF THB FiVE " PANDIANS " IN TREVANDRUM FORT.

Back to Heathenis)

149

young
hearts

heathen relatives. We have known
fourteen of our dear boys, whom
we had taught for years, and had
learned to love, go over to India in
one night, most of them to study m
that sink of iniquity and moral
leprosy — Kompa-kornum.

V\'e knew that these boys virould
board in heathen families, would
be compelled the first night, before
they ate their food, to put on the
heaihen ashes, and to wear them
always ; that they would not be
allowed to attend any Christian
services, but would be obliged to
go to temples, perform heathen
ceremonies, study the heathen
books ; that they would hear Christ
constantly reviled, and the Christian
religion mocked and scorned, and
that being under these influences
for a period of years, they would
come back to us bitter heathens, or
agnostics, or infidels, to be our
worst opposers, and morally unfit to
become the husbands of the pure
young girls who were being trained
in mission day and boarding schools,
to whom in many instances they
were engaged.

When we were in India in 1882,

and again in 1885, we took occasion

to visit the cities of Negapatam,

Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Madura,

THE CRUEL GODDESS KALI. and Madras, and to see the Jafi'na

men who were studying in the heathen or Government schools in those cities. It pained our

to find them living am.ong heathen surroundings, and to see how worldly and nreligious they

II*

A GROUP OF CHRISTIAN SINGERS.

ISO

Poiiniak.

(PONNTAH With the violin.;

had grown, and how far they had
retrograded since they had left
us in Jaffna. We knew that hatl
these young men been studying
instead in the Jaffna College,
under the strong Christian in-
fluence there, they would in all
probability, with God's blessing,
have given their hearts to Christ,
and been preparing for lives of
Christian usefulness in Ceylon or
in India.

As we went on teaching large
classes of boys from year to year,
on week-days and Sabbaths,
loving them, labouring and pray-
ing for their conversion, seeing

them almost persuaded to be Christians, and then at the critical moment finding
large numbers of the brightest and most promising leave us year by year for these
heathen schools in India, it seemed as though we could not bear it. We made a
census of the peninsula of Jaffna, and found that about 200 Jaffna young men were
then studying in schools outside of Jaffna. When we pictured to ourselves the
almost overpovveringly evil influences with which we had seen them surrounded
in India, and the effect these must have on their characters ; and when we reflected
that were the Jaffna College enlarged and its course of instruction extended, many
of these students might have been kept in Jaffna instead of being allowed to go
to India away from parental restraint and from all Christian influence ; and as we
heard at the Union Missionary Prayer Meetings the missionaries of all the three
societies in Jaffna again and again deplore the existing state of things ; we felt
that something ought to be done, that it was not enough merely to deplore the evil
thing, that we ought to try to remedy it. The thought also of the good these young
Qien of high caste might do, if brought to Christ, in replacing heathen teachers in
mission schools in India, was constantly present to our minds.

A circumstance which took place at that time helped to lead us to a decision.
We were told, one afternoon, that a boy named Ponniah was going to be sent by
his parents to India the next day. We were specially attached to this bright young
Christian boy, the son of Christian parents. He was always ready to do Christian

" Ponniah must be Educated'. "

151

work ; he was a sweet singer, and had constantly assisted us by singing at our open air
and village meetings. We went at once to the house. We spoke as earnestly as we
could with the parents, begging them not to send their son to India. They said,
" What can we do ? We have, as you know, a large family of little children, and
Ponniah must be educated, that he may be able to help his younger brothers and
sisters. We are unable to educate him in Jaffna College. We have asked the

A PROFESSOR AND STUDENTS IN THE JAFFNA COLLEGE.

Principal of the College and all the missionaries to help us, but they say they are already
aiding as many as they possibly can. A heathen relative has offered to educate him in
India. We do not believe he will become a heathen, even though he studies in a
heathen school. We see no other way ; we must send him to India." We pleaded
with them till far into the night. We told them that a man cannot take fire into
his bosom and not be burned, and that we had seen the state of things in these

152 11 ore than half Subscribed.

heathen schools in India, and felt sure that this boy could not spend four or five years
of the most formative period of his life there without being contaminated. However,
we could not shake their resolution to send the boy to India.

In imagination we saw the long procession in years to come of just such bright,
promising boys going to India and returning lost to purity and to the cause of Christ.
We could not bear the thought. We went home that night, got down on our knees and
asked God to help us to raise the funds needed to extend the luork of the College. From
that hour to this our courage has never faltered— not for a moment. Ife believe Christ
laid the burden of this work on our hearts, and we took it up in the strength of Him
lijho is the great burden-bearer.

The Board of Directors of the Jaffna College sanctioned our effort. The American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Boston, whose missionaries we are,
kindly granted us permission to come home on furlough, and they have since extended
our furlough that we might go on with this work till its completion. We arrived in
England on January ist, 1887. The same year, a committee to aid us m this work was
formed in Edinburgh. God has opened many homes and hearts in response, we
believe, to the prayers of many in Jaffna who daily remember us and this cause before
the throne of grace. We have secured up to May, 1890^ ^17,000, given or
promised for the Jaffna College and General Medical Mission. This leaves ^13,000
yet to be secured to complete the ;^3o,ooo aimed at. However long or however
short a time it may take to secure this amount, we intend to continue our efforts, so
long as we believe it to be God's will, and so long as He gives us health and a
wide open door, until the whole sum is secured.

AVe would consider several years of work well spent if only we might see the Jajfna
College permanently equipped with additional foreign and native professorships, with
a larger staff of earnest Christian professors and teachers, with scholarships for needy
Christian students, with some additional buildings and appliances, and thus enabled
better to meet the needs of the people of Jaffna; also a fully-equipped General
Medical Mission established in connection with it, and under the direction of the same
undenominational and unsectarian Board of Directors, to be a blessing to the whole
peninsula. We also desire to see, in rlue time, the establishment of a Medical Alission
for Women.

We have often been asked if we did not feel anxious as to the success of our scheme.
Did we think we should realize our ambition ? During the six winters in which we
worked among the negroes of the Southern States, before going to Ceylon, and during
the seven years we were in Ceylon, if we had one ambition, one aim in life, it was to do
good. But two years ago, when one of us was ill for two months, and it looked as if

The Tables Turned. I53

perhaps this work, so dear to us, must be given up, we changed our aim in life, and
now ? Now our ambition is to do the will of God, ^chatever that may be. We know
His ivill is perfect. We know it is the one utterly good thing in all the world,
and that the highest and the only success for us in life consists in doing the will of God
day by day.

With regard to the urgent claims of the foreign field, we would like just here to
quote a few words from an address of Mr. R. P. Wilder, delivered at a recent meeting
in Philadelphia : —

I want to give to you a thought which was suggested to me a few months ago, as I was wall<ing up
one of the streets of New York City. The thought was this I put myself into the places of those
people in India ; I remembered the story of the Brahman who came to one of our missionaries and
said, " Sahib, I liave been up Nortli and bathed in the Ranga Nadi to wash away my sins. I have
been to slirines in the East and shrines in the West. Once I was young, and now I am old. My
hair and beard have grown gray, but I have not found peace. Can you help me ? " As I was thinking
of that man, my mind went back to the time when Barnal)as and Paul crossed the bridge spanning the
Orontes. But they go East instead of going West. India is evangelized instead of Greece, China
instead of Rome, and Asia instead of Europe, so that the Anglo-Saxon race is left in heathen darkness.
It seemed to me that my own father journeyed from one shrine to another trying to find peace. At
last he goes to the northern part of the Britislr Isles ; and there he sits, under a towering oak. with a
Druid priest, trying to- find jieace. And when he is dying he calls me to his side and says: " Son,
once I was young, and now I am old. My hair and my beard have grown gray, but I have not yet
found peace. Can you help me.''" And I answer, "No, father, I cannot," and he dies. Then I
study medicine and astrology, trying to find peace. But one day, in the course of my studies, I meet
a man who has seen a missionaiy. " Oh," he says, " that missionary used wonderful words. He said
that 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him
might not perish.'" I stopped him. "Sir," said I, "where can I find that missionaiy?" He tells
me. I start off, and after two weeks' walking, I meet him in a httle village in Spain. Again I hear
those wonderful words that " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that who-
soever believeth on Mim should not perish, but have e.verlasting life." " Sir," said I, " how long is it
since Christ died?" "Eighteen hundred years." "Your father knew about Christ?" "Yes."
" Your grandfather knew about Christ ? " " Yes." " Why did not your father come to tell my father?
Mv father spent from childhood to old age seeking peace, and died without it. Sir,'' said I, "are
there many people in your country who know about Christ?" "Yes, we have an average of one
minister to every 800 of our population, we have an average of one Christian worker to every forty-
ei'drt, and we have an average of one church communicant to every five of our population." " Well,
sir," said I, "why don't they come over and tell us Anglo-Saxons about Christ?" He could not
answer, and in the still watches of the night, it seemed to me I could hear a voice from on high saying,
" ]f thou forbear to deliver tliose that are drawn to death, and those that are ready to be slain, if thou
savest, Behold zve knew it not, doth not He that f-ondereth the heart consider it? And He that keepeth
thy soul, doth He not know it ? And shall not He render to every man according to his works ? "

Some of the native Christians in Ceylon have made great sacrifices, and endured
much persecution and ridicule from their friends and relatives in confessing Christ, and
so have proved themselves worthy of the aid which it may cost Christians in this

1 54

"No Sacrifice."

happy and favoured land some little sacrifice to give. The Master says, " Whosoever
shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before My Father and before the
angels." Is it enough to confess Christ before a small circle of loving friends in one's
church at home ? Surely it is not for such a small and easy thing that so great a
reward is promised. In the early days, confessing Christ meant loss, suffering,
martyrdom, if need be. Christ asks nothing less of us because He asks everything of
us. " Wlwsoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My
disciple." The test of discipleship is the same now as then. Christ asks for entire
consecration to Him of all that we are and have. He wants our whole hearts, or
none at all, and our time, our talents, and our entire possessions said at His feet,
placed at His disposal. The Apostle Paul tells us, " Ye are not your own, ye are bought
with a price." Not Paul only, but every Christian should be able to say, " For me to
live is Clirist ! "

Livingstone, in Africa, said, " / 7C'i/l place no value on anytliing I have or may
possess, except in relation to the kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests
of that liingdom, it shall he given aiuay or kept only, as, by giving or keeping it, I shall most
promote the glory of Him to ivhoni I owe all my hopes in time and in eternity ; may grace
be given me to adhere to this."

If when we read Christ's command and promise, " Go . . . Lo, I am with you
always" we could say with Livingstone, " It is the word of a Ge?ttleman of the most
sacred and strictest honour, and there's an end onP," surely every service would become
a joy, and we could add with that veteran missionary, "/ ttever made a sacrifice. Can
that be called a sacrifice which is simplv paid back as a part of a great debt moing to our
God, which we can never repay ? Is that a sacrifice ivhich brings its own blest reward in
healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a
glorioiis destiny hereafter ? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a
thought ! It is emphatically no sacrifice, say rather it is a privilege."

MASK OF A DEVIL-DANCEk, OK PROFESSIONAL EXORCIST.

CHAPTER XXXII.
The Medical Mission Agency.

||T is our earnest desire to see a General Medical Mission established in
North Ceylon, also a Medical Mission for Women, the two working in
harmony, and the one being the complement of the other.

Are Medical Missions needed as an evangelizing agency in the foreign
field ? We would like to give, in answer to this question, a i^w extracts from
Dr. Lowe's able book on Medical Missions : —

"The Gospel means '' glad tidings,' and preaching the Gospel means the setting
forth of the best of all glad tidings — tlie love of God to man. The heathen, as a rule,
can best be taught, as we teach little children in our schools, by object lessons. The
Gospel ought, therefore, to be preached to them alike by the living voice and by the
unmistakable argument of loving deeds. Like the Apostle Paul, the true missionary,
the workman that needeth not to be ashamed, must be able to say, ' By word and
deed I have fully preached unto the Gentiles the Gospel of Christ.'

156 The Argument for Medical Missions.

" To the heathen abroad as well as to the godless at home the most convincing proof
of the reality and power of the Divine love is that it begets love for man. 'Faith,
Hope, Love, these three, but the greatest of these is Love,' love to God begetting
love for man; and what is the aim and objecf of true Christian love? It is the
welfare of my brother, the welfare of his body, the welfare of his soul, his welfare for
lime, his welfare for eternity. Holding forth the Word of Life, both by the living
voice and by a practical manifestation of the spirit of the Gospel, is therefore the true
meaning of ' Preaching the Gospel.' It implies something more than the mere
proclamation of the Gospel message ; it implies that, as He who is the sum and
substance of the Gospel sympathized with suffering humanity, fed the hungry, healed
the sick, and went about continually doing good, thus ever manifesting the spirit of
His'own religion, and teaching by His ' gracious words,' and by His loving deeds,
its principles, so His ambassadors must 'preach the Gospel,' not by word only, but
likewise by a loving, benevolent, Christ-like ministry performed in Christ's name and
for His sake.

"The evangelization of the world is Christ's own work, and those who, as His
instruments, are called to engage in it, are commissioned to represent Christ, to
represent Him in His tender pity for the lost, in His loving sympathy for the afflicted,
in His care for the sick and His compassion for the suffering. We turn, therefore,
to Christ's ministry on earth for the interpretation of His own commission, ' Go ye
into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.'

" In reading the New Testament one cannot fail to be struck with the fact that our
Lord's personal ministry on earth as well as that of His Apostles was pre-eminently
that of the medical missionary, in the last three verses of the fourth chapter of St.
Matthew's Gospel we read : ' And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their
synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sick-
ness and all manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout
all Syria : and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers
diseases and torments, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy ;
and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from
Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond
Jordan.'

" Our Lord was just then entering upon His public ministry. He knew man's heart,
the way to gain access to it, its prejudices, and the many obstacles in the way of the
people receiving His teaching ; and knowing all this, such were the means He em-
ployed to reveal His character and claims, to remove prejudice, and to draw men
nearer to Himself By the exercise of His healing power He gathered around Him a

Clirisfs Miracles of Healing. 157

great congregation, with hearts overflowing with gratitude, and thus the searching
truths of ' The Sermon on the Mount ' fell as living seed on a prepared soil. When
we inquire into our Lord's recorded miracles, we find that no fewer than htw-thirds
were miracles of healing. . . . These miraculous works of healing were unanswer-
able proofs that He was what He claimed to be, the Son of God ; but they
were more, they were living manifestations of the spirit of His own religion ; they
spoke a language intelHgible to every human conscience ; they revealed His tender
compassion, His loving sympathy. His incomprehensible love, and in this light His
own disciples regarded them as the fulfilment of the word of Esaias, ' Himself took
our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.'

" As the Divine Author and Founder of Christianity, the record of our Lord's
personal ministry must ever be to us deeply suggestive and instructive. Every feature
of that ministry claims our devout attention. His mode of commending the truth in
so far as it was supernatural, we cannot imitate, but in so far as the outcome of His
' mighty works ' was meant to be a manifestation of the spirit of the Gospel (as much
needed now as then) ' He hath left us an example that we should follow in His
steps.'

"As our authority for the employment of this agency we have not only our Lord's
example, but likewise His direct command. What He did Himself He commissioned
His Apostles and the first teachers of Christianity to do likewise : ' And into whatso-
ever city ye enter . . . heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them. The
Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.' ... It may be said, however, that it was
by the forth-putting of His own Divine power that Christ did these ' mighty works,'
which spread His fame throughout all Syria, and that it was in virtue of their
miraculous endowments (now no longer available) that His disciples made the deaf to
hear, the blind to see, and the lame to walk, and that, therefore, their method cannot
now be a model for our imitation. Such an inference would be legitimate were these
miracles intended merely as attestations to the Divinity of Christ, and as proofs of
the Divine origin of the Gospel which the disciples were commissioned to proclaim ;
but, as we have already seen, they were more than this — they were a practical mani-
festation of the compassionate spirit of Christ's religion ; they spoke in a language
that could not be misunderstood, of Him who came, ' Not to destroy men's lives, but
to save them.' And surely, in so far as this was the Divine intention, these miracles
of healing are recorded for our instruction, teaching us that, in our missionary enter-
prkses, the consecration of the healing art to the service of the Gospel is not only in
accordance with the Divme method, but forms a part of the Divine intention.

" The ' gift of tongues,' which enabled these first heralds of the Cross to proclaim to

158

A Medical Mission Wanted.

men of all nations ' the wonderful works of God,' is
not now miraculously bestowed, neitiier is the ' gift of
healing; 'but in the one case as in the other, the
qualification which the ' gift ' conveyed must be
patiently and laboriously acquired. ' He sent them
to preach the Kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.'
"The Church recognizes the Divine commission to
' preach the Gospel to every creature ' as still binding
upon her, notwithstanding the withdrawal of the ' gift
of tongues.' Shall the command of our Lord in
reference to ' healing the sick,' which formed so
prominent a feature of His own earthly ministry and
that of His Apostles, be ignored on the ground that
miraculous ' gifts of healing ' are now withheld ?
Nay, rather, the withdrawal of those gifts renders it
all the more imperative that we should cultivate and consecrate, with the utmost
energy and devotion, not only the science of philology, but likewise that of medicine,
tiiat so we may fulfil our Lord's commission in all its breadth and fulness, and
following His example, preach the Gospel ' by word and deed.' "

Missionaries of three societies have been at work in the northern province of Ceylon
for over seventy years. At the present time there are less than 3000 Christian com-
municants in the province. If the remaining 313,000 are to be won to Christ in this
generation, and surely nothing less than this should be our aim and effort, it seems very
desirable that an additional agency, and especially the agency of Medical Missions,
should be introduced. As the large numbers of heathen doctors are the strongest allies
of the heathen priests in Jaffna, so a Medical Mission in Jaffna would be the strongest
ally of all the Christian agencies now at work. How can Jaffna become largely
Christian so long as the majority of the people in times of sickness resort to heathen
doctors, and make vows and offerings to heathen gods ? Heathenism is still so gross
and rampant in North Ceylon, that mission agencies can hardly count the battle there
to be much more than begun.

We need Medical Missionaries who will go to the people in their times of sorrow and
anxiety, and by giving them actual relief, win their, gratitude and affection, and by
showing them the very spirit of Christ, gain the assent of their hearts to Him. The
Medical Missionary comes nearer to the people in loving ministry than the average
missionary who has no medical knowledge. In the two months of December, 1888,

Value of a Mission Hospital.

159

and January, 1S89, about 2000 people died in Jaffna from an epidemic of fever,
among whom very few had received proper treatment. AVhen smallpox, cholera, or
epidemics of malignant fever break out from time to time, the people die by
thousands. Forty native communicants died in Jaffna last year. To have saved the
lives of some of these trained and experienced workers would have been of incalculable
value to the cause. Of course, as a Christian man, the Medical Missionary will strive
to improve every opportunity of doing personal work among his patients in the hospital
and dispensary, and at their own homes.

His Excellency Sir Arthur Gordon, K.C.B., when visiting Jaffna, strongly urged that
a medical work similar to that done formerly by Dr. Green should be resumed, and
followed up his suggestion by heading the list with a subscription of Rs. 1000 for this
object. W. C. Twynam, Esq., for something like thirty years Government Agent in
Ceylon, and an able, far-sighted, and public-spirited man, has also strongly urged that
a Medical Mission should be established. The work the Medical Missionary is to
conduct will be under the direction of a Board composed of missionaries and native
Christians of the Church of England, W'esleyan, and American Missions, the three
missionary societies carrying on work in Jaffna. This Board of Directors are also the
Directors of the Jaffna College.

John Henry Marston, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., formerly
connected with the Mildmay Mission in London, has been
appointed by the Board of Directors to take charge of the
General Medical Mission in North Ceylon, and he has gone
out with his wife to undertake this work.

We would earnestly commend Dr. and Mrs. Marston to
the affectionate and prayerful remembrance of all who love
the Master and desire to see His Kingdom come in Ceylon.
Dr. Marston is the only Mlsnonary Physician in the
Northern Province among 316,000 people, and, with the
exception of the civil surgeon, tlie only fully qualified
medical mat\, we believe, in the province.

A Medical Mission Hospital is the strategic point m the
evangelistic work of a Medical Mission. It is from the
Mission Hospital that the majority of converts are found to
come, in the experience of the most successful Medical
Missions on record. It is in the Mission Hospital that the
patient comes to know the missionary and his assistants, to
see exemplified in their daily lives the spirit and power of

The water in
which the feet of
a fakir is washed
is given to the
sick to be drunk
as a medicine.

i6o

Cost of a Bed.

the Gospel. It is there that he learns,
little by little, to believe the truth which
he hears read and sung and spoken
from day to day, and to reveal his
doubts and difficulties, and have them
removed.

On this point. Dr. Lowe says in his
book on Medical Missions : " It is in
the hospital that the most satisfactory
and successful medical and surgical
work will be accomplished — work
which will produce the deepest impres-
sions, and direct public attention most
favourably to the higher objects of the
mission. It is here, too, that the
Medical Missionary will be able most
succe-sfully to accomplish evangelistic
work - here that he may expect to
gather the most precious and enduring
fruit. While dispensary work and
occasionally medico-evangelistic tours
among the surrounding towns and
villages are important features of

Medical Mission work, still the hospital will be the lield in which the richest harvest
will be reaped, and therefore the establishment of a hospital should from the first be
kept in view, and accomplished at the earliest opportunity." Sums sufficient for the
erection of a Medical Mission Hospital in Jaffna ha^e been given or promised.

One liuiidred pounds ivill endow a bed in the hospital {providing permanently for a
part of the expense of its up-keep)* ; ^50 will provide the half, and ^25 the qtcai-ter of
the endowment of a bed ; £,\o will provide a share in. a lied.

Are there not some friends in Great Britain and America who could each con-
tribute one of the above-named sums^ without diminishing their ordinary subscriptions
to other Christian objects, and thus have a real part in this much-needed Christ-like
medical work in Ceylon ?

* This will provide for tlie patients tlie slielter and ordinary comforts of the hospital, and the
attendance of the missionary physician, free of charge, leaving them to meet the cost of medicine,
food, and incidentals, which expenses they would have had to bear had they remained in their
own homes.

DR. J. H. MARSTON.

Hints to Benefactors .

i6i

Three kind friends have of Lite greatly en-
couraged us by donations of ^loo each. One of
these, J. Campbell White, Esq., who gave ^loo
at the beginning of our effort for a scholarship in
the Jaffna College, has kindly given /,"ioo for the
General Medical Mission, saying that, as he had
helped us to secure the first half o{ the fund which
we were seeking, he would give us a similar help
towards l\-\& last half . Are there not others among
the friends who have helped us in securing the
first half of the fund who will follow his example,
and give a second donation towards the last half of
the fund ?

It would add to the interest of the effort if the
donors were to associate with their gifts their name,
or the name of some one whom they have honoured
and loved, and if these names were engraved on
brass tablets, which would be permanently con-
nected with the beds thus endowed, this would
give a personality to the gift in the eyes of the
people of Jaffna, and would lead them to feel that
Christians in distant lands had loved them, and made sacrifices on their behalf, and
were entitled to their gratitude in return.

We will most gladly pledge ,-^ioo in memory of our beloved parents. Cannot
others be found who will do the same in remembrance of those dear to them, and
for the sake of a work which has as its great object to promote the progress of the
Redeemer's kingdom ? The members of some family circles, and perhapS of some
congregations, Sabbath-schcols, Bible-classes. Y.M.C'V.'s, Y.W.C.A.'s, &c., might
unite their gifts to present such a tribute to the memory of a parent, a pastor, a
teacher, a president, or a friend, who has gone to be with Jesus. Would it be a less
acceptable monument than a memorial window or a costly tomb ? A short time ago,
in response to our appeal, the students of the Old Ha-11, Wellington, pledged not
merely a donation of ^loo, but^ioo annually to support a medical lady under the
I. F.N. S. and I. Society as tlieir oicn missionary in Benares. Might not the example of
liberality set by the students in this school be followed by many others? Sums
promised for beds might be paid in instalments during five years if the givers or
collectors so desired.

TWO DEVIL-DANCERS.

i6:

A Medical Mission for Women.

We earnestly hope that there may be many who will thus provide a thank-offering-
to God, a permanent aid to the Medical Mission in Ceylon, and a grateful memorial
of friends whose work on earth is finished. Surely God will plead the cause of the
oppressed, and there are thousands upon thousands in North Ceylon oppressed by
in and superstition, and held down by heathen priests and doctors. Surely the
cause which seeks to deliver their bodies from needless suffering, and their minds
and hearts from the powers of darkness and evil, must be the cause of humanity and
of Christ.

Feeling the great and pressing need of a Medical Mission for
Women in North Ceylon, and believing that it was God's will
that such a work should be begun, since He had led kind friends,
entirely unasked by us, to promise the salary of a lady doctor, and
other friends to promise and give additional sums, we were led to
present the matter to tlie Committee of the I.F.N.S. and I.
Society. We offered to transfer to that Society all pledges and
sums already given for the object, and to do all in our power as
occasion arose to secure for them the remainder of the amount
needed to organize and sustain such a work, viz. ^3000 for the
erection of a Medical Mission-house and a Women's and
Children's Hospital, and ^450 in annual subscriptions toward
the up-keep of the hospital and dispensary, and the support of
the European and native workers, provided the Society would
inaugurate the work as their own, and take it under their entire
control.

To cur great joy, on the 19th of last June, the Committee of
the I.F.N.S. and [. Society^ in the most cordial manner, acceded
to our request that they should establish a medical work for
women in North Ceylon, having in contemplation a hospital for
women and children, a mission-house, two fully qualified lady
doctors, with a staff of nitive assistants, the work to be undertaken
at the earliest date possible. We thank God for this token of

His favour, and take new courage to go on with the effort. This Medical JMission for
Women and also the General Medical Mission will both be located in North Ceylon.
Each of these missions will have its separate and distinct work, a work which it only
can do, and both, we trust, will co-operate to the fullest extent with every other agency
already employed in the great work of evangelizing the people and bringing them to
the knowledge and service of Christ. These two Medical Missions, working side by

MOTHER AND CHILD.

A Professor's Plea.

163

LOW CASTE WOMEN, SUCH AS ARE NOW COM-
MONLY EMPLOYED AS NURSES TO THE SICK.

side and in fullest harmony, will each stren'^'then
the work of the other. According to God's arith-
metic, two are worth not merely twice as many as
one, but ten times as many. " How should one
chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to
flight?" (Deut. xxxii. 30.)

We wish to quote here the words of Professor
Miller, in an address at one of the annual meetings
of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society.
He said : —

"When we come before you with Scripture
warrant on our side — with the personal example of
our Lord and His Apostles not only beckoning
us on, but reproving us for not having come — •
with the successful experience of medical missions,
as far as they have yet been tried, speaking strongly
in our favour, and with the united and cordial
approval of every missionary with whom we have
ever come in contact ; when missionarits all tell
us that they find the medical element so essential to the success of their work that
they are compelled sometimes to practise it themselves; when labourers fom all
quarters of the mission-field, men gallantly bearing the burden and heat of the
day, are calling to us anxiously for medical colleagues, not on account of their own
health, but to assist them in their great work of reaching the hearts of men whose
souls they seek to save ; and when, had we but the means and men, we might now
plant, not one or two or three, but many Medical Missions in the very heart and
strongholds of heathenism, where they would be gladly welcomed, and by-and-by
supported to a considerable extent by the very heathen themselves; with such
claims as these, surely it is neither unbecoming nor unwarrantable that we ask
earnestly and importunately for your sympathy and aid. And bear with me, if I
remind you that you have an iinportant duty to discharge towards the medical
profession, that you owe it a debt. Is there any one here who does not feel and
acknowledge that debt? Has no father, or brother, or sister, or husband, or wife,
or child, been saved to you, under God's providence, by the skill and care of
the physician ? At a time when all seemed dark and hopeless, and you dared
not look into the fature, at a time when the blackness of despair had settled
down, and well-nigh shut out heaven from your sight and prayer from your lips, at

164 A Double Debt and Double Duty.

a time when you would gladly have given all the earthly treasure you possessed,
or ever might possess, in barter for the life which seemed so fast and hopelessly
ebbing away, has not the physician then seemed to you as a ministering angel
sent to comfort you? Have you not then clung to him as your best earthly friend,
your only earthly hope and stay ? And when success attended his efforts in battling
with disease and death, when life, and hope, and health came smiling back, have you
not wet his hand with your tears of gratitude, and sent him away laden with your
blessing and your prayers ? Or was it )our own life that was quivering in the balance
at a time, perhaps, when a downward turn would have hazarded a double death, but
when the upward cast, still due, apparently, to the hand of the physician, bade you
live again for time and for eternity? Ah, then surely the argument we now venture to
use will come home with a double force. Each one who has felt this, or aught like
this, will surely acknowledge a large and growing debt of obligation. Let those debts
be all accumulated into one vast whole, not due, or at least not to be rendered to the
individual man, but to the God-like profession which they represent. The oppor-
tunity is given you to discharge in some measure that debt now.

" Honours, in old times, were freely accorded to individual practitioners of renown;
medals were struck in their honour, bearing the legend ' ob cives servatos '(on account
of citizens preserved). We seek no such personal gifts, but we ask ) ou to honour
the profession by helping it to honour and adorn itself, by helping it to write on the
bells of the horses ' Holiness unto the Lord,' by helping it to be instrumental in saving
the souls as well as the bodies of men, by helping it to place in its coronet new jewels
of greatest value and of brightest lustre, by helping it to twine in its garland a new
wreath from the ever-green and ever-growing plant of renown. And let me add that,
in thus honouring the profession, you will honour also that profession's Head. Medi-
cine has been at no time without her gods. The early Greeks owned Apollo ; after
him came ^sculapius ; and gods and demigods followed in abundance. But the
power of advancing civilization struck away those unsightly capitals from the other-
wise goodly column ; not to leave it mutilated and bare, but to make way for the true
headstone, to exalt and acknowledge the great Physician, Jehovah Rophi, the Lord the
healer — no mythical personage, but He who in very deed dwelt with men upon the
earth, who went about continually doing good, and who has promised to be with
His faithful followers alway, even unto the end of the world.

" Such is the double debt and double duty which we ask you now in part, at least,
to discharge. But do not mistake the nature of the claim which we make. We
seek your pecuniary aid to carry on this great and noble enterprise so beneficent to
men, so glorifying to God ; but we do not want your money only. ' Your money or

A Sta r till I ic l)e >n a n d.

i6s

your life ' is the startling demand of the highwayman ; ours is more startling still —
' Your money and ) our life.' Of some select, gifted, and gallant fevv^ we seek their
lives, wholly devoted to the death if need be, in the service of their great Master.
But of all, we seek their hie in one sense^ in the sense of claiming that on which true
life depends, that whereby spiritual life is fed and maintained, without which it dies,
prayer— intercession at the Throne of Grace ! . . . And if it be true that the deadly
conflict is now at hand between truth and error, between the powers of light and the
powers of darkness^ if the time is now near when we shall be involved as combatants
for very life in that eventful struggle, how can we look for Heaven's aid, how dare we
ask it, unless we be on Heaven's side, and doing the will of Him who sits almighty
there? How can we, in the shock of the coming battle, and in the turmoil of the
approaching fray, be otherwise than helpless and overborne, unless, as faithful soldiers of
the Cross, we be found mustered around and fighting under the banner of the Captain
of the hosts of the Lord, following where that banner leads, losing neither sight nor hold
of it — the banner of Him, whose latest command it was, whose very watchword of
the fight is, ' Go ye unto all the world, and preai h the Gospel to every creature.'

" ' And He sent them to preach the Kmgdom of God, and to heal the sick . . ,
And they departed, and went through the towns, preaching the Gospel and healing
everywhere.'" (Luke i.x. 2-6.)

A company of
devil-danctrs.

1 66

WHA'S MY NEinOR?

BV GhORC.E ?\]AI; DONALD, LL.D.

DoON fiae Terus'lem a Iravellei- tuik The Uiigh road to Jericho ;
It had an ill name an' niony a cniil^, It was lang an' unco how.

Oot cam' the robbers an' fell on the man, An' knockit him oi.

the held ; ~' '

Took a' wdiauron they coidd lay their han'. And left him nakit

for deid.

By cam' a minister o' ihc kirk : " A sair mishanter ! " lie cried ;

" Wha kens whaiir the villains may Inrk ? I's h.md to the ither side.'

By cam' an elder o' the kirk ; Like a young horse /le shied ;

" Fie ! there's a bonny mornin's wark ! " An' he spang't to the ither side.

By cam' ane gaed to the wrang kirk, Douce he trotted alang ;

" Puir liody '■ " he cried, an' wi' a yerk, Aff o' his cuddy he sprang ;

He ran to the body an' lurn'd i: ower, "There's life i' the man !" he cried;
Me w asna ane to stnn' an' glower, An' hand to the ither side.

lie doclor'd his w-ounds an' heised him on To the back of the beasty douce;
An' held him there, till, a weary inan, He 1 ngt at the half-way house.

He len'd him a' nicht, an' at ilawn o' day, " Lan'lord " (he say^) " latna him lack;
There's auchteenpence ; ony mail- or,tlay I'll sattle as I come liack."

.Sae nae mail-, neiboi-s — say nae sic word, Wi' liert ave arguin' an' chill ;
No, " VVhae's (he neihor lo me, O Lord ?" But, " Wha am I tieibor till?"

APPENDIX.

HE story of Maria Peabody, from

the pen of some unknown friend,

appeared in Ltfe and Lii^/it. It is

true in all its details, and we append

it here in the hope that it may encourage those

who cannot go to the foreign field in person to

give in aid of the work. Ought not every man

and every woman, who can do so, to su|)port a

representative as their personal substitute among

the heathen ?

Mrs. Grattan Guinness has said, " IVe liave
no fires of nuirtyrdorn now to test our fidelity to
Jesus Christ ; but we are not lefit without a test. God is testing us all continually as to
the measure of our FAITH, love, and dkvotf.dness to His So ^ by the presence of qts'E.
THOUSAND MILLIONS OF HEA'iHEN IN THE WORLD. It is a treuiendous test ; SO real, SO
practical ! Gifts that cost us 7io pcrsinal self-denial are no proof of devotedness."

THE STORY OF MARIA PEABODY.

"Of a truth I s.^y unto you, that this . . . hath cast in more than they all ; for all th;se have of
their abundance cast in unto the offerinijs of God ; but slie of her penury hath cast in all . . . that she
had." — St. LuJzc xxi. 3, 4.

In the beautitul island of Ceylon, many years ago, the native Christians, who had
long worsiiipped in bungalows and old i)jtch chapels, decided that they must have
a church built for themselves. Enthusiastic giver^ were eich eager to forward the
new enterprise. But to the amizemeat of all, Maria Peabody, a lone orphan girl,
who had bsen a beneficiiry in the girls' schools at Oodooville, came forward and
offered to give the land upon which to builJ, which was the best site in her native
village.

Not only was it all she owned in this world, but, far more, it was her marriage
portion, and in making this gift, in the eyes of every native, she renounced all hopes

Noble Self denial . iby

of being married. As this alternative in the East was regarded as an awful step,
many thought her beside herself, and tried to dissuade her from such an act of
renunciation. "No," said Maria; "I have given it to Jesus, and as He has
accepted it, you must." And so to-day the first Christian church in Ceylon (the first
chapel built by natives) stands upon land given by a poor orphan girl.

Ihe deed was noised abroad, and came to the knowledge of a young theological
student, who was also a beneficiary f)f the mission, and it touched his heart. Neither
could he rest, until he had sought and won the rare and noble maiden who was
willing to give up so much in her Master's cause.*

Some one in the Unite! States had been for years contributing twenty dollars
annually for the support of this young Hindu girl, but the donor was unknown. The
Rev. Dr. Poor, a missionary in Ceyhn, visiting America about that time, longed to
ascertain nho was the faithful sower, and report the wonderful harvest. Finding
himself m Hanover, N.H., preaching to the students at JJartnioiitli College, he
happened in conversation to hear some one S|)eak of Mrs. Peabody, and repeated,
'' Feahoely ; what Peabody V '^ Mrs. Maria Peabody, who resides here — the widow
of a former pro!essor," was the answer. "Oh ! I must see her before I leave," said
the earnest man, about to continue his journey. 'I he first words after an introduction
at her house, were ; " I have come to bring you a glad report ; for I cannot but think
that it is to you we in Cevlon owe the opportunity of educating one who has proved
as lovely and consistent a native convert as we have ever had. She is exceptionally
interesting, devotedly pious, and bears your naine."

" Alas ! " said the lady, " although the girl bears my name, I wish I could claim the
honour of educating her ; it belongs not to me, but to Louisa Osborne, my poor
coloured cook. Some years ago in Salem, A/ass., she came to me after an evening
meeting, saying: '1 have just heard that if anyb'jdy would give twenty dollars a year,
they could support and educate a child in Ceylon, and I have decided to do it. They
say that along with the money I can send a name ; and I have come, mistress, to ask
you if you would object to my sending }ours.' "At that time," continued the lady,
"a servant's wages ranged from a dollar to a dollar and a half a week, yet my cook
had for a long time been contributing half a dollar each month at the monthly concert
for foreign missions. There were those who expostulated with her for giving away so
much for one in her cirtumstances, as a time might come when she could not earn.
'I have thought it all over,' she would reply, 'and concluded I would rather give
what I can while I am earning, and then if I lose my health and cannot work, why,
there is the poor-house, and I can go there. You see they have no poor-house in
heathen lands, for it is only Christians who care for the poor.' " In telling this story.
Dr. Poor used to pause at this point, and exclaim : " To the poor-house ! Do \ ou

* This young man. alter completing liis theological sliulies, was stationed, with his wife, in a district
called Alavertty. At that time nearly all the people in that district were idolaters. Now in that
district there is a church with forty members, an inquirer's class, a large .Sabbath school, and five or
six village day-schools with several hundreds of children in attendance, to whom tlie Bible lessons are
regularly taught. This change, through God's blessing, has largely resulted from the efforts of these
two consecrated Christians.

1-/0

" I guess it was my Lord Jesus.'"

believe God would ever let that good woman die in the poor-house? Never ! " We
shall see.

The missionary learned that the last known of Lmiisa Osborne was that she was
lesiding \n Lowell, Mass. In due time his duties called him to that city. At the
close (if an evening service before a crowded house, he related among missionary
incidents, as a crowning triumph, the story of Zo/iisa Osborne and Maria Peabody.
The disinterested devotion, selt-sacrifice, and implicit faith and zeal of the Christian
giver in favoured America has been developed, matured, and well-nigh eclipsed, by
her faithful protegee in far-off benighted ."ndia His heart glowing with zeal, and
deeply stirred by the fresh retrospect of the triumphs of the Gospel over hea-
tnenism, he exclaimed, "If there is any one present who knows anything of that
good woman, Louisa Osborne, and will lead me to her, I shall be greatly obliged."
The benediction pronounced and the crowd dispersing. Dr. Poor passed down one
of the aisles, chatting with the pastor, when he espied t. quiet little figure apparently
waiting for him. Could it be her? Yes, it was a coloured woman, and it must be
Louisa Osborne. With quickened steps he reached her, exclaiming in tones of
suppressed emotion, " I believe this is my sister in Christ, Louisa Osborne 1 "
" That is my name," was the calm reply. " Well, God bless you, Louisa ; you have
heard my report, and know all ; but before we part, probably never to meet again in
this world, I want you to answer me one question. What made you do it?" With
downcast eyes, and in a low and tremblmg voice, she replied, "Well, I do not
know, but I guess it was my Lord Jesus."

They parted only to meet in the streets of the JVe7Ci Jerusalem ; for the missionary
returned to his adopted home, where, ere long, the loving hands of his faithful
native brethren bore him to his honoured grave The humble handmaiden of the
Lord laboured meekly on a while, and is ending her failing da)S, not in a poorhouse,
verily, but, through the efforts of those who knew her best, in a pleasant, comfortable
Old Ladies' Home. " Him that honoureth Me, I will honour."

The seal of Calvin, one of the great apostles of the Reformation, represents a
hand holding a burning heart, illustrative of his life-principle: ''I give thee all; I
keep back nothing for myself." Centuries afterward, two humble followers of the
Master caught a kindred inspiration from the same divine source. Shall we, to whom
so much of privilege and bounty is granted, lay down this marvellous story of self-
renunciation, and let its lesson be lost on our own lives?

" Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." (Luke xii. 48,)

Ja-ffna. College: FxxndiS

IN THE

W. H, Wilcox, D. D., President.

N. G. Clark, D. D., Secretary.

C, H. Warner, Treasurer.
T. H. Russell, C. T. Russell, Jr.,

S. D. Smith, A. H. Hardy.

Remittances for the College or Medical Mission may be sent to C. H. Warner,
Treasurer, Bank of Commerce, Boston, Mass.

ForiT) of BeqiJest,

I bequeath to the JAFFNA COLLEGE/' Ceylon, the sum of

'$ free of duty, to be paid out of that part

of my personal Estate which by law may be effectually given for the
benefit of the said JAFFNA COLLEGE/- and for which sum the receipt
of the Treasurer for the time being shall be a sufficient discharge.

[Three Witnesses.]

*If it is desired that the Legacy be applied toward the Gcm-ral Medical Mission in
connection with the 'Jaffna College, these words should be used m place of "Jaffna College.'

THE JAFFNA COFLEGE,

AND

GENERAL MEDICAL MISSION IN NORTH CEYLON,

IReferces in (5reat JSntaiit.

The Rt. Hon. the Earl of Abekueen.

The Rt. Hon. the Lord Kinnaird.

The Rt, Hon. the Lord Polwarth.

Edward Crossley, Esq., M.P.

Rev. H. Grattan Guinness, F.R G.S.

J. E. Mathieson, Esq.

J. L. Maxwell, Esq., M.D.

VV. T. Paton Esq.

Kev. NevILL SirERKROOKE.

Rev. Frank White

]. Campbell White, Esq.

George Williams, Esq.

The Dowager Countess Cairns.

Lady Victoria Buxton.

Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness.

Mrs. Stephen Menzies.

jEC>inbiirgf5 HujtUarp Committee.

C/iairmau— Sir William Muir, KC ,S.L, LL.TV, D C.L. ■
}Io)iorary Secretary aitd Treasurer — George C. Maclean, Esq., 4, Dean Park Crescent, Edinburgh,

Kev. Armstr^ong Black.

Rev. Henry Duncan.

Rev. Charles R. Te.ape, Ph.D.

Rev Andrew Thomson, D D.

Rev. Alexander Whyte, D.D.

Rev. George Wilso\'.

Robert Simson, Esq., H M.B C.S,

J. Duncan Smith, E-q., S.S.C.

Major-Gentral F. Nepean Smith

,Mrs. Duncan,
Miss Hunter.
Miss Mackenzie,
Mrs. Macrae.
Mrs. Millar.
Mrs. SiMSON.
Mrs. Smith.
Mrs. Stuart.
Mrs. WiinsON.

fljoiiorars Collectors.

The Misses >L and JL W. Leitch, c/o S. Stanton, Esq., 17, Southampton Row, London, W.C.

JSanhers.

Messrs. Barclay. 15evan, Trition, Ransom, BouveriE & Co., i", Pal) Mall East, I,ondon.
The P>anK of Scotland, Edinburgh.

auditors.

Arthur J. Hill, Vbll,acott & Co., Chartered Accountants, I, Fiiishury Circus, London, E.C,

rift^ IRefuge.

In the secret of Thy presence." — Psalm 31 : 20.

The following Verses were written by ELLEN LAKSHIM GOREH, a
Brahmin Lady of the highest caste.

IN the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide!
Oh, how preciotiB are the lessons which I learn at Jesus' side !
Earthly cares can neyer yex me, neither trials lay me low,
For, when Satan comes to tempt me, to the secret place I go.

Wl'on my soul is faint and thirsty, 'neath the shadow of His wing
There is cool and pleasant shelter and a fresh and crystal spring ;
And my Saviour rests beside me as we hold communion sweet ;
If I tried I could not utter what He says when thus we meet.

Only this I know: I tell Him aU my doubts and griefs and fears;
Oh, how patiently He listens, and my drooping soul He cheers !
Do you think He ne'er reproves me? What a false friend He

would be,
If He never, never told me of the sins which he must gee !

Do you think that I c;ould love Him half so well, or as I ought.
If He did not teU me plainly of my sinful deed and thought?
No, He is so very faithful, and that makes me trust him more.
For I know that He (ipe$ love me, though he wounds me very sore.

Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord?
Go and hide beneath His shadow ; this shall then be your reward.
And whene'er you leave the silence of the special meeting place,
You must mind and bear the image of your Master in your face.

You will surely lose the blessing and the fulness of your joy,

If you let dark clouds distress you and your inward peace destroy.

You may always be abiding, if you will, at Jesus' side,

In the secret of His presence you may every moment hide.

STAHL iMCaSR /36-I3S MWSfOTllSr /VV

JKKm

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