English
A passage for editorial review. Jtb** y *&(* <-* JL&4s&£ • ¥ )<^X w; PMU v' “I NEVER SAW A MISSIONARY ! ” 2 Returning home after many years in India an old resident told an admiring crowd about his many hair-raising experiences while hunt¬ ing tigers in the jungles of India. A fellow passenger asked if he saw any missionaries and received the reply : “What ? Mission¬ aries ? I never saw a missionary !” An old veteran missionary in the audience was asked how many tigers he had shot. “What ? Tigers ? I never saw a tiger in India ?” Of course, you also may return home and say ‘I never saw a missionary.’ As they are usual¬ ly in working clothes you may not recog¬ nize one if you did see him ; like tigers, they usually can’t be seen from train windows or in hotel lobbies. The following may give you a peep into some facts regarding India and some of the work the missionary is trying to do. Excavations take us back to a civilization in N.-W. India 3,500 B. C. Books on religion and philosophy were written in classical Sanskrit while our ancestors were barbarians. The largest single temple area in the world is in Madura, 30 acres. Six of the numerals we use originated in India. Over 400 Roman gold coins of Emperor Augustus’ time (60 B. 0.) have been unearth- 3 ed in India, revealing extensive trade at that time. Tradition and history say that the Apostle Thomas came to India with traders. His grave is pointed out near Madras. The size of India is 1,560,000 square miles, the U. S. A. 3,624,000. The population is 389,000,000 ; an increase of 5 million annually. There are : 210 million Hindus, 95 million Muhammadans, 50 million Untouchables, or low castes, 25 million Aborigines, 8 million Christians, 5 million Sikhs and 5 million others. There are 15 major languages spokeilby 7 million or more each. Only 13 per cent of the population is lite¬ rate ; 2 per cent of the girls and women, among Christians it is 25 to 40 per cent. There are 10 million more males than females. During 1933, 3,600,000 passengers were caught on trains without tickets. The average annual income per head is 1 00 rupees, about 35 dollars. There are 396,000 widows under the age of 15, most of whom are not allowed to marry again. There are very few schools for the 600,000 totally blind. 4 Of the estimated, one million lepers about 10,000 are in Leper homes, most of which are conducted by Christian Missions. Half the babies are given opium while the mothers are at work. Life expectancy is 27 years, over 55 in the U. S. A. The death-rate per 1,000 is 28 for Hindus, 24 for Moslems, 16 for Christians. 20 per cent of all deaths are considered to be due to malaria. There is an average of 200,000 cholera deaths per year. Poisonous snakes kill an average of 20,000 annually. Tigers, bears, panthers and wild elephants kill 5,000 annually. Largely due to the purdah system which keeps girls and women indoors five of them die of tuberculosis to one male. Most of the T. B. Sanatoriums are conduct¬ ed by Christian Missions. More than 50 million people believe that evil spirits cause diseases. In 30 years flea-carrying rats spreading bubonic plague caused 50 million deaths. Eats destroy at least 350,000,000 dollars worth of food annually. Believing in the sacredness of all life as all Hindus do, Gandhi said : “Rats and fleas have the same right to live that I have, and there is no reason why I should not exter¬ minate myself rather than that I exterminate them.” Kefusing to hill useless cbws and permit¬ ting inbreeding for centuries the average milkyield per cow is 600 lbs. per year, in Holland 7,000. Consequently 9 0 per cent of the cows fail to pay in milk, offspring and manure. Christian Missions have done pioneer work in adult education as well as in preparing lady doctors and nurses, most of whom, until lately, were from among the Christians. For centuries the 50 million low caste Untouchables were not allowed to enter temples, schools, take water from Hindu wells, etc. Missions have always opened all their institutions to them from the beginning. One missionary doctor has performed 10,000 cataract operations in 30 years. (Dr. Wanless of Miraj). Christian Missions conduct 10% of all hospitals and dispensaries. They also carry on the following : 14,655 Primary schools, 5 per cent of the total in India. 464 Middle schools, with 90,000 pupils, of whom 35 per cent are Christians, 301 High schools, 8 per cent of the total in India, with 76,400 students. 34 Colleges with 15,000 students of whom 2,600 are Christians. 6 There are 12,000 Protestant congrega¬ tions ; 31 theological seminaries with 800 theological students. In 1940, there were 5,000 Protestant missionaries here from Western countries. Last year the churches from the West gave an average of 1,603 rupees every hour of the day and night for Mission work carried on in India. In 1942, the Bible Society sold Scriptures in 125 languages and dialects as follows: 38,874 Bibles, 42,374 New Testaments and 901,730 Gospel Portions. You may have been contributing in your home church to Missions and would like to kn^w how the Church is meeting the chal¬ lenge of India’s poverty, diseases, illiteracy and superstitions ; you may want to order the 70 page book ‘ I NEVER SAW A MISSION¬ ARY ’, written primarily for soldiers. (Price one rupee). Another book you may wish to have is ‘ MY STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM’ (112 pages ; cost, one rupee) which giyes the de¬ tailed autobiography of a Hindu youth struggling to break away from caste and other hindering social and religious customs, and finally wins freedom of conscience, and freedom of action. Rev. M. P. Davis, November, 1944. Raipur, 0. P. The Mission Press, Allahabad. 4h?^H *T5R (IcrvkQove-K. 7 /.<. ‘fWT WTRrT’ & ] [ SR# ^7 i The Hope of India Fear not ; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. — St. Luke. 2 : 10 for a ma* anc / O come, Desire of nations, come. Bind peoples in one heart and mind ; Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease ; Fill the whole world with heaven's peace. Rejoice 1 Rejoice 1 Immanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel 1 * * * * God’s Message " Unto You A Saviour Has Been Born" ; "God So Loved The World That He Gave His Son" . Viewing the Southern Cross constellation as it moves across the southern skies one is tempted to think that God was particularly mindful of India when He placed these four beautiful stars in just that position, as if thereby to call her attention to this symbol of His eternal Love . But India could not interpret its prophetic meaning until God Him¬ self appeared "in the form of a servant" and with outstretched arms extended His great invitation : Come Unto Me ! Then did its significance shadow itself far across the plains of India’s seeking millions, even to the snow-capped mountains of meditating hermits, India is now beginning to understand God’s Message and the invitation of Christ the Saviour in the Light cf the Cross. i I * i t * i TO $T TO ^ 2 €rs ^rr%r i | *frpn ^ ^tort^rr i ? A Poetic Version of the Gospel of St. John. 8 s f BBMiiiBE^BBBWBiiS . i— f ft I i I I 1 | m %stt t ^ m ^neff nwTft tm I sfa ^ | i STTefi ^ teT ^ *TRt 1 *1^ ?wft 1 1 | t t Z^r* •■ **♦ ?=3m*l' rc=* V 0OD/< GANDHI’S SOCIAL PYRAMID. Mr. Gandhi is vehemently opposed to the caste system as it is found to¬ day, dividing India’s 250 million Hindus into several thousand isolated groups and compartments. He con¬ demns the present form of caste as “ a drag on India’s progress ”, “ a weed in India’s fair garden ”, causing the “ curse of untouchability ” which compels 60 millions of the depressed classes to be “ dumb millions ”, the “ drudges of the caste Hindus ”. But what does he propose to put in the place of this vicious caste system ? How does he plan to cure the disease and cast out “ this caste-demon ”, the “snake of untouchability ”, the “ monster of caste ” ? In its place Gandhi advocates a return to the ‘ VARNA-ASHRAM- DHARMA ’ of the ancient Hindu scriptures, which he considers to be the “ basic foundation of Hinduism ”, religiously, socially and economically. “ a law of spiritual economics, — a law which can not be abrogated ” without causing the downfall of India.