1896.] MEDICAL MISSIONARY WORK IN INDIA. prayers offered, one was by a Presbyterian missionary, one by a chaplain of the Church of Scotland, one by an elder of the Church of Scotland and the last one by a native minister of the Church of England. The burden of the prayers and addresses seemed to be the need of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our work for the year upon which we have entered. One missionary of our own mission made a strong appeal to parents to dedicate their sons to the Lord in the ministry of the word, remarking that the young men's minds were too much turned in the direction of the government service where large salaries were in view. It was his opinion that as the higher university education advanced there was less disposition among our young men to seek the office of the ministry. I think all went away from this meeting with broader views of Christian fellowship, with clearer ideas of Christian duty, and with stronger aspirations for holiness of life and a closer walk with our risen Lord. This was a good preparation for the week of prayer. It was manifest from the first that the quickening presence of the Spirit was with us. Much fervency was shown in all the prayers and addresses, interest increased from the first day to the end of the week and all felt that it was good to wait upon the Lord. This was our preparation for the celebration of the Lord's Supper on the Sunday immediately following. With the members of the Katra church several persons belonging to other churches, joined in this memorial feast, thus continuing the idea of Christian unity begun on the first day of the year. This makes the prayer of our Lord more real to us all, "that they may all be one, even as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou didst send me.' MEDICAL MISSIONARY WORK IN INDIA. W. J. WANLESS, M. D., MIRAJ. IDOLATRY AND ITS PRACTICE. With reference to the worship of idols, it has been said that the Hindu does not worship the idol, but God in it. This is the argument only of the educated Hindu, when 325 accused of idolatry (even now thousands of these very people try to apologize for their idols), but ninety per cent. of the people have no such idea. They worship and fear the piece of wood and stone they call their god, and having consecrated it, would not allow a Christian to lay hands on it, much less break it. Almost every implement that is a means of personal or pecuniary gain is an object of worship. Thus the carpenter and mason worship their tools, the cart-man his cart and bullocks, the children at school their books and slates, and so on, in addition to the worship of numberless other inanimate objects and animals. Images are found in every Hindu home and in the court-yard of almost every Hindu dwelling. I know of a village with 1300 inhabitants in which are over 100 public shrines. TEMPLES THE HOT-BEDS OF VICE. Idolatry is the mainstay of the temples, and coupled with temple idolatry is licentiousness of the foulest kind. It is bad enough when a daughter goes astray of herself, but when in obedience to the teachings of the Hindu Scriptures, as taught and inculcated by the temple priests, the mother consecrates her child to temple harlotry from her birth, you have an example of the fruits of Hinduism. Listen to this. It is an extract from the Hindu a leading anglovernacular paper in India, and concerning the priestly teachers of Hinduism, it says: "Profoundly ignorant as a class, and infinitely selfish, it is the mainstay of every unholy, immoral and cruel custom and superstition in our midst, from the wretched dancing girl, who insults the Deity by her existence, to the pining child-widow, every hair of whose head shall stand up against us who tolerate it in the Day of Judgment. And of such a priestly class our women are the ignorant tools and the helpless dupes." THE EFFECTS OF A DEGRADED PRIESTHOOD. gain, little caring who is the loser thereby. An educated Brahmin once came to me, and when asking me to give him a receipt for money which I never received, in order to secure the amount to be falsely stated in the receipt, and on hearing my refusal to comply with his request, said: "Doesn't the Bible say that it is right to lie in order to help a man out of the mud? Our Scripture does." Verily the worship serves the creature more than the Creator. CASTE THE MASTERPIECE OF SATAN. to As to caste, with its 30,000 sects, it is well known that it is a great barrier to all true knowledge and human charity. It is Satan's masterpiece in India to prevent the spread and acceptance of the gospel. It teaches man to hate and despise his neighbor, while Christianity teaches man love not only his neighbor but his enemy also. No wonder a prominent Hindu in Madras recently declared that the only hope for the depressed classes of India is in Christianity, for, said he, "Hindu caste and religion are both contrary to the education and elevation of the lower classes." Caste confronts and prevents all true progress as well as missionary work in every form; not only in domestic but also in social and political life. It is, briefly, a pernicious and malignant monster that for ages has woven into its iron meshes almost every phase of Hindu life. It is the hideous reptile that still holds India within its awful coil of darkness and wretched superstition, in the end only to cast forth her sons into eternal despair and death. EFFECT OF CASTE-A CASE. I shall have occasion later to refer to caste, by way of illustrating the value of the Medical Mission. Just here I will conclude my reference to it by a case or two illustrating its effect upon education. A Christian boy was admitted to a government high school where the pupils were mostly Brahmin and high-caste boys. The parents of the Hindu boys became very angry and threatened to remove all their boys from the school. They got up a petition to the educational inspector requesting the removal of the Christian boy from the school. The inspector refused their request, as there were none but caste reasons for the boy's dismissal. The parents then complained that the excessive bathing consequent upon the pollution caused by the presence of the Christian boy in the school was resulting in severe colds-the boys, meanwhile, took the opportunity to spend their time swimming in the river, of which they were excessively fond. Finally, when they found the inspector would not listen to their complaints, they carried out their threat and removed all their boys from the school. For a few days there were four Hindu teachers and one Christian boy. Some of the boys afterwards returned and the parents of others started a private school. The educational inspector then threatened to close the government school, whereupon all the boys returned and the private school was abandoned. The temple priests are the fathers and exponents of this wretched system. What must the scholars be when these are their instructors? A LOATH SOME CEREMONY. One of their Pundits of the World's Congress fame was himself made to go through the degrading ceremony of swallowing the five products of the cow after returning to India, in order to atone for the fictitious sin of visiting America, and by which to be restored to caste. The Brahmin priests of Miraj demanded three hundred dollars from a native doctor who had been to Europe, as their fee for the necessary cleansing ceremonies, such as the one in Mr. Chari's case. NATIVE ADVERTISING. A physician in India needs no newspaper to advertise him. Every patient successfully treated is a living and widespread advertiser of the doctor who is the means of his cure. Thus we found that the few who had come to us spread abroad the news of our presence in Sangli, and it was not long until multitudes began to come from all the regions round about Sangli, people afflicted with every manner of disease. They came at all hours of the day and often at night, and we soon realized that serious inroads were being made upon our time which should have been given to the study of the language. We could not now well turn the people away, many of whom were coming from distant villages, and our hearts went out to them in their distress, especially as we thought of him who "had compassion on the multitudes," and we could not believe that 1896.] MEDICAL MISSIONARY WORK IN INDIA. A FISH INCIDENT. were he there he would have turned them away. A PROMINENT HINDU'S CONFESSION. A few months ago, before leaving India, a prominent official of Miraj made this confession to me. Said he, "When you began your work here, because of the evident object of your medical work being to preach and teach the gospel, some of the Brahmins of the place, in their meetings, expressed their dislike to this phase of your work, and declared that they would not attend your dispensary. They tried also to dissuade others from going, but this only lasted for a short time. They saw that the lower castes were receiving benefits which they themselves were losing, and they began to attend, at first singly, but now they mostly all go. Then they determined not to take your liquid medicines"-fearing pollution from the water added by Christian hands and I remember how that at first we were repeatedly asked for dry medicines. These Brahmins would say, "Give us the medicine dry and we will add our own water." We always treated this seeming but unintended offense with kind and firm refusal, stating that we always gave the most suitable remedy, and that it was to their advantage to accept without question what we offered, otherwise we could do nothing for them. "For a time," continued this Hindu, "they held out, but now they are glad of your liquid medicines." During our last year in India I scarcely remember being asked for dry medicines, and more than that, they would often gladly accept liquid animal food prepared by us in the hospital, at their expense, though their prejudice regarding this in any form is generally far more intense than it is with regard to the so-called polluted water. This Hindu then went on to say 66 Having accepted your watered medicines, they next declared that they would not attend your 'pothe'" (preaching service, conducted previous to the giving out of medicines), "first, because of their dislike to Christian teaching, and second, because of having to take their place and turn side by side with the lower classes, but now they go gladly and do what they would not have done a short time ago, viz., sit in touch with outcasts on the same benches and together with them listen to your preaching." 327 A man whom I had relieved of a painful abscess by a slight stroke of the knife, afterward, in order to express his gratitude, sat up a whole night, as he said, to catch the solitary fish which he knew to be in a certain stagnant stream. He brought the fish to us in the morning, and out of consideration for him we accepted the fish, had it cooked and put on the table, though we knew it to be poisonous. I need hardly say that we merely tasted it, though we would have gladly eaten it were that possible. A HUGE FEAST. We Another, a Mohammedan, whose wife was a purdah lady (zenana woman), and who had had her thigh amputated in the hospital, gave us a breakfast one morning on our own table in our own bungalow. supplied the dishes and he brought the food already cooked from his own home. The table was literally covered with the eighteen different dishes, all clean and temptingly prepared. Each dish was labeled with the vernacular name and the English translation. After the breakfast this man and his brotherin-law brought flowers and garlands and decorated us, at the same time perfuming us, according to their own pleasant custom on such occasions. AN IGNORANT BUT GRATEFUL PATIENT. I remember another old Mohar, a low caste, who came to us in company with his son and daughter-in-law. The son had mortification of his whole leg up to the knee joint. The limb was amputated at the middle of the thigh and he recovered. These people remained with us for two months and we tried to teach them the way of life and the only Saviour. When they left us, about the only thing the old father could remember of our teaching and express it in words was the name of Jesus, so dense was his ignorance. This man was no more ignorant than tens of thousands of his class in India. Several months later, when we were residing at a hill station of the mission, this old man and his son, who lived some twelve miles away, on hearing that we were there came to see us. The son with his one leg and crutches and the old father came up to our veranda where we were sitting. The old man had on one arm a chicken and on the other a bundle of eggs and all his family idols. Setting them down on the veranda before us, he prostrated himself, and rising he said the hen and the eggs were a gift, and the idols to show that he had kept his word when he promised that he would worship idols no longer, as he had no more faith in them. CASTE PHYSICIANS. But what of the educated native physicians who do the most of the medical work done for natives? They are usually Brahmins or men of high castes, educated in English medicine in the medical colleges of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. These men, though their education is western, adhere to their caste practices, which prevent them very often from coming in sufficiently close contact with the people, especially the middle and depressed classes, to efficiently treat them, while at the same time they are mostly men of inferior qualifications compared with the physician who has the advantage of receiving his medical education through the medium of his mother tongue. Largely as the result of the Brahmin doctors' caste, there exists a strong and wellgrounded prejudice among the lower classes regarding dispensaries controlled by these high-caste native physicians. So strong is the feeling that invariably the middle and low-caste natives prefer medicine from our ordained missionaries rather than go to the professional native doctors. I have known men repeatedly refuse to attend a state dispensary. One man said he would as soon die as go there for treatment. A British political officer once said to me that it was with the greatest difficulty that he could get his native assistants to attend a government dispensary, remarking at the same time that they went willingly to the mission dispensary. DESPICABLE TREATMENT OF LOW CASTES. A low-caste man goes to a state dispensary for treatment; while standing at the door, or several feet away from the doctor, he is asked to put out his tongue and another question or two asked; if he is an outcaste his pulse will not even be felt. The doctor, unwilling to touch him, will write a prescription and send him off, often without any idea of the nature of his disease. Even the medicine will vary in quality according to the patient's ability to fee the doctor, who is himself a salaried officer. To illustrate what I have just said: there was brought to us, soon after our arrival in India, a dreadful sufferer with acute mortification of the whole right leg up to the knee. The case demanded immediate amputation. We had not at that time a suitable place in which to perform the operation or to put the patient. I wrote a note to the doctor in charge of the state dispensary, asking that the man be admitted as an in-patient, and offering my services in the treatment of the case, should they be found necessary. This dispensary contained six beds, which I knew to be all unoccupied at this time. The patient was a low caste, and, because of that fact, he was put upon the floor, while the six beds remained vacant. A compounder was delegated to amputate the limb (the doctor meanwhile had gone out to dine), and he simply cut off the leg at a point below that to which the disease had extended. Of course the stump did not bleed; it was completely mortified-a bloodless amputation! The man was put back upon the floor where he actually rotted to death, and after the so-called operation, nothing whatever was done for his relief. In the published records of this dispensary for 1894, appeared the following interesting entry: "In-patients treated, one; in-patients cured, one; percentage of cures, 100 per cent.' A GREAT FIELD. Is there not a tremendous field for medical missionary work in India? Is it surprising that the Christian physician is sought in preference to the Hindu doctor? And is it strange also that the depressed classes in India flock to the mission dispensary, often themselves astonished that they will receive the same kind and faithful treatment that the higher caste man receives? And is it any cause for wonder in all this, that God has opened unto us a magnificent field in which to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick? A magnificent field! Yes, but with it God puts upon us a stupendous responsibility. "Freely ye have received, freely give." This is the spirit of the gospel speaking to us with regard to the physical and spiritual needs of the heathen in India. Why, then, is it that so little is given comparatively to extend this Christ-like work abroad, while churches and States, having proved its worth, spend millions upon it annually at home ? 1896.] CAUSES OF THANKSGIVING IN NORTH INDIA. CAUSES OF THANKSGIVING IN REV. J. J. LUCAS, SAHARANPUR. I wish to speak of a few things in our work in North India, which seem to me to give ground for thanksgiving, and first the working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the missionaries themselves. Not a few within recent years have been been greatly strengthened with might in the inner man. This is seen in the spirit of brotherly love which abounds; in the conferences again and again for waiting on the Lord, yet another to be held next week; in the prayer circle formed by the members of the Lodiana Mission last month; in the hungering and thirsting after greater nearness to God, and in a spirit of prayer and consecration which has been steadily growing. One of the oldest of our missionaries said at the close of a recent mission meeting, that it was the best he had ever attended. For more time was given to prayer and to conference concerning the spiritual side of our work during these seven days than at any previous meeting of the mission. STRENGTHENED FOR SERVICE. Not a few of our Hindustani brethren have also been refreshed in spirit and strengthened for service as never before. One of them recently spent a whole night in prayer for a blessing on his brethren. Is it any wonder that the Lord Jesus reveals himself to such a seeker as he does to few others? Recently in a crowded gathering of Christians, the subject being thanksgiving for mercies during the past year, this brother, respected and loved by all who know him, told how for months he cried constantly to God that he might have greater nearness to him, stopping sometimes in his work to lift up this cry to God. In March of last year, while listening to an exposition of the first chapter of Colossians, by Dr. Forman, he was filled with wonder and gratitude by a vision of the cross, a large, bright cross, and so absorbed became he in the sight, that for ten minutes or more he saw and heard nothing else. Again and again during the five following days this same vision appeared to him so plainly that he had to stop in the midst of conversation, not hearing what was said to him. I would not count this as worthy of repe 329 tition were it not for the character of the witness, a man incapable of using words loosely. This brother at the age of seventeen made an open confession of our Lord, his widowed Hindu mother casting herself at his feet before his baptism to persuade him to give up his purpose, striking her head on the ground in an agony of soul so that blood gushed from a gash in her forehead. Some years later he refused the lucrative and honorable office of government pahsildar (collector of land revenue), because he would be hampered in this office in his service of the Lord, and now for many years he has been head master of one of our high schools, as well as an elder in our church. His eldest son, set apart for the service of the Lord from a child, expects, on his graduation from the Allahabad University this year, to enter our Theological Seminary. YOUNG MEN FOR THE MINISTRY." Two weeks ago one of our ministers told me that when his son, a University graduate who had entered on the study of the law, came to tell him that he intended to give up the law and study for the ministry, he had rejoiced in spirit, and with tears of joy he told it to me. A pastor of one of our churches has set apart all his boys for the ministry of the word, and has no higher ambition than that they shall preach Christ. These are a few of the signs that the Spirit of God is working mightily in the hearts of many of our brethren. There is the most delightful harmony and love between the missionaries and their fellow-laborers in this country. Rarely a note of discord have I heard in recent years. Surely this is of the Spirit of God and affords abundant ground for hearty thanksgiving. Another cause of gratitude is the steady increase in the additions to our churches during the last few years, chiefly in the Punjab. According to the report of the Lodiana Mission, there were connected with the churches of that mission in the year 1890, 585 communicants; in 1891, 746; in 1892, 948; in 1893, 1180; in 1894, 1502, and in 1895, 2115. Thus the increase has been steady and healthy. I have not the reports of the Furrakhabad Mission, but the additions to its churches have been few as compared with the Lodiana Mission. Most of the additions in recent years have been from one caste, the Chuhras. Though they are poor |