Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1878-04-24
Letters TO the Children--.No. 3.

OF mOSb Ol tHt year Next DeceInDeT, dlteT |
/ has rained for two or three weeks, you will
EEL little better. Next summer you will get
more used to hot weather, aud then, If you
i've here another year. the rainy season will
seem cold to you, and you will want your
thick clothes again, though the thermome-
ter will tell you it never is any colder here
than it is the hottest day you ever knew in
Vermont. II is hot out here-not so hot as
over on the continent in India but it is the
continued heat that makes it so hard to bear.
If we could only have the good cool nights
of Vermont, we could bear it.
But what is Brother Tom laughing at
now 2 Ask him "Would like to see old |
Neighbor White ploughng out here this
morning ?" oh yes ! wouldn't it be sport |
Neighbor White, you know, would not give
anything for the missionary society, because
he said it was no use to try to preach TO the
heather till you had civilized them. " Bet |
ter send out some farmers and carpenters"
he said, rather than your young theologues,
who don't know hoe from a harrow" Yes,
Tom | wish he was out here too. Wouldn't
we have him preaching before six months
are over? Preaching to these heather, too,
unless he found he didn't know enough
about the Bible himself, or unless he found
he was too dull to learn their language so as
to preach in it But if he did, he would go
home and be good home missionary for
the rest of his life, I'll warrant.
But as we cannot talk yet, and cannot
study at home all day, suppose we go out be-
fore the sun is too hot, and see the farmers,
and see how Neighbor Whites plan of civil
izing these heather farmers would work.
One thing is certain, he would not do much
work here himself to-day, would he? No,
not unless he hired some one to hold an UNI
brela over him. He would drop down with
a sun.stroke before he had worked an hour
as he does in Vermont. But perhaps he
could teach others how to work. Let us see
These are all little gardens. There is not
room for great farms here. There are too
many people for that. Why, only think of
it. This part of Ceylon, called the Jaffna
Province, is only one twelfth as large as
Vermont is, but it has ten times as many
people living in it as there are in Yer
mont. No room for any great fields of corn
man doing? Tom says he is chasing
a pair of calves around the field. But
no, Tom; those are oxen, and he is plow-
ing. His pillow is made of two sticks.
One of them is pointed, and has little
piece of iron on it, the other makes the
pillow beam and handle lie holds it in one
hand and a stick in the other hand 1t only
scratches up the dirt a little, so as to
cover the seed that you see scattered over
the ground. How Neighbor White would
laugh at it But if he brought along with
him his great Vermont pillow, somebody else
would do the laughing. If he should get it
out here, and dig hole and put the point
of it into the ground as deep as he wanted
to pillow, all the oxen in the region could not
turn over the furrow, for this soil is just
like hard clay bank. If he was here this
morning with his Eagle No. A." do not
think he would ever sneer again at the old
missionary who told him he should like to
take his light harrow out to Ceylon for a
pillow. That is rice on the ground. 1t is
the corn and wheat of Ceyon. Corn and
potatoes do not grow here. If they did, per-
haps Neighbor White would know how to
Ia H., 4
have to teach him how to raise rice. He
never would plant it in that clay, would he !?
And cover it with dust too How foolish !
But it will rain in less than week, and
then this will soon be all soft mud. You
see the ground is fixed so that there will be
little ponds all about here and the rice will
grow in the water. Then they come with
the fertilizer. Well, guess Farmer White
could improve that process little Lots of
men and women, with baskets on their
| heads. And some of the baskets are
filled with fresh COW manure. And their
hands are the shovels. Farmer White could
| improve that certainly.
But I've read story about farmer
White Chat was not his nance, who tried
to do this very thing. He was going to
| cvilize these heather first, and so prepare
the way to Christianize them He did not
| know, and | think Farmer White does not
know, that there is in this Hindoo religion
something called caste, which ! call Satan's
| right arm. That caste makes a man always
do his work Just as his father and his grand
father did it. Well, this man was going to
civilize them. So he went to work and
made a wheelbarow, and then hired man
to use it for him, perhaps moving some dirt
from one place to another. For little
while, when they were alone, all went on
well. But soon the employer went away
and some of the heather neighbors came in
sight of the workman. And when the civ
ilizer came back again, he found him doing
the work Just as his caste laws told him t.
do it-carrying the loaded wheelbarrow on
the top of his head. Why, children, Farmer
White would learn here in an half day
that he could not civilize these heather at
all till they had given up their heathenism
And il is just the same with the carpenters
and the blacksmiths.
The heather will, if any of his associates
see him, jump up on your bench and hold hii
board with his feet when he planes it, AnC
if Farmer White should succeed in getting
the man who takes care of the oxen here Il
harness his horse for him it would be be
cause that man had already given up hi
heather religion, for the COW is high caste
but the horse is low caste. No, he coulC
not look around here for an hour withou
seeing as plainly as he sees the tropic SUI
that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the tru
ciyilizer. If the heather were in the Unite,
States, and if they were not such heather
perhaps we could oivilize them first, Blu
Farmer Whites mower would not dig gras
roots His reaper would waste rice enoug
to pay these men for harvesting the Who'll
crop with their little sickles and basket,
And when the rainy season comes and it
so damp that your pocket-knife is all oovere
with rust his bright machinery would 500
be useless. His Yankee planes would smoot
this hard, cross-grained wood about as we