The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-05-26
THE MISSION FIELD.
convention OF the Women's Foreign
Missionary Society Begins Its Session.

Convention of the Women's Foreign
Missionary Society Begins Its Session.
The first convention of the Women's
Foreign Missionary Society Of the Puget
sound conference of the Methodist denom-
ination began its session in the First N.
L. church last evening. 1t will continue
over today and tomorrow. There was not
a very large attendance present last night,
but it was a rather liberal one, as Judged
by its cash contributions to the missionary
cause. The two speakers of the occasion
were Rev. G. r. Thoburn, son of Bishop
Thoburn, of India, and Miss Clara
Cushman, of the Pekin, China. mission.
Devotional exercises were very simple,
and were conducted by Mrs. Nellie S.
Hanson, of Portland, corresponding secre-
tary of the conference. Her Scripture
lesson was the Savior's parable of the good
Samaritan. Rev. Levi Gilbert offered
prayer. and after an urgent appeal by Mrs.
Hanson for substantial help, Rev. Mr..
Thoburn took the platform. His address
was very fluent. entertaining one, graph
ically descriptive, carrying his audience to
realization of the condition of India, by
vision of that interesting, but benighted
land. The charm of mountain peaks
that first greet the voyageur's gaze, the
strange craft of Bombay harbor, the mag
nifcent stone masonry and architecture of
the more pretentious portion of Bombay,
were described with vividness of touch
that charmed his listeners. One would
naturally ask, at first impulse, 'Is this
India? Is this heather nations % There
is European effect in the appearance of
f6<r
and European windows, splendid piles of
architectural ccomplishment-the fruits
of cheap and plentiful hand labor-until
sudden and unpleasant transit 'out of the
civilization of Europe into the semi-bar-
barism of Asia" is experienced. The con-
trast is intensely Earring to the feelings.
Then it is realized what it is to be in a
strange and heather land.
The speaker pictured the low-built,
rudely constructed, but numerously ten
anted huts of bamboo and mud; also the
primitive bullock carts for the transporta-
ton of bales of cotton. He drew piteous
portrayal of the cruelty of the drivers to
their little hump-backed bullocks, while
doing their days work. followed by their
superstitious alteration of the same
animals when the days work was done.
The drivers believe in the transmigration
of souls, and, accordingly, they worship
their bullocks on the supposition that the
souls of some of their own ancestors might
be inhabitating the bodies of the dumb
brutes just unyoked. Besides they dread
retaliation, considering their cruelty dur.
ing the day. The women beating
cement floors. chanting, laughing and
working; the promiscuous commingling
of various tribes and peoples in the marts
of Bombay the speaker rapidly sketched,
likewise the superstitions of their religion.
They have $50 deities, and they worship
every tree and every pile of stones that
have been daubed with red paint.
He then told of the conversion of
young Brahmin, whose uncle had found
in the doctrines of Jesus of Nazareth what
the Hindoo Vedas, what the sacred scribes
of India, did not teach. This uncle was
therefore driven away from his home,
village of twenty-six Brahmins Of the
highest caste, near Madras. Then the
Young Brahmin's mother clandestinely
fed the convert. and became converted
herself She died confessing her Chris
tianity. Her son professed Christianity,
and the entire village followed suit.
The next picture was that of young
girl. married when a child, widowed. dis
graced, enslaved, and sold by her mother
to a brute-Radha-K isseh-while still in
her teens. This girl, .Luchminia (named
after the goddess of Fortune), was rescued
from Richardson's clutches by a lady
but her owner and her mother
applied to free-thinking judge, named
Quinn, a white man preiudiced against
Christianity, and he ordered the girl
to be returned to her heartless
claimants. This. case, the speaker said.
has been brought to the notice of the Eng
lish parliament on an appeal. Mr.. Tho
burn touched upon the inhuman caste"
spirit also, showing how among fifty on
lockers no one would assist coachman
whose leg had been horribly broken, and
who was left lying upon a hot pavement
until a Christian rescuer appeared. He
concluded with an appeal for the Girls
Home, Calcutta institution.
Miss Clara Cushman aroused the tender
feelings of her hearers in her talk upon
the work of the Pekin mission. She
spoke of the curiosity manifested by the
Chinese children at the school, likewise
the inouisitiveness of the women regard
ing her country, and her relatives. what
is your honorable name, and what is
your venerable age?" they would ask.
They were greatly astounded when she
told them she had no husband. A little
act of caressing kindness caused
Young Chinese woman to leave
her heather home and accompany
Miss Cushman to the Pekin school.
A wonderful change was made in the life
of Lihun-Nainai Mrs. Lihun) when Mr..
Lihun. a big-throated, loud-voiced ana
surlv-tempered husband was converted.
.iFor every one of YOU Christian women
there are two hundred hopeless and
Christless women" remarked the speaker,
and by this she impressed upon the ladies
present the urgent necessity OF dong All
in their power to help along the work.
At this mornings session Mrs. Nj. Z.
Wise, secretary of the Oregon woman
Foreign Missionary Society, will conduct
the exercises. The afternoon session VIII
open at / 80 D. m. Mrs. L. ]. Moore, sec
retary of the Tacoma district viii lead the
devotions. The young ladies hour VIII be
at 2:30. A paper on young woman
Work will be read by Mrs. Levi Gilbert;
also q poem by Mrs A. W. Oliver, OF Port
land. Or. Mrs. C. +. Fishback will read a
paper on the Relations of the Epwortn
League TO Our Work" and there Will pc
addresses by Rev. Mr.. Thoburn ana MISS
Cu.hman. A children's meeting VIII De az
an. m. At the evening session, wnlcn Will
open at O'Clock, dialogue, entitled OF
in VAIN viii be given, and Rev d. r..
Cherrington, of Tacoma, viii denver an
address.