Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-05-03

IL
today visit India as Christian women
and men to hear the full meaning of a
groan of hunger that has travelled
1000 miles, yet gets louder and more
agoniZing as the days go by. But why
have any interest in people so far away
that it is evening there when it is morn
ing here their complexion darker, their
language to US a jargon, their attire
unlike that found in any American
wardrobe, their memory and their am
bition unlike anything that we recall
or hope for? With more emphasis than
you put into the interrogatory ''Why?'
I answer: First, because our Christ was
an Asiatic. Egypt gave to us it's mOnu-
ments, Rome gave to us its law, Ger
many gave to us its philosophy, but
Asia gave to US it's Christ-his mother
an Asiatic; the mountains that looked
down upon him, Asiatic; the lakes on
whose pebbly banks he rested and on
whose CHOPPED waves he walked, Asiat-
ic; the apostles whom he first commits
stoned, Asiati &c; the audiences he whelm-
ed with his illustrations drawn from
blooming lilies, and salt crystals, and
great rainfalls, and believing tenn
pests, and hypocrites' long faces, and
crOaking ravens-al1 those audiences
Asiatic.
Christ during his earthly stay was
never outside of Asia. When he had 16
or IS years to spare from his active
work, instead of spending that time in
Europe think he goes farther toward
the heart of Asia-nameiy, India. The
Bible says nothing of Christ from IL
years of age until 80, but there are rec
ords in India and traditions in India
which represent a strange, wonderful,
most excellent and supernatural being
as staying in India about that time. 1
think Christ was there much Of the time
between his twelfth and his thirtieth
year; but, however that may be, Christ
was born in Asia, suffered in Asia, died
in Asia and assembled from Asia, and all
that makes me turn my ear more atten-
lively toward that continent as [ hear
its cry of distress.
Missionary Achievements.
Besides that I remember that some of
the most splendid achievements for the
cause of that Asiatic Christ have been
made in India. How the heart of every
intelligent Christian beats with ad-
miration at the mere mention Of the
name of Henry Martynl Having read
the life of our American David Brain
erd, who gave his life to evangelizing
our American savages, Henry Martyr
goes forward to give his life for the sal
walton of India, dying from exhaustion
of service at 81 years of age. Lord Ma
caulay, writing of him says:
Here Martyr lies. In manhood's early bloom
The Christian hero found pagan tomb.
Religion, sorrCwing DER her favcrite son,
Points to the glorious trophies which he won
Immortal trophies! Not with slaughter red,
Nor stained with tears by friendless orphans
shed,
But trophies of the cross. In that dear name,
Through every scene of danger, toll and shame,
Onward he journeyed to that happy shore,
Where danger, toll and shame known
Is there in all history, secular or re-
igious, more wondrous character than
William Carey, the converted shoemak-
er of England, daring all things for
God in India, translating the Bible into
many dialects, building chapels and
opening mission houses and laying
foundations fsr the redemption of the
country, and although Sidney Smith,
who sometimes laughed at things he
ought not to have satirized, had in the
learned Edinburgh Review scoffed at
the idea Of what he called Glow born,
low bred mechanics" like Carey at
tempting to convert the Brahmins,
Carey stopped not until he had started
influences that eternity, no more than
time, shall have power to arrest, 213,-
900 Bibles going forth from his printing :
presses at Serampore His sublime hui
mility showed itself in the epitaph he
ordered from the old gospel hymn:
A wretched poor and helpless worm,
On thy kind arms l fall
Need tell you of Alphonse Lacroix,
the Swiss missionary in India, or of
William Butler, the glorious American
Methodist missionary in India, or of
the royal family of the Scudders of the
Reformed church of America, my dear
mother church, to whom give kiss of
love in passing, or of DR.. Alexander
Duff, the Scotch missionary whose Wis
it to this country some of us will re-
member forever? When he stood in the
old Broadway tabernacle, New York,
and pleaded for India until there was
no other depth Of religious emotion for
him to stir and no loftier height of
Christian eloquence for him to scale,
and closed in whirlwind of hallelu-
iahs, I could easily believe that which
was said Of him-that while pleading
the cause of India in one of the church
es of Scotland he got SO overweight
that he fell in the pulpit in a swoon
and was carried into the vestry to be
and when restored to his
senses and preparation was being made
to carry him out to some dwelling
where he could be put to bed he com
PEELED his friends to take him back to
the pulpit to complete his plea for the
salvation of India, no sooner getting on