The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-05-03

/ them / suppose there will be at least ten
million dead. Starvation, even for one
| person, is an awful process. No food, the
vitals gnaw upon themselves, and faint
| ness and languOr and pangs from mead 70
! foot, and horror and despair and insanity
| take full possession. One handful OF wheat
| or corn or rice per day would keep
| life going, but they cannot get handful.
| The crops failed and the millions are dy-
/ ing Oh, it is hard to be hungry in a
world where there Is enough grain, and
! fruit, and meat to I'll all the hungry
mouths the planet; but alas! that the
| sufferer and the supply cannot be brought
| together. There stands India to-day!
! Look at her! Her face dusky from the
| hot suns of many centuriesi under her
! turban such achings Of brow as only a
| dying ma ton feels the eyes hollow with
unutterable woe; the tears rolling down
! her sunken cheek; her back bent with
more agonies than she knows how TO car
~: her ovens containing nothing but
| ashes. Gaunt CHASTITY, wasted, the dew or
death upon her forehead and pallor such
as the last hour brings, she stretches forth
! her trembling hand toward us, and with
! hoarse whisper she says: Il am dying!
! Give me bread. That is what ] want!
| Bread! Give it to me quick; give 1t to me
now-breadi bread! breadw America has
! heard the cry. Many thousands of dol
| lars have already been contributed. One
! ship laden with breadstuffs has sailed from
! San Francisco for India. Our Senate and
! House of Representatives, in a bill signed
| by our sympathetic President, have au-
| thorized the secretary of the navy to char
| ter a vessel to carry food to the famine
| sufferers. and you may help fill that ship.
We want to send at least six hundred
thousand bushels of corn. That will save
the lives of at least six hundred thousand
people. Many will respond in contributions
of money, and the barns and corn cribs of
the entire United States will pour forth
their treasures of food. When that ship
is laden till it can carry no more we will
ask Him who holds the winds in his fist
and plants his triumphant foot on stormy
waves to let nothing but good happen to
the ship till it anchors in Bengal or Ara
bian waters. They who help by contribu-
tions of money or breadstuffs toward fill
ing that relief ship will flavor their own
food for their lifetime with appetiEng
qualities, and insure their own welfare
through the promise of him who said;
Blessed is he that considereth the poor;
the Lord will deliver him In time of
trouble"
o what a relief ship that will be! 1t
shall not turn a screw nor hoist sail I'M
til we have had something to do with rs
cargo. Just seventeen years ago from
these Easter times a ship on similar err
rand went out from New York harbor-
the old war frigate Constellation" II
had once carried guns of death; but there
was famine in Ireland, and the Constella-
ton was loaded with five hundred tons
of food. That ship, once covered with
smoke of battle; then covered with Easter
hosannas! That ship, constructed to bat
tie England, going forth over the waters
to carry relief to some of her starving
subjects. Better than sword into plough
share, better than spear into pruning
hook was that old war frigate, turned
into a white winged angel of resurrec-
ton, to roll away the stone from the
mouth of Irelands sepulchre. On like err
rand five years ago the ship Leo put out
with many tons of food for famine-struck
Russia. One Saturday afternoon, on the
deck of that steamer as she lay at Brook
lyn wharf, a wondrous scene took place.
A committee of the Kings Daughters mad
decorated the ship with steamers and
bunting, American and Russian hagS in
tertWining. Thousands of people on the
wharves and on the decks joined us in
invoking Gods blessing on the cargo,
and the long meter DoXology in Old Hun
bred sounded grandly up amidst the mast
and ratlines. Having had the joy of
seeing that ship thus consecrated, we
had the additional JOY of standing on the
docks of St. Petersburg, Russia, when
the planks of the relief ship were
thrown out and the representatives of the
municipalities and of royalty went aboard
her, the long freight train at the same
time rolling down to take the food to the
starving, and on alternate cars of that
train American and Russian flags floating.
But now the hunger in India is mightier
than any that Ireland or Russia ever suf-
fered. Quicker ought to be the response,
and on so vast scale that the one ship
would become a whole hotilla-New York
sending one, Boston another Philadel-
phia another, Charleston another New Or
leans another. Then let them all meet in
some harbor of India. What a peroration
af 10 niOataanth I
would like to stand on the wharf at Cal
cutta or Bombay and see such a fleet
come in. With what joy it would be well
comed The emaciated would lift their
head on the shriveled hand and elbow, and
with thin lips ask: rs it comng-some-
thing to eat?' And whole villages and
towns. too weak to walk, would crawl
out on hands and knees to get the first
grain of corn they could reach and put
it to their famished lips. May 1 cry out
for you and for others to those sufferers,
"Wait a little longer, bear up little more
o dying men of India, o starving wo-
men! o emaciated babes! Relief is on
the way, and more relief will soon be
coming. We send it in the name of the
Asiatic Christ who said: Il was hungry
and We fed me; inasmuch as We have done
IL unto one of the least of these my breth-
rem, We have done it unto me-"
Christian people of America! / call your
attention to the fact that we may now as
never before, by one magnificent stroke
open the widest door for the evangeliza-
ton of Asia. A stupendous obstacle in
the way of Christianizing Asia has been
the difference of language, but all those
! people understand the Gospel of bread
| Another obstacle has been the law of
| caste but in what better way can we
| teach them the brotherhood of man? An
other huge difficulty in the way of Chris
] thanking Asia has been that those people
| thought the religion we would have them
| take was no better than their Hindooism
| or Accommodation but they Will now
see by this crusade for the relief Of peo-
| pie fourteen thousand miles away that
the Christian religion is of a higher. bet
ter, and grander type than any other re-
| lgion, for wheI. did the followers of Brah-
ma or Nishnu or Buddha or Confucius or
! Mahomet ever demonstrate like interest
| in people on opposite side OF the world.
| Having taken the bread of this life from
Do you know what an
! N