Connecticut western news., 1897-05-06

the planet; but, alas. that the sufferer and the supply cannot be brought to- gether. There stands India today Look at her! Her face dusky from the hot suns of many centuries; under her tur- ban such achings of brow as only dy- ing nation feels; her eyes hollow with unutterable woe; the tears rolling down her sunken cheek; her back bent with more agonies than she knows how to carry; her ovens containing nothing but ashes. Gaunt, ghastly, wasted, the dew of death upon her forehead and a pallor such as the last hour brings, she stretches forth her trembling hand to- ward us, and with hoarse whisper she says: "I am dying! Give me bread That is what want Breadl Give it to me quick Give it to me now-breadl breadl breadp' America has heard the cry. Many thousands of dollars have already been contributed. One ship laden with breadstuffs has sailed from San Francisco for India. Our senate and house of representatives, in bill signed by our sympathetic president, have au- thorized the secretary of the navy to charter vessel to carry food to the
 
 that ship. We want to send at least 600, ,000 bushels of corn. That will save the lives of at least 600, 900 people. Many will respond in contributions of money, and the barns and corncribs of the entire United States will pour forth their treasures of food. When that ship is laden til 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 Arabian waters. They who help by contributions of money or breadstuffs toward filling that relief ship will flavor their own food for their lifetime with appetizing 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" A Noble Mission.
 Oh, what a relief ship that will bel It shall not turn a screw nor hoist sail until we have had something to do with it's cargo. Just IF years ago from these Easter times a ship on similar errand went out from New York harbor-the old war frigate Constellation. It had once carried guns of death, but there was famine in Ireland, and the Constellation was loaded with 500 tons of food. That ship, once covered with smoke of battle, then covered with Easter hosannas; that ship, constructed to battle England, go- ing forth over the waters to carry relief to some of her starving subjects. Better than sword into plowshare, better than spear into pruning hook was that old war frigate, turned into white winged angel of resurrection, to roll away the stone from the mouth of Ireland's sep ulchre. On like errand five years ago the ship Leo put out with many tons of food for famine struck Russia. One Sat urday afternoon on the deck of that steamer, as she lay at Brooklyn wharf, wondrous scene took place. A com mittee of the Kings Daughters had dec- orated the ship with streamers and bunt- ing, American and Russian flags inter twining. Thousands of people on the wharyes and on the decks joined us in invoking Gods blessing on the cargo, and the long meter Doxology in "Old Hundred" sounded grandly up amid the masts and ratlines Having had the joy of seeing that ship thus consecrated, we bad the additional joy of standing on the uocks of St. Petersburg when the blanks of the relief ship were thrown out and the representatives of the mu- inequalities 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 suffered. Quicker ought to | be the response, and on so vast scale l that the one ship would become whole l flotilla-New York sending one, Boston | another, Philadelphia another, Charles ton another, New Orleans another. Then let them all meet in some harbor of h. | dia. What peroration of mercy for the nineteenth century, I would like to stand on the wharf at Calcutta or Bom- bay and see such fleet come in. With | what joy 1t would be welcomed! The emaciated would lift their heads on | shriveled hands and elbows, and with l thin lips ask, "Is it coming-something | 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 I cry out for l you and for others to those sufferers: "Wait little longer, bear up little more, oh, dying men of India oh. starv- ing women; oh, emaciated babesl Relief | %no 70 xr,,I be coming. We send it in the name of the Asiatic Christ, who said: I was hungry, and ye fed me. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me-"
 | Christian people of America, call l your attention to the fact that we may now, as never before, by one magnificent
 stroke open the widest door for the
 evangelization of Asia A stupendous
 obstacle in the way of Christianizing
 Asia has been the difference of Ian
 guage, 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? Another huge diff
 flculty in the way of Christianizing
 Asia has been that those people thought
 the religion we would have them take
 was no better than their Hindooism or
 Mohammedanism, but they will now
 see by this crusade for the relief of peo-
 pie 14,000 miles away that the Chris
 tian religion is of higher, better and
 grander type than any other religion,
 for when did the followers of Brahma
 or Vishnu or Buddha or Confucius or
 Mohammed ever demonstrate like inter
 est in people on opposite sides of the
 world? Having taken the bread of this
 life from our hands, they will be more
 apt to take from us the bread of eternal
 life. The missionaries of different de- | nominations in India at 46 stations are