The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1904-04-13
MISS ALICE WISHART.
Describes a Specimen Days Missionary
Work in India.
THE SACRED WATERS OF THE GANGES,
To Which Long PiIgrmages are Made for An
Opportunity to Wash Sin Away.
Poor, Deluded People
ALLAHABAD, INDIA. January 20, 1904

country. Yesterday Miss Todd
and l, after 1920 breakfast, load.
ed with several hundred tracts
and gospels IN Undu and Heiede,
took a conveyance and drove to
the Mela ground by way of Dara
Zunj. You know how it looks -
The miles and miles of smooth,
wide streets lined with beautiful,
big mango trees; the rows of ma.
tive mud huts along the way;
naked children, goats, oxen, now
and then camel, or an elephant,
miniature donkeys laden with
dirty clothes, and driven by the
washermen; ekka after ekka full
of men in purple and gold, and
some garbed only with a dirty,
white, LON cloth and pugri. the
ekkas being pulled by miserable
little, starved ponies.
We stopped at heathen tenn
pie On the way where a crowd had
gathered to see the Rama (Prin-
cess of Benares and her retinues
who had come over to worship
and bathe. We distributed lot
of tracts; none were refused and
every one seemed anxious to get
them. All the way to Dara Zunj
we had opportunities to give them
and we were not slow to improve
the opportunity.
Miss Todd had an errand IN a
house so | sat outside IN the garl
and amused myself seeing people
pass, and handing out tracts. |
used always to have a horror of
tracts, but I see the good they ac'
complish here. The houses on
both sides of the street (street
about 10 feet wide) were of mud,
and as the one opposite where we
stopped happened to be "green
grocery" l could see that part of
the town buy their vegetables for
dinner. Miserable looking old
women would come along and buy
half a dozen very small potatoes;
than a half naked youngster load
ed with auklets and bracelets
would bargain for two guavas. -
Women with rings in their noses
and rings on their toes, with ank
let's and bracelets of tin or silver,
would clank and tiukle by. Tiny
girls with their younger sisters
or brothers astride their hips,
stood staring at me. Of all the
strange people and conveyances
that passed IN the twenty minutes
I sat there, it would take hours
to describe. We drove through
streets that perhaps no mission
aries ever see, much less work in,
and were so glad to put Christ's
word into many, many hands that
had never seen or heard of it be-
fore.
When we reached the Ganges,
instead of going down to the river
as we did last week, we walked
round on the upper bank where
dozens of the most hideous crea-
lures | ever saw were sitting
about IN groups, or loaflng in the
sun. Most of them were priests
with naked bodies daubed with
yellow clay and ashes. Their
hair was matted and hung in long
plated ropes down their backs, or
was wound round and round their
heads. If we saw one, we saw a
hundred hideous idols within
distance of quarter of mile or
less. The people were willing
enough for the tracts, and we
sold a number of gospels at a
quarter of cent each. There
were the "holy"(9 men on spiked
beds, and the men with withered
arms or legs. Oh, it was heart.
sickening to see and to know the
condition of those souls for whom
Christ died . In the river below
us were thousands of the same
deluded creatures, trying to wash
away their sins IN the sacred"
waters. II was heathenism with
a vengeance; and, to think, some
of these came great distances and
stayed the entire month, Oh, the