The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1907-08-17


b. Thompson, of Washington, d. c.,
spoke on india as Mission Field
The work of Seventh day Adventists
is making substantial progress In
India; a sanitarium, a printing office,
and other facilities for carrying for
ward the work have been established.
and a good corps of laborers are now
in the field.
In November Elder Thompson left
this country to make visit to India
and attend a general meeting of all
our mission workers held in Calcutta
the last of December. About four
months was spent In the country.
He gave very interesting account
heather superstition. He said in part:
'1n area, India comprises about
|nve-sixths of the United States. 1t
has in round numbers a population of
about 300,000,000. or these 100000
900 are Hindus, over S0,O00,000 are
Mohammedans and the remainder of
the population is made up Of various
other heather religions, with few
millions Of professed Christians.
There are some seventy different
languages spoken in India, no one
of which is spoken by less than a
million people. The most widely spok-
EN- is the Hhldi, which is used by 49,
100000. The Bengali tongue is spok-
len by about 100000, the Tamil by
/ 100000 the Telagu by $4,000, 900,
the Marathi by 100000 the Gujer-
lathi by 100000, and the Punjab by
I l15,000,000. Mission workers are need
ed in all these tongues to carry the
gospel of the soon-coming Christ to
these millions of souls who have been
lshackled for centuries In the darkness
lof heather superstition.
There are many barriers to mission
work in that land Chief among these
are caste and the seclusion of WON
en-. To embrace Christianity means to
break caste, and this is terrible
thing for Hindu or a Mohammedan
| to do. Once his caste is broken he
lis victim of social ostracism. His
people will have nothirg to do with
him, will not even assist in buryng
his dead. So II means much 10 q
Hindu or Mohammedan to become q
IChristian. High caste Hindu and
'Mohammedan women live i'm utter Sc.
clusion. They are not supposed to
see the face of any man except their
husbands. For this class only ladies
can do effective missionary work.
Another great curse of India Is
child marriage. Children are mar.
Iried in their cradles, boys who walk
the streets are bridegrooms. Young
girls go 10 live with their husbands
at twelve years of age and in som,
cases even younger. This produces 8
condition of things which in many
respects is simply appalling.
And in India there are over TWEEN
ty million widows. To be a Hindu O,
Mohammedan widow is in some re
spects worse than death. They ar,
despised and hated by their own peo
pie They are superstitiously though
TO be the victim of some evil spirit
which has caused the death of thei
husbands. They cannot re-marry an,
are hated and espised This bring
another awful condition, and empha
sizes not only the blessings wbicl
lcome to our homes through the gospe
or the Son of God. but also empha
sizes the great responsibility that rest,
upon us as Christians to carry tr
this dark land the gospel of Christ.
| we had very excellent meeting OF
Jour workers while was I'm the field
IThose who had embraced the Sabbath
truth were present from Bengali. San.
tail, Hindi, Burmese, besides the Eng.
lish. These all told of the blessed
hope they had in Christ as their
Savior. One figure of special interest
was a Hindu past eighty who thirty
years previous had been healed of the
leprosy In answer to prayer He had
been leper from his childhood. and
had prayed to all the Hindu gods for
Irellet But none had come until he
sought in faith the Son of God. Two
years ago this aged man read in the
Bible that the same Jesus who healed
MN from the leprosy kept the seventh
day for the Sabbath, and he began
It's observance also. Many other in
teresting experiences were related at
our meeting.
Following on? meeting at Calcutta
with Others / went north into the
iiimalaya Mountains. In these lofty
region a mission station was pur-
|Chased where our workers can retire