New Britain herald., 1916-03-18
TELLS OF MISSION
 PRACTICE IN INDIA
Rev. B.P. Cross, Father of Baptist
 Church Pastor, Gives Address

l ue'S oc1lOol OllcefS ana teachers held
 in the chapel last night was an ad- dress on missionary work in India, by | Rev. E. r. Cross, father of Rev. pr.
 E. B. Cross, the pastor. There was a 1 large attendance and Rev MT. Cross
 remarks were received with much | pleasure
 | Rev. MT. Cross is stationed at Bur- 1 ma, India and works under the di- rection of the American Baptist For l e1gn Mission society," He was born in | Tavoy, India, and is the son of mis- l slonarles. From both sides of his an-
 cestors he inherits love for mission i work Both his maternal and pater- 1 nal grandfathers and great grand ] fathers were Baptist ministers. His early education was received in India 1 and when he was in his teens he and his brother, Edmund, now a druggist in Huntington, Mass, left India in care of the captain of vessel sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to England and thence to America. Both made their homes with an uncle in Chicopee Fslls, Mass, and attended the high school in that town. Later,
 Rev. MT. Cross entered the engineer ing courses of Union College at.
 Schenectady. from which he graduat- cd in 1867 with degree of civil en- gineer He practised the profession
 for two years and then his love for the
 work of his ancestors led him to en-
 ter the Newton, Mass, Theological seminary, from which he was gradu-
 ated in 1874 and was ordained in the
 fall of the year. He left for India and
 has rad but four furloughs since that time. He spoke in part as follows:
 The People of Burma.
 "Burma is about 1000 miles long and about 500 miles wide and is in a
 warm climate. The coldest I ever knew it to be was when the thermom- cter dropped to 59 degrees. In the lower or southern part of Burma, there are besides the Burmese, who have their homes for the most part along the banks of the rivers and larger streams, a people quite different in every way from the Burmese, and speak in an entirely different language. The Burmese call these people K'yen, which has become in English, Karens. Until the arrival of the British, the Burmese often oppressed the karens, but the British authorities gave every one equal rights. The karens lived in small villages among the hills and other inaccessible places, as they were in constant fear of the much more numerous and better organized Burmese. The Karens fled into the jungles and wero often in danger of wild beasts which infest those dis trcts.
 Karens Remarkable People.
 "These people are remarkable in the history of missions on account of the readiness with which they have eccepted Christianity. While after 100 years of preaching there. are now less than 40O0 Baptist church mem bers among the Burmese, as the re- suit of d little more than eighty years of mission work among the Karens, Baptist church members number about 50,000. These Baptist churches have been organized into twelve as sociations, meeting once every year to discuss and decide their educational and religious interests. Many natives serve as preachers, for the churches are very far apart. In Tavoy, the mis- sion workers are able to reach them only at long intervals. The native preachers are highly educated and some have received college degrees. Considering conditions, educational advantages offered are excellent Ev- cry year at Tavoy a music festival is held to which every church sends rep resentatives. The meetings are always conducted in an orderly and systemat- ic manner under the guidance of of ficers and committees chosen from among the natives. These meetings number hundreds and in the larger associations as many as 2,0OO people come together and are freely enter-- tained by the church, with which the association meets, For this purpose not only must an abundance of food be supplied but temporary buildings for the eating and sleeping. But in a, tropical cline bambooes and palm leaves enable this to be done without tco great an expenditure of money and labor.
 Missions Keep Language Alive.
 During the forty years I have been in Burma, 1 have worked among the Karens in nearly every part of Burma. But since 1911 my work has been in Tavoy and Migui districts, a narrow strip of land forming the southern most part of Burma, extending be- tween the tenth and fifteenth paral- Tel of latitude and between the east ern shore of the Bay of Bengal and the mountains, which form the bound ary between Burma and Siam, about 1 $50 miles in length and seventy-fve 1 miles in width at it's widest point. Throughout the whole length of this country. Karen churches are scattered usually in groups along the course of the stream and on islands in the sea along the coast. The Karen language would be extingulshed entirely by this time were it not for the missions, Bur- meSe was becoming the national tongue and even now is the principal one. The Baptist missions founded schools for the Karens and kept alive the language. Burmese is also taught 1 in these schools A translation of the