Lighted to Lighten: the Hope of India Part 6

Nor do the girls of Isabella Thoburn College forget all these interests when vacation days come round. This tells something of holiday opportunity. How do our summer vacations compare with it? "How apt one is to slacken and get a little selfish in planning out a programme for a holiday. One is not tied down to the usual duties and routine of school work, and plans are made as to the best possible way of spending the days for one's own pleasure and relaxation. The many little things that one's heart longs for, and for which there is no time during the busy days, are now looked forward to; a particular piece of needlework, a favorite book, some excursions to places of interest; all these and other things are likely to crowd out thoughts of our duties to others in making life a little better and some one a little happier each day.

"And yet a holiday is the time when one can more freely give oneself to others, for opportunities of helpful service offer themselves in the very holiday pursuits, if one has eyes for them.

"Rooming in a home where many mothers have still many more children, one would feel at first like escaping from the noise and commotion caused by crying babies, and yet here are some opportunities of service. It is never a wise plan to leave children to the entire care of ayahs. A very profitable hour may be spent in directing games when the little people build with their bricks gates and bridges, houses and castles, and the older ones listen with interest to some story of adventure. An hour spent in the open air under shady trees in this way would draw many a grateful heart, for there would be less crying, fewer quarrels, and a little more peace for all around.

"In these days when strikes are so common, many opportunities for social service offer themselves. It may be a postal strike. Now, not many of us like to be kept waiting for our mail, and, if the postmen are not bringing us our letters, we very soon contrive some means of getting them. I grant it isn't a very enviable job to be standing outside a delivery window awaiting the sorting of letters by a crew of girl guides and boy scouts, who are not any too serious about their work. But once the letters are secured and delivered at the neighboring homes of friends and others, it is something done, besides the satisfaction of being able to sit down and read your own letters as well as having the grateful appreciation from others.

"Again, a picnic has been planned to some far away hill. The party arrives; tiffin baskets are placed in some shady spot. One of the party wanders away to a little village not far off. She is soon surrounded by a group of scrubby children, who watch her with eyes full of curiosity and wonder. She dips her hand into the bag she has been carrying and brings out a handful of nuts and oranges, and, before sharing them with the children, she invites them to wash their scrubby, little hands and faces in the sparkling stream of clear, crystal water that is flowing through the valley. She gets to talking to them, and asks about their homes, and one little child leads her to a meagre, little, gra.s.sy hut in which her sick sister is lying. She hasn't any medicine with her, but she opens wide the door of the hut and lets the bright sunlight in. She strokes the little one's feverish brow, and sets to, and fixes up the bed and soon gets the sickroom, such as it is, clean and tidy. The mother is touched by the gentle kindliness of the stranger and confides her sorrows to her. Other homes are visited. People expecting the kind visitor brush up and tidy their huts.

"So the picnic excursion ends leaving a cleaner and happier spot nestling in among those mountainsides. Several visits are paid to the little village. The stranger is no longer a stranger, for she is now known and loved and is greeted by clean, happy, smiling children, and blessed by grateful mothers. And so in the home and in the office and in G.o.d's out-of-doors we can find opportunities for helping others."

[Ill.u.s.tration: GIRLS OF ALL CASTES MEET ON COMMON GROUND IN THE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE.]

Eminent among the student body for maturity of thought and depth of Christian purpose is Shelomith Vincent. Many of these characteristics may be accounted for by her splendid inheritance. Her father was of the military caste, the son of a Zemindar, or petty rajah. At the time of the Mutiny he, a boy of ten years, ran away in the crowd and followed the mutineers on their long march from Lucknow to Agra, where he was rescued by a missionary and brought up in his family. Later, longing to know his past, the young man returned to Lucknow, found his relatives, weighed in the balance the claims of Hinduism and Christianity, and of his own accord decided for the latter. Later we see him a Sanskrit student in Benares, where he married his wife, a fifteen-year-old Brahman convert.

The Christian couple moved soon to the Central Provinces, where Mr.

Vincent entered upon his twenty-five years of service as a Christian pastor, using his Sanskrit learning to interpret the message of Christianity to his Hindu friends. Yet it was in lowlier ways that his life was most telling. Settling in a peasant colony of a thousand so-called converts, only half-Christianized, the story of his labors and triumphs reads like that of Columba, or Boniface in early Europe.

Through perils of robbers and perils of famine he labored on, building villages, digging wells, distributing American corn in famine days, reproving, teaching, guiding. All this I am telling, because it explains much of the daughter's quiet strength. One of ten children, she has spent many years in earning money to educate the younger brothers and sisters, and she is finishing her college course as a mature woman. Miss Vincent hopes that the American fellowship may one day be hers; and already her plans are developing as to the ways she will contrive to pa.s.s on her opportunities to her fellow countrywomen.

Her heart is with those illiterate village women among whom her childhood was pa.s.sed; her longing is to share with them the truth, the beauty, and the goodness with which Lal Bagh has filled her days.

Has Lal Bagh been a paying investment? One wishes that every one whose dollars have found expression in its walls might come to feel the indefinable spirit that pervades them, filling cold brick and mortar with life energy. For centuries philosophers searched for that Philosopher's Stone that was to trans.m.u.te base metals into gold. In the world to-day there are those who have found a subtler magic that transforms dead gold and silver into warm human purposes and the Christ-spirit of service. That is the miracle one sees in daily process at Lal Bagh.

IN THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE

ELLEN LAKSHMI GOREH (_Lucknow College_)

In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide!

Oh, how precious are the lessons which I learn at Jesus' side!

Earthly cares can never vex me, neither trials lay me low; For when Satan comes to tempt me, to the secret place I go.

When my soul is faint and thirsty, 'neath the shadow of His wing There is cool and pleasant shelter, and a fresh and crystal spring; And my Saviour rests beside me, as we hold communion sweet: If I tried, I could not utter what He says when thus we meet.

Only this I know: I tell Him all my doubts, my griefs and fears; Oh, how patiently He listens! and my drooping soul He cheers: Do you think He ne'er reproves me? What a false friend He would be, If He never, never told me of the sins which He must see.

Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord?

Go and hide beneath His shadow: this shall then be your reward; And whene'er you leave the silence of that happy meeting place, You must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHELOMITH VINCENT]

LAL BAGH ALUMNAE RECORDS SHOW THE FOLLOWING:

The first Kindergarten in India.

The first college in India with full staff of women and residence accommodation.

The first Arya Samaj B.A. graduate.

The F.Sc. graduate who became the second woman with the B.Sc. degree in India.

The F.Sc. graduate who later graduated at the foremost Medical College in North India as the first Muhammadan woman doctor in India and probably in the world.

The first woman B.A. and the first Normal School graduate from Rajputana.

The first woman to receive her M.A. in North India.

The first Muhammadan woman to take her F.A. examination from the Central Provinces.

Probably the first F.A. student to take her examination in purdah.

The first Teachers Conference (held annually) in India.

The first woman's college to offer the F.Sc. course.

The first college to have on its staff an Indian lady.

The first woman (Lilavati Singh) from the Orient to serve on a world's Committee.

The first woman dentist.

The first woman agriculturist.

The first woman in India to be in charge of a Boys' High School.

A Lal Bagh graduate organized the Home Missionary Society which has developed into an agency of great service to the neglected Anglo-Indian community scattered throughout India.

The Lal Bagh student who took an agricultural course in America and is now helping convert wastes of the Himalaya regions into fruitful valleys.

Miss Phoebe Rowe, an Anglo-Indian who was a.s.sociated with Lal Bagh in Miss Thoburn's time, was a wonderful influence in the villages of North India and carried the Christian message by her beautiful voice as well as her consecrated personality. She traveled in America, endearing India to many friends here. She is one--perhaps the most remarkable, however--of many Lal Bagh daughters who are serving as evangelists in faraway places.

FROM A STUDENT AT MADRAS WOMEN'S COLLEGE

"Your letter was handed to me as I returned from my evening hour of prayer, prayer for our school, special prayer for the problem G.o.d has called us to tackle together. I believe that the solution for many of our problems at school is to put things on a Christian foundation. We want workers who are real Christians and who love the Master as sincerely as they do themselves and serve Him for their love of Him.

This may not be easy work for us to do, but if G.o.d is transforming the whole globe and moulding it from the 'new spiritual center,'

namely,--Jesus Christ, it is certainly not hard for Him to accomplish it in this place. How He is going to do it I am blind to see. Let us put our feet on the one step that we see with the faith expressed in 'One step enough for me,' and the next step will flash before our eyes. One question that used to trouble me is, how we are to do the work. The poem by Edward Sill in 'The Manhood of the Master' cheers me up now as then with the thought that a broken sword flung away by a craven as useless was used by a king's son to win victory in the same battle. G.o.d will use it and perform His work. We have dedicated ourselves for His duty which is gripping our souls. He will use them according to His purpose."

CHAPTER FOUR

AN INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE

Education and World Peace.