Famine Experiences in India

I HAVE long been wishing to thank the kind friends who have so generously sent help at this time of our need, and now I am glad to be able to write. a few lines to express my gratitude. ‘“‘ Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.” I pray to our Father to reward you all abundantly for your kindness to us, and thank you with all my heart. An honored friend who has just called on me asked me if I had made my present needs known to my friends in America. “No,” I said, in reply to her question, ‘‘I have made my needs known to the heavenly Friend who says, ‘Be careful for nothing,’ and ‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee,’ and I am glad to acknowledge with deep thankfulness His mercy and care for mine and me.” He is daily answering my prayers in sending the needful daily bread, and the heathen living around us are finding out that our God is a _ living and a prayer-answering God!

Several friends have asked me to give an account of my visit to the famine districts, which I do very gladly. I must, however, preface this account with a few of my recollections of the last famine. Many people who lived and worked in it will remember how millions of poor people were starved to death, and how the great part of Madras Presidency and of the Southern Maratha country were laid waste by the famine of 1876. When I heard of the present famine and its havoc in the Central Provinces, my heart sank within me; and I cried to God for help on behalf of those dear country people of mine.

I feel deeply for these poor dying people, because I have myself ae what it is'to suffer from hunger and thirst, and have seen my dearest relatives die of starvation.

My recollections carry me back to the hard times some twenty-two years ago. The last great famine of Madras Presidency reached its climax in the years 1876-77; but it began at least three years before that time. I was in my teens then, and so thoroughly ignorant of the outside world that I cannot remember observing other people’s condition, yet saw enough of distress in our own and a few other families to realize the hardheartedness of unchanged human nature.

High caste and respectable poor families who are not accustomed to hard labor and pauperism suffered then as they do now more than the poorer classes. My own people among many others fell victims to the terrible famine. We had known better days. My father was a landholder and an honored Pandit, and had acquired wealth by his learning. But by and by, when he became old and infirm and blind in the last days of his earthly life, he lost all the property in one way or another. My brother, sister, and myself had no secular education to enable us to earn our livelihood by better work than manual labor. We had all the sacred learning necessary to lead an honest religious life; but the pride of caste and superior learning and vanity of life prevented our stooping down to acquire some industry whereby we might have saved the Biecious lives of our parents.

In short we had no common sense, and foolishly spent all the money we had in hand in giving alms to Brahmans to please the gods, who, we thought, would send a shower of gold mohurs upon us and make us rich and happy. We went to several sacred places and temples, to worship different gods and to bathe in sacred rivers and tanks to free ourselves from sin and curse which brought poverty on us. We prostrated ourselves before the stone and metal images of the gods, and prayed to them day and night, the burden of our prayer being that the gods would be pleased to give us wealth, learning, and renown. My dear brother, a stalwart young fellow of twenty-one, spoilt his health and wasted his fine, well-built body by fasting months and months. But nothing came of all this futile effort to please the gods. The stone images remained as hard as ever, and never answered our prayers. Oh that we had found out~ then that ‘“‘every man is brutish in his knowledge, every founder is confounded by the graven jmage; for his molten image is falsehood.” ‘The idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams. They comfort in vain.” |

We knew the Vedanta, and knew, also, that we worshipped not the images, but some gods whom they represented. Still, all our learning and superior knowledge was of no avail. We bowed to the idols, as thousands of learned Brahmans do. We expected them to speak to us in wonderful oracles. We went to the astrologers with money and other presents, to know from them the minds of gods concerning us. In this way we spent our precious time, strength, and wealth in vain. When no money was left in hand, we began to sell the valuable things belonging to us,— jewelries, costly garments, silverware; and even the cooking vessels of brass and copper were sold to the last, and the money spent in giving alms to Brahmans, till nothing but a few silver and copper coins were left in our possession. We bought coarse rice with them, and ate very sparingly;

ing the last grain of rice, and nothing but death by starvation remained for our portion, Oh, the sorrow, the helplessness, and the disgrace of the situation!

We assembled together to consider what we should do next, and, after a long discussion, came to the conclusion that it was better to go into the forest and die there than bear the disgrace of poverty among our own people. And that very night we left the house in which we were staying at Tirpathy,— a sacred town situated on the top of Venkatghiri,—and entered into the great forest, determined to die there. Eleven days and nights, in which we subsisted on water and leaves and a handful of wild dates, were spent in great bodily and mental pain. At last our dear old father could hold out no longer. The tortures of hunger were too much for his poor old weak body. He determined to drown himself in a sacred tank near by, thus to end all his earthly suffering. It was suggested that the rest of us should either drown ourselves or break the family and go their several ways. But drowning ourselves seemed most practicable. To drown one’s self in some sacred river or tank is not considered suicide by Hindus, so we felt free to put an end to our lives in that way. Father wanted to drown himself first, so he took leave of all the members of the family, one by one. I was his youngest child, and my turn came last. I shall never forget his last injunctions to me. His blind eyes could not see my face, but he held me tight in his arms; and, stroking my head and cheeks, he told me in a few words, broken with emotion, to remember how he loved me, and how he taught me to do right, and never depart from the way of righteousness. His last loving command to me was to lead an honorable life, if I lived at all, and serve God al] my life. He did not know the only true God, but served the, to him, unknown God with all his heart and strength; and he was very desirous that his children should serve him to the last. ‘Remember, my child,” he said, “you are my youngest, my most beloved child. I have given you into the hands of our God. You are his, and to him alone you must belong and serve all your life.”’

He could speak no more. My father’s prayers for me were, no doubt, heard by the Almighty, the all-merciful heavenly Father, whom the old Hindu did not know. The God of all flesh did not find it impossible to bring me, a great sinner and an unworthy child of His, out of heathen darkness into the saving light of His love and salvation. I can now say to the departed spirit of the loving parent, “‘ Yes, dear father, I will serve the only true God to the last.” But I could not say so when my father spoke to me for the last time. I listened to him, but was too ignorant, too bewildered, to understand him, or make an intelligent answer. We were, after this, dismissed from father’s presence. He wanted an hour for meditation and preparation before death. —

While we were placed in such a bewildering situation, the merciful God, who so often prevents his sinful children from rushing headlong into the deep pit of sin, came to our rescue. He kept us from the dreadful act of being witnesses to the suicide of our own loved father. God put a noble thought into the heart of my brother, who said he could not bear to see the sad sight. We would give up all caste pride, and go to work to support our old parents; and, as father was unable to walk, he said he would carry him down the mountain into the nearest village, and then go to work. He made his intentions known to father, and begged him not to drown himself in the sacred tank. So the question was settled for that time. Our hearts were gladdened, and we prepared to start from the forest. And yet we wished very much that a tiger, a great snake, or some other wild animal-would put an end to our lives. We were too weak to move, and too proud to beg or work to earn a livelihood. But the resolution was made, and we dragged ourselves through the jungle as best we could.

It took us nearly two days to come out of the ae into a village at the foot of the mountain. Father suffered intensely throughout this time. Weakness, caused by starvation and the hardships of the life in the wilderness, hastened his death. We reached the village with great difficulty, and took shelter in a temple; but the Brahman priests of the temple would not let us stay there. They had no pity for the weak and helpless. So we were obliged again to move from the temple, and go out of the village into the ruins of an old temple, where no one but the wild animals dwelt in the night. There we stayed for four days. A young Brahman, seeing the helplessness of our situation, gave us some food.

The same day on which we reached that village my father was attacked by fever, from which he did not recover. On the first day, at the beginning of his last illness, he asked for a little sugar and water. We gave him water, but could not give sugar. He could not eat the coarse food; and shortly after he became unconscious, and died in the morning of the third day.

The same kind young Brahman who had given us some food came to our help at that time. He could not do much. He was not sure whether we were Brahmans or not; and, as none of his co-villagers would come to ~ carry the dead, he could not, for fear of being put out of caste, come to help my brother to carry the remains of my father. But he had the kindness to let some men dig a grave at his own expense, and follow the funeral party as far as the river. Father had entered the order of a Sannyasin before his death. So his body was to be buried in the ground according to the commands of the Shastras. As there was no one else who could help to carry the dead, my brother tied the body in his dhoti, like a bundle, and carried it alone over two miles to its last resting-place. We sadly followed to the river bank, and helped him a little. So we buried our father outside that village, away from all human habitation, and returned with heavy hearts to the ruins of the old temple, where we had taken our abode. That same evening our mother was attacked by fever, and said she would not live much longer. But we had to leave the place. There was no work to be found, and no food to be had. We walked with our sick mother for a while, and then some kind-hearted people gave us a little food and money to pay our fare as far as Raichur. There we stayed for some weeks, being quite unable to move from that town, owing to the illness of our mother. Our life at Raichur was a continuous story of hopelessness and starvation. Brother was too weak to work, and we could not make up our minds to go to beg. Now and then kind people gave us some food. Mother suffered intensely from fever and hunger. We, too, suffered from hunger and weakness; but the sufferings of our mother were more than we could bear to see. Yet we had to keep still through sheer helplessness. Now and then, when delirious, mother would ask for different kinds of food. She could eat but little, yet we were unable to give her the little that she wanted.

Once she suffered so much from hunger that she could bear it no longer, and sent me into a neighbor’s house to beg a little piece of coarse bajree cake. I went there very reluctantly. The lady spoke kindly to me, but I could on no account open my mouth to beg that piece of bajree bread. With superhuman effort and a firm resolution to keep my feelings from that lady, I kept the tears back; but they poured out of my nose instead of my eyes, in spite of me, and the expression of my face told its own story. The kind Brahman lady, guessing what was in my mind, asked me if I would like to have some food. So I said, “ Yes, I want only a little piece of bajree bread.”’ She gave me what I wanted; and I felt very grateful, but could not say a word to express my gratitude. I ran to my mother in great haste, and gave it to her. But she could not eat, she was too weak. The fever was on her. She became unconscious, and died in a few days after that. Her funeral was as sad as that of my father, with the exception that two Brahmans came to help my brother and me to carry her body to the burning-ground, about three miles from the town.

I need not lengthen this account with our subsequent experiences. My elder sister also died of starvation, after suffering from illness and hunger. During those few months before our sister died, we three travelled on foot from place to place in search of food and work; but we could not get much of either. My brother and myself continued our sad pilgrimage to the northern boundary of India and back to the east as far as Calcutta. Brother got work here and there, but most of the time we lived a wanderer’s life. Very often we had to go without food for days. Even when my brother had work to do, he got so little wages, only four rupees a month, and sometimes much less than that, that we were obliged to live on a handful of grain soaked in water and a little salt. We had no blankets or thick garments to cover ourselves; and, when travelling, we had to walk barefoot, without umbrellas, and to rest in the night, either under the trees on the roadside or under the arches of bridges, or lie down on the ground in the open air. Once on the banks of the Jhelum, a river in the Punjab, we were obliged to rest at night in the open air, and tried to keep off the intense cold by digging two gravelike pits, and putting ourselves into them and covering our bodies — except the heads — with dry sand of the river bank. Sometimes the demands of hunger were so great that we would satisfy our empty stomachs by eating a handful of wild berries, and swallowing the hard stones together with their coarse skins.

Four long years we suffered from scarcity. We did not mind it much, as we were young and strong. We could stand it much better than our poor old parents and weak sister. The heavenly Father very mercifully removed our parents from this earth; and that none of their children, whom they loved so much, died or were separated from them in their lifetime, gave us some satisfaction, but the memory of the last days of their life, full of sorrow, almost breaks my heart. I would never have written this account, had not the necessity of my present situation obliged me to do so. None of my friends can ever understand what my feelings are for the famine-stricken people, unless they know that I have had once to go through the same experience as that of the starving thousands of Central India. Yet I must say that suffering alone is not able to produce sympathy for other sufferers. My own experience of the unconverted state of mind, and the present knowledge of my fellow country women and girls, whom I have ample opportunity to study, shows that suffering in itself has rather a hardening effect on the human heart. It takes away almost all delicate feelings from the soul, making it as hard as a stone. I can quite understand now what God meant when He said to Israel, “I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” Unless God change our hearts through the wonderful regenerating action of His Holy Spirit, we never have true love and sympathy for our fellowmen. Later on I shall give an example of this. But now I must pass on to the chief subject of this article. |

A little over four months ago I heard of the distress of the people in Central India, and at once my heart went out to them in sympathy. The human common sense said: “ You had better stop here; and ‘ Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it,’ here. You have no means and no strength to do what you wish. Your powers are limited, and you will not be held responsible for not doing anything to help those famished people. Indeed, what can a weak woman do to help the dying thousands? Besides, the government of India and other benevolent people are doing what they can to relieve the poor and the needy. There is nothing for you to do.” I tried to quiet my conscience in this manner, but louder and louder spoke the voice of God from within my heart: ‘‘ Remember the days of old”; ‘* Thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondsman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee”; and ‘‘ Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

I could no longer keep still, and about a month ago started off for the Central Provinces, where two workers had already been sent, who had found out by the time I went that there was a large field of work for those who wished to do something to help the poor sufferers.

A missionary lady, Mrs. Drynan, of Rajputana, accompanied me part of the way, to gather some children for mission orphanages of Poona..We went to Sohagpur first, and began the work at once. We found out from the good people there we could not get the orphan children without the permission of the government. So our first business was to go and see the physician in charge of the hospital, and the Tahsildar in charge of the poorhouse. We went to the hospital too early,— about 8.30 in the morning. The doctor was not there; but right before that hospital were walking three little famished, skeleton-like forms, and this first sight of their distress I shall never forget. The three children, we found out, were of the Chamar caste. Their father had died some time ago, and the mother died only the day before. The eldest -was a girl of about seven, the second a boy of five, and the youngest a baby-boy three years of age. The girl was protecting herself from the intense cold with a covering of rags, but the two boys had nothing on their bodies. Their wrinkled faces and the ghastly, death-like expression told the story of the terrible suftfering they were in.

All of them were crying for food; and, as we had no food with us, we could give nothing to them. ‘The youngest had sore eyes, and could scarcely open them. The poor babe was suffering from dysentery, so much so that his intestines had been exposed and were almost falling out; and yet he was dragging his miserable body through the streets in search of food. To add to this misery, he fell down and hurt his back, frightened at the sound of a bullock-cart and the loud call of the driver. The blood flowed freely from the injured part, which was already so sore and painful; but there was no one to care for him. He was crying, but tears were not to be seen in his eyes. The children were right before the hospital, but no one showed any sign of pity. We were under the impression that we might not touch the little orphans before we had permission from the goy-

The agony and dismay I felt at seeing that sight cannot be told in words. I was perfectly powerless, and could do nothing but cry to the Father to help me. As we could do nothing, we had to harden our hearts, and turn our steps toward the poorhouse, where we expected to find the Tahsildar. The memory of the three little ones, especially of the youngest child, who, I am sure, could not have lived many days after that, haunts me to this day. Whenever I think of them, my heart is filled with indescribable sorrow. I could neither sleep nor rest for the thought of them for many days. We did not get the children, though we tried our best. It took us such a long time to go and see the officer in charge of the poorhouse; and by the time we returned they had gone somewhere, and no one could tell us where they were. I went again to that place, made a thorough search all over the town and round about it, but did not find them. Perhaps they fainted on their way to the town in quest of food, and fell down in some ditch on the roadside, and died there of hunger. The Lord have mercy upon us all, and give us repentance for not going to help such innocent little sufferers.

It will take me too long to describe all that I sawand heard at the poorhouses and relief camps visited. So I will say in general what most affected my mind. |

The first poorhouse we saw was no house at all. It was a grove in the outskirts of the town. Groups of famished people were seen sitting all round the grove. Some were lying down in heaps or sitting or lying in ashes on the dirty ground. Some had rags to cover their bodies, and some had none. ‘There were old and young, men and women and children, most of them ill, too weak to move about, and many suffering from leprosy and other unmentionable diseases. Bad men, immoral women, pure young girls, innocent children and old people, good, bad, and indifferent, were freely mixing and conversing with each other. They slept in the open air or under the trees at night, and ate the scanty and coarse food provided by the government. The food was nothing but dry flour and some salt. An accustomed eye could at once see that the grain was adulterated with earth before it was ground into flour. There were several starving orphan children who could not cook for themselves, and had no one to work for them. So they had either to eat the dry flour or depend upon the tender mercies of their fellow-sufferers, the older persons, who took as much of their food as they could, with the right of their might. | The poor people seem to have lost all human feeling. They are most unkind toward each other and the little children around them. T hey do not care even for their own children. Some parents eat all the food they get for themselves and for their little ones, and become quite fat, while their children are starved and look like skeletons; and some are even in a dying state, and yet their fathers and mothers feel no affection for them.

Parents can be seen taking their girl-children around the country and selling them for a rupee or a few annas or even for a few seers of grain. The food given to the children is snatched from their hands, and eaten by their stronger neighbors. In some places the government officials give two pice or more to each child or old and sick person unable to work; but what can a baby of two or three years of age do with two copper pieces in its hands? ‘The pice are soon stolen, and the little ones left to die of starvation. In other places food —z.e., wheat or jowari flour, and some kind of pulse —is cooked into da/ and rotz, and then distributed to the poor.

The government officials are kind, and are doing what they can to help the poor people at the relief camps and in the poorhouses. But the means at their disposal make it impossible to meet the demands of the needy ones. What are a few thousand rupees among so many thousands, to be supported for months? Perhaps about eight or ten annas, or, at the most, a rupee, per month is allowed for each person; and how much and what kind of grain will that sum bring? Alas, alas! for the poor who are obliged to eat the food given to them at the poorhouses. Few of the subordinate officers, such as the J/ukadams* and cooks, who have it in their power to give or withhold from the poor the food sent for them, have any heart or conscience. ‘The grain—the very cheapest kind — is bought and ground into flour without being cleaned of the sand and earth it contains. Then the heartless cooks steal the flour and put a quantity of earth into it, while they cook the da/ and rotz; and nobody notices that the food is thus adulterated. The poor people are too much afraid of the Mukadams to complain to the higher officials. The flour and pulse so adulterated, when made into vofzs and da/, do not look any better than cakes of cow-dung.

The people in the poorhouses are in such a degraded condition that even the pigs, who wander round about our villages, do not begin to be compared with them in filthiness. The absolute nakedness of almost all little children, and hundreds of older people covered with dirt, and sometimes with filthy rags,—their skeleton-like bodies full of frightful sores, and their sad, wrinkled faces wearing a ghastly, death-like expression,— and their forlorn condition, are all an indescribably sad sight.

Many of the so-called poorhouses are open grounds, with a sort of fence all round them. Some poorhouses are nothing but sheds temporarily erected to shelter the people. The miserable men, women, and children who find shelter in these places are baked in the sun in the day and freeze in cold at night. In some places these poorhouses, or grounds, are divided with a thin fencing, where men and women are placed separately, But this arrangement is not much of a protection to the women. The devil is at work, even'in these poorhouses and relief camps; and they are not fit places for young women and girls to be in. The European and native officers employed to look after the interests of the dying thousands are hard at work, and try to do as much as they can. But it is impossible for them to find out what goes on behind their backs. ‘The Sepoys and Mukadams are the real masters and rulers of these places. Take, for instance, a poorhouse containing over two thousand poor people and a relief camp where over fifteen thousand people are working. What can one or two, or half a dozen, superior officers do for these thousands? They are obliged to leave the work in the hands of the Mukadams, who can do whatever they like. They use their sticks and tongues freely. They pull and push the working coolies, even women. Young men can be seen everywhere talking to girls and women, under the Bigiere of doing the A7wkadam’s work.

This is no good sign at all. Wicked men and women are everywhere on the lookout for young women and girls. They entice them by offering sweetmeats and other kinds of food, clothing, and fair promises to take them to nice places and make them happy. So hundreds of girls, young widows, and deserted wives are waylaid as they go to the relief camps and poorhouses in search of food and work, and taken away before they place themselves in the custody of the government. ‘The wicked are not afraid of the judgment of God: they are sinning away their lives in the midst of the fearful scenes of famine and pestilence. ‘They are carrying on a wholesale trade in young girls, who have been obliged to leave their families and wander away from home in quest of food. In many cases parents have fallen a prey to the famine, and left their young girls to the tender mercies of their neighbors or fellow-travellers or other wayfarers. Such girls easily fall into the hands of wicked people.

Here is an instance which will convince you of the truth of this story: A young girl of fourteen, and her little sister of about eight years of age, were left orphans, and taken possession of by a wicked man at Itarsi. I happened to see her in the streets, and asked her who she was. She told me her whole story, and said she would let me have her sister, who was not wanted by her cruel master, and that she could not come away for the fear of that man. I wanted to rescue the poor child, but was at that time unable to do so. I prayed to the Lord to show me the way, and in the next week He sent help. A young missionary gentleman came to help me.

He went to the police station, and took her away from the man who had kept her in his possession against her will. She was sent to the mission bungalow with a servant, but her former master carried her away by force. Again the missionary went to the town, and fetched her, and that very night I took her to Jabalpur; and now she and her sister are placed with some good missionary ladies, who will take care of them. The elder girl, poor child, is ruined for life, and is suffering from horrible disease. May the merciful Father help these children!

One of my workers was walking on the road one day, when she saw a.

little girl of about twelve years old sitting on the roadside. She looked sad and hungry. My worker spoke kindly to her, and found out that she was an orphan. When the worker asked her if she would like to come to me, the girl said she had an older sister, and would go anywhere with her. In the mean while the sister, who had gone to wash, came back to the place where the child was sitting. From her my worker heard their pathetic story: Their father had died about three weeks ago. They had no one to take care of them, and did not know where to go to get food. They were on their way to the relief camp. Some one had told them that there was a lady near the place, who had come to gather some children to give them a home. So they had come to the Sarai to look for her. From this statement we knew they were looking for me; but I had left the Sarai before they came, and so missed seeing them.

My worker then asked the older girl, who is about fourteen, if she and her sister would like to come and stay under my care. The girl said she would, only she did not want to be put into a bad life. She begged of my worker, with tears in her eyes, that she should be allowed to remain pure and be placed under the care of good people; for she had met with many bad people after her father’s death, and they had tried to tempt her into a bad life. But she had resolutely refused to go with them. While this conversation was taking place, half a dozen or more wicked men had gathered around my worker, and were about to take the girls away by frightening them out of their wits; but God saved the children from the dreadful fate, and they were safely brought to me.

But, supposing no timely help had reached these girls, what would their condition be to-day? How long could they have resisted the bad men, and how would they have protected themselves in the relief camps? God help the young girls and young women who are obliged to go to relief camps and poorhouses! The sight of the pitiable condition of these

‘poor orphan girls brought to my memory the state which I was in some twenty-two years ago. I bless and thank God for not having allowed us to go to the relief camps in the days of our need. My sister, a fine young woman of twenty-five, and myself, a girl of sixteen, would have easily fallen into the cruel hands of the wicked people of such places. The very remembrance of the relief camps and poorhouses and the condition of our sisters there makes me shiver; and I tremble with fear for several thousands of young women and girls, who are being sacrificed to the devil in these hard times. |

Another young girl of about fifteen was some time ago wandering away from home, when a respectable-looking man told her to go home with him, and help his wife in the household work. She consented, and went with him. He gave her nice clothes and food, and for a few days all went on nicely with her; but the devil was at work in his heart. Other demands were made on her; but the girl said she had gone to his house to work, and not for any other purpose. He then said that she should not get good sar7* and food unless she consented to follow his wishes.

“Very well,” she said, and put on her old rags, threw away the good sari, and went out on the streets again to beg her food. She was picked up on the same day by a kind lady, and is safe with me now. ‘There are not many such girls who will resist the devil in face of starvation and death.

God be thanked for protecting the virtue of these innocents! But it has been my sad lot to see many little girls ruined for life. Even the little children seemed to have lost all their innocence, and were acting like little devils. What lies, what thefts, what indecent language! ‘O God,” I exclaimed when I saw them, ‘save us, save our nation from utter destruction!” It seemed as if nothing short of a great flood would be able to wash away all this sin from the face of our country. I wonder at the mercifulness and long-suffering of our Father, who is still bearing with us.

It is impossible for the government officers alone to look after the little children and to protect the virtue of young women and girls. There is a large field of work for you and for me, if only we undertake to do it. Old people and middle-aged persons and delicate women who are unable to break twelve baskets of stone, and carry it to the appointed place, and who cannot get their wages at the relief camps unless they do so much work every day, need our help. The sad sight of aged men and delicate women stretching forth their sore hands and begging you to help them, pouring out their sorrow into your ears, and lamenting over their hard fate, while their tearful eyes look straight into yours to find out if there were a particle of sympathy for them, is altogether too much to bear, for a person having a heart of flesh.

Why do not good Christian people in England and America send money to the missionaries in this country, who are so anxious to help the poor people, and are trying hard to do as much as they can for them, but can- not do more for want of means? The great motherly heart of missionary ladies is yearning for the dying children and other poor of the Central Provinces. Let benevolent people send generous donations to them for feeding and caring for the Lord’s little ones. Men can do much; but all godly women must come forward at this time, and care for little children and protect young women whom the government officials are not able to help and care for. It is woman’s work, and cannot be left to the officers and their subordinates. |

My sympathies are excited by the needs of young girl-widows especially, at this time. To let them go to the relief camps and poorhouses, or allow them to wander in the streets and on the highways, means their eternal destruction.

Ever since I have seen these girls in the famine districts,— some fallen into the hands of wicked people; some ruined for life, and turned out by their cruel masters, owing to bad diseases, to die a miserable death in a hopeless, helpless manner; some being treated in the hospitals, only to be taken back into the pits of sin, there to await a cruel death; some bearing the burdens of sin, utterly lost to the sense of shame and humanity,— hell has become a horrible reality to me; and my heart is bleeding for those daughters of fond parents who have died, leaving them orphans. Who with a mother’s heart and a sister’s love can rest without doing everything in her power to save at least a few of the girls who can yet be saved from the hands of the evil ones? So, regardless of the trying financial state of my school, I went to work in the Central Provinces to get a few of the helpless young widows.

The Father, who is a very present help in trouble, has enabled me to get some sixty widows, forty-seven of whom will go to school to study, and others will work.* Over 850 rupees were spent in fetching them here. ‘Of this amount about 525 rupees were given me by friends, and I thank them for it. To go to work to get these widows, to fetch them here from Central India, and to feed and clothe them, is an expensive business. Harder still is the work of civilizing them and teaching them the habits of cleanliness. Some are little better than brute animals. The filthy habits they have acquired during this period of famine have become second nature with them. It will take a long time to civilize and teach them. We can do all things in the power of the Lord. The Lord has put it into my mind to save three hundred girls out of the famine districts, and I shall go to work in His name. The funds sent to me by my friends in America are barely enough to feed and educate fifty girls, and several people are asking me how I am going to support all these girls who may come from Central India. Besides their food and clothing, new dormito- ries and dining-rooms must be built. Our present school-house is not large enough to hold more than one hundred girls at the most. And how are these emergencies to be met?

I do not know, but the Lord knows what I need. I can say with the Psalmist, ‘“‘Iam poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me;”’ and He has promised that “ ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.” My girls and I are quite ready to forego all our comforts, give up luxuries, and live as plainly as we can. We shall be quite contented to have only one meal of common coarse food daily, if necessary; and, so long as we have a little room or a seer of grain left in this house, we shall try to help our sisters who are starving. It seems a_ sin to live in this good house, and eat plenty of good food, and be warmly clothed, while thousands of our fellow-creatures are dying of hunger and are without shelter. If all of us do our part faithfully, God is faithful to fulfil his promises, and will send us the help we need at this time.

I humbly request you to pray for me and mine, that we may be made strong in the Lord and walk by faith, and not by sight.

Yours in the Lord’s service, RAMABAT.

P.S.— The good missionaries at Hoshangabad, Itarsi, Nursingpur, Jabalpur, and Bina, have been very kind to me, and helped me a great deal in my work. Our dear friend Miss Richardson, of Bombay, went to work with me, and has aided me by giving passage money for the girls whom I brought here. I thank all these good friends for extending their help and for their goodness to me.