August 1929
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
378
Evangelistic Work Among the Women of India B y M rs . M ary R . S amuel f NE day recently when Miss Hoon [B. I. ’21] i and I were walking through the narrow streets I of our large city, we heard a girl call to us * from the roof of her house. The women in this • house seemed to know Miss Hoon; she had been there previously with another Bible
ill ever since taking i t ; he has been on his back for seven months.” They tell us they have tried all the available doctors and none seems able to help him get well again. I was not permitted to see the boy, but I gathered from all they said that he was very low and would surely die. The boy is ill, very thin and helpless. He is nearing death, for which, according to Hindu superstition, his wife is responsible and must be made to suffer. He^ is sur rounded by friends, who love him and sympathize with him, while there is that beautiful, sweet, innocent girl,— no one cares for her. She is pining away because of her loss, fearing her husband will not live, while she bears with patience the cutting remarks about herself, accusing her of being the cause of her husband’s illness. There are times when she is tempted to believe she may have been the cause, and then she will say to herself, “I love my hus band ; I obeyed him; I served him. When I got the medi cine for him I did it to help him get well- Then why all this misfortune for me?” There is no second marriage for a high-caste Hindu woman, and, despised by all, her lot is made almost unen durable. No Christian woman can ever fathom the depth of her sorrow. I wonder how long this frail, heart-broken girl can live after her husband has departed this life? The Government has suppressed suttee (a custom of Hindu women being burned alive on their husbands’ funeral pyres), but there is another death—a slower, a more cruel death—for the widow of India without the Christian mes sage. In the end I ask you Christian sisters to pray that God will thrust forth true laborers into His vineyard. Pray that we who are already in service shall do effective work, that precious souls shall be saved as we work each day for Him. News of “Biola” Students It is always interesting to follow graduates and former students of the Bible Institute after they have left us, pressing on to fuller and further preparation for our Lord’s service. Looking over the May Bulletin of the San Francisco Theological Seminary, we find in the graduating class of 1929 the following, who received the degree of Bachelor of Divinity, both graduates of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Class of 1922: Paul Harrison Fuller, Bangkok, Siam. B.A., Occi dental College, 1920. Princeton Theological Seminary. Thesis: “The Christian Approach to Hinayana Buddhism in Siam.” ' Felix John Grospe, Santo Domingo, Nueva Ecija, Philippine Islands. B.A., Pasadena College, 1926. Thesis: “Habakkuk’s Prayer.” Mr. Fuller completed last year his first term of ser vice under the Presbyterian Board in Siam, where his brother has been engaged in mission work for many years. Mrs. Fuller, though not a graduate of the Bible Institute, was a student in 1922. Among those receiving diplomas of the Seminary was Alejo De Alvarez, Tetuan, Zamboanga, Philippine Is-
woman. Accepting their invitation to enter the home, we found it to be a very poor one; they did not have much of this world’s goods. In talking to them we found they
were just as poverty s t r i c k e n in their knowledge of G o d and His Son Jesus Christ. They were v e r y courteous to us, and so pleased at our com ing that we took time to sit down and talk to them. Miss Hoon gave them a message from the story of the Sower, to which they listened intently. In this sad, dirty, igno rant and yet so lovable group sat a small girl of not more than ten or twelve years of age. On inquiring who she was, we were told she had been married, three years previous ly, to a man much
MISS ZARRA S. HOON ( b . I. ’21), MISSIONARY IN THE PUNJAB, INDIA; AND MRS. SAMUEL, A NATIVE BIBLE WOMAN.
older than herself. Our hearts ached for her as we heard of her sad lot. They did not consider it a sad lot at all, but we could see sorrow, pain and weariness writ ten all over her face. We thought if Hinduism married her so early, we could almost wish that God would early send death to relieve her of her miseries. But if her circumstances and surroundings were such as to stir our sympathies, what about the need of her soul? As we have looked upon scenes such as this we have wondered how Christian women can be indifferent when other women are suffer ing because their people have never heard of a Saviour. We later visited another home where a beautiful young girl of about sixteen sat in front of her cooking-place looking most disconsolate- On seeing me she lifted her sad countenance and said, “Salaam” (Greeting). Her face seemed to say, “Come, listen as I tell you all I am suffer ing, and do something for me. I am so sad.” When I went in they told me this girl had been mar ried for a year and that her husband had contracted a fever soon after they were married. She went to a nearby store and got some medicine for her husband, but it did not help him. The superstitious parents of her husband, noting the failure of the medicine to restore the young husband, suspected the distracted wife of poisoning him. They finally said, “We do not know what kind of medi cine this wretched girl gave to our son, but he has been
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