June, 1934
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
jto From
theDark
HEATHENISM to the Radiance o f FAITH “ Where Sin Abounded, Grace Did Much More Abound.” mi ssi oM> s By b r q p p e r * liuxn A Hindupur, AnantapTIr District, India
I t is a far cry from the condition o f the naked little heathen lad who first crept timidly into the circle o f light shed by the lantern o f the Mission night school in his village, to the position he now occupies as pastor o f the largest church in his language area o f the Ceylon and India General Mis sion. But as his salvation has been all of grace, so also has been his exaltation to this position. My first contact with this lad, whose heathen name was Naggappa, was about seventeen years ago, when he was nearly thirteen years old. As our train rumbled in to the station o f Hindupur where I was to live, a group o f boys ran down the platform, keeping pace with the train till it came to a stop. As we looked out o f the window into their smiling faces, we were greeted with a cordial " Salaam, Sah” from each one of them. One o f these boys, more friendly and helpful than the others, was Naggappa. Not only was he first to get into the train to help us unload our baggage, but he was also the last to leave our rooms after we had ar ranged our belongings in our bungalow. This spirit o f helpfulness has characterized all o f Naggappa’s dealings with us since that day. “W here S in A bounded ” Early training counts, whether it be good or bad, and this lad’s environment had been all bad. All his early childhood was spent in idolatry, which his mother taught him, and in which all of his playmates joined. Lying, stealing, and gambling filled his days. His drunken parents taught him to drink the vile “ toddy,” just as they had been taught by their parents before them. With such an example, what was to prevent his becoming a common outcaste drunkard along with the other boys o f his age? And how could he have escaped, in his own strength, from the toils o f Satan and the just punishment of the law ? Impossible! To *Missionary of the Ceylon and India General Mission, on furlough at Newton Falls, Ohio.
have seen him crawling out o f the dingy, foul-smelling hovel which he called hortie, and to have known anything about his up bringing and his environment, would have compelled any one to prophesy that Nag gappa was destined to grow up to be just like the moral wrecks who lived all about him in that outcaste village. One has to dip his brush in midnight hues if he would faithfully picture the back ground o f Naggappa’s early life. When the biting, strangling smoke from the cow dung fire, over which the family’s food was be ing cooked, forced Naggappa outdoors and he was able to open his smarting eyes, it was to look upon strings and strings o f pu trid meat hung up- in front o f the house to dry. Near at hand were green hides stretched upon the ground and filling the air with a sickening odor that would nauseate one less accustomed to such surroundings. Into their mud hut staggered the drunken father and mother each evening, carrying with them a gourdful o f toddy, which they had brought from the toddy shop on their way home from work. And woe betide the child that aroused the ire o f either parent by so much as being in the w a y ! Blows and curses were the lot o f any such luckless one, either in this hut or in any o f the others in the outcaste quarters o f the town. The very atmosphere o f the children’s surround ings was heavy with ignorance, injustice, ■oppression, drunkenness, and murder— to say nothing o f the unnameable sensuality and bestiality practiced in that wicked sec tion o f the town. Words fail one who at tempts to describe in chaste language the lives o f these outcaste people. One finds the whole community degenerating swiftly into the image o f the devil, who holds abso lute sway over the lives o f the people. Nothing but the mighty power o f God can bring anything good out of such ungodly surroundings. A N ew I nterest The background o f little Naggappa was like that o f many another heathen boy. But
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