John Wesley, Jr.: The Story of an ExperimentBrummitt, Dan B. (Dan Brearley)
Religion
John Wesley, Jr.: The Story of an Experiment
Brummitt, Dan B. (Dan Brearley)
Christian fiction; Methodists -- Fiction
J.W. followed Abraham about the mills with growing admiration. Inside
the walls, light, orderly paths, flowers, cleanliness. Outside the gate,
to step across the road was to walk a thousand years into the past,
among the smells and the ageless noises of the bazaar, with its
chaffering and cheating, its primitive crudities, and its changeless
wares. Certainly, a Cawnpore mill is not the ideal industrial
commonwealth, but without men like Abraham to alleviate its grimness the
coming of larger opportunities through work like this might well lay a
heavier burden on men's lives than the primitive and costly toil which
it has displaced.
There was just time for a visit to Lucknow, a city which to the British
is the historic place of mutiny and siege; to American Methodists a
place both of history and of present-day advance. J.W. worshiped in the
great Hindustani Methodist church, the busy home of many activities. In
the congregation were many students, girls from Isabella Thoburn
College, and boys from Lucknow Christian College. Lifelong Methodist as
he was, J.W. quickly recognized, even amid these new surroundings, the
familiar aspects of a Methodist church on its busy day. The crowding
congregations were enough to stir one's blood. A noble organ sounded out
the call to worship and led the choir and people in the service of
praise. There was a Sunday school in full operation, and an Epworth
League Chapter, completely organized and active. His guide confided to
J.W. that this church had yet another point of resemblance to the great
churches at home; it was quite accustomed to sending a committee to
Conference, to tell the bishop whom it wanted for preacher next year!
J.W. was not quite satisfied. The days of his wanderings must soon be
over, but before he left India he wanted to see the missionary in actual
contact with the immemorial paganism of the villages, for he had
discovered that the village is India. How was the Christian message
meeting all the dreary emptinesses and limitations of village life?
Once more he appealed to his missionary guide; this latest one, the last
of the five men to whom Pastor Drury had written before J.W. had set out
on his travels. Could he show his visitor a little of missionary work in
village environment?
"Surely. Nothing easier," the district superintendent said. "We'll jump
into my Ford--great thing for India, the Ford; and still greater for us
missionaries--and we'll go a-villaging."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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