Lighted to Lighten: the Hope of India: A Study of Conditions among Women in IndiaVan Doren, Alice B. (Alice Boucher)
History
Lighted to Lighten: the Hope of India: A Study of Conditions among Women in India
Van Doren, Alice B. (Alice Boucher)
India -- Social conditions; Women -- India
It was on a Sunday morning that I slipped into the communion service at
Dornakal. The little church, built from Indian gifts with no aid from
the West, is simplicity itself. The roof thatched with millet stalks,
the low-hanging palmyra rafters hung with purple everlastings, the
earth-floor covered with bamboo matting, all proclaimed that here was a
church built and adorned by the hands of its worshippers. The Bishop in
his vestments dispensed the sacrament from the simple altar. Even the
Episcopal service had been so adapted to Indian conditions that instead
of the sound of the expected chants one heard the Te Deum and the Venite
set to the strains of Telugu lyrics. The audience, largely of teachers,
theological students, and schoolboys and girls, sat on the clean floor
space. One saw and listened with appreciation and reverence, finding
here a beginning and prophecy of what the Christianized fraction of
India will do for its motherland.
It was against this background that I came to know Mrs. Azariah. In the
bungalow, as the Bishop's wife, she presides with dignity over a
household where rules of plain living and high thinking prevail. She
dispenses hospitality to the many European guests who come to see the
activities of this experimental mission station, and packs the Bishop
off well provided with food and traveling comforts for his long and
numerous journeys. The one little son left at home is his mother's
constant companion and shows that his training has not been neglected
for the multitude of outside duties. One longs to see the house when the
five older children turn homeward from school and college, and fill the
bungalow with the fun of their shared experiences. Mercy, the eldest
daughter, is one of the first Indian women students to venture on the
new commercial course offered by the Young Women's Christian Association
with the purpose of fitting herself to be her father's secretary. In a
few months she will be bringing the traditions of the Women's Christian
College of Madras, where she spent two previous years, to share with the
Dornakal community.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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