The Man with the Book; or, The Bible Among the People.Weylland, John Matthias
History
The Man with the Book; or, The Bible Among the People.
Weylland, John Matthias
City missions; London City Mission
Upon his entering the Court one morning, the Missionary noticed a little
Indian girl, who was surrounded by a number of other children. She was
about eight years of age, of dark yellow complexion, with jet black
hair, which hung over her shoulders, and upon her wrists were thick
silver bracelets. Upon questioning her, the child with peculiar accent,
said that she came with her parents from Bombay; that her father was a
cook, and had come to London to make pickles at a large shop; and that
they had come to live in the Court until her father and mother got to
work. He went to the room with the child, and there saw the father, a
pure Indian, dressed like a Lascar. There was only a hammock-like
mattress, and some ship's utensils in the room. Upon the mantel-shelf
were many bottles of curry powder, and a small idol of white ivory,
which seemed to represent a boy with the head of an elephant. As the
Visitor started a conversation about the business, he became
communicative, and stated that he was a native of Hyderabad, but had
lived for many years in Bombay, where he became cook to a British sahib,
and afterwards was employed to make pickles for export to England. He
was reluctant to talk about religion, but said that Vishnu and Ganesa
were great and powerful gods; that he had married a half-caste woman,
whose mother was a Mohammedan, and whose father was an English sailor,
and now kept a lodging-house for sailors at Bombay; that the bracelets
upon the wrists of his child were made of silver coins which bore the
image of his mother's god, and she had placed them on the child when she
was an infant. He added, "that he thought his wife was a Christian, but
that she had respect to Ganesa, and that he did not like his child to be
a Christian, as they got drunk and broke up the gods." When the one
_Great God_ was mentioned he looked anxiously towards his idol, as
though he feared that it would be injured or taken from him; and then
he muttered so loudly in a strange tongue, that the visitor thought it
well to leave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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