[Sidenote: A Christian Settlement.] One of the chief stations is at
Mangalore. Outside the town is Balmatta Hill round the base of which
lies a Christian village. Here live the missionaries and their wives,
here are schools, here a theological seminary for the training of native
workers. Near by is an almshouse; in this building weavers ply their
trade; yonder there is a printing establishment; here are stores, a
bakery, a carpenter shop. Crowning all, there stands on the hill top the
Church of Peace.
[Sidenote: Shall Missionaries Provide Work for Converts?] The famous
industrial work of the Basel Society is actively promoted. Here idle
hands are trained to work, here those who have been makers of wine are
given an occupation better suited to a Christian profession, here the
very poor are able to earn their livings. There is a difference of
opinion about the value of industrial work in connection with missions,
some students believing that the spiritual work is hampered and confused
by this connection with commercial life and that undesirable and
unfaithful converts are attracted by the prospect of having work to do.
This danger, however, the Basel Mission seems to have avoided. An
unprejudiced observer writes: “Even those who for these reasons believe
that only necessity will justify the starting of mission industries,
have to admit that this Basel work has made a real contribution to
economic progress and to the dignifying of labor as worthy of a
Christian.” It is interesting to note that in the Basel weaving shop at
Mangalore was first made khaki cloth, which now covers so many million
soldiers.
The most famous of the Basel missionaries in India was _Doctor Gundert_,
who labored for more than twenty years, then returning to the Fatherland
assumed the work left by Doctor Barth, another Lutheran director of the
Basel Society. His remaining years were filled with labor for the cause
which he loved, writing, speaking and editing missionary journals. His
wife, Julia, was the first woman missionary sent out by the Basel
Society.
[Sidenote: A Stirring Charge.] The _Gossner Mission_ was founded in 1844
when Pastor Gossner sent four missionaries to India with the
instructions, “Believe, hope, love, pray, burn, waken the dead! Hold
fast by prayer! Wrestle like Jacob! Up, up my brethren! The Lord is
coming and to everyone he will say, ‘Where hast thou left the souls of
these heathen?’”
Arriving at Calcutta the first group of missionaries endeavored to
establish a colony but were not successful. They saw among the coolies
on the city streets, many men of a distinct type and discovered that
they were Kols. Among these people, once of a better standing, but now
degraded and oppressed, the Gossner missionaries determined to set to
work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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