Things as they are : $b Mission work in Southern IndiaCarmichael, Amy
Religion
Things as they are : $b Mission work in Southern India
Carmichael, Amy
India -- Social life and customs; Missions -- India
He tells us of one, a bright, happy fellow, he says he was, whose
friends made no objection to his returning home after his baptism, and
he returned, thinking he would be able to live as a Christian with his
wife. They drugged his food, then what they did has to be covered with
silence again. . . . They did their worst. . . . When he awoke from that
nightmare of sin, he sought out his missionary friend. Some of the
Hindus even, "ashamed of the vile means used" to entice him and destroy
him, would have wished him to be received again as a Christian, but his
spirit was broken. He said he could not disgrace the cause of Christ by
coming back; he would go away where he would not be known. He left his
wife, and went. He has never been heard of since.
Our comrade tells of another, and again, in telling it, we have to leave
it half untold. This one was eager to confess Christ in baptism; he was
a student at college then, and very keen. His father knew of his son's
desire, and he did what few Hindu fathers would do, _he turned his home
into a hell, in order to ruin his boy_. The infernal plot succeeded. God
only knows how far the soul is responsible when the mind is dazed and
then inflamed by those fearful drugs. But we do know that the soul He
meant should rise and shine, sinks, weighted down by the unspeakable
shame of some awful memory darkened, as by some dark dye that has
stained it through and through.
I think of others as I write: one was a boy we knew well, a splendid,
earnest lad, keen to witness for Christ. He told us one evening how he
had been delivered from those who were plotting his destruction. For
several months after his decision to be a Christian, he lived at home
and tried to win his people; but they were incensed against him for even
thinking of breaking Caste, and would not listen to him. Still he
waited, and witnessed to them, not fearing anything. Then one day,
suddenly some men rushed into the room where he was sitting, seized and
bound and gagged him. They forced something into his mouth as he lay on
the floor at their mercy; he feared it was a drug, but it was only some
disgusting stuff which, to a Hindu, meant unutterable defilement. Then
they left him bound alone, and at night he managed to escape. A few
months after he told us this, we heard he had been seized again, and
this time "drugged and done for."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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