The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1913, Page 82

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82 The uutheran Pioneer.

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ciate. But let these carping critics understand
these facts: Missionaries have done more than any
one class to bring peace among the savage tribes.
Missionaries were the first to open up the interior
of Africa, and they have given the world more
accurate geographical knowledge of that continent
than all other classes combined. All the museums
of the world are indebted to Christian missionaries
for many examples of plants, animals, and prod-

_uets of distant countries. The world owes its most

useful drug, quinine, to missionaries. Missionaries
have extended the world’s commerce everywhere.
Countries opened to commerce by missionaries in
dozens of cases to-day have a greater trade in one
year than the entire sum spent in Christianizing
them.

—~—eo-:ti—“—i—

Let Us Serve One Another.

An American merchant and two English tour-
ists, during a famine year in China, started on a
hunting trip. In the course of time they lost their
bearings, and wandered about for hours in the vast
rice swamps. Finally, they met a poor Chinaman,
and asked him to lead them back home. After hours
of weary traveling through the swamps, they finally
came out at the starting-point. ‘The hunters were
tired, but the poor, half-starved Chinaman was well-
nigh exhausted.

Out of gratitude for the kind service he had so
cheerfully rendered them, the merchant and tourists
offered him a fine sum of money, an amount greater
than he could earn in two years in China, the home
of low wages. But to their great surprise he re-
fused to accept the money.

In answer to their astonished inquiry why he
declined the sum, ‘he replied, “Confucius commands
all his followers to show kindness to their fellow-
men. We are so poor that we do not often have an
opportunity to help others. This is the first time
I have been able to do so, and I do not wish to lose
the chance.”

How many Christians are put to shame by this

poor Chinaman! We have so many opportunities
3 help one another, but instead of regarding such
services as blessed privileges, we look upon them as
burdens. It should not be so. Jet the love of
Christ impel us to serve one another without hope
of reward.

_ ‘Tae biggest coward in the world is he who is
afraid to do right.

Pundita Ramabai.

One of our readers has expressed the desire to
learn more of Pundita Ramabai whom we mentioned
in our article, “The Gospel for All,” in the Sep-
tember number of the Pioneer. ‘Thinking that
perhaps other readers might desire to learn more
concerning this remarkable woman, we give below
a short sketch of her life and work.

Ramabai was born fifty-five years ago in the
western Ghats of India. Her parents were high-
caste Brahmans. Her father, a well-educated man
of liberal views, gave her a good education. Having
a particularly bright mind, she became a proficient
student of Sanskrit, and at the age of only nine-
teen the highest possible title for scholarship, that
of Sarasvati, Goddess of Wisdom, was’ conferred
upon her by the pundits (learned Brahmans) of
Caleutia. While yet a young woman, her faith in
idolatry wis shaken. Losing her husband when
quite a young woman, she was induced to dedicate
herself to the work of relieving the awful condition
of the poor child-wives anl child-widows of India.

During a visit to England, in 1883, where she
had gone to prepare herself for the great work she
had decided to undertake, she fully embraced the
Christian religion. A few years later she also
visited America, and here told the great audiences
that greeted her of the cruel wrongs inflicted upon
India’s child-wives and child-widows. ‘These lec-
tures led to the formation of a socicty pledged to
the support of a school and asylum for high-caste
Hindu widows, and thus her dream of years began
to be realized.

In 1889, she established her school for high-
caste Hindu widows at Bombay, but a few years
later removed it to Poona. This first institution
founded by Ramabai is secular and bears the name
of Sharada Sadan, Home ‘of Wisdom. In this
school a thorough education is given the more gifted
girls of the privileged castes of India, an educa-
tion that will fit them for teachers, and open to
them the door to an honorable career instead of
forcing them to lead a life of degradation and suf-
fering, devoid of all hope. ‘This school reaches the
most influential classes of India, and has done much
to remove the awful evil of enforced widowhood.

In 1897, Ramabai visited the famine-stricken
districts of India, and rescued 300 high-caste girls
from shame and death. For these she opened a
school which she called Mukti, Salvation. It is a
Christian school and is attended by 1,700 rescued