The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1913, Page 83

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

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girls and women. Half the day they work, and
the other half is devoted to study. The girls and
women make their own clothing and prepare their
own food. Mukti, besides its schools, has its own
farms, dairy, and printing-press. ‘The atmosphere
of the community is truly Christian. In the estab-
lishment of this place of refuge Ramabai showed
a heroic faith. Here she gathered the helpless
waifs, acquired the land, dug wells, erected build-
ings, all in absolute reliance on God’s help. When-
ever hunger threatened the inmates of the institu-
tion, Ramabai suffered iis pinch with them, but
God’s bounty has always supplied their need. ‘The

shaved, her food restricted to one scant meal a day.
Twice every month she must go without food or
water for forty-eight hours. Only-one coarse white
garment is allowed her. She can take no part in the
family feasts, is shunned, hated, and made the
drudge and slave of the family. A man starting
upon a journcy thinks it hard luck if he meets a
widow. If she should in desperation run away, there
is nobody that would take her in; even the lower
castes would not have her as a servant. Destitute
and ignorant, such a runaway would find suicide
or a life of shame her only alternatives. And, sad
to say, suicide is common, and a life of shame still

A Mission School in India.

heart and soul of Mukti is the great brick church,
where services are regularly held, and where the
voice of prayer is constantly heard.

A third school founded by Ramabai on lines
like those of Mukti is called Kripa Sadan, Home
of Grace. In all three of her institutions probably
more than 2,500 suffering child-widows have found
a refuge and are cared for at the present time.

__ In order that the reader may fully realize the
greatness of this wonderful woman’s work, let him
remember that India has 27,000,000 widows, of
whom 350,000 are under fifteen years of age and
14,000 are Jess than four. ‘The lot of these poor
beings is most deplorable. The young widow, who
may be a little child only three or four years of
age, is stripped of all ornaments, her head is

more so. It is largely from the class of child-
widows that the ranks of the temple girls are re-
cruited, who give their bodies to the service and
maintenance of the temple, and form one of the
most fruitful sources of the depravity of the priests,
to whose pleasure they are ‘primarily devoted.
Besides devoting so much of her life and strength
to the great work of relieving the poor widows of
India, Ramabai has found time to paraphrase the
Bible into the simplest woman’s talk, that thus the
most stupid and degraded women of India may
have the precious Gospel brought within their reach.

“9 ‘return good for good is human; evil for
evil, is carnal; evil for good, is devilish; good for
evil, is divine.” .