The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1932, Page 103

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

103

will accompany him as a well-informed and con-
firmed Christian to his field of labor, a real help-
mate to him in his home and in his work.

The second woman is still a staunch Hindu.
Her husband tried to lead her to Christ, but was not
successful. Her name is Chellamma. She is now
twenty-one years of age and has one child, which is
seen in the picture. I regret to say that she is not
yet baptized, but she attends the classes in religion,
and we ask our dear Lord to bless the Word spoken
to her. You will see that she is nourished better
than the other women are. In fact, we might be
inclined to call her fat. The color of her skin is
a light olive, and she has dark hair like all Indians
and beautiful dark-brown eyes. Of course, the little
boy is baptized. Tis name is Samuel. When her
husband goes out to do labor in our mission, I shall

Wives of Students in Catechist Class, Trivandrum,
Travancore, India.

make an effort to keep in touch with her. At some
not too distant day I hope to see her in full mem-
bership with Christ and with us.

The woman next to Chellamma was a Hindu
a year ago. Her name is also Chellamma. She has
a better education than the other women, namely,
up to the seventh grade, which in India enables her
to teach lower grades. She is twenty years of age
and still childless. She married a Hindu man who
had just been instructed in our Christian religion.
There is a little story connected with her mar-
riage. The ceremony was conducted by Missionary
D. Chuvala. I happened to be at Alleppey at the
time and accompanied Mrs. Chuvala to the wed-
ding. The ceremony was to take place at two in
the afternoon, but it was much later when the par-
ticipants and the guests arrived. As is customary
with us in India, an opening hymn was sung, Mis-
sionary Chuvala leading. Immediately some of the
relatives of the bride arose and walked out. During

the address others followed the first, until the bride
was deserted by all her relatives and remained there
alone with ‘us. Ilowever, the little woman was very
brave, suffered all, and declared that she would re-
nounce the false Hindu faith and become a Chris-
tian. Another interesting feature of this wedding
is that the groom and the bride had become ac-
quainted with each other before marriage — which
is not at all the rule in India —and had learned
to love each other. The other day I saw Dr. G. Mez-
ger’s Lessons in the Small Catechism of Dr. Martin
Luther in her hands and on inquiry found that she
is able to read enough English to be profited by the
book. May the Lord lead her to full faith in Jesus
Christ!

The fourth woman is also very interesting. She
is about twenty years of age, not very tall, and a real
ray of sunshine; she laughs easily, and loves to sing
in her happiness. When she married a Lutheran,
she resolved to become a Christian. She was mar-
ried about three years when the Lord granted her
a dear child, which, however, He immediately took
to Himself again. ‘This was a source of great grief
to the young mother. But we know it was for her
and for the child’s best that it was taken away. At
the time she was very ill and, in fact, at the door
of death. At the wish of the father the child had
been baptized by the missionary in charge before it
passed away. All this was told her and comforted
her very much, as she now had sufficient knowledge
of the Word of God and especially of the blessed
benefit of Holy Baptism. And now, at the door of
death, she asked the missionary whether she also
could not be baptized. I am glad to say that after
the necessary exploration Holy Baptism could also
be granted to her, and she is now numbered with
the people of God. God graciously raised her up
from her sick-bed, and we hope that she will soon
be ready to participate with us in the blessings of
the Lord’s Supper. GERTRUDE OBERHEU.

Trivandrum, Travancore, India.

The Temple of the Sacred Banyan-Tree
at Allahabad.

- In last month’s issue we gave our readers a de-
scription of a Hindu Mela, or fair. In connection
with this Mela we should this month like to tell
them something about the temple dedicated to the
sacred banyan-tree. This temple is located at Alla-
habad. We take our description from an article by