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Show MISS ADELE WOBUS LECTURES ON HER EXPERIENCE IN INDIA Women Are Kept in Ignorance and Held Prisoners in Their Homes Caste Is a Barrier to Progress Worship of Gods of Iniquity Superstition Used by Priests For Gain How the Missionaries Are Aiding the People. Miss Adele Wobus, mission worker from East India, spoke last Sunday to large audiences at St. Paul's Evan-gellcnl Evan-gellcnl church in Ogden. Miss Adele Wobus, sister of the Rev. Theodore Wobus, formerly pastor pas-tor of St. Paul's church, entered the foreign mission work of the Evangelical Evangel-ical Synod in East India in the year 1906. She devoted her vacation, which is granted to all mission workers work-ers after certain period of service, to a lecture tour In the states, and on her return to East India, via San Franciscor she stopped over at Ogden, as the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Hess, who are strong supporters of foreign missions. It is thus that the local congregation secured her services. serv-ices. Miss Wobus dwelt briefly on the origin or-igin and location of the field, and al-J so gave some interesting statistics. "In the year 1867, an independent mission society in the city of New York, known as the German Evangelical Evan-gelical Mission society, composed of Lutherans, Presbyterians, Moravians, and Reformed members, sent a missionary, mis-sionary, the Rev. L.ohr to India, without, with-out, however, having any definite field assigned to him, being told merely to trust to the guidance of God to show him his field. He arrived at Bombay at the time of the session of a missionary mis-sionary conference. Urgent appeals were made for workers In the Chat-tlsgarh Chat-tlsgarh district of the central province prov-ince of India. Rev. Lohr received this as an indication of the Divine will and decided to locate In that section. The resources of the mission society of New York, however, were so limited, lim-ited, that the work could not be carried car-ried on successfully, and, in view of this fact, In 1883, a delegation was sent to the general conference of the Evangelical Synod of North America, in session at St. Louis, with the proposition prop-osition to transfer the field of labor to this church body. The offer was unanimously accepted and efforts set forth to develop the work. "Although India's area Is but one-half one-half that of the United States, Its population pop-ulation is 315,132,537; of these but 3,-574,000 3,-574,000 are Christians. The total number of missionaries of the various church denominations is 5000. "India's people are divided into three races, Aryan, Dravidlan and Mongolian. These speak respectively respective-ly fourteen different languages, with 200 dialects. The Sanskrit is the original or-iginal of all Indo-Germanic languages. ; It contains not less than 800,000 words. To each of the three chief deities are assigned one thousand names. "In order to get close to the natives, na-tives, it is necessary for the mission-arj' mission-arj' to learn not only their language, but familiarize himself with their customs cus-toms and habits. The latter Is all the more difficult in view of the fact that; there are 2378 castes. This idea of) caste system is also a great barrier to the mission workers and again those who become converts are excommunicated ex-communicated from their castes and looked upon as outcasts. Thus the church has not merely to provide for their spiritual but also for their temporal tem-poral welfare. There are 302,425 girl wives in India under the age of 5 years, 9,412,262 under 15 years; 17,-700 17,-700 girl widows under 5 years. Of 1000 natives, only 58 are literates; of 10,000 Mohammedan women, only 43; of 10,000 Hindu women, 76; of 10,000 Christians 2140. The mission field of the synod comprises 1,384,500 natives of -hich 4012 are church members. The reports of 1914 give tne loiiowmg survey or tne neia; 13 missionaries, 6 women missionaries, 6 zenana ladles, 10 mission homes, 7 main stations, 64 outer-stations, 7 native preachers, 181 native teachers, 73 schools, 3715 day scholars, 2472 Sunday school scholai-s, 51 converts were baptized the past year. Tte prime objective of all foreign mission activity Is to preach the gospel, b'ut this work includes many phases of activity. ac-tivity. The missionaries not only preach the gospel, but supervise the schools, also practice medicine, work among the lepers and outcasts, qon-duct qon-duct orphanages, go upon preaching tours and engage in general Evangelistic Evangel-istic work. Last but not least, It Is the Endeavor of the missionaries to place the agricultural pursuits of .the natives on a scientific basis, to show them how to modernize and beautify their homes, improve sanitary conditions condi-tions and thus seek to advance their temporal as well as spiritual welfare.' wel-fare.' Miss Wobus emphasized particularly particular-ly India's cry for help: "This cry comes FIRST from physical phys-ical suffering. Due to unfavorable climatic conditions, the people, even the natives, aro subjected ribt only to many uncomfortable conditions, but to much physical suffering. The dry season of the year lasts some eight months. The temperature rises to 120 degrees and more in the shade; the other is the wet season, which is characterized not merely by incessant inces-sant rain but downpours. These climatic cli-matic conditions with the very primitive primi-tive or no sanitary conditions and the absence of all scientific medical treat-1 inent of diseases, with the exception of the Christian doctors, causes much suffering and increases the death rate enormously. The death rate in a plague-stricken district reaches almost al-most 10,000 per week. As high as 22,478 people have been killed in one year by snakes and 23S2 by wild animals. ani-mals. Due to the idea of the caBte no medical man is permitted to have a consultation with a woman patient, as in our country. Consequently there Is a crying need for doctresses. "India's cry comes SECONDLY from the woeful ignorance, especially among the common people. About five million comprise the depressed classes and those of tho lowest castes, some of whom, as regard culture, are scarcely on a higher level than the -pagan tribes of Central Africa. Their mental faculties have been blunted by long centuries of oppression and Hcrvile bondage, and it is partly due to this fact that they llvo in abject terror of evil spirits. There are 160 million Hindus belonging to various , races and castes. Hinduism represents repre-sents an Immensely varied and multiform multi-form system, ranging from the philosophy phil-osophy of the Vedas to grotesque and uncouth superstitions of devil worship. wor-ship. There are sixty million Mohammedans Moham-medans of many races, all of whom regard Christianity with contempt as antiquated religion which Allah as set aside and replaced by Islam. There are ten million Buddhists. About one million, mostly Hindus, also al-so some Mohammedans, speak the English language and have acquired more or less western culture. Among the higher classes, there are people of great learning. Some 12 years of hard study is required to master the Sanswkrit, in order that all of the holy writings may be read intelligently. intelli-gently. But in general, these great men manifest an astounding ignorance ignor-ance as to dally wants and needs. The schools for girls date back only some 50 years and were established through the exerted efforts of the missionaries, mission-aries, and even at the present, the girls v are not permitted to attend school beyond the age of nine years. "A bright Utle -girl attended my school, which is also connected with the government or public school, as we say. Suddenly she stayed away from school. I visited the parents and made inquiry into the cause of the child's absence. The father Informed In-formed me that the child was far enough advanced In school work, and should now learn to do housework; moreover he would be put out of the caste if he would permit the child to attend school any longer. The Hindu says: 'The chief beauty of- a woman is her ignorance.' "India's cry comes thirdly from the sad condition of bondage In which women are held. The Mohammedan women, and also the women of all higher castes, are kept in seclusion. They are subjected to the Purdah, or curtain system. Her own husband, and her brothers and sons only, are permitted to seener. If, for instance, the husband's 'brother should unexpectedly unex-pectedly enter the room, she, his sis terln-law, as we say, would hurriedly draw the veil and disappear behind tho screen. These women apartments are called 'zenana.' How strictly they observe this ordinance of the caste may be illustrated by the following: A woman became very sick and, at. the suggestion of the mission worker a Christian doctor was permitted to call, but at the door of the house he was Informed that he could not see the patient, but that if he understood his calling he could prescribe successfully success-fully for her. The doctor persisted that it was necessary to feel the patient's pati-ent's pulse and see her tongue. After a little while he was permitted to ent er the patient's apartment and feel the pulse at the wrist which was stretched through an Incision In the cloth with which she was covered and also see the tongue through another an-other cut in the cloth. It is among these women, Imprisoned in their lapartments, that we myself and my Ifive co-workers are active. Aside from our school and hospital work, we tisit these degraded human beings, jead to them, and teach them needle work, etc., and thus gain their confluence, confl-uence, and gradually are enabled to anterest them in the religion of JeBUs 'Christ, that liberates. I do not call a Hindu a heathen In the very sense of the term. To my opinion a heathen is one who does not search after God, but is solely or chiefly given up to worldly pursuits. The Hindu, as a rule, Is a very pious person. Even If he does not know the true God, he searches and Is more devoted to his religion than many nominal Christians are to the Christian religion. "India's cry comes fourthly from moral degradation. Even to their gods they ascribe Immoral and various other oth-er sinful attributes of which I may not speak. Just one illustration. The god Ganish is, according to their belief, be-lief, the son of Mahadeo, which means the great god, and his wife Parvatl. It was a very hot day and Parvatl did not fan Mahadeo as she should have done. This aroused his anger to such an extent as to cut off the baby's head (Ganish). The head rolled away and he was too lazy to put it back again, but ordered a servant into the jungles to find an .animal whose mother moth-er did not care for It, and cut off its head and bring it to him. The sen-ant found an elephant who was apparently 'UlOUIlOll, (JUL ILO UCUU JLL U1JU UiUUgllL it to Mahadeo, who put it on his son's, Ganish's, shoulders and restored life to him. The mother, Parvatl, was much displeased to have a son with an elephant's head and Invoked Brahma, Brah-ma, who Is considered the supreme Creator, to make a change, but Brahma Brah-ma informed her that a change would not be prudent, but that he would grant this gift to Ganish, that the would bo worshipped more than any other god, and hence people invoke Ganish's good-will and assistance in view of all their underta.klngs. Tho elephnnt Us therefore considered a sacred animals. Nothing pleases a lady more than the compliment, that 3he walks like an elephant "Like gods, like people. As they attribute at-tribute to their gods gross immorality, immoral-ity, and vice, deception, dishonesty etc. they consider themselves privileged, rather In duty bound, to follow the example of their gods. They deceive and belie not only each other, but their very gods. Untruthfulness and dishonesty aro prominent characteristics characteris-tics of the Hindus. An English offi cer was anxious to get Into favor with the native and tho thought entered his mind that it might gratify them if he Planted a holy tree 'pipal' in the market place, and so he did. The natives na-tives sent a delegation to him to convince con-vince him of the fact that since he had planted this tree, it was impossible impos-sible for them to do any more business, busi-ness, because the3T would break tho caste if they would tell a lie in the presence of the holy tree and that it was Impossible to transact business and not resort to falsehoods. Quite often the question Is asked: 'Do you wish to know tho selling or the bar-gain bar-gain price?' The Hindus aro very clever In deceltfulness, A woman ask- 1 ed me how I could get along in life and not be untruthful, deceitful and 'dishonest. Servants steal right and left. A Christian employer asked his servant how much he stole during the month and the reply was G rupees a rupee is 33 1-3 cents. Of course the value of money In Indians much greater great-er thanin our county. "The employer said that he would give him that sum at the end of the month, If he would prove to be honest. At the end of the month the servant pleaded: 'Be as it was for it was interesting,' namely: name-ly: to steal. Everything has to be kept under lock and key. "India's cry comes sixthly from superstitious sup-erstitious fears. It may be familiar to us how witchcraft has its sway in heathen lands. Especially do the priests hold the people in constant fear and by this means induce them to give large portions of their substance to the gods. The priests are great extortionists. ex-tortionists. The threat: 'I curse thee to be born a 1000 times,' is a source of great revenue for them as the belief be-lief of the transmigration of the soul is Inherent with the Hindus. Tho Hindu religion knows of no forgiveness, forgive-ness, but requires atonement, rather than satisfaction, for one and all. If a Hindu even swallows an Insect, he has committed a sin which must be atoned -for. In certain castes it is not customary to eat after sunset for fear they might swallow an insect, and when they drink water they draw it through a fine cloth. Once I met a Hindu walking along the way side in a stooping position, feeding sugar to the ants, which, as in all tropical climates, cli-mates, pester the people -very much. I inquired into the object and the reply re-ply was, that 'I may not suffer so much from the transmigration of my soul.' He meant to say that his soul should not suffer to migrate again and again through organisms of the lower type. "Thus we see, from many an ancient river, From many a palmy plain They call us to deliver Their land from error's chain. Can wo, whose souls are lighted With wisdom from on high; Can we to men benighted. The lamp of life deny? Salvation, O Salvation, Tho joyous sound proclaim, Till each remotest nation, Has learnt Messiah's Name." 00 |