“Thy
bread and thy water shall be sure.”
The
work in India grew and prospered so that although there were many and the task a
heavy one, they pressed on. Sometimes tests and hardships came from the fields
where she labored, and sometimes it came from those who were at home who should
have understood. But every missionary would testify that some of the heaviest
loads come from those who profess to be back of the great task, but whose vision
is too narrow. On one occasion when walking over the campgrounds at home, a
woman who had claimed to have an interest in the mission came up to her and
said:
“I
have heard that the people of India eat their food with their fingers. Is it
true?”
“Yes,
it is true?”
“I
have also heard that those at the Shelter Home are eating that way. Is it
true?”
“Yes,
it is true.”
“Well,
I know, of course, you could not afford to buy knives and forks for all that
group, but if we here in America will send you the proper amount of knives and
forks, will you teach them to eat as we do?”
“No,”
she said quietly.
“Why
not?”
“Because
I did not go to India to make Americans out of them and to compel them to change
their customs for ours when theirs have naught to do with morals. I went to
India to save lives and souls. I will not try to change their way of life. “
“Then
I will not support such a person, “ said the outraged person, as she stalked
away.
How
narrow-minded we become as we send our pittance across the great rolling seas,
saying, “If we give you these pennies and scraps left over from our bountiful
tables in America you must be like us. You must dress in our dress, eat as we
eat, use our language, and think as we think.”
Perhaps
we have never thought what an oddity we would make of converts requiring them to
dress as foreigners in their won land. This would indeed make the natives very
noticeable among their fellow men and bring needless persecution and troubles.
Neither does this engender more or better fruit in that land. It is the soul
that must be saved, the inner man must be changed, and all will right itself
when this is done. The pagan does not want to look like a worked over article,
but would walk among his fellow man as he is, save for his soul that has found
peace.
In
the “Shelter”, Faith Stewart wore the regular American housedress, but when
she went out to the social gatherings necessary, she often donned the native
sari. When in New York, we had the privilege to visit the United Nations
Building, and while there watched the native Indian women walking about the
building, and of all the women there, these women were the most graceful and
most modestly dressed. Not an American woman present walked with the freedom and
graceful ease, as did these sisters of the Orient as they moved to and fro
handling their lovely garments.
The
young American missionary who visited the mission found it very difficult to eat
with her knife and fork, lifting her food all the way from the mat on the floor
to her mouth. They have their table etiquette, and among their better class have
their books of instructions as we do and eat as daintily and as good mannered as
do Americans. They do not need our American customs and dress, but they do need
our Christ, and the sooner we realize this, the better progress we will make in
the mission field.
While
laboring on in this field during the First World War, while engaged both in
orphanage work and in general mission work in the first years, she was connected
with the Missionary Board that had their headquarters in Anderson, Indiana, and
at that time when an offering came in for the work in India, they sent it on to
her. There was neither salary nor stipulated amount for regular support, and the
work was definitely carried on by faith. As we have said, assuming no
responsibility for financing the mission, they did what they could in a
brotherly way from time to time. She writes of this period as follows:
“Our
experiences were so great and the many answers to prayer so marvelous that I
could write volumes and not tell it all. During those days, we frequently had to
say as did the psalmist of old, “The Lord hath done great things for us,
whereof I am glad.” However, I am not going to use much time or space telling
of what great things happened twenty or thirty years ago, but since He is just
the same today, we shall have new experiences from time to time. But a few
things are in keeping showing His goodness to the children of men.
“At
one time during the War, it was very difficult to get meat, and in time, the
girls in the ‘Shelter’ grew very hungry for it. They knew that these hard
times were brought on by the war, and they said nothing to me or to the other
workers about their desire for meat. But a group of the older ones, (from ten to
fourteen years of age) got together and went far out from the house under the
shade of trees, and there they had a good prayer meeting, laying their desires
right out before their Heavenly Father in full confidence that He would grant
their petition.
“Later,
when telling me all about it, they said that at first they had asked the Lord to
either send money or meat, but after considering it awhile, one of them said to
the others:
“‘But
girls, if God sends money, Mama will not know it is for meat when there are so
many needs, and she will surely buy something else with it.’ So they went in
prayer again and asked the Lord not to send money but to send meat.
“I
knew nothing about this simple childish prayer, but I did know that for two days
the girls kept right up around the house. Many times during those days, I urged
them to go out under the shade where it was cooler, but to no avail. About noon
of the second day, (after they had prayed) a man came to the house with a large
basket of meat on his head. A note was brought to me from the sender telling me
that the meat was for the children. The girls were even then on the back
verandah listening to what the man was saying, and by the time I got the meat
back to them, they were simply overcome with the great joy that filled their
young hearts as they realized their prayer was fully answered. I rejoiced with
them, and we mingled our tears of gratitude together and adored our Savior and
Friend as they related to me their experience of taking their desire before the
Lord and then waiting for the promised answer.
“The
following day, I called on Mrs. White, the lady who had been used of God to help
answer the Children’s prayer. As I related to her how earnestly they had
prayed and how they had waited the two days in faith, she wept bitter tears, and
said:
“‘Miss
Stewart, I am so ashamed of myself.’
“Then
she told me that the family owned two sheep and cared for them as pets, but that
two days before she had sent the meat, God had spoken clearly to her telling her
to have a certain one of these sheep butchered and send the meat over to the
Girl’s Home. She said that she had refused to do so, and that on the following
morning when she went out to open the door of the little house where the sheep
were kept, she found the very one God had called for, on the floor dead.
“She
was convinced that God had taken the animal because she had withheld it and
refused to obey Him. So at once she and her husband called a butcher, asking him
to kill and dress the meat of the other sheep, so that it could be sent to the
Children’s Home. Thus God again proved His faithfulness in answering prayer.
Although it had only been children who had laid their desires before the Lord,
has He not said that the desires of the righteous shall be granted Yes, thank
God. And even children can love and serve the Lord and can get their prayers
through and have them answered. And if the answer is sometimes delayed, never
cast away your confidence for ‘though it tarry, wait for it; for it shall
surely come.’ Hab. 2:3”
The
adequate plan of the house in Cuttack where the girls were housed and her system
of work and schooling was admirable and won the respect of all who knew about
it, and the British official as well. Her work of rescue of so many little
Indian girls and the noble effort that was made to fit them for a finer and
nobler life was at last appreciated by the Government, and she was presented
with a Kaiser I. Hind Medal in recognition of her valuable work in connection
with the “Shelter”. She also received a letter from H. Le Meceurier, member
of Council, congratulating her for admirable and courageous work.
It
was about this time that she left India to return to her own country. The Board
at home had suggested this before, but she had always insisted on remaining
until now nine years had passed, and she had never taken the usual furlough that
has been found necessary to most missionaries because of change of climate and
labor. But Faith Stewart has never, in her long years of service, taken a
vacation, as others find necessary. She, when physically able, was at the
Lord’s business at home or abroad. But friends and those who had at last
consented to send her, urged her, saying:
“No
missionary has gone to India ant stayed so long before coming home. It is not
wise to stay any longer. We have urged you to come before, but now we insist on
your coming home on furlough for at least a year. “
Other
missionaries stayed for the colder season, but left for the higher parts of
India in the extreme heat of summer to protect their health and keep fit for the
rest of the year. The average temperature for about nine months of the year in
the area of the mission was 122 degrees, and this was not the heat of other
places for it was in the shade. Only one summer was there any change made in the
nine years’ term she had served in India as a missionary.
But
it was with great reluctance that she began to prepare for the long absence from
her beloved little ones who looked to her as to a mother and called her Mama.
But the matter could be put off no longer, and she began to pack and at last
found herself sailing homeward width mingled thoughts and emotions all she drew
nearer ant nearer each day. One thought was paramount. Would she be able to see
her father once more?
A
short while before sailing, she had taken in a little boy left homeless, and
many thoughts kept coming to her mind. The girls were growing up, and a problem
came with that growing.
The
outlets for girls are few in India, and there must be an outlet to take care of
the older girls so that the Home could continue to take in others. Also, they
must be fitted for a life of usefulness. There as one question that presented
itself to her--where to find suitable husbands for these girls when they became
old enough to marry.
She
could not bring herself to give noble, educated, Christian girls in marriage to
heathen men because the women in Hindu homes are not supposed to have a voice in
anything, but must, without question, strictly obey their husbands in
everything. If one of the mission girls desired to marry a Hindu, she would have
to sacrifice every Christian principle in the very beginning and submit to a
heathen marriage ceremony. Then after marriage, she would be forced to bow down
in worship before their idols and to submit to all of their heathen customs. It
would be impossible to even do this in outward form without sacrificing their
consciences and loosing their own soul.
Speaking
of this very matter in a report made many years ago, she says:
“In
Christian lands, our young women meet with people and form their own friendships
which lead to matrimony. This is not true in India. The girls are kept in
seclusion in their own homes and do not go out in public. If they attend school,
from the time they are eight years of age, they must attend a school for girls
only. All conditions are such that bar them from forming acquaintance with the
opposite sex. The parents or guardians plan for their marriage.
“A
Christian girl will likely know whom she is to marry and in most cases will have
the privilege of meeting the one she is to marry a time or two and engage in a
few moments conversation, but that is all.
“So
those who live in such institutions as the ‘Shelter’ are under the
guardianship of the missionary in charge, and that missionary is entirely
responsible to plan for the marriage of those in her care.
“There
is, therefore, only one solution for this tremendous problem. We must have a
home for boys where we can rear and train Christian husbands for the girls. If
we can open a home some little distance from the one we now have for girls, and
there take in small orphan boys, surround them with strong Christian influence,
give them elementary education, then have them taught good trades, this will fit
them for an independent life. We can thus give our girls to them in marriage,
and they will form their own Christian community in which they live.
“It
will place the girls in a position where they can have some thing to live for
and where their lives will broaden out and be a blessing to humanity. Who can
measure the good it will be to a community, if in a few short years, we could
have as the fruit of these two schools more than one hundred Christian homes?
What a power for good this would be! One hundred homes shining out for God in
the very midst of heathen darkness. This is the plan on which the Roman
Catholics and others have worked, and they have the results to show today. We
too can have results if we work to the same plan. But unless we open a boy’s
home and rear Christian husbands for these girls, we shall, in the end, lose
much of what God has designed to accomplish through His work.
“But
it requires money to sustain an institution of this sort. It will require a sum
of thirty thousand dollars to erect buildings and establish a home. Having put
our hands to the plow, we feel we dare not draw back, and at present we are
where we cannot go forward unless God opens the way before us. And as He has
ordained that His children should be workers together with Him, I take the
liberty of bringing this great need before the friends of such a cause in
Christian America.”
The
burden of her heart was to, during this year at home on furlough, raise the
amount needed to open the Boys’ home on her return to India. She appealed
earnestly to those who would read the report to assist in rescuing ant leading
to pure noble womanhood other little jewels who have fallen victims of the
immoral traffic in minor girls that is so extremely carried on in dark India.
She
began to make preparation for the long journey back to the homeland and the day
came when, leaving others in charge, and saying goodbye to the last little one
in her beloved India, she took ship and sailed homeward at last. It was with
mingled feelings that she drew nearer and nearer each day to her loved home.
Would her father receive her; would she be permitted to look on this face again?
What did the year ahead hold for her and her work? On and on swept the great
ship ever nearer the goal and she plowed through the mighty waves and steered a
straight course for America.
