and salaries.
6. Is provision carefully and willingly made for supplying the Hindu pupils with whatever is necessary for the due performance of the rites of their religion? 7. Is there Christian worship in the Sharada Sadan? and if so, by whom conducted and where are the services held, how often and who attend? 8. Give the names and residences of the pupils in the Sharada Sadan; and the circumstances under which they came to the school; that is, were they sent voluntarily by their relatives or guardians, or solicited by the officers or were they transferred from the Mukti? 9. Give the number and names of the teachers and helpers at Sharada Sadan, their special duties and salaries. 176 Letter from MISS MARY SAMUEL, Poona, to SISTER GERALDINE, CSMV, Wantage
Convent Street, Poona,
September 12th, 1902 My dear Sister Geraldine,
I put off writing day after day, in hopes of receiving definite news about Mano who could not leave Kedgaon till she was told to sail with Miss Abrams for Australia last week at a day's notice. There have been so many changes since the sudden removal of the school from Poona in June, and such conflicting rumours that it is very difficult to understand the different moves but I am glad the girl is away although you cannot imagine how I miss her. Her position was not an enviable one and I do hope the change will restore her to health, which was far from satisfactory. She was unable to answer your last letter and she asked me to send you her address :
c/o. Mrs. E. W. Nicholls, President of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, Dutton Road, Medindie, Adelaide, South Australia. Would you mind please giving it to Miss Noble who may desire to write also? I wonder if there is any possibility of her going to London! You will be surprised to hear that I also am thinking of leaving for China about the middle of next month if the doctor decides that I am strong enough to undertake such a voyage seeing that I am an exceptionally bad sailor.
I have been keeping indifferent health for the last six months and drugs seem to have no effect. My address will be:
c/o. M. Perry, Esqr., Messrs. E.D. Sassoon & Co., Shanghai, China. I am so sorry I shall not see Sister Benigna Mary for I am longing to receive every little news of you. Are you feeling better and stronger now?
I hope you will not stop writing to me. With fond love,
Your very affectionate pupil,
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MARY
1906 The following is extracted from a speech made by Mrs. Bruere (wife of the Rev. W. W. Bruere, a much revered Pastor who served the Mukti Mission in its early years) before the American Ramabai Association in 1906.
This must be read with understanding. It savours of "the long bow". Some of it if not all is misleading.
"Visitors come from all parts of India and from other countries to visit Ramabai's work, and when they see the extent of the work carried on, the multitude of women and the splendid organization, the great executive ability of that wonderful woman, who has her hand upon every part of the work, they are greatly amazed and they say that the half has not been told them. The buildings of Mukti are very fine. The school rooms were furnished with American desks, black-boards and maps which gave them a fine appearance. There was a thoroughly equipped kindergarten, a competent staff of teachers and first class order. And I remember how the girls used to file out of the compound, showing that they were under excellent training. The dormitories were large, pleasant quarters. The girls had excellent beds provided for them; they had good food, well prepared, well served, as I had occasion to know, for sometimes I took a meal with them.
"Then in the drawing room and in the library the girls seemed to feel perfectly at home; they would come and sit in groups of two or three, and study their lessons, and no matter how busy Ramabai was, she always seemed to be ready to hear her girls when they would come to her. It was a pleasure to me to sit in Ramabai's room and talk with her, and see these girls when they would come in with their requests and caresses; everything was so homelike about the place.
"And there are so many departments of the work. There is the old Sharada Sadan High School in which there are 165 girls, under the charge of Manoramabai. Some of these girls are acting as pupil teachers in connection with their studies, and are also taking up kindergarten work. Then there is the Mukti School, comprising the primary and the grammar grades. All these girls are permitted to go as far in their studies as they have the ability, and the grades are all taught according to the Government standard.
"Ramabai found that she was obliged to separate about 200 of these girls and women from the rest and place them in a separate compound with a lady worker at the head and they have their own little hospital. These separated girls were suspected of having the beginning of Phithisis. Then there is the general hospital in which the sick are cared for. During the famine, there were 250 cases of famine sufferers in this hospital at one time and here nurses are trained from among the girls.
"Then there is the large Bible class in which students are trained to go out as missionaries, as teachers in schools, as matrons, and as Bible-women.
"One day a gentleman visitor came when they were having their day of prayer, for they have the first Tuesday in every month set apart for prayer. The visitor noticed that a great many of these women had Bibles and he spoke to the leader about it. The leader said, 'All of you who have the Bibles just raise your hands', and up went scores of hands. The visitor was form Sycracuse, New York and this made a very deep impression upon him; he thought it was a great object lesson that he might take home to America.
"There is the blind class, under the charge of Manoramabai. There is one thing that these blind girls can do, and that is, grind grain.
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"Then there is the large boy's school and orphanage. Some years ago, when we were in Poona, Ramabai urged us very strongly to take up this work and raise up husbands for her girls, as she said. But we already had two large orphanages of our own, besides our other work, and we thought we could not take anything more upon us. So she went to work and opened the orphanage for boys herself, for Ramabai does not stop at anything. This will prove to be a wise thing I know. (It did not.—Sr. Geraldine).
"Besides, there are the industries, and one of them is a bakery where they make English bread and cake. The girls are also taught laundry work and they even know how to do up gentlemen's collars. Besides this, they are taught cooking, sewing, and the use of the sewing machine, also weaving; and there is a printing establishment. About twenty of the older women, who are not able to study, work out in the fields. The work is changed about every three months, so that the girls have an opportunity to learn all the different classes of work. For instance, every three months the cooking class will go to the sewing department, and then on to the laundry department, and so on; and the girls in these other departments will, in their turn go to the cooking class. And, as I have said, the girls in the sewing department, when they are able to sew well by hand, are taught the use of the machine. The latest report tells us that fifty of Ramabai's women go out daily to teach the people. I do not think that, here in the United States or in China or Africa or Japan, we can point to any woman who had any such force of workers under her.
"Ramabai has from the first taught her girls to be broadminded, benevolent, and to think of someone outside of themselves. For instance, in the famine of 1896-1898 we took in over 300 orphans, and her girls were among the first to raise the money for my orphans. How do you think they raised that money? Ramabai was in the habit of giving the girls sweets and good things for their holidays, and these they gave up and asked Ramabai to give the money that she had spent on them to my orphans. And then in the time of the Boxer troubles in China, they raised a sum of money and gave it to the sufferers there; and I believe they are now helping some poor children in Armenia.
"Ramabai is not satisfied with the work she has already in hand, but she has opened four Widows Homes in other parts of India, placing at the head of each competent, trusted women who have been trained in her Home and school. She feels that in this way she can reach and assist women whom she might not otherwise be able to help. Dr. Duff [The Rev. Dr. Alexander Duff. D.D., I. L. D., was a pioneer
missionary and an educationist of Bengal for over thirty years from 1829 onwards. He died in 1878.] in his day said that to attempt female education in India was an impossibility and that one might as well try to scale a wall hundreds of yards high, or to pick a peak from the Himalayas and cast it into the ocean. Dr. Fairbanks, another great Scotchman, recently at a Missionary Conference in India, spoke most emphatically of the work being done for women by women and emphasized the great importance of it".
We will end with an extract from a letter from Manoramabai of April 22nd, 1907: "It is encouraging to watch the progress which the girls are making, and to see that some of them are gradually becoming well fitted to take positions of responsibility. One thing that I think you will be interested in is a class of pupil-teachers whom we are training for school work. They enjoy the lessons in the principles and practice of teaching very much; and it is an education to me, and to those who work with me, to prepare lessons for these teachers, and to help them to put what they have learned into practice.
"Mother sends you a great deal of love. We are both so grateful to you, dear Ajeebai, for all you have been, and still are, to us, and thank God for giving us such a good and true friend. We pray that He will reward you abundantly. Please continue to pray for mother; she is not at all strong and her work is very heavy.
"Please pray too for our little babies, the youngest in this large family. They are very delicate and need special care. Then we would ask your prayers for our Matrons, teachers, and workers, and please pray very much for me, dear Ajeebai, that I may walk worthy of the Lord, and that I may be humble and simple to be 'filled, according to my capacity, with all the fullness of God'.
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Please give my love to the Reverend Mother; my mother sends her love to her too. Please accept a great deal yourself from,
Your very loving,
MANO". AND now we will follow Manoramabai and Miss Abrams on their travels. Manoramabai's next letter was from Melbourne, dated November 10th, a month after her arrival. She and Miss Abrams had been very busy, organizing meetings and addressing them. They were then having a few quiet weeks in which they were bringing out a new edition of Ramabai's High Caste Hindu Women, with an addition of her thirteen years' work in India. They remained abroad fully a year, and spoke in many of the chief cities of Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania.
The autumn of 1902 the Rev. Father General, S.S.J.E. [S.S.J.E.—Society of St. John the Evangelist; all the S.S.J.E. Fathers used to come to India in Poona from their headquarters known as Cowley (in England). Hence they were often called Cowley Fathers.] paid us a visit, before going out to India, which gave me the opportunity of asking him to visit Ramabai, and get into touch with her again. This he kindly did. He went there on two occasions, and the first time, spent a whole week in the Mukti Mission. He received a very hearty welcome from Ramabai, and she invited him to give addresses to her family. He generally gave them two instructions daily, Miss Macdonald acting as interpreter, chiefly on the Acts of the Apostles, or the work of the Holy Spirit, in baptism and confirmation, and told them how Ramabai herself had been confirmed. Mano, who greatly regretted being absent on this occasion, received many letters from her girls, telling her of Father Page's visit, and of his teaching, about which they, one and all, were enthusiastic.
And, further, Ramabai was in sore perplexities with her American Committee. She entered into her difficulties with Father Page. She had been summoned to America to answer various questions to which it would have been difficult for her to have given satisfactory answers. She was moreover not strong enough for the exertion of a long voyage. I am sure that Father Page's visit was most opportune. It calmed, strengthened and uplifted her and I do not doubt that his tactful wisdom and understanding of her difficulties and the trying circumstances did more t set things on a better and happier footing all round than a visit to her good friend in America would have done at this juncture. He probably saw things all colour de rose, but the result was good and the overstrained Pandita was benefited by his generosity and sympathy. She was learning obedience by the things which she suffered and before long wrote and printed a really beautiful TESTIMONY in which she acknowledged her own sinfulness and the overbounding goodness of God to her in spite of all her transactions. With Mary she sings Magnificat. ["Magnificat" means the Song of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Luke 1: 46.55), the song of Mary rejoicing and praising the Goodness of God. This Hymn is a Song of Triumph for the revelation of God to the world as Conqueror, Deliverer and Judge. The Bible says : The Angel went to Virgin Mary and said to her "Greetings most favoured one ! The Lord is with you. He has been gracious to you. You shall conceive and bear a son and you shall give him the name Jesus". Mary was full of joy and adoration called forth by the thought of the personal honour bestowed upon her.]
Father page was also a very great comfort to Ramabai, who was in grievous trouble at that time, with her sister-in-law very ill, and she also was much inconvenienced by Brahmin officials, who invaded the institution and forced their way into every room under pretence of searching out plague cases. Both Father Page and I urged her to place her schools under Government inspection as we thought that this would greatly allay the troubles and annoyance she was suffering from. He further very kindly advocated her cause privately with members of the Government, and before long, things were on a very much happier footing. When he returned to England, he spoke most enthusiastically of Ramabai's work, both in sermons and at meetings.
SISTER GERALDINE
Community of St. Mary the Virgin,
Wantage
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177 Letter from the REV. FATHER GENERAL, S.S.J.E., to SISTER GERNALDINE, C.S.M.V., Wantage
Mukti, Kedgano (Poona),
March 20th, 1903
Address:
St. Philip's Mission, CAPETOWN, South Africa. My dear Sister Geraldine,
I hope you have safely received my last reassuring letter about the Pandita (the Bai we call her here) and Mukti about six weeks ago. I have nothing to withdraw from what I said. I have a firm belief in the nobility and goodness of the Pandita, and the single-heartedness and devotion to her work for the amelioration of the condition of the women of India.
I am sure the ill-will and false stories of the Brahmins have found their way to England. The informers were people from within the Sharada Sadan and not Brahmins.
I saw Janabai, the Sutar master's daughter whom you wished me to see. The good of the Sharada Sadan was evidently uppermost in her mind, so I found no occasion to ask about dark shadows. If I had, they would have been about the works I expect, and not the persons who conducted it.
I have been here four full days and spoken to all the different groups of girls and women as the Pandita bade me, and addressed the workers every evening. The Bai has given me her religious experiences; her intellect was partially enlighted during the six months she was at Wantage; but Eastern thought, so different from Western, made it impossible for her to drink in all she was taught. She believes in Christianity as a better religion and so embraced it. England made no adequate response to the burning desire of her heart to deliver the women of India from the curse of caste and Brahmin-slavery [This is a mistake England made an initial generous response, and would doubtless have aided Ramabai further with equal generosity, had an appeal been made. But Ramabai's English friends felt that while she was so unsettled in the faith, the time had not come for them to put forward her cause—SISTER GERALDINE, C.S.M.V.]. She turned to America, and it everywhere responded and has continued to respond with personal aid and money. She accepted help from all quarters, but allied herself in religious matters to none, but cluded that Christianity, like Hinduism, had its diversities of beliefs and sects.
She never denied the Divinity of our Lord or the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity; but had no clear and defined knowledge of either, and all was in suspense. Now, she believes in both with more clearance of faith, and she and her children worship and love and believe in the Son of Mary Who is also, they believe, the Son of God [See the early corresponded (in Vol I) when Pandita was at Cheltenham. These letters she
must have forgotten.—SISTER GERALDINE, C.S.M.V.].
She did not at her baptism realise what it was it was to give herself up wholly to the Lord; there was more of the head than the heart. Since then she has given herself to the Lord as any Religious might do, and those who brought about that more conscious consecration of her life, called it 'Conversion'; so she did too.
She is still docile as a child, and though all her supporters or most of them are Protestants and she has imbibed their unsacramental teaching, she has still an open mind. But it is difficult when a person has so fully believed in and given herself up to the Saviour, and has received the Holy Ghost
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and surrenders herself to Him, to see where the need of other Sacraments comes in. Finding the disunions and quarrels of Christians, she said: "I will take Jesus Christ for my Guru and study the words He has spoken and the deeds He did for myself, in the inspired records of His life".
It would take too long to attempt to record my conversations with her, and to state the docility with she thinks over or reads what I recommended to her.
She has just come in (4-30 p.m.) and I tell her that I am writing to you, and ask her if she would like to enclose a line to you. She sits down at once to write a letter which I enclose.
If you write, don't say too much about the defects of her religion. I have said quite enough for the present. I am thinking of sending her, when I return to England, the beautifully illustrated two volumes of Tissot—the New Testament. It would be a wonderful delight to her and to her teachers— you probably know the cheap edition—I think it is £ 2-2-0.
If the Mother would like to make this gift through you, and you will let me know, I will forego that pleasure, and send her something else instead.
Of course, there is a very great deal more than I might say, but the time is up. God bless you. Yours most sincerely in Christ,
R.L. PAGE 178 Letter from PANDITA RAMABAI, Kedgaon, to SISTER GERALDINE, C.S.M.V., Wantage
Mukti Mission, Keganon, India,
June 1903 Dearest Old Ajeebai,
Thank you very much for your nice kind letter. The two volumes of the beautifully illustrated "Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ" have come safely. It is a wonderful book. I like it very much and think it very helpful. I thank you most gratefully for sending such a nice presents to me. I shall use it constantly in teaching the girls.
Mano had just returned from Australia. Our Association are of opinion that I should go over to America—soon—I do not know how soon—but I shall not move until I get clear light from God about it. If I start soon, I shall hope to see you at Wantage, and we shall have a nice time together.
With very dear love and many thanks in your continued kindness, I am,
Yours very affectionately,
RAMABAI
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179 Letter from the REV. FATHER GENERAL R.L. PAGE, S.S.I.E., to SISTER GERALDINE, C.S.M.V.
Bishop's Lodge, Bloemfontein, O.R.C.,
May 26th, 1903 My dear Sister Geraldine,
Possibly I never wrote the first letter referred to in my second, for the post seldom fails, and intentions are not always carried into effect.
I have now a letter from Manoramabai, from New Zealand, dated February 7th in which she says: "I was so interested to hear from mother about your visit to Mukti and to hear that you were able to spend so long there. Your addresses to the girls were a means of real blessing to them. I have received letters from many of the girls during the last month and each one speaks of your visit, and the help received in the meetings. You will, I think, be glad to know that I was Confirmed privately last Tuesday by the Bishop of Christ Church. I have not yet written to mother about my Confirmation, but I hope to tell her when a suitable opportunity occurs.
We are to be in New Zealand till the end of May, and then hope to sail for California". This is very good news. Please read and forward my letter to Manorama; I do not know her address. I hope I shall meet her in England. I am indeed glad to hear that there is some probability of your going out to India. It is all very wonderful [of] Ramabai, but what she has already allowed me to say and do may place her in considerable difficulty, but the difficulty will be increased a hundredfold if she and her daughter really accept the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Catholic Church. For at present she is committed to be undenominational, and the Ramabai Association in America which sends her £5,000 a year, would never tolerate anything else, and consider that she had broken faith with them if she really accepted the Anglican Church. However, I believe, she will do what she believes to be right in spite of all dangers and difficulties. Nevertheless, please be very careful not in any way to force on [her] by word or letter. I hope to be able to keep in touch with her. The Mother will, I am sure, let you come over to Oxford to see me after my return.
God bless you. Yours very sincerely in Christ,
R.L. PAGE 180 Letter from the REV. FATHER GENERAL R.L. PAGE, S.S.I.E., to SISTER GERALDINE, C.SM.V.
L. & S. W. Railway, Southamption,
St. James, 1903 My dear Sister Geraldine,
Thank you for your letter which I received on my arrival here this morning. I had already written to you, so this letter will be posted at the same time. I hope that Ramabai will not have to go to America, for I fear there will be trouble if she does. Nor do I think she is ripe at present to make any change in her religious position, and to press her to do so would be, I expect, disastrous. I hope that
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you will not yourself advise her what to do, for you cannot know all that I do about her circumstances. I am writing to her by Friday's mail, unless I hear from you that she is on her way to England.
I shall be quite able to see you if you come to Oxford anytime next week or the week after, though I shall be in retreat, for I have been so much in retreat, that it will not be a strict retreat for me. Soon after the retreat, I shall be away from Oxford. Please regard Ramabai's letter as private.
God Bless you, Yours very sincerely in Christ,
R. L. PAGE Please remember me most kindly to the Rev. Mother. I shall be glad when there is an opportunity to see her again.
When Mano's American friends heard of her being in Australia, they urged her returning via America to India, but this did not come off, and both her American and English friends were disappointed in not seeing her. She received a wire from her mother to return immediately, and she and Miss Abrams embarked for Bombay, and they back at Mukti by the end of the year.
Ramabai for long had had a desire to start a Home for boys, and she had hoped when Mr. and Mrs. Norton came to Mukti that they would make this fresh development, but their time was chiefly given to the development of Evangelistic work [The Mukti Circular Letters for 1899 onwards mostly tell about the about the evangelistic work. It was consecrated by much persecution and nearly the death of one of the workers, after which singular blessings rested on it.] and when they left Mukti, they themselves started a Home for boys. Many reasons seem to have led Ramabai to desire this. It was not easy for her to find husbands for her many widows, and she felt the question to be a very grave one. She also felt that there was much work needed to be done on the place that could only be done by men and boys.
Thousands of boys and young men wander about India without friends and without a home. If such boys, Ramabai thought, could be gathered into a Home and trained as useful workmen, they would be in a few years self-supporting fit to marry, and able to maintain wives and families. Moreover, there would be the joy of seeing her children settled round about their mother institution, and their children attending the Mukti schools, and being trained from their earliest days in virtuous and godly living.
On her large property of 120 acres there would be no difficulty in building a Home, at a wide distance from the Mukti buildings.
With Ramabai, a thought conceived was soon a fact accomplished. In a short time she had sixty boys under her charge, in temporary buildings. Forty-nine of them were immediately employed in industrial work. Seven were learning to be carpenters, ten to be masons, twenty-nine to be tailors and three to be printers. These boys she intended to take their part in building the permanent Home which they would occupy. In her Report of 1902, Ramabai writes : "I am expecting to see a large Christian colony around Mukti in the near future, and I know that He Who has put this thought in me, will make it possible to be realized."
This school for boys was called the Sadanand Sadan [The Sadanand Sadan was closed later on.—SISTER
GERALDINE, C.S.M.V.] (The Abode of Everlasting Joy).
In 1903, a periodical was started for the purpose of sending news to the friends of the Mukti Mission. The first number of this was so poor a production of workmanship that it was hardly fit for publication but like all the Mukti work, it was persevered with until in two years' time a most creditable magazine was produced.
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The following description of the Mukti buildings given by a visitor to the institution will give some idea of the vastness of the work :
"The first view of the settlement is that of a long row of houses, well protected from the hot sum by verandahs of rustic woodwork. These are the dwellings of the workers and also the guest chambers, which are nearly always occupied by visitors from all parts of the world. Any such are gladly welcomed and given the best hospitality which can be desired in an Indian village. Behind the first row of houses are the many compounds, on all sides of which are the dwelling places of the 1,500 widow girls and the 115 native boys. These last are kept in an entirely separate quarter from those of the girls. The compounds are a most pleasing sight; in the first is the Chapel building, which is a fine lofty structure capable of holding the whole community for service at the same time. It was most interesting to see this place filled with the women and girls at the time of evening prayers, sitting on the ground in long rows singing hymns in Gujarati until [the] Pandita arrived to lead them in prayer. In another compound are the various workshops, weaving looms and school houses, all of which are in daily use to keep this large community from idleness. The boys have a garden of their own and large open spaces for playgrounds. A well appointed hospital for the sick and a little "God's Acre" for the last resting places of the few who die at Mukti complete the list of the institutions of this community".
1904 We have already stated that Manoramabai and Miss Abrams were back at Mukti in 1903. They received a very warm welcome from both workers and girls. The American Committee had accepted that the Sharada Sadan should be established at Mukti. Ramabai had settled this firmly in her own mind before consent was received and evidently meant to carry her point as the had previously done in most matters whenever there had been a clash between herself and American friends. I note that in papers which she published in1902, Manoramabai is called the Vice-Principal of the Sharada Sadan and Mukti school. The relations existing between Ramabai and her daughter seemed after the return of the latter to be on a much happier basis, and I think a good deal was done to lighten Manoramabai's burden by giving her change of work, and treating her with more care and consideration. A letter of February 25th gives an interesting account of Manoramabai's first night in a Hindu home and the impressions it made on her mind. We give this as it has to do with her mother's work.
Another letter of May 12th refers to their quarterly paper, The Mukti Prayer Bell, and gives the history of the cracked bell, which appears on its cove. . . . 'Liberty' and 'Freedom' were among the most Divine words that Ramabai found in the Sacred Scriptures. They stirred her heart to its very depth, and it was very fitting that she who felt her commission "to preach liberty to the captives" should choose the cracked but sacred bell of the American people, which had rung in their national library in 1775.
SISTER GERALDINE, C.S.M.V.
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181 Letter from MANORAMABAI, Kedgaon, to SISTER GERALDINE, C.S.M.V., Wantage
Mukti Mission, Kedgaon, India,
February 25th, 1904 My dear Ajeebai,
Thank you very much for all your nice letters. It is a very long time since I last wrote to you and I hardly dare ask you to forgive me now after so long a silence. Let me assure you, however, that my reason for not writing has not been that I have not remembered, for I have so often thought about you and longed to see you again. Pritabai Chittare came to see us a few weeks ago and I was so sorry to hear from her that you had not been well. I do hope that now the winter is past you will get well and strong again. Do you remember those lovely walks we had together when I was at Wantage nearly three and a half years ago?
As I have written to Miss Noble by this mail, and she will probably show you my letter, I will not repeat any of the same things in this letter but will try to tell you of a few other things which have kept us so busy during the past few months.
I know that you will be glad to know that my mother's own aunt and cousin who are Hindu widows have come to stay with us for a year at least. The old lady had brought with her two daughters-in-law who are also widows and her little grand-daughter, a sweet child about nine years old. They had not been to see us for about seven years, but when mother heard of all the sorrow they had recently passed through and found that our written invitations apparently had no effect, she sent me to Gwalior to try to persuade them to come to us and my visit proved successful. But, dear Ajeebai, I don't think I shall ever forget this my first visit to a Hindu home. I had often spent an hour or two perhaps at the home of some Hindu friend but I had never stayed all night in a house where all the people were Hindus. It seemed so dreadful to hear them constantly calling upon their idols and to watch the sad, sad faces of these poor Hindu widows. They seemed to be absolutely without hope, or peace or joy. My mother's aunt lost her husband many years ago, and the great sorrow of recently losing her three grandsons and a son-in-law, seemed to have almost crushed her. Her daughter only two years older than I am used to be such a bright happy child when we played together as children but is now doomed to the miserable life of a Hindu widow and the loss of her husband and her three lovely little boys, has taken all the joy out her face. One realized better during those days than ever before God's great goodness in bringing us to a Christian home and to knowledge of His wondrous plan of Salvation, and the experience of life in a Hindu home made one long more than ever that India's women might be given the same privilege which we have enjoyed.
The plague has been pretty bad in many parts of India this year. One of our masters who was then living on our premises lost his brother of plague. This, however, is the only case we have had here at Kedgaon. We have however had quite enough to keep us busy in various ways. At about two o'clock one morning, my dogs woke me up by barking and knocking very loudly at my door and on going out I found that a grass hut in the Rescue Home grounds was on fire and the flames were rising very high. Of course, I called mother and we set to work at once to do what we could. Our masters and workmen with some of the boys worked very bravely while the girls brought all the water that was needed, and in half an hour the fire was put out, but not until almost the whole hut had been burned down. No lives were lost however.
Just a day or two after this, we had a more serious accident. Through a mistake of one of our carpenters a wall of an unfinished building fell down very suddenly one afternoon and many of the workmen were hurt. Two of them were so seriously injured that they had to be sent to the Poona hospital where one man died several weeks ago. The other one we hear is recovering.
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It is nearly time for the post, so I must not prolong this letter. I am so sorry that Phoebe has been so ill. Please give her my love and tell her that I so often think of her.
Thank you very much, dear Ajeebai, for your suggestions about the Prayer Bell. I am trying to improve it and will write to you more in detail about it another time.
In the meanwhile, please accept a great deal of love from, Your loving,
MANO
1905 AND now we come to a section of this story which is difficult to handle aright (i) because of its great solemnity, and (ii) because it is unlike and so foreign to anything of one's own experience…
For some years past the Spirit of prayer had been growing and deepening in the hearts of many. One day in the month had been set apart for corporate prayer and was called 'The Prayer Day', which was sometimes combined with fasting and longer sessions of prayers were held at other times.
Ramabai, who was always on the outlook for Divine teaching or messages as she read the Holy Scriptures, on New Year's Day, was struck with a verse in Isaiah LXIV: 4, which she considered to be a promise to her by her loving Heavenly Father as a New Year's present. "For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen a God beside Thee who would perform for him that waiteth for Him!".
Manoramabai writing on January 3rd, tells of the happiness which they all had had that Christmas, and just before she closes her letter adds : "We are having a week of prayer just now and we open school next week". Before that week had ended "some of the girls offered themselves for Voluntary Service of the Lord".
Ramabai writes in the April Prayer Bell : "A prayer meeting was held, and we waited on God to enquire of Him as to the kind of service He would have us do. The Holy Spirit directed all our course. He told us to pray for everyone living here by name every day. It seemed impossible for us at first, for the time at our disposal was but one hour. But the Spirit said we could do it. He gave the plan. Each one of the members was given a list of twenty names. It was arranged for them all to meet for one hour every morning to intercede for these people. Since then they have met regularly every morning to pray for others, and for themselves.
"A Psalm is read and explained and a prayer offered by the leader. After this, all the members of the Prayer Circle remain on their knees for twenty minutes and pray silently. Perfect silence is maintained while each one is the room is lifting up heart to God, and praying for an outpouring of the Spirit on the members of our household, asking God to convert them and save them to the uttermost. Most blessing has come to us in this gathering in the morning hour. The attendance is voluntary, and the girls feel it very much if for any reason they are kept out of the meeting. They are willing to be punished or forego anything rather than be kept out of the Circle. Our prayer friends are requested to remember these Prayer Circles in Mukti before the Throne of Grace, that the members may become faithful interceders and learn of God".
On April 13th, Manoramabai writes and makes enquiries about lantern slides. She ends by an allusion to their work : "Our work has been very heavy during the last five or six months. We are short of teachers and also of helpers in the office and my arm is still so stiff that writing is still very painful. I sometimes wonder if I shall ever be able to use it properly again".
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On the 19th June, a marvellous Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit began at Mukti and continued for more than six weeks. "A large number of girls and women have been deeply convicted of sin and filled with joy of pardon, and many have received the cleansing and fulness of the Spirit for life and service".
I will now give main portions of a typed letter written early in July from Manoramabai, which goes a shew how little of excitement there was early in this movement, and how it was entirely a Godgiven inspiration :
"My very dear Ajeebai, It is always such a pleasure to have a little talk with you. I only wish I were near you and could see you instead of having to write but paper talks are better than nothing. The year seems to be passing so quickly, the hot weather is now over and the rainy seasons has begun. I am so thankful to be able to say that my arm is better this year than it was last rainy season. I do not mean it is straighter; I suppose it will always be somewhat crooked and stiff. Now I must tell you a little about what God has been doing for us, for I know you will join us in praising Him for His goodness. The Lord is beginning a great work in our midst; the Holy Spirit seems to have taken possession of one of our quietest and, humbly speaking, most insignificant girls, and He is using her and making her a great blessing among the rest. There has been a wonderful awakening among many of the girls and boys, and we feel that this is only the beginning.
"On Friday night at the evening meeting, which my mother has daily with a few of the girls, God's power was felt; and many were crying out in real agony on account of their sin, while some were trembling from head to foot, fearing that they might be lost. It was manifestly God Himself working, for there had been no stirring address delivered at the meeting; nor had there been any special effort to bring conviction of sin. Monday night's meeting was a quiet one, and many thanked God audibly for His peace which had entered into their souls. Tuesday was our day of prayer and it was full of blessing. We should be very grateful if you would pray very specially for us at this time. The enemy is of course extra busy, and may be expected to do his utmost to hinder the Lord's work. It is in their daily life, at school, in the industrial department, at meals, etc. that the real testing times will come to the girls and boys.
"Mother sends you a great deal of love, and please accept the same with loving greetings to Phoebe and the Rev. Mother from,
Your loving,
MANO" Another letter written nearly three months after the close of the wonderful six weeks of revival is a valuable addition to the record:
"In my last letter, I told you how the Holy Spirit had begun to work in the hearts of the girls in a most marvellous way and how His working led to agony on account of sin, confession and restoration and then intense joy. Perhaps, I did not mention the joy, for I remember that I wrote that letter at the very beginning of this Revival; and for the first few days hardly any joy was seen, but a sense of awe pervaded the atmosphere, and there was deep sorrow for sin. Then came the joy and the baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire; and what seems to be a special anointing for the Ministry of Intercession. When I wrote to you I had not, so far as I know, received any definite blessing during the awakening, except the joy of watching how God Himself was working in the hearts of the girls and doing in them what we workers had failed to do. Soon afterwards, however, He began to speak to me. It seemed as if He came and stopped me in the midst of these busy days, and of my busy life, and began of shew me myself. It would be impossible to describe all that went on during the next few days. I want you to pray very earnestly, although I know that it is hardly necessary to ask you, for you always pray for me, that God will by His Holy Spirit guide me into all truth and that I may not take any false step. I do want by His Grace to hold the truth as it is in Jesus. So far, I feel that I have been
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doing right and that I have acted in accordance with God's will, but if I have been wrong, I do want to be led by God Himself into the true path.
"My mother sends you a great deal of love and best wishes for Christmas. She wishes me to say that she does not forget you; but that the reason she does not write is because she really. had not the strength for letter-writing. She is so very busy.
"Please give my love to the Rev. Mother and please accept a great deal of love yourself from, Your loving
MANO" And now let us take a final look at the educational work of the schools. The year 1904 saw their first Government inspection. In February of this year they were again inspected, and favourable reports both of the Lower and the High School were given by the two Indian Inspectors who conducted the examinations. They said : "The management of the schools is excellent". A full account of this can be read in the April number of the Prayer Bell 1905.
The industrial work also is making great progress. From the printing office, a most important branch of the industrial work, a good deal of useful Christian literature is being published. Sixteen boys are employed in this department. There are also a good many apprentices in the carpenter's shop. Others are employed in tailoring, masonry, wood-cutting, and designing, and a large number are employed on the farm.
The girls' industries have also made great advance. Special notice should be made of the weaving department, where the girls have learnt to weave the best kind of Indian sarees. A good many girls have so thoroughly learnt the art of needlework that they are able to be used as teachers in the needlework departments. The girls specially excel in their drawn-thread work. The lady at the head of this work is a Dane. . . .
There are a series of Circular Letters, somewhere about 1909 and onwards which describe the Evangelistic work, which are full of interest as they shew how steadily Christianity gained ground among the villages and also among the pilgrims who came for great festivals to noted sacred towns. The opposition at first was great and one of the European workers was nearly killed by the malice of the idolatrous priests.
TRANSLATION OF HOLY BIBLE The beginning of the Pandita's greatest and most beautiful work of all, that of translating the whole Bible into simple Marathi, such as can be read and understood by the peasant folk of that caste [was made].
I think when Ramabai undertook this supreme work, her education began in truth. She had been prepared by great adversity. She had over-exerted her strength in the strenuous rescue work at the Famine Camps and in building up the Mukti Settlement and now she was ready for a quieter form of activity, one in which her gifts as a student would find a worthy outlet.
It is now over ten years since she began this work. May health and strength be given her to accomplish her task. I think if she does that she will be the first woman who has made a complete translation of the Holy Scriptures.
SISTER GERALDINE
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March 21st, 1971. Community of St, Mary the Virgin, Wantage
Some Thoughts on Ramabai's Life and Work
with extracts from her letters and writings My own strong feeling about Ramabai's wonderful and noble life is that if the imperfections are withheld, a story of a wonder-worker will be given to the public the value of which will be comparatively small. But if on the contrary, the life is truly read a great but imperfect character will be lumined, one who had high ideals and has made great mistakes, and fallen at times from high ideals, yet has steadily kept before her vision great aims and has, through acknowledging her errors and shortcomings, pushed forward with renewed desire to amend and repair the wrong done.
Such a picture of the Pandita will, I doubt not, do more for the cause of Christianity than any life which would give her a palace among the Rishis of India.
I believe, the C.S.M.V. has in its possession material for the lives of the Pandita and Manoramabai which no one else has. If really ably compiled these two lives ought to be attractive contributions to missionary literature. . . . .
There are two printed papers written late in life in which the Pandita gave some fresh information about her early life and conversion. In one of those she sings with Mary Magnificat for all God's goodness to her.
It is said that on account of the patriarchal life of the Indian people, they have a much intenser love of kindred than anything known among Western nations. The allusions made by Ramabai to her parents, her reverence and devotion to their memory go to confirm this. No study of Ramabai's life could be complete without a notice of the heroic and truth-loving and devout Hindu whose suffering life prepared the way for her and Manoramabai's lives of strenuous activity for the cause of Indian women.
The bass notes and the discords of Anant Shastri's inspired life add richness to the harmony of theirs. Ramabai likes to think of her father as one of the Cornelius' of this world. I rather think of him as among the group of St. John the Baptist's disciples who helped to prepare the way for the Kingdom of Heaven. "A man can receive nothing except it be given him from Heaven"; and it was surely a Divine call which led Anant Shastri to be a Confessor to the truth he knew, pointing out to his people that education was the light of the women of India, that centuries ago, according to their sacred writings, it was commanded; and that only false theories, taking root in consequence of evil practices and resulting in the deep seating of wrong principles of the social life of the Indian people, had denied it to them. . . . Here is the heart-rending touch in the history she gives of their family religion :
"We went to several sacred temples to worship different gods, and to bathe in sacred rivers and tanks, to free ourselves from sin and curse, which brought poverty on us. We prostrated ourselves before stone and metal images of the gods, and prayed to them day and night, the burden of our prayer being that the gods would be pleased to give us wealth, learning and renown. My dear brother, a stalwart young fellow of twenty-one, spoilt his health and wasted his finely built body by fasting months and months. But nothing came of all this futile effort to please the gods."
An insight into the Hindu home may contrast very favourably with the description so often given by Ramabai and others of the miasma of evil which chokes out all nobility of thought from the homes of ordinary Hindus. Anant Shastri's strength was declining when Ramabai's education began, and moreover he had many other duties; upon her mother therefore devolved her instruction in Sanskrit.
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"The resident students, the visiting pilgrims, and the aged father and mother-in-law, now members of the family, as well as the children of the household entailed many cares upon the educated Hindu mother, and the only time that could be found for the little daughter's lessons was in the morning twilight, before the toilsome day had dawned. Ramabai recalls with emotion that early instruction, while held in her dear mother's arms. The little maiden, heavy with sleep, was tenderly from her bed upon the earth, and awakened with many endearments and sweet mother-words; and then while the birds about them in the forest chirped their morning songs, lessons were repeated. No other books than the mother's lips were used. It may be [that] Anant Shastri had [had] some intuition as to Ramabai's future, for his dying words to her made a deep impression on her young mind. "Remember my child", he said, "you are my youngest child, my most beloved child. I have given you into the hand of one God; you are His, and to Him alone you must belong, and serve Him all your life". "He could speak no more", continues Ramabai, "My father's prayers for me were, no doubt, heard by the Almighty, the All-merciful Heavenly Father, whom the old Hindu did not know. The God of all flesh did not find it impossible to bring me, a great sinner and unworthy child of His out of Heathen darkness into the saving light of His love and salvation, I can now say to the departed spirit of the beloved parent, 'Yes dear father, I will serve the only true God to the last'. But I could not say so when my father spoke to me for the last time. I listened to him, but was too ignorant, too bewildered to understand him, or to make an intelligent answer. We were after this dismissed from father's presence; he wanted an hour for meditation and preparation before death."
The awful famine years of 1877 and 1878 in which Ramabai lost her parents form part of the training by which she was being prepared to mingle her tears of sympathy, in truly practical manner, with her suffering sisters, and by noble, strenuous, self-sacrificing work for their relief. In the famine years of 1896 and 1897 and 1899 and 1900 she was enables to rescue many hundreds of starving women and children.
The two following years after the death of her parents, we find Ramabai a wanderer upon the face of the earth, without home, without relations (after the death of her sister) save an only brother; she travelled with him from the South to North-West India, and then on to Calcutta.
During these homeless and apparently aimless years, her work of preparation was going forward. She was then old enough to be impressed by things which she saw, and the caste bondage of her sisters and their hopeless degradation burned like iron into her soul. Whenever she could she gathered audiences around her, and poured out to them the indignation of her heart. Her brother was her escort and her guardian, but when his exhausted body succumbed and death relieved him from his weariness, for a time she faced the world alone. Then she married her brother's friend, and for nineteen short months she was cheered by a husband's love and support. Death again left her a lone woman, and this time one of the hated and despised class—a widow—with a fatherless little one. They two were to experience two great facts—the hatred and malice of the Evil one, whose strength had so long held the Fort of devillish cruelty in India's fair land, and the love of the Stronger than the strong man, whose special care are the widows and the orphans. Alone and friendless she realized what she had never experienced before—an overshadowing and loving Providence which was preparing her for some great work.
Her thoughts went out to Western nations, who had for centuries known the blessings of liberty, whose secret she sought to know. So to England she came, and England was used by God as the instrument to set her at liberty and to bring her into the paths of peace.
Looking back after nearly a quarter of a century on Ramabai's coming to the Mother House of the Community, it is impossible not to see that the inspiration which she received for her life's work was gained there. She herself in more than one of her letters alludes to what she received from her stay in a Religious House. It was her first experience of living in a Christian atmosphere. Within the first few months of her coming, the daily life of the Community presented object lessons to her mind which took deep hold of her being. At that time we had a gifted young Sister in consumption. The spring of that year was exceptionally beautiful, and daily she was taken out in the garden in a
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wheeled chair; often the little groups of Indians could be seen watching her and her companions with deep interest. Those who do not know the neglect, and even terrible cruelty to the sick in a heathen country, can have little idea what a contrast the loving, patient care bestowed on the sick by Christians would exhibit to [the] heathen. That was object lesson number one.
Early in June the Bishop of Oxford came to receive the Profession of four Sisters. The sick Sister was, by her special desire, one of those to make her Profession. This Ramabai was permitted to see. Their Consecration for life service made a deep impression on her. Within ten days of this Profession the sick Sister suddenly passed to her rest. The beautiful care which is bestowed upon the dead in a Religious House is impressive to most, but what must it have been to those who had never known the hope inspired by a Christian's death, and had experienced only the terrors of pagan rites. A day or two later when the Community gathered to lay her body in the quiet graveyard of the Community, that little group of Indians watched the solemn procession and Service from the other side of the cemetery hedge. There can be no doubt that that impressive service, with its strain of solemn hope and joy, had lessons for them which they had never before known.
Perhaps the great sorrow which befell Ramabai in the death of her friend [This friend is obviously
Anandibai Bhagat who had accompanied Ramabai and her child Mano from India to England.] was one of the most salutary portions of her training. With it came a great softening of heart, which prepared her more readily to receive spiritual impressions. There is no doubt that our happiest memories of Ramabai centre round the autum of that year. She prepared whole-heartedly for baptism, confirmation and her first communion. And though she had many difficulties yet she asked for explanations, in a humble and childlike spirit. The order, method, and discipline of a Religious House appealed greatly to her, and this she has striven to emulate in the works she founded. She was still more struck by the care we bestowed on the outcast and fallen. It was a revelation to her that cultivated women could bring into their house and bestow upon these poor degraded women the love and care of mothers and sisters. She was struck by the hospitality we accorded to guests, and all these things when she started her work at Mukti she sought to reproduce. America without doubt expanded and enlarged her ideas, but Mukti may be said to be the outcome of what she saw in the first Western home that offered a welcome. In this house, she lived as an honoured and beloved daughter, and had great opportunities of learning from within. In America she visited many splendid institutions which she saw from without. She came to her friends at Wantage with overwrought brain and body, and by them was tenderly nursed back to health and power.
At Cheltenham too she had immense educational advantages. The Ladies' College, then under the Headship of Miss Dorothea Beale, the great and successful pioneer in the advanced education of women, afforded Ramabai the best opportunities not only of study, but of learning educational methods. She remained there for two years, and Miss Beale not only placed at her disposal the very best private tuition which could have been obtained anywhere, but was herself prodigal with time and thought on Ramabai's behalf. I think we may read in the events which occurred and which ended in her leaving England on a visit to America that the path of study, however gifted she was as a student, was not in the order of Providence for her. She wrote in one of her letters to Miss Beale words to this effect : "Though death robbed me of my husband, I will espouse learning which shall be an immortal husband to me".
For the present, it was evidently the Divine Will that her character should be shaped on the rougher anvil of active life. The power and happiness of study she possessed in a remarkable degree, and when her physical strength was impaired, she gladly again used those gifts which for a time she had been called to lay on one side.
The voluminous correspondence which took place between Ramabai and various correspondents in England and India will have shewn that Ramabai was peculiarly sensitive to anything which she deemed an infringement of her liberty.
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It is impossible to look into the records of Ramabai's life and work without noticing the oftrecurring words, 'liberty' and 'freedom'.
On the one hand, the inspiration of her life and work owes everything to the right conception of the thought of liberty. On the other hand, the errors which made her wander into the bye-paths of self-choosing, and thus fail in her grasp of the highest truth may be accredited to her failure in entering with understanding into the knowledge of "the perfect law of liberty".
The more one studies Ramabai's life, the more wonderful one perceives it to be. That a woman whose independent mind has brought her into such prominence with the whole civilized world, and drawn to herself workers from almost every Western nation, should have arisen out of a people, the women, especially the widows, of which are among the most down-trodden of human beings; that one so noble in her thoughts and wide in her views should claim as her sisters in race and nearly a one-fourth of a century in creed, those whose lives are narrowed by petty surroundings and bounded by the horizon of family life with its squabbles and bitterness, its unchaste innuendos at home, and no less ignoble daily gossip at the well, its fleeting pleasures consisting of jewelry, of curries, of sweetmeats and obscene festivals; things wholly of the world which deaden or extinguish the sparks of elevating, pure and noble desire; that she, who was brought up to observe so strictly her caste rules, that to earn her living by a handicraft to keep the wolf from the door in the straits of famine would have been to lose all that was most sacred to a Hindu—viz. caste—should exact from her high-caste widows some hours of industrial work daily, is indeed a revolutionizing of social life.
The first conscious inspiration which she received was given her when she was about nine years of age. In one portion of her father's house lived a poor family. The family consisted of man of thirty years of age, his girl-wife of sixteen, and his old mother. The mother-in-law was all that is implied by that name in India—a heartless old hag, always beating, abusing and cruelly treating her daughter-in-law. One day when the girl was spinning, a monkey stole her cotton. For this carelessness the girl was abused by the mother-in-law, who nagged the husband on to beat her. Ramabai adds : "I was an eye-witness to all this. Her piercing cries went right to my heart; and I seem to hear them now after nearly thirty years. My childish heart was filled with indignation, I was powerless to help, but I have never forgotten that poor girl's cries for help; and I suppose it was the first call I received to enter upon the sacred duty of helping my sisters according to the little strength I had. But I never realized the extent of grief and suffering, and the need of my sisters just as long as I remained in darkness, and had no love of God in me".
The call grew stronger as years went by, until the time came when she, an emancipated member of the outcaste and degraded widows, having the joy of light, liberty and salvation herself, burned to impart the same to her race and her country.
But though she was guided first to England, and England was eager and ready to do all in her power for this daughter of India, she found the atmosphere of England and the Anglican Church not sufficiently rarefied for her aspirations of freedom. She perceived in a nation reserved and conservative lack of that sense of liberty which was growing and expanding daily in her soul. Both the nation and the national Church were too narrow, tight, and compact for her needs.
Though doubtless this may have had some effect on her, yet I am inclined to think that impatience to get to work was at the bottom of her restlessness. It is true only her Brahmin friends did their utmost to undermine her new faith, but the swarms of Non-Conformists who buzzed around her like mosquitoes were determined to seek to break off her friendship with the Community of St. Mary the Virgin.
I quote here from Canon Furse's Beauty of Holiness, which seems adequately to express Ramabai's feelings with regard to this.
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We want to be more Evangelical, more Catholic, not such sticklers after uniformity, not so precise in our proprieties. We will have our prayers in the rigid form of the Collect. . . . We want more liberty. O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open to you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us but in your own bowels. Now for a recompense in the same (I speak as unto my children), be ye also enlarged. (2 Corinth. VI : 11-13).
Not finding all she desired among our insulated people, she went farther afield and among the free-born Americans, some of whom could recall the telling of the story, from a grandsire's lips, of their national independence gained. She found in more ways than one an answering mind, which made her soon perceive that it was from among them she should the stores of education and culture, as well as the material riches which she needed to train her mind, and strengthen her heart, and furnish her future institutions.
Such characters as President Lincoln, whose life she read, and then made a digest of in a letter to her child, and even more that of Harriet Tubman, the Negress and runaway slave called the Moses of her people, because she released and led 300 of them across America into Canada, and there provided them with homes and work, found a response in her own soul. She too would be the Moses of her Hindu sisters, and lead them out of darkness and the slavery of the evil one into the light of the Glorious Gospel of Christ. And the Americans, with their open-handed generosity and Catholic sympathy, and withal a greater power of demonstration than is possessed by English people, were ready to enter into her plans and forward them. Funds and plant, books and pictures, workers, assistants, and teachers were for and secured.
But Ramabai's appeal was not only made to her American sisters, it was an appeal whose echo rang out into all lands.
"An institution of the kind indicated, where the pupils must be supported, and the foreign teachers liberally paid for their services, cannot be founded and afterwards kept in a flourishing condition without money. Therefore I invite all good women and men to give me their help liberally, in whatever way they may be able, for a period of about ten years; it is my solemn belief that it is the most sacred duty of those who dwell in this highly favoured land to bestow freely talents of whatever kind they may possess to help this educational movement. I venture to make this appeal because I believe that those who regard the preaching of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus to the heathen so important as to spend in its accomplishment millions of money and hundreds of valuable lives, will deem it of the first importance to prepare the way for the spread of the Gospel by throwing open the locked doors of the Indian Zenana, which cannot be done safely without giving suitable education to the women, whereby they will be able to bear the dazzling light of the outer world and the perilous blasts of social persecution.
"Mothers and fathers, compare the condition of your own sweet darlings at your happy firesides with that of millions of little girls of corresponding age in India who have already been sacrificed on the unholy alter of an inhuman social custom, and then ask yourselves whether you can stop short of doing something to rescue the little widows from the hands of their tormenters. Millions of heart-rending cries are daily rising from within the stony walls of Indian Zenana; thousands of child widows are annually dying without a ray of hope to cheer their hearts, and other thousands are daily being crushed under a fearful weight of sin and shame, with no one to prevent their ruin by providing for them a better way.
"Will you not, all of you who read this book, think of these, my countrywomen, and rise by a common impulse to free them from life-long slavery and infernal misery? I beg you, friends and benefactors, educators and philanthropists, all who have any interest in or compassion for your fellowcreatures, let the cry of India's daughters, feeble though it be, reach your ears and stir your hearts. In the name of humanity, in the name of your sacred responsibilities as workers in the cause of
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humanity, and, above all, in the most holy name of God, I summon you, true men and women of Christian lands, to bestow your help quickly, regardless of nation, caste or creed".
To shew how deeply the thought of liberty had entered into her soul and how contact with America had strengthened it, and developed it, we have but to look to the emblem she chose for the cover of the Mukti periodical. It is a large cracked bell with a passage from Isaiah 61 : "The Lord hath anointed Me to preach Good tidings unto the meek sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound".
And another text from Isaiah 62 is on the cover : "I have set watchmen upon the walls of Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day or night; ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence and give Him no rest, till He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth".
At first sight the cracked bell arouses the sense of humour in a casual observer, but when the story of this venerable bell is told, it strikes a very different chord in the soul. It tells of deep things, of bitter wrong, of a great call, of intense and burning hopes for the future of her people. But it tells more than this. May England be prepared and do much, yes, exceedingly much to make up for past great opportunities let go—before the day of reckoning comes. It is perhaps nearer than any one of us may think.
Ramabai's cry for years has been: "O Lord! How long shall this oppression of the Hindu widow go on?" May England double and redouble her efforts. May she whole-heartedly help in giving freedom to the captive sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. Then the day of reckoning will not come upon her as a day of judgment.
And may Ramabai come to know that perfect law of liberty which alone is true liberty, which only those can possess in its fulness who accept the Church, and live in union with the Divine Master, controlled by the Good Shepherd in the gracious power of His Sacramental Life.
From the time she left the shores of England, we may look upon Ramabai in a very peculiar way as God's pupil and it will be of interest to trace the methods by which He trained her.
Before however proceeding farther, it may be well to endeavour to give some answer to two questions : (i) why did Ramabai fail to accept Catholic Christianity? (ii) Were not her friends premature in having her baptized?
The former of these will involve a somewhat lengthy answer. First and foremost of the causes, I think, may be discovered in the Oriental mind. With all the apparent simplicity and directness of Ramabai's character, she had also a complexity of mind, which is the mark of the Indian and a result of the pantheism of their creed. Sir Monier Williams describes the receptivity and allcomprehensiveness of Hinduism in following words :
"It has something to offer which is suited to all minds, its very strength lies in its infinite adaptability to the infinite diversity of human characters and human tendencies. It has its highly spiritual and abstract sides, suited to the metaphysical philosopher; its practical and concrete sides, suited to the man of affairs and the man of the world; its aesthetic and ceremonial side, suited to the man of poetic feeling and imagination; its quiescent and contemplative side, suited to the man of peace and lover of seclusion. Nay, it holds out the right hand of brotherhood to nature-worshippers, demon-worshippers, animal-worshippers, tree-worshippers, fetish-worshippers. It does not scruple to permit the most grotesque forms of idolatry and the most degrading varieties of superstition, and it is to this latter fact that yet another remarkable peculiarity is mainly due-namely, that in no other system of the world is the chasm more vast which separates the religion of the higher, cultured and thoughtful classes from that of the lower, uncultured and unthinking masses".
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Have we not here the key to Ramabai's failure to accept Catholic Christianity, and an explanation of her religious fluctuations if you will, but I should rather call it religious progressiveness? I will try and give a partial answer to the question why she did not receive Catholic Christianity. I will not now deal with the imperfections of the instruments God made use of –this has had its place elsewherebut will go on to consider the psychological reasons. I know I am tunnelling undergroud, and without the help of an accredited surveyor.
I must trust to an unearthly Guide to keep me from going far out of my course. I think there are some half [a] dozen reasons which have to be put into the scale. First and foremost, her mind revolting against the awful tyranny of the caste system with its ramifications of unjust and cruel laws and practices was like a bird escaped from a cage; in one of her letters she alludes to this. Liberty and freedom were beyond all other words in the Bible those which met with the truest response of her heart. She wished to fly with the swallows or soar with the lark, and she would at first have none of the corporate life of the rooks or starlings, who were marshalled under the command of a leader. Christian liberty and Christian hierarchical government with its ramifications and discipline her mind was unable to harmonize. Then too the very title "The Church of England" was something abhorrent to her. And can we not understand how such a title may seem to uninitiated foreigners to savour of the inborn arrogance of our insular nature instead of the sweet humility of the Divine Master? I felt from my very earliest connection with Ramabai that this was a bone that stuck in her throat, and I did all I could to take away hurt and to accentuate the simplicity of the Universal Church, but alas ! When the history of the divisions comes in the fortress seems to be lost. A heathen mind has no such traditions as had the Jews which made it easy for them to assimilate the thought of the Kingdom of God. A convert from Hinduism grasps much more readily the thought of unfettered liberty than of the blessings of liberty within a society of which he or she has become a member.
There is a great want in the Hindu mind; its pantheism makes it illogical and this lack of logical reasoning doubtless hinders the reception of the thought of the Kingdom of Heaven extending and embracing earth. The Hindu religion throughout many centuries has shewn itself easily adaptable to circumstances. It has never met any other religion with strong impact but by quietly colliding with opposing forces. Thus it has gathered from first one, then another, some new ingredient, some fresh tint to the many-coloured garment with which it seeks to clothe the soul. Courteous, gracious, perceptive, resourceful, the Hindu is quick to grasp the surface ideas and to weave them into the fabric of his thoughts and life, but these ideas must not be revolutionary. They therefore lack all the strong virtues which Christianity imparts–justice, strength, courage, truth, loyalty, etc. Thus a society and discipline do not find with them ready acceptance. The reaction of the bow of the caste rule too tighty strung result not only in the snapping of old ties but in the refusal of discipline from another form of society. The experience of Church missionaries is that it is almost impossible to impress Indian people with such a sense of loyalty to the Church that they will refrain from joining in undenominational worship. The temptation of higher salaries which Non-Conformists are invariably able to offer, the friends whom they have belonging to other missions, are strong temptations which in many cases weaken, if they do not draw them away from the Church allegiance. But there is a still greater difficulty, and that which Ramabai touches on in the letter, an extract of which I give here. England to an Indian has an unsavoury sound.
When required [in] Christmas 1885 not to communicate in the Chapel of St. Mary's Home, on account of the unsettlement of her faith, she wrote to Miss Beale as follows :
"I have not joined in the Communion Service for more than three weeks. I do not mind if they will not let me communicate with them. What matters it to me if any say 'You shall not communicate with us'? The Mighty Hand which gives the daily bread needed for our temporal and spiritual life is neither short nor taken back. It is ever bountiful, ever giving needful things. I will not grieve over this matter. The door of the Universal Church of God is not shut against me, and I believe the Universal, the Holy Catholic Church is not confined within the walls of the Anglican Church".
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We have to keep clearly before us that the difficulties in the conversion of India are greater than those which faced the early missionaries. With both, the citadel of the Evil one has to be demolished and the evil which pervades the society must fall with it. But where that has to be done by the soldiers of the Cross, who are hateful to a people because they are their conquerors, the difficulties are increased ten-thousand fold and indeed seem insuperable. The bitterness which burns like a fire deep down in the souls of these Indian people and which various circumstances tend to suppress must out at times. Occasionally in Ramabai's burning utterances this feeling is expressed. Here is one:
"Our only wonder is that a defenceless women like Rukmabai dared to raise her voice in the face of the powerful Hindu law, the mighty British Government, the 129,000,000 men the 330,000,000 gods of the Hindus; all these have conspired together to crush her into nothingness. We cannot blame the English Government for not defending a helpless woman; it is only fulfilling its agreement made with the male population of India. How very true are the words of the Saviour, 'Ye cannot serve God and Mammon'. Should England serve God by protecting a helpless woman against the powers and principalities of ancient institutions, Mammon would surely be displeased, and British profit and rule in India might be endangered thereby. Let us wish it success no matter if that success be achieved at the sacrifice of the rights and the comfort of over one hundred million women".
With this feeling burning in their souls, the very title The Church of England would tend to alarm and repel. Had it been The Church of Christ in England, the result with Ramabai might have been different. But the last society such a woman (with her great ispiration to work for the benefit of her people) would ally herself with would be–not Catholic Christianity, but the Christianity which bore the impress of their conquerors.
Then she was beset by a mixed multitude which would give her no rest nor allow her to imbibe Christianity from those who were her God-appointed guides. We had not sought this rare Indian jewel; God had brought her to us. Her fame had reached far and wide, and letters from every missionary in India bore to Western shores the story of this wonderful women. She was thus fair game of anyone who would entrap her and few considered it unfair or disloyal to endeavour to undermine the teaching she was receiving. By nature vain, her vanity was stimulated by the letters she received from members of unsectarian bodies, who took pains to furnish her with arguments against the faith once delivered to the saints instead of helping to build her up in it, and alas ! to vilify the Church's practice. Nothing could have been more heartlessly cruel and one can link many of the errors of her life to the un-Christian influence of so-called Christians.
With faith upset and mind harassed and perplexed it was only wonderful that she did not wholly relapse, and for time it seemed as if she had done so. But the instrument which had been so wondrously fashioned for God's future work in India, it was not His purpose should be lost to His Hand. If through the imperfections of Christians Ramabai failed to rise up to accept the fullness of the heritage into which it was the Divine purpose for her to enter, He would Himself become her teacher and her Guide, and train her in the mysteries of the Faith as she was able to receive it. Henceforth we must see her as God's pupil. "I will take Jesus as my Guru (teacher)" were her words. "I will study the Bible for myself", and so she did.
There were still other forces which led on to this crisis. There was her natural impatience to get to work, and she was unwilling to give herself the time for quiet preparation and to the deepening of her spiritual life, which is so essential for all, but most especially for babes in the faith who are called to be [the] future leaders of others. These are days of action, and there are few who are willing to prepare like their Lord by thirty years of hidden life; or like His forerunner by a disciplinary sojourn in the wilderness.
Vanity and arrogance which were yet unsubdued by practical Christianity made her chafe at the childlike attitude of heart which alone can receive Divine mysteries and made her eager to become a teacher before she had herself been taught. Liberty was undoubtedly her watchword, which impelled
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her forward. Behind all her gifts was a strong commonsense blended with enthusiasm which gradually fused all the brilliant qualities of her character into a consistent whole.
It is an intricate labyrinth, but it may be useful to try and study the ways by which she was led, and how the knowledge of the truth was gradually perceived by her. Discernment by personal experience will best perhaps explain God's method of dealing with her soul.
I think it is unquestionable that she had accepted whole-heartedly the Fatherhood of God before leaving England; her letters from America seem to show this. She is always looking to the Father for help and recognizing His goodness in strengthening her feebleness for the great work to which He had called her. She had read Westcott's Fatherhood of God and assimilated some of its wonderful thought. Had she not also received into her being, though the intellect had not bowed before it, the Divinity of our Lord?
When first she went to America and was desirous of bringing her cause before the public, she was introduced to a remarkable woman, Frances Willard by name, one of the leaders of the Temperance Crusade. Miss Willard was originally trained to educational work, and as the head of one of the large educational institutions in the United States, she was a strong person in that department of work. But her soul was saddened by the spectacles which daily came under her notice of deserted wives and forlorn children, the result of the demon of drink asserting sway over the bodies and souls of men and women. She felt drawn by a special call to relinquish educational work and to join women's crusade in fighting against this rampant evil. When Ramabai told her story, the soul of Frances Willard expanded towards the suffering daughters of India. She interested other members of the Temperance Union in Ramabai and her cause, and they together resolved to bring her and it before the American public.
Ramabai was necessarily much in the society of Frances Willard, and from her learnt about the object of the Temperance Crusade. This appealed greatly to her. She not only heard of their work, but learnt also the true and high reason which inspired them to carry it on. Intemperance is a sin which dishonours the body for the body of a Christian is a temple of the Holy Spirit. They not only directly carried on their crusade against intemperance but they sought in all ways to teach the sanctity of the body, because in it dwelt the Holy Spirit of God.
This appealed to Ramabai with great force, because the religion of the Hindus had taught her to despise the body, and now she came more and more to realize how the body dwelt in by the Holy Ghost must be consecrated to God in true and honourable service.
Then too in America, when the great effort she was called upon to make in behalf of her cause made such demand upon her health and strength she learnt increasingly the value of prayer. In the strength of prayer she made her long journeys, in the strength of prayer she addressed her meetings, and her letters speak frequently of the comfort and strength she finds in prayer. But she had not yet peace of soul. As light raised her standard of Christian purity, an increasing consciousness of sin took hold of her whole being. This led her on to feel the present need of Salvation. It was not till 1890 that she clearly grasped the Doctrine of the Atonement, and realized the power of living Saviour. She tells how on her return to India she suffered agonies from haunting fear of sin.
There can be little doubt her child's firm grasp of the Christian Faith and her earnest pure life had not a little to do with Ramabai's onward progress. It was in 1889 that Mano by her simple teaching of the Faith to the young child-widows had drawn four of them in a few months to desire to be baptized.
In 1890 Ramabai came across Dr. Pentecost who was holding (missions) [meetings] in various parts of India, and he helped her to a clearer apprehension of the Doctrine of the Atonement than she had hitherto accepted. She felt that up to that time, her faith had resulted more from the intellect than the heart, and she was gradually learning that "with the heart man believeth unto
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Salvation". Later on when many and perplexing difficulties with her girls arose she realized how impossible it was to appeal to their higher faculties while they remained heathen, for all the best in them was stunted and in darkness, and so she saw more and more clearly the wonderful working power of grace through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and she longed more and more that her girls might be regenerate, and for herself desired further outpourings of light, wisdom and love.
About 1895 Ramabai got into touch with the faith-healers. She undoubtedly experienced answers to prayer in the matter of recovery from sickness both with regard to herself and others. These were unduly magnified, and very probably were no greater than similar experiences of many earnest and devout Christians. But Ramabai was carried away by these experiences, and possibly the flattery of friends for a while made her think that she had exceptional powers of healing, and for a time her judgment was warped and darkened. An extract from one of her letters to her child when in England will show how unduly and unwisely she was pressing not faith-healing but Christian Scientism upon her and consequently hindering her education :
"I found a letter waiting for me from mother in answer to one of mine in which I told her my eyes were getting bad, and I was going to the hospital to have them attended to. Mother says that if I take to spectacles again I shall have backslidden, and that she will be terribly grieved. I do not know how to put it into good English, but to translate it literally, she says 'If you backslide I shall be so grieved that I should feel as if my life had been taken'. I do not know what to do about it. I cannot possibly study if I do not see properly, though, of course, I do not like to grieve mother".
Ten years later Ramabai had broken away from the Christian Scientist Movement. Later on when the Mukti Mission was established and there were very many sick ones in her large family, medical attendance was discouraged by her, and faith-healing was largely advocated. One is glad to think that Ramabai's commonsense triumphed in the long run; perhaps her own increasing ill-health made her realize that prayer is not to bring God's Will to our will, but to cause us to rise to know God's Will and follow it. She certainly must have found that it was subversive to all discipline for individuals to be leaving their appointed work to pray by the beds of the sick at their own discretion. We were glad to learn that in 1906 she had accepted the services of two resident medical women at Mukti, and we hope in so doing she had come to realize that to each was given his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that, in the Christian society and that as there are many members in body, all members cannot have the same office and each should use his God-given gift with diligence, and seek to maintain a true harmony of the whole. Therein is true humility. May we not hope that this lesson learnt will be a stepping stone towards her accepting Church organization and discipline?
She says, "I still have an open mind and whatever I see to be God's will for me I shall do". The faith-healers undoubtedly enlarged Ramabai's ideas of the power of the Living Christ, who is to-day amongst His people not only to forgive sins but to say also, "Arise take up thy bed and walk".
Thus by a long and painful path she has been brought to the knowledge of the Truth, though not as yet accepting it in its fullness, and is able to help those who are seeking the same. Her simple faith is as real as her deep devotion to her unfortunate sisters, a devotion which is shewn in all her care for them.
The second question, whether we were premature in baptizing Ramabai, has yet to be answered. Having over and over again weighed this question, I have never been able to see any but one answer: That we were right in taking what seemed to be the God-given opportunity for her baptism. Her circumstances were so exceptional that her case can never be judged from an ordinary standpoint. When she came to us, she had asked for our help for five years, to prepare herself by study of various kinds for her life's work, and we thought and hoped that we should be able to continue the
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work of her instruction in Christianity during that period. No other portion of that time could we hope for the quiet months she had with us when she was preparing for the Church's initial Sacrament.
We have never ceased to sorrow over her failure to receive the Church's full sacramental teaching, but this does not prevent us [from] acknowledging with deep thankfulness what her life in God's hands has wrought, first as a pioneer and reformer of her people, and also as an Evangelist in bringing to them the glad tiding of Christianity.
We have seen how God prepared His instrument, and the history of Ramabai's work already given will have fully shewn what the result of the preparation has so far been.
It may be well now to break up the light by means of mental prism and glance at her in the various relationships she held towards subjects and friends. But first we will consider her executive work and what she was as a woman of business and as an administrator. The story of the purchase of the field at Kedgaon shows her quickness of apprehension and her far-sightedness as a woman of business. That field was first occupied by rescued famine sufferers in 1897.
Four years later, 2,000 women and girls were safely housed in well-built buildings. To quote the words of a visitor who saw it in 1901 will give some little idea of the strength of character of the woman as well as of her varied gifts which effected such a wondrous development. "Within these extensive grounds are well-ventilated, comfortable dormitories, . . . kitchen and dining rooms occupying a building 145 feet by 30 feet wide; store-houses, bakery, hospital, . . . rooms for industrial work, . . . rooms for the Pandita and her assistants, offices, guest rooms", and a great building used as a school-room on week days and a place of worship on Sundays. The grounds are well laid out with young trees, fruit trees, and gardens producing large supplies of vegetables.
The following quotation shews her executive capacity: "As for dear Ramabai, she is like the little girl's chicken that 'ran around so she could not count it'- in the cook room shewing the girls how to make chappaties (wheat cakes), ministering to the sick with her own gentle hands, arranging classes, keeping accounts, overseeing buildings-in short, every details of the work of Kedgaon is under her supervision. It seems to me that the day is not very far distant when Mukti will become a self-supporting work. At present, however, it needs help, that the buildings may be completed, and the whole work firmly established. Ramabai does not know I am writing this, so I can speak freely. The heathen around look upon her work with wonder, saying: "A goddess dwells in her, and this is why she can do all this wonderful work, for the goddess pours out the money". Miss Hooper and other testify that the work is done carefully, economically, and with much less expense that if a foreign worker superintended it. Kedgaon is called a Christian colony in itself. It may yet be a stronghold of Christianity, as Poona is said to be a stronghold of Brahmanism." [I think this look into the system of the Sharda Sadan is taken from Mrs. Andrews' accounts of her impressions-SISTER GERALDINE, C.S.M.V.]
We will consider her now as a teacher. We have already said that Ramabai's call was preeminently to be an inspirer of her people; but she was also a teacher of no mean power. In the early days of the Sharada Sadan most of her girls were heathen. She would gather them round her and tell them of the wonderful love and care of the Creator in preparing this beautiful world for His children; or she would give them some moral lesson on the beauty and sweetness of pure unselfish lives. Selfishness, she says, is the ruling power in India which has been the cause of the downfall of the nation; and in order to raise their dull and selfish minds to some nobility of thought she seeks to interest them in everything around them. The beautiful garden, the flowers and birds, she tell them, are lessons on the Beauty of God. The warble of the little songsters that come every spring she tell them teaches to praise God. She tries to develop in them kindness to animals, for the Indian people, in spite of their worship of animals, are frightfully cruel to them. So pets are encouraged in the Mukti Mission, and these the children love, and are loved by them in return.
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We do not know the exact reason why the Pandita refuses Government grant-in-aid. One of them doubtless is that she has her own special ideas of the needs of these poor ignorant girls, and desires to supply them in the ways she thinks best adapted to their wants. Because the Indians are taught to despise their bodies, Ramabai has physiology taught in her schools. Because their sense of the beauty of God's world had been so stunted, lessons in botany are systematically given. She surrounds them with everything which will help to raise and refine them, and trains them in various industries, in order that they may come to know that honest work is honourable. She endeavours to create an esprit de corps among them which is little known in ordinary Indian schools. They are banded into unions of different kinds such a Christian Endeavour Society and a Temperance Union and they are given lessons in managing their own meetings. They have learnt parliamentary rules in a simple form so that they can elect members and officers in an ordinary manner.
She says herself that her work is far from perfect and that visitors to the institution will find many faults which need correcting, but the marvel is that the work is what it is when one considers the difficulties that Ramabai has faced and conquered in building up her work. It seems nothing short of miraculous that she should have reduced the chaos which must have at first existed when she brought 300 girls into the family of the Sharada Sadan, and later on fifteen hundred more-untrained, untaught, may of them possessed with evil spirits-before those 300 had imbibed a spirit of discipline and order, and made of them an organic whole. Only a comparatively small number were at first received into the Sharada Sadan at Poona; the rest were camped at Mukti (at Kedgaon). This work was doubtless undertaken in utter ignorance of what the cost would be, but it shows what the patience and courage of Ramabai is to have reduced that chaotic mass into a disciplined and well ordered household.
There is an extract from Dr. Hume's address delivered at the sixth annual meeting of the American Ramabai Association in 1894 which gives some idea of shat her work is:
"To see that simple white-robed devoted women managing an institution like the Sharada Sadan is a lesson for any man or woman in the world as he administers the affairs of organization for nearly 2,000 persons. To manage a native regiment of adult Indians requires two Colonels, often two Lieutenant-Colonels, Captains, Lieutenants, and non-Commissioned Officers and then to think how that simple woman with her God-given gift of administration can almost single-handed conduct that work is a marvel to us who have been able to visit her and see it done."
Mrs. Andrews tells us what a true mother Ramabai is to her family. She says her intercourse with and influence over her pupils in home and school are those of a wise companion, a tender mother, and a Christ-loving woman. She is repaid as she watches the selfish suspicious and fretful natures of the girls gradually change. It is often long before these poor girls who have been so cruelly treated can understand that anyone desires to be kind to them. What patience it must mean on the part of Ramabai to bear the foul abuse and cursing which in her work of mercy is so often hurled at her. 'I smile at it', she writes, 'for I am so well used to hearing them curse me and speak dirty words about me'.
One of her former pupils says in speaking of her: "We got a very good education in Ramabai's home; she looked after us more than our mothers could do, my mother was very kind to me . . . . What we learned in Ramabai's school we never forgot; it was a good foundation laid there, and I have the same love towards the Pandita that I have towards my mother."
The following is an extract from Ramabai's Famine Pamphlet which tells of her mother-love for souls :
"Death by starvation is but a small matter compared with the misery they have to be in when they fall into the hands of wicked people. Ever since I have seen the poor girls-some fallen into the hands of wicked men, ruined for life, and turned out by their cruel masters to die a miserable death, some being treated in the hospitals only to be taken back into the pits of sin; some bearing the burden of sin, utterly lost to the sense of shame and humanity-hell has becomes a horrible reality to me, and
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my heart is bleeding for those young daughters of this country. Who with a mother's heart and a sister's love can rest quietly at this time, seeing that thousands of young lives are being destroyed utterly and sacrificed to sin. I cannot forget the old days in which the merciful God was so good to me, and kept me from harm; and it is my belief I have been saved by Him for this time, that I may show my gratitude by action, and save at least a few of the young widows. Some of our girls and I have made up our minds to stand by these suffering sisters of ours. So long as we have a little room and some grain, and a piece of cloth left in our school, we will share these with our new girls and look to God for help. He knows our present need and the danger around us. The plague which devastated Bombay and is still making a great havoc there has come to Poona also, and we do not know what will happen to us in the next hour. Dear friends, help us with your prayers and active sympathy, and the Father of mercies will keep us under shadow of His wings."
As I look back over thirty years and recall the various great and good people with whom the Pandita has come into touch and comment on the influence she has received from them, I should say without a question that the influence of her friends in America brought out the best side of her character. Undoubtedly activity suited her, it kept her brain and body continually at work and while in America and under the influence of great workers, the channel of her thoughts was kept pure and clear.
I judge by her letters : those we (Community of St. Mary the Virgin) received from her while in America were quite free from the arrogance and self-assertion which filled them while she was at Cheltenham. She was helped to see what a really good work was being done for her child and she was appreciative and grateful.
I believe Ramabai had strong affections, but as a friend she was very exacting and wrongheaded and strained friendship almost to breaking point, but in the long run her higher nature asserted itself and though she had by unwise friendship woven a web around herself which she would feign have broken through and could not, there were times when she strongly realized what our friendship had meant for her and her child and she did not shrink from making a public declaration of her feelings.
America supplied Ramabai with funds for her work and gave her the best advantages during her stay in that country-we may say, perhaps that the body of her work was given by America, the soul by her sojourn in the Wantage Community.
In order to show what an inspirer of her people Ramabai has been, we cannot do better than quote the following extracts from the Reports of the American Ramabai Association of 1900.
"In nine years 87,070 dollars have been sent to the treasury. Did ever one man step into a *foreign country, and a stranger alone single-handed, and by his personality strong in purity, by his eloquence matchless in its simplicity, touch the hearts of the people, and open their purses as this fearless but modest little Oriental woman did ten years ago? And she will do it again. Large as are the figures mentioned, and few number of years, the wide-spread influence that Ramabai has exerted cannot be measured by time or space; nor can any money be placed upon the good she has accomplished so quietly, so unobtrusively, that her own people are far from recognizing its extent and power as yet. But we prophesy that the time is coming, and not far distant, when her children, the children of her heart, the children of her country, shall rise up and call her blessed.
"She is slowly but effectively introducing into the public thought of India the ideas of justice and mercy to an unfortunate class of her countrywomen. She is furnishing [a] concrete illustration of how women ought to be treated by any society which deserves to be called civilized. This is her cardinal work. Her ambition is to make, not America and England, but India see the value to civilization of a rationally compassionate treatment of women whom circumstances have rendered helpless.
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