Hunger in India
Est_1:1 : ’93This is Ahasuerus which, reigned from India even unto Ethiopia.’94
Among the seven hundred and seventy-three thousand six hundred and ninety-three words which make up the Bible only once occurs the word ’93India.’94 In this part of the Scriptures, which the rabbis call ’93Megillah Esther,’94 or the volume of Esther’97a book sometimes complained against because the word ’93God’94 is not even once mentioned in it, although one rightly disposed can see God in it from the first chapter to the last’97we have it set forth that Xerxes, or Ahasuerus, who invaded Greece with two million men, but returned in a poor fisher’92s boat, had a vast dominion, among other regions, India. In my text India takes its place in Bible geography, and the interest in that land has continued to increase until, with more and more enthusiasm, all around the world Bishop Heber’92s hymn about ’93India’92s coral strand’94 is being sung.
Never will I forget the thrill of anticipation that went through my body and mind and soul when, after two weeks’92 tossing on the seas around Ceylon and India’97for the winds did not, according to the old hymn, ’93blow soft o’92er Ceylon’92s isle,’94’97our ship sailed up one of the mouths of the Ganges, past James and Mary Island, so named because a royal ship of that name was wrecked there, and I stepped ashore at Calcutta, amid the shrines and temples and sculptures of that ’93City of Palaces,’94 the strange physiognomies of the living and the cremations of the dead. I had never expected to be there because the sea and I long ago had a serious falling out; but the facilities of travel are so increasing that you or your children will probably visit that land of boundless fascination. India today is nearer to you than was Germany in the days of your grandfather. Its configuration is such as no one but God could have architected. and it seems as if a man who had no religion, going there, would be obliged to acknowledge a God as did the cowboy in Colorado. His companion, an atheist, had about persuaded the cowboy that there was no God; but coming amid some of that tremendous scenery of high rocks and awful chasms, and depths dug under depths, and mountains piled on mountains, the cowboy said to his atheistic companion, ’93Jack, there is no God now, I guess from the looks of things around here there must have been a God some time.’94 No one but the Omniscient could have planned India, and no one but the Omnipotent could have built it. It is a great triangle, its base the Himalayas, a word meaning ’93the dwelling place of snows,’94 those mountains pouring out of their crystal cup the Indus, the Brahmaputra, and the Ganges, to slake the thirst of the vast populations of India.
That country is the home of two hundred and forty million souls. Whatever be one’92s taste, going there, his taste is gratified. Some go as hunters of great game, and there is no end to their entertainment. Mighty fauna: bison, buffalo, rhinoceros, elephant, panther, lion, tiger’97this last to be the perpetual game for Americans and Europeans, because he comes up from the malarial swamps where no human being dare enter; the deer and antelope his accustomed food, but once having obtained the taste of human blood, he wants nothing else, and is called ’93the man-eater.’94 You cannot see the tiger’92s natural ferocity after he has been humiliated by a voyage across the sea. You need to hear his growl as he presses his iron paw against the cage in Calcutta. Thirteen towns have been abandoned as residence, because of the work of this cruel invader. In India in the year 1877, eight hundred and nineteen people were slain by the tiger and ten thousand cattle destroyed. From the back of the elephant or from galleries built among the trees fifteen hundred tigers went down and eighteen thousand dollars of government reward were paid the sportsmen. I advise all those who in America and other lands find amusement in shooting singing birds, coming home at night with empty powder-flask and a whole choir of heaven slung over their shoulder, to absent themselves for a while and attack the justifiable game of India.
Or if you go as botanists, oh, what opulence of flora! With no distinct flora of its own, it is the chorus of all the flora of Persia and Siberia and China and Arabia and Egypt. The Baptist missionary, Carey, who did infinite good to India, had two great passions’97first, a passion for souls, and next, a passion for flowers, and he adorned his Asiatic home and the American homes of his friends, and museums on each side of the sea, with the results of his floral expeditions in India. To prepare himself for morning prayers, he was accustomed to walk amid the flowers and trees. It is the heaven of the magnolia and abelmosk and palm tree.
The ethnologist, going there, will find endless entertainment in the study of the races now living there and the races of whose blood they are commingling. The historian going there, will find his theory of Warren Hastings’92 government in India the reverse from that which Edmund Burke gave him in the most famous address ever made in a court-room, its two characteristics matchless eloquence and one-sidedness of statement. The archaeologist will be thrown into a frenzy of delight as he visits Delhi in India and digs down and finds seven dead cities underneath the now-living city. All success to the hunters and the botanists and the ethnologists and the historians and the archaeologists who visit India, each one on his or her errand! But we today visit India as Christian women and men to hear the full meaning of a groan of hunger that has traveled fourteen thousand miles, yet gets louder and more agonizing as the days go by. But why have any interest in people so far away that it is evening there when it is morning here, their complexion darker, their language to us a jargon, their attire unlike that found in any American wardrobe, their memory and their ambition unlike anything that we recall or hope for? With more emphasis than you put into the interrogatory ’93Why,’94 I answer, first, because our Christ was an Asiatic. Egypt gave to us its monuments, Rome gave to us its law, Germany gave to us its philosophy, but Asia gave to us its Christ. His mother an Asiatic; the mountains that looked down upon him, Asiatic; the lakes on whose pebbly banks he rested and on whose chopped waves he walked, Asiatic; the apostles whom he first commissioned, Asiatic; the audiences he whelmed with his illustrations drawn from blooming lilies and salt crystals, and great rain-falls, and bellowing tempests, and hypocrites’92 long faces, and croaking ravens’97all those audiences Asiatic. Christ during his life was never outside of Asia, save in his infancy in Egypt. When he had eighteen years to spare from his active work, instead of spending that time in Europe, I think he goes farther toward the heart of Asia, namely, India. The Bible says nothing of Christ from twelve years of age until thirty, but there are records in India and traditions in India which represent a strange, wonderful, most excellent, and supernatural being as staying in India about that time. I think Christ was there much of the time between his twelfth and his thirtieth year; but however that may be, Christ was born in Asia, suffered in Asia, died in Asia, and ascended from Asia, and all that makes me turn my ear more attentively toward that continent as I hear its cry of distress.
Beside that, I remember that some of the most splendid achievements for the cause of that Asiatic Christ have been made in India. How the heart of every intelligent Christian beats with admiration at the mere mention of the name of Henry Martyn. Having read the life of our American David Brainerd, who gave his life to evangelizing our American savages, Henry Martyn goes forward to give his life for the salvation of India, dying from exhaustion of service at thirty-one years of age. Lord Macaulay, writing of him, says:
Here Martyn lies! In manhood’92s early bloom,
The Christian hero found a Pagan tomb!
Religion, sorrowing o’92er her favorite son,
Points to the glorious trophies which he won.
Immortal trophies! Not with slaughter red,
Nor stained with tears by friendless orphans shed;
But trophies of the Cross! In that dear name,
Through every scene of danger, toil, and shame,
Onward he journied to that happy shore,
Where danger, toil, and shame are known no more.
Is there in all history, secular or religious, a more wondrous character than William Carey, the converted shoemaker of England, daring all things for God in India, translating the Bible into many dialects, building chapels, and opening mission houses, and laying foundations for the redemption of the country, and although Sydney Smith, who sometimes laughed at things he ought not to have satirized, had in the learned Edinburgh Review scoffed at the idea of what he called ’93low-born, low-bred mechanics’94 like Carey attempting to convert the Brahmins, Carey stopped not until he had started influences that eternity, no more than time, shall have power to arrest, two hundred and thirteen thousand Bibles going forth from his printing-presses at Serampur. His sublime humility showing itself in the epitaph he ordered from the old Gospel hymn:
A wretched, poor, and helpless worm,
On thy kind arms I fall.
Need I tell you of Alphonse Lacroix, the Swiss missionary in India; or of William Butler, the glorious American Methodist missionary in India; or of the royal family of the Scudders, of the Reformed Church of America, my dear mother church to whom I give a kiss of love in passing; or of Dr. Alexander Duff, the Scotch missionary, whose visit to this country some of us will remember forever? When he stood in the old Broadway Tabernacle, New York, and pleaded for India until there was no other depth of religious emotion for him to stir and no loftier height of Christian eloquence for him to scale, and closed in a whirlwind of hallelujahs, I could easily believe that which was said of him, that while pleading the cause of India in one of the churches of Scotland he got so overwrought that he fell in the pulpit in a swoon and was carried into the vestry to be resuscitated, and when restored to his senses and preparation was being made to carry him out to some dwelling where he could be put to bed, he compelled his friends to take him back to the pulpit to complete his plea for the salvation of India, no sooner getting on his feet than he began where he left off, but with more gigantic power than before he fainted. But just as noble as any I have mentioned are the men and women who are there now for Christ’92s sake and the redemption of that people. Far away from their native land, famine on one side and black plague on the other side, swamps breathing on them malaria, and jungles howling on them with wild beasts or hissing with cobras; the names of those missionaries of all denominations to be written so high on the roll of martyrs that no names of the last eighteen hundred years shall be written above them. You need to see them at their work in schools and churches and lazarettos to appreciate them. All honor upon them and their households, while I smite the lying lips of their slanderers!
From the walls of one of their museums at Jeypore I had translated for me these beautiful sentiments:
The wise make failure equal to success.
Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads, let love through good deeds show.
Do not to others that which if done to thee would cause thee pain. And this is the sum of duty.
A man obtains a proper rule of action by looking on his neighbors as himself.
From that continent of interesting folk, from that continent that gave the Christ, from that continent which has been endeared by so many missionary heroics, there comes a groan of eighty million people in hunger. More people are in danger of starving to death in India today than the entire population of the United States. In the famine in India in the year 1877, about six million people starved to death. That is more than all the people of Washington, of New York, of Philadelphia, of Chicago, put together. But that famine was not a tenth part as awful as the one there now raging. Twenty thousand are dying there of famine every day. Whole villages and towns have died’97every man, woman and child; none left to bury the dead. The vultures and the jackals are the only pall-bearers. Though some help has been sent, before full relief can reach them I suppose there will be at least five million dead. Starvation, even for one person, is an awful process. No food, the vitals gnaw upon themselves, and faintness and languor and pangs from head to foot, and horror and despair and insanity take full possession. One handful of wheat or corn or rice per day would keep life going, but they cannot get a handful. The crops failed and the millions are dying. Oh, it is hard to be hungry in a world where there is enough grain and fruit and meat to fill all the hungry mouths on the planet; but alas! that the sufferer and the supply cannot be brought together.
There stands India today! Look at her! Her face dusky from the hot suns of many centuries; under her turban such achings of brow as only a dying nation feels: her eyes hollow with unutterable woe: the tears rolling down her sunken cheek: her back bent with more agonies than she knows how to carry: her ovens containing nothing but ashes. Gaunt, ghastly, wasted, the dew of death upon her forehead and a pallor such as the last hour brings, she stretches forth her trembling hand toward us, and with hoarse whisper she says: ’93I am dying! Give me bread! That is what I want! Bread! Give it to me quick: give it to me now’97bread! bread! bread!’94 America has heard the cry. Many thousands of dollars have already been contributed. One ship, the City of Everett, laden with breadstuffs has sailed from San Francisco for India. They who helped by contributions of money or breadstuffs toward filling that relief ship will flavor their own food for their lifetime with appetizing qualities, and insure their own welfare through the promise of him who said, ’93Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.’94
Just seventeen years ago a ship on similar errand went out from New York harbor’97the old war frigate Constellation. It had once carried guns of death; but there was famine in Ireland, and the Constellation was loaded with five hundred tons of food. That ship, once covered with smoke of battle: then covered with Easter hosannas! That ship, constructed to battle England, going forth over the waters to carry relief to some of her starving subjects. Better than sword into ploughshare, better than spear into pruning-hook was that old war frigate, turned into a white-winged angel of resurrection, to roll away the stone from the mouth of Ireland’92s sepulchre. On like errand five years ago the ship Leo put out with many tons of food for famine-struck Russia. One Saturday afternoon, on the deck of that steamer as she lay at Brooklyn wharf, a wondrous scene took place. A committee of the King’92s Daughters had decorated the ship with streamers and bunting, American and Russian flags intertwining. Having had the joy of seeing that ship thus consecrated, we had the additional joy of standing on the docks of St. Petersburg, Russia, when the planks of the relief ship were thrown out and the representatives of the municipalities and of royalty went aboard her; the long freight train at the same time rolling down to take the food to the starving, and on alternate cars of that train American and Russian flags floating. But now the hunger in India is mightier than any that Ireland or Russia ever suffered. I would like to stand on the wharf at Calcutta or Bombay and see that ship come in. With what joy it would be welcomed! The emaciated would lift their head on the shriveled hand and elbow, and with thin lips ask: ’93Is it coming’97something to eat?’94 And whole villages and towns, too weak to walk, would crawl out on hands and knees to get the first grain of corn they could reach and put it to their famished lips. May I cry out for you and for others to those sufferers, ’93Wait a little longer, bear up a little more, O dying men of India! O starving women! O emaciated babes! Relief is on the way, and more relief will soon be coming.’94 We send it in the name of the Asiatic Christ, who said, ’93I was hungry and ye fed me: inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’94
Christian people of America! I call your attention to the fact that we may now, as never before, by one magnificent stroke, open the widest door for the evangelization of Asia. A stupendous obstacle in the way of Christianizing Asia has been the difference of language, but all those people understand the Gospel of bread. Another obstacle has been the law of caste, but in what better way can we teach them the brotherhood of man? Another huge difficulty in the way of Christianizing Asia has been that those people thought the religion we would have them take was no better than their Hinduism or Mohammedanism, but they will now see by this crusade for the relief of people fourteen thousand miles away that the Christian religion is of a higher, better, and grander type than any other religion, for when did the followers of Brahma or Vishnu or Buddha or Confucius or Ma-hammed, ever demonstrate like interest in people on opposite side of the world? Having taken the bread of this life from our hands, they will be more apt to take from us the bread of Eternal Life. The missionaries of different denominations in India at forty-six stations are already distributing relief sent through The Christian Herald. Is it not plain that those missionaries, after feeding the hunger of the body, will be at better advantage to feed the hunger of the soul? When Christ, before preaching to the five thousand in the wilderness, broke for them the miraculous loaves, he indicated that the best way to prepare the world for spiritual and eternal considerations is first to look after their temporal interests. Oh, Church of God in America and Europe! This is your opportunity. We have on occasions of Christian patriotism cried: ’93America for God!’94 Now let us add the battle shout: ’93Asia for God!’94 In this movement to give food to starving India I hear the rustling of the wing of the apocalyptic angel, ready to fly through the midst of heaven proclaiming to all the kingdoms and people and tongues the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ.
And now I bethink myself of something I never thought of before. I had noticed that the circle is God’92s favorite figure, and upon that subject I addressed you some time ago, but it did not occur to me until now that the Gospel seems to be moving in a circle. It started in Asia, Bethlehem, an Asiatic village; Jordan, an Asiatic river; Calvary, an Asiatic mountain. Then this Gospel moved on to Europe; witness the chapels and churches and cathedrals and Christian universities of that continent. Then it crossed to America. It has prayed and preached and sung its way across our continent; it has crossed to Asia, taking the Sandwich Islands in its way, and now in all the great cities on the coast of China people are singing ’93Rock of Ages’94 and ’93There is a Fountain Filled with Blood;’94 for you must know that not only have the Scriptures been translated into those Asiatic tongues, but also the evangelical hymns. My missionary brother John translated some of them into Chinese, and Mr Gladstone gave me a copy of the hymn, ’93Jesus, Lover of My Soul,’94 which he had himself translated into Greek. The Christ, who, it seems, spent sixteen or eighteen years of his life in India, is there now in spirit, converting and saving the people by hundreds of thousands; and the Gospel will move right on through Asia until the story of the Saviour’92s birth will anew be made known in Bethlehem, and the story of a Saviour’92s sacrifice be told anew on and around Mt. Calvary, and the story of a Saviour’92s ascension be told anew on the shoulder of Mt. Olivet. And then do you not see the circle will be complete? The glorious circle, the circle of the earth!
This old planet, gashed with earthquake, and scorched with conflagration, and torn with revolution, will be girdled with churches, with schools, with universities, with millennial festivities. How cheering and how inspiring the thought that we are, whether giving temporal or spiritual relief, working on the segments of such a circle! And the Christly mission which started in Asia will keep on its way until it goes clear around to the place where it started! Then the earth will have demonstrated that for which it was created; and as soon as a world has completed its mission, it dies. Part of the heavens is a cemetery of dead worlds. Our world built to demonstrate to the worlds which have been loyal to God the awful result of disloyalty, so that none of them may ever attempt it’97I say our world, having finished its mission, may then go out of existence. The central fires of the world, which are burning out rapidly toward the crust, may have reached the surface by that time and the Bible prophecy be fulfilled, which declares that the earth and all things that are therein shall be burned up. The ransomed human race at that time on earth will start unhurt in those chariots of fire for the great Metropolis of the Universe, the heaven where the redeemed of the Lord shall talk over the famines, and the plagues, and the wars which this earth suffered, and against which we struggled and prayed as long as there was any breath in us. Glorious consummation!
May the 10th, 1869, was a memorable day, for then was laid the last tie that connected the two rail tracks which united the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Central Pacific Railroad was built from California eastward; the Union Pacific Railroad was built westward. They were within arm’92s reach of meeting, only one more piece of the rail track to put down. A great assembly gathered, mid-continent, to see the last tie laid. The locomotives of the Eastern and Western trains stood panting on the tracks close by. The tie was made of polished laurel wood, bound with silver bands, and three spikes were used’97a gold spike, presented by California; a silver spike, presented by Nevada, and an iron spike, presented by Arizona. When, all heads uncovered and all hearts thrilling with emotion, the hammer struck the last spike into place, the cannon boomed it amid the resounding mountain echoes and the telegraphic instruments clicked to all nations that the deed was done. My friends, if the laying of the last tie that bound the East and the West of one continent together was such a resounding occasion, what will it be when the last tie of the track of Gospel influences, reaching clear around the world, shall be laid amid the anthems of all nations? The spikes will be the golden and silver spikes fashioned out of the Christian generosity of the hemispheres. The last hammer stroke that completes the work will be heard by all the raptured and piled-up galleries of the universe, and the mountains of earth will shout to the thrones of heaven, ’93Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Hallelujah! For the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ!’94
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage