said to the missionaries at first; but now they are saying, “If your religion can do so much for these people, can it not help us too?" What sort of Christians do these outcaste Indians make? All sorts. Some are very crude and low. Some are among the noblest Christians to be found anywhere in the world. When we see what poor Christians many of us in "Christian" America are, with fifteen hundred years of Christianity back of us, we shall not expect all of these people, who have been living in the mire, to become pure saints at once. They have set their faces toward the light. That is the important fact. The leading Christian of a large district in India is Vinayakrao Uzagare. His father was an outcaste and became the first Christian in all that region. The father endured much persecution, but in the end he won his own relatives by his patience and persistence. Vinayakrao grew up in a Christian home and went to a Christian school. He was a "second generation Christian." They are the real test of what Christianity can do for the outcaste, because Christ has a chance at them from childhood. Vinayakrao was a large, athletic boy. He was so strong that he could never find another boy of his age powerful enough to be a real opponent. He loved to wander in the fields and mountains near his home and was not afraid of anything. His father gave him the best education he could-that of the Ahmednagar High School, and Vinayakrao took a position on the railroad. Frank and open, with force of character that 4 Vinayǎkrow Uzăgăre. went well with his physical power, he had every promise of success in business. But he felt a call to go into Christian work. So he gave up his business prospects, studied in a theological seminary, and went out on a salary of seven dollars a month as the pastor of a little native church far from the city. There he threw himself into the service of his church and Christian school. He won such respect that a Brahman of the town was glad to teach in his school, and all classes in the town turned to him. British Government officials noticed and praised his fearless fight against evil and his power for good. After a time he was put at the head of the Christian school system of the entire mission district. Then, by the general request of his colleagues, he was made superintendent of Christian work for the district. He is now doing the work that a foreign missionary formerly did and is doing it in many ways better than a missionary ever could do it. Generous to a fault, he gives of his small income till he himself sometimes goes almost in rags. Brave, he will nurse a man who has the most fearful of Indian diseases, Asiatic cholera, or will take a stand that he feels is right against fiercest opposition. Yet he will labor with loving patience to try to win a man or to settle a quarrel. If the caste people of that region were to choose the man whom they would most trust to be their representative, I am convinced that they would choose none of the educated Brahmans and none of the village headmen, but this son of the outcaste quarter whom Christ has transformed. I am proud to count him in the little inner circle of my intimate friends. Miracles? You do not have to turn to the record of past ages to find them. Just come with me some day to the village of Kolgaon and meet this man who has a thousand years of degradation behind him. First go into the outcaste quarter in which his father was born. Then come and look into his face and talk with him of his people. You would come away, as I always come away from a talk with him, wondering at the Power that has molded from an outcaste such a nobleman of God and such an apostle of Christ. All over India you can find such men. Most of them will never be heard of beyond their own districts. It is they who are the backbone of the Christian campaign in India. There are other Christians of outcaste origin who are more brilliant and no less devoted than Vinayakrao. Among them are some who have won high position in law and medicine and who are now leading citizens of Indian cities, received as equals by Brahmans and Englishmen. One of the brilliant students of a great American university in recent years was such an Indian. No American student could excel him in charm of manner, in instinctive refinement, or in Christian consecration. He earns all his expenses while in America by lecturing on India, and he is so popular and successful that he was offered five thousand dollars a year if he would become a regular lecturer. But he has dedicated his life to the service of his own country, and he is going back to work for India. When I think of India's outcastes, I am reminded of one of nature's greatest miracles. Out of the mold of vegetable matter, through the pressure of the ages, she has formed the great coal beds on which our factories depend for power and our homes for heat. Then from this same material, by a process so long that we can only dimly imagine it, nature has fashioned diamonds. So, from the crude human material of the outcastes of India, God is fashioning diamonds like Vinayakrao. And He calls us to be his partners in this great work. |