I WOULD like to tell you about a girl who studied in a mission school in India. I will call her Dasammah. When she came to the mission school she was about twelve years of age. She was married, but her husband allowed her to attend school. She was a very modest girl, and used to take her seat back in a corner, and draw her cloth closely over her face, so that she would not be much noticed. When questions were asked her she was very timid in answering, but the missionary, lady noticed that when she was teaching the Bible lesson, this girl always leaned forward and drank in every word.
One day when Dasammah went home she told her husband that she did not believe that the idols which they worshiped were true gods, but she believed that Jesus Christ was the true Saviour. When her husband heard this he was much alarmed, for he feared she would become a Christian. So the next morning he said to her, “Get your things ready quickly; I am going to take you to live at “my mother’s house; be ready to leave in an hour.”
If you who read these lines were told that you were to leave your borne and go to a distant village to live, and-that you were to be ready to start in an hour, What are the things you would select to take with you?
This girl thought of her Bible. But she must not be seen in the street at that time in the morning. So she called a little neighbor girl of lower caste, and said to her, “Run quickly to the missionary’s house and get that book we study in the school—the Bible.”
And the little girl ran to the missionary’s house and got a Bible and brought it to Dasammah, and she hid it in her clothes, and that was the only thing she took with her when she went to a distant village to live with her husband’s mother. She was the only Christian in that village; there was not a missionary there, or a native pastor, or a native Christian. But day by day she studied her Bible, and day by day the Christ whom it told about became more real and more precious to her.
After a time her husband died suddenly; and then, as is the custom in India, her relatives treated her very cruelly, and charged her with the death of her husband, saying she had used charms or something which had caused his death. The girl said that she had done nothing to cause her husband’s death, but that it was the will of God that he should die at that time.
Then they said, “It is because you have given up worshiping our gods and are worshiping the Christian God. Now you must come back and worship our gods, and promise that you will not become a Christian.” They talked to her several times on the subject, but she would only give them the one answer, “I am a Christian.”
One day, the men of the house banished all the women to the women’s apartments, and taking this little girl out into the yard, drove four stakes into the ground, and tied the girl’s hands and feet to these stakes. Then they said to her, “Now we will bring fire and burn your feet, unless you promise that you’ll not become a Christian.”
She answered, “I do believe in Christ. I am a Christian.”
They put the fire to her feet and, let it burn them, and the pain was very great. Then they said to her; “Now will you promise that you’ll not become a Christian?”
She answered, “O, I cannot promise. I am I am a Christian.”
Surely He who walked with the three children of Israel in the burning fiery furnace, was with this poor girl, and strengthened her in the hour of her great trial. After a time, the pain was so great she could not bear it, and she fainted away.
When the men saw that they were afraid she would die, and that the English Government might call them to account for their cruelty. So they untied her hands and feet, and then carried her away into a dark room, and left her there. In the middle of the night consciousness returned to her, and she got up and felt for the door, and found it was open. She went out and started for the missionary’s house. It took her that night and the next day, and late into the next night to reach it.
She walked part of the way as well as she could, on her sore feet, and then got down and crawled on her hands and knees.
When she came to the missionary’s house. she knocked. The missionary lady came to the door and looked at the girl, but did not recognize her, she was so covered with dust and looked so wretched. She said to her, “Who are you?” The girl told her. Then she asked, “Why did you come?” “I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to be baptized.”
The missionary lady took her in, and when she saw what a condition her feet were in, she was very sorry for her. She dressed her feet, and all the time she was doing this the girl never uttered a single murmur or complaint, but only said, “O, how good you are! how you must love the Lord Jesus, to be so kind to a poor girl like me!”
After a time her feet healed, and she said to the missionary lady, “You have a Bible woman who visits in the homes and teaches the women; I should so like to help her to tell the women about Christ. I could live on very little; all I would want would be rice and salt; two shillings a month would be quite sufficient to buy my food. If you could find someone who would pay that for me, I would spend my whole time teaching the women in their homes.”
The missionary lady furnished her with the needed means, and she is now a Bible woman, and very happy in her work. This girl had only known about Christ for a short time, but He was very precious to her, and she desired to tell others about Him.
I wonder if you who read these lines love Christ as much, and if you are letting your light shine as brightly. If Christ were to stand before you in bodily form, and say to you as He said to His disciples, “As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you,” how would you feel in His presence? Would you be able to look into His dear face and say, “Lord Jesus, I do desire to be in the world as Thou wast in the world. Make me more and more to be like Thee.”
ML 12/22/1918