10 Year By Year
Chapter 10
YEAR BY YEAR
Possibly a still clearer impression of Miss Reed’s work ; its nature and progress ; its difficulties and encouragements ; its light and shade ; will be conveyed by extracts from her own reports as Missionary of the W. F. M. S. for a few consecutive years. She writes (February, 1896): "Last year I had five workers, this year the number has increased to ten, and I am obliged to make tours, at least once a month, camping for a week at a time during these journeys, which take me from twenty to thirty miles from home. But I am glad of these varied duties." The workers here referred to were Hindustani, or native Bible women and teachers, the supervision of whose work formed part of Miss Reed’s duties. This will serve to make clear the following extracts :
"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Mercies, and the God of all comfort. "
"Who comforteth us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."
" During the past two years I have experienced so much of the loving compassion and tender mercy of ’the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother’ that it is with a very grateful, humble heart I attempt to recount, for the dear friends of our widening missionary circle, something of God’s dealings with me and the people to whom He has called me to minister here, in this beautiful place, Chandag Heights. That His seal of blessing is upon the special work going forward among the poor afflicted ones occupying this retreat, as well as among the inhabitants of adjacent villages, will be evident from the following report :
"The past two years have been years of improvement - ’lengthening of cords, and strengthening of stakes." The Missionary Society in Great Britain supporting this work, not only sent means for the simple needs of my poor people, but very generously responded to appeals for funds with which to erect the needed additional buildings, so that now we have two large buildings, capable of accommodating sixty men and boys, three smaller buildings for forty women and girls, and a little hospital for separating the extreme cases from less affected ones. To the latter I have a little dispensary attached. Four of these new buildings and a house for a native preacher and family who assist me in village work, have been erected during the past eighteen months.
"The Government recently granted us forty-eight acres additional land, around which we are now having a stone wall built. This generous gift, in addition to the eighteen acres owned by the Mission, provides ample building room for years to come, and allows plots of ground to be portioned out to all who are able to work, while acres are left for grazing ground. So many unknown interested friends have written asking me how this work is supported, that I take the liberty of making a brief explanation regarding the Society under whose auspices I have been so mysteriously called to work. It is called the "Mission to Lepers in India and the East," and works, not by sending missionaries of its own, but by utilizing existing agencies, making grants of money for the erection of asylums, and undertakes the support of patients who find shelter and care in these homelike retreats.
"Any help from anywhere will be most gratefully received, especially from those who have not hitherto given much to missions. I cannot tell you how sad and how serious the need is here.
"This mountain district, one of the fairest spots of God’s beautiful earth, has the sad reputation of being one of the very worst districts in India for this dread malady. During the past eighteen months eighty patients’ names have been enrolled on my books, and I am told that within a radius of ten miles of us there are more than four hundred who ought to be here in the asylum. I hope to see the last of these new buildings occupied as soon as the walls become thoroughly dry. How my heart yearns to see all these people, not only sheltered and cared for, but all gathered into the fold of Christ ! Of the fifty-seven patients now enrolled, only five are outside the fold. They are newcomers, are being taught, and will, I hope, soon come out of darkness into " His marvellous light." The power of the Gospel to bring brightness and hope into their lives has been manifest in the wonderful changes in temperaments which I have rejoiced to note in so many cases this year. I used to be called so often to settle disputes amongst quarrelsome ones, but now peace and gentleness and patience are manifest, and I delight to watch their growth in goodness, and to hear the voice of praise, not in tuneful sounds - (the singing is not good), but in a joyful noise they make unto Him, whom many of them have learned to love. A goodly number give clear evidence of a deep experience of God’s saving grace. He owns and blesses the services, and the lessons taught. I have some precious meetings with them, in which earnest prayers and intelligent testimonies make my heart rejoice in Him in whose service there is so much of blessedness. Some have found the way to the home of many mansions.
"Aside from the special work for which I have been called apart ... I have had the privilege, during the past year, of opening four schools for boys and girls in the villages, lying in the mountain valleys, from two to five miles distant from my home. About six months ago two other schools were made over to me by the preacher-in-charge of Pithoragarh circuit. In these six schools there have been over 200 pupils enrolled this year. They have memorized a number of hymns, texts, and lessons in our catechism, and eagerly look for the Sunday-school papers.
"The little boys in the schools are my special adherents, and many a little hand has been the means of conveying the gospel message to idolatrous homes into which I otherwise have had no access, it being a favorite habit of mine to distribute books, papers, gospels, hymns, etc., to all who can read.
"In my attempts to reach the women in their homes, rebuffs and rude speeches have been a frequent experience, and after a whole year of effort I have only five women and one girl learning to read in their homes. I have time to visit and teach them but once a week ; but a Bible-woman has recently taken up this village work and gives them one lesson weekly ; so with the Bible lessons and teaching given, I trust that such a change may come into their hearts and lives that other homes and hearts will be opened to our visits and to the gospel message the coming year.
"This school and village work involves a large amount of wear and tear, and calls for the exercise of much faith and patience. But I know that it is the steady grind of the workaday machinery that in the end produces results which, I trust, shall be better and more enduring than any that can ever appear in a missionary report. My view of progress is a brighter and more hopeful one than even the brightest and most hopeful which statistics furnish.
"It is a wondrous sweetener of what otherwise would be an unbearable burden, that through this dispensation of God’s providence and grace He is not only working in my own heart and life to will and to do of His good pleasure ; but that it is also being utilized by Him in rousing wills, moving hearts, quickening thought, influencing and enlisting new recruits for the ’ great company ’ needed to publish His blessed word. Blessed, ever blessed be His glorious Name forever !
"It has been most refreshing to receive the many letters that have come from the dear home helpers, individuals, and auxiliaries, whose precious messages fraught with love and prayer, have cheered and strengthened my heart again and again during the past two years. May I here thank all who have written and who have had no reply to their kindly inquiries, many of which are either answered or implied in this very incomprehensive review, which is so void of details or incidents that I fear it will be wanting in interest to many." The Report for the following year reveals to us somewhat of the burden and travail endured by the faithful worker owing to the moral lapses of some who had formerly given good grounds for hope :
"In reviewing the past year’s work I am not privileged to reckon up a balance of success. No harvest songs have I to sing - this sower’s songs are tears ; and to faithfully report the ’ labor of love,’ and the trials caused by sins, weakness, and wickedness of some of the flock entrusted to my care, who had been ’ my joy and crown of rejoicing ’ until the enemy of souls entered, enticed, and led into paths of sin some of those whom I had thought were settled and established in the faith, is beyond my powers of portrayal. My heart is heavy with sorrow over those who, oh, so much more than comfort need ’ to be set at liberty.’ Liberty from the bondage of sin and Satan. Here, as in Job’s time, ’ when the sons of God presented themselves before the Lord, Satan came also among them.’ (Job 1"6) Oh ! the grief to one who watches for these precious souls as one who must give an account, to learn that some of these called ’sons of God ’ have not yet really come out from Satan’s kingdom into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son ! How much more than ever before these words, ’to set at liberty them that are bound,’ mean to me now ! and I am learning from these painful experiences that before broken hearts can be bound up and healed they must first be cleansed. Dear helpers-together-by-prayer, the solemn interests involved here compel me to entreat you, even unto tears, to continue to pray for the salvation of these precious souls, and to pray for me, that in the moments when I most deeply feel my own impotence and the awful force of the ’ principalities and powers marshaling their unseen array,’ I may hold on to God’s promises, and ’ lean hard ’ upon Jesus, who says, ’ I know thy labor and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil.’ May this ’I know’ suffice amid all the chilling influences the great Hinderer can put forth this coming year ! During the past year eighty-six poor sufferers have been sheltered and cared for. Of that number seven died, four ran away, several had to be sent away for bad conduct, and one case proved that a mistake had been made in the diagnosis, and my heart rejoiced in being able to return one dear girl, healthy and sound, to Miss Budden’s school. There are seventy here at present. Leaving all to His patience and forgiveness, and trusting Him to supply all my need of grace, wisdom, patience, gentleness, firmness, and abounding spiritual power, I enter upon another year of service for my blessed Master.
" He careth, and He will not let Me have too much to bear ; Nor any burden great or small But what He, too, will share.
’’No words of mine can express the personal obligation I feel to the dear helpers together across the seas, for the many, many, kind and helpful letters, and for the boxes of bandages, towels, soap, pictures, seeds, etc., all of which have been most thankfully received. Thank you all, very much ! and with a very grateful heart I do most truly " Thank God for love, the love of friends. That golden cord that binds Us each to each, and links us on To kindred human minds !
" That Christlike thing that reaches down To depths of human woe, And sheds o’er darkest paths and sad A benediction glow !
" But thank God most for His great love That living source Divine Which stoopeth down to earth, and cares For your love and for mine." A year later we find the clouds have lifted somewhat :
" Those who read my last year’s report will know that it is with no spirit of self-complacency or boasting, but with gratitude and humility, I look back over the year that is now closing, for I recognize that the good hand of the Lord has been upon us.
"At times it has been very heavy, but He has enabled me, " Just to leave in His dear Hand All I could not understand.
Just to let Him take the care Sorely pressing, Finding all I let Him bear Changed to blessing.
" We have had a blessed year, and that means more than a happy one. And over and above the blessedness vouchsafed, I have had the three essentials of happiness, i.e., plenty of work, remarkably good general health much of the year, and love.
" The care and teaching given to those entrusted to me to serve and train has not been wasted. The work in the surrounding villages has been steadily and systematically done by the four village visitors. Much seed has been sown, and that sown in the nearer villages last year has seemed to spring up and has been cultivated and watered with many prayers this year. And shall we not trust that in due season fruit will appear ? For, like a solid rock beneath our feet is our Father’s promise that His word shall not return unto Him void, but shall accomplish that where unto He hath sent it. . . .
"The great event of the year connected with the special work for which I was recalled to dear India, was the purchase of more land and the erection of new homes for the men and boys of the institution. Panahgah (place of refuge) comprises one half-dozen neat stone houses which grew up like magic in a few weeks’ time, and this group of white houses is surrounded by garden-plots neatly laid out and carefully cultivated by the dwellers, who are very much pleased with their new abode." In the following extract Miss Reed gives grateful expression to the value she attaches to the prayers of her many friends, as well as to the stimulus she derives from the "blessed hope" of the coming again of her Lord and Saviour.
"In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them : in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them and carried them all the days of old. " Isaiah 63:9 "August 22d, 1896.
"Dear Sisters and Friends,
"Greeting and loving gratitude from a heart filled with praise and thanksgiving to Him who still ’crowneth with loving-kindness and tender mercy’ her whom He thus continues to bless in answer to your prayers. He has been so tenderly gracious to me since my last annual letter was written to you just one year ago to-day ; it has been such gentle, faithful, ’ lovingkindness ’ all along, and I go on my way sure and glad, taking strength and health as precious gifts from Him Whose presence is salvation. Most marvelously is He fulfilling His gracious word : ’ I will do you no hurt.’
"Often and often I am conscious of especial blessing and help given in answer to other prayers than mine. How much the interests of His kingdom, the varied and pressing needs of His work here in this corner of His vineyard need your prayers ! Prayer will open the hard hearts of these idolatrous nations, and prayer will bring the little flock for whom Jesus is coming soon. Dear sisters, what can be more majestic than the thought that we, the King of kings’ children, have it in our power to hasten the close of the tragedy of sin and sorrow, and to hasten the advent of an era of peace and glory, perhaps, even in our own lifetime. To me it is increasingly precious, the thought that just as soon as the Gospel is published equally to all the peoples of the nations of the earth, so that all may have the opportunity of salvation, and when, from among these, the Bride of Christ be gathered from all tribes and tongues, ’ then shall the end come ! ’ (SeeMatthew 24:14) This ’blessed hope ’ is a buoy to my soul during the storms and battles that surge round us here, it lifts me above the waves of worry and anxiety.
" Delightful as it is to write to you of our Lord and His dealings with this one of His ’ little ones,’ I must not take more of your time and mine for this precious theme, because you will be wishing to hear something of the opportunities He is granting to me for service in varied spheres this year.
*’I can only give you an outline of the different phases of work for Him in which it is my privilege and joy to be engaged heart and soul.
’’Aside from the special work of caring for and teaching the flock of poor suffering ones, which has varied in numbers from eighty to ninety this year, I have been very busy and happy in itinerating and District work, in which are engaged six Evangelists and teachers, besides my six dear Bible-women, and in addition to superintending and helping them in this village work, five boys’ schools are being opened, and these will be centers of light in needy, neglected corners of this vineyard. . . .
’’And now, before closing this letter, I want to assure you that the loving messages your letters bring are real blessings for which I am deeply grateful to you and to Him who puts it into your hearts to send me such cheer and help.
"Yours in His love and service, "Mary Reed."