14 WORKING FOR THE CHILDREN

Chapter 14 WORKING FOR THE CHILDREN WHEN Dr. Phillips was first approached on the subject of undertaking the secretaryship of the India Sunday School Union, it will be remembered that he wrote to a friend upon whose judgment he relied, asking if he thought he could " fill the bill."

How large was the bill requiring to be filled will be readily perceived by anyone who takes the trouble to study the geography of India, remembering that Dr. Phillips field covered the entire country, with all its teeming millions of inhabitants, and included the missions of all the evangelical denominations. Each year, until his lamented death in 1895, Dr. Phillips undertook a lengthened tour. The largest of the tours covered a distance of 15,253 miles, and the six tours together covered 52,030 miles. Dr. Phillips spent 1400 days in India, so that the average distance traveled per day was more than thirty-seven miles. The continual wearing toil involved in these tours will perhaps be better realized if we remember that they were equivalent to one and a half mile’s travel every hour, both day and night, for nearly four years. Although Dr. Phillips was a bad sailor, and always viewed a sea voyage with apprehension, he spent sixty-three days on shipboard, and traveled 13,000 miles by water, crossing the Bay of Bengal nine times during the four years. This does not include his voyage to Europe. During the 1400 days spent in India, Dr. Phillips delivered 1600 addresses, the outlines or " briefs " of which are all neatly recorded in his notebooks. Thus it will be seen that on an average he delivered one address on every week day, and two every Sunday throughout his Sunday School career. The very magnitude of his task, and the brevity of the records which remain, makes anything like a detailed and continuous description impossible. In the majority of cases two or three brief lines in his diary are all that remain to tell of long journeys undertaken, of organizations planned, and of important meetings held.

Before he had been in India a month. Dr. Phillips had started off upon his first tour. Passing through the Central Provinces he reached Allahabad, and thence proceeded to Lahore in the Punjab. Returning to Allahabad, he followed the course of the Ganges to Calcutta, after which he visited his old field of operations in Orissa, and then returned to Calcutta, so terminating a tour of 2908 miles in a little less than a month. The visit to his old home at Balasore on December 31st, was one of exceptional interest for Dr. Phillips, and in his " Jottings " in the India Sunday School Journal he thus describes his visit —

" Christmas for the Oriya Sunday School children was a delightful treat, capitally managed. How good it seemed to look once more into the happy faces of hundreds of Oriya Christians here in my native place, and to stand again in the chapel pulpit. Several more promising workers have finished their course since I was here last, seven years ago, but, thank God, others have taken their places, and the work goes on. In Orissa, as elsewhere all over India, our leading native helpers today, both men and women, are those who were brought up and trained from childhood in our Sunday Schools. Nothing can quite take the place of this early religious instruction. The army of our high Captain for India’s conquest is now sitting at the feet of our Sunday School teachers. With what dignity is the task of the humble Bible teacher invested, when we consider that his pupil may become one of India’s shining and successful evangelists; and so with high hope and a cheerful outlook let all Sunday School workers close the old year and begin the new. The business of our lives is the teaching of God’s Word, concerning which He has said, ’ it shall not return unto Me void.’ Let us all keep these seven words at the top through the days of 1891." In the January of 1891, Dr. Phillips was again on tour. This time he undertook an extended series of journeys, practically covering the whole of India, and amounting in all to 13,110 miles. Starting from Calcutta, he first visited Moradabad, Jabalpur, Poona, and Bangalore, on the way to Madras, whence he returned by sea to Calcutta. He then proceeded to Burmah, where he traveled from Rangoon to Mandalay, whence he returned to his headquarters at Calcutta. Visits to Orissa and Sekhim followed, and then he passed through the Central Provinces to Bombay. Returning thence, he journeyed by way of Ajmere, Lucknow, Amritsar, and Gorakhpur to Calcutta. A second visit to Orissa completed his journeys for 1891. A few of his "Jottings on Tour" will serve to show the kind of work which occupied him as he journeyed to and fro throughout the country.

"Bangalore, 22nd February 1891. -- The Wesleyan Sunday School and one of the Tamil Sunday Schools in the bazaar were visited while at Bangalore, and excellent work was done in both. The blackboard exercises in the former are very important, and I trust will be introduced in many other schools. By pen and pencil let us appeal to the people more. I have been surprised and delighted many times in many schools to find how accurately points put on the blackboard were remembered and reproduced after many days."

"Madras, Feb. 20th -- The organization of the Madras auxiliary of our India Sunday School Union will be hailed with delight by all our friends here and at home. The president is a strong and successful missionary of the Church Missionary Society, whose heart goes with his head and hands in this movement. A delightful feature of the Sunday School Convention here was the presence and participation of so many native Christian workers. When our native friends rally round the standard of this new Sunday School movement it will make more rapid progress, and accomplish far more."

It may here be noted, as showing the extent to which Sunday School work had now been organized, that in the annual report of the India Sunday School Union for 1890 nine auxiliaries are recognized — the North India, South India, Bombay, Rajputana, Bengal, Furrahabad, Lahore, and Punjaub Sunday School Unions, and the mission Sunday School at Madras. In the work of reorganization and consolidation which was now in progress, three of these societies coalesced with the others, thus reducing the number to six. In February 1891, Dr. Phillips opened a Saturday afternoon class at the Union Chapel, Calcutta, for the study of the International Sunday School lessons. It was attended by Bengali teachers, both male and female, sixty-three being present on the opening day, which number steadily increased until upwards of a hundred native teachers, from seven or more missions, thus regularly met to prepare for the work of the following Sunday. Of his visit to Burmah in this year Dr. Phillips wrote —

" In King Thebaw’s fort, now occupied by Government buildings, I was heartily welcomed to the American mission house, which was my home for three days. The high brick wall around this fort, surrounded by a moat, is said to be 1.5 miles long on each side. On Saturday I was permitted to address a Band of Hope. Would that we had like bands all over India ! How glad I was to find one here, nearly 400 miles north of Rangoon ! Our Sunday School meetings here, as elsewhere, brought Christians of all Churches together, and into pleasant and profitable co-operation for the common weal. It is delightful to see how much all Christians have in common, how much they really agree in doctrine and life, and how well they can work together for the glory of our common Lord. Sometimes we find so many things concerning which we agree that we have neither time nor taste for the smaller matters where we very cordially differ from one another. It was very cheering to mark the general unanimity shown among the Christian workers in Burmah as to the desirability of perfecting and enlarging the Sunday School system, both among Europeans and natives. With such a decided sentiment in its favour, it was easy to plan for and carry out the first general Sunday School Convention ever held in Burmah. This was held on the 8th and 9th of April, and proved an occasion of much cheer to our friends." The end of June found Dr. Phillips at Pooree, Orissa’s former shrine, beside the sea. For seven centuries the temple of Jagannath has stood on this Orissa coast, and countless multitudes from every part of India have come to bow down before the " ninth incarnation of Vishnu." Happily the pilgrimage to Pooree is not now what it was when, as a little boy, James Phillips used to count the crowds that rushed so eagerly past his father’s gate. There are now but few pilgrims, and there is even less enthusiasm. The air used to ring with the shouts, " Jai Jagannath Swami," but now the cry is rarely heard. At Santipore, which Dr. Phillips visited in the following month, he found much to remind him of his early days.

" But seven miles from Patna, across the river, is the mission farm of 200 acres. Here my beloved father did much of his last and best work before returning home to die. The Santal villages are near by ; and here, as at Patna, he began translating the Scriptures into the wild and weird tongue of these junglemen. The church is chiefly Oriya, but some of its good working members are Santals. The Santal service early on Sabbath morning was cheering, as were also the Oriya service followed by the Lord’s Supper, and the fine Sunday School in the afternoon. There are little Sunday Schools in the vicinity, and an open door for the enlargement of this work. The children abound here, and a missionary’s wife might find a delightful duty in teaching them."

" Bhimjjore, July 19th. — Twenty miles north-west of Midnapore is this Santal village, where the first Santal church in the American Mission was organized years ago. The first chapel, of mud walls and thatched roof, was built by the early converts with their own hands, without a rupee from the Mission. It was dedicated to God’s service on July 17th, 1870, and on this twenty-first anniversary I recalled that glad day with great pleasure. There is a training school here for Santal teachers, and a girls’ school also. From fifty to seventy jungle schools are kept up in the surrounding country. Sunday Schools of a very rudimentary character are sustained in these jungle schools, but the station Sunday School is doing finely. It has a weekly teachers’ meeting for studying the International lesson. My Sabbath among those Santal Christians was a delightful one." In August the missionary spent some time at the Union Church manse at Darjeeling, in the hills, to which he had been driven by a severe attack of fever. Nineteen years had elapsed since he paid his former visit to this place, and it is in a spirit of triumphant gratitude that he notes the changes and advances which the passing years had witnessed. But the work for which he was now responsible kept as usual the chief place in his thoughts, and his " Jottings " give abundant proof of this.

" The weekly Bible class on Friday afternoon is spent in studying the International Sunday School lessons, and we have found them wonderfully practical and refreshing. The lessons of this half-year cannot be taught — and I am very glad they cannot — without prayerful and patient study and faithful preparation. A teachers’ class in every Sunday School, European and native, throughout India, would help on our work more than anything just now. Let us hear of scores and hundreds of these classes being begun this year. A very cheering feature of my Darjeeling visit this time has been the presence of children at the public services in the church. One Sabbath morning the service was specially adapted to them, and the dear boys and girls and their friends quite filled the house. Would that we all might learn and never forget the lesson that special efforts for children mean help and blessing for older folks as well, and that all that is done in love and faith for these little ones brings peace and prosperity to the whole Church and congregation ! " As an instance of the practical work quietly accomplished by Dr. Phillips in his tours throughout India, it may here be mentioned that his visit to Kahmpong in October (1891) so stirred up the students in the Normal School that nine local Sunday Schools were started by these lads at places varying from three to seven miles distant. Towards the close of the year a very successful convention of Sunday School workers in the North-West Provinces and Oudh was held at Allahabad, under the direction of the India Sunday School Union. It need hardly be said that the organizing secretary did the lion’s share of the work. In his report for 1891, Dr. Pliillips was able to report that he had traveled over 14,000 miles in the interests of the work ; that three Sunday School Conventions had been held at Madras, Rangoon, and Allahabad ; that four new auxiliary Sunday School Unions had been organized ; that the India Sunday School Journal had been successfully launched ; and that in every way the work was full of promise. There were now 4608 Sunday Schools in India, with 8910 teachers, and 152,002 scholars. The year 1892 saw even more extended activity on the part of the untiring secretary. During the year he journeyed over 15,253 miles, extending his sphere of operations from Rangoon on the east, to Kurrachee on the west, and from the Himalayas in the north, to Ceylon in the south. A glance at the route map for this year shows that he traversed practically all parts of India, with the exceptions of Rajputana and the Punjaub. From the India Sunday School Joiirnal for 1892 the following items are selected: —

" Dr. Parker of Lucknow says that thousands of those who have come out from Hinduism and accepted Christianity during the past year in connection with his mission at Oudh and Roholkahani had been in Sunday Schools for years. These, then, are no sudden conversions, but rather the natural results of early training in the elements of the Christian faith. Here is a lesson for every Sunday School teacher, and for all our missions throughout India! Here is an illustration of how the Sunday School proves to be a missionary agency, and here is argument and illustration combined for improving and extending our Sunday School system everywhere in this popular and promising field."

" Nagpur, January 21st. — Fifty-four hours by train bring us to the chief city of the Central Provinces. Along the road I saw Kols working on the road, and thought what an open door there was for someone to plant Sunday Schools among these children of the jungle. The day is coming when it will no longer be thought strange for an engineer or station-master, civil surgeon or a magistrate, or any other earnest Christian, to call boys and girls together on his verandah or under a tree, for an hour of Bible study, with prayer and praise, on the Sabbath. I wish now that the notion had never existed that such work was an encroachment on the prerogative of the ’ padri sahib ’ (missionary). Let us oust this idea from India. Let ministers and missionaries seek out helpers everywhere, and welcome them as fellow-workers."

" Gunter, April 4th. — Sixteen hours in a very comfortable bundy, drawn part of the way by coolies and part of the way by bullocks, brought me from Ongole to the railway station of Santamagulla, and from there the slowest train I have seen in India brought me here. The cow-catcher should be kept at the back end of this train, lest the cows run over the guard ! "

" Madras, April 8th. — On Wednesday I was invited to the anniversary of the Anglo-Tamil Sunday School at the Wesleyan Mission at St. Thomas’ Mount. The annual report, read by the superintendent, was very encouraging. Of the 183 boys on the roll, there were Eurasians, 4 ; Protestant native Christians, 10 ; Roman Catholics, 2 ; Mohammedans, 13 ; Brahmins, 7 ; Kshatrias, 12 ; Sudras, 129 ; and no caste, 6. I commend this analysis to our Sunday School workers, as everywhere it proves what a leveler the Sunday School is, and how children of all classes may meet on common ground for the study of the Bible."

While at Ongole, Dr. Phillips met with an extraordinary instance of the power of a child’s influence. A missionary, Mr. Kierman of Vinukonda, had visited a village called Meelagungarum, where the natives refused to receive him. Six months later a deputation of natives came to him, and asked him to revisit the village. On his arrival he found seventy-five persons who said that they were Christians, and wished to be baptized. Among the number he noticed a small boy. Thinking him too young to appreciate the importance of the step he was taking, the missionary asked him to wait and learn more about Christ before he received baptism; but the adult natives insisted that he should be baptized, and astonished the missionary by telling him that it was this little boy who had taught them about Christ. It appeared that he had formerly lived in another village, where he had received Christian instruction, and had committed to memory a few hymns. He had come to Meelagungarum, and had told the people what he had learnt, and repeated to them the few hymns that he knew. The result was that seventy-five of their number were baptized, among whom was the little boy who had led them to Christ. In July Dr. Phillips undertook a three weeks’ Sunday School campaign in Ceylon, which he did not reach without serious discomfort.

" I freely confess that I have no love for sea trips during our South-West monsoon. The one of sixteen mortal hours in that British India cattle and coolie tub plying between Tuticorin and Colombo was enough for me. Such pitching and rolling and tumbling I never experienced at sea in a distance of but 150 miles. The bleating of goats and sheep, the pitiful lowing of cows and bullocks, and above all the howling of Hindus and Mohammedans, who, in fear and frenzy, were invoking the mercy of all their gods, with the accompaniment of wind and wave, while the waves drenched our decks, and kept us lively all night till we gained the lee of this beautiful breakwater, — all this and more, that makes me giddy to recall, has made me cry out, ’ Oh for a railway across Adam’s bridge! Soon may it link Ceylon and India ! ’

" This place revived many pleasant memories, for it was into this port that our good ship Elcano came in May 1865 after a five months’ dreadful and disastrous voyage from America, having lost her captain in a terrible gale. How beautiful this emerald isle looked to us no words can tell ! Of that ship’s company of ten missionaries, five have reached the desired haven above. But others are toiling still for India’s millions. As I stood in the high pulpit of the old church in the Fort, the same in which I preached twenty-seven years ago, I could not but recount the many and manifold mercies of God ; and all day long on that Sabbath my heart was singing the 107th Psalm, ’ Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness.’ "

"Bombay, October 20th. — How sorrow finds us everywhere in this world of sin! On the train from the North-West here, I was reminded of this over and over again. One day I had with me in the next compartment poor Private Allen, under sentence of death for shooting Lieutenant Green. Another day a fellow-passenger was an afflicted father from Lucknow, whose boy had been stung to death by wasps, while in the hills at school. As there is sorrow everywhere, there is also sympathy and succor. Like our Lord, we should be going about doing good. But the sufferings and sorrows of the little ones impress me most in my tours about India. Only the glorious Gospel of Christ can heal these, and to us, the Sunday School army. He grants the high privilege of preaching the Gospel in the willing ear of childhood."

During the year 1892 three Sunday School Conventions were held at Colombo, Rangoon, and Lucknow. The India Sunday School Journal became self-supporting, the number of auxiliary unions was increased to nine, and the entire standard of the work had been raised throughout the country. Much had been done towards bringing out Sunday School literature in English and in the vernaculars, and a gratifying growth was observable in all departments of the work. It had been a year of happy work, a full and fruitful year, and the organization of the Sunday School system had been pushed on vigorously. The total number of Sunday Schools had grown to 5548, and there were now 10,715 teachers with 197,754 scholars. In 1893, Dr. Phillips was absent from India from March to November, during which he visited the Holy Land, Europe, and America. But notwithstanding his absence during the greater part of the year, he contrived in the remaining months to travel over no less than 4880 miles of Indian territory. The first few weeks of the year were busily occupied with his usual work, and with preparations for an extended absence, and on Saturday, February 25th, he set sail from Bombay in the P. & O. SS Victoria, his sudden and frequent attacks of dizziness showing only too plainly that he had started none too soon. One of his fellow passengers was Bishop Barry, ex- Primate of Australia, and another was Dr. F. E. Clark, the founder of the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor. After two days at sea. Dr. Phillips was able to note in his diary — " My head is better, and I have been playing with the dear children on the deck." His interest in the children continually manifested itself during this voyage. Almost every day his diary contains some reference to them, and on March 4 th he writes — " I had some sports for the children in the afternoon. I got 25s. by a collection, and had fourteen events in the programme for the little ones." On the 6th they reached Cairo, where Dr. Phillips stayed until the 13th, the week being spent in visiting the pyramids, museums, and other objects of interest in Egypt. Next he went to Alexandria, where he met many European and American visitors, and was especially struck by one unfortunate fact.

" I am astonished on seeing English, Scotch, and American Christians taking, not wine only, but even whiskey at hotel tables openly. Even ladies are sipping their whiskey with a relish. It is the absurd notion that as the water of the Nile is not fit to drink, hence all water in Egypt must be bad. It is, of course, to the advantage of the hotel proprietors to propound this flimsy theory. There are no healthier or finer men in Egypt than the American missionaries, all of whom are strict total abstainers. How wrong and how wicked for temperance travelers from home to tamper thus with strong drink in these Eastern lands ! " On March 16th, Dr. Phillips proceeded by steamer to Jaffa, and at 5.30 the next evening he arrived at Jerusalem.

" Thrice before in vain have I tried to see the Holy Land. Words cannot tell how thankful I am for this opportunity. It seems as though, amid these historic and sacred surroundings, I have been gathering illustration and inspiration for the work of a lifetime. ... As if going to Jerusalem were not strange enough, we have had a snowstorm, seven inches of snow falling in a few hours, so that the visitors were at Norwich, Brighton, Cardiff, Derby, Birmingham, Nottingham, Bristol, Bedford, and other important provincial towns. In reviewing his work during this short stay in England, he wrote — "I have spoken for our dear India in the hope of securing true volunteers for all missions. I verily expect to meet some of the children and young folk I have been addressing in England and Wales in India and Ceylon by and by. This bright hope has cheered me much during the six weeks of work I am closing to-day."

He crossed the Atlantic in the SS Etruria, and arrived at New York, after an uneventful passage, on Sunday, June 18th. There he was met by his brother John, and five days later he was once again reunited with his family at Oberlin, Ohio. It is very characteristic of the man that the following day’s entry in his diary ends thus — " Began talking and planning."

Some quiet weeks were spent in a farmhouse, and then followed another spell of preaching and lecturing in various parts of the States. Dr. Phillips, notwithstanding his unobtrusive modesty and self-depreciation, had by this time, unknown to himself, secured a high and honorable status amongst American scholars, as well as in circles of Christian service. On August 26th he notes in his diary —

" In the evening I received the startling news that my name had been brought before the Fellows and Overseers of Bates College at their meeting this week for electing a president, and so the election of Professor George Chase had been defeated. I am sorry, and wonder what the men were thinking of, for everyone who knows me should know that I would not give up my dear India for all the colleges in America."

During his stay in the United States, Dr. Phillips was present at the second World’s Sunday School Convention, held at St. Louis, and it goes without saying that he eagerly availed himself of every opportunity for pleading the cause of his Indian work. After visiting Chicago, he went on to Cleveland, where he met with an adventure.

" In all my 35,000 miles of touring throughout all India, Burmah, and Ceylon during the twenty-seven months of my last term, I never once fell among robbers. Not in India, but in Indiana, the night before last, however, the record was broken, and for the first time in my life I was detained by robbers. Our Atlantic express from Chicago to Cleveland was held up for an hour about midnight between two small stations, and the Adam’s express car was blown up with dynamite, and robbed of thousands of dollars. This lawless gang of twenty or more masked men did not disturb the five sleeping cars full of passengers, but made off with their booty. I hope they will be caught and punished." On September 23rd, he left America for the last time, accompanied by Mrs. Phillips, and embarked on the SS Etruria for Queenstown, which was reached on the 29th. A month was now spent in visiting various parts of Scotland and England, holding meetings, and seeking to interest the public in his work; and on October 31st, Dr. and Mrs. Phillips journeyed to France, joining the P. & O. SS Carthage for India at Marseilles. On November 20th (1893) the earnest Sunday School worker once more set foot on Indian soil.

" November 20th (Bombay). — Thank God I am safely back in my own dear India! Now for grace for years of strong, patient, loving service for the dear little ones."