MISSION FIELD.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 42, 29 November 1940, Page 4

MISSION FIELD.

IN NORTH-EAST INDIA

BAPTIST MINISTER’S LECTURE. The, work of the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society in North-East India, particularly the opening up of a field in, the Tripura State, Was dtealt with by the Rev. M. J. Eiade. who has been ip charge of the new field for the last three years, in a lantern lecture in the Ashburton Baptist Hall last evening. Tripuya is a small State in the .northeast of India and is 150 miles long and 100 miles wide. It is jungly with low hills. It is inhabited by 500,000 people of an aboriginal type and thbir religion is called Animism, the worship of fear and of demons or evil spirits. The State is unique among the 600 States in India, in, that it does not pay tribute to the British Government.

Efforts have been made to bring the Christian religion to Tripura for 140 years, but it was only in 1938 that permission was granted to enter this new field. The work is progressing Well, officials of the State co-operating with the missionaries.

Speaking of the work generally in, India, Mr Bade said that every month 12,000 peoplte joined the Christian religion and these were mostly of a primitive type.