RAMABAI MISSION.

Evening Star, Issue 14001, 6 March 1909, Page 11

RAMABAI MISSION.

Many faces arc constantly floating to the surface on Hie stream of our philanthropic history, and then sinking out of sight again. And generally they look very dead. Nothing more pathetic and helpless and hopeless was ever swept into that stream than the child widows of our Indian Empire, and yet because a lew good people made this flotsam tho objective of a great faitli and abiding courage, and because to their end was found an Indian woman with a courage greater and more, steadfast and enduring than their own, that which was adrift has come home. Mukti is tho name of the little place where tlamabai threw open her home; and there for many years the child widows, babes in all but sorrow and misery, have found a plenty and peace that have driven the haggard fanaticism from their faces and brought softness to the black flaring eyes. Testimony to the value and extent of the work, not in tho home alone, where 1,600 souls are tended, but also in the pilgrimages of the Bible-carriers, who spread their teaching everywhere, has been often offered by the missionaries apd friends who have, visited Mukti. Mr and Mrs Mackenzie enthused a lar;vo audience in the Choral Hall last night with their story of tho things they had seen during a recent visit. Airs Mackenzie’s zeal for this cause needs no recapitulation hero. “ I had n p idea,” she told them, “of the magnitude of the work. I thought I could see it in a day, instead of which it took me a week to go through the different places. The buildings occupied lonrteon acres.” Then Airs Alackenzie told of tho condition of the poor girls when brought in during famine time, and of their healthy physical condition after rest in the home. “ They are all inclined to ho stout,” she volunteered, “ and they are always laughing. And they are all bright Christians except about thirty girls.” Airs Alackenzie concluded by describing the life of the gins at Alukti. The older ones carry on the work of the home under the direction of Bamabai herself. •jA l ' Mackenzie supplemented his wife s description by a sketch of Ramabai herself, modest, iron-willed, yet lull of love and worship—a queen in her small colony. He testified, too, to the earnestness of the girls’ worship—-v-asteru in its abandon. At the close of Hie addresses lantern views of various parts of the Bamabai mission station wore given, some showing the child widows when they were first received into the institution, and others illustrative, of the. great physical improvement brought about liy mission treatment and education. The industrial work in progress at Mukti furnished good subjects for several pictures. A collection was made at the clqso of the meeting in aid of the mission.