|Hard Hearts in a Fertile Land.| The country which they had selected was beautiful and fertile, but the hearts of the inhabitants were hard soil. A proverb expressed their carelessness and indifference: “What can man do? Idleness is good, sleep is better, death is best of all.” In the mission field six different languages were spoken, and thus long study and much literary work were required before permanent results could be hoped for.
Establishing their first station at Telicheri the missionaries worked out into the surrounding country. As soon as possible they began to preach, to establish schools and to translate the Bible into the native tongues.
|An Experiment.| Not the least of their difficulties was the lack of tried missionary principles. One worker was convinced that the only way to impress the heathen was to live their life with them. Persuading other new missionaries to his way of thinking, he left the mission buildings and established himself with thirty Hindu boys in a little hut. The floor served for chairs and table and the missionary ate with his pupils three times a day their meal of rice. An illness brought him to his senses and he returned to a sane way of living.
With such devotion and diligence did the Basel missionaries labor that when one of the earliest workers was married eight years after the establishment of the mission one hundred and twenty Christians came to the wedding. Spreading northward into the Bombay Presidency the mission had established by 1913 twenty-six stations with sixty missionaries and not less than twenty thousand Christians.
|A Christian Settlement.| One of the chief stations is at Mangalore. Outside the town is Balmatta Hill round the base of which lies a Christian village. Here live the missionaries and their wives, here are schools, here a theological seminary for the training of native workers. Near by is an almshouse; in this building weavers ply their trade; yonder there is a printing establishment; here are stores, a bakery, a carpenter shop. Crowning all, there stands on the hill top the Church of Peace.
|Shall Missionaries Provide Work for Converts?| The famous industrial work of the Basel Society is actively promoted. Here idle hands are trained to work, here those who have been makers of wine are given an occupation better suited to a Christian profession, here the very poor are able to earn their livings. There is a difference of opinion about the value of industrial work in connection with missions, some students believing that the spiritual work is hampered and confused by this connection with commercial life and that undesirable and unfaithful converts are attracted by the prospect of having work to do. This danger, however, the Basel Mission seems to have avoided. An unprejudiced observer writes: “Even those who for these reasons believe that only necessity will justify the starting of mission industries, have to admit that this Basel work has made a real contribution to economic progress and to the dignifying of labor as worthy of a Christian.” It is interesting to note that in the Basel weaving shop at Mangalore was first made khaki cloth, which now covers so many million soldiers.
The most famous of the Basel missionaries in India was Doctor Gundert, who labored for more than twenty years, then returning to the Fatherland assumed the work left by Doctor Barth, another Lutheran director of the Basel Society. His remaining years were filled with labor for the cause which he loved, writing, speaking and editing missionary journals. His wife, Julia, was the first woman missionary sent out by the Basel Society.
|A Stirring Charge.| The Gossner Mission was founded in 1844 when Pastor Gossner sent four missionaries to India with the instructions, “Believe, hope, love, pray, burn, waken the dead! Hold fast by prayer! Wrestle like Jacob! Up, up my brethren! The Lord is coming and to everyone he will say, ‘Where hast thou left the souls of these heathen?’”
Arriving at Calcutta the first group of missionaries endeavored to establish a colony but were not successful. They saw among the coolies on the city streets, many men of a distinct type and discovered that they were Kols. Among these people, once of a better standing, but now degraded and oppressed, the Gossner missionaries determined to set to work.
|Discourage-ment.| Selecting the capital of the local government, Ranchi, for their headquarters they named the spot where they settled Bethesda. For five years they worked without gaining a single convert. Utterly discouraged they asked for permission to seek another field. To this request Pastor Gossner answered as follows: “Whether the Kols will be converted or not is the same to you. If they will not accept the Word they must hear it to their condemnation. Your duty is to pray and preach to them. We at home will also pray more earnestly.”