|A Touching Story.| The first medical missionary, Doctor Lydia Woerner, describes in an incident of her day’s work the misery of India and its great hope.
“Early one bright sunshiny morning, during the monsoon season, I came through a side street in our town, passing a long, high, gray wall. Above the wall I saw palm, banana, mangoe and tamarind trees, which almost hid the roofs of several houses.
“As I looked I noticed a little green door in the wall. When I asked my helpers about the place, they all knew it by the little green door, which they told me was always locked on the inside. It had several small holes through which the secluded women peeped without being seen. Our Bible woman had tried many times to gain entrance, but was told by voices from behind the little green door that her presence would pollute the place. One of the helpers suggested that we pray to God to open that little green door for us.
“A few nights later, during a terrific storm and a pouring rain, two native officials came with an urgent call to take me to the house of another official. I did not know him nor where he lived, but they told me his wife had been suffering intensely for several days, so my helper and I picked up the emergency bag and started off with them. On the way we were told that every native midwife available had tried to relieve the patient, but had failed. Large offerings had been made to the gods in their favorite temple. Even the river goddess had been implored to give help, by sacrifices thrown into her waters. As a last resort, they had come to seek help from the missionary doctor.
“We were drenched and stiff, as we crawled out of the oxcart. It was very dark. The streets were flooded, but a flash of lightning revealed to us that we were in front of the little green door--and it was open. Outside, under umbrellas and blankets, were groups of men--friends of the husband--who had come to sympathize with him because his wife was giving him so much trouble. The sympathy was all for the husband. Probably, after all the trouble his wife was making, she would give him only a girl child! Inside was bedlam! A crowd of women were shrieking and crying. Little fires had been placed in pots all over the veranda. Smoking censers were swinging at windows and doorways, to prevent the evil spirits from entering the house.
“The husband came to meet me with a lantern. He was much distressed, and besought me in beautiful English to grant him help in his great calamity. This was his third wife. The gods were against him. He had no child--only three daughters! Not one word of anxiety or sympathy did he have for his suffering wife.
“I saw her lying on an old cot, with a coarse bamboo mat and gunny bag for bedding. She was a beautiful young Brahman girl. The cot was on the outside veranda, exposed to wind and rain. The patient had already been partially prepared for death. She was covered with burns and bruises, and was very weak, but she looked at me with her beautiful eyes, and implored me not to treat her as cruelly as the others had done. It was a weird scene, with the flickering little lamps, the beautiful ill-treated patient, and the curious faces of the women peering at us out of the darkness.
“Under great protest the relatives finally allowed the patient to be moved into a small veranda room. By and by things calmed down, and the people left for their homes. All was quiet, and the patient’s confidence and strength revived. At dawn we left a smiling young mother holding her newborn son in her arms, and a father proud and happy, because now he had a child, an heir to his large estate.
“The little green door opened to let us out. A little child had opened it, and never since that night has it been closed to us or to the Gospel message.”
The General Council conducts a mission in the City of Rangoon in Burma. The native catechist, who has been in charge of the work for three years, writes that he has won thirty souls for his Lord. He says further: