“‘I said they might, if you consented.’
“‘Oh,” said the manager, ‘I think it will not hurt them. Let them try it; but we must keep a watch on them that they do not get sick.’
“‘Yes,’ replied the teacher, ‘but they were not satisfied with that. They worked out how much it would make, and this morning they came back to request that they be allowed to go without supper twice a week!’
“The manager, catching their enthusiasm, said, ‘Let them try it.’
“Growing boys have hearty appetites, and it was not easy for those lads to go to sleep supperless every Tuesday and Thursday evening during those weeks, but there was never a murmur.
“Palm Sunday came. No one ever saw brighter-eyed boys than those who walked to church that morning from our school. When the offerings were received, they put a solid lump of silver coins on the plate. It contained twenty-five rupees--eight dollars and thirty-three cents.
“The girls in their school had been securing an offering in a similar way, and they brought only thirty cents less.
“That day there was laid on the plate a total offering of ninety dollars!
“This is the Telugu Lutheran definition of self-denial.”
If the devotion of the Church at home even distantly approached such devotion as this how quickly might the work be accomplished!