Mohammedan children in need.
Seventeen years pass, and the scene changes. Then it was Christian children, helpless and starving because the Mohammedans had killed their parents. Now it is Mohammedan children homeless and suffering because Christian nations have devastated their land by war. Then and now it is the Christian missionary who sees the need and realizes that “it is not the will of our Father that one of these little ones should perish.” “Some of these children are simply irresistible,” writes Professor Arthur Reed Cass of the International College, Smyrna, “The stories they tell are sad indeed. Hundreds of Moslem babies are being born on transport ships and in schools where lessons have been suspended to make room for homeless folk. Here is a chance for American Christianity to prove its recognition of need regardless of lines of race and creed.”[43]
The “Polishing Jade Establishment.”
Reports full of thrilling interest come to hand concerning the work of Christian orphanages in non-Christian lands,—institutions founded and maintained by those who consider it their privilege to act as the human agents of Him who is the “Father of the fatherless.” We are told that St. Mary’s Orphanage maintained in Shanghai, China, by the Episcopal Board of Missions has been dubbed by the Chinese, “The Polishing Jade Establishment,” which is a reference to their own classic teaching that as jade must be cut and polished to be of value, so children must be taught and trained.
Orphanages in India.
The plan of establishment of orphanages in India under the Methodist Episcopal Mission dates back to 1857, and is a fine example of how Christian missionaries are on the lookout for suitable openings for work, and how to them is apt to be granted the far vision that labors for the present and future generations and for eternity.
The orphanage for girls was first established in the city of Lucknow, but up to the close of 1860 only thirteen orphans had been received. Owing to the famine that spread over the land after the great mutiny, it became an easy matter to secure girls, and the following year the number increased to forty-one.... At the close of the mutiny, Dr. Butler made application to the government for a number of girls to be placed in the orphanage, to be cared for by the mission. The government was very willing that the children should be thus provided for.... Dr. Butler says:
“Upon reaching the city we found that the Mohammedan officers connected with the magistrate’s court, at whose disposal the girls had been placed, had distributed many of them in houses of infamy throughout the city to be brought up to a life of sin. This matter was presented to the governor, and the children were ordered to be immediately recovered and forwarded to the mission. They were sent in large carts, each containing twenty girls. The oldest was probably twelve or thirteen years, the youngest a mere babe; but three-fourths of them were under eleven years of age. Each driver had his list for his load. He lifted out the largest one first and laid her down, then the rest, placing them around her as if building them into a bee-hive shape. Then the heaps were counted and the signature affixed to each list, and the carts moved out.
“The children were all untidy, and their countenances bore the traces of the hunger through which they had passed.... But these were girls, and the glad thought was that they were our own to save and train and elevate. We accepted them as a trust from God. All hands were soon at work in loving labor to change the aspect of things. The missionary women and their native helpers before the sun went down had accomplished a delightful transformation. Bodies were washed, clean clothing put on, and a hearty meal of wholesome food banished the gloomy looks and brought forth the first smiles on those little faces.”[44]
Basket of Babies from the Orphanage, Guntur, India
Famine waifs.