Eleanor's mother copied this for you & me - A. H. TurnerMarch 25th, 1937.
Dearest Mother,
Again I am superintending a first class examination, this time in Tamil and Telugu composition. In another room they are writing Malayalam, Kanarese, Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit, French and Latin. There is just one Latin student, who will be the last to be taught by Miss McDougall. She is the best student Miss McD. has ever had here and a joy to teach. She is the daughter of a leading Indian Christian, a judge, now in the Viceroy's council in Delhi. She plans to do only her intermediate course here (1st 2 yrs.[)] and then will go to England to finish her degree. I'll have her next year.
Another girl here, a Hindu, came for 2 years and failed both times. Then she was married and her husband and she came together and asked if she might come back again in the first class. Since she is non-resident and not taking lab courses there was no objection and here she is, doing much better this yr. probably with the full cooperation of her husband. Also she has been giving privately through Miss McDougall, a scholarship to help a poor student. The loyalty of our non-Christian students is very touching. One's thoughts turn to them a lot at the end of college. I was leading chapel last night for the last of our evening services; and this morning at our last official morning chapel I watched some of them joining fully in our Christian hymns of thanksgiving. Almost all of them sing the hymns; and one feels them just as worshipful as many of the Christians.
It was one of the most inspiring week-ends I have ever spent, this last one. I left at 7-45 Friday morning, travelling intermediate class and reached Bozwada at 4-50, a little ahead of time. They had told me to get off there to start the next stage of the journey by car. But Bishop Azariah (an Indian) was there and packed me back onto the train again because they had had so much trouble crossing sandy river-beds that they had finally sent the car back.
We went on by train to Khammameth in the Nizam of Hyderabad's dominions. (The Bishop was travelling first-class. That R.R. gives him a first-class pass because his church ministers to the R.R. men all along the lines, Anglo-Indian and Indian) George Azariah, the eldest son, is the missionary in Kh. & we all stayed there in his home for the night, setting off about 8 next A.M. by the car. The Bishop and Mrs. Azariah, George, Meroy (the eldest daughter who was a student here & from 1930-32 our Treasurer and Librarian) & I. You probably know that Deccan country. The harvests have been reaped in Jan. and Feb. & now everything is brown & dry & dusty; rocky country. But the trees were in flower everywhere; the neem trees along the roadsides a shower of delicate white flowerets in the midst of the soft new green leaves, rain-trees with feathery browsy blossoms; and even the banyan and peepul trees here and there were flowering. We drove a long way around to cross the bridge at Suriapet, where there is a fairly large Baptist Mission compound which looked completely deserted. (I looked it up in the "Review" last night and see the station is marked "Vacant". I think it is being transferred to the Mennonites).
Our destination, after about 60 mi. was a travellers' bungalow out in the wilderness, but a very lovely wilderness it was. There we stayed from Sat. A.M. till Mon. P.M., touring by car to three villages in different directions. They had brot [sic] a good deal of food and a fair start of drinking water, but both had to be renewed. The only water available was from a pond where animals and people bathe and where clothes too are washed. Except for its wetness one wd. almost have done without, for it was coffee-colored and left our towels quite brown. For drinking it was boiled, and filtered thro [sic] a cloth.
The Bishop was on his annual tour of confirmation services. From Fe. to Apr. between hervesting [sic] and plowing, the villagers are more free and can come together for more concentrated Christian teaching. In each of the 3 villages where we went, the teachers had gathered the candidates from neighboring small villages, so that in each place there were between 50 & 60 people. They were all outcastes, working on the lands of wealthy zemindars the local hereditary magnates who are only responsible for paying a certain annual tax to Gov't. and who are for the most part unscrupulous tyrants, using unfair means to deprive the poor of their lands, taxing them mercilessly and paying them pitiful wages. The great majority in each of the three groups were adults who had been baptized within the last year or two, the real product of the movement of whole groups toward Christianity. A few in each place were children of Christian parents ready for confirmation. There were old, old men & women, stalwart middle aged ones, and keen young ones. In each place, pandals had been prepared of rough matting, to shade fromt he sun and to make a place of quiet retreat in the crowded and dirty village. None of the villages had churches yet, but each keeps a special room for worship which is not used for any other purposes. The "houses" are all mud-walled, with thatched roofs. The heroism of those village teachers and pastors and their wives, who settle down in the midst of the people, their whole family living in a one-roomed hut far from any companionship of educated people or any medical help, is a beautiful thing. ( [sic] All the workers, you understand, were Telugu Christians.
But the people themselves are an inspiration, these poor, ragged hunble folk, loving Christ and genuinely striving to lead Christian lives in the midst of conditions which would seem to put everything in the way. In each center after all were seated in orderly fashion on ragged mats on the ground, men on one side and women and their babies on the other, the Bishop, sitting with them like a father, spent an hour first talking with them (How I did wish I could understand Telugu. Nancy interpreted for me from time to time.) questioned them about the events of the first Easter week (for this is the Easter season in which I'm writing), about the meaning of their baptism and about Pentacost and the power of the Holy Spirit. They were so keen, eyes shining, minds, (obviously of various qualities) alert, and free from all fear of the Bishop. It made it easy to picture Christ, the Good Shepherd, sitting among the humble folk of Galilee, loving them, yearning for them, understanding their need and temptation, and yet knowing beyong all shadow of doubt what the power of God through the Holy Spirit could do in them and through them.
The non-Christian folk of the village were packed around the shelter peering through cracks, almost knocking down the fragile mat gates. As long as they were quiet no one paid any attention, and some faces were obviously fascinated and impressed. When the babies of the women candidates began to make disturbances one of the teachers would carry the child out. If the mother seemed disturbed, the Bishop would say with a kindly twinkle in his eye, "But I may have only this one hour of my life with you. The baby won't die." And so it was possible to maintain an atmosphere of reverent but informal quiet within the little shelter.
After a period of this kind of questioning and talk, the Bishop then began to ask them about their own lives, about what changes there had been during the year or two years since their baptism, whether others had noticed any change, whether they had talked about Christ to any one else. Their answers were often, we have stopped drinking, stopped stealing, we are keeping more clean, we don't quarrel so much. One old woman said what many timid Christians through the ages must have said: "But will any one listen to me if I try to talk to them?" The tories of what these simple people are doing would fill a book. In one village the zemindar demanded that they testify falsely in court against someone he wanted to injure. They refused as Christians, even tho [sic] it meant being dismissed and turned out. The man was so impressed that later he gave them land and helped them build a church.
In another a man who had become a Christian went to the landlord and said that he simply could not live on the $1.30 a mo. wh. was paid to him, asking to be released and allowed to shift for himself. The landlord exclaimed: "But you have been living all these yrs. on $1.30, why all of a sudden should you say you can not do it?" So the man told him what he knew to be true of the whole crowd, that he had been stealing rice, coffee and other food from the produce wh. made it possible for his family to live at all, but that now they were Christians they could not do this. The landlord wd. not let him go, but watched him and after a month called him and said he saw that he was honest and couldn't live on the $1.30 and gave him $2.00. After 6 mos. the man came again, saying he didn't want to ask for more money but he couldn't honestly live on $.2.00 [sic], please let him go. Then the landlord who had been genuinely impressed with his honesty, made him a foreman with proper wages.
In many places the caste people have been so impressed by the change in the lives of these poor outcastes that they have themselves come and asked for Christian teachers, and have been willing to accept outcaste teachers at that.
After about an hr. of this kind of informal talk and teaching (for the Bishop threw in a lot of simple teaching. He says it has been almost the main task of his life to think his Christian teaching into the simplest possible language of these people. Most of them can not read,) the Bishop with pastor and teachers retired for a few moments of prayer, and then returned in his official bishop's dress for the confirmation service. That was to me very impressive. They came forward in small groups and knelt very reverently and he laid his hand on the bowed head of each one, saying in Telugu: "Defend, O Lord, this thy child with thy heavenly grace, that he may continue thine forever; and daily increase in the Holy Spirit more and more, until he come into thine everlasting Kingdom. Amen." I have never so sensed the Church of Christ (the whole church) as the living body of Christ on earth, commissioned by him to carry on and witness, nor the power of the Holy Spirit as a sacred heritage from Pentecost. Too, the character of the Good Shepherd was vividly illuminated. The Bishop was so truly the shepherd of his flock, caring tremendously, working increasingly, and carrying in his heart and in his prayer, (for we had family prayers every evening) the yearning for them.
It made me feel very humble and ashamed of my own luke-warm Christian life, to see the Spirit of God working there in those simple, poor people. We were in but three villages during the wk end, but in his whole tour the Bishop was to have about 15 such services, with from 50 to 80 candidates at each, & the assistant Bishop, and Englishman, is having similar services in other parts of the Dornakal diocese. The Spirit of God is certainly moving in that part of India. The Bishop, by the way, is to be in U.S. in Oct., to attend the triennial meeting of the Episcopal church in Cin. [sic] He will also be in Roch. N.Y. visiting a Mr. and Mrs. Sibley. Mr. S. a business man and Mrs. S. travelled with the Layman's Commission in India a few yrs. ago. They are Episcopalians. If Olive and Archie could get in touch with them and find out whether there is any chance of meeting & hearing him speak or taking him to Niagara, it wd. be awfully nice. He has never been in Amer., tho [sic] several times in Eng. Mother, I wish you could meet him. My admiration and affection for him are unbounded.
As we were walking along a country road at sunset Sunday P.M.. passing a line of ox-carts, one of the drivers walking stared at me with the most curious expression of amazement. I was wearing socks so he looked at my legs, my arms my face and finally pointed to me said: "What is it?" "It's red." He had never seen a white person before. It was so funny we had to laugh. Later he decided I was white.
Living in the Azariah family in camp like that was so much nicer than in their home because there were no interruptions as there constantly are for busy people at home. There was much time for talk, at meals, in the evenings, & such interesting talk: about the village people, about India and the new Congress, about the work of the church, about the developement [sic] of ideas from the very early church onward. I shall be teaching the Epistles next yr. to the senior class, & the Bishop in his enthusiasm for the developement [sic] and problems & growth of the early church made me a grand otuline of the Acts & Paul's Epistles developing that theme. I got so interested that I am going ahead to read this summer. It was a treat and a privilege to catch his zeal.
What a letter. O, I forgot, travelling back on Tues. I had as companion a Salvation Army worker from Telugu country, a Scotch woman who had been in Ind. for 26 yrs. She too had tales of awakening and courageous living of the village people.
Now there will be a succession of student good-byes, and by night only the University exam candidates will be left.
Very much love,
Eleanor.