ZENANA WORK IN INDIA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1351, 25 September 1886, Page 2

ZENANA WORK IN INDIA.

An event tookplnce lately in our good town of whicI'-, 1 '-, owing to pressure on our apace, we were not able to lake the notice it deserved It was the visit of tsro Indian Missionaries, and it »ays something for their powers of endurance, (when we boar In mind ihat they have been thirty years at work in that tropical climate,; that, they left Calcutta in April, had to return to their post in December, and lecture through Australia and New Zealand in the meantime, daring one of our severest winters The Rev Mr Kerry is the general Secretary of the English Baptist Mission iu India, and, seeing that Miss Arnold, one of hia staff, proceeded him about eighteen months ago, it would appear that our Baptist friends in the clonies are resolved to get en rapport with the work of their missionary efforts in that vast sis er colony. Mrs Kerry, in her remarks, confined herself to the spread of education among the female?. It being thought unlucky for women to be able to read, and their domestic duties being few, time hangs heavy on their hands. White time honored customs have been broken through by the education of girls, the mothers, aunts, and grand-mothars, rt ached by Zenana woik. This kind of labor is uudertaken la the hottest part of the daj ; two ladies drive to a certain point in the city, and then proceed to walk from hoo?e to house, They interest the women, who live in a part cf the house by themselves the Zsaana —(hence the name of the work), by showing them specimens of English female handiwork and, having succeeded in this, they try to teach them to read. The daughter of Alpfiouae Lacrt iz, Mrs Mullens, commenced her labors in 1850. The work is now carried on systematically by trained agents, native females, ( f different grades. Reference was made to the Free Church of Scotland instution as turning out native girls who had succeeded in passing examinations at the University. Some of these carried on the study of medicine, and qualified for female doctors. There are now hundreds of native Christian women employed in doing a most useful necessary work, as tea’hers, doctors or Bible women, and they are as a class self denying in their labors.

We most notice separately Mr Kerry’s branch of the subject; meantime, we think it must be evident that the. elevation of India cannot be accomplished without an educated female agency to reach the millions of native ladies, whose iivoi, through the customs peculiar to the country, are, to a large extent, a burden to them. Their cause was pled, among others, by the late F. R. Haver-ml :

“Oh I for a clarion voice to reach and stir their nest With the story of sisters' woes, gathering day by day, Over the Indian homes—sepulchres rather than rest — Till they rouse in the strength of the Lord, and roll the stone away. Sisters I and yet they lie, not by the side of the road, But hidden in loathsome caves, in crushed and quivering throngs; Down-trodden, degraded, and dark, beneath the invisible load Of centuries, echoing groans, black with inherited wrongs."

Sutter, the immolation of women with thoir deceased husbands, has indeed been abol shed. This is one of the blessings of English rule in India. Still tse system of child marriage and polygamy presses hard on the female ja t of the populasion, and the poor widow undergoes a social martyrdom, which is to some <o terrible that they seek to escape from it by suicide. The helpless, hopeless, despairing condition of our Hindoo sisters has aroused to action Christian women in England and America, Germany and Swi'zarland. In addition to the European and natire workers may also be mentioned such honorary missionaries as Mias Tucker (A..L.0.E.), Miss Ansley, Mias Reade and Mies Lowe, It would seem that the great heirt of Ghris'endom is to«oh«d and stirred on behalf of its heathen sisters ; and that it is none too soon is apparent from the consideration, that the first step in the elevation of a people is the improvement of the home and the home can never be improved while the wife- and mother is litttle better than a dredge and slave. In any eSnt to raise Ida among the scale of nations, attention must be given to the improvement of the condition of women Hindoo women were not always down-trodden. Pre vious tithe Mahometan invasion Isarnii g was much valued among tiem, and a poem, the production of a poitesa of t a day, is still sung In the country. Wi h the irrnption of the Mahometans, tho seclusion and degradation of women became gradually ihe custom of the conquered race. The British are now in turn the conquerors, and it will be the proud distinction of their supremacy, th-t ■ i!f denying women, themselves e'evated by Christianity, should help to raise the daughters of ludia, the brightest jewel in the crown of Its impress.