MISSION WORK IN INDIA.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 10, 7 October 1907, Page 3

MISSION WORK IN INDIA.

■ INTERVIEW -WITH REV; 4. PARKER. / Tile Rev. 'A. Parker, delogato of tho''London Missionary Society, who has been working the Inst ten years in Travanc&'rOj, in Southern India, and- for ten years before that in Benares, 1 in Northern India, arrived in Wellington on' Friday night. Interviewed by ono of our staff; ho gave an encouraging account of the progress of Christianity in India, especially among the low caste people. It is' harder for the high casto. nativo to become a Christian, sineo conversion means to him tho loss of property— coupled with great social degradation. . Mission work is '.'earned "on by: street preaching and the 'distribution of the Scriptures, which aro taught also in' the high schools. Tho women of higher ; casto in Travancore stand'in a more fortunate position than most of their Hindu sisters, /since there is in this State a system of property succession which goes * by the female sido, and has given to women a good deal more freedom and importance than - , they onjoy elsewhere in India. Tho education of women lias also been carefully fostered by tho Government of Travancore. l Tho poorer caste women, however, still work like men in the fields, earning about threepencea day, which is sufficient for their wants. T,hc London Mission of Travancore is notable for its handmade pillow laco, which has been mado by women for tho best part of a century.- 1 At the- Wellington Torraco Congregational Church, whore ho conducted tho service last evening, tho Rev. A. Parker gavo an interesting account of tho progress made by Christianity among the pebplo of Travancoro. Tho first Protestant missionary, • about- a hundred wears ago, found himself compelled to throw in his lot with tho degraded peasantry, tho pariahs of the population. For ten years ho laboured among -thorn,'' and laid deep in thoir nffcctions tho foundations of his work. Whon ho left tlioro were half a dozen -little mud churches in Travancore and about six hundred converts. , Other missionaries took up tho work, which grew- speedily, in spite of many difficulties. Now there aro fifty nativo churches in Mr. ; Parker's , district, '•of which four aro self-supporting.,