Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/24

14 exigencies of his people, and has often, as in both these instances, shown that he can save by few as well as by many. I am fully of the opinion, and think this work will abundantly show, that Oriental Christianity never passed through such an emergency as that of 1857-8. Even worldly men, ay, the very heathen themselves, declared afterward that it was God alone who saved it from complete annihilation. By every law and rule of power, opportunity, and purpose, it must have perished had it been merely human, and true philosophy as well as Christian faith teaches us that it was only saved by the special interposition of Almighty God, its defender and keeper. During the long and weary months of our siege on the summit of Nynee Tal, the handful of villagers there declared that we were the last of the Christian life left in India—that from where we stood, to the sea on either side, our religion and race had been all swept away. We knew well that if this were so our fate was but a question of time that would soon be consummated.

Cut off and excluded, there we stood, our anxious hearts trying to ponder the terrible question, Could this be so? and if so, how fearful must be the result! For we felt assured, if it were, that the successful effort of the India Sepoy would have found cruel imitation in Burmah, China, and Japan, and that it was possible that, at that hour—in those terrible days of July and August, 1857—Christianity might have been extinguished in the blood of its last martyrs on the Oriental hemisphere, and the clock of the world been put back for centuries. We could only turn to God, and “against hope believe in hope,” while we ourselves “stood in jeopardy every hour.” How serious that jeopardy was may be realized by turning to the map, and describing a circle around the geographical center of our mission at Shajehanpore, until its diameter would expand to three hundred miles. That area would encircle nearly the whole of Rohilcund, Oude, and The Doab, and would include the cities of Moradabad, Futtyghur, Bareilly, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Rampore, etc. It would represent the very heart of the great Rebellion. Every city, town, and village within these limits “fell,” so that, with the exception of the handful with us at Nynee Tal, one little group