Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/522

512 or twenty of them to the load, drawn by four bullocks each, and were laid down at our door. I have four large photographs of these children as they now appear—every face of the one hundred and thirty-nine girls is there; and after twelve years' care and training what a contrast do they present! If I only had photographs of them as they were when laid down before us in 1860, in all their weakness and forlorn condition, so naked, filthy, and ignorant, what an eloquent sermon those pictures would silently preach, as they so wonderfully exhibited what Christian mercy and Christian education and grace could do, even for the poor wretched female orphans of an India famine! Can it be that these fine, healthy, hearty, educated girls in these graduating classes, year by year, so bright with intelligence and sanctified by the grace of God, were, only twelve years ago, just like the rest of the sad group in squalor and helplessness? Yes, it is so, and to the holy Trinity be the glory of the blessed change that has thus transformed them!

They were sent to us of all ages, from twelve or thirteen years down to the babe of three months, for whom we had to provide a nurse. Most of them were weak and emaciated, and a few of them dying, whom no care could save, so that we lost, out of the one hundred and fifty, about fifteen, who were too much reduced in strength and vitality to be saved.

What the Boys' Orphanage has become after twelve years may be best intimated by the picture, which presents Dr. Johnson and his theological class of thirteen young men. Educated and converted, they have been for some time seeking a higher preparation for the Christian ministry among their countrymen. I have already mentioned the case of Maria, the first native of India who joined our Church in Bareilly, and who became one of the martyrs of Jesus at noon on the 31st of May, 1857. She dearly loved our means of grace, and particularly the class-meeting, where, with artless simplicity, she would tell how the Lord led her to hate sin and love holiness, and how sweetly her soul rested in Christ as her perfect Saviour. Her father was a Eurasian, and she spoke the