THE MISSIONARY'S AVOCATION 117 



When the church was about finished a number of the 

 lepers came to me and said, "Whose church is this?" 

 I said, "Well, the ladies in Ireland who sent out the 

 money to build it, said it was to be for lepers, so as far 

 as any church can belong to man it is yours." They 

 said, "Well, if it is our church we would like to have 

 some part in it." I said, "Well, I don't see what you 

 can do, you have no money." They said, "But, Sahib, 

 have we not been praying for this church for years, and 

 if we were praying don 't you think we were saving up ? " 

 I said, "Well, you get so little that I don't see what you 

 could save out of." They said, "Well, we have saved 

 and we have got money and we would like to have some 

 part in the church." So they bought the pulpit Bible, 

 the largest the Bible Society puts out in the Hindu lan- 

 guage. They also bought a clock and a bell so that they 

 could be prompt in their attendance at service. They 

 give regularly to all the Presbyterian causes. They give 

 to the Bible and Tract Society. During the war they 

 took up two collections a year for comforts for the 

 wounded Indian soldiers, giving in some collections over 

 thirty dollars. I can not go before this leper asylum 

 congregation and tell them of any worthy cause or needy 

 individual but what they say, "Can we not help?" 

 I feel that if there is any person on earth that I could 

 forgive, and forgive gladly, for being selfish and self- 

 centered it is the leper. When one thinks of the misery 

 and the pain of the disease and the mental attitude in- 

 duced by the suffering, I would not blame the leper for 

 saying, "I get so little that all I get I want for myself, ' ' 

 and yet I have known leper men and women, when some- 

 thing appealed to them, to put the whole eight cents into 

 the collection plate at once, denying themselves the pleas- 



