Pandita Ramabai

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX. THE FAMINE OF 1897, AND THE RESCUE OF STARVING WIDOWS. "By terrible things in righteousness wilt Thou answer us, O Lord of our salvation."--Psalm lxv. 5. RAMABAI'S doubts as to whether any widows of the kind suitable for her school (. e., highcaste widows) could be obtained in the famine districts, were soon set at rest when she reached the spot. She was accompanied by a sensible, motherly, Indian Christian Bible-woman; and as Ramabai went from place to place, gathering up the girls, she sent them in parties of from ten to twenty at a time by this Bible-woman to Poona. Perhaps the most difficult part of the work was the reception and feeding of these poor creatures after their arrival. It was heroically faced by Ramabai's helpers in Poona, led by Soonderbai Powar, and ably seconded by the Christian girls of the Sharada Sadan, who devoted themselves to the cleansing and civilizing of these poor victims of starvation. All were miserably dirty; many diseased--most were suffering from sore heads, sore mouths, and other complaints caused by starvation; many were mere skeletons, and all clamouring for food, which to have given them in sufficient quantity to appease their hunger would have caused their death. The older women and girls were the most trying, and a few ran away. Added to this, two or three rebellious spirits among the former pupils became troublesome, and several attempts were made to burn down the premises, without any clue being found to the perpetrators of the mischief; thus the position of affairs may be better imagined than described. Satan found an opportunity for harassing; but the Lord, who is over all, over-ruled wonderfully, and preserved from the threatened danger. Among those suspected of incendiarism...