India

I had been in India only a little while when I happened upon a native engaged in his devotions. It was a tiny wayside shrine nestling picturesquely in a clump of stately palm trees. My feet were as though rooted to the ground and my eyes riveted to the man. Presently he draped a lei of marigolds about the neck of his grotesque, gargoyle-featured stone god, then he poured water from a brass pot upon the image, made an obeisance and his devotions were done. That is India—into whose every nook the giant octopus of Hinduism still thrusts its accursed tentacles, holding the multitudes fast in a strangling embrace. Of approximately 400,000,000 people in India, only about 8,000,000 are Christians. Of the 700,000 villages, there is Christian work in only 40,000. Of the 25,000,000 in the Andhra area, only 300,000 are Christians, of whom 189,000 are baptized members of the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church. Of the Christians, 450,000 to 480,000 are Lutherans. To pry loose those writhing fiendish, life-crushing tentacles from the soul of India so that it may live eternally and revel even now in the glorious freedom, wherewith the Son of God and man hath made humanity free and wherein we live and revel—^that is the mandate of the Lord Christ to His Church, His Own, on earth, a mandate to which he gave expression in His great commission; "Go ye and make disciples of all nations." Nor shall we forget His pledge: "Lo, I am with you always."