were
baptized. On Sunday we attended a service of the mission church, where a
native pastor officiated and at least fifteen hundred persons in
addition to the missionaries were present, though several hundreds of
scholars were absent on account of the holiday vacation. And finally, at
the sunset hour on that memorable Sabbath Day, we ascended
Prayer-meeting Hill, where Doctor Jewett, Mrs. Jewett, and two others
met on New Year's Day fifty years ago, looked out over the great
surrounding plain, and prayed the Lord to give them the Telugus, as John
Knox of old prayed, "Give me Scotland, or I die!" In both cases prayer
was answered, and we hope the more recent prayers offered on that
historic spot in January, 1917, will also be answered. The Telugus are
gradually being won, and we ourselves were witnesses to that fact when,
at the village of Naletur, we beheld the baptism of eleven new converts,
nine stalwart young men and two married women.

Kavali is next to be mentioned. Here is a work for the gradual
reformation of criminals and the industrial regeneration of India. In
this land of poverty and famine, our converts, when turned out of house
and home, need new means of earning a livelihood. There is in India a
hereditary criminal class which, like the thugs of a former generation,
make it a sort of religion to prey upon their fellow countrymen. The
British Government has been almost powerless either to subdue or to
reform such offenders. Something more than mere justice is required in
their treatment. The Government is recognizing the value of Christian
education and supervision, and has recently put large tracts of
territory into the hands of the Salvation Army, the Methodists, and the
Baptists, with a view to combining compulsory work and paternal
influence in the reform of the criminal classes. The Rev. Samuel D.
Bawden, at Kavali, has charge of over eight hundred such people, and is
teaching them agriculture and all manner of trades. Mr. Bawden is one of
the graduates of our theological seminary. He was for several years
chaplain of our House of Refuge at Rochester. Physically and mentally he
is a remarkable man, an athlete and almost a giant, a man of science and
a man of faith. It needs all these gifts to dominate and lead toward
Christ eight hundred born thieves. I know of no more self-sacrificing
and Christlike work than that which brother Bawden is doing.

The success of it proves its value. There are no priso