After firing upon the mission hospital staff at the dining table the assailants fled unhindered. They threw away their guns on the hospital compound as preplanned. Reaching the nearby riot-refugee crowded railway station, they jumped on a running train. Near a border station they got down to cross the unguarded border of recently independent India. They hoped to vanish into turbulent Bangladesh.
Seven missionaries were shot in that dining room, five seriously. The doctors of nearby government hospital tried their best. But the super Dr. Mervyn Hatt, sister Parcival and Law died after one day struggle. The hospital was permanently shut down after that.
It all started when they had picked up some serious typhoid cases from the refugee-overcrowded Ranaghat junction station. Having nowhere to go, the fleeing Hindu refugees from Muslim terrorized East Bengal squatted there. There was no sanitation, water and food. Newly independent poor India couldn’t care for them. Every day many died by typhoid and enteric diseases. The government and mission hospital did their best but were overwhelmed. Christ’s love exemplifying missionaries tried their utmost. They even went to the point of giving up their sleep, own blood and food.
Often after cure many had nowhere to go. The typhoid patients mentioned were so and piteously pleaded for work and shelter. Fund-short Missionaries were overstuffed in the lower grades. Still they somehow enrolled some of them and gave shelter. They couldn’t afford to pay much. Soon ingrate unreasonable workers refused to follow the self-sacrificing spirit of the missionaries. Heaven-fallen we all are worse than discontented Judas.
The rising communists were more appealing to them than the missionaries who saved them. They made inroads in them to make a union and strike. But that strike failed by the heroic labor of the missionaries. The strikers had to surrender and it was resolved that the ring leaders would be laid off. The laid-off ringleaders then attacked them when they were together at the dining table. One disgruntled secular doctor and a former army man was co-conspirator to lend their loaded guns to the murderers.
The Hindu assailants at first went to their native villages as they were all refugees from those places. But they found hostility only. Fighting was all around. Suffering and starvation almost brought them to the point of death. But miraculously they didn’t die, while on the run in that Muslim fanatic rioting land. It seemed that some supernatural power was protecting them.
While being treated in the mission hospital, incredulously they had heard about Christ’s love and forgiveness on the cross. Now they remembered that and were attracted to a church there. They heard of that forgiveness again. They then knew that missionaries had also forgiven them like their master Christ.
Repenting sincerely now, they confessed their sins to a pastor. He told them to go back to the Ranghat mission and surrender. They went back there crossing the poorly guarded border. But they found the mission shut down and deserted.
Distraught they went to the hospital of another mission 100 km away, which was called London mission. They confessed to them and sought baptism. But missionaries didn’t hand them over to police opening the case again. They instructed, baptized and again rehabilitated them. After successful career they invited some of their clans from their native district. Later some of them became doctor, preacher and pastors of their C.N.I. church, the Indianised form of the Anglican Church. One is a bishop now.
Spiritual fecundity is not as easy as carnal fecundity. It requires cross and death-pain. But the fruit is abiding and heaven-worthy. Many are lured to baptism by business-minded cozy Christian organizations. But they remain spiritually dead and heap shame on the name of Christ. Those baptized being born or married in ‘Christian’ families are also so. But those converted by martyrs’ blood and love-forgiveness follow Christ really to be fecund.
When I realized that in the middle of my 50 year long frustrating mission among Hindus and later in Muslims, I beseeched Christ that I might also be worthy to die like him to be fecund. But Christ said “your love is still inadequate to love and forgive murderers. Persevere in love-work to increase and purify your love. When it becomes adequate to enable that forgiveness, you shall be granted cross here or in eternity.” I asked that he may give that love by his grace. But he said “outwardly given qualities don’t last as soul reacts to the out-given things. Every organism rejects out-given things. Only internally generated qualities last.”
So you have to buy the oil for your lamp by your labor. Free salvation doctrine is deadly deception.
Seven missionaries were shot in that dining room, five seriously. The doctors of nearby government hospital tried their best. But the super Dr. Mervyn Hatt, sister Parcival and Law died after one day struggle. The hospital was permanently shut down after that.
It all started when they had picked up some serious typhoid cases from the refugee-overcrowded Ranaghat junction station. Having nowhere to go, the fleeing Hindu refugees from Muslim terrorized East Bengal squatted there. There was no sanitation, water and food. Newly independent poor India couldn’t care for them. Every day many died by typhoid and enteric diseases. The government and mission hospital did their best but were overwhelmed. Christ’s love exemplifying missionaries tried their utmost. They even went to the point of giving up their sleep, own blood and food.
Often after cure many had nowhere to go. The typhoid patients mentioned were so and piteously pleaded for work and shelter. Fund-short Missionaries were overstuffed in the lower grades. Still they somehow enrolled some of them and gave shelter. They couldn’t afford to pay much. Soon ingrate unreasonable workers refused to follow the self-sacrificing spirit of the missionaries. Heaven-fallen we all are worse than discontented Judas.
The rising communists were more appealing to them than the missionaries who saved them. They made inroads in them to make a union and strike. But that strike failed by the heroic labor of the missionaries. The strikers had to surrender and it was resolved that the ring leaders would be laid off. The laid-off ringleaders then attacked them when they were together at the dining table. One disgruntled secular doctor and a former army man was co-conspirator to lend their loaded guns to the murderers.
The Hindu assailants at first went to their native villages as they were all refugees from those places. But they found hostility only. Fighting was all around. Suffering and starvation almost brought them to the point of death. But miraculously they didn’t die, while on the run in that Muslim fanatic rioting land. It seemed that some supernatural power was protecting them.
While being treated in the mission hospital, incredulously they had heard about Christ’s love and forgiveness on the cross. Now they remembered that and were attracted to a church there. They heard of that forgiveness again. They then knew that missionaries had also forgiven them like their master Christ.
Repenting sincerely now, they confessed their sins to a pastor. He told them to go back to the Ranghat mission and surrender. They went back there crossing the poorly guarded border. But they found the mission shut down and deserted.
Distraught they went to the hospital of another mission 100 km away, which was called London mission. They confessed to them and sought baptism. But missionaries didn’t hand them over to police opening the case again. They instructed, baptized and again rehabilitated them. After successful career they invited some of their clans from their native district. Later some of them became doctor, preacher and pastors of their C.N.I. church, the Indianised form of the Anglican Church. One is a bishop now.
Spiritual fecundity is not as easy as carnal fecundity. It requires cross and death-pain. But the fruit is abiding and heaven-worthy. Many are lured to baptism by business-minded cozy Christian organizations. But they remain spiritually dead and heap shame on the name of Christ. Those baptized being born or married in ‘Christian’ families are also so. But those converted by martyrs’ blood and love-forgiveness follow Christ really to be fecund.
When I realized that in the middle of my 50 year long frustrating mission among Hindus and later in Muslims, I beseeched Christ that I might also be worthy to die like him to be fecund. But Christ said “your love is still inadequate to love and forgive murderers. Persevere in love-work to increase and purify your love. When it becomes adequate to enable that forgiveness, you shall be granted cross here or in eternity.” I asked that he may give that love by his grace. But he said “outwardly given qualities don’t last as soul reacts to the out-given things. Every organism rejects out-given things. Only internally generated qualities last.”
So you have to buy the oil for your lamp by your labor. Free salvation doctrine is deadly deception.