It occurred to us, as we have already collected the ₤16 required to sustain the four beds in the home, that we might send the children of the home some nice little presents. Our ₤16 per annum can do no more than keep four little children alive and housed; and we feel sure our dear young friends would only be too happy to give the many leper children in Purulia some of the same kind of pleasures that are valued by themselves. So we wrote to Mrs. Bailey, the lady who is so truly the leper’s friend, and she said, “I am delighted to think of the happy surprise in store for the dear children at Purulia,” and, after suggesting a “khana,” or feast, which the natives much enjoy, or some fresh slides for their magic lantern, we agreed heartily that “presents for the children dolls for the girls, and knives and balls for the boys”―would be the most “personal,” and would be the best, being to them gifts which “go very far into the heart.” So we shall buy ₤3 of “gifts,” and we shall get some dolls dressed by some young people we know, so as to make your money go as far as we can. We shall ask a few girls to dress the dolls, and we will see what their busy hands can do. Perhaps some of our young readers would like to help to swell the size of our parcel of dolls; if so, will you send to us “For the lepers,” care of Mr. Holness, 14, Paternoster Row? We do not wish anyone to buy a dressed doll, but shall be pleased to have one dressed by your own hands, so that it may go to the leper children as a love-gift from your own fingers. By-and-by we steal hear what the children have to say to your gifts.
We hardly need remind you that the blessed Saviour interests Himself in the very little things of our lives, and that it is pleasing to Him when we try to soothe the lonely and the suffering. So that, we trust, all who join in this little effort will do so with a desire to cheer the poor suffering children in His kind and holy name.
We now give you a story as pretty and a: sweet as you may wish to read. Mrs. Bailey sent it to us; it is
A Story About a Doll
“I must tell you a story of a doll. It was told me by the missionary himself, Mr. Bullock of Almora, Himalayas. One day a parcel, addressed to him, arrived by parcel post. A little gathering immediately assembled in his study, full of curiosity as to what the parcel contained, and from whom it came. Slowly and carefully he unfastened the string and removed the paper, corning, after a little while, to a roll of cotton wool, which he unwound, to find inside a beautiful leather doll, dressed in a most expensive style in silks and laces.
“Upon it lay a note to him, saying the doll had been sent by a lady in England, who loved Bháwani, and wished her to have a token of her love, and to know how great was her longing that Bháwani should love the Lord Jesus. There was also a little note to Bháwani herself, telling her how this lady loved and prayed for her, and longed that she might belong to the dear Lord Jesus, who had so loved her, and that she had sent her this don as a proof of her love to her.
“What a present for a leper girl? ‘Too good, too lovely!’ does anyone say? What can be too good for the least of the little ones for whom the Lord Jesus shed His precious blood?
“The doll was carried to the asylum, and, when Bháwani got it, she hugged it in her joy. The letter was then read to her, and poor Bháwani was melted to tears at the thought of anyone loving her like that. She begged that the dear, kind lady might receive her grateful thanks, and be told that she would try to love Jesus, who had been so kind to her.
“A few weeks afterward she did definitely give herself to the dear Lord, led to Him, humanly speaking, by that dear far-off friend.”
We add no word of ours to this, but close with Mrs. Bailey’s request.
“I would ask prayer for our dear brother, Mr. Uffmann, whose health is very far from good. He has been sent to the hills to recruit, much against his will.”