Appendix Letters of Marian Bowers as Quoted by Ellen Ranyard SIR,—Aware that frequent opportunities occur for verbal communi- cation, you will, doubtless, be surprised at my addressing this to you; but, fearful of trespassing on your time on such occasions, I have pre- ferred the present mode. It is necessary to relate the circumstances by which I first became acquainted with your efforts to make known the Gospel of Christ; but you may remember the request I made the first time I ever addressed you. I asked you to lend me a Bible—you knew not my name or residence; yet, with cheerful kindness, you complied with that request; and, for the first time in my life, I brought a Bible into my home. It was on the 11th of February, 1853. That Bible I still retain: of its influence over me none but its Great Author can be aware; nor of the slow but certain means by which its precious truths have been revealed to my benighted soul. “With my bodily sufferings during the period you are, to a great extent, acquainted. Twice compelled to seek surgical aid in a hospi- tal—to all appearances I was sinking to my grave; but my God looked mercifully on me, and bade me live. “You know, however, nothing of the wounds that defied the sur- geon’s skill—wounds that divine grace inflicted, which divine mercy could alone have healed. That I have been the recipient of such mercy I humbly dare to hope; and, God helping me, I have devoted every moment of my life to prove my gratitude. I feel that, to testify my thanks for the precious pardon of an offended God, there are other ways than words; and I have thought over many plans, all of which I have dismissed but one, which is for me perfectly practicable; and it is to ask your cooperation in it that I presume to address you. “During that time I was in the hospital I had frequent opportu- nities of witnessing the utterly friendless conditions of many poor outcasts, who sought admission to its charity, the filthy plight of their 146 Appendix persons and clothing proving their need of a female hand to rectify disorder. “I have not to learn, sir, that in your missionary visits to the abodes of vice, you meet with many such who have none to help them. Now, I wish to dedicate the time I have to spare (it might be two or three hours a day), not so much to the decent poor, who have a claim on the sympathy of their neighbors, but to the lost and degraded of my own sex, whom, from their vicious lives, no tenderly reared female would be likely to approach; but to me, who, by God’s mercy, was preserved in my youth from a like fate, such scenes will have no ter- ror: and I shall esteem it another benefit received from you if you will at any time let me know where such a sufferer lives. No matter how degraded she may be. It will be enough for her to require my aid—such as cleansing and washing her, and repairing her garments. If she can, by your mean, obtain admission to a hospital. I will, by frequent visits, take care that she has a change of linen, and in all ways endeavor to win such erring sister back to virtue and to peace. “But while especially devoting my services to those who have none to help them, I shall ever consider it as much my duty to render aid to any desolate sick, who may at any time come under your notice. “Accept, sir, my grateful recollections of your sympathy, to which I am so largely indebted for my restored health, and allow me to sub- scribe myself your obedient, humble servant, MARIAN B.” * * * “SIR,—After anxious and prayerful consideration of the path pointed out, I feel that I shall have much need of strength to overcome the obstacles that will meet me on every side; but I believe with humble confidence that the grace which was able to subdue my own heart will never leave me in my effort to pour into the hearts of others that blessed message. I am myself too strong a proof of the power of the Almighty God to dare to doubt in any case the mercy which broke down the strongholds of sin in me. “And if I foresee trials in that path, what sources of joy and com- fort do I not foresee likewise! An opening is made to me, which I never even dared to hope for, and I may be sent as the glad messenger of light to some poor sufferers who are anxiously wishing for a knowl- edge of the blessed Book, and, being unable to read it, have none to read it to them. Appendix 147 “What a sweet employ it will be for me in the evening, after having faithfully devoted the time required by the Bible Society for the sale of the books committed to me, if I can return to any poor home where I have seen the aid of a friendly hand to be needed. The per- formance of some kind office may be the means of my obtaining permission to read, as well as I can, explain the glorious truths of the Book, for which in the morning, perhaps, I had vainly endeavored to obtain an entrance. “Indeed, sir, I feel I cannot write what I foresee, or tell you how my heart warms as I write it. It appears that God is graciously mark- ing out a path for me in which alone I am fit to labor. I know noth- ing of the customs and manners of the rich; I could not undertake the most menial service in a gentleman’s house; but I can talk to the poor outcasts among whom I dwell; my deepest sympathy is secured to them by the sad history of my own early days. I may help the poor untended wife and mother. I may send young children to school. I may have a word in season for the drunken and even the infidel husband. It will be a privilege for me to obtain admission to those miserable homes, and on what errand!—with the Word of God! To its Author I look to direct me to turn all my opportunities to His glory! I cast myself upon His almighty power to aid me, and I will fear no evil. Accept my thanks for this fresh proof of your kindness, and I beg to be remembered in your prayers. “Your deeply obliged servant, “Marian.” Notes 1 Introduction 1. A cluster of indigenous ethnic groups outside the four-tiered Hindu society ranked at the bottom of the social hierarchy. See pp. 32–33 for further discussion on the use of the term. 2. See p. 52 for further clarity. 3. M. N. Srinivas, Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), 32. 4. An ancient Hindu legal text Manu dharmasastra has been cited to sup- port this social arrangement. 5. This word has been spelled differently in missionary records as Bible woman, Bible-woman, and Biblewoman. For the sake of consistency, I have used the last one. 6. Telugu is a linguistic group in southeastern India. 7. This mutiny has also been identified as the “Great Revolt,” the “First War of Independence,” and the “Revolt of 1857.” 8. The British established their cantonments in Vizianagaram, Samar- lakota, Machilipatnam, and Phirangipuram. 9. Eustace Bromley, They Were Men Sent from God: A Centenary Record of Gospel Work in India among the Telugus in the Godavari Delta and Neighboring Parts, 1836–1936 (Bangalore, India: The Scripture Literature Press, 1937), 5. 10. The new rulers distributed the territory among the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharastra. 11. Robert E. Frykenberg, Guntur District, 1788–1848: A History of Local Influences and Central Authority in South India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). Analyzing the transactions between local rulers and British colonists in other regions of the subcontinent, Nicholas Dirks highlights the venal collaboration between the local bourgeois and the East India Company representatives. See Nicholas Dirks, The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), 37–85. 12. The greater freedom for missionary activities did not necessarily mean com- plete license, which some evangelical Parliamentarians in Britain lobbied for. 13. Atlury Murali, “Cultural History of Pre-colonial Deccan: A Study into the Long-Term Dynamics of Change,” in Different Types of History ed. Bharati Ray (Delhi, India: Pearson Longman, 2009), 245. 150 Notes 14. Uma Chakravarti, Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens (Calcutta, India: STREE, 2003). 15. Ibid., 27. 16. Mary E. Chamberlain, Fifty Years in Foreign Fields—China , Japan, India, Arabia: A History of Five Decades of the Women’s Board of Foreign Missions, Reformed Church in America (New York: Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America, 1925), 57. See also India’s Women: The Magazine of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society 7:40 (July–August 1887): 184. 17. Eugene F. Irschick, Dialogue and History: Constructing South India, 1795–1895 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). 18. This is an art that some Dalit groups specialized in. 19. Women and children in North America constituted the support base for these activities. 20. Muriel Spurgeon Carder, Jewel of India (Toronto: Canadian Baptist Foreign Mission Board, n.d.).