04 Appointed to Chandag

Chapter 4 APPOINTED TO CHANDAG In September, 1891, the Mission to Lepers in India and the East was approached on behalf of Miss Reed, with a view to finding her a sphere of service among her fellow-sufferers. A letter from Bishop Thoburn, the Superintendent in India of the Methodist Episcopal Church, first informed the committee of this new worker who had been so strangely consecrated, but whose name was, for the time being, withheld. In writing to propose that Miss Reed be appointed Superintendent of the Asylum at Pithoragarh, Bishop Thoburn says : ’It is a hard thing to say, and yet it does look as if Providence was sending her to a very needy people who otherwise could receive no help. The district in which Pithoragarh is located, that is. Eastern Kumaun, has more lepers in proportion to its population than any other district in India ; at least, so the census indicates. It is a mystery how she ever contracted the disease. She accepts her fate in the best possible Christian spirit, and feels that she is set apart for the poor creatures who are similarly afflicted in Eastern Kumaun."

Shortly after this, our American newspapers, whose vigilance no private sorrow that will make ’’copy" can long evade, made public Miss Reed’s name, together with such particulars as could be collected or invented. A deep impression was created on the mind of the Christian public, and much admiring sympathy was elicited. In the meantime, while waiting the decision of the committee. Miss Reed found a welcome resting-place at Pithora with Miss A. M. Budden, who, together with her sister and preceded by their devoted father, has done faithful service among the women, the children, and the lepers of that district. The large Leper Asylum at Almora, founded by the late Sir Henry Ramsey in conjunction with Mr. Budden, still stands as a memorial to the faithful services of these two, the Government Administrator and the Christian Missionary, who cooperated in its establishment and in its management for many years. From Pithora, under date of January 1st, 1892, Miss A. M. Budden wrote to Mr. Wellesley C. Bailey, Secretary and Superintendent of the Mission to Lepers : "I have been expecting to hear from you about the future arrangements for Miss Reed, who has come for shelter to Pithora as being the only place in the world that would shelter her. You will have heard that Miss Reed was for five years in this country as a Missionary of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and went home in utterly broken health. It seems now that this complaint was coming on for some time before she left, and for a year after she arrived in America it was not suspected. At last the Lord Himself revealed it to her, and at the same time told her that Pithora was to be her future home, and that He had much work for her to do among those similarly afflicted. She informed the doctors of the nature of her complaint, and was sent by her own physician to see an expert in New York who confirmed her suspicions, and she was hurried out of the country before others were made aware of her complaint. She saw doctors in London and in Bombay — the doctor of the Leprosy Commission in the latter place — and all agreed that there was no doubt about the matter." After reference to the terms on which the charge of the work should be transferred to Miss Reed, Miss Budden continues : " You know there are more than 500 lepers in the Shor Pargannah alone, and the need of further assistance is very great. At present we are reducing rather than increasing, as we do not fill up vacancies caused by death — but oh! such piteous cases as have to be refused. After hearing Miss Reed’s account of the wonderful way in which the Lord revealed His will to her about herself, and about Shor, it seemed to me that the day for ample help to these poor creatures had dawned, and I still believe it has. He who has led His servant by such an awful valley of the shadow of death to come here to serve Him thus, will surely touch hearts to supply the pecuniary assistance necessary to carry out His plans. . . . Miss Reed suffers constantly and most patiently. She feels that she has had her life call to work among these poor creatures, and, I believe, will end her days among them. She is highly sensitive, and of all my acquaintances I know of n0 one who would naturally more loathe this complaint. and yet to her it has been given ! It is very, very wonderful, and so is His grace that enables her to bear it without a murmur, though often with scalding tears and a breaking heart. I feel it to be a special mark of my Master’s favor that I am permitted to be the one to shelter and care for her." The sisterly sympathy so fully extended to Miss Reed at Pithora must have been one of the alleviations of her lot, and a welcome sign that, in hastening to the place so strongly indicated to her as the sphere of her future service, she was following the Divine leading. The committee were glad to be able to act on the recommendations of Bishop Thoburn and Miss Budden, and to appoint Miss Reed to the superintendence of their Asylum for Lepers at Chandag. They had the satisfaction of affording her a suitable sphere of service and at the same time of providing the afflicted inmates with a friend who, while giving them the sympathy and the succor they so specially needed, could also point them to Him who gave it as one of the proofs of His divine mission that the lepers were cleansed. In penning this record of devoted service among those from whom human nature would instinctively shrink, and remembering that the subject of our narrative is herself most sensitive to suffering, and would naturally be repelled by the victims of this terrible malady, we are reminded of another of God’s true saints who made the lepers his special care — St. Francis of Assisi. In Sabatier’s account of his life we read : "In 1205, just when Francis was struggling toward a full surrender of his will to God, and an entire consecration to the service of humanity, he was one day riding out, and came suddenly face to face with a leper. The frightful malady had always inspired in him an invincible repulsion. He could not control a movement of horror, and by instinct he turned his horse in another direction. He soon reproached himself bitterly. Was the knight of Christ then going to give up his arms ? He retraced his steps, and, springing from his horse, gave to the astonished sufferer all the money he had, then kissed the hand of the leper as he would have done that of a priest. This new victory, as he himself saw, marked an era in his spiritual life." This victory of Francis over the repugnance inspired by this dread disease was not only a notable event in the spiritual life of this holy man, but marked the beginning of a new era for the lepers of Europe. The brotherhood into which the followers of Francis were organized, following the Christlike example of their founder, made the lepers their special care, visiting regularly the many lazarettos then to be found in England and other European countries. Francis set an example of personal service, often of the most repugnant kind, amongst these sufferers, which the brothers of the order were not slow to follow, and it is probable that from this period the lot of the leper in our land was increasingly alleviated until, happily, the scourge was banished from our shores.