The Triumph of the missionary’s God!
In 1868 a church of fifty members is reported at Mawdem, in the same district, but lying some forty miles distant from Mawnai. Intoxicating drink was the great curse of Mawdem,-men, women, and even children, being addicted to it. Their poverty was appalling. A few filthy rags barely covered their yet filthier bodies. The poverty and depravity of the Mawdem people had become a by-word even among the Khasis. The sirdar, U Leear by name, on one of his visits to Cherra, saw to his surprise a white man,-Griffith Hughes,-addressing the people gathered in the market place. Too ashamed of his own dishevelled and repulsive appearance to stand even among the market crowd, he hid behind a stone to listen. The message touched his heart. Returning homeward with conscience awakened and a new yearning in his heart, he repeated to his people the strange words he had heard. Straightway a number of the villagers set out for Cherra, seventy miles distant, to beg for a teacher. The sirdar became the first convert ; and as his first act as a Christian he prohibited entirely the manufacture, sale, or consumption of intoxicants in all the villages under his charge. Highly significant of the transformation wrought by the Gospel in these parts, was the sirdar's statement in later years in one of the Presbyteries: "Before the Gospel entered the country I, as sirdar, had a load as much as I could carry on my back of rupees, twice every year, to take to the king of Khadsawphra,-fines for drunkenness, stealing, etc. But now not one rupee in a year goes to him!" And in all Mawdem no nobler monument of God's grace was to be found than the sirdar himself. He served the churches with wonderful devotion to the end of his days,-first as deacon and evangelist ; and from 1900 to the time of his death at the advanced age of eighty four, as a fully ordained minister.