Turning The River Currents

 

 

 

     While I was visiting the East Bengal district some years ago, Evangelist L.G. Mookerjee pointed out to me the old home of the late Mathuranath Bose, whose simple faith and trust in God led many to call him "the George Müller of Bengal." His old mission station, under the Church of Scotland, still stands close along the river bank. This whole region of the delta of the mighty Ganges River is a marvelous network of rivers and interlacing canals. One story of this man of faith was thus told me by Mr. Mookerjee:

     "Mr. Bose had formerly been a judge, receiving an excellent salary. However, he felt called of God to give himself to mission work. His mission station was being threatened by some turn of the river current which was cutting into the bank. Day after day the current was wearing toward the very buildings. Mathuranath Bose felt that it was a case to bring before his Lord. He set himself to make earnest prayer to God to stay the course of the waters and save his mission station. The answer came. The current was turned; and remarkable to recount, the river channel turned in such a way that the silt was actually piled up along the bank by the mission premises. Gradually the bank was built up again by the heavy deposit from the muddy river waters. Even the Hindus all about were impressed that God had intervened. They knew of the good man's prayers to the living God, and to this day the heathen say that God delivered Mathuranath Bose's mission from the power of the waters.

     We were told that again and again he was called by the villagers to pray for rain upon their fields in time of drought, the Hindus saying that the Christian's God does, of a truth, hear prayer.