Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen.

Published in 1849 by missionary physician John Scudder, this collection of narratives was designed to shape the moral imagination of Victorian children. Through the eyes of a doctor who lived among Hindu communities, young readers encounter descriptions of Hindu dress, customs, and religious practices, all framed as 'heathen' alternatives to Christian virtue. The book opens with a direct address to children, contrasting the prayers they learned at their mothers' knees with the 'idolatrous practices' of Hindu youth. Scudder tells a haunting story of a dying Hindu girl in a hospital, emphasizing her physical suffering and the absence of Christian kindness in her community. The underlying message is clear: these children need rescue, and Christian children have a duty to pray and give toward their conversion. For modern readers, the book serves as a provocative window into how 19th-century Anglo-American Christianity taught children to view the non-Christian world, one that reveals both the paternalist impulses of the missionary movement and the specific anxieties of the era.