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OVERWEIGHTS OF JOY
OVERWEIGHTS OF JOY
BY
AMY WILSON-CARMICHAEL
Keswick Missionary C.E.Z.M.S. AUTHOR OF "THINGS AS THEY ARK," ETC.
WITH PREFACE BY
REV. T. WALKER
C.M.S. South India
HE MUST REIGN
LONDON: MORGAN AND SCOTT
(OFFICE OF "tftlje djmtian") 12, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.
And may be ordered of any Bookseller 1906
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To
Indraneela's Atah
DOHNAVUR
TlNNEVELLY DISTRICT SOUTH INDIA
OCTOKEK IQ06
Preface
I HAVE been frequently asked by readers of Miss Wilson-Carmichael's former book, Things as They Are, and sometimes with considerable incredulity, " But is it really true ? "
I take this opportunity of saying, once for all, that, so far as my experience goes, after twenty years of Missionary work in Southern India, I can endorse it as quite true. An Indian civilian, whose duties lie in that part of this great continent with which the book specially deals, expressed to us his surprise that anyone should be startled by what they call its " sad revelations " ; for, as he said, " they are commonplaces to many of us out here." Possibly he had seen things " under the surface," which do not lie patent to the view of all, whether missionaries or civilians. However that may be, I repeat my personal testimony that Miss Carmichael has accurately described " things as they are," writing from a special standpoint.
It is true, absolutely true, that indifference to the glad tidings of the Gospel is the order of the day among the multitude of non-Christians who surround us here. As Dr. Miller put it so well at the Keswick Convention of 1903, speaking of the people of Hausaland, " Make no mistake. They do not want the Gospel ; but they sorely need the Gospel."
vii
viii PREFACE
It is true again, absolutely true, that untold cruelties abound in heathendom. While we missionaries gladly recognise the good qualities of many of our Hindu friends, and love the people among whom we work, we should yet be criminally blind if we shut our eyes to ugly facts. The tyranny of caste leads to evils which are beyond words to tell. Why should the supporters of Foreign Missions, who quote and requote the text on Missionary platforms at home, " All the earth is full of darkness and cruel habitations," be startled and shocked when they are plied with facts, hot from actual experience, which after all are only concrete illustrations of the platform text ?
It is true also, absolutely true, that here, in Southern India, we are " skirting the abyss," an abyss which is deep and foul beyond description, and yet is glorified, to Hindu eyes, by the sanctions of religion. Growing knowledge and accumulating information are only serving to make the awful darkness of that fell abyss more and more visible to view.
Once more, it is true, absolutely true, that the fight is an uphill one. With all my might would I emphasise this fact. India has not yet been won. Thank God for what has been done; and Miss Carmichael was not ignorant of it when she wrote her book, as will be clear to anyone who reads between the lines. But let there be no doubt about it ; the upper ranks of Hindu society show a practically unbroken front. The Shah Najafs are not yet taken. The citadels of Hinduism and Mohammedanism frown down haughtily on our feeble and desultory attacks. What then ? Have we no soldier-spirit in us ? Shall we say, like some of Nehe- miah's builders when difficulties loomed ahead, " The strength of the bearer of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish, so that we are not able to build the
PREFACE ix
wall ? " Or shall we not rather say, with grand old Nehemiah himself, whose courage only rose with danger, " Be not afraid of them ; remember the Lord which is great and terrible, and fight " ?
When the " Black Week " in South Africa seemed to bring disaster on disaster to British arms, it only served to stimulate the courage of our people, and to nerve them for the fight. The whole Empire rose, as one man, in the strength of a firm determination, " This thing must be carried through." So be it with the Christian Church. Because the odds against us are so great, and because the task is so stupendous, and because " things as they are " seem otherwise than we had hoped, brothers ! let us face the work in deadly earnest ; let us " remember the Lord " and "fight"
The present volume is a sort of sequel to Things as They Are. Let me say of this book also, that you may rely on its accuracy ; it is a description of facts ; it is certainly true. It offers to sinking spirits something of a cordial in the shape of Overweights of Joy. But it is not intended, for a moment, to " tone down " the facts of its predecessor. It would not be true if it did. And Truth (with a capital "T") is the main thing. "We can do nothing against the Truth, but for the Truth."
T. WALKER, C.M .8.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "BEFORE THE GODS WILL I SING" . . .1
II. THE FORT ...... 5
III. HE MAKETH THE STARS . . . .14
IV. "Lo! THESE ARE PARTS OF HlS WAYS " . .21
V. "YET" 26
VI. OPENED . ..... 34
VII. THE CLAN 40
VIII. THE CLUE . ... 47
IX. THE SHAH NAJAF . . . . .52
X. " FOLLOW THE GLEAM " . . . .60
XI. "THE GRACE OF THE PEOPLE TO COME" . . 67
XII. ALONE 78
XIII "No BEAUTY THAT WE SHOULD DESIRE HIM" . 89 XIV. "WITH His STRIPES WE ARE HEALED" . . 98
XV. "HE SHALL SEE OF THE TRAVAIL OF HlS SOUL " . 104
XVI. "NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD". . . .113
XVII. "AT VARIANCE" 120
XVIII. " ALL THESE THINGS " 132
XIX. GARDENS BY THE RIVER'S SIDE . . .146
XX. A SINGING BIRD IN GOD'S GARDEN . . 154
XXI. DRY LAND 162
XXII. "LET IT BRING FORTH TENDER GRASS" . . 169
xi
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XXIII. "AND IT WAS so" . . 174
XXIV. "HOLD ME ON WITH A STEADY PACE" . .183
XXV. DARKENED WINDOWS . . . .191
XXVI. GRAVES WHICH APPEAR NOT . . . 200 XXVII. "DAGON MUST STOOP" . . . .212
XXVIII. THE SPACES BETWEEN . . 220
XXIX. MOSAIC ..... .230
XXX. BACKGROUND . . . . . .241
XXXI. WARPED LAND . ... 250
XXXII. THE CHILDREN'S HOUR . . . .260
XXXIII. GREEN CLOUDS AND THE LAMPS OF GOD'S VILLAGE 268
XXXIV. LOOSED 279
XXXV. PERSIST . . . . . .285
XXXVI. THE SONG OF THE LORD 291
Illustrations
Two LITTLE OVERWEIGHTS OF JOY . . . Frontispiece ROCK BELOW TIGER'S CAVE ON THE GHAUT KOAD
LEADING UP PROM THE PLAINS . . . Facing page 5
" LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE? CHRISTIANS AT HOME?" „ 15
STAR'S LITTLE COUSIN . . . . „ 17 IN THE SHAH NAJAF :
TYPE No. 1. THE BRAHMAN . „ 53
2. WORKERS IN GOLD . „ 55
3. WORKERS IN IRON . „ 67
4. WORKERS IN WOOD . „ 58
A DROP FROM THE SEA ; A GRAIN FROM THE HEAP „ 75
NELBETTA (THE SPLIT ROCK), NEDUVATAN . . „ 78
Showing the plateau and the plains 4000 feet below.
"THEIR INSCRUTABLE FACES TOLD ME NOTHING " . „ 80 MOUNTAIN BOUNDARY BETWEEN BRITISH INDIA AND
TRAVANCORE . . . . „ 113
The double-peaked shadow is cast by Makurti, from which mountain the photo was taken.
LOTUS ........ 121
BRILLIANCE ....... 123
LOTUS' AUNT AND LITTLE COUSIN . . „ 124
LOTUS' STUDENT COUSIN . . . „ 130
TAKEN IN OUR COMPOUND . . . „ 134
xiii
XIV
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE TEMPLE MUSICIAN ONE OP THE ORTHODOX RELATIONS OF THE BRAHMAN WIDOW .... ON THE VERANDAH ..... THE FALLS OF DARKNESS, NEAR SESSPARA LAMB'S ROCK .....
In the middle distance is the Droog from whose summit Tiboo Sahib is said to have hurled his prisoners down the precipice.
TYPES ......
TYPICAL YOUNG WIFE ....
EAGLE CLIFF : SHOWING THE PLAINS ON THE EASTERN SIDE .....
ITINERATING WORK ON THE PHYSICAL SIDE SESSPARA TOP .....
When last we went to Sesspara the valley and all the surrounding hills were completely covered by sunlit mist. We stood as it were on the edge of the world and looked over. There was nothing anywhere to be seen but a shining dream of white.
LAV ANA ......
PREENA AND LAV ANA ....
FIREFLY AND ANOTHER CHILD
How WE CRADLE OUR BABIES
RUKMA AND PREEYA .....
LOLA AND LEELA .....
SUNSET ON THH FOOTHILLS : FROM MAKURTI PEAK
Facing page 136
140 142 146
183
185 187
221 230 241
253 254 256 258 261 265 291
"I have more than an Overweight of Joy"
ii CUR. vii. 4 Conybtare and Howstn's Translation
The Photographs
THE photos of village and town's folk, usually typical of life and character on the plains, were taken by the comrade known as "The Picture-catching Missie Animal," Those of our little children were given by another friend. Those of the mountains are the work of an expert in capturing the spirit of the wilds. Several of the photographs are rare, notably the one which shows the curious double-peaked shadow of the mountain from which the photo was taken. These mountains, the thousand mile range of the Western Ghauts, whether South by our homeside at Dohnavur, or four hundred miles North where great arms branch off and form the Nilgiri (Blue Mountain) group, at all times, in all moods, are strength and inspiration to us, veritable Overweights of Joy. It would be ungrateful not to share what can be shared of them with you. But thoroughly to enjoy a scenery photo imagine yourself and your camera camping out on the mountains. Fill the forests with life, the clouds with move- ment. Flood all the wide spaces with light and with colour. Then let the wind blow over the uplands, and stir the grasses and the little mountain flowers at your feet.
OVERWEIGHTS OF JOY
CHAPTER I "Before the gods will I sing"
THE main purpose of this book is single and simple. It is to let the song out before the gods in pos- session here. A sentence spoken in the Keswick Convention some years ago suggested the thought. The sentence, as it reached us in South India, ran thus:
" I will praise Thee with my whole heart ; before the gods will I sing praise unto Thee " — his (the Psalmist's) glad resolve to sing praises unto his God, not in a clear and open atmosphere, but before the gods, the giant powers which lay behind the giant heathenism of his day. He, as it were, looked them in the face, and weighed their strength and force ; and although they seemed to suggest the hopelessness of the cause of God, he was not moved. " Before the gods will I sing praise unto Thee."
If this book's atmosphere is dark it is because the
2 "BEFORE THE GODS WILL I SING "
gods, the giant powers which lie behind the subtle systems of our day, still exist in strength and force. The song is sung in the night : let no one dream the night has passed.
Here and there through the valley of Christendom in India there has been a noise and a shaking, and a Coming of the Breath. We have seen and heard something which in its mystery and spontaneity passes anything we knew before. But we have not seen India stirred. No movement in the valley has as yet affected those wastes of desolation that rise like mountains bare and bleak and utterly lifeless around us. " Bow Thy heavens, 0 Lord, and come down : touch the mountains and they shall smoke " — we have not seen that yet We are waiting to see such a manifestation of Divine energy as shall convince the Hindu and Mohammedan world that the LOBD is GOD. And now in the moment of pause before the coming of the Power, now while we wait, we sing.
The book is meant mainly for those who read Things as They Are, and were discouraged by it. We know there were some who in reading it did not catch the under-song that sang through the bitter battle. The Tamil words on the cover, " Victory to Jesus," were not interpreted. They put the book down in despair — " if these things are so, is prayer answered at all ? Is it worth while going on ? " " Nay, do not wrong Him by thy heavy thought," let Overweights answer earnestly. Prayer is being answered. It is worth while going on.
But though we would praise Him with our song, His
A FOREWORD 3
Word alone is the cause of our sure confidence. The song may brighten the day's work, and lighten the very night, but nothing short of the Word of the Lord stands strong through everything. This battle is His. The victory was won on the Resurrection morning. Christ our King is King of the ages. Although we could not sing we would still go on.
The " we " of the book refers usually to our small band here, Rev. T. Walker, Mrs. Walker, and our Indian comrades, who on the women's side are the faithful Golden, Pearl, and Blessing, and, of late years, Star, Joy, Gladness,1 and others, without whose loyal co-operation the work that has grown among the Temple-children would have been impossible. But though for the sake of straightforward story-telling I explain the personnel, there is nothing we should so deprecate as the focusing of attention upon us. Rather overlook us, and look wherever in all the field you have a friend who would welcome the cheer of a freshened affection, and the sympathy which braces because it understands.
Perhaps in order to avoid needless misunderstanding it should be said at the outset that we write from Old India, and that we do not profess to touch upon aspects and problems affecting New India and India in transition, matters so delicate and intricate that they are better left to abler pens. Each phase of life as we find it here is a study in itself. Each is intensely interesting. But the voice that speaks through these pages, if indeed we have caught it clearly enough to make it articulate to others, is the voice of the old land : for of the three
1 Translated names.
4 "BEFORE THE GODS WILL I SING"
distinct voices sounding in India to-day, we have heard it longest and know it best.
Finally, we have tried to be true. We cannot say more. Those who have tried to be true know how difficult truth-telling is, perhaps because we see so little of the whole truth at a time. We found a large shell on the shore one day, blackened at the edges, iridescent above. It lay where the wave had washed it, wet and shining on the sand. The south-west monsoon had brought us many beautiful things. The sand was strewn with them. But this special shell for loveliness lay alone among them, and we stopped before we picked it up to look at it in its setting of sand, which on that part of the coast sparkles as if garnet dust had been sprinkled over it. Then we saw that the little Crustacea had stopped to look at it too. They were crawling over it and into it and all about it ; but they did not see it as a whole. They were too small. Truth is like that shell. We are like the infant crabs and beach fleas. Perhaps the most we can hope to do is to tell the changeful colours of the little bit of the shell we see, avoiding over-colouring as we would avoid a lie. And we can resist the temptation to omit all mention of the broken, blackened edges of the shell.
CHAPTER II The Fort
IT was early afternoon on the edge of a South Indian town, at the place where it touches the desert. It was hot, but those happy little sun -birds, the children, darted about in the sunshine, or played in the doubtful shadow of the palms which border the Brahman street. There were vivid splashes of colour where the little children played, otherwise the street was colourless and empty, for the people who lend it life were out of sight in the close dark of windowless rooms, trying to feel cool. To the left of where we stood, above house- tops and palms, rose the central Temple tower, carved in stone for a hundred feet. A wall faced us, crossing the end of the street.
The wall was of clay, clumsily but massively built, rough with uneven additions and patches, the work of careless generations. It was bare and ugly, and covered, as all the world was then, with the dust of rainless months. The little flowers and grasses that had struggled for life on its ridges, in the last wet season, had been burnt up long ago. Only their famished shreds were left to tell how the poor wild things had tried to decorate man's prosaic. But green trees showed above it. We wondered what was inside.
6 THE FORT
A door was set deep in the wall, facing the Brahman street. We knocked, but no answer came. Then friendly voices called us from across the street, and we saw that friendly faces were watching us from verandah- shaded doorways. We crossed again, sat down gratefully in the shadowy recess of a verandah, and questioned our new friends about the place behind the wall. But India, though frank, is reticent. The door at which we had knocked was always locked. The Fort lay behind the wall. This was all they cared to say. So we talked of other things for awhile, until we had passed the first boundary-line fencing us off from their confidence, and they told us part of what they knew, the pith of which lay in the fact that there were people in the Fort whose ways were not as theirs, and therefore most uninteresting, unworthy our inquiry. The women, they told us, never came outside. Never till death was a woman seen out. And even then she was not seen. She was sewn in a sack and carried out by a gate in the wall on the other side. Two such gates lay on that side. By one dead women were carried out, and by the other, men. No townsman ever went into the Fort. All men of all castes were strictly forbidden, except the servants of the Fort who tilled the Fort lands outside. There was no stringent law about women ; but no woman they knew had ever gone in. " May we go in ? " we asked.
The question came as a surprise. Every face was a blank. They had never thought of going in. And yet they had lived all their lives within sound of a laugh or a cry from the walls. The East and the West meet often, but sometimes they walk apart. Perhaps the
WHY GO IN ? 7
Eastern way is the more dignified. Why should we pry into what, for probably excellent reasons, our neighbour has concealed ?
Something a little less fine, may be, is mixed up with this sentiment ; for the women's remarks hardly suggested the sublime. " Why go in ? There is nothing to see. The people are not like us. They are mere animals ; poor jungle creatures." Then after a pause came the hesitating after-thought : " Once, it is said, a white woman went in, and nothing evil befell her " — as if a thought of evil had ever crossed one's mind ! " But this is foolish talking ; you would be as a parrot watching the silk cotton pod [the pod ripens, the wind blows the light-winged seed away, the parrot gets nothing] ; for even if they let you pass the wall, you might wait for a lifetime and never see a woman. Each lives in her house with the door fast shut."
There is a curious instinct in our race, which always wants to explore the unknown, and finds in discourage- ment impetus. This moved within us as the women talked. " It is hot, so hot," they repeated dissuadingly. " Why go out in such a heat ? " But we went.
It was certainly hot. There was no shade. The wall seemed to concentrate heat, and throb it out to us. Below, the dust struck hot through one's shoes. Above, the sky overflowed with light, a clear white blaze of heat. There is a beautiful story in the " Kamayana " (one of India's epics) which tells how Kama, Prince of Oudh, and Lakshman, his noble young brother, while journeying with their spiritual guide through forest and plain, came to an arid desert, " so hot that the tongue would scorch
8 THE FORT
if it tried to describe it." But the guide taught the lads a certain charm, and as they chanted it the fiery ground changed for them into cool water springs. We thought of this old tale then. We have a Charm by which life's glowing sand becomes a pool, and even the common fiery ground to be trodden under common feet is cooled by the Charm for us. So, hardly minding about the heat, we traced the wall further, and came to a door fitted with huge locks and bars, and a hinge that looked centuries old. The door was open. We went in. A white-washed wall built half-way across intercepted the view. We stood there for a moment, and then went on, passed another wall, mud-built and broken, and saw fine tamarind trees shading the approach, and altars guarding it; beyond stood picturesque groups of red-roofed houses, and great stacks of straw. We had no time to see more ; for before we reached the houses an old man met us, and leading us back to the door, asked us our business.
He was a very old man. From his ears hung long gold rings. His dress was the loin-cloth and scarf of the South. His manners were those of a chief. " These tidings," he said, after listening a little, " are excellent for those outside, the ignorant people of the town. But we of the Fort are different. We require nothing external. Nor do we desire it," he added, " so kindly swiftly retire."
A year passed before we had an opportunity of attempting the Fort again. But such a year need not be wasted, and we went with hope renewed. We tried to find the head of the Clan, to win his consent to our visiting it, but no one outside could direct us to him ;
N AT LAST 9
so believing we were meant to go in, and that the way would be otherwise opened, and asking that the very light might be spread as a covering for us to veil us from any who would disapprove, we walked quietly in.
This time we were not turned back. Unhindered we wandered through silent streets, so strangely silent that they seemed like streets in a city of the dead. The houses were solidly built, and often enclosed in courtyard walls. Their windows were few, and heavily barred. We stopped before one notable house, three-storied, built of stone and brick, coloured buff, terra-cotta, and blue. There was some fine wood-carving in the lower verandah, and the upper balcony was decorated with a pineapple device. There were small outhouses near, and a deep empty well, cut in a regular spiral. But not a woman or a child was visible anywhere. In the distance we saw men, but they did not see us. The blaze of noontide covered us as with a shining screen. We walked on unaccosted, down a short street, with four small quaint houses on either side, all shut up. They reminded one of a book often examined in childish days, which had a lock and key . What wonderful things must be inside, too wonderful for everyday reading, and so it is locked up we thought, never imagining then, as we handled it almost reverently, that the wonderful things concerned mere money matters. But here there was a difference. Wonderful things were most surely inside. Only the old house-book was locked, and the key hung out of reach. We sat down on one of the little stone verandahs, facing an iron-clamped door. No one saw us,
10 THE FORT
for no windows looked out on the street. The stillness was oppressive. Was the place asleep or dead ?
At last the door opposite opened. A woman looked out. She was just going to slam it, dismayed, when a smile reassured her, and before she could make up her mind what to do, we were on the other side of the narrow street, persuading her to let us sit on her verandah, and to keep her door open six inches, and let us talk to her.
She was a pleasant-faced motherly woman, this pro- duct of a system considered exclusive even in exclusive India. She had the peculiar sweetness and grace of the typical Indian woman of gentle birth. There was the flash of quiet humour too. She was very human. Had she lost anything after all by her long exclusiveness ? Perhaps her life had included life's essentials ; she had her home. We talked with her, and after her first surprise had passed, she talked with us. Then we knew what she had lost.
For we had not come to play in the shallows, to study character or creed, or a new and suggestive prob- lem. We had come to speak to the soul in the name of God about that which concerned it infinitely. The first thing, then, was to find the soul, and only those who have talked to one whose mind is as a fast closed outer room, know how much may hinder the finding of a way into the far more fast closed inner room we call the soul.
The woman listened as one asleep. The message we had brought was something so remote from anything she had heard before, that it fell on her ear as a strange
FURTHER IN 11
song sung to a bewildering tune. How could it be otherwise ? The " murmur of the world " outside had never reached her. Her range of vision, mental as well as physical, was bounded almost absolutely by the wall that surrounded her house. It is true that the call that wakens often comes from within, but oftener surely it comes from without. This woman's world knew no without, and much of the meaning of the within was hidden from her. We do not realise until we think about it, how much we owe to the largeness of our environment. Think of the littleness of her's.
But even the narrowest Indian horizon is usually widened by something of the culture of the past. The nation has its mythical history handed down in poetry, sung rather, through the ages, the young voice catching up the song where the old fails. I listened to our sweeper woman the other day, as she crooned a lullaby. It was the story of Rama and his queen that she sang to the baby — a beautiful old-world tale. But that mud wall seemed to have shut out even the song. A reference to one of its illustrations, which, had this woman known it, would have lighted one of the words we were using, did not surprise her into the accustomed sign of recognition. There was the less to go upon, the fewer stepping-stones by which we might hope to pass from the known to the unknown in her experience. We found she kcaw almost nothing of her own religion. A South Indian wife and mother rarely feels her need of God. It is the childless wife, and the widow, who turn to something outside them- selves, and seek by fastings and penance to propitiate that Something, or elude it, or persuade it, so to speak,
12 THE FORT
to look elsewhere. This woman was happy. Husband, children, plenty of jewels, she had all these ; what more did she want ?
Naturally, as always in such cases, we kept to the ele- mentary. We told her that God loved her, and would save her from her sin. But God meant Siva to her, so that word needed much explanation. Love was a word she more perfectly understood. How glad we are to have that one word which belongs to the universal language. Sin meant ceremonial defilement, such as would be incurred by touching us, or eating food other than that prescribed by her caste. This word kept us a long time. Salvation meant temporal help. The thought had to be opened out before even a glimmer of its true meaning could dawn upon her. This development of idea took time. " Go and tell them God loves them " sounds beautiful and easy. It is beautiful, indeed ; but so to do it that it shall be effective is not easy. The words may seem to be understood, and smiles and appreciative gestures often delude us into imagining the truth behind the words is being apprehended ; whereas very probably each of the pivot words upon which our message turns conveys a wholly defective or, at least, inadequate idea, and the truth that would mean eternal life is not even within grasp. Praise God for the illuminating power of His Spirit, without whom our words were as idle tales. But if we would be accurate in thought we must abandon the idea, so hard to abandon, that instantaneous spiritual receptivity is something often seen. It is seen sometimes, and the day that shows it is marked by a crown in memory, and an Overweight of Joy. Such days
TURNED OUT 13
are rare. Most days are commonplace, uncrowned by any such discovery. But every sunrise shines with hope. We may find that soul to-day.
For nearly an hour we sat by that woman, gradually drawing nearer fco her in the contact that comes with sympathy. And her dark eyes looked deep into ours, and stirred our hearts with strong desire that she should understand. Before we could be sure she did, the kindly covering was removed. Some men saw us, and hurried us out of the Fort.
And after we had gone away that woman's face came back to us with its dark, deep-gazing eyes. I felt as if I had seen it before, though I knew it could not have been so, for no Fort woman walks outside. But often, during the years that passed before we could enter the Fort again, I seemed to see that same face pass, and to hear a tone in another voice so like hers that it startled me, and haunted me like a haunting tune. But life is full of the definite. And the strange intangible influences that, shadow- like, cross and recross it at times fall for the most part unheeded.
CHAPTER III He maketh the Stars
year of our first attempt upon the Fort was a J_ year of organised opposition from the Hindus in our neighbourhood. They had been exceedingly friendly ; but they had been alarmed by seeing several of their young people beginning to take an interest in Christianity, and while they were debating about what to do, one of these inquirers became a convert.
This clinched matters. The order went forth that every caste town and village within a working distance of our home was to be closed to us. Then all the district round became like a rock at low tide studded with limpet shells. Limpetwise, each little coterie resented the lightest touch on its shell, and showed its feelings by fastening the firmer to the rock. Those were the days when our appearance in the most offended villages brought handfuls of dust thrown from behind walls full in our faces. We did not mind the dust, but we did mind being shut out of the people's hearts. And yet we could not wonder at them. From their point of view it was the only thing to do.
Mr. Meredith Townsend's book, Asia and Europe, con- tains a careful study of Indian character. Attention is
14
THE CASTE CABAL 15
drawn to the singular tenacity of will which, coexistent as it is with a surface flexibility, so often perplexes the observer. " The will of an Asiatic, once fairly roused, closes on its purpose with a grip to which nothing in the mind of a European can compare, a grip which seems too strong for the conscience, the judgment, and even the heart. The man is like one possessed, and cannot, even if he would, change his self-appointed course."
Shortly after the stir caused by a break in the serried ranks of caste, a young Brahman barrister whose interest in books had brought us into touch with him, remonstrated on our iniquity in receiving converts whose caste had for- bidden them to have dealings with us. No one feels the misery of this necessity more keenly than the Missionary, and, longing that its cause should cease, we besought him to use his influence towards winning liberty of conscience for his people. " Why should they not be Christians at home ? " we urged, fired with a sudden hope that this well-educated man who quoted the English poets in every second sentence, this platform orator, newspaper writer, social reformer, would come to the rescue, and in his home at least do something persuasive and brave. He looked at us fixedly for a moment, and something looked out from his eyes, and then with a concentration of scorn we shall never forget, he spoke the truth to us, " Liberty of conscience ? Christians at home ? There is absolutely nothing we would not do to prevent such a thing occurring." The will had closed there.
It was impossible to do much among the villages where the caste cabal had power. There were others open to us, so we went to them. All we wanted was
16 HE MAKETH THE STARS
"The glory of going on," a commonplace glory truly, when going on means ploughing through deep sand in hot weather to reach dull little villages, where interest- ing things do not happen very often ; but a glory all by itself because of the joy wrapped up in its heart. Then this was stopped. Fever came. The dull villages did not respond. News reached us of the declension of some for whom we had hoped great things. Everything seemed going wrong. It was during this time, which was night to us, that God lighted a star in our sky.
We knew nothing about it at first. We had left our headquarters and were itinerating outside the prescribed area, when we camped near a town whose citizens chiefly belong to a Clan notoriously turbulent and careless as to spiritual things. There is no large temple there. The people are immersed in the mundane. One evening we had a large open-air meeting. Looking back we see that day crowned.
For two heard then who believed. One was a lad of eighteen who had learnt in a mission school. At that meeting God met him and reversed his life-purpose. The other, and the first to come out as a Christian, was just a little girl. Star, we called her afterwards.
Sometimes when we are tired we spend an hour with the poets. Thought-music, word-music holds a charm like the music of moving waters, to soothe and heal. Sometimes rest comes otherwise. The mystery of mighty spaces, the splendour of great forces, or the magic of colour, the marvel of the loveliness about us seems to open suddenly as if another finer sense than sight perceived it, and one's very being thrills with
WHO MADE ME? 17
an incommunicable joy. Sometimes a different thing happens. One can hardly tell what. Only one knows that, through and through, one is strong and glad and well again. One has seen part of the Ways of God.
It was late evening, a year after that open-air meeting in the Clansmen's town. We were in camp. Our tents were pitched on a large expanse of white sea sand ; far inland, but refreshingly suggestive of the sea. The day had been hot, and all day long people had been coming from the village near, not to listen, but to stare and talk. Our crowded little tents had been stifling. The noisy day, in which little of moment had been done, had left us tired. " Come," I said to Star, who was with us, " let us go out and cool." So we wandered hand in hand over the sand. Only the shadow of some stunted palms crossed its whiteness. Only the rustle of their leaves, as the light night-wind blew over the plain, broke its silence. We lay down on it and looked at the long ribs and ripples where the wind had played with it, and we let the moon-waves lap about us, and were still. " Amma," whispered Star at last, so gently that it might have been the night-wind speaking softly, " this re- minds me of the first night I spoke with God." We had often wondered how it was that a child who had heard nothing before should so quickly understand and respond. " Tell me about it," I said ; and she t jld me.
She had often asked her father to tell her who made her. She would look at her hands and feet, and realising that they must have been created by someone, she would go to her wise old father and weary him with questions about this unknown Creator. Was it the
18 HE MAKETH THE STARS
heavenly Siva, whose ashes they all rubbed across their foreheads every morning after bathing ? There were so many gods, she grew puzzled as she counted. Of all the gods, who was greatest ? Was it Siva ? Could he change dispositions ? She felt if she could only find this out she would be satisfied, for the god who could change dispositions must be the greatest, and surely the greatest must be Creator. Her father did not seem to know, and tried to put her off. This disheartened her. But she would not give in. There was one way, she reflected, by which she could bring creatorship and sovereignty down to the test of practical life. She would discover the hidden being by a process of elimina- tion. She would go through all the gods she knew, and find out which of them could change dispositions. She decided to begin with Siva, whose name her Clansmen bore. Had not her father gone to his temple month by month, with fasting and with prayer, pleading for children to be born to him ? And had not the heavenly Siva granted him eleven ? Her heart went out to Siva with a trustful expectation. He would change her disposition.
For she had a trying temper. Often when she was playing with other children she would get so over- bearing that they would not play with her. She had tried to conquer the fault, but there it was, strong, and growing stronger in her. So she prayed to Siva, pros- trating herself before him, crying her passionate broken prayer over and over into the air that never answered her back again. " 0 heavenly Siva, hear me ! Change my disposition that other children may love me and
WHO CAN CHANGE DISPOSITIONS ? 19
wish to play with me ! 0 heavenly Siva, hear me ! hear me ! hear me ! "
" And was your disposition changed ? " " Oh no, no, no. Not even was it moved towards changing. Then I used to go away alone where nobody would see me, far out into the jungle, and lay my head down on the ground, and stretch my arms out, and wonder if no one would come. And I tried some other gods, but I got tired of it. And I wondered the more who made me, and why I was made. And I wondered who I was. I said, I am I ; I am I. But how is it that I am I ? Then I got tired of wondering. And I got tired of wanting to be good, for I could not change my disposi- tion, and I did not know who could."
She went on, however, questioning any who would listen. The cousin who could have answered her ques- tions never spoke to her, nor did she speak to him. It would not have been proper, each being who they were. So no one answered her questions. People thought them foolish, almost blasphemous, considered her peculiar, because she was unlike themselves. An uncomfortable child they thought her, as we gathered from what others told us ; a sort of feminine freak, not to be taken seri- ously. And they looked at her in a curious way, and talked about her among themselves, and pitied her mother. " Being observed, when observation is not sympathy, is just being tortured." The sensitive flower of our South Indian river banks folds up its petals and leaves at less than a touch. The shiver of a shadow is enough to rob it of the heart to look up. Poor little human sensitive flowers, growing only God knows where,
20 HE MAKETH THE STARS
how often it must happen that they are chilled and hurt just when their petals open and smile up to the sky ! The child repulsed made up her mind that she never would ask any questions again. But she thought the more. In this way she was being prepared to listen when the answer came, and to understand.
CHAPTER IV "Lol these are Parts of His Ways"
IT came unexpectedly. One evening she went for water as usual to the well from which her people drew, on the outskirts of the town. The little terra-cotta coloured vessel was under her arm. She had only one thought, to fill it and bring it home quickly, and run back for another. Then she might go and play. But she saw a crowd gathered near the well, and being only a little girl she forgot about her work, and stood on the wet stones by the well and looked and listened. " There were three white people, and a talking noise, and a singing noise, and a box which made a noise." This was the first impression produced by ourselves and our baby organ, and the ardent singing of the half-dozen Indian helpers. It was all just a noise.
Presently she moved away. Then a madman came and tried to disturb the meeting. " See the white man beat the madman ! " shouted the crowd with enthusiasm. This would be interesting. The child stopped and watched. But the white man only put his arm on the madman's shoulder, and drew him gently out of the crowd, while the Indian brother continued speaking.
This was a tame proceeding. She turned again to go.
21
22 "Lo! THESE ARE PARTS OF HlS WAYS"
Just then a sentence repeated several times by the preacher caught her attention : " There is a living God. There is a living God : He turned me, a lion, into a lamb."
Then, with the suddenness of a new discovery, it flashed upon her that here at last was the answer to her questions. The God who could change a lion-man into a lamb was the God who could change dispositions, so the greatest God, so Creator. His being described as living implied that the rest were dead. " I will not worship a dead god," she almost spoke aloud in her eagerness. " Siva is a dead god. I will not rub his ashes on my forehead." Then she went slowly home, pondering those luminous words, " There is a living God : there is a living God." And in telling about it she added simply, " I did not want to sleep that night. I wanted to lie awake all night and talk to the living God."
Next morning, like the swift surprise of sunrise, a feeling of new happiness rose in her, and surrounded her, so that all the world looked different, and she danced as she walked. Being only such a little girl, she was free to go where she would, only not to defiling places, such as a Christian camp. She found her way to it notwith- standing, and sat on the floor of our tent among other village children, and learned a chorus, which struck her as remarkable because it was so easily understood. (The poetry to which she was accustomed was difficult to understand). But this was all so very new that she understood little of what she heard. " My heart was like a little room. It could not hold much then. Only I understood you said that the true God heard us when
THE TEST 23
we prayed, and very dearly loved us all. This entering in made room for itself." We knew nothing of the earnest little listener; did not even notice her among the others, for she kept in the background shyly, and ran home without speaking to us.
And as she ran home she resolved she would test this living God. She would ask Him for three things. If He should answer twice out of three times by doing just as she asked, she would be sure He really heard, and really dearly loved.
When she got home, her mother was standing on the doorstep with a switch in her hand. This meant a whipping. Quick as thought she prayed, " Living God, 0 Living God ! do not let my mother whip me ! "
Her mother caught her by the arm. " Where have you been, you naughty child ? Oh, you evil one, come here ! You are a perverse monkey cub ! You have been to those low-caste people ! " And a stinging swish of the switch on her little bare arms and shoulders was all the answer she saw to her prayer.
But she kept quiet. "A sort of peace was in my heart. I remembered you had said perhaps we would be punished for listening, but that God would be with us and help us to bear it ; so I kept quite still. It was peace." But the mother, mistaking the peace for sullen- ness, and being provoked by the child's unwonted silence, exclaimed, " Those low-caste people have perverted you already ! You have no feeling. You shall have a double whipping ! " and administered it forthwith. Then, indeed, distressed and much bewildered at this first and most evident failure of the test, upon which somehow she felt
24 "Lo! THESE ARE PARTS OF HlS WAYS "
she had staked more than she quite understood, the poor child broke out into bitter sobs, and the mother relented and was kind. But she cried herself to sleep that night.
Next day saw her at the camp again, risking another whipping, she knew ; but she did not mind that. Nor did her conscience prick her for disobedience ; she regarded the whipping as quite scoring off her debt of duty to her mother. " I disobey : she whips me : we are quits."
This time she heard a chorus about Jesus' love, salvation, and power to keep, explained ; and gathering that Jesus was the Living God, she prayed to Him as she ran home that evening, " 0 Jesus ! Living God, out of three prayers answer two ! ",
Her way led through a road bordered by tamarind trees. The ripe fruit hung low. But it is stealing to gather fruit ; you may only eat it if it falls of itself. She stopped, she prayed, " 0 Jesus ! Living God ! make the fruit fall." And a pod fell at her feet.
" One out of two ; that leaves one to show for certain whether He really is hearing and loving," she thought as she ran along, quickly now, for it was dark, and punish- ment most probable. " Jesus ! Living God ! " she prayed, as she raced almost breathless up to the door, " don't let my mother whip me ! Jesus ! Living God, listen ! "
" Ob, my heart thumped hard as I saw my mother standing on the step. She had not the switch in her hand. She met me. She drew me in. She said, ' I thought you were lost in the dark, my child ! Come in and have your supper.' She did not whip me at all."
This settled the question for ever. The Living God,
THE QUESTION SETTLED 25
Jesus, did hear prayer, did answer, did love. She would never doubt Him again, she told Him. She would worship no other, pray to no other.
It was a long story, but it did not seem long. The moon rode high overhead as we went back to camp. The night was alight with the beauty of it and the peace.
This was the child whose coming had been as star- rise to us a year ago. I looked back through the year that night. All along we had felt that she was not an ordinary child. There was always something intense about her. There was something unusual too in the way she had laid hold of each new truth as it was shown. She seemed to possess it at once. But enough of the inner story : God has put our soul somewhere out of sight, and our first conscious instinct is to pull the curtain closer round it, and cover it up from people's eyes. So the tale of the weeks that followed her first coming to us shall remain untold. We who taught her learned much ourselves. Our work was just to stand out of the light and let it shine full upon her. After a few weeks' teaching, suddenly she was snatched away.
CHAPTER V "Yet"
in early childhood's days she had been an ardent little idolater. When others stood in worship, she knelt. When others knelt, she fell on her face. " So far did I worship rny god," she said sorrowfully in telling us of it. Her father and mother called it " the god." She always called it " my god." It was she who persuaded her father to spend large sums of money upon works of merit to the honour of their god. It was she who twisted the chickens' necks when the annual sacrifice was offered. She loved to see the goat's blood flow, because it belonged to her god. And now her parents had sent for her to take part in a family festival. She might return, they said, in four days, but she must come at once.
She had been staying near our home, with a relative, who had allowed her to spend most of her time with us. Her parents, who during the interval had become known to us, had not objected to our teaching her; they thought of her as a mere child. But stories of what she was saying and doing had floated out to them, and alarmed them. She must be recalled. The festival was made the pretext. The real intention, we felt,
26
ONLY FOUR DAYS? 27
was to get her out of our influence, and we feared a marriage would be arranged, and completed as quickly as possible.
But she had no such feelings and fears. " Only four days and I will be back ! " And she danced about in delight. For she was still a happy child, with the careless confidence of a child, and all a child's love of excitement. Apart from the religious element, with which she was sure she would have nothing to do, the festival would be enchanting; new clothes, and new jewels, and such lovely decorations, and delicious things to eat. " I will not be forced to do anything wrong. I will say I am Jesus' child. I will tell them all about Him. It will be all right," she said as she opened the little Gospel of St. Mark which she had just begun to spell out slowly, and we settled down for our last talk. This was difficult to me. It is always difficult to say anything which might suggest disloyal thoughts to a child. But parenthood is so often lost in Hinduhood here, that one felt bound to prepare this little one, so fearless in her innocence, for what might lie before her. So we talked about the difference between the yieldedness of spirit where her own wishes were concerned, which would please her Lord and perhaps win her parents, and the weakness of will where His wishes were concerned, which would be fatal compromise. And then with her clinging hands in mine I committed her to His tenderness. But my heart sank as I saw her go.
The weeks that followed passed slowly. We heard nothing of our child. We knew she would have sent
28 "YET"
a message had she not been prevented. We knew of one who, for a less fault than hers, had been kept in chains for three full years. "We knew that if chains were in question now, any move on our part would only rivet them the more firmly. We could do nothing for her but pray and pray again.
Then came the most sorrowful day. News reached us at last. She had given in, we heard. A family council had been called. They had mocked the little lonely girl. She had been ordered to worship the idol she used to serve, and rub Siva's ashes on her forehead. She had refused. Punishment followed. She could not bear it. She yielded at last, bowed to the idol, rubbed on the ashes. She would soon be married and sent far away.
As our bullock cart rumbled back home over the broken road from the town where we had heard it, there was time to feel it all. Everything seemed to feel it too. The lake we skirted blazed in a still white fire of pain. The palms by the roadside drooped with it. The cart wheels ground it out of the sand. Life at such times is tense.
But there was one verse which came to us then, over and over again. We were, you remember, shut out from the homes of the people, because the coming of converts had closed their hearts against us. There was no sign of hope or joy anywhere just then ; no sheaf to lay at His feet : " Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat ; the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls : Yet will I rejoice in the Lord ; I will joy in the God of my salvation."
THE " IMPOSSIBLE " 29
There was another Yet.
"No darkness is so deep but white Wings of the angels through can pierce Nor any chain such heaps lies in But God's Own hand can hold it light; Nor is there any flame so fierce
But Christ Himself can stand therein."
We were to prove it true.
Every one assured us that it was perfectly impossible to do anything for the child. It was impossible she could be saved from what to her would be a daily death. The most we could ask for her was a quick release, and faith to the end. For nothing we heard could make us feel that her denial of her Lord was more than something wrested from her by deadly fear. So we prayed on these lines for a while. Then, in spite of all that was said, all the verses we had ever read about God's doing impossible things came crowding into our mind. We could not give up hope. Together we waited upon Him to do the impossible for her.
It was Sunday, a week later. We had heard nothing in the interval. I was alone in my room, reading before the first bell rang for morning service. Many verses had a voice, and that voice hers. " I am so fast in prison that I cannot get out." " Comfort the soul of Thy servant : for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. In the time of my trouble I will call upon Thee, for Thou nearest me. Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, 0 Lord : there is not one that can do as Thou doest." She had said so, all bore witness to it. If only she had not given in ! But He would not forget
30 "YET"
she had said it, and suffered for saying it. " Teach me Thy way, 0 Lord, and I will walk in Thy truth. Oh, knit my heart unto Thee ! " And then one's own heart found voice in the cry, hardly could it be called a prayer, for faith was tired that day, " Show some token upon me for good ! " Oh, what a token for good it would be if our Star-child might come back to us !
Some quiet minutes passed. The bell began to ring, and I was just about to get ready for church, when there was a little sound at the door, a little hand pushed the sun-blind back — and we had our child again.
We never knew quite what had happened, for she was very ill for weeks ; the overstrain had told. But some things became clear. There had been a family council, but she had not given in. God's hand had lighted that little star. No storm could blow it out. All we had heard had been done, and more. She was so much gentler and more obedient than ever she had been before, that her parents had been encouraged to think she would not hold out long. But the strong old father found in the weakness of his child a strength made perfect. His allowing her to return to us is, to all who know South India, very wonderful " There is not one who can do as Thou doest."
I asked her what helped her most through those weeks. She knew so little of the Bible then, that I wondered what she would say. She told me she kept the Gospel of St. Mark tied up in her dress as long as she could. It was discovered, and taken from her. " So I had not the comforting feel of it," she said. " But I remembered they could not take away Jesus, and I
"THE GLORY OF THE IMPOSSIBLE" 31
remembered how He walked in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego ; and how the fire could not burn their bodies or anything upon them, except the cords. And I thought it was a good thing it burnt the cords, for they could not have walked in the fire with Jesus if the cords had not been burnt. So I asked Him to let the fire burn my cords. After that I don't remember anything. Only I think the fire got cool."
There are some ancient stories which are wonderfully vivified by present-day experience. " Let them know that Thou art Lord, the only God, and glorious over the whole world." So the Song of the Three Holy Children tells us they prayed. And " The angel of the Lord came down, and smote the flame of the fire out of the oven ; and made the midst of the furnace as it had been a moist whistling wind so that the fire touched them not at all, neither hurt nor troubled them." And even more brightly lighted up, the old words stand out alive and strong : " Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire ? Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt."
We keep the date of the coming to us of each girl and child as a birthday. There are feasts and flowers and little surprises, as on a birthday at home. And the fifth anniversary especially is held as a gala day. The Star-child, who is now Accal (older sister) to a number of affectionate little ones, gives us a look into the loving ways of the East, through a letter written to a friend telling about her fifth coming day. " I never had a day like it. It was a day with a garland upon it. My little sisters said to me the evening before, ' Call us
32 "YET"
early in the morning, because we want to see you early, for to-morrow is a kind of little Christmas day.' And in the morning they kissed me much, and they all came round me and said, ' Dear Acc& ! this is our joyful day, because it is your Coming-day.' Then we went to the lake to bathe. And as we went through the wood the church bell rang for the schoolboys' morning service. Then they all kissed me again and said, ' Are you very tired, Acca, after your long, long walk ? ' for it was to them as if I had walked that morning all the way from my father's house. And as we went they wanted to tell some one about it. But we met no one in the wood. So they called to the sky, ' 0 sky, hear us ! This is our Accal's Coming-day ! ' And they called to the palms, ' 0 palms, hear us ! This is our Accal's Coming-day ! ' '
Five years bound round with deliverances and answers to prayer : many a time the father had come to claim her and enforce his right to make her do as he willed. Each time, as if compelled to let go, he went away without her. We could have done nothing to keep her had he insisted. When he came, one of us always went away alone and continued waiting upon God till the conflict had found its conclusion in peace. Once as he went away he was heard to mutter, " What is the matter with me ? My hands are strong to take her ! It is as if I were bound and held from touching her."
Enough : we have told enough to sweeten some song in the night. If the angels care enough to sing over each saved one everywhere, well may we sing when even one star is lighted and kept alight. But our sky was not left long with only one little star in it. One by one,
"PRAISE HIM, ALL YE STARS OF LIGHT!" 33
just as the stars come out in the evening, dropping through the deepening blue, how, you hardly know, so these stars came ; each the herald of another.
" Cursed be your feet that made the first track in the sand for these others to follow," said the father, head of the Clan, incensed as he saw brothers and cousins and other young kinsmen turning the way she had gone. But the angels look at it differently.
CHAPTER VI Opened
STAR, grown-up now, was with me when, six years after our last attempt, God opened the Fort to us.
She and I had been travelling together on the Eastern side of the district. Some of her relatives lived in the town to which the Fort belongs, and we had left our direct route home to visit them. But dearly though she loved them, Star found they and she had little in common. The sorrow of this discovery was upon her when we remembered the Fort ; and it was with a quickened appreciation of the miracle of conversion where such souls are concerned, that we approached that little citadel, and once more sought an entrance in the name of the Lord.
We found the same door locked and the same door open, as before. Time seemed to have gone to sleep where the old Fort was concerned. All within appeared empty and silent, just as it had been before. We walked through the streets unchallenged.
On the far side we found a grey old temple enclosed by a high red and white wall. A tamarind tree is beside it, and glad to get out of the brilliant light, light beating down from unclouded blue, and light beating up from
34
IN THE FORT AGAIN 35
the glittering sand, we stood in the cool green shade and prayed that some one might come to whom we could speak.
Soon from the distance voices came jangling irreve- rently through the universal silence. Then some field women strolled across the open and accosted us in the friendliest way, shouting all together in their astonish- ment at seeing us. They were the Fort people's ser- vants, they said ; they worked in the Fort fields outside, and did the rough work of the place. They applauded our wisdom in not knocking at any of the house doors. " It would have greatly disturbed the women. Why should you trouble them ? " They advised us to go out again, because no one would let us in. " The evangelisa- tion of the world in this generation " is our motto ; but how are you to evangelise people when you cannot get at them ? The women had work to do, and they left us under the tree.
We had not knocked at any door, partly lest we should startle the shy inhabitants, and partly because we were so anxious to be led to the heart prepared. More and more we feel that in work of this kind we need to be led to the one who, through some previous dealing of the Spirit, is ready to discern the truth. So once more we walked past the silent shut-up houses, looking for an open door.
We found one at last. Our call was answered by a girl's voice. We went in and found a young girl in possession. Her face struck me at once as familiar, though I could not have seen it before.
She was a young wife, tall and slight, with hair that
36 OPENED
waved and curled round the smooth low brow. Her eyes shone when she spoke to us or smiled, but when she was only listening the light in them passed, and her normal expression seemed one of depression, sharpened by the keenness of some disappointment. She sighed as she sat down, after spreading a mat for us. And she sighed as she listened.
" Sister ! " Star began in her simple earnest way, " we have come to bring good news to you. There is a living God who loves you. He has always loved you. He sent us here to tell you so." " Who loves me ? " interrupted the girl. " I have no children."
We knew enough of the customs of the Fort to under- stand. The childless wife might any day become the childless widow. To such a one a terribly severe punish- ment is meted out. We had heard the smothered cry of one as we passed the house where she was confined in what a child, in describing it, called the " eighth (very innermost) room of the house."
It is not true, thank God, that confinement to an Indian girl is what it would be to an English girl. The free, open-air loving spirit is rarer here than at home. But no words can overstate the bitterness poured into many a cup. And the song — if such tear-words can make a song — that the Fort-widow sings is this : " Where it will may the river wander ; where she will the wife may wander. Pent by its banks is the pool. Pent by her fate is the widow. I, the widow, am as the pool, as the pool that never may wander."
Only a thread withheld this from that girl. Should fate cut that thread, her husband's life, what an Indian
IN A FORT HOUSE 37
widow has quietly called "The cold fire" would be kindled for her. And all life was a fear to her because she had no children at seventeen.
For a moment the two girls looked at each other. One saw how very alike they were. They might have been sisters. But a world of difference lay between ; one saw it and ached to see it as the Star-child leaning forward held out her hands beseechingly, " Take it ! His love is all for you. Oh, sister, this news was beautiful to me and the joy of joys" — while the other, leaning back lest defiling hands should touch her, answered the eager words with a yawn. " Is that so ? " she said at last, and rose ; " I must go and do my cooking."
Had she the heart prepared ? It did not seem like it. And yet one never knows. The seed strikes root some- times in a narrow crevice in the rock.
We found another open door, and went in full of expectation. A mother was there, and a family of children ; bonnie babies played on the floor, and the elder ones clustered about us close, but never close enough to touch, for that would be pollution.
It was the usual South Indian room, dark save for the shaft of light which fell from the open door. It was furnished with a great brass lamp, hung with oleander flowers ; and there was one unusual thing, a bed of dark wood finely carved, of a quaint involved design. A pile of silk garments lay on it, crimson and a golden brown, and the shaft of sunlight fell on the pile, and lighted the room with colour. There was colour too in the group on the floor, where half in sight and half iu
38 OPENED
shadow, making unconscious pictures, the mother and children sat looking at us with that calm scrutiny which in India precedes speech, be the speech when it comes never so trivial. " Why have you got no jewels and no oil on your hair ? " they asked at length, and launched into conversation.
One by one the women from the inner rooms came out. There was not a sound or a movement as we tried to show our Lord to them. Almost breathless in her eagerness, knowing she might never see them again, Star told them the wonderful story, and still there was silence as I continued, feeling afresh as one told it freshly to those who had never heard it, the infinite marvel of it. Oh for words to tell it as it deserves to be told ! Could any heart resist it ? How we longed to stay with these women, become Fort women to them, and tell them all about the love of Jesus over and over, till we could be sure they understood ! But that could not be. Caste comes at once and makes a distance between us and those to whom we would fain be as sisters. We stayed as long as they cared we should, then left them regret- fully. A man saw us as we left the house, but he took no notice of us ; so far as getting in was concerned, the Fort was open at last, and we went where we would through the quiet streets and searched for our first friend, the one who had listened six years before ; but we could not find her. Death had not waited outside those six years ; that was a sobering thought. And we tried to find some trace of the seed sown years ago by the sister we knew had once gone in ; but the seed had not beeii watered, how could it have lived ? Perhaps
OPEN, BUT NOT OCCUPIED 39
the seed that sister sowed was the seed-corn of prayer. Thank God that seed is imperishable. In the opening of the Fort we saw that seed in fruit.
But now that it is open who is there to go in ? Our Mission is considered well manned and well organised. Everything is arranged in departments. There is a Biblewoman department, with, its natural sequence, a Converts' home. There is a Biblewoman in the town to which the Fort is attached. But the place lies some distance from her home ; she has plenty of nearer work, she cannot undertake the Fort. There is no other woman in the town who can. And only a woman has the entree to the Fort. So that the most it can have is an occasional visit. Not that it wants more, or as much. It is not asking for anything. There is no consciousness of need. Still, it is open so far, as we have shown. The narrowness of centuries is widening a little, the exclusiveness is a little less pronounced. And yet, in this " well-manned " Mission, the workers are still too few to allow of one being immediately set apart to buy up an opportunity, buyable now for the first time. The truth is that workers of the right sort are far too few to buy up one out of every hundred opportunities, here and everywhere.
CHAPTER VII The Clan
T
well " : this was the picturesque description the Superintendent of Police gave us when we asked him about the Clan. The people of the Clan dwell in two towns about six miles apart. They are as one man in sentiment and character, and they do not love the Christian religion.
The boy of eighteen, who, with his cousin Star, heard the Gospel preached in the open-air meeting by the well, kept silent at first as to his determination to be a Christian. His father, one of the wealthiest men in the place, would disinherit him he knew. He did not fear that. What he did fear was the abandonment of grief into which his action would plunge his family. Also, being a human boy, he feared being beaten. A beating in the Tamil country may mean anything, from a good whipping with a switch or rope up to cudgelling, from which even a grown man might shrink. So the boy was silent for a while.
Just at that time his town and its twin town were agitated over an event which had deeply affected a neighbouring village. A young girl belonging to a
40
VICTORY TO SIVA ? 41
much respected caste had confessed Christ openly, and been obliged to leave her home and take refuge else- where. Immediately following this, another girl, belong- ing to the twin town, took her stand as a Christian, by refusing to carry a pot, pierced with a thousand holes, which holes in Tamil are called eyes, as an offering to the goddess who had, as was believed, restored her eye- sight. " It was the Christians' God Who healed my eyes. I will not carry the pot."
It is true that a girl is a thing of small consequence in the life of a Hindu town. It is also true that nothing creates more disturbance in that same life than any independent action on the part of a girl. The Clan, as head caste in the place, concerned itself in the case. The parents were encouraged to use extreme measures. The Clan promised to back them up in whatever they chose to do. One night, armed with a billhook and a knife, mother and father made a feint -of attacking the girl, but she was not terrified though they almost beat her to death. All this was known to the Clan. "Go on ! We shall see who will conquer," they said, " Siva or Christ." The parents went on. They won their way at last.
Then the Hindus were triumphant. All the town seemed to know about it. When we went there we felt the triumph in the very air. " Siva has conquered ! Victory to Siva ! " Some openly said it ; everyone looked it. In a little dark room in the heart of the town we tasted the bitterness of it, slowly drank of it, hour after hour. And yet somehow, though far cast down, at first we were not afraid. We thought God
42 THE CLAN
would work a miracle. He sometimes does. To us this seemed a suitable time : " Wherefore should the heathen say, where is now their God ? Let Him be known among the heathen in our sight. 0 God, how long shall the adversary reproach ? Shall the enemy blas- pheme Thy name for ever ? Why withdrawest Thou Thy hand, even Thy right hand ? Pluck it out of Thy bosom ! Arise, 0 God, plead Thine own cause." But we saw no sign in that dark little room, and as we drove away we looked back upon it with a sort of shuddering horror. We had seen there, with the smirch of his finger fresh upon it, the handiwork of the evil one. We had corne into direct collision with him, and for the time had been terribly worsted. We reached home tired out, to find a convert waiting there.
Workers in hard places will know what that brief sentence means : the sudden swing from depth to height, the sudden revulsion of feeling, the inrush of exultant joy, shadowed though it was, and had to be — they will understand it. The boy who had given himself to a new service at that open-air meeting could not go on keeping silence. He confessed Christ at home. But he could not live as a Christian at home. He was forced to escape to us. He had arrived a few minutes before we came.
Immediately the storm broke round the mission-house. Crowds of relatives came, raged, pleaded, in turn. Some- times they brought one skilled in speech to work upon him, till one felt, as one listened, influenced against one's will, by the almost hypnotic effect of that wonder- fully persuasive oratory, and marvelled at the strength
VICTORY TO CHRIST ! 43
that held him constant. Sometimes they painted the mother's sufferings so harrowingly that we to whom she was not mother could hardly bear it. But he bore it, though only God knows what it cost. The men of the Clan, who by supporting the parents in their iniquity concerning the young girl, were chiefly responsible for its result, came in wrath and humiliation, and we could not help wondering whether it ever occurred to them to connect their action in that with God's action in this. Gladly now would they have seen that insignificant young girl a baptized Christian ten times over rather than lose their noble boy.
For from their point of view he was irretrievably lost. He broke caste from the first, and took his stand as an out-and-out Christian, in a way which dismayed them, and made them feel the Clan had been humbled to the dust. " He has fallen into the pit, and we with him ! 0 blind god, blind god ! " they cried, " is it thus you requite your worshippers ? " We heard no more of victory to Siva.
Suddenly this bright boy died. We were from home at the time, and when we heard the news it seemed to ring the knell to all our hopes for that special Clan and town Nothing so daunts prospective inquirers as the death of a new convert. "Join the Way, and die," they say, ignoring the fact that those who do not join occasionally die. Death is the sign of God's frown. Were the people going to be able to think it was victory to Siva, after all ?
The Christians who lived in the little house, in whose dark little room we waited that day in our weakness and
44 THE CLAN
grief, wrote to us : " He died here ; he died in the room where you prayed. The heathen crowded the street, and looked in, and we sang as he died, so that all should hear, ' Victory to Jesus' name. Victory to Jesus.' He had no fear. It was all victory, and peace. Many saw it and wondered. ' We do not die so,' they said ; and with great astonishment they watched us, and listened."
Then indeed it seemed to us that in each detail and incident a Divine coincident lay. Had not God purposely chosen the place of our defeat to be the place where He should show forth His triumph over the last enemy to be destroyed ? Had not even that very room come into His remembrance ? The thought of it was good now. It had become a porch into the Presence chamber. The influence of that victorious death still works in the town. It is an argument none can con- trovert for the truth of our holy religion and the keeping power of God.
This alone would have been much. There is more to tell. We feared for the town, because we have often noticed that if a town, knowing what it is doing, shuts its doors and bars its windows to the breath of the Spirit, there is a withdrawal. The Spirit does not force an entrance. The town seems left. But to the glory of God we tell it, that town has stood out as an exception. From the day the people claimed victory for Siva, the town has never been for long without a seeker after truth. First from the most opposing Clan another was won, and another. Then to the heart of things the Spirit passed, and touched one connected with Temple-service. Then back to the indignant Clan, and another was drawn
" THINE is THE KINGDOM" 45
out. The next came from a hamlet dependency. The next from the Clan again. And looking widely over His work it appears that He has most markedly worked in that special Clan which, whether in village or in town, is most strong in opposition.
" When Christianity assumes an aggressive attitude," wrote George Bo wen, " the first result is a great exhibi- tion of Satanic power. Satan's power to be manifested must be assaulted. There must necessarily be a com- plete exhibition of Satan's power before there can be a complete revelation of the power of Christ. This last is the second result of Christian aggression. It is by what He conquers that Christ's power is to be discovered."
It is true that the little town as a whole, and especially its leading Clan, oppose as much as ever. There has been no general movement. Souls are saved one by one. May the day soon come when, by some great wave of irresistible Omnipotence, those who of all the world's peoples are hardest to win, will be swept into the kingdom of God's dear Son ! Nothing less will effectually deal with Islam and with caste ; our work is only the under- mining of the walls of the ancient fortress of lies, that when at last the wave breaks on the shore, there may be the less to withstand it ; till then may God keep us patient, " henceforth expecting." But even now as we look through the years to that day, when we felt so heavy-laden, to that room where we saw not our signs, to that Clan of strong antipathies, to that town unshaken in its certainty of victory to Siva, and then turn, and look humbly but thankfully at what has happened since, can we fail to see and appropriate God's Overweight of
46 THE CLAN
Joy ? " It is by what He conquers that Christ's power is to be discovered."
"Now thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" Oh to be more and more " stedfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord."
CHAPTER VIII The Clue
OF all the people we had met in six or seven years' continuous itinerating work, none had drawn us more to pray, or followed us more persistently through those fugitive half-resemblances which so often suggested remembrance, than the secluded women of the Fort. But the conversion of a Fort woman still seems distant.
The genesis of anything is interesting. According to the folklore of the place, the Fort's story is briefly this :
Over eight hundred years ago it is said that two sisters and their retainers in journeying south quarrelled while fording the river which flows by the town near which the Fort is built. One sister held that convenience should rule in crossing rivers ; and she marched straight through the stream holding her garments so that they should not get wet. The other insisted that custom should ever be observed ; and she let her garments trail in the water.
The straw became a pillar, as the Tamils say ; the two sisters and their adherents parted never to meet again. The independent-minded sister travelled further and founded a township. The other stopped near the river, built a wall a mile in circumference, fifteen feet high
47
48 THE CLUE
and six feet thick, pierced with four doors iron bossed and fitted with huge locks. Within this wall it was then ordained the women folk of that Clan must dwell in absolute seclusion. No woman born within should ever go out alive. No man born without should ever come in. Till they were eight or nine years old, the Fort's little girls might play freely in the open enclosure within the wall. After that age was passed they must live indoors. Once, a child, attracted by the sound of a procession passing through the street beyond the wall, ran out of her house, up to the wall, where the door stood open invitingly. And she looked out. Some one had seen her and followed. She was pulled in, and the people say she was instantly sawn asunder, and buried beside the door. Since then that door has been locked.
Once that great man, the Governor of the Province, rode up in state to the locked door and asked to be admitted. He was refused, and rode off with his suite. " If any of them," writes an I.C.S. friend, " gets into trouble, all you can do is to knock at the door and say he is wanted ; and his friends hand him out to you. We have never known a case which would justify us in violating their scruples to the extent of forcing an entrance." The people to this day tell with relish the story of the Governor who turned back from the locked door. You can see their appreciation of the courtesy which respected their tradition, but overtopping that is pride in their glorious grooviness. " We are the People of the Fort."
But the Fort's existence has been jeopardised by certain of its laws. " Their treatment of the ladies is not, as
COFFINED 49
may be imagined, conducive to the longevity of that sex," is the laconic observation of the Civil Servant before quoted. One law enacted that no family might possess more than one daughter. This law has been repealed, but its long observance has denuded the Clan.
So these people have lived their lives for many generations, unaffected by the changes in the world outside their wall. India may pass from hand to hand. What does that matter to the people of the Fort ? Storms and calms are nothing to the fossil in the rock. It may appear incredible to the strong commonsense of the West that the will should close on its purpose to bury its owner alive. In the East such things are not strange. The corpse is content in its coffin. That is the pity of it. But the coffin lid has smothered any sigh that may ever have risen, the world so close outside has never seen through that coffin lid, where the thing that was not a corpse may have moved. That is the tragedy of it.
After their altercation, the two branches of the Clan naturally fell apart, and considered themselves foes. No intermarriage was permitted. They were as two separate castes. The sister's descendants who settled outside increased and spread to a neighbouring town. " And it is affirmed that the characteristic shown by the sister at the ford, who dared to act as she chose apart from the rules of etiquette, still lingers in the family, for the women are brave and independent of spirit, and their men are very bold " : so reads the Tamil manuscript from which the story comes, and ends.
For a moment I saw nothing, and put the paper down ; 4
50 THE CLUE
then suddenly I understood, caught at the fleeting float- ing clue that had eluded me so long, knew why that first Fort woman's face had followed me through all the years ; knew too how prayer had wrought when it seemed as though it had fallen as the very foam of the spray beaten back by the great sea-wall.
The family famed for audacity and defiance of public opinion live eight thousand strong in the town where we held that ever-remembered open-air meeting by the well. Star and her cousin, the boy who bore glorious witness in his death, belonged to that special Clan. The town in which such battles were fought and in which the Spirit has wrought in power, proving Christ and not Siva reigns, is peopled by the same family, twin Clan to the Clan of the Fort. 9
" True prayer," says Westcott in his note on Hebrews v. 7, " the prayer which must be answered, is the per- sonal recognition and acceptance of the Divine will. It follows that the hearing of prayer ... is not so much the granting of a specific petition which is assumed by the petitioner to be the way to the end desired, but the assurance that what is granted does most effectively lead to the end."
Often the answer to our prayer comes as it were obliquely. We pray for one, and the prayed-for one goes on apparently unimpressed. But the prayer, if one may put it so, glances off the soul that has hard- ened itself, and falls like a shower on another, and that soul responds like a watered garden, and blossoms out in flower. Or where, as in the case of the Fort, and perhaps more often than we know, ignorance rather than
LOOK UP 51
wilful refusal shuts off the fall of the showers for a while, the answer may be delayed, and we may count the time a void ; not seeing that what is granted does most effectively lead to the end which is our heart's desire. But if, not seeing any light, we listen in still- ness, we hear God say : " Fear not, look up, for My love works now, even before it is given full scope. See, I am filling the interval with shining answers to those prayers. Look and see them, star-like, strewn across the places you thought were void. There are no empty places here. Look up, and praise."
CHAPTER IX The Shah Najaf
IF there is one thing more than another which the average Englishman abhors, that thing is cant. We all agree about it. It is detestable. The man of the world, so called, keeps clear of it alto- gether. Are we who professedly belong to another world quite so clear ? For example, we sincerely re- joice over stories of success from this and that quarter of the globe. But does it very much trouble us that Asia as a whole is practically an unconquered fort?
If it does trouble us, how much does it trouble us ? How much are we prepared to sacrifice to win that fort ? Missionaries at home on furlough are sometimes keenly disappointed in what is called an interest in missions. In some places it seems as if this same " interest " were treated as a sort of decorative afterthought to the other- wise quite complete church life. An absence of news (good news) from the front, and there is a perceptible cooling off ; an honest story of defeat is told, and discour- agement results. And yet we all profess to be soldiers, with a soldier's conscience about obedience and a soldier's courage in tackling the difficult. To the onlooker, at
62
"DISCOURAGING" 53
least, it must sometimes seem that we are not in very burning earnest about our soldiership. And if we call ourselves soldiers, and sing, and pray, and talk on these lines, and yet are not in burning earnest, is it not possible that the thing we all agree to dislike is resident among us?
The fact is irrefutable, and the sooner we face it the better, that certain fields are " discouraging," to quote the poor broken-backed word in use in such connections. Yet history is full of stories which rebuke the limp-souled courage based on prospects of an easy victory. We often recall these stories. One concerns the Shah Najaf in the days of the Indian mutiny.
The Shah Najaf was a tomb enclosed by masonry loopholed walls twenty-five feet high. Lord Eoberts de- scribes its assault and capture in his Forty-one Years in India. He says it was almost concealed in dense jungle, so that its strength was unsuspected till ap- proached. The troops were marching to the relief of Lucknow. They could not leave the fort unconquered in their rear. The artillery, a battalion of detachments, fresh infantry, attacked in succession. They fo\l back, riddled by the deadly fire from the fort. Our guns were only a few yards distant, but they produced no impres- sion. The enemy, encouraged by success, grew bolder. The one hope of the little British army fighting against 30,000 desperate mutineers was to continue to advance at all hazards. Sir Colin Campbell led his men straight to the walls. The narrow path through the jungle was choked with wounded officers and dead and struggling horses. No breach in the walls could be found. The
54 THE SHAH NAJAF
men had no scaling ladders. Passion, tumult, solid dogged steadfastness, lives wrecked upon a purpose hardly to be achieved, the hot night closing down, the foe all round, for all the North was a foe : see it, and you see stress and strain past telling, cause for immense dis- couragement.
We have our Shah Najaf. This ancient and highly developed creed is a tomb. The word suggests decadence, but a tomb may be strongly fortified, with a strength concealed till approached. We make little headway in our assault. The enemy is upon us. We cannot fight at night. The enemy sees this, knows with an accurate knowledge we do not possess what the odds against us are. And so, except in moments of panic, he is not afraid of us.
The critic of missions sees all this, and, marvelling at our madness in prolonging the unequal struggle, he tries to show us how very unequal it is. He laughs at what he calls our " inflated reports," and calmly sits down to calculate. So much expenditure all told, with its present net result. So much money, so many men, devoted to the winning of those who are confessedly hardest to win, with exactly what success. The walls of the Shah Najaf, he proves, are not even slightly cracked.
But why should his sums disturb us so ? It is true that he omitted to tabulate results among peoples less strongly entrenched. He knew that these results are already familiar to students of missionary literature. Heaven's statistics were out of his reach, and possibly he may have forgotten the existence of the factor. Is his product therefore entirely wrong ? Why should he for
"GREAT is THE TRUTH" 55
his candour's sake be considered unpleasant, almost profane, a pricking brier and a grieving thorn in the sensitive missionary body ? Perhaps there is some truth in what he says. We do not want to be either optimistic or pessimistic, but just true. Said the wise Zerubbabel, " Great is the Truth and stronger than all things," and proved his proposition. And all the people shouted, " Great is the Truth and mighty above all things." " Truth beareth away the victory." If there is a possible particle of truth in the critic's remarks should we not set to, and search it out, and honour it when we find it ?
We should, and we will, say an increasing number of mission-loving men and women at home, and missionaries abroad ; but some still fear, knowing human nature well, lest subscriptions should be lost and candidates deterred by a too detailed account of what is called " the dark side " of things. But surely God's silver and gold should not have to be dragged out of Christian pockets by force of tales of victory. It should be enough to know that the King requires the money for the prosecution of His wars. Our unselfish friends the collectors should not have to dread lest an inconvenient escape of facts make their hard work harder. And as for the mission- ary candidates, if the knowledge that the battle is not nearly won yet deters them in the least, let them be deterred. The kind of candidate wanted ivill not be deterred. What we need is more common honesty. God listens to our words however expressed, strips them bare of accessories, musical or devotional, peels off all the emotion ; searches through for the pith at their heart,
56 THE SHAH NAJAF
caring just for the white thread of Truth. If we are, as we declare we are, not our own but wholly Another's, feeling will not affect duty either way.
The reports from the most hotly contested fields contain serious facts. A South Indian missionary lately wrote, that if our estimate of the progress made during the past twenty years in a certain Indian city were correct, we must admit that the Gospel we have been teaching does not appear to have had very much power in view of all that has been done. " We might well ask ourselves whether we really are preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ as He means we should." The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Why are they not oftener pulled down ?
The soldiers before the Shah Najaf were repulsed till further attack seemed suicide. Then the tide of victory turned. Two men, searching along the wall, discovered a single opening, looked through, climbed through. They found the foe flying from the Shah Najaf.
We have the promise of triumph. The fortress of the high fort of those walls of creed and caste shall God bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust. We believe in God, Jehovah is His Name : that strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. We have no right to be discouraged.
But, are we soldiers after all ? What those soldiers could not tolerate, rushed on death rather than tolerate, we tolerate comfortably; thankful that things are no
LOUISE BENEDICT PIERSON 57
worse than they are. Where is our enthusiasm for the kingdom of our Lord ? If enthusiasm is love on fire, where, then, is our love ? Do we count our lives too dear unto us to risk them under loopholed walls ? Is Christ's battalion the only one in which it is counted too much to die ? We would not conceal it, it does mean death. Eeputation for soul-winning power dies under the walls of the Shah Najaf. All that the " I " in us loves should live, is sentenced to death at the Shah Najaf. " Except it fall into the ground and die " — the law of the seed is the soldier's law. " There is no gain except by loss, there is no life except by death. . . . And that eternal Passion saith, ' Be emptied of glory and right and name.' "
One more look : look at the two, solitary for the moment, as they search along that wall. They have found the gap, they are climbing through it into the fort : are they solitary now ? No ! for the Highlanders close behind, each man keen to be first to go through, needing no urging. Then look again at the other wall, at the few who are searching for the gap. Say, when your comrades find the gap will they have to go in alone ?
Do we press all to come and join in the storming of the Shah Najaf ? For answer, we quote words written in one of her last letters, by an Indian missionary, Louise Benedict Pierson, who received the victor's palm on the battlefield. It is a warrior's message to a brother, a comrade to be :
" I write words for you to ponder and pray over. Do not go to any foreign field until you know beyond a
58 THE SHAH NAJAF
doubt that God has Himself sent you to that particular field at that particular time. There is a romance or halo about being a missionary which disappears when you get on the field, I assure you. And, believe me, from the first moment you step upon shipboard upon your way to the field, the devil and all his agents will attack, and entice, and ensnare you, or try to do all these, in order to defeat the purpose for which you cut loose and launched out. Nothing but the fulness of the Holy Spirit will carry anyone through ; and if you do not know that you have received this, do not fail to obey the command to ' tarry until you be endued with power from on high.'
" Believe me, the foreign field is already full enough of prophets that have run, and He did not send them. If you know beyond a doubt — and you may — that God is empowering and sending you there, and now, go and fear not; and when, through the days, months, and years of suffering, that are sure to be in this cross-bearing life, the question arises again and again, ' Why is this ? Am I in God's plan and path ? ' the rock to which you will hold in this sea of questionings and distresses is, ' God sent me here, I know beyond a doubt; therefore I may go on fearing nothing, for He is responsible, and He alone.' But if you have to admit, ' I do not know whether He sent me or not/ you will be thrown into an awful distress of mind by the attacks of the great adversary, not know- ing what will be the outcome, and you will find yourself crying out, ' Oh that it were time to go home. What a fool I was to run ahead of the Lord.' Do not think,
LOUISE BENEDICT PIERSON 59
my brother, that God sends us to the field sweetly to tell the story of Jesus, and that is all. He sends us there to do what Jesus came into the world to do — to bear the cross. But we will be able to trudge on, though bowed under the weight of that cross of suffering, and even of shame, if our hearts are full of Him, and our eyes are ever looking upon the One who is invisible, the One who sent us forth, and therefore will carry us through.
" Forgive me for writing thus plainly. I pray that this message may shake in you all that can be shaken, that that which cannot be shaken may remain firm as the Eock of Ages."
CHAPTER X "Follow the Gleam"
DR. HORTON, in his Life of Tennyson, explains the Gleam to be that elusive truth or beauty which it is the function of the poet to seize and ex- press. The poet's life must ever be a following of the Gleam.
To the missionary the Gleam is the joy set before him, the glory of his Master in the winning of souls. His whole life, if he is true, has for its motto, " Follow the Gleam."
The rough battle view of things seen at the Shah Najaf sometimes tires. There are days when we want something less fierce. The noise of the shouting, the clash of creed on creed ceases, " quenched with quiet " at the passing of the Gleam.
The besetting sin of Evangelistic work is slackness. Our colleagues on the Educational side have certain incentives which we have not. The result is apparent. If you want to see Duty spelt with a capital letter, go to a well-worked mission school. Such a visit is a tonic.
Another tonic is to be found in the other wing, the Medical. There you can study the opposite of your own
60
NEYOOR 61
defect, for a medical mission is nothing if it is not thorough. The punishment for slovenly work is sure and swift in the Medical as in the Educational. Only the thorough succeeds. In our Evangelistic work it is somewhat different. The result of a slack hour does not show at once. The stain it leaves on the conscience, the absence of something that might have been wrought in another soul, these are symptoms of decline often invis- ible to our eyes. Only God and the sorrowful Angels read them aright from the first.
As tilings are, then, it is good sometimes to break away from one's own sphere and go into another for a while. It helps to ensure against mental cramp. It draws the lowered standard up, and gives one a salutary shake. And because the Gleam is the same for Educa- tional, Medical, and Evangelistic, one finds oneself still in one's own world with much to learn in every direction.
The nearest medical mission to us is the London Missionary Society's hospital at Neyoor, South Travan- core, distant thirty-five miles. If one has a change of bulls, and spends much energy in hurrying them on, one may cover the distance in about the time it takes to reach Dublin from London. Our people from all over the district constantly travel to the Neyoor hospital, for in our C.M.S. Mission here we have no medical work, and the people often feel the need of the help the Neyoor hospital gives.
My introduction to Neyoor shows a side of medical mission work upon which the mission Report naturally does not dilate, it being only one of the little byways of
62 "FOLLOW THE GLEAM"
kindness familiar to Medicals everywhere, but it may be worth while telling it. We had an epidemic of oph- thalmia in the village. Every morning a succession of suffering infants were brought to be attended to. Just when they were all beginning to mend, the trouble came to me. I thought nothing of it at first — it is a most common thing in India (the children immediately gave me the verse, " In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren ") — but it soon forced one to think of it. Simple means failed. Help was sought from Palani- cottah, but the Government doctor was miles away and could not come. We were reluctant to appeal to the overworked medical missionaries, but at last Mr. Walker telegraphed. Straight from the midst of what we after- wards knew was an abnormally heavy pressure of work, one of the two doctors stationed at Neyoor cycled out to us. That same night, as the blessed ease of respite from pain was felt, how I wished for a voice that would reach far to speak a clear word for medical missions !
The Neyoor hospital has thrown out offshoots into the fortunate surrounding country. One of these is a truly wonderful little place. It is a complete little hospital run on Western lines by an Indian medical evan- gelist. There you have the science of the West at work, with the touch of the East upon it.
When you wander round the Neyoor hospital, you see the East and West again in delightfully close company. Each patient has a friend or friends, and each of these seems to have friends. The result may not make for hos- pital discipline, but from a missionary view-point nothing
FROM A LAY POINT OF VIEW 63
could be more satisfactory. The kitchen system is as Indian as possible. The kitchens look like caves yawn- ing on the face of a cliff, for they open off a blank wall with a steep back-slanting roof ; each caste has its own cave. Facing the wards and hospital buildings which run round the compound, Indian fashion, there is what looks like a neat little house, built of stone on a stone platform, with a high-pitched red-tiled roof. This is the operation room, the heart of the place.
To the lay mind, and most of us are only lay, the sound of the word " operation " suggests something sinister, and the operation table is a thing we prefer to forget. I was looking, half attracted, half repelled, at the various contrivances and instruments, when a shuffling noise proclaimed an arrival, and an old man, a cataract case, was helped up the steps, and into the room, and on to the table. Then I realised that my feelings were wholly those of aversion. The little knives that were waiting in a bath of solution looked cruel. They were waiting for that poor old man.
" Doctors revel in operations : I wonder if they remember that their victims are not equallv inured. I wonder if bodies are just cases without feelings " : — these were the thoughts that came at that moment, quite irrespective of reason. " He's nervous," said the doctor, who was vigorously scrubbing his hands. " You might talk to him : tell him it won't hurt." Some questions are quickly answered.
The patient was a thin old man. He lay like a corpse, with a quilt for a shroud, his blind eyes staring straight up, his lips tense. He was a Hindu from our district,
64 "FOLLOW THE GLEAM"
I found. The home voice seemed to reassure him. He lay more naturally.
There was prayer for a successful issue. The merciful cocaine had done its work. The eye was ready. The doctor began.
Being so very lay, we found our chief interest in the human element rather than the surgical, and stood a little aside watching the faces of the two or three concerned. There was something fascinating in their absorption, something inspiring too. And the sense of the barbarous wholly passed as a figment of gross ignorance. It was one man trying to help another, bending all his skill upon him, and all in the way of following the Gleam.
I had been through the wards, had talked with the people in bed and on the floor, for the hospital had overflowed its beds, and some had mats on the floor. Then I had mingled in the crowd of impotent folk in the outer hall, men and women of all castes and condi- tions, and I had visited that surprisingly cheerful place, the lepers' quarters. There had been a mixture of opposites ; horrible things, beautiful things, heart-breaks and heart-rejoicing things were jumbled up close together, so that the impression left upon one's mind was more curious than clear. But everywhere I had found one single satisfying thing, unbounded opportunity to speak to people about Jesus Christ. " After it, follow it, follow the Gleam " might have been written all over the walls. Some poor sufferers naturally were too preoccupied to listen. Some were too careless. Some too hard. But the greater number were ready, and a few were even
INTENSITY 65
eager. There was no need to search for a way to the heart. The approaches lay all open. Perhaps one has to be an Evangelistic missionary, unaccustomed to find sympathy ready created, and affection already awakened, to appreciate at its full value such an opportunity.
It was the effect of an evident cause. The cause was familiar enough. But, standing alongside that Cause at work, the familiar took edge and point, and its force was felt in a new fashion. We realised then as we had not before how much hung upon how little. One infinitesimal carelessness as to surgical cleanliness, one moment's diverted attention, one swerve of the knife in the doctor's hand, and that particular door of access to a soul for whom Christ died might be for ever barred. It was awesome to feel that such a tremendous conse- quence depended on something so delicate that when you would define it exactly, you could not. Viewed in this searching surgical light, everything short of the most scrupulous attention to even apparently unimportant minutiae, everything short of intense concentration, seemed criminal.
But only a few minutes had passed since the old man had lain down. " Look ! " said the doctor, and I saw the yellow-ochre lens slip smooth like a ripe little seed from its cell. The doctor held up his fingers, " Count ! " And the old man counted four. There was a moment of pure human pleasure then.
Later I saw that happy old man. He had a room to
himself where his friends were allowed to wait on him.
He was peaceful, had no pain, did not mind his bandages,
wearied not at all. To one who finds half a day's idle
5
66 "FOLLOW THE GLEAM"
captivity pure misery, the patience of these people is rebuking. He made a perfect recovery, and it needs but a little imagination to see him as he truly is in his distant village to-day, a contented old man, an inspirer of hope to those in whose eyes " the cataract flower has fallen." He and his heard daily while in hospital about the great Eye Opener for whose sake that help was given. In his case the result is not known. But it is impossible to believe the story would leave no mark upon him. And could there be a kinder way of making a mark for Eternity ?
Are any dispirited still, and still in perplexity as to our ways of trying to win souls for Jesus Christ ? May I say, stop looking at us. Look instead at the Medical Missions. They are dotted about from the South to Cashmere. Focus upon one of them, and forget discouragement in giving some practical bit of help. Viewed every way, discouragement is surely a weak and cowardly thing, sign of a spiritual near- sightedness which must limit one all round. True work can never die. Let us believe it and be glad. We have only one thing to do : " This one thing I do. I press." Let us press on all together in the missionary enterprise, past the dull joy of discouragement, and through it, out into the clear air where we can see The Gleam.
CHAPTER XI "The Grace of the People to come"
WHAT is the use of following the Gleam ? Does it lead to anything definite ? To which we would answer, Follow and know : follow and see that most tangible thing, a Christian home in a Hindu town.
The mountains which divide British India from Travancore fall into foothills north of us ; a wild track leading through them opens into a plain with another encircling mountain guard. To save time and avoid heat we usually travel by night, but our bandy man, the bullock driver, believes the track is haunted by tigers (which, much to my disappointment, are always entirely invisible). So in a recent journey we travelled by day to escape the fabulous beasts, and arrived Iat3 in the evening at our destination, a town in the northern plain.
The house to which we were bound was reached at last, the warmest of welcomes was waiting there ; but it was late to disturb our Indian friends, so we searched for a place to pitch a camp cot, and finally found a broken-down archway sometimes used as a cattle-pen.
I had a young convert girl with me. It was her first experience of a cow-house for a bedroom, and she did not appreciate it. But she remembered the manger,
•7
68 "THE GRACE OP THE PEOPLE TO COME"
and that changed the face of things. There is a special little joy in being allowed to tread, even so far off, in the very way He went. Happily, then, we swept up the straw, and piled it in a corner, and cleaned up generally, till by the light of our lantern the place looked pos- sible, and almost comfortable. Soon three varieties of human snores mingled with the bulls' snores, and five weary creatures were at rest. The bandy man and cook boy were just outside the passage. They never stirred till morning. The girl, who was close to me, slept in the same steady determined fashion. I was not so fortunate, for the sounds around were persistent.
The archway ended in a courtyard. Next to it, separated only by a low mud wall, was another court- yard, very much inhabited. Some old men had settled themselves on the verandah and were talking. The thin cracked quavering voices wandered on in endless disser- tations upon rupees, annas, pies. I found myself listening against my will, and got inextricably entangled in their financial complications. And I wondered at the mental arithmetic apparatus possessed by such very old gentle- men, for they revelled in the intricate, and dealt deeply in fractions. Their manipulation of the forty-eighth part of one and fourpence was a thing to remember; but it baffled me. Afterwards came betel-nut, the usual refresh- ment. Then more talk. Suddenly the voices fell to a chuckling mumble.
There are some sounds, like the squeak of a slate pencil, that seem to convert one into a piece of steel wire subjected to the operations of a leisurely file. Such a sound is continuous conversation on a hot night
"THOU SHALT HEAR WHAT THEY SAY" 69
after a journey. After a while the voices grew sharper, and I heard what wakened every nerve in me. They were discussing a lad who evidently wanted to be a Christian. They had settled upon some plan of action when they talked low. Now having settled upon it they were almost riotous. There was more talk. The voices, ancient as they were, grew keen and purposeful. One could only pray for the boy, whoever he was, as one thought of him sleeping peacefully somewhere near, un- conscious of the plots they were weaving round him.
There was something uncomfortable in overhearing a conversation emphatically not meant for me. However, I reflected that I could not suitably make myself known to those men just then, and remembering how Gideon was caused to overhear a conversation once, I concluded God had said " Thou shalt hear what they say," and was quiet. Next day I found out who the boy was, a young inquirer, too young to come out as a Christian. He was protected through all that followed. The plots fell harmless. Even so, even here,
" Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own."
The night was not still even after the old men departed. About midnight some one began to chant praises to Siva, a blind man, we afterwards found, who had vowed to chant some hundred stanzas twice every night throughout his life. On and on he went in the plaintive minor of India's old prayer-music. While it was still dark before sunrise he began again, and this time there was a woman's voice faintly following.
70 "THE GRACE OF THE PEOPLE TO COME"
It was a new experience to lie there and hear all this. And I felt that a night in a heathen town and almost in a heathen house was a revealing thing. " My principal grief was, and so it has continued to be, that I grieved so very little," said Eagland, years ago.
We had come to that town because Victory, one of our convert girls who had married Liegeman, one of Mr. Walker's convert boys, was in sore trouble over the serious illness of her little daughter. Up till then she and her husband had been spared all anxiety, and the peacefulness of that little home had been a thought of peace to us, and a wonder to the Hindus, who used one of their favourite names for heaven when describing it. As for Victory, they called her by a beautiful name. One day an old ascetic, proof to preaching, came in to see me when I was there. " She is gold, pure gold," he said to me, pointing to Victory, who was busy over her household work. And I found Pure Gold was her name among the Hindu neighbours.
But suddenly the blue skies clouded. One of the most fatal of tropical diseases had seized the little child, that bright home's little joy. She lay in great suffering and most pathetic weakness, knowing only that she wanted her mother's arms to be always round her, and her mother's face within reach of the touch of her little hands. That poor mother was worn out with night and day nursing and housework combined, for the convert has no relations to come and help at such times. The strain was almost too much for her, and the Hindus watched curiously. What would happen now ? For days they watched, coming constantly to inquire, always
"GREAT IS THY LOVING-KINDNESS " 71
sympathetic, but always on the alert to notice what was going on. And through all the long trial the father and mother were strengthened to glorify God.
Perhaps what touched the Hindus most was a little incident which happened the day the child began to recover. Upon waking from a long refreshing sleep the white and red of an embroidered text fastened to a dark beam in the ceiling caught her attention, and she pointed to it. Her thankful mother could hardly see for the " water of joy " which filled her eyes, but she read the text aloud : " Great is Thy loving-kindness toward me." To the reverent Indian mind this was a thing which appealed. The story was told all down the street, and opened the way for many conversations. " I will never water the baby's milk ; no, never again," said the milk- woman, through whose activities in that direction the illness probably came. And she kept her word for a fortnight.
When you stay in such a home right among the Hindus, with whom as in the hospital you are friends already, half the difficulties of itinerating work are non- existent, and the other half are in abeyance. You are near the people, nearer than in bungalow or tent. They let you into their lives' inner rooms, and you see strange things there. These things make you all the more thankful for the fact of these Christian homes scattered like light-seeds on the dark soil. In hours when the overwhelming forces of evil seem wholly in ascendance, " I take to witness the Grace of the people to come." Such a witness is worth everything; it is strong with the promise of hope.
72 "THE GRACE OF THE PEOPLE TO COME"
Life, with Indian fellow-Christians for one's com- panions, draws one very close to them, and makes that Grace a very shining quality. One writes after ex- perience. Of course there are bound to be disappoint- ments. There are everywhere. But the impress left upon me by a year of such life is a very loving impress. I cannot forget the sympathy when serious illness came to the bungalow, and took my fellow mis- sionaries away. No touch is tenderer than the Indian touch in trouble. Their way of comforting is the child's way, the unconscious way that somehow helps without hurting. The patience of their kindness and their fealty are unfailing. To the Indian missionary, at least, it cannot be called sacrifice to lose one's English identity and let oneself be bound in the bundle of life with one's Indian brothers and sisters. But the more India becomes home, the more the longing burns within one that this land should be purified, swept clean from north to south as by a wave of fire ; for if ever a people were created to be a crown of glory and a royal diadem, surely the people of India were. Sentiment, some will say, and smile. But to the one who writes, it seems true.
Much that may be seen and heard in ordinary con- verse in an ordinary Hindu home is natural and happy. Convention cannot kill nature. Theoretically the woman is nothing and nowhere. Practically she is by no means a nonentity. " Aiyo, Aiyo ! it is a girl ! " the new baby is unwelcome. But once the shock is over the baby-girl is loved. There is any amount of noisy quarrelling ; if words were blows half the population would be extinct to-morrow. But on the other hand, when you consider
THE REAL DIFFERENCE 73
the compound family system, and recollect the close quarters in which such variety of disposition is packed, you will be amazed that so many people contrive to exist in tranquillity. The thing which in the main distin- guishes life in such a community from life in England is, that here any moment you may suddenly come upon Sin sunning itself out in the open, all unashamed. And nobody is startled.
One afternoon some pleasant-faced women, after having finished their household work, sat down with me on the steps leading to the canal where they drew their water. The canal suggested reminiscences. " Yes," said one, alluding to another piece of water to which her neighbour had referred, " that tank used to be pure enough to bathe the god and goddess in, but one year it dried up, and they found it denied with bones." Then she entered into details, only understood in India, which led off into a casual remark about a little girl who was ill, and therefore living with her father. Why " therefore ? " Children sick or well usually live in their parents' homes, and I inquired about her, and heard this short true tale : Her father had married out of caste, and been rutcasted in consequence, which caused him inconvenience. So one morning his wife was found with a poisoned rag across her mouth, and to cut clear of all complications the little daughter was sent elsewhere. I had no need to ask where. There are houses in Tinnevelly town, and in every other Temple-town, where such little ones are wel- come. But the child had been ill, and had been sent home to her father, who would return her when she was well. Was nothing done ? What could be done ? How obtain
74
sufficient proof ? Besides, why concern oneself in another's business ? So the double crime passed un- recorded except in the unsurprised memories of men.
How one gets to hate sin as if it were a physical foe who could be throttled to death if only he could be caught ! I thought of that little innocent girl only eight years old, a bright intelligent child they said, and very affectionate. Slow crawled the waters of the canal like a stealthy brown snake at our feet. I thought of the things I had heard had been done on its banks. One could have better borne to see that child held under those waters, held till she struggled no longer, than face out what life might mean for her.
To hear about such a little one is to set every faculty to work to try to save her. But the hands that hold do not lightly let go. At such times, when baffled at every turn, almost despairing, though one will not despair, the only thing that shines is the Coming of the Lord. His Coming will end all the wickedness. " When will the evening be measured, the night be gone ? We are full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day ! " " Lord Jesus, take wide steps. 0 my Lord, come over mountains at one stride ! Oh, if He would fold the heavens together like an old cloak, and shovel time and days out of the way, and make ready in haste the Lamb's wife for her Husband ! "
How few want that to happen is something you realise when you search for a Christian house to which you have been directed through the labyrinth of a Hindu town. India is awake, the sanguine tell us, meaning that some few or many — the terms are relative
A DROP ; A GRAIN 75
— of India's Christians are awake. Supposing all the Christians in the land were awake, it would not mean that India itself had awakened. The Christians of India are not India. There are a hundred millions of people in India to-day who have never even heard of Jesus Christ, and who as things are now have not the remotest chance to hear about Him. There are millions more who have heard very little, if anything; but, not counting those, there are a hundred millions who cannot possibly hear. The fact is overwhelming. It crushes down upon us. If we could realise its full force for one single minute it would crush us too much. It would break our hearts. But we do not realise it. We speak in a language we do not understand. We talk of millions. What are millions ? When we stop and try to lay hold upon the word, and make it open to us, it closes up, or slips away, and we catch elusive glimpses of it : that is all.
A hundred millions : no effort of the imagination materially helps us to grasp that which is beyond our grasp. But look at this photograph. Look at it as a whole, and then in detail. Suppose yourself in the midst of it, in the thick of the press, jammed in by the car, with the glare and the glitter, and the overwhelming heat and noise beating and dancing and whirling about you. Make yourself slowly apprehend that the stream that seems to stretch so far is only the trickling of a drop from the great sea of Indian life; the mass that' moves as a huge whole is hardly as a grain of dust from the heap of the population. How vast the sea, how immense the heap must be !
But alone in the quiet night the crush of the fact is
76 "THE GRACE OF THE PEOPLE TO COME"
heaviest. You may listen then to the voice of one of the multitude. It has time to enter into you, with its separate and distinct note of invitation to stop again and think. One of the last nights spent in that Hindu town was as wakeful as the first; for the blind man, whose routine involved other streets than his own, seemed to spend longer than usual in his wanderings and prayers. On and on, hour after hour, now near and clear, now gradually distancing and softening, on and on untiringly rose the mournful monotone, " Siva- Sivah ! Siva-Sivah ! " till I almost held my breath to hear a voice that would answer him, almost strained my eyes to see a face that would lean to him through the dark. And then the night, with that strange power night has, took the sadness, and unrolled it to the full, took the sense of the drear and sharpened it, took the dark and magnified it till there was no room for any light. The soul of the land seemed out in the dark, wandering desolate up and down, crying ever over and over, " Siva-Sivah ! Siva-Sivah ! "
Perhaps the night served as foil for the morning, each detail stands out with such bright distinctness. A pair of sparrows had built in the kitchen, within hand's reach, but, of course, they had not been molested, and the fearless flying in and out of the birds, and the cheer- ful twittering of the nestlings, gave character to the house. It, too, was a nest. And now that the nestling was well again, the house-nest was full of happiness and little sounds of content. We spent the forenoon with the pastor's family, sharing their noontide meal; and again the bird's nest was suggested, for the house was
THE MORNING COMETH 77
packed as closely as any nest with children, and the merry little things' vocal zeal on that hot day was inspiring.
" The Grace of the people to come, whose little ones rejoice in gladness," is a Grace all sunlit. Thank God for the true Christian homes which must multiply with the years, however few there are now. Surely India's future will be better than her past. " Howbeit this day be not Christ's, the morrow shall be His."
CHAPTER XII Alone
ONE would like to write straight on of glad things now, without a break to the end. But that would not be true. And it is on my mind to win your help for our Indian comrades situated as Victory and her husband, and so very many are, alone among Hindus or Mohammedans, who, however friendly on the common plane of life, consider the Christian a mistake, and his religion a delusion or a sin, according to the intensity with which their own is held. To such there must come moments of peculiar loneliness. I realised this more acutely than one can easily describe, when not long ago I spent an afternoon alone with some opposing Hindus.
We had gone as a band of women to a neighbouring town, famous for its temple built into a rock. The separate castes live in separate quarters. We had divided two and two so as to reach as many as possible. The Brahman quarter had fallen to my share. My com- panion was a young convert girl.
We were walking quietly towards the Brahman street when a boy was sent to tell us that a deputation of Bralimans would wait upon me in the rest-house at the
78
No CHOICE BUT TO OBEY 79
entrance to the street. I could not refuse to go, for no man-missionary had visited that town for over two years. I could not expose a young girl to the gaze and remarks of the men. So I went alone.
The rest-house is a lofty stone-built room, with a raised dais on either side. It was crowded with men on one side. The other side was left for me. The door was open, and packed with spectators. They pointed to the empty side of the dais, and all fronted round facing me.
I found they knew a good deal about Christianity. Several had studied in Mission schools. All knew Christians ; so there was something to go upon. But they began by asking why in the first instance we brought a message to India which India did not want. I told them how long ago their forefathers and ours lived as brothers on the northern tableland ; how we and they had drifted apart, they travelling south, we west ; how the Good Tidings came to us of the west ; and how our ascended Eedeemer and King had told us to share the great joy with others.
They were interested in this, and observed that such being the wish of our Guru, we as His disciples had no choice but to obey. (The East has much to teach the West upon the duty of obedience.) Only, they added, in the interval of separation, God the Supreme had divided their half of the brotherhood into many sub- divisions, whereas ours had remained a homogeneous mass. The message we had brought would, they be- lieved, tend to disorganise the existing order, and reduce their complex system into something as simple as ours —
80 ALONE
in other words, do away with caste : and that therefore Christianity was not a desirable religion for India.
" The truth is," writes the keen observer quoted before, " that the Asiatics, like the Jews, dislike Christianity, see in it an ideal they do not love, a promise they do not desire, and a pulverising force which must shatter their civilisations." That is exactly how those men viewed it, and they spoke out the feeling of their race. I had no desire to attack their social system, or to defend ours (though a word of explanation seemed required). I only wanted to witness to a living, loving, personal Saviour. And I longed for more power and glow to show that love in its breadth, length, depth, height. Tamil is rich in words expressing almost every shade of thought. Our message never sounds more alluring than when told in a language which seems formed to convey spiritual ideas. So, confident in the promise that words would be given, and would, though spoken in weakness, be clothed in strength, and glad in the consciousness that I had brought them no foreign religion (the book is an Eastern book, per- meated with the spirit of the East), and gladder still in the certainty that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation whether in East or West, I spoke and hoped with a great hope.
They listened splendidly. There is something in the story which draws. But even as they listened, leaning for- ward, watchful, silent, wholly attentive, their inscrutable faces told me nothing.
After listening patiently, as is the Eastern way, they spoke at some length. The message was wonderful, beautiful, excellent truly for those to whom it pertained.
"WE DON'T WANT IT" 81
But as for themselves, " Why throw away the fruit in one's hand, and long for the fruit on the tree ? " Desire is maya, illusion ; virtue consists in cessation from desire. " But we are glad," they added, " to form friendship with you. As our friend, we believe, you have come to our town." And in the circumlocution of the courteous and leisurely East, many speeches followed, to which answers were allowed, till we came to closer quarters, and they spoke more directly what they meant. Like drops of icy water, dropping, dropping, fell their words on one's hot hope.
" If a heap of sugar were piled on the floor, would you have to call the ants to come ? They would come with- out any call. If your religion were good for this land, those best fitted to judge of its merits, we, the Brahmans, would have led the way to it. As it is, the undiscerning run. The poor and profoundly ignorant run. We are not found in your Way."
" Look at this town," said another, pointing out through the door to the long stretching Brahman street ; " have you a Christian here ? "
" Yes, one ; but such a one ! And he is here for pay!"
" Look at the next town, and the next." They named half a dozen towns. " Have you any living there who are not there for pay ? "
" And then," continued a triumphant voice, " look how your Christians live. Do your Christians never lie ? never steal ? never bear false witness ? And supposing they were exemplary, what are they worth after all ? How many belong to us ? " 6
82 ALONE
" Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him ? " It was not a new question. As for the slur cast on the Christians' character, though one could not say all were true, one could name those who were. There was a confusion of conflicting voices, as the names were tossed about. " Your Christian poet ! He was my father's friend. A great scholar, we know his poetry ! " " Eenegade ! Eenegade ! " " No, poet ! " Then, naming another of God's noblemen, one from the caste which has yielded most Christians, I set the ball rolling in an opposite direction ; all there knew him and his stainless life, and had to confess it was good.
It is something to have such names to name ; but no names, no facts, can compel a Hindu to come out in the open and face them. With him an argument consists in dodging about from tree to tree. You follow him to one, to find he is looking at you from round the slippery trunk of another. For in this interminable jungle the trees are palms with stems like poles. Nothing so four-square as an oak confronts you anywhere.
It was vain to follow from tree to tree, and seeing one could not be drawn to try, they came back to the first, and repeated that the nation (meaning themselves) had shown no appreciation of our religion. The ants avoided the sugar ; which proved it was not sweet or nutritious to them, whatever it might be to us. There was another skirmish round divers inviting objections, but their final return to the argument based on an illustration, gave one the chance to explain why all who hear of Him do not taste and see that the Lord is good. The ants have nothing to leave behind in
WHAT? WHEN? WHY? 83
order to taste the sugar. We have to leave our sin before we can truly taste the heavenly food.
This started questions. What is sin ? When did it come into existence ? Why is it allowed to continue ? Which is stronger, good or evil ? If good, then how is it that it is overcome by evil ? If the doctrine of reincarnation, which teaches that suffering in this life is resultant from sin in a former birth, is untrue, how then do we account for the suffering of innocent children ? If we answer that often they suffer for their parents' sin, how do we prove God just? What about the hereafter ? How will those be dealt with who know nothing of the way which we affirm is the only way to bliss ? These were a few of the questions showered upon us from all sides at once. One sympathised with the questioners, for the questions are as old as the mind of man.
So looking up for answers which should satisfy even where they could not explain, I began with the last question, and was reading that heart-resting word of the Lord : " But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes," — when a voice broke in authoritatively :
"We cannot accept answers from that book. Your own Gurus are not agreed about it. Some say it is composed of legends and fables, mere myths at best. Yes," and he turned to the men, " there are Christian scholars who say so. The book is not to be regarded as entirely true."
It was evident he had read, and somewhat misunder- stood, translations of certain English articles bearing
84 ALONE
upon the inspiration of the Bible, which have begun to appear in India. One felt as if one had been hit by mistake by a shot from one's own side. I was not prepared to find this objection in a remote country town, and not wishing to get involved in such discussion, tried to lead them back to the great central truth upon which all Christians, whatever their opinion may be about other matters, are certainly agreed. But the men were impatient now. "You come to us with a mutilated book about which you differ among yourselves ! You want us to introduce the religion which it teaches to our women ! We will not have it. We do not want it. You are one, aloue. We are the many ; how can the one be right, and all the number wrong ? We have our god. You see his temple there. We have our books, which your wise men greatly prize. Many of your sages are coming to see that ours, the ancient religion, is true, and yours, born but yesterday; is false." (They love this fallacious argument.) " Listen ! " and they named the few converts won from nominal Chris- tianity to nominal Hinduism. " Listen ! " and they quoted the remarks of one, a Christian visitor to India, who, in his anxiety to show sympathy with the best there is in the higher Hinduism, seemed to these men, its votaries, almost to apologise to it for the vandalism of venturing to differ from it in anything.
There is much that is noble in ancient Hindu thought. Anything like an intolerant attitude towards it can only repel those whom we would win. God spoke to men in the old days. His light enlightened them. But the echoes have become confused, the light
"You ARE ALONE" 85
blurred. And this is taking Hinduism at its best, as the Ve'das show it, as scholars think it. Very far different is its worst, as the masses know it and live it. But taking it at its best, is this blur and this confusion good enough for men who are brother- men with us ? Go back if you will to the old books : can you find soul-food in them ? Dare you die on them ? Oh, there is only one Book which feeds, only one Book upon which we dare die ! Lord, to whom shall this nation go ? Lord, to whom shall we go, or they ? Thou hast the words of eternal life.
There was some angry astonished talk among the men. Personally they were perfectly courteous, but the preposterous nature of our proposals roused them, much as a proposal made in all seriousness to a company of Englishmen to become Mohammedans would have roused them, had they stopped to consider it at all. They talked the more unrestrainedly because I, being only a woman, did not count as anybody, and if one had been detached enough to listen from an outside position it would have been wonderfully interesting. Chances for such character study are rare in tae South. But one felt too much concerned in the issue of that conversation to be able to detach oneself. All I could see just then was this body of strong intelligent men, refusing our Lord Jesus Christ.
" You are alone," said one at last, when the excite- ment had subsided, " and you see how many we are. This is how the case stands all over India. Who fill the highest positions open as yet to us ? Hindus. Who then rule the land, though you white rulers do
86 ALONE
not know it ? Hindus. And who will rule it ? Do you think your Lord Jesus Christ will rule it ? " And they laughed in scorn. Outside in the street people pressed round the door. They caught the laugh, and passed it on, till it seemed as if the whole town were laughing that scornful laugh. One felt alone then.
Do you wonder at it ? I wondered, when I thought of it, for of course I was not alone. And quickly the soothing of that knowledge came, and yet there was for the moment the sense of human loneliness. I searched through the long row of faces opposite, and then through the crowd of faces round the door, to find one with a look of recognition in it ; but I did not find one. I listened as the many voices spoke, to hear one with a note of responsiveness in it, but I did not hear one. It was as if one's whole being were laid bare to the grief of seeing His love refused. Oh, that one could have shown Him more clearly, that there had been someone else to speak ! But there was no one else to speak, no one else just then to care. That was the loneliness of it.
" The stars in their courses fought against Sisera," comes a voice to us from the brave new West. " It is foolish for you to be lonely. You and the stars are fighting together." And yet this loneliness, weak, foolish, unreasonable, what you will, is often the portion of our Indian comrades out in the firing line. We have your sympathy. Have they ?
Had this day's work ended otherwise, you would have heard of it long ago. No effort of ours could have confined the rumour of it. For it is not usual in the history of Indian missions to find a company of Brahmans
THE FLASH THROUGH THE BLUE 87
receive the truth with intention to obey it. But we believe to see the unusual, and it never becomes a light thing to see in literal fact what the prophet foresaw, and the first great missionary experienced, the rejection of our Lord Jesus Christ by those best fitted to understand Him. There are places where He stands now, " all day long," with " hands stretched forth," and there still are those who push those hands away, or ignore them. Lord, we sympathise with Thee ! Let us never be unresponsive to Thee. Let us never be a disappointment to Thee.
But even as one writes, the swift thought turns and flashes up. One is out in that scoffing crowd again, the tumult of voices is round one, as one stands now out in the street ; and for the moment the blue above becomes, as it were, all transparent, cleft through by a sudden ray;
"Multitudes — multitudes— stood up in bliss, Made equal to the angels, glorious, fair ; With harps, palms, wedding garments, kiss of peace, And crowned and haloed hair.
" Tier above tier they rose and rose and rose
So high that it was dreadful, flames with flames, No man could number them, no tongue disclose Their sacred secret names.
"As though one pulse stirred all, one rush of blood
Fed all, one breath swept through them, myriad-voiced They struck their harps, cast down their crowns, they stood And worshipped and rejoiced."
Thank God for that flash through the blue. Thank God for the many in whom Love will have its way, for the great multitude of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues. But through the little while that may
88 ALONE
intervene till we hear the loud voice saying in heaven, " Now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ," will you remember your Indian comrades who are often stationed in places where there is little upon which human hope can feed ; and will you ask for them that they may be filled with quenchless, abounding, victorious hope by the power of the Holy Ghost, and comforted in loneliness by the presence of our Lord ?
CHAPTER XIII "No Beauty that we should desire Him"
" "VTOUE Christian poet ! he was my father's friend ! a J- great scholar. We know his poetry."
As the voice spoke I saw the man it named : a tall gaunt figure in white ; white-turbaned head ; eyes which observed ; face, olive in colouring, seamed and lined all over, furrowed deep across the forehead ; character in every movement of the long slender hands ; strong affec- tion in the glance of the dark piercing eyes.
I saw him as he first photographed himself'upon me. It was one of those days when one's mental economy, instead of attending to its proper business, seems to lie out thin, like a sensitive film, intent on receiving im- pressions. It was the last day of my final examination in Tamil. The old scholar was one of the Examiners. He came early, seated himself comfortably, and put on his spectacles. We were alone for awhile ; beyond the salaam of greeting neither of us spoke : the victim on such occasions is not talkative. But the old man looked at me, and his keen eyes filled with sympathy. " Why this fear ? " he said, pointing up, " God is."
Some words and some gestures live. That hand point- ing upward, that voice saying " God is," are as if hours,
89
90 "No BEAUTY THAT WE SHOULD DESIRE HIM"
not years, had passed since then. The overwhelming nervousness which had made the impending viva voce almost a physical impossibility passed in part at least. Oh, the faithlessness, the cowardice of fear, when God, the Doer, as the name he used suggested, is.
And again I saw him. He was dying ; unconscious, it was thought. I had taken a card with " Jesus " written large in Tamil. " He will not know you ; he cannot read now," said the watchers sadly. But he opened his eyes, and saw the Word, and it was as if a great light passed over his face. Never shall I forget that light and the smile that looked out of those loving old eyes as they lingered over the Word. Then we saw he was trying to lift his hand. Some one helped him, and the finger traced it as if writing it, character by character. No one spoke. He could not speak, but the trembling finger still traced the Word over and over. Then the lips moved, and the dark eyes, dim with death's dimness, shone. We knew he was speaking to Jesus. Then with a satisfied, rested look, like the look of a little tired child that finds itself safe in its mother's arms, and is so glad just to go to sleep, the old man turned, and fell asleep, his hand still touching caressingly the dear Word " JESUS."
We all have a room within us, hung with pictures. Sometimes when the people about us least know it, we leave them to talk, and go into that room, and shut the door very quietly. Then their voices sound a long way off, like the sound of the sea waves falling on a far-away other-wTorld shore. And we look at our pictures. Time does not count in the Picture Eoom. There is no hurry-
"RENEGADE!" "POET!" 91
ing of clocks, no beat of bells. But a moment may show a month's pictures, as moments and months are counted elsewhere ; and we may look at the pictures of years, quite leisurely, between the " Don't you think so ? " of the talker outside, and the " Yes " or " No " we hear ourselves say in answer. So I saw these pictures of our old friend, and many another distinctly, in the second of time between the shouts, " Kenegade ! " " No, poet ! " Then I came out of the Picture Eoom, and the voices sounded near and loud, clashing, jarring.
What created the difference wide as space between that man and these ? In race, environment, ideal, he was once as they are now.
It is seldom that such a question can be answered with any degree of detail, but Mr. Walker, the old man's friend, persuaded him to answer it in writing. This writing he translated, and one day when I was wishing I knew something more of one who had impressed me more than any Indian I had then met, he gave me the manuscript to read. It seems to me worth giving you. You will understand that it loses in translation. But the heart in sympathy will feel the heart beat through it, coldly though it must read, and heavily, in comparison with the warmth and lightness of the Indian original.
The manuscript is headed, " How I became a Chris- tian: written in 1893." Then the text, "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear," or as the Tamil has it, " with meekness and rever- ence." With meekness and reverence, then, he begins : " If asked to state what was the Cause of my breaking oft1
92 "No BEAUTY THAT WE SHOULD DESIRE HIM"
with Hinduism to become a Christian, what Cause can I assign except only the tender compassion of Heavenly grace ? At the same time I am ready to narrate the subsidiary means for so great a change, which that Heavenly grace employed from time to time, and to unite in order the events which proved conducive to my conversion."
A few strenuous words as to Hinduism preface this in- troduction. He writes as an Indian poet does, wrapping thoughts in tight bundles, which once unfastened refuse to be packed up again in as small compass. So that we cannot do justice to its compressed intensity. English sounds diffuse after such Tamil.
As a Hindu of the stricter type, his life, he says, was sin : sin which did not recognise its sinfulness. Utter- most darkness was around him and within him. Then came the tenderness of God's compassion, the grace which cares. As a hand it drew him, lifted him out of the abyss, set him in the Way, made him, once a Hindu and an alien, meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. Again and again in language which seems to be searching for words warm enough and bright enough to radiate forth the joy that is in him, he piles verse upon verse in praise of the Father who delivered him from the power of darkness, and translated him into the kingdom of His dear Son.
" I was a Hindu of the strict Vaishnavite sect." [Vaishnavites are votaries of Vishnu, the second person in the Hindu triad.] " I had only one brother, younger than myself. My father possessed in an eminent degree the excellent characteristics of benevolence, compassion,
HOME INFLUENCES 93
merciful pity, and kindness to animals. With the ex- ception of a few defects he was consistently a zealous votary of the Vaishnavite creed. He possessed great ability in understanding the meaning of the Tamil classics, and in expounding them to others. The study of these formed his mental pastime. He was neither very rich nor very poor ; and he was held in high esteem by the scholars, Government officials, and mag- nates of his day. At the age of forty-seven the re- linquishment of his body befell him, but before this he had sought out and married to me, then aged thirteen and a half, a small girl-child. Moreover, he had divided the family property so that there should be no room for trouble or disputes on the part of our relatives. This arrangement proved most serviceable to us boys, in the matter of our education. While my father still lived he had taught me the Ramayana, and my mother, who was a keen-minded woman, used to tell us the poem's story, and explain the meaning of the stanzas.
" It was during my father's lifetime that I was initi- ated. This Initiation includes the Sealing, or Branding, which means the branding of both shoulders of the votary by a golden discus, heated red-hot in the sacri- ficial fire, in token that he is a devotee, slave of Vishnu, that he will never henceforth break his fast without having first performed the prescribed daily ceremonies, and that he will faithfully observe such and such rites. I was only a small boy at the time, so two strong men gripped me firmly from behind, and held me tight. The heat and pain were intolerable : my eyes filled with tears. But it would have been disgrace and the height
94 "No BEAUTY THAT WE SHOULD DESIRE HIM"
of misdemeanour at such a moment to cry aloud. My father had some others branded with me, as a meritorious act of charity : the cost was one hundred rupees. I was the only one in our family on whom the rite was per- formed. It is now nearly fifty-two years since these brand marks were stamped upon me, but they are still only too clearly visible. I was then taught by our Guru to repeat the chief and fundamental mantra, which, being interpreted, means ' All adoration to Vishnu, the mystic Om.'
" When I was eighteen years of age I was a bitter foe not of Christianity as such, but of those who, according to the fashion of that period, wrote down their names as Christians, while they disgraced the glorious name of Christ. . . .
" From my eighteenth year, my brother and myself, instead of spending our time idly, studied carefully, by our own exertions, the Tamil classics. Not only so, but since printed copies of Tamil grammatical works were then unprocurable, we borrowed, from a respected senior, palm-leaf copies of the standard grammars (written in poetical form) and wrote out new copies for ourselves on palmyra leaves. At that time there were only two or three scholars in the whole district who were really versed in Tamil. One of these was a friend of my father. We took advantage of the fact, attached our- selves to him, and exerted ourselves to study. For a year and a half we rendered him the service of disciples, and so pursued our studies. Still later we worked with earnest ardour, and thus completed our grammatical studies. If I had not given myself thus to grammatical
INDIAN CULTURE 95
study, how should I ever have become a Tamil Pandit ? Had I not become a Tamil Pandit how should I ever have become closely acquainted with Christian truth ? It is clear to me, therefore, that it was the doing of the Holy Mind, and that alone, which attracted me from early youth to Tamil studies."
Thus far the education of one who was to become pre-eminently the Christian Tamil scholar of South India. Those who are accustomed to look upon " the poor heathen " en masse, as ignorant barbarians, will read, with some surprise perhaps, this simple account of a cultured home, where the study of the classics was the pastime of the father, and the telling of beautiful old world tales to her little sons, the mother's pleasure. Such pastime and such pleasure imply a knowledge of the ancient language in which all poetry is written, and this in itself, as any scholar versed in it will acknow- ledge, is the study of a lifetime.
Both brothers became Pandits, Professors of Tamil, in missionary colleges, and thus came in contact for the first time with vital Christianity.
The story continues :
" Before I undertook this work, I knew nothing really of Christianity. True, when I was about ten years old, a tract called ' The Incarnation of Grace ' fell into my hands. In it Vishnu's ten incarnations were described in order, and the abominations in each were dilated upon. But this was the only impression left on my mind. The closing part of it, describing the holy attri- butes and deeds of Him who is the Form of Salvation, had no effect on me at all.
96 "No BEAUTY THAT WE SHOULD DESIRE HIM"
" When I began my Pandit work the missionary to whom I gave lessons in the language treated me with considerable kindness, and used to speak to me about the Christian Way. Though his words upon this subject were as gall and wormwood to my Hindu soul, yet by degrees his excellent character and deeds won upon me, and induced me to listen to what he said without gain- saying. A little later I borrowed a copy of the Tamil Scriptures, and began to read it. I read as far as the twentieth chapter of Exodus, in order, from the beginning. From what I thus read I got it firmly fixed in my mind, that the creation of the world, the advent of sin, the Deluge, and other following incidents, are faithfully and truly narrated in the Bible, and that all the stories which occur in the Vaishnavite books about these subjects are inventions, baseless myths, and garnished pleasantries. Thus the daily ceremonies which I, as a Vaishnavite, scrupulously observed, my fastings, attendances at the religious festivals with which each month ends, and Caste etiquette and distinctions, palled upon my taste.
" It was at this juncture that my mind became deeply impressed with the consciousness that I should have to face the responsibility of my sins, and that the paltry subterfuges and atonements which are found in Hinduism tfere useless and vain. But what of this ? Does not the poet remind us how the foolish cock, through sheer force of habit, continues its idiotic scratching on the rock, as if grains of rice were there ? And so it was with me. The old inclinations refused to leave my mind (such as the inclination still to search in Hinduism for what was not there) ; and the sinful habits in which I had so long
THE FORM OF LISTENING 97
indulged continued in unabated force. I therefore came to the conclusion that since association with Christians and the reading of their Book disturbed my mind, my best course was to cut clear of both ; and accordingly I desisted entirely from such conversation and reading. If any Christian accosted me, I gave no room for con- versation. Only when the missionary spoke did I go through the form of listening ; but it was with a deaf ear. Some time so passed. Hard was my heart and dead."
With a few graphic words he closes this part of his story, telling in terse Tamil poetry how he " beat, bruised, and slew, slew, ay and buried," the living voice within him, which slain, still lived and spoke of Him who as yet had no form or comeliness to him, no beauty that he should desire Him.
CHAPTER XIV "With His Stripes we are healed"
ABOUT this time his "Hindu soul" was stirred to its depths, and lashed into wrath, by the con- version of several of his friends. The first one to cross the line, and break for ever with life as it had been, was a fellow-Pandit, who as a fellow-student in old days had been " a fast heart-friend." This was grief un- speakable. And worse followed; for shortly afterwards his own younger brother, together with two other friends, confessed themselves Christians, and were baptized.
" It would be impossible to describe all that followed this," he writes : " the tumults which arose ; the insults which the missionaries had to endure; the anguish which filled the hearts of the parents and relations of the newly baptized. No English mind can grasp the extent of the grief which my mother and I experienced on account of my brother's conversion. However much I might say or write about it, it would still remain utterly beyond the ken of foreigners, and might only seem to them grotesque, extraordinary. I do not charge them with want of sympathy. I only say that it lies beyond the bounds of their experience.
" One of the two who had just been baptized had been
HEART-SORE 99
for years my bosom friend. Though he was younger than myself my miud rejoiced to regard his word as the word of a very guru, because of the ripeness of his knowledge, keenness of intellect, and nobility of char- acter and life." All that was over now. In that hour of shock it seemed as if the friend dishonoured and defiled could be a friend no longer. The pain was poignant.
Between the brothers there was the same misery of estrangement. They had been united in a closeness of intimacy rare in the West : now seas divided them. And the mother, devoted as the Indian mother is with a devotion the more intense because the less diffused, had to see the son who was ever as the nursling to her heart, pass into another world with which hers held no communion. Night after night she wailed the death wail for him. To her love, to her care, he was dead.
And then while the wound was still too new to bear even the tenderest touch, the missionary touched it, by mistake. " Your brother has become a Chris- tian, has he not ? What is there now to hinder you ? " This was to the Pandit. What was there to hinder ? Only his mother's completed desolation, his young wife's woe. Was not the home stricken hard enough already ? Stung to the quick the Pandit answered haughtily, left the room indignantly, and im- mediately sent in his resignation. The missionary recognised his mistake, would not accept the resigna- tion, tried to explain where he could not console. But though he persuaded his Pandit to stay, and strove to show him he truly cared, he could not undo the effect of
100 "WITH His STRIPES WE ARE HEALED"
those words, and one can understand how the two must have drifted apart.
It all happened years ago. Pandit and pupil have long been together in the land where forgiveness means forgetting. But the incident speaks to us of to-day. There are times when we can best help a soul through silence, not speech.
After a time the young Pandit and his special friend drew together, in spite of their divergence of views, and the friend understanding him could help him. He lent him The Pilgrim's Progress to read ; the book became alluring to him, took hold of him, became at once his possession and possessor. In after years he translated or adapted it so finely in Tamil verse, that it has become the greatest of our Christian classics, judged from a higher Tamil point of view. " I have poured my life into that book," he said once. " My heart's deepest is in it." But that was later.
" My friend impressed it strongly upon me," the story continues, "that it was absolutely essential for me to forsake all known sin, otherwise it would be useless for me to read religious books, or indeed anything else. I acted upon his advice. I endeavoured to put away everything which I knew to be wrong in my life. Some glaring sins, my conscience being witness, I entirely forsook. Nevertheless, though an outward reformation took place to some extent, there was no inward cleansing from sin, neither was my mind constant and steadfast.
" When I met my friend later he told me to read the Gospel history in order, and to ask God to open my spirit-eyes. He taught me, too, how I should pray, and
"ALL'S LOVE YET ALL'S LAW" 101
I set to work to follow his instructions. But though I came in this way to understand clearly the doctrines of the Saviour's holy incarnation, I was all in a haze of confusion as to how His atonement could bring salvation to man."
I have hesitated about copying out the next para- graph : the wonderful way of salvation is so familiar to the reader. But it may be, one will read this page whose feet have not yet trodden that path, and perhaps the old scholar's description of what was to him such unfamiliar ground may be like a light from the East, falling upon it, making the steps show clearer.
" One day, when that soul-friend and I were alone together, I told him all about my doubts and bewilder- ment, and asked him questions on the subject. He therefore explained to me how the Lord Christ, the Son of God, had become the Mediator between the holy God and sinful men, who had broken God's law, and were in sin's dark prison. He showed me how He, the Christ, had become Surety for men, and was incarnate as the Reconciler (the One who makes smooth the unevenness between justice and mercy) ; how He had kept the law for men, being pure in mind, word, deed ; that is, pure in His whole nature. For we Hindus regard the essentials of being as threefold : there is the mind, source of thought ; the tongue, which forms words, expression of thought ; the body, producing action, thought made visible. Viewed from all points He was pure. My friend further showed me how the Lord had wrought out spotless righteousness, and had taken upon Himself all the sins of all mankind, with all the punish-
102 "WiTH His STRIPES WE ARE HEALED"
ment due to them ; and how He had endured untold agony of soul and body on the cross, shedding His blood, and yielding up His life as a sacrifice for sin, and so providing for us most perfect merit. He went on to describe how He had risen victorious from the dead, and so finally procured eternal life for countless souls ; and how He had ascended to Heaven, and taken up His glorious session on the right hand of the Father, there to intercede and bestow salvation on all believers. He explained, moreover, that since Christ was universal Lord, the salvation which He had purchased was available for all mankind, and that whosoever sincerely, with real con- trition and repentance, believes that Christ alone is the Sin-Destroyer, the World-Saviour, and that He bore and put away his punishment, — is justified ; and to him is imparted Christ's perfect merit. 'This is salvation,' said my friend. ' The one so saved is a liberated soul.' "
Then followed the new-old miracle. " The Spirit of God sent home this truth to my heart then and there. That very day I knew the Lord Christ. That very day I learned to pray in His name. That very day the sins which had seemed sweet to me before became bitterness itself. That very day I resolved to be a Christian."
And that very day he who was to be known wherever the Tamil tongue is known as the Christian poet, sang his first song to the glory of the " Glorious Sea of Grace, bright Sun of Love, whose radiance makes the darkness flee." Thought on thought and word on word came running up, eager to tell what cannot be told of the light like the light of the morning when the sun rises, of the fairness like the fairness of the green tender
"SEE THE CHRIST STAND" 103
grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain, of the skyful of stars which all were suns that had suddenly opened above him. And he longed for power to express to his people the beauty and dearness of Christ Jesus his Eedeemer, by whose stripes he was healed.
CHAPTER XV "He shall see of the Travail of His Soul"
HOW shall I tell what happened?" he writes, looking back on that illuminated day. " God opened my heart, and I opened my lips to praise Him for His love." Simply told, is it not ? " God opened my heart : I opened my lips." Life henceforth was to be for him full of that opening of the lips which fills other lips with song.
But not quite yet. " Now, though none of my family knew of my change, they began to grow suspicious about me, because I discontinued my former religious observ- ances ; and they asked questions about it. I put them off with evasive answers. I used to pray on my mat, after all had retired. Sometimes my wife would come unexpectedly and ask me some question, and my silence increased her suspicions. I soon got tired of conceal- ments, and calling her alone one day, I said a few words gently about Christianity. She at once began to cry and make a great noise, threatening to take her life.
" When I came to the decision to become a Christian, we had three little daughters under five years of age. My chief anxiety was lest, by becoming an open Christian, I should plunge my family in great grief and confusion ;
104
" RESTLESSLY AT REST" 105
and though my decision was not weakened by this, I had not the boldness to shake myself free from my fear, and take the open step. And so it came to pass that I spent some time like a man fast bound in prison."
This will seem incredible to some. Had he not known the Lord Christ ? To others it will seem only natural, indeed right. His mother had been already sorely stricken by her other son's defection ; how could he raise his hand to strike her again ? His wife trusted him ; how could he wrong her trust ? His relations, though not dependent upon him, were connected by closest ties of affection ; uncles and aunts who had known him from childhood, cousins innumerable. In England families subdivide : in India they hold together. How could he, as he said, plunge all these people, who loved him, and whom he loved, into " great grief and confusion." He could not wreck the home : all that was good in him rose and protested. So he did certain compromising things, and instead of the sword, there was peace. How could he do otherwise ? someone asks with sympathy. " Things that appeared undoubted sins wear little crowns of light " (if we may misquote in thought), when we looJ: at them from the human side, and sympathise first, with each other, and second, with God. " For the bravest sin that ere was praised, the King Eternal wore a crown of thorns " : that is how the matter looks from the other side. He realised this at last.
Then came the inevitable agony. Would God it need not be ! To smooth it over a friend suggested that if he went quietly to Madras, then farther from his home than India is from England as regards journey-time, it
106 " HE SHALL SEE OF THE TRAVAIL OF HlS SOUL "
would be easier to confess Christ openly, and to persuade his wife to join him. Easier in every way, because the family would be among strangers, and not their own caste people. And so it was arranged. He left his wife and children with his mother, went to Madras, got work as Pandit, and wrote for his family to come and join him. Not knowing all, they consented; but, just as they were about to start, some one gave the alarm, — some "meddlesome old woman," he writes dis- gustedly,— and they refused to come. A month after- wards, when the news reached him, he felt he could delay no longer. He and two other young caste men from his own country, who also wanted to be Christians, clubbed together, went to church together, studied the Bible together, and finally decided to be baptized together. His heart went out to them in clinging affection.
But spies were on the track. They had thought them- selves unnoticed in the great city ; but the Caste con- federation has eyes everywhere, they had been under observation all the time. It was reported that they consorted with Christians, ceased wearing Vishnu's marks, and were cooking for themselves, because their Hindu cook considered them reprobate. This brought two of the fathers in hot haste to Madras. Both sons yielded. The third had no father to come ; the month's journey was too much for the frail old mother, so he was left unmolested, and he went quietly on.
There were crowds in the great city, but none of his own. It was an empty city to him. Most of us have known such times, when the sudden ceasing of some voice makes a silence that "aches round" us "like a
STEADIED 107
strong disease, and new." His was the poet nature, sensitive to suffering as to happiness. Behind him lay his home, and all good memories ; before him the heaped-up pain of hurting further those whom he most dearly loved; and around him, closing heavily, the silence.
It was the most difficult time in his life. He was helped through it by a young missionary to whom he was teaching Tamil. " She talked to me most feelingly about the Saviour, and steadied me in Christ. The work I did for her was little ; the work she did for me was much."
He saw his two friends occasionally, but most of his time was spent alone, and as he had no one to talk to he talked the more to his Lord. Conversations alone with Christ are wonderfully strengthening. Soon he felt himself urged with an inward urging to burn the bridge behind. He was baptized.
From this time onwards he was in truth a man in love with our Lord Jesus Christ. It pleased the Lord so to " line his heart with the love of his Lord Jesus," that in the years when we knew him he could not speak of Him without a kindling of expression and a fervour that recalled Samuel Rutherford, Ter Steegen, and Tauler. The same spirit burned in him, the warm love that is not afraid of being too warm. The Love that would not let him go, but followed and found and won him, had won him now to an abandonment of love that broke out in rivers of love songs. Oh, for more and more of that love ! " Oh, that He would strike out windows, and fair and great lights in this old house, this fallen-down soul,
108 " HE SHALL SEE OF THE TRAVAIL OF HlS SOUL "
and then set the soul near-hand Christ, that the rays and beams of light and the soul-delighting glances of the fair, fair Godhead might shine in at the windows and fill the house ! A fairer, and more near and direct sight of Christ would make room for His love ; for we are but pinched and straitened in His love. Alas, it were easy to measure and weigh all the love that we have for Christ by inches and ounces. Alas, that we should love by measure and weight, and not rather have floods and feasts of Christ's love ! Oh, that Christ would break down the old narrow vessels of these narrow and ebb souls, and make fair, deep, wide, and broad souls, to hold a sea and a full tide (flowing over all its banks) of Christ's love!"
And now one idea informed his life — the passion of the soul-winner was like a fire within him. He must return to his own house, and win his wife and mother. He left Madras, travelled southwards, eager, expectant, longing to see his dear ones again, and to tell them all. They received him with tears, with coldness, with bitter reproaches, and the turning away of the faces he loved.
" 0 Cross, that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee ; I lay in dust life's glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be."
"My mother's agony was boundless. It would be impossible to describe it. I know not the words." Things soften as we look back at them through the mist of many years. This thing, this pain, stands out unblurred in the sharpness of its outline, a cruel thing
"THRONGING THROUGH" 109
and a bitter. The days that followed were like so many jagged-edged saws, sawing away relentlessly at the very nerves of his being. It is easy to be brave when our hearts are whole and well, but when they are cut and hurt, and strained all out of shape, then it is hard. " Strive to throng through the thorns of this life to be with Christ." By God's grace he thronged through, but for eighteen months it was a daily thronging through. His wife left him. He had two young children to see to. None of his womenfolk would help him. His old friends despised him. His people would have none of him.
After a while his mother relented, and helped him a little with the children. And the brother did what he could. But until his own wife came back to him he was desolate on the human side, though comforted as such must be : for " only heaven is better than to walk with Christ at midnight over moonless seas."
He had kept the two little children in the hope that they would draw their mother back. She, widowed, according to Hindu feeling, held aloof in loneliness only second to his. But it was as he had hoped. She returned to the town, though not at first to her home. The children were sent to see her. After long waiting she was willing to return to her polluted home, for the sake of the mother - love that could not rest away. And he taught her patiently till at last she too found Christ.
After a time his old mother gave in, and several other members of his family were converted. He was greatly used in winning intelligent Hindus, men not easily
110 "HE SHALL SEE OF THE TRAVAIL OP HlS SOUL '
satisfied. He became known as the " Catcher of Men." No one since his time has exerted quite such an influence among young students and thinkers and caste- bound orthodox Hindus. It was not only his scholar- ship which all acknowledged and respected, it was his character. The Hindus studied him through the years of his outwardly uneventful life, and they recognised the man for what he was. So old age came quietly on, and then, as we have told it :
" To the light more clear than noon, Passed a soul that grew to music Till it was with God in tune."
A Tamil manuscript has been sent to us by a lawyer, one of our leading Christians. He tells his story, as our poet told his, to the glory of God's grace. He went to study, he says, in the Christian school where the poet was Professor of Tamil. He had come from his Hindu home, and was full of prejudice against Christians. His mother had feared to let him go among Christians lest they would inject mind-deluding medicine into a plantain and persuade him to eat it, or otherwise tamper with him and beguile him. So, fortified by warnings, and inclined himself to be on guard, he approached Chris- tianity cautiously. He boarded with his Tamil professor, for caste reasons. He studied him with a boy's keen eyes : " I never heard him tell a lie, never saw him confuse truth ; in his God there must be a holy power," was his conclusion. That boy became a man noted for integrity of life. It will not be known till eternity shows up the secrets of time, how much our Church
GOD KEEPS THE COUNT 111
owes to this one life, influenced at its source by that dear friend, who, while he influenced, never knew that he was doing anything.
One of the first Tamil scholars I knew was a keen teacher, whose lessons were valued by all of us. He taught me in his holiday time, and when I asked about the fee (for the hours were worth rupees to him), he would not hear of pay. " No," he said, and stuck to it, " it is the way by which I can help you to get quickly to my people." This man was won by the poet, led by him, as he told us, " to the Lotus feet of the Lover of souls."
Two out of many — God keeps the count — are enough to prove the poet did not live in vain. The Gospel which made him what he was, has not come here in vain. Nor have we come in vain if we may have fellowship with our Lord in His joy, when He sees of the travail of His soul even here, in a sorrowful land, where so often He has grief.
Part of the most enduring work our poet did was literary. He has left books which we can give to the most critical Hindu, knowing that so far as the choice of language is concerned it will not repel him, but appeal to the finer part of him, and put the message before him intelligently and winningly. Not long ago a Christian schoolmaster was travelling by train in the same com- partment as a Brahman. He asked the Brahman if he had ever heard of Christianity. For answer the Brahman retired to the farther end of the carriage. The Christian waited, then asked, " Do you care for poetry ? " If there is one word which charms and draws a cultured Hindu
112 "HE SHALL SEE OF THE TRAVAIL OF HlS SOUL "
it is the word poetry. The Brahman's eyes glistened. The Christian began to chant stanzas from our poet's Pilgrim's Progress. The poem follows Indian rules of art ; to the trained ear the fall of its cadence is quite perfect. The Brahman listened, won to listen at first by the beauty of the poem. Sin, redemption, Christ's life and death, clear teaching about the way of salvation, outpourings of love and devotion, — still the Brahman listened. At last, after long chanting, broken by words of explanation here and there, the Christian stopped. " That is Christianity," he said. The Brahman was disarmed. For the first time he had listened to "the wooing note."
But looking back, as we do now, to the memory of our poet, we think of him most as our friend. The scholar lives by the work he did ; the friend lives on in our hearts. The wise may talk of East and West, and how neither can ever meet or merge, because there will always be something between. In Christ there is no East and West ; His love fuses the two into one. That old man was one of us ; we were as one of his own to him. And when we meet in our real Home, where East and West are unspoken words, and all earth's divisions forgotten, he will welcome us as a father would welcome the children remembered name by name, parted from him for a little while.
CHAPTER XVI " Not Peace, but a Sword "
THE two companions who were turned back watched their friend from a distance when he was baptized. One of the two continued for many years more or less in sympathy ; but he gradually drifted. The other was " caught in the delusive whirlpool of the Ve'dantic philosophy," and became a bitter foe. Not long ago a young student from this district, studying in Madras, was convinced of the truth of Christianity. He grew more and more earnest, till he was considered ripe for baptism. His father, upon hearing this, went straight to Madras. He kept his son with him for a few hours, then returned him to the missionary, broken. Sense of honour, will-power, all desire, had gone. No one knows what he did with the boy. He returned to Tinnevelly, satisfied. This father was the poet's friend. He and his son have dropped out of sight : we know no more of them. Those things, never the mere physical accidents of life, are the missionary's hurts and heart- breaks. The cause is found in one word — caste.
There is a growing idea at home, caused by that perilous habit of generalising from an isolated incident, that caste is losing its power of grip. Where surface
114 "NoT PEACE, BUT A SWORD"
relations are concerned it is true that its vigilance is relaxed. Education and all civilising agencies tend to- wards this. But go deeper, and you find caste is still a forceful thing, and individual conversion, where it rules, still means the knife at the heart.
A South Indian Christian paper, edited by a convert from the central citadel of Hinduism, lately addressed a series of questions bearing upon this subject to men of experience, Indian and English, in different parts of the country. From north to south the answers were remark- ably similar. The consensus of opinion may be fairly summarised by two answers to one of the questions :
" In order for a Christian to retain his caste, is it necessary that he should in any way take part in the worship of idols, demons, or false gods ? "
" Generally speaking, it is obligatory for a Hindu to worship idols in order to retain caste." — Hon. Kanwar Sir Harnam Singh, K.C.S.I., Ahluwalia.
" A Hindu might, by doing nothing, retain his caste, at least for a considerable length of time ; but if he moved in a distinctly Christian direction he would lose caste." — Archdeacon Caley, Travancore.
A second question was : " A Hindu becomes a Chris- tian, and is baptized. He claims that he can live a Christian life in his orthodox Hindu home. In your opinion is it practicable ? Is it even possible ? "
The answers, English and Indian, were decisive :
" A baptized Christian might very well live a Christian life in a Hindu home if he were given freedom to do so.
THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES 115
But in this part of India the attempt would not be tolerated. If he attempted it, he would either be ex- pelled or speedily made away with." — Kev. Edward P. Rice, L.M.S., Bangalore.
" No ; the mere act of baptism is looked upon by the Hindu as putting a man out of caste. A baptized man is considered as having gone out of the Hindu fold." — L. C. Williams Pillai, Inspector of Schools, Northern Circars.
" He cannot live a consistent Christian life." — Mr. P. Krishna Murti, Vizagapatam.
" Xo Hindu will ever be allowed to lead a consistent Christian life." — Gangaram Pantulu, B.A., Sub-Registrar, Bimlipatam.
" No, he will be outcasted. Theoretically, he can, but no one has yet succeeded in the attempt." — Dr. Ramachan- drayya, M.D., L.R., C.I.E., etc., Madras.
'• It is impossible to live in Hindu homes as a consistent Christian. From a Hindu standpoint such persons as lead a consistent Christian life in their Hindu homes would be surely outcasted." — J. Vekanna, B.A., Head Master, High School, Bimlipatam.
" If anything is impossible under the sun, it is this." — Mr. J. M. Bhaktul, Head Master, High School, Chatrapur.
The position was fairly stated in a critique on The Advanced Text-Book of Hindu Religion and Ethics : "It appears to me that most Hindus are prepared to be tolerant when principles are merely being discussed. But when it is a matter of leaving a false position to take
116 "NoT PEACE, BUT A SWORD"
up one rationally conceived and spiritually desired, to leave Hinduism for Christianity, we can no longer expect an indifferent toleration. Neo-Hinduism is ready enough to make a cheap identification of our religion with its own, and to hail Jesus Christ as an Eastern Muni and a Yogi of great powers ; but the truth of its heart comes out when a Hindu claims to exercise his right of indi- vidual freedom, and to follow that Christ in the way He has ordained."
These extracts form a platform ; the people in our story move up and down upon it.
After the disturbance which followed Victory's con- version several lads who seemed genuine in desire to become Christians came forward as inquirers. One of these was a young man who had been influenced at school. His relatives knew of it, and arranged a marriage for him with a speed which betrayed their alarm. His distress at the thought of causing them distress increased as the day drew nearer. His mother's beseeching face, his father's stern silence, weighed upon him till his very walk showed it. He stooped like an old man.
The day was fixed. The house was adorned. Strings of jessamine fastened from roof to roof and pillar to pillar filled the air with heavy scent. And the boy was entangled as if the strings had been wound about his soul, and dazed as if their scent possessed some fatal miasma.
On the evening before the wedding night we felt impelled to go to the house and try to see him.
When we arrived there it was dusk, and the court- yard, lighted with many lamps, was oppressively hot.
IRRESOLUTE 117
Servants were rushing about, friends were shouting directions. Children were playing in the midst of the confusion. Overhead, the red and white strips of the awning were interlaced with flowers withered already. Piles of flower balls lay in every available corner. All the lamps were smoking ; not a breath of pure air could get in. One half wondered then, as one waited in that suffocating atmosphere, how anything could survive in it. If will-power withered with the flowers, who could wonder ?
No one took any notice of us ; we were lost in the crowd. After we had waited awhile the bridegroom- elect walked in, and we went out together into the cool, clear air.
It was impossible to talk in the street. We went straight to the bungalow ; the boy followed. The people were kept from thinking about us.
Then for an hour Mr. Walker talked with him, while Mrs. Walker and we other workers waited on God in the next room. It was given to us in that hour to feel something of the value, the immeasurable value of a single soul.
The sound of voices ceased. There was a long silence. Then the door opened ; we heard the boy go. He had gone back irresolute.
An irresolute boy among resolute men and women has a poor chance. A few hours later the preliminary noises attending a wedding of importance told us he had yielded.
But what if he had not ? One stops at a loss for words to show what one can almost see : the devastation,
118 "NoT PEACE, BUT A SWORD"
distress, disgrace ; the immediate cessation of the marriage ceremonies ; the indignation of the bride's relatives at what they would regard as an insupportable insult. Above all there would be the grief and horror of the parents; the bitter, uncontrollable frenzied excitemeDt of every one of the several hundred relations, and the scorn of the few thousand neighbours who made up that boy's world. It is not needful to speak of physical dangers and possible cruelties, because he might escape these by flight. We only mention unavoidable cer- tainties.
The thought of it all unnerved the boy. The word was not spoken that night or next day. So the follow- ing night the conch shell's blare and the tomtom's beat insisted persistently, wearily, that his soul was en- tangled indeed ; the seductive influence had worked.
We saw him a few months later. The schoolboy carelessness had passed. He looked helpless and miser- able. In the South all social ceremonies are connected with idolatry through the medium of caste customs, which have religious meanings. So the marriage had in- volved compromise. He was a hypocrite, and he knew it.
Day by day in fulfilling his duties he found himself more and more embarrassed. As a boy his conduct had not been much observed. As a man he must perform the rites pertaining to the husband. Direct idolatry might be evaded for a while, but the trident painted every morning freshly on his forehead related to Vishnu. He called it his caste mark, in feeble palliation, but names do not alter facts. He felt like a snared animal struggling in his snare.
ENTANGLED 119
Gradually this feeling passed, and gave place to inertia. He cared for nothing, would not let his little wife learn, went through idolatrous routine untroubled. Sometimes he came to the bungalow in a shamefaced, shuffling sort of fashion. But this ceased after a year or so. A coma settles upon the soul that however sorely pressed disobeys, and goes on disobeying.
Most missionaries could duplicate this story. It is such a common story, it seems superfluous to tell it. But we have told it because it is so common. If it were sporadic it would not be worth telling.
CHAPTER XVII "At Variance"
OUE Lord said, " Not peace, but a sword ; for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother." Do you feel that there must be something wrong if loyalty to Christ collides with " loyalty to God's first law of human order, obedience in the home " ? Something wrong in the missionary's presentation of the Gospel when its accept- ance produces such collision ? Surely there is something wrong, something wholly out of course, a discord in the harmony which sounds through all the keys. But is the discord in the music, or in our rendering of it ? " If thy friend which is as thine own soul entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods . . . thou shalt not consent unto him." This chord of the seventh perplexes us, but what if the music were incom- plete without it ? Resolve it properly, and you find the chord which follows explains it ; your ear is satisfied. Dare we leave the arresting note unstruck when we see it written in the manuscript ? The refusal, however gentle, to " consent " comes into direct collision — must in the nature of things, if you are a Hindu — with the will
of father, mother, friend who is as your own soul.
120
"I WISH IT WERE NOT WRONG" 121
While the power of Hinduism remains unbroken, there must often be the sense of a false note somewhere, as if the instrument called life were out of tune.
Lotus became illuminated by hearing that God's light shone for her. So few things shone for her. I realised how few when one day, while we were with her, the sound of a tambourine and a fiddle out in the street made her eyes dance. It was the men's Itinerating Band which had come to her village, and was gathering a congregation by singing in the street. " Oh, if I could only see them ! " cried Lotus ; and flinging widows' rules to the winds, she ran out into the courtyard with the eagerness of a child, and looked over the wall, and for three blissful minutes drank in joy. " But it was so wrong of me ! " and poor Lotus hid her face ashamed, as, startled at her audacity, she crouched in the darkest corner of the dark little room. " I forgot I ought never to have looked. But oh, I did want so much to see ! I wish it were not wrong."
Five years of repression of every natural instinct had not quenched the love of life in her. The human within us is a strange, strong thing. Compress it, it eludes you, and escapes you, and disappears, to reappear as it was made at first. Lotus had been fashioned for delight. A small mud-walled courtyard, two small windowless rooms, no outlook, nothing but a strip of ground about two yards long behind, is it much to serve for all your world ? Lotus at seventeen is hot with life. Sometimes the low laugh breaks bounds, and ripples out, but always it is quickly checked, for Lotus is a widow.
She never really was a wife. Looking back, it is
122 "AT VARIANCE"
confused. Crimson silk raiment edged with gold, num- bers of new and glorious jewels, flowers round her neck and in her hair — the scent of jessamine brings it all back — cakes, delicious unlimited cakes ; rides in a decorated car, with some one sitting opposite and little children at her knee, while men in front blew conch-shells, and men behind clanged cymbals, and all the delightful abandon of noise made a sea of sound about her. And in the evening many lights, and the subtle perfume of sandal- wood, and the flower-ball game, while musicians twanged and sang their never-ending song, and otto of roses was sprinkled about, and everyone laughed and was glad. Then suddenly a thunderclap, a darkening down of everything, for she had become a widow. And the childish heart was frightened at first, for everyone looked at her and cried ; and then, when they snatched her silks away, and tore off her jewels, all but two, spared in a moment of pity, — then she became rebellious. But they told her it was just her fate. Who fights fate ? Be quiet, they said. And they gave her poorer food, as a punishment, she thought, which hurt her sore little heart the more, for she had not meant to do anything wrong ; and she felt misunderstood. So all life's play passed far from her, and all life's sunshine too.
Three years afterwards we saw her for the first time, and told her about the sunshine stored up for her. At first it seemed too good to be true. But when at last she understood, her heart lost all its restlessness. The light brings peace.
Then, as it will, the light shone out on any within reach. The first to feel it was Brilliance, her cousin,
"LET GOD'S IDEA GROW" 123
a childless and much despised young wife, who, though naturally bright, has become depressed and soured ; for her life is dominated by a tyrannical mother-in-law, who considers Brilliance a failure and hardly worth her rice.
Brilliance certainly is sulky, but we felt that what would sweeten her was just what had lighted Lotus' life, and this was denied her. " What has she to do with reading ? " said the mother-in-law. Lotus quietly shone on her then, told her stories about Jesus, interested her in Him, got her to believe He loved her, though her mother-in-law did not. For a while she was unhindered in this gentle ministry.
Timidly, greatly fearing repulse, the light began to shine further. Not that Lotus could take it anywhere. The only place where she can shine is just the one place where she is, a room about eight feet square. But sometimes aunts and cousins come, and she does not hide her light.
One of those aunts is our friend, a motherly-hearted woman. One of our boys was very ill. We wanted a special herb to make medicine for him. It was not to be bought, but she had it, and hearing how we needed it, she sent it to us, refusing payment, " for friendship's sake," she said. There was a time when she was touched ; she saw the beauty of our Lord, and was attracted by it. But her desire to know Him did not go deep enough. " I am a believing one," she says, " like Lotus," and sitting on her mat, with her dear little daughter beside her, just as she sits in the photo, she is fond of arguing at length that to be an inwardly believing one is quite enough. " You see no idol marks
124 "AT VARIANCE"
on my forehead. I never do anything idolatrous. Every morning I pray ' Have mercy on me, 0 Jesus Lord ! make my way prosperous.' What more could He require of me ? "
But one evening alone in the moonlight, the choice of her heart was made manifest. It was the night of the street fire festival. Each householder worshipped apart. She stood outside her gate with the wood for making the fire in her hand, and offerings for sacrifice. She knew it was all vain ; but if she refused, her caste would hear of it; she would lose her acknowledged position, and be looked upon askance. So she stood there in the moonlight, no firelight yet with its earth red came into conflict with that white light. And she weighed in the balance Christ and caste. Then she stooped and lighted the fire.
And as it blazed she turned and saw we were standing close to her. She started ; she had not expected to see us there. We usually leave the place earlier ; but the long streets with their rows of fires had been full of detaining things, for the inagic of the East comes out in festival times at night.
The lane where her house stands is off the street. Hers was the only fire in it. And the palm behind rose black like a plume, and the archway under it framed the fire, and the moonlight filtered through the palm and tried to put the firelight out.
We stood there silent for a while. The woman was bending over the fire, her face was working. We could see it by the flame. Then it set. " I have chosen," she said ; " a thousand words — what
"THE LIVE PAIN BURNETH LIKE A LAMP" 125
will they do ? " But it was not the time for a thousand words.
After this it was more difficult for Lotus ; but still, while any would listen, she spoke, till her liberty passed as life's play had passed, very suddenly.
An idolatrous rite was in progress. Lotus refused to take part in it. She had often talked to her mother and father, but they had taken no notice. Now it seemed to dawn upon them that this " Jesus doctrine talk " was more than talk, and they shut her up in a small back room, and locked the door.
Once we had asked her whether, beloved as she is by her parents, it would be possible for her to be baptized and live at home as a Christian. There is a deep square well at the end of the street where her home is. She pointed out in the well's direction : " My parents would rather see me under water, dead, than a Christian." Then her brown eyes filled with trouble : " It is not only that ; it would grieve my mother. Because I am a widow she never goes out of the courtyard except before daylight and after dark. But she never taunts me ; she loves me. Her love holds me back from grieving her."
For weeks after that open confession we saw nothing of Lotus, and heard nothing of her. Then one evening two of us were allowed in for a minute. Poor weary Lotus ; she was sitting in the back, looking out. She had been allowed to sow a few seeds in the strip of ground, and she called it her garden, and found pleasure in it. Her Bible had been taken from her. She was not allowed to kneel in prayer, — not that it mattered, her
126 "AT VARIANCE"
soul could kneel, — and she was forbidden ever to speak of Christ. Her mother's love had " turned sour." Her father was ashamed of her. Her relations constantly upbraided her. Her widowhood, they reminded her, was sufficient disgrace for the family, without any added affront. Was she the only one going to heaven ? Her pride, they said, was most astonishing, and in a childless widow peculiarly revolting. There was only time to say a few words of sympathy and encouragement, and to urge her to look up through all, and show love through all. And then the mother called, and we had to hasten away.
There was a season of friendliness after this. We were allowed to visit her. But we were always shadowed by some member of the family, and no Bible-reading was allowed. This small indulgence, however, touched her very much. " My parents love me, they do love me," she whispered once, when for a moment the watchful- ness was relaxed. " Oh, it is hard to grieve them. It is like treading on my own mother's heart."
The parents are pleasant people. We had a long talk with them one day. They told us Lotus had pined like a flower deprived of air and light when they shut her up and refused to let us visit her. They did not like to see her so cast down, and they had risked the scorn of the street by letting us see her again. Would we not on our side