From the Fight

“His sacred form is Love, His holy eye is the deep home of Grace, His blessed word, distilling as the dew, Is life’s Elixir, truest, purest joy. He looks upon the world of sinful men, And stretches out His hand to beckon them. His hand, so glad to give, so strong to guard, And then, it is as if He said, ‘Fear not.’

“Why wander weary still? Why wilfully go sad? Oh, people come! Come all ye people, to the succouring feet Of Him Who is alone your own true Lord. 7s your heart iron? Has it not melted yet? Oh, turn ye but a little, look to Him Th? renouncing God, Who gave His life for you. And, won by looking, come to Him Who calls And longs that you should live!”

Krishna PillAi,

Convert, Scholar, and Poet,
Tinnevelley, S. India,

Went in to see the King
January, 1900.

I S little book is a piece of patchwork. It is made of bits from the “Life of Faith,” bits from “India’s Women,” bits from Home Letters, and bits written for itself. Pen patchwork of a truth. This explains its broken and fragmentary character. It is only Bits of Things. But it has been asked for, so it goes as it is.

Out in the Fight, where fighting comes first and writing second, there is no time to write as one ought for that serious thing called Print; but will you ask the Great Captain to use it to make the fight real to some of His soldiers at

3 B 2 home? We need more troops out here. Not one garrison, not one regiment, is anything like full-manned.

These letters do not touch upon the work among the Christians, to which much of our strength is given; neither do they touch upon life in New India — the India of the Schools. We live in the heart of Old India — it is a dark Old India, very sinful, very needy, needing God.

The dear friend in whose home on the hills these scraps have been strung together, says that she never reads the headings of chapters, and skips all poetry contained therein. In case anyone who reads this inclines to do so, may I say, for once, please do not! because the chapter headings have something to do with what is inside the chapters — at least they may help to throw light upon the nature of the people of whom the chapters tell. They are like looks in. And the fragments of verse in the last two chapters are meant to be just the same. Look in with eyes anointed with the sympathy of Jesus. Look out again — look upon the fields — 4 and then, oh! we plead with you, look up — “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Yours in the Fight,

Looking for the coming
of the Conqueror,

TlRUNELVfcLI JlLLAH,
S. India,

April, 1900.

“Show good to the Good — the Responsive, And in rock that abideth you write it: Show good to the Bad — Unresponsive, In wavering water indite it.

Impressions abide, or impressions fade, As the heart is, so the impression made.”

AVVAYAR,

Tamil Poetess,

A thousand years ago.

what may.

ROM the Fight,” for it is a fight.
A fight without one iota of
the romantic. A downright real
fight. And we are only soldiers
” standing in the ranks, having
no right to think, no right to
question, but the solitary right

to do what the Captain says, come But fight though it is, the battle is the Lord’s, and victory will come with the Morning.

It is not Morning yet.

See this. A village, bright enough to the outward eye, for here instead of wild jungle waste, we have a bit of God’s beauty let down on the sand — but a village enchained, enslaved, wrapped round in thick darkness.

There are temple fortresses there, and shrines, and idols, and idol cars. And the men and women and children, too, are stamped with the stamp of the devil-god, a mark painted clear on the brow. You pass through the streets, where no one will stop to think across to the life to come. You visit a house (a caste-house, where confession of Christ would mean the literal loss of all things), and find the women gathered within, waiting for you. And now what have you to do? Tell the glad tidings gladly to hearts that are glad to hear? That is ideal, truly, but the real is not like that. Not one is keen to hear. Not one is longing or hungry. They like you to come, it is true. You come as a break in the day. And they will listen a little — but care? Ah no — not yet.

But you gather round the lamp, a pretty thing hung with flowers, and you try to find if they know what you talked about to them last time. Then you tell them a little more, and plead with them as you can — and then interruptions come. There is no shut door to them here! For first the husband arrives and causes a general stir, and then the mother-in-law has something to say, and great is the fidget and fuss; and then a baby cries, and has to be petted and shaken; and so it goes on, and you feel almost baffled; for how can the Still Voice speak through such noisy restlessness? Our voices grow weary enough, and our hearts grow wearier still, for it seems like fighting shadows, till the remembrance suddenly comes — Not shadow, but substance, the great grim substance of Satanic opposition. And then we take courage again — for the battle is the Lord’s.

The husband sees us home. He is like polished marble. Nothing seems to go in. He knows the truth, but meets it with a smile. Only the power of the Spirit can make that mountain flow. Our homeward way brings us through a crowd of idolaters. They are marrying their god and goddess. Torches blaze, and excited beings dance to the thud of the tom-tom. Incense thickens the air. The scent and the smoke, and the glare and the blare follow us far down the street. And we marvel at the patience of God.

* * *
A week later.

We have been there this evening again. May God help us to tell you of it, if by telling you we may help you to pray, as we want you to pray, as we need you to pray for us!

For to-night it was utterly sad. They had been worshipping — what do you think? That lamp we chanced to mention before as being so pretty with flowers. We did not know what the flowers meant then — God’s desecrated flowers! Yes, they had prayed to the lamp, or to the light in it, rather; they had used the very words we had taught them to say to our God if they wanted His help, a little prayer asking for light to enlighten their darkness — strangest of strange prayers surely, to pray to the light their own hands had kindled! They had painted their foreheads then with the sacred ashes, and they were just fresh from it all when we came to talk to them.

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