Lotus Buds

Each for himself, we live our lives apart,
Heirs of an age that turns us all to stone;
Yet ever Nature, thrust from out the heart,
Comes back to claim her own.
Still we have something left of that fair seed
God gave for birthright; still the sound of tears
Hurts us, and children in their helpless need
Still call to listening ears.

It was only a child after all, and it had not anticipated having to find its way alone among strangers. It had thought of nothing further than a very short walk among familiar faces. If it had understood beforehand how far it would have to walk, I doubt if it would have had the courage to start; for it was not naturally brave. But once on its way it could not turn back; and thanks to those kindly outstretched hands, it grew a little less afraid, and it went on.

Then another small wayfarer followed. It
also was very easily discouraged; an unfriendly
push would have knocked it over at once. But
nobody seemed to want to push so unpretentious a
thing, so it gained courage and went on.

And now a more grown-up looking traveller (though indeed its looks belie it) has started on its way; more diffident, if the truth must be told, than even its predecessors. For it thought within itself — Perhaps there will be no welcoming hands held out this time; hands may grow tired of such kind offices. But it has not been so. And now the sense of gratefulness cannot longer be repressed.

All of which means that I want to thank
sincerely those kings of the Book World — Reviewers — and
those dwellers in that world who are my
Readers, for their insight and the sympathy to
which I owe so much.

Once I read of a soldier who wrote a letter home from the midst of a battle, on a crumpled piece of paper laid upon a cannon ball. His home people he knew would overlook the appearance of the paper and the lack of various things expected in a letter written in a quiet room upon a study table. And he knew he could trust them not to bring too fine a criticism to bear upon the unstudied words hot from the battle’s heart.

I have thought sometimes that these books were not unlike that soldier’s letter; and those who read them seem to me very like his home people, for they have been so generous in the kindness of their welcome.

We were travelling to the neighbouring town when we came upon this pool. We could not pass it with only a glance, so we stopped our bullock-carts and unpacked ourselves — we were four or five to a cart — and we climbed down the broken, time-worn steps and gazed and gazed till the beauty entered into us.

Who can describe that harmony of colour, a Lotus-pool in blossom in clear shining after rain! The grey old walls, the brown water, the dark green of the Lotus leaves, the delicate pink of the flowers; overhead, infinite crystalline blue; and beyond the old walls, palms.

With us was a young Indian friend. “I will gather some of the lilies for you,” he said, with the quick Indian desire to give pleasure; but some one interposed: “They must not be gathered by us. The pool belongs to the Temple.”

It was as if a stone had been flung straight at a mirror. There was a sense of crash and the shattering of some bright image. The Lotus-pool was a Temple pool; its flowers are Temple flowers. The little buds that float and open on the water, lifting young innocent faces up to the light as it smiles down upon them and fills them through with almost a tremor of joyousness, these Lotus buds are sacred things — sacred to whom?

For a single moment that thought had its way, but only for a moment. It flashed and was gone, for the thought was a false thought: it could not stand against this — “All souls are Mine.”

All souls are His, all flowers. An alien power has possessed them, counted them his for so many generations, that we have almost acquiesced in the shameful confiscation. But neither souls nor flowers are his who did not make them. They were never truly his. They belong to the Lord of all the earth, the Creator, the Redeemer. The little Lotus buds are His — His and not another’s. The children of the temples of South India are His — His and not another’s.

So now we go forth with the Owner Himself to claim His own possession. There is hope in the thought, and confidence and the purest inspiration. And, stirred to the very depths, as we are and must be many a time when we see the tender Lotus buds gathered by a hand that has no right to them, and crushed underfoot; bewildered and sore troubled, as the heart cannot help being sometimes, when the mystery of the apparent victory of evil over good is overwhelming: even so there will be always a hush, a rest, a repose of spirit, as we stand by the Lotus-pools of life and seek in His Name to gather His flowers.

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