The Empty Oil Bottle

She was not through her troubles. That treacherous illness had left weakness in its wake. An affection of the skin attacked all four boys, the poor baby was covered with sores and wailed day and night. Lavish anointing with oil would have helped: but the oil bottle was empty, and she could not afford to buy in anything like sufficient quantity.

That was a painful hour. She could have borrowed the oil; but the strange instinct in her, uncommunicated by anything ever heard (and, as we know, she could not read), drew her back from borrowing. ‘‘ Our God knows, and He will give ittous. He will help me to earn more, give me more strength. If it be good for us, this He will do,”’ she said to her little boys.

But that night, as she saw the poor little fellows distressed and crying, she must have been sharply tempted. Ever since they were born, she had sent thank-offerings by one of the children to the God of the Christians whom she also worshipped. Sometimes the gift was a small silver coin, sometimes a handful of salt, firstfruits, as it were, of the season. The child laid it on the tray set for such gifts and came away, no one inquiring.

Never had anyone thought anything of these gifts, they were not published in any list. They went into some general fund, unnoticed, except that sometimes somebody would remark in a dim, wondering kind of way: ‘‘ Why does this heathen woman send offerings to our church?’’

But now all was different. If a trifle of these often hardly spared gifts had been kept back, the children would not be crying now. The poor mother pulled herself together. Such thoughts must never enter. She went to the little boys, made them kneel on their mats: ‘‘ Our God can help even in this,’’ she said, and she prayed, prayed for healing, for relief from the unendurable irritation which kept them awake, for help for herself that she might be strong to work and buy what was required, for comfort for them all. Soothed and consoled, the children fell asleep.

But the oil?

Through all these years her sisters had never thought of sending her anything. It was partly, perhaps, that they lived far away and knew little of her struggles, partly, it may be, they knew the temper of her mind and did not care to risk sending an unwelcome gift. She, of course, had never spoken of her difficulties to them; if they knew anything, they heard it from others.

For Mimosa, careful of her God’s good name, said nothing to those who would not understand. ‘*T know His love, how could I doubt Him? But if I had told them they would have said, ‘ Ah, your God is not so good as ours. See, we lack nothing.’”’

But now, in their distant town, to the two sisters came a thought of Mimosa and her children, and moved by some kindly, sisterly feeling, they sent twice during that period small, but blessedly welcome gifts. (For so coming who could refuse them?) The oil bottle was filled, and there was enough to buy other necessities of the moment. Cheered and warmed to the heart (but she would have said cooled), Mimosa thanked God and took courage.

And in this way, by prayer and in confidence, this untaught Indian woman dealt with all the emergencies of life, taking sickness, when it came, direct to Him, and looking to Him to heal. She never seems to have worried over petty questions about the use of means. She would have opened her brown eyes wide with wonder, had anyone suggested that the good eucalyptus oil which can take the pain from a scorpion sting within one minute, was less a gift of her kind Father than the rice was, and the vegetable curry which nourished her little sons.

In a world where she had never walked, Christians were thinking and writing about healing in answer to prayer. Of all this, of course, Mimosa had not heard the lightest whisper, nor had she heard a single story of the healing virtue of our Lord. But, taught by the Spirit, she was led straight to the heart of the matter. To her faith, unperplexed by the talk of men, it seemed a natural thing that He should heal. And, though relief did not always come at once, peace did. “And is not peace of more importance?” she said in her sweet simplicity.

When asked to explain why some did not recover — her little Mayil, for example — she turned tranquil eyes upon the questioner. She did not know; but her God did. So must it not be well? And that was her answer continually about many puzzling matters. With a turn of the hands which, in Tamil, talk as much as the tongue, and a smile that illuminates her otherwise serious face, she says it now. Or she glances up with a quick “Father, You know. It is well, I think, Father; it is certainly well.”

Does it read like a story made up, or at least touched up a little? But I have never consciously written an untrue line, and a story, even ever so little coloured, would be untrue.

And is there any need, even if it were allowed, to invent or to colour where the truth of God is concerned? Are not His doings, shown just as they are, quite beautiful? ‘‘ Impossible” things are continually happening, for He has not gone away from His world.