As a Red-Hot Wire in the Ear

But he went back on his promise.

All this happened when I was from home, held away by a particularly difficult work, so Star did not add these matters to the burdened days; knowing I would be with her in whatever she did, she waited till she knew what was to come of it. For in our happy little world of Dohnavur we have never even talked of being one. We began by being one. ‘‘ Brown and white, white and brown, all mixed up together,” as the children’s song has it. But it is closer than that: we are “one’d.”

For weeks she heard nothing. Then a piteous little letter came from Mimosa, dictated to her brother whom she had persuaded to write. It told of the husband’s consent, then refusal because of the caste’s resistance, and yet, in the quietness of faith, she was apparently preparing for the hour when the gates would open. ‘* Under hopeless circumstances he hopefully believed”?: it was that. There was not a glimmer of light in her sky. But in order to be ready to start at a moment’s notice she had sold her brass vessels,

an Indian woman’s most precious necessities.

They had been her father’s gift to her, part of her dowry, and she could never buy such again. Hereafter she must use cheap earthen pots. She did not say this, but we knew it.

With the money thus realized she had prevailed upon her worthless brother to escort them, ‘‘when her God should direct her goings’’; part of it was to be spent in providing for his little girls whom he terribly neglected, part on the journey. She hoped to come soon, she wrote.

Many days passed, and Mimosa did not come. What had happened? A thousand things might have happened; but of all vain ways of spending time perhaps the vainest is to wonder over mightbe’s, as one of the saddest is to dwell on mighthave-been’s.

Afterwards we heard it all.

The caste had continued its coercion. Held as she was, and unable to explain herself in the very least to them, she suffered. In this old land where days speak and the multitude of years teaches wisdom, the talk of the people is strewn with proverbs about the pain of cruel words: they are like red-hot wire thrust into the ear; like blisters of fire on the ear; like nails hammered sharply into the softness of unseasoned wood; piercing as arrows. Words hurt more than blows, to be hurt with words is like being beaten by wind and rain together. Every contact with the world outside her house was now, as never before, embittered for Mimosa. And it had been bitter enough before. In speaking of it she said simply: ‘“‘I lived before the Lord again with my sd7i in my hand.”

Who could have succoured her then but a Saviour who had suffered? Are there not times in life when nothing less suffices? By the Gate which is called Beautiful we may find joyful access to the God of all beauty. But not till we reach the city whose every several gate is one pearl, shall we find only joy as we enter in. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Sooner or later we must all come to the place where we hear a voice that is deep with unfathomable pain, call us to the fellowship of suffering.

But there we find Him. And who but Jesus, crucified, risen Redeemer, could suffice us there?

‘‘T have in my study pictures of Millet, Goethe, Tolstoy, Beethoven, and Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane,’’ wrote a Chinese student, not yet a Christian, to his friend in Paris. ‘‘ After seeing a beautiful picture, reading some wonderful poetry, or hearing some exquisite music, my spirit goes out, not to Jesus, but to the pictures of the other famous men. But when my heart is in trouble, these can no longer charm: only my contemplation of Jesus in His agony in the garden seems able to bring me peace, s

‘For hadst Thou passionless

Spent easy days, O Christ, known only joy’s dear kiss,

Walked on safe sandalled feet

In meadowlands — Ah, who that ever ran

Naked across the plain,

Scourged by the vehement, bitter rain,

But turning to Thee desperate, would miss

Something in Thee, yea, vital things? Tears were Thy meat,

A spear-stab Thy caress,

Thou suffering Son of Man.’’

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