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,
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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 possible, 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 courtyard, very much inhabited. Some old men had settled themselves on the verandah and were talking. The thin cracked quavering voices wandered on in endless dissertations 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 gentlemen, 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 refreshment. 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, unconscious 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.
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 milkwoman, 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.
Life, with Indian fellow-Christians for one’s companions, draws one very close to them, and makes that Grace a very shining quality. One writes after experience. Of course there are bound to be disappointments. 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 missionaries 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 converse 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 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 distinguishes 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 welcome. 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 sufficient proof? Besides, why concern oneself in another’s business? So the double crime passed unrecorded 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
—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 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 cheerful 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 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.”