Gardens by the River’s Side
IT may be a relief to turn from these crooked and complicated things, even though they do not “move us.” A river flows close to the town where we stayed at the beggars’ rest-house, and gardens no man planted border its banks. Near by are some Christian houses. Life there, on the surface, at least, is straightforward and homely; commonplace, the hunter for excitement would probably call it; but domestic simplicity has a charm of its own. One of these Christian homes is a true little garden.
One day while we stayed at the rest-house, our Brahman widow friend woke hope in us by sending for me to come to see her. I went, but was told she was out. The message was a hoax. The Brahmans living in the street looked coldly, I thought, as I walked down their street, alone, for I had not been allowed to bring an Indian sister in. I went to the Christian quarter then, with a sense of rest and gladness that there was such a place to go to. Whatever the Christians are, they are not unkind and cold.
The half-dozen Christian houses are grouped round a small mud-built prayer-room, which was under repair, so the school usually conducted in the prayer-room was in full swing in the catechist’s house. Out tumbled the children to shout salaam in chorus. After them came the school-mistress, the catechist, his wife and family, a sickly looking widow and her family, and several sundries. These all poured in, after me, till we seemed wedged together in the very small space available, beyond all chance of doing anything. But the Oriental can work under adverse conditions. The twenty children were soon drawn up in class, repeating their lessons at the top of their voices. The young school-mistress managed to move among them, and tried to keep order, though there was hardly room enough to brandish her inoffensive cane. The widow and her family climbed the nearest verandah. The sundries, several stray women and young children, and two goats, talked to each other. The catechist calmly resumed the labour my advent had interrupted, letter-writing, requiring much consideration, to judge by his abstraction for the next half -hour. How he could concentrate on anything in the midst of such a racket was surprising, in spite of our familiarity with the wonderful Asiatic. One of our pastors, alone, in his native village, before his ordination, took his B.A. degree in mathematics, studying at one end of his verandah, screened off by nothing more substantial than a cocoanutleaf mat, from the life of the house — and his seven young children.
The catechist’s wife first got me milk, then sugar, plantains, and cocoanut water. She wanted to make coffee, and was hardly dissuaded from producing the family cot, a cane lounge much in use. “You are tired with walking up and down in the sun in that Brahman street. Ah! When will the Sun of Righteousness shine in that street!” More reflections; then, “If only I had known you were coming there would have been coffee all ready!” And the dear motherly face looked concerned. Catechists’ wives are not rich; but the best that house afforded, the coffee reserved for rare feasting days, was pressed upon me. This over, the catechist’s wife sat down happily in the midst of the school children, and, watching her opportunity, captured one of them, the disconsolate widow’s small son, who had slid into his place in the infants’ class. The infant was glistening all over. He had been lavishly oiled. The catechist’s wife secured him by holding firmly to the tuft of hair grown as a top knot. “Should I not finish what I have begun, 0 my little parrot? Wriggle not, 0 slippery one!” And she proceeded with further lubrications, explaining minutely the nature of his not very serious malady. “And so, afflicted as he is, what could I do but this? Such a little clever one! Verses he knows by the score, and hymns: — Sing ‘Jesus knows all about our troubles! ‘” It was sung with cheerfulness.
Now this, the care of another’s child, though so ordinary to tell, was not quite ordinary to happen. Any number of relations will come and camp in each others’ houses. But Love, the sick widow, was not a relation. She belonged to a different caste, and a caste which is to the catechist’s caste as a mongoose to a cobra, to quote an expressive idiom for blood feud. The story came out as I sat there, not that it was consciously told, it rather told itself.
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Love bad heard the gospel in an open-air meeting held by the Men’s Itinerating Band some years ago. She called her husband to listen. He was converted. Immediately afterwards he died.
The heathen relations came to the usual conclusion, and expressed themselves in the usual way. Public opinion is wonderfully compelling. Most of us think as others think, not because we think at all, but simply by force of its influence. Love almost believed herself guilty. But she did not give way. Her sturdy independence of character was mistaken for heart conversion. She was baptized.
Then she became ill. It was a mysterious illness, and was, of course, referred direct to the action of the offended Powers. Love got more and more despondent; and though she never seems to have contemplated giving up Christianity, she was not in touch with Christ, and she sank into a grumbling condition not conducive to health. It was about this time that she came to live near the Christians. The catechist’s wife tried to teach her to read, but teaching is not the good woman’s forte. She tried to lead her to the Lord, but Love resented being considered anything other than thoroughly right. She tried to comfort her in her troubles, but Love was so sorry for herself that the kindly effort failed.
Many a Christian will preach and pray with truly delightful fervency, and a fluency most amazing. But when it comes to drawing water for a weakly woman, still more, actually cooking for her, it is a different matter. The catechist’s wife was ready to do both these things for Love; but though Love is willing to break her caste, and eat food cooked by all and sundry when she comes to stay with us, she had no wish to incur reproach when anywhere near her own people. The catechist’s wife understood the situation. She would not like one of an unsuitable caste to cook for her. But she was very sorry for Love, who was not fit to look after herself and her children, so she did what she could. She keeps cows. Milk is not a prohibited food. She fed both mother and children on milk, and saw to the little ones’ clothing and schooling, and all without fuss of any kind, but simply out of motherliness. To appreciate the garden, look at the desert. Near us is a large, prosperous village. Its servants live in a hamlet near. An old coolie belonging to one of the leading families was ill. It was a simple trouble. A bone had stuck in his throat. He could not eat. His master in the village knew.
His people were ignorant. They did their best. But their doctor, the barber, failed in his efforts to dislodge the bone. The old man slowly starved to death. When the bearers went for him, he was light to carry.
Did his master grudge the two rupees it would have cost to hire a cart and take him to the nearest town? “It was not that,” and the girl, who had known the old man, her father’s servant, smiled, surprised; “my father never thought of it as his affair. Only our own caste people are our affair.”
“Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name.”
One such notable reversal is surely proof that God “WEAKNESS THY WORKSHOP” 151
does completely reverse the things that were, and that He does it without necessarily any very long delay once He has taken the case in hand. Some tell us we must not expect to see such immediate reversal. But how far off must we postpone expectation? We know our Lord bears gently with the ignorant and erring, and it is not for us to judge how far the ignorance and error must reach before it passes the confines of His great lovingkindness. He knows the inner story, the limitations. He loves the weakest and dullest, — we feel in our hearts if this were not so He would not long love us, the weakest and dullest of all; but then we believe, and rejoice to believe, that not through slow processes only, but quickly, as by a word, He can so deal with character that the life changes to something manifestly different to what it was before, strongest where it was weakest, showing forth God’s “Instead.”
Such a life was lived in the sight of all the people by a grand old pastor, who was called by the Hindus The One-Word Man, because of his flawless truthfulness. Truthfulness is not the predominant characteristic of most Easterns. The old pastor belonged originally to a section of the community whose profession compels the cultivation of lying as an art; but the fir-tree and the myrtle grew so strong in him that it was hard to believe the thorn and the brier could ever have been there, and his bare word was accepted by Christians and Hindus alike as final. We know many so transformed. “Immediately she was made straight, and glorified God,” is not an obsolete text.
Numerous incidents are told of the way the Hindus believed the pastor’s word, and were guided by it. Once, when a prayer-room was being built by a congregation in his charge, within the domains of a certain opposing Hindu, the Hindus sent men to destroy it by force. A scrimmage ensued. The Christians were roughly handled, and a police case was the result. The Christians wanted their pastor to exaggerate the violence done to them. The magistrates heard the witnesses, who all contradicted each other, and then called upon the pastor to give evidence. He did so with absolute veracity. The magistrate saw he spoke the truth, without hiding the fault of his own party. He asked the lawyer on the Hindu side if he had any question to address to the pastor. The lawyer, who was unprepared for a perfectly truthful witness, replied that he had nothing to say. The case was decided then in favour of the Christians by that Hindu magistrate, upon the sole evidence of the man who was known to tell the truth.
I remember once seeing his word doubted. His wife had cataract. A quack was allowed to operate. His method was sure and simple. He had only to run a needle into the pupil of the eye, and immediately the offending particle within would wither up and disappear. Could anything be simpler? But though so simple, its successful performance required the greatest skill. Therefore the fee, to be paid in advance, was ten rupees.
The old pastor had not so much money at hand. His wife was eager for the operation. She would see an hour or two afterwards. Now that the blissful moment was so near, how could she wait? “Prick now; next week the money will come,” said the old man, knowing “!F YE LOVE ME...” 153
that it would. The operator demurred. He had good reason for doubting after-payment in such cases. “We are Christians,” said the pastor. “Cured or marred, the money shall be yours.” But still the doctor doubted, and they had to scrape the ten rupees together by borrowing from neighbours. We were returning from camp that afternoon, and the quack, fresh from operating, met us just outside the village. He brandished what looked like a rusty darning needle. “Look! this has given your pastor’s wife new eyes!” Horrified, we hastened on, and found the two old people in trouble. The old woman, because of the pain in her eyes, the old man because of the pain in his heart, — “The doctor did not believe our word.”
This dear old man, by his holy consistent life, had commended the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ for over seventy years, when, having walked so far with God, he was not, for God took him.
Many are asking, Are Missions worth while? Surely they are, if such souls are worth winning. But after all, does it greatly matter what we, the servants, think upon the subject? Is not our business rather to discover our Master’s thought, and then obey Him “unto all studious meeting of His wishes “?