A Singing Bird in God’s Garden
ANEW garden is in making on the hot plain under the mountains. We spent a day there lately, watching the work. But first we stayed for an hour or two in a place which is not a garden.
The Potters’ quarter in Skywisdom’s village is an untidy huddle of huts near a small old shrine. We took our stand near the shrine, beside the raised platform upon which, behind a grated door, the goddess sits in a dark cell. At one end of the platform there is an idol painted black. In front, leaning against the wall, was what I mistook for a clay model of the Virgin and Child. But it was a local Madonna; for Satan’s travesty of the truth may be traced through the Hindu system straight back to the Babylonish Mysteries; and the holy Story of Bethlehem is parodied everywhere.
It was sunny outside, and the Potters let us mount the platform, which was shaded. They gathered in groups about the steps, and listened silently while we besought them to turn from these vanities unto the living God.
We were standing close to the clay goddess as we spoke, and inadvertently touched it, but no one minded.
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“It does not matter. It has not received the Inspiration. It is still mere clay.” And they showed us the hole left in the back of such images by which the spirit it is meant to represent is intended to enter into it, when the ceremony of Inspiration is performed. “The hole will be closed up afterwards. Then we should not like you to touch it, for then it becomes a goddess like the one inside. We would not like you to touch our god,” pointing to the stone figure, “because in the days of the ancients he was made and inspired. He is now inhabited.” We assured them we would not touch it, and they were content.
Then two old champions l of the faith rose to defend a dogma which we had not attacked, for here, as in the question of demoniacal possession, we are on unknown ground, and are too ignorant to contradict those who have lived on it all their lives. “What would I say then? That an idol has any real being?... Not so; but I say that when the heathen offer sacrifices they sacrifice to demons and not to God “: so runs Conybeare and Howson’s translation of St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians. “Not so ... But.” This inky black shape, with its gilt eyeballs protruding, its uplifted hand and club, and general impression of ferocity, has no real being, but it stands for that which has; and the sacrifices offered to it are offered to a real being, the demon who deceives these men and women who are talking round us now. This much at least we know.
“Oh, in the night he came. And he seized this brother,” pointing to one with bloodshot eyes and a
1 For photographs of these two, see Things as They Are, p. 24.
raving expression, “and we cried ‘Prophesy.’ And he prophesied: he said, ‘Shall not your mother’s cousin’s wife have a child within a year? ‘And she, who for seventeen years had had no child, possessed a son in eleven months. Then we gave cocoanuts, eggs, cakes, a goat, and fowls. All he desired we gave.” Each of the men and women there was ready to confirm the truth of this story, and each was ready to add another, which like a blazing torch lit up the dark recess of many a life.
If Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil about the body of Moses durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but only said, “The Lord rebuke thee,” much less dare we give free vent to our feelings, much more may we give pause when we meet the same defiance. There is calm in the confidence that the day of the Lord’s rebuke will forever end this working of Satan. But in the meantime these souls are receiving not the love of the truth, but the workings of falsehood and deceit of unrighteousness, and we pleaded with them collectively and then individually to face the ignored facts of life and the hereafter; and we preached Jesus.
“Most excellent doctrine, excellent doctrine,” said one of the old men; “I intend to think longer upon it.’ So he followed us all day. And in the evening, after much meditation, he made the following proposal: “For one hundred rupees, and free food for life, and the promise of care in my old age, and a worthy funeral, I will now embrace your religion.” Such is the soil God takes and makes into gardens.
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Straight from the Potters’ quarter we went to the Palm Climbers; and, surrounded by another crowd of far more intelligent people, heard a heart-rejoicing story.
It was told by a young wife whose beaming face bore witness to its truth. How astonished she would have been to hear that anywhere there were those who consider “religion” depressing. She evidently found it a most happy possession.
She had heard of Christianity before her marriage, but cared nothing for it. After her marriage she came to live in Skywisdom’s village, where a young schoolmaster, lately converted, had been stationed. Her husband knew about his life. The Indian is quick to detect a sham, and equally quick to recognise holiness. “He is God’s man,” was the husband’s verdict. The wife was interested and watched. But still she cared nothing. Her voice was eager as she continued:
“Then late one evening I heard there was preaching in the street, and all of us went and sat on the ground. There was a singing box, and a lantern set on the devil’s altar. And you all gathered round the altar and played the box and sang much. Do you remember?” And though we have had many an open-air meeting since then, we well remember that meeting, when the light shone out in the black night.
“Oftenest of all the songs you sang was one like this:
“‘Come to Jesus.
Come! Come!
To the true Lord.
Come I Come! ‘”
She sang through the chorus with evident delight, and from this point on, her story was punctuated with choruses, lyrics, and hymns, sung to unrecognisable tunes, and with many variations as to words; for we found our choruses had grown, budded out into fresh verses to express new emotions. It was an interesting study in poetical evolution; and, by the way, in the evolution of a bit of ground from desert to garden.
In almost all our meetings we speak of sin and its inevitable outworking. This appeals to the people. The conscience in them confirms the truth of the words which are God’s. The inner voice corresponds to the outer. The latent sense of right and wrong becomes active. You can see the truth grip. Then we speak of the way of deliverance from sin, and we find that the story of the love that passeth all knowledge, all telling, draws with a power that is only Divine. The Indian deep down is loving. He was created most lovable. If only he will let himself listen, something within him responds to that love, goes out to meet it insensibly. Alas for the many hindrances, the devil’s devices coming between the soul and the clasp of that infinite love! But sometimes the love breaks through them all, bends over, lifts over the soul that sincerely has come out to meet it even a little way.
“As the Iyer spoke my heart quite broke: I saw my sins rise before my eyes as if a pile of water vessels were placed the one on the top of the other. And I saw those sins had been as nails nailing the Lord to the Cross. And I could not bear it. And I went home, and my sins followed me all the way, and they came “OH COME, LET US SING!” 159
between me and the Lord, like a wall I could never climb over or pass. But the next night I came again. My husband came too, and sat with the men. But I — I was all alone in the crowd, alone with a voice that spoke to me, and said, ‘Oh, sinner, see your sin. It is thick between the Lord and you.’ And then the Iyer spoke.”
That evening the preaching was about the putting away of sin, and the same chorus was often sung, “Come to Jesus: come!” While it was being sung, suddenly, or gradually, she forgets now, it became clear to her that there was no hindrance to her coming. The hindering thing had been put away. Her sin was gone. That night both husband and wife were saved.
“Then life became all new to me. I heard a lyric about the sweetness of Jesus, ‘Sweeter than honey, Divine sweetness, is the sweetness of Jesus the Lord,” and she sang it with enthusiasm. “And then I heard a song about His Coming again. ‘Oh, be ready! The Lord Jesus is coming! Oh, rest your souls (a new verse-bud, this) for Jesus is coming! ‘And so no trouble could ever seem great, for as the dew when the sun looks upon it so are all troubles; they are passing! they are passing! And Jesus is coming, soon coming again. Now like the young rice seeing the rain, my heart rejoices,” she concluded, “and every day I am opening my mouth to taste more of the sweetness, sweeter than honey.”
I remembered the catechist’s testimony about her. “She sings as she goes to her work on the hills, and she sings when she comes home in the evening. And she sings all the time she is working (except when she has to stop,” he added truthfully), “she is always singing something. Her life is all sprinkled with songs.” God has singing birds in His garden.
But this singing bird became slightly ill. The Christians of Skywisdom’s village are working people. They start early for the mountains where their work is, and return late, and are, as one would expect, a hardy healthy race. Wisdom’s Flower had never been the least ill before. She did not understand being ill, and she found the experience trying. One day she appeared at Dohnavur carrying a bundle of rice: “I have come for four days; I have brought rice for four days’ food. Also I have brought four annas as a thankoffering for healing.” And she dropped her bundle on the floor and the fourpence in my hand. “But will you not wait till you are healed, and then give your thankoffering?” “Why should I wait? I thank God now. This is my thanks beforehand.”
Her trouble would have been easily cured. Out in the district, far from efficient medical help, we have constantly to do the best we can for all sorts of minor afflictions. This particular complaint is very familiar, and we gave the appropriate powder, which she received with prayer. But the medicine’s activity disturbed her, and on the second day she came to us: “Amma, the Lord has healed my soul of the disease of sin “; and she laid her hand on the place where she believes her soul to be. “Now this organ” (naming it explicitly) “has a disease “; and she moved her hand a little lower down; “PITY MY SIMPLICITY” 161
“why should not He who healed my soul heal my other organ also?”
She was young in the faith. We did not perplex her with grown-up arguments. She followed the leading she felt had been given; and to-day, healed and happy, God’s bird is singing in His garden.