Lo! These Are Parts of His Ways

IT came unexpectedly. One evening she went for water as usual to the well from which her people drew, on the outskirts of the town. The little terra-cotta coloured vessel was under her arm. She had only one thought, to fill it and bring it home quickly, and run back for another. Then she might go and play. But she saw a crowd gathered near the well, and being only a little girl she forgot about her work, and stood on the wet stones by the well and looked and listened. “There were three white people, and a talking noise, and a singing noise, and a box which made a noise.” This was the first impression produced by ourselves and our baby organ, and the ardent singing of the half-dozen Indian helpers. It was all just a noise.

Presently she moved away. Then a madman came and tried to disturb the meeting. “See the white man beat the madman!” shouted the crowd with enthusiasm. This would be interesting. The child stopped and watched. But the white man only put his arm on the madman’s shoulder, and drew him gently out of the crowd, while the Indian brother continued speaking.

This was a tame proceeding. She turned again to go.

Just then a sentence repeated several times by the preacher caught her attention: “There is a living God. There is a living God: He turned me, a lion, into a lamb.”

Then, with the suddenness of a new discovery, it flashed upon her that here at last was the answer to her questions. The God who could change a lion-man into a lamb was the God who could change dispositions, so the greatest God, so Creator. His being described as living implied that the rest were dead. “I will not worship a dead god,” she almost spoke aloud in her eagerness. “Siva is a dead god. I will not rub his ashes on my forehead.” Then she went slowly home, pondering those luminous words, “There is a living God: there is a living God.” And in telling about it she added simply, “I did not want to sleep that night. I wanted to lie awake all night and talk to the living God.”

Next morning, like the swift surprise of sunrise, a feeling of new happiness rose in her, and surrounded her, so that all the world looked different, and she danced as she walked. Being only such a little girl, she was free to go where she would, only not to defiling places, such as a Christian camp. She found her way to it notwithstanding, and sat on the floor of our tent among other village children, and learned a chorus, which struck her as remarkable because it was so easily understood. (The poetry to which she was accustomed was difficult to understand). But this was all so very new that she understood little of what she heard. “My heart was like a little room. It could not hold much then. Only I understood you said that the true God heard us when we prayed, and very dearly loved us all. This entering in made room for itself.” We knew nothing of the earnest little listener; did not even notice her among the others, for she kept in the background shyly, and ran home without speaking to us.

And as she ran home she resolved she would test this living God. She would ask Him for three things. If He should answer twice out of three times by doing just as she asked, she would be sure He really heard, and really dearly loved.

When she got home, her mother was standing on the doorstep with a switch in her hand. This meant a whipping. Quick as thought she prayed, “Living God, 0 Living God! do not let my mother whip me!”

Her mother caught her by the arm. “Where have you been, you naughty child? Oh, you evil one, come here! You are a perverse monkey cub! You have been to those low-caste people!” And a stinging swish of the switch on her little bare arms and shoulders was all the answer she saw to her prayer.

But she kept quiet. “A sort of peace was in my heart. I remembered you had said perhaps we would be punished for listening, but that God would be with us and help us to bear it; so I kept quite still. It was peace.” But the mother, mistaking the peace for sullenness, and being provoked by the child’s unwonted silence, exclaimed, “Those low-caste people have perverted you already! You have no feeling. You shall have a double whipping!” and administered it forthwith. Then, indeed, distressed and much bewildered at this first and most evident failure of the test, upon which somehow she felt she had staked more than she quite understood, the poor child broke out into bitter sobs, and the mother relented and was kind. But she cried herself to sleep that night.

Next day saw her at the camp again, risking another whipping, she knew; but she did not mind that. Nor did her conscience prick her for disobedience; she regarded the whipping as quite scoring off her debt of duty to her mother. “I disobey: she whips me: we are quits.”

This time she heard a chorus about Jesus’ love, salvation, and power to keep, explained; and gathering that Jesus was the Living God, she prayed to Him as she ran home that evening, “0 Jesus! Living God, out of three prayers answer two! “,

Her way led through a road bordered by tamarind trees. The ripe fruit hung low. But it is stealing to gather fruit; you may only eat it if it falls of itself. She stopped, she prayed, “0 Jesus! Living God! make the fruit fall.” And a pod fell at her feet.

“One out of two; that leaves one to show for certain whether He really is hearing and loving,” she thought as she ran along, quickly now, for it was dark, and punishment most probable. “Jesus! Living God!” she prayed, as she raced almost breathless up to the door, “don’t let my mother whip me! Jesus! Living God, listen!”

“Ob, my heart thumped hard as I saw my mother standing on the step. She had not the switch in her hand. She met me. She drew me in. She said, ‘I thought you were lost in the dark, my child! Come in and have your supper.’ She did not whip me at all.”

This settled the question for ever. The Living God,

Jesus, did hear prayer, did answer, did love. She would never doubt Him again, she told Him. She would worship no other, pray to no other.

It was a long story, but it did not seem long. The moon rode high overhead as we went back to camp. The night was alight with the beauty of it and the peace.

This was the child whose coming had been as starrise to us a year ago. I looked back through the year that night. All along we had felt that she was not an ordinary child. There was always something intense about her. There was something unusual too in the way she had laid hold of each new truth as it was shown. She seemed to possess it at once. But enough of the inner story: God has put our soul somewhere out of sight, and our first conscious instinct is to pull the curtain closer round it, and cover it up from people’s eyes. So the tale of the weeks that followed her first coming to us shall remain untold. We who taught her learned much ourselves. Our work was just to stand out of the light and let it shine full upon her. After a few weeks’ teaching, suddenly she was snatched away.