Yet

in early childhood’s days she had been an ardent little idolater. When others stood in worship, she knelt. When others knelt, she fell on her face. “So far did I worship rny god,” she said sorrowfully in telling us of it. Her father and mother called it “the god.” She always called it “my god.” It was she who persuaded her father to spend large sums of money upon works of merit to the honour of their god. It was she who twisted the chickens’ necks when the annual sacrifice was offered. She loved to see the goat’s blood flow, because it belonged to her god. And now her parents had sent for her to take part in a family festival. She might return, they said, in four days, but she must come at once.

She had been staying near our home, with a relative, who had allowed her to spend most of her time with us. Her parents, who during the interval had become known to us, had not objected to our teaching her; they thought of her as a mere child. But stories of what she was saying and doing had floated out to them, and alarmed them. She must be recalled. The festival was made the pretext. The real intention, we felt,

was to get her out of our influence, and we feared a marriage would be arranged, and completed as quickly as possible.

But she had no such feelings and fears. “Only four days and I will be back!” And she danced about in delight. For she was still a happy child, with the careless confidence of a child, and all a child’s love of excitement. Apart from the religious element, with which she was sure she would have nothing to do, the festival would be enchanting; new clothes, and new jewels, and such lovely decorations, and delicious things to eat. “I will not be forced to do anything wrong. I will say I am Jesus’ child. I will tell them all about Him. It will be all right,” she said as she opened the little Gospel of St. Mark which she had just begun to spell out slowly, and we settled down for our last talk. This was difficult to me. It is always difficult to say anything which might suggest disloyal thoughts to a child. But parenthood is so often lost in Hinduhood here, that one felt bound to prepare this little one, so fearless in her innocence, for what might lie before her. So we talked about the difference between the yieldedness of spirit where her own wishes were concerned, which would please her Lord and perhaps win her parents, and the weakness of will where His wishes were concerned, which would be fatal compromise. And then with her clinging hands in mine I committed her to His tenderness. But my heart sank as I saw her go.

The weeks that followed passed slowly. We heard nothing of our child. We knew she would have sent a message had she not been prevented. We knew of one who, for a less fault than hers, had been kept in chains for three full years. “We knew that if chains were in question now, any move on our part would only rivet them the more firmly. We could do nothing for her but pray and pray again.

Then came the most sorrowful day. News reached us at last. She had given in, we heard. A family council had been called. They had mocked the little lonely girl. She had been ordered to worship the idol she used to serve, and rub Siva’s ashes on her forehead. She had refused. Punishment followed. She could not bear it. She yielded at last, bowed to the idol, rubbed on the ashes. She would soon be married and sent far away.

As our bullock cart rumbled back home over the broken road from the town where we had heard it, there was time to feel it all. Everything seemed to feel it too. The lake we skirted blazed in a still white fire of pain. The palms by the roadside drooped with it. The cart wheels ground it out of the sand. Life at such times is tense.

But there was one verse which came to us then, over and over again. We were, you remember, shut out from the homes of the people, because the coming of converts had closed their hearts against us. There was no sign of hope or joy anywhere just then; no sheaf to lay at His feet: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet will I rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

THE “IMPOSSIBLE” 29

There was another Yet.

“No darkness is so deep but white
Wings of the angels through can pierce
Nor any chain such heaps lies in
But God’s Own hand can hold it light;
Nor is there any flame so fierce

But Christ Himself can stand therein.”

We were to prove it true.

Every one assured us that it was perfectly impossible to do anything for the child. It was impossible she could be saved from what to her would be a daily death. The most we could ask for her was a quick release, and faith to the end. For nothing we heard could make us feel that her denial of her Lord was more than something wrested from her by deadly fear. So we prayed on these lines for a while. Then, in spite of all that was said, all the verses we had ever read about God’s doing impossible things came crowding into our mind. We could not give up hope. Together we waited upon Him to do the impossible for her.

It was Sunday, a week later. We had heard nothing in the interval. I was alone in my room, reading before the first bell rang for morning service. Many verses had a voice, and that voice hers. “I am so fast in prison that I cannot get out.” “Comfort the soul of Thy servant: for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. In the time of my trouble I will call upon Thee, for Thou nearest me. Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, 0 Lord: there is not one that can do as Thou doest.” She had said so, all bore witness to it. If only she had not given in! But He would not forget she had said it, and suffered for saying it. “Teach me Thy way, 0 Lord, and I will walk in Thy truth. Oh, knit my heart unto Thee!” And then one’s own heart found voice in the cry, hardly could it be called a prayer, for faith was tired that day, “Show some token upon me for good!” Oh, what a token for good it would be if our Star-child might come back to us!

Some quiet minutes passed. The bell began to ring, and I was just about to get ready for church, when there was a little sound at the door, a little hand pushed the sun-blind back — and we had our child again.

We never knew quite what had happened, for she was very ill for weeks; the overstrain had told. But some things became clear. There had been a family council, but she had not given in. God’s hand had lighted that little star. No storm could blow it out. All we had heard had been done, and more. She was so much gentler and more obedient than ever she had been before, that her parents had been encouraged to think she would not hold out long. But the strong old father found in the weakness of his child a strength made perfect. His allowing her to return to us is, to all who know South India, very wonderful “There is not one who can do as Thou doest.”

I asked her what helped her most through those weeks. She knew so little of the Bible then, that I wondered what she would say. She told me she kept the Gospel of St. Mark tied up in her dress as long as she could. It was discovered, and taken from her. “So I had not the comforting feel of it,” she said. “But I remembered they could not take away Jesus, and I “THE GLORY OF THE IMPOSSIBLE” 31

remembered how He walked in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; and how the fire could not burn their bodies or anything upon them, except the cords. And I thought it was a good thing it burnt the cords, for they could not have walked in the fire with Jesus if the cords had not been burnt. So I asked Him to let the fire burn my cords. After that I don’t remember anything. Only I think the fire got cool.”

There are some ancient stories which are wonderfully vivified by present-day experience. “Let them know that Thou art Lord, the only God, and glorious over the whole world.” So the Song of the Three Holy Children tells us they prayed. And “The angel of the Lord came down, and smote the flame of the fire out of the oven; and made the midst of the furnace as it had been a moist whistling wind so that the fire touched them not at all, neither hurt nor troubled them.” And even more brightly lighted up, the old words stand out alive and strong: “Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt.”

We keep the date of the coming to us of each girl and child as a birthday. There are feasts and flowers and little surprises, as on a birthday at home. And the fifth anniversary especially is held as a gala day. The Star-child, who is now Accal (older sister) to a number of affectionate little ones, gives us a look into the loving ways of the East, through a letter written to a friend telling about her fifth coming day.” I never had a day like it. It was a day with a garland upon it. My little sisters said to me the evening before, ‘Call us early in the morning, because we want to see you early, for to-morrow is a kind of little Christmas day.’ And in the morning they kissed me much, and they all came round me and said, ‘Dear Acc&! this is our joyful day, because it is your Coming-day.’ Then we went to the lake to bathe. And as we went through the wood the church bell rang for the schoolboys’ morning service. Then they all kissed me again and said, ‘Are you very tired, Acca, after your long, long walk? ’ for it was to them as if I had walked that morning all the way from my father’s house. And as we went they wanted to tell some one about it. But we met no one in the wood. So they called to the sky, ’ 0 sky, hear us! This is our Accal’s Coming-day! ‘And they called to the palms, ’ 0 palms, hear us! This is our Accal’s Coming-day!”

Five years bound round with deliverances and answers to prayer: many a time the father had come to claim her and enforce his right to make her do as he willed. Each time, as if compelled to let go, he went away without her. We could have done nothing to keep her had he insisted. When he came, one of us always went away alone and continued waiting upon God till the conflict had found its conclusion in peace. Once as he went away he was heard to mutter, “What is the matter with me? My hands are strong to take her! It is as if I were bound and held from touching her.”

Enough: we have told enough to sweeten some song in the night. If the angels care enough to sing over each saved one everywhere, well may we sing when even one star is lighted and kept alight. But our sky was not left long with only one little star in it. One by one, “PRAISE HIM, ALL YE STARS OF LIGHT!” 33

just as the stars come out in the evening, dropping through the deepening blue, how, you hardly know, so these stars came; each the herald of another.

“Cursed be your feet that made the first track in the sand for these others to follow,” said the father, head of the Clan, incensed as he saw brothers and cousins and other young kinsmen turning the way she had gone. But the angels look at it differently.