The Last Year at Pannaivilai

“This is C.M.S. Centenary year. I am afraid of it. These flourishes of trumpets are open to serious question. Oh for self-humiliation before God for all the great Undone, and for real sorrow of heart over the great Unreached. By all means let us praise God for His mercy. But let us realise our own remissness.

“We are all out in tents, on our first tour this year. This village is the headquarters of a pastorate, and the congregation is famous for worldliness and pride. It is the region of blackcotton soil, and the people are chiefly busy over cotton-growing, so that we can only get at them when they come over from the fields at night. We have been preaching sin and repentance, and there seems some movement; but how deep it is one cannot yet see. I am tired of the half conversions which are the order of the day in most places, in England as well as India, and am longing to see something like the reality of the ’59 revival. Three of our Alvartope friends are with us, amongst them one of the converts baptised on the Day of Prayer. They are witnessing brightly and boldly.

“The day after we arrived, a Hindu of respectable caste from a neighbouring village came to see me. He had seen me once before in Pannaivilai. He was secretly enquiring after the way of truth. He professed to be willing to follow Christ, so I sent him home to confess his faith there. The next morning he came back. His friends had turned him out and refused him food. So for four days he has been staying with my Tamil fellow- workers. His people have been after him several times, but he seems quite firm. Pray for him that God may make him a real disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. So far as we can see, he is quite in earnest. He was married to a child-wife, who is now about twelve years old. Of course he cannot get at her at present. She is a mere ignorant village child; but if he goes on to know the Lord, he may be able to win her by and by. It would have been worth while coming for this one soul; but may the Lord give us many more. It is nice to have a little band of witnesses round us. Besides ourselves, we have these three men from Alvartope, all in the dark a year ago, and another man from Pannaivilai who is here on other business, but is testifying boldly. It is just like a little cloud of promise; but how one longs to see the whole heavens black with clouds and rain of blessing” — so reads one of the home letters of January 1899.

The idea of leaving Palamcottah and going out into the district was not to settle anywhere, but only to use for a time one of the several unoccupied bungalows as headquarters, and from it, as a centre, work the surrounding country. So with the feeling that this might be the last year in Pannaivilai, every month was filled so full that the difficulty is to compress the year into a chapter. And yet as all such work repeats itself, though (at least to the workers engaged in it) with endless variety of detail, a chapter may cover it all.

The year had opened, as the letters tell, with a very happy time: a band of young men, chiefly converts from Hinduism from A“lvartope, came over for ten days’ Scripture study; and a Tamil friend from Palamcottah, himself a keen convert, came out to help in the evangelistic work of the afternoons. Soon the bungalow was besieged again; for a lad from a neighbouring caste village came for refuge, having been turned out by his people, who, however, as soon as they found he was in earnest enough to cast in his lot with Christians, did all they could to get him back. “The Lord keep him every day,” is the prayer of the journal after a long, difficult interview.

In January this entry occurs:

“Letter to Dr. Murdoch, who presses me to be his colleague and successor as Secretary of Christian Literature Society and Religious Tract Society in Madras. Declined.”

A home letter explains further:

“Did I tell you that I have been strongly pressed to become a Literary Missionary? Dr. Murdoch, Secretary of the Religious Tract and Christian Literature Societies, Madras, is now eighty-four years old, and asserts that I am the only one he can think of in South India to succeed him. He has got the Bishop of Madras and the local committees there to support him, and has printed an address to the C.M.S. pleading with them to send me to Madras and give me up to literary work. I have declined, but he is still moving in it. It is most important; but I feel that God has called me to this evangelistic work. I should be willing to devote to Tamil Literature all my spare time in headquarters, but not to give up direct preaching work altogether for it.”

It was the first of many a proposal which, if accepted, would have led to what some considered more important work. “I have several times maintained that when selecting a Bishop, the choice ought to have fallen on Mr. Walker. The best man should have been chosen. He would have been acceptable to all classes of the Indian Church; he should not have been passed over.” So one outside the missionary camp wrote in September 1912. The writer did not know the matter from the inside; but he could and did appreciate the administrative gifts, the stalwart character, the clear brain, and, above all, the holy life of the man whom he thought of as passed over.

It did not appear in the same light to the one chiefly concerned. Apart from the call of his true vocation, there was an inward restraint: “The fact is,” he said to one, who, rather regretting the loss to the Church general, would have been glad to see him willing to accept what some at least would have wished to give, “I never could; you see I have those awkward things, convictions.” And when a younger worker, upon first hearing him preach in Tamil, declared his most characteristic sentence was the idiom, “as regards that [the proven point] there is not the slightest doubt,” he laughed, quite relishing the joke: “So you have found that out, have you? “To a man who, though he never forced” those awkward things, convictions,” upon others, never in the slightest degree concealed them, and who was by nature the opposite of chameleon -like, a position of leadership in the Church as it is to-day would have entailed constant strife. He was not a lover of strife; “how he hated it, and yet no one was firmer, no one bolder when he had to fight,” writes an old comradeat-arms. But to spend one’s strength in conflict within the household, when the foe pressed all around, seemed to him an impossible thing, and he turned from any position which would have involved it as a frequent duty, and gave all his strength to the one work of saving souls; or, going deeper, to the fulfilment of his one ambition to be a corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying. Upon the eve of his last journey, a fortnight before the final sowing, a friend sounded him upon an ecclesiastical question and his relation to it; his reply is remembered: “I have not changed my life purpose: ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’ ‘:

Camp was the next, always welcome, undertaking:

“Open-air preaching by lamp-light to large crowd: one man tried hard to argue; but we would not, and were able to finish quietly. Preaching for men and women separately [this was a place where English women had never before been seen]. Good hearings, but oh, the world is in the hearts of men. We found the people very hard and careless. Oh for God’s life!”

Then into Palamcottah, for a mission taken by Dr. F. B. Meyer, whose message left a deep mark upon the few who responded to it in sincerity; and raised the standard for the Church at large, whether it responded or not.

“February 27, ’99. — It has been a long rush of things, one on the top of the other. We were three weeks in tents, and only had a few days here, during which I had to write a Tamil article for a magazine before going to Palamcottah for Mr. Meyer’s meetings. We went into the bungalow where the Wises used to live, taking in our camp furniture with us.

“We enjoyed having Mr. Meyer with us [as guest], a delightful man in every way. His meetings in our church were crowded, and I trust that a real work was done. Anyhow, the flag of holiness was definitely raised, and may it never be taken down. I believe that God troubled many hearts last week.

“The convert who came to us on our last tour is still with us, brighter and growing, I trust. He is not yet baptised.”

The next camping season was destined to be the richest of any, for it reached souls prepared by the Lord the Spirit, and the fruit abides; but it did not appear at the moment, and the entry after a day’s work in the village whose name means Place of the Uncrowned King, and which held, all unsuspected, some prepared to crown Christ as King, is only: “Large crowd, most of whom heard very well.”

“We came out into camp three days ago, and hope, D.V., to be here five days more. This is a little village by the main road to Tuticorin [the seaport town of the Tinnevelly district]. We can see the Tuticorin lighthouse flashing in the distance at night. In the daytime we have a nice little breeze from the sea, which makes the heat of March more fairly tolerable, and renders this a healthy camping place. We expected to find it very hot and trying; but God has graciously sent this little breeze from the Indian Ocean to temper the heat, and we all find it healthier and pleasanter just now than Pannaivilai. There is a little thatched house here, with just two rooms, belonging to the Government Engineering Department; — — is in that, and has her preaching band alongside at night. In the day we three have our meals there. B. and I have a tent as sleeping quarters, and my own fellow- workers are in tents. There is a small congregation here of very poor people, but little or no life in it. We spent yesterday, Sunday, chiefly among them. All around, scattered at somewhat rare intervals, are heathen villages. The people are so dead and indifferent. It is sad to see them living, and sinning, and passing away into the darkness, just as though Christ had never died for them. We are going out morning and evening to testify to them. Oh for that power of God, turning them from sin and Satan!”

The next move was to a Christian centre:

“All left at 8 p.m. for Pannikulam in bandies across country. Reached Pannikulam at 8 a.m. after very tiring night, bandy man not knowing road” [he himself had to walk most of the night and find the way, guided by stars]. “Bungalow all dirty and had to sweep it. Resting and reading.”

Meetings for Christians followed, for it was Harvest festival time; and numbers of the people from the surrounding villages flocked in to the central station led by their catechists. Some of these proved very responsive, and impromptu meetings over and above the many in church were held under the trees in the compound. One little band went singing home, full to overflowing of the new choruses and new happiness. Then the band returned to Pannaivilai.

“Our people here seem to be sticking,” he wrote in sorrow that month of March:” God has blessed some, but the vast majority are hardening their hearts against His truth. Pray for them. It is becoming a question how much longer we ought to stop here. For nearly two years we have been preaching a full salvation. If they won’t have it, I feel that we must move on. But God will guide us.

“We may possibly have some baptisms in our tank here next Sunday, Easter Day; including the man who joined us two months ago, and has been with us ever since.

“I wish all the Centenary services were over. I am afraid of all this fuss and noise. ‘Down in the dust ’ is our proper place and attitude.”

“May 30, about 5.30 called us to say that the girl of

whose wish to be a Christian we had heard, and who has for some time been closely watched, had come to the bungalow at about 3.30 a.m. It happened that I had been awake then, and heard a clapping of hands. It turns out that this was the girl clapping to wake someone. The Lord undertake it all.”

Once more heavenly wisdom was required to steer a straight course through very troubled waters, where wrong piloting would have led not only to the shipwreck of this single soul, but to that of many another; for, to change the figure, any mistake in dealing with such a situation results in the shutting of the door of spiritual liberty upon others still imprisoned.

Close upon this time of strain the bungalow filled with guests for the Harvest festival; and a few days later, escorted by Bishop Morley, who had come out for the festival, this second young convert girl was taken in safety across the dangerous strip of country between the jungle land of Pannaivilai and civilisation, where protection was possible; and shortly after wards there is an entry of peace:

“Reached Ooty. Found B. and at the Hopwoods, with the two (convert) girls, very happy and comfortable. The Hopwoods so kind.”

This is a detail which cannot be omitted. The writer of the journal was welcomed year by year for twelve years by that same dear friend, Mrs. Hopwood, to her beautiful home on the hills; then after she had been just twelve days (what days of delight!) in her heart’s true home and his, she had the joy of welcoming him there. What must the pleasure of those heavenly welcomes be?

Once more the hill journal takes up the thread of steady work of one sort or another. “Preached at St. Stephen’s; missionary service; but felt it a dead failure. Oh for the Spirit’s power!” Few who formed part of a congregation sure to be large if it were known he would be the preacher, could have realised what lay behind the sermons that some times seemed alight with the Fire for which he craved, but which he never could bring himself to believe did fall upon the sacrifice. Faithless, some will say, and some will wonder; but some souls are made so.

The book of that month on the hills was M. Coillard’s On the Threshold of Central Africa. This book and, later, the biography of M. and Mme. Coillard, were always mentioned with some such remark as “Most inspiring; true missionaries, both of them. I got some good things for my notebook from them.” And what he got he used.

A favourite story was that which told of M. Coillard’s attitude towards a disappointment: cases of provisions long looked forward to, arrived after heavy expenditure, a wreck: “They were not necessary, since our kind Father withholds them from us.” And this: When the kitchen built with so much labour was burnt down, and the house and outbuildings had caught fire, and it seemed as if all the Coillards’ possessions were to be sacrificed, M. Coillard rushed in to save what he could; “I cast niy eyes on our harmonium, for we shall yet live to sing.” “Grand, wasn’t it?” he said with keen admiration; “that was the triumph of faith.” Anything flabby, mere wordiness in religion, as in all else, he utterly abominated; but practical goodness, anything fine written in deeds, this aroused warmest admiration. “That’s true heroism,” he said once about the action of a Government servant who risked his whole future prospects for the sake of right. He kept notebooks into which went notes from all he read; history, science, travel, biography, poetry, the current events of the day — all were, from one point of view at least, regarded as quarry from which treasure might be dug to be used after wards in telling fashion. The notes were brief, mere bare bones; but though he had imagination enough to clothe them in flesh and cause them to rise alive and speaking, that power was never brought into play, for Truth was a sacred thing with him: a memory trained to accuracy and by nature retentive, supplied all that was required.

The return to Panuaivilai brought sorrow over the convert for whose sake alone it had been worth while coming, as the letter of January said. The man had smallpox, and believing the disease had seized him by order of the revengeful goddess, he went back to Hinduism. “Grieved to see his state,” the journal says. “Never count a convert safe till he is safe in heaven,” was an often-quoted word, confirmed by experience. But all that care could do was done to establish the converts in the Faith; and there was much teaching of the little group of young men who came out one by one, many of whom could live in safety only in or near Pannaivilai. Another of the personal notes occurs in connection with converts:

“A gracious token of God’s goodness in the shape of £50, in answer to prayer about a deficit in working fund. I had asked God if He saw fit to send what would fill the blank, and here it is.”

For conversions mean expenses, and the richer the missionary’s harvesting, the emptier his pockets; when, as often in India, the converted have to be provided for, educated, and prepared for life.

Sometimes the open-air preaching, which went on in the near villages almost continually during these months, was interrupted by the exclusive habits of their inhabitants:

“On the way to collect people, teacher took us down Muhammadan streets; and in one, the Muhammadans came out irate to oppose us, objecting to its being used as a religious thoroughfare. We tried to appease them, and turned back to another and more public road; but the circumstance was unfortunate.”

No impression apparently was made upon those Muhammadans. They stood, and still stand, as aloof as the Brahmans, down whose street near Pannaivilai no preaching band was ever allowed to pass.

“The Harvest festivals generally keep us busy till July,” he wrote in June;” but this year they are most of them postponed because of faction riots which have been taking place in the district. Several villages have been entirely destroyed, and numbers of lives lost. The Christians, among others, have suffered severely. Sepoys had to be sent for from Trichinopoly, and now things seem to be quieting down. I am glad to say that matters have been quiet all along in our neighbourhood.

“We are feeling rather at a deadlock just now. The Christians will not, most of them, obey God and forsake sin. At one time it looked as though a real movement was on foot, but it did not make headway. They want to serve two masters, and no man can do that. It is only a little company of individuals over whom we can, in any true sense, rejoice. The heathen, too; are very indifferent, and doors seem closing [because of the open confession of converts]. It looks as though the time were coming for us to carry the witness elsewhere. Pray that we may have special guidance from God in this matter.

“I have a youth newly come to me for training in evangelistic work, and another one is coming to-morrow. This will involve Bible -teaching among other things, and may lead on to new paths. It all makes one look up for Divine leading. Every step needs ordering from above. To be led of the Spirit is the life of true happiness and joy.”

The next move of importance was to Nullur, the outstation visited in 1890. The journal turns its record of meetings taken, villages visited, personal talks sometimes prolonged for hours, into one single urgent prayer: “Lord, wake the dead!” Some were awakened; one notably upon a certain evening, when the Lord’s Second Coming was dealt with in such tremendous fashion, that the listener’s soul was shaken and awakened. But there is little said about such happenings, partly because they were not always known at the time, partly from natural caution and fear of being too sure. “Time is the only test,” he would say, if anyone was prematurely jubilant. Once when a fellow-worker rather longing to rejoice, quoted the Psalm “Rejoice; it says ’ with trembling,’ I know; but it does say, Rejoice,” he answered, laying the emphasis on the other word. “Yes, but, with trembling. Every plant that my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.”

“A good deal of sin came to light, and we trust there has been some real repentance and forsaking of what is wrong. God’s grace alone can make the effects real and permanent,”

was his note upon this occasion; it was as far as he would usually commit himself, except when the circumstances were specially hopeful, and even then the “trembling” was always in evidence.

“A dozen or so men under some conviction followed me for enquiry. The Lord lead souls into light and liberty! After noon and evening a succession of visitors, all more or less touched, and some seeming in real earnest. Strengthen, 0 Lord, that which Thou hast ordained for us,”

this was the way he recorded what, written otherwise, would have sounded much more.

Sometimes hindrance to blessing was found in want of love among the workers. Once, just before starting for camp, such a discovery was made:

“I was detained till 11.30 because of a breach discovered between Q. and Q. Trust it is healed; but it took a lot out of me. Walked to camp. Other troubles from the Palamcottah office; altogether feeling down.”

But uplifting was at hand:

“Many visitors to camp,” is the next day’s note; “and one Hindu youth professed to follow Christ. God make him true.” Upon the same day another convert whose coming out as a Christian had been the signal for a good deal of disturbance in the Pannaivilai bungalow, now well accustomed to such scenes, came through the ordeal of again seeing his relatives, who followed him to camp:

“He held firm. God keep him! Good gatherings and a door of utterance. The Lord cleanse and use the work of the last nine days! Oh for more power and grace!” Then back to the Christians: “A good deal of chaff. God give some true wheat.”

Early one morning in December a messenger arrived at the Pannaivilai bungalow to say Mrs. Thomas of Mengnanapuram had passed away:

“Had to send for bullocks, and be off in a rush. Mrs. Thomas was 87, having completed 61 years of service in India about two months ago. She had not been out of the tropics since 1863; a quiet, faithful life and testimony.”

This was a record he quoted more than once when there appeared to be a tendency to over-emphasise the importance of red tape, in such matters as strict rules about furlough and the like: “Don’t let us have too many hard-and-fast rules. No one can get guidance for another. Let us be free to ’ follow the Gleam.’”

Upon December 26th there is an entry of much moment.

“Quiet time, thinking of future plans and weighing invitation from Syrian Church, Travancore. At last seemed to me that if Travancore call is a real one I ought to go soon, rather than defer for the sake of the work here. Quiet of mind after so viewing and leaving it. Wrote a good many letters in connection with it.”

This invitation was from the Metran (the word is an abbreviation of Metropolitan), the much loved head of the Reformed Syrian Church. The reply, written after much hesitation, ran as follows:

“Your invitation reached me on Dec. 20, and I have been much exercised as to what I ought to do, in view of the great needs of the work here. I had been requested to take an Ordination Class next year, hi addition to evangelistic work; and your invitation, coming as it did so near the end of the year; left me little time to pray and correspond about the matter, since, in case of coming to you, it was necessary to arrange for the carrying on of the work here. I have never been in greater perplexity as to God’s will concerning me; and, even up to this morning, felt that I must decline the request, at least for the present. You are right in supposing that I take a real interest in the Syrian Church. May the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Head of His Church, visit it with holiness, peace, and unity. If I come, it is not as a controversialist, but as a messenger of the everlasting Gospel; and may the Spirit of grace be upon us all.... And now, my dear Metran, may God Himself direct the whole matter according to His own will. We must aim entirely at the glory of His name. That stands above all creeds and systems. It was the prayer of our dear Lord, ‘Father! glorify Thy name.’ Let it be ours too, with the same simplicity of desire and singleness of aim, and He will bless and honour us in glorifying Him self.”

The year ends solemnly:

“Spoke on Jer. viii. 20: ‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.’ The last sermon of another year; possibly my last in Pannaivilia. Alas! how fruitless one’s ministry has been. Good Lord, forgive.”

“Give me thy hand. I do not mean, be of my opinion; you need not, I do not expect or desire it. Neither do I mean I will be of your opinion. I cannot; it does not depend on my choice. I can no more think than I can hear or see as I will. Keep your own opinion, and I mine as steadily as ever. You need not even endeavour to come over to me, or bring me over to you. I do not desire you to dispute points, or to hear or speak one word concerning them. Only give me thine hand. I do not mean, embrace my modes of worship, or, I will embrace yours. I have no desire to dispute with you one moment, let all small points stand aside, let them never come into sight. If thine heart is as my heart, if thou love God and all mankind, I ask no more. Give me thine hand.”

CHARLES WESLEY.

“I am a C.M.S. man, but with the full approval of the Travancore C.M.S. I work among the Syrians on the lines of conversion, sanctification, and missionary service, without dreaming of encouraging the Syrians to leave their own Church. If a little self-repression is used all round, and proselytism discouraged, we shall see light and reform in the Syrian Church. But I constantly find [those intended are explicitly mentioned] haunting my meetings there and trying to persuade people to leave their Church. I would never ask any converted man to join my Church. Christ sent me to catch fish, not to steal sheep. It seems to me that only two positions are possible:

“i. To believe in the real unity of all converted men in the various Churches, and not proselytise. If any Church needs reforming, that is a matter for the members of that Church.

“2. To take the view that most of the Churches are Babylon, and that converted people must come out from them. This line of policy is fatal to Christian unity.”

With the last position he goes on to couple that of those who “practically confine God’s grace” to the members of their own communion. From this position, identical in effect with the last, and so to his mind identical with it, “I am,” he writes, “equally removed.” He felt that each leads to the same conclusion; so “both are fatal to conventions, for both are alike sectarian at the expense of Christian unity and co-operation.”

“It is quite true,” he adds, “that I was invited to go to Travancore altogether. But I should consider myself disloyal to my missionary call if I left the work of bringing heathen to Christ just for the sake of helping sheep to get a little fatter. All I can do is to help in such work occasionally, and in such a way as not seriously to interfere with my own proper work.”

T. W. (From a letter written in 1902.)

1900]