Background

The journal of 1901 is like a piece of tapestry in which the pattern is hardly distinguishable from the background; or at least cannot be taken from it without producing the effect of a thing belonging to nowhere, dangled in space, or stuck down on a piece of bare paper, after the fashion of those unhappy transfer pictures of our childhood.

For the journal is largely domestic, and the strictly speaking “mission” part of it is recordable only in epitome: Meetings, classes, talks with callers and enquirers, correspondence, revision of Tamil manuscripts — work which acted as sieve, and did much to keep poor material out of circulation, but by its very nature left nothing to show for itself — and, of course, the constant preaching to Hindus and to Christians, with occasional battles for converts, followed by quiet teaching.

The first event in the year was the baptism, in one of the reaches of water near Dohnavur, of five lads, each of whom chose a name meaning Shining, with something desirable attached — names curious to the Western ear, but natural to the Eastern: Shining of Victory, Life, Grace, Wisdom, Righteousness. A perfect sunset glorified the hour; and, singing hymns of joy and praise, the little procession walked homewards, soon to separate, for upon the next page is the entry:

“Dear Jeyapragasam [Shining of Victory] died this evening, first-fruits of our Pannaivilai schoolboy band. Felt much cut up, as if I had lost a younger brother.” And upon the next, “Telegram to say Jivapragasam [Shining of Life] dangerously ill with cholera. Lord, help! maintain Thine own cause!” He had died before the telegram came, and his last recorded words were, “Victory to Jesus.”

And now the background and the pattern become involved; for several days in January were devoted to helping friends, who were guests at the time, to get photographs of typical Hindu life, something which in South India, at least, is more difficult of attainment than most would suppose.

“With Miss Crossley and Miss Hatch [of Manchester] to Kalakadu for the day, to help them with photographs chiefly; Brahmans very stand-offish and unfriendly [they absolutely refused the camera admission into their street]; altogether a trying day, looking upon Hinduism entrenched. ... To Tirukurungudi [Holy contracted town] for photographs in the Brahman streets. The people very kind, and Miss Crossley took many, which we trust will be used for God’s glory.”

The pattern here is indefinite; such help meant making friends with the lords of the street, answering their questions, persuading them to let the camera in ,Fwith, when possible, talk about more vital matters than photographs. But it all proved worth while; for apart from the opportunity afforded for such talks, the time was not wasted. The photographs helped to make South Indian life real to many in England.

Then, for the benefit of a member of the family who could not shake off fever, a few days were spent at Cape Comarin where the converts who had never before seen the sea were initiated into its wholesome joys, and little parties were taken out for a sail in the native craft whose name means exactly what it is, three logs lashed together. In this primitive construction you may sit in perhaps a foot of tepid water, the spray dashing over you, so that you feel as much in the sea as upon it, and look down between the spaces where the logs do not fit properly, and see through fathoms of green water, so clear, so lovely in its clearness, that you feel it would hardly be drowning to slip down the cracks and drop into such a softness of pale delicious colour. Here again there is an entry which opens into detail:

“Sail with and her band. Wind was rough, and a wave

swept all of them into the sea [half a mile from the shore, in a sea frequented by sharks], God mercifully preserved all, and they clung on till we got them safely in again: a wonderful deliverance.”

The band, thoroughly exhilarated by this experience, sang a jubilant song, and begged to go on, to the amazement of the boatman, who had expected a hasty retreat to the shore.

“Heavy office work, correspondence heavy; candidate for Tamil munshi-ship for High School came to me for examination; proof sheets corrected; read with convert boys. My birthday; another year gone, and what to show for it? Feeling weary. Students in for an examination; did their last two papers.”

It is just the ordinary detail of ordinary mission work which now fills the journal pages, from which little of interest can be gleaned; there is only the memory, which cannot be shown — each reader must draw upon his own imagination and sympathy to see it — of one who did little things as if they had been great, and lent a helping hand all round wherever it was needed. “He had a bigger power of helping than anyone I ever met,” was a fellow-missionary’s summing up of his character; and it was the kind of help which never failed at a pinch, as sometimes kindly proffered help has a way of doing when things get difficult.

He took several missions for Christians in various places about this time. “The Lord seal the work of this week,” is the closing journal note; and upon March 6th: “Reached Pannaivilai [for another period of work there], Newbery [a young missionary lately out] accompanying us.” So ended the first eight months in Dohnavur.

March llth holds a stirring note. He had formed the idea, in reliance upon the promise of safe-conduct given by the leading clansmen of the village of the Uncrowned King, of taking some of the converts who had come from the place back for a day to see their friends. To that village then he went, taking a bandy-load of young converts to witness to their own people; a daring experiment, but it seemed a splendid chance to do something towards breaking down the wall of separation which caste in certain cases builds up between converts and their kindred, and the party set off trustful and exultant. But the upshot was almost riot:

“S.’s people took advantage,” says the journal, “and shut him up forcibly in upper room of house; much difficulty in getting him released. When we got away in bandy, people took out the bullocks and tried to carry him off; sent for the village headman, and at last, after a regular uproar of a scene, succeeded in getting him away. Lord, maintain Thine own cause!”

Then camp once more at Alvartope, where all was going well; for in that village the caste was such that converts could live at home. Then background again; for a hurried call came from Ootacamund to come and help with the first Muhammadan girl ever known to become a Christian there. The matter was successfully negotiated, and a Court case averted; partly, as he always said, through the unprejudiced action of the Deputy Collector then in charge, which resulted in the collapse of the threatened criminal case. A civil case was not attempted, so the strain was soon over. These convert cases in India are seasons of great tension. If a Court case is in progress, age registers are “faked,” horoscopes are tampered with, and evidence produced to prove anything required, irrespective of truth. The case may be prolonged for months, and such an experience is the most wearing it is possible to imagine. One who shared with Miss Hopwood the fight for the freedom of that young Muhammadan woman, Miss Ling of Ooty, writes:

“What not only I but hundreds would testify to, was his likeness to his Master in one very special point, willingness and ability to make other people’s burdens, needs, and interests his own so completely that you were made to feel that your concerns would have his fullest attention. In this he was almost more than human, especially considering the tremendous work he was engaged in himself; and yet your concerns might have been the only thing in the world for him at the time.”

June held meetings for the C.E.Z. men and women workers of North Tinnevelly, and a long fight for a convert lad who was carried off, while bathing, by his Hindu relatives, who rushed upon him, bound, and dragged him away. That same month letters were written which were difficult to write, and he felt afterwards they had been written in vain; for the principle for which he contended was not recognised as a principle by those to whom he wrote, so his protest fell to the ground. Once again the matter is one upon which good men differ so widely, that to give anything like a fair resume of the controversy would involve more explanation than perhaps any reader would care to embark upon; and a partial account would be unfair to both sides. So, as ever, searching for the marrow of things, we pass the argument and reach its heart: here it is, in the last sentence from the first letter written upon the subject:

“Forgive rne for writing thus freely, and if I seem to have spoken in any sense unfairly or unkindly, pardon that too. Believe me, my conscience is troubled about the whole thing, and I dare not in loyalty to the Truth let it pass without a protest. Will you kindly lay my protest before [those concerned are named], and ask them to respect scruples which arise from deep convictions of the soul? It would be much easier to the flesh to keep silence; but I should be unfaithful to niy convictions and not straightforward to you, were I to do so. Some of us are wondering whereunto all these things will grow. I fear that C.M.S. already regards me as a somewhat unreasonable alarmist; but as one watches the tendency of things in India, is there not a cause? May our Master enable us all to be true to Him through evil report and good report, whether we are praised or blamed.”

In July occurred another of those pitched battles in the Pannaivilai bungalow, when the place was surrounded by a clamouring crowd, and nothing but the mercy of God kept the wrathful men from taking the position by storm; for at the moment of attack there were only women in charge, and women in an Eastern land among infuriated men are defenceless. “Noisy interviews,” says the journal later; “but God gave us a quiet evening: to Him be praise.”

More background fills the months: one of the converts, much under legal age but given by blessed miracle, was very ill; and for weeks the journal is concerned with every rise and fall in temperature of this child, who will never forget what the Iyer was to her then. Almost every evening through those weeks, he used to take the two little Indian girls who were living in the house down to the tank, to let off steam, as he said; and he would play with them, chasing them up and down at the water’s edge, till, tired out and happy, they were content to come back to quietness. Every night he closed the bungalow doors and shutters himself, for the servants never could be taught to be quiet enough; and day after day Mrs. Walker made the invalid food required, and kept the household wheels running smoothly. So through the long nursing, lasting close upon three months, those who were sometimes almost worn out, were upheld by constant thoughtful care, and cheered by the prayers which seemed to include everything. They were too tired to pray much themselves; but that hardly mattered, all had been asked for them.

One night is too vivid for background, it seems to come into the front: outside in the temple by the water’s edge a wild crowd was shrieking in mad ecstasy. The child, keen little evangelist even in those early days, was well known to the Hindus around; and it seemed as if there was something maliciously triumphant in the uproar which forced itself into the quiet room where she lay, as it seemed, dying. Then, thinking it was the end of the struggle, he came, stooped over, and called her by her name. She stirred, recalled from that far borderland, and came back from the very gates. Are these things great enough to put into a Life? Yet they help to make up life.

So, too, does the feeling of the people of the land for their missionary. This feeling is round about him like an atmosphere; sometimes depressingly chilly, sometimes gladdening with a sunny warmth which braces to fresh purpose to be worthier such affection. The writer here is the child of those days, and she expresses in her limited English what many a loving Tamil friend would like to say:

“In one way of speaking, he was more than a father to me. Once when I was tired and weak, he began to write a chorus about God’s love in weakness. And I told him how I felt when I was tired, and he wrote words to each feeling, and got a tune for it, and we sang it together.

“One day, when I was resting, he called me to read with him; and we read through all the miracles of our Lord. After that I longed to study the whole Bible with him; and I do thank God, after nine years’ praying He gave the answer” [as a young worrer in training she was allowed to attend his Divinity classes, and so went through the whole Bible with him].

“Otce when I was getting better after long illness, he carried me in his arms out of doors for fresh air. No well-trained, kind-hearted nurse could have carried me so well. But I was heavy; and when my arms were round his neck, I whispered, “Iyer, please walk quickly; then you won’t feel the heaviness.” But he said, thinking of what we see here often, a hen with a little chicken on her wings, ‘Will a chicken be too heavy for its mother to carry? You are my little chicken. If I go quickly, my little chicken will be tired. So I walk slowly.’ But generally his love was wordless. I mean, he did not say many words to show it; and so, though he is named the best speaker in South India, I cannot write much that he said, because he did not say much. Only his deeds were his words. When I was ill, he had several times to go away; but he never once left the house without coming to my room to say good-bye, and pray a little with me. Could a father have done more than all this? So I say shortly, in human speaking, he was more than a father to me.”

In the midst of the anxiety — for emphatically, in the experience of this household, troubles never came singly — fell one of those crashing sorrows which missionaries who have to do with converts know so well. The journal entry is: “We had an awful day. J. went back. ... It is heart-rending; Lord, keep our faith.”

The last few weeks of the year were spent in labours manifold, among them meetings in Madras and Wallajabad. Then home just in time for Christmas — “So glad to be back” — and the last solemn message in the Pannaivilai Church before the final departure for Dohnavur.

“I thought of life, the outer and the inner,

As I was walking by the sea:
How vague, unshapen this, and that, though thinner,

Yet hard and clear in its rigidity.
Then took I up the fragment of a shell,

And saw its accurate loveliness,
And searched its filmy lines, its pearly cell,

And all that keen contention to express
A finite thought. And then I recognised

God’s working in the shell from root to rim,
And said : — ‘He works till He has realised —

O Heaven I if I could only work like Him!’”

T. E. BROWN.

1902]