“And Behold a Shaking”

“So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.... Then said He unto me, Prophesy unto the Wind, and say to the Wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, 0 Breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the Breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” All over India, towards the end of 1905 and the beginning of 1906, men and women read these words, these tremendous words, with hearts strung to expectation. For them, at least, those months stand out from all the other months of life. They saw a new thing then, a thing which up till then had been but a dream of desire, and they cannot ever be again as those who never saw. For, during those wonderful months, they, prophesying as they were commanded, watched the Spirit of God clothe the barest sentence with power. They saw whole churchfuls of ordinarily restrained people (as the strong Tamils, at least, are in matters of religion), bent and swayed as a field of corn is bent and swayed before the passing of a mighty wind. They saw them stirred as no human influence could have stirred them, cut to the heart, moved to action as the Word that is sharper than any two-edged sword did its effectual work. It was as if a curtain were suddenly swept aside,

“And without a screen
In one burst was seen
The Presence wherein we have ever been.”

But the result? Where is the exceeding great army of the prophet’s vision? Perhaps if all those quickened during those months could be brought together into one valley, they might appear in truth a great army. But even so, who can be satisfied, while the plain around is white with the bones of the unquickened millions? No, there can be no slackening in the cry that still goes up day and night from India: “Come from the four winds, 0 Breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live!”

C.M.S. annual letter, private letters written to his wife from camp, and a carefully worked-out study of the movement, after — to the grief of those who were in it — it had begun to pass, show the time.

“Special missions are being called for everywhere,” he wrote to the C.M.S. towards the close of 1905. “Both the missionary body and the Indian Church are feeling, as never before, the need of power from on High. Surely this means that God who is exciting this desire is going to satisfy it to the full! I have returned to the South to find that He has been working during my absence both in Palamcottah and in Dohnavur. It is only little portions of His ways which we have seen as yet, but many of us are waiting to hear the thunder of His power throughout India.”

1906 did not bring the thunder of His power; but it did bring enough to cause all whose souls were swept by the grace and the mystery of the time to become divinely dissatisfied, if such a word may be used, with anything less than the spiritual for ever after.

His letters written from camp to his wife early in 1906, show the up-and-down experiences of the time. For, as will be gathered from these quick sentences, written usually at the end of a long day’s work, even in places where that strange and blessed Influence was felt, there could be, and often was, but little response. And again there was response of a sort quite new to those who work among the Tamils.

“CAMP ANANDAPURAM, January 8. — On Saturday night we had a solemn meeting, but I could get no really satisfactory after-meeting. Just at the close, our friend the apothecary

OH. xxx.] AND BEHOLD A SHAKING 857

arrived with all his family, and at the close of the meeting he said, ‘Away with custom and ceremony in the service! Let us cry to God! ‘It was like a match to a train of gunpowder, and the majority cried aloud.

“At noon I preached, and appealed to those still unconverted, and there was a regular flare up; and we did not get out of church till 4 p.m. So we had to give up our proposed preaching to the heathen at a big village two miles away. Many of the people went off into the fields to pray and weep. Some came to me under true conviction. At night P. spoke, and there was another stir. When he asked those who had sought and found forgiveness to show it, the majority stood. How many are really saved I cannot say, but there has been real conviction.

“SATHANKULAM, January 12. — We have had no break here so far. God send it, for it is sorely needed.

“January 15. — There has been blessing, but not the break and stir we had in other places. The people from Anandapuram and Palamkulam came over for testimony last night, about a hundred of them, singing at the top of their voices. We had a stream of testimony. But the witnesses among the Sathankulam people were few. Then came a storm of prayer for the unconverted, and afterwards a number rose to show they would yield to Christ. But I feel that the congregation as a whole has lost an opportunity for real conversion, and been satisfied with a measure of conviction. The difference between the Anandapuram and Sathankulam sets last night was that of between heat and lukewarmness. We have had Hindus listening at the porch each day, and we had a good open-air preaching last night.

“SATHIANAQARAM, January 16. — This is a very difficult place, and has been from the first day I knew it. There is a little band of truly converted and praying women, and that is our hope.” [Details of local dissensions follow.] “If it were not for the knowledge that God can move mountains, it would be hopeless.” [ Follows more detail as to local conditions.]” So you see the place just seethes with worldliness and sin. One is almost afraid of letting them pray in church, lest there should be fraud in that too. Just a few seem touched so far, but the mass is unmoved.

I am glad to find that the catechist of K is now converted. He

used to be a thoroughly worldly-minded man, but his wife has been made a blessing to him. He told me this morning he used to regard me as an enemy. That was because I found him out in a fraudulent sale of land. What a world it is, and how few of us know ’ things as they are ‘!

“January 17. — We had a big noise in church last night, after an address on repentance; but how much it means I cannot tell. At least some have been hit; but God looks for fruit meet unto repentance. One woman who had been trading on Sunday is now smashed up about it.

“January 18. — There is no real break here, only individuals have been broken. Love of money is the curse of the place.

“SIRAPPUR, January 19. — We had a remarkable meeting last night in Sathianagaram. We had not seen much break, though there had been confession and some weeping. We were out preaching to the heathen about 7 p.m., when the sound of music and singing of a lively sort was heard in the distance. At first I thought it must be the Anandapuram folk; but it turned out to be a strong contingent from Sathankulam, evidently bent on giving testimony. After the preaching to the Hindus, we assembled in church, a great crowd of people. P. spoke very clearly and forcibly on ‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? ‘Then we called for testimonies, and there was a flowing stream of them from Sathankulam. I had no idea so many had been blessed and saved there. Their witness was as clear and decided as the Anandapuram people’s. Then came the turn of the local Christians. These witnesses were much fewer in number, but very encouraging.... Then we had a storm of prayer for the unconverted; after which I invited the unsaved, and there was a wave of weeping and crying. It was a raging sea for half an hour; then we pointed them to Christ, and I was going to close, and pronounced the benediction, but it would not stop. A man’s confession caused a new wave of violent conviction, and so it went on. We got out a quarter of an hour before midnight, after four and a half hours of it. The Sathankulam contingent went off bright and

singing all the way. It would have done ’s eyes good to

have seen P. clap his hands to the time of the hymns! He has got quite stirred up. You have quite a number of spiritual grandchildren in this circle. A. P. [a bright Christian woman who had been led to Christ by Mrs. Walker] has been greatly blessed and used.

“SIRAPPUR, January 20. — At our noon meeting here there was a raging storm of prayer, but it is almost confined to the women; the men seem a hard set. We have found, hitherto, that blessing comes after plain teaching about sin and repentance, when hearts are made ready for the stir. Still, it is grand to have this volume of prayer going on all the time, regardless of benedictions or anything else.

“January 22. — Just a line in leaving. I trust there has been real blessing and stir here. The men held out at first, but finally began to weep and pray aloud. Last night was our closing night here. One set of people came singing from Sathankulam, and another from Sathianagaram. There was a long stream of testimony. Some of the biggest sinners and drunkards of Sirappur testified; and a retired catechist who has been in Ceylon for years and has retired on a good certificate testified that he had never known what conversion meant till now. Poor old man!

“ANUKIRAGAPURAM, January 24. — We have found the people here very careless, and got very little response after the addresses. Last night, after an address on repentance, very few confessed their sins; and yet there was evident impression, so I asked the converted to pray for the unconverted. This stirred the place into a regular ferment, and there was a wave all over the congregation, which did not subside for an hour and a half. I don’t know what it meant, but at least it opened the people’s mouths. They were fast enough closed before.”

And so the letters continue day by day through that month. Sometimes a hard congregation was moved by prayer when all other means had failed.

“The people here are fearfully careless. I had great diffi culty in fixing their attention last night. So after speaking, I called for prayer, and the little company of true Christians present started praying aloud. This spread to some extent, and I hope it will go further and deeper to-day. It seems to be prayer rather than preaching which touches these very dead congregations. The great thing is to get their mouths open in something like confession of sin. They come to church, and go on year after year without a thought or a feeling.”

There is one amusing little note on a fellow-worker’s familiar habit of lengthy speech:

“He is as unpractical as ever he was. He had an early meeting for his people here, and gave them such a long address that I started off alone, the time being up. I will talk to him about it. He is one of those men who are so up in the sky that they forget men have bodies and that the earth has clocks. But he looks so good, and is so much in earnest, that you feel a brute for not being in the clouds alongside.”

As is its wont, if it opens out at all, the journal goes to the heart of things.

“A tremendous wave of feeling and prayer right through the church. Thank God for His work; and yet i feel unsatisfied, and long for deeper and fuller things in my own heart and in all the work. Oh for the real break of the Spirit!... Meeting much more broken; we kept some back, and we had very general response. Much moved myself, and meeting stirred. But my soul is not satisfied. Oh for a deeper work!

“People fearfully careless. God shake them! They are only half Christians living among heathen. Some spirit of prayer, but very little response. House visitation. Found people

very indifferent. The A people came over in a body, and

we had a protracted storm of prayer, fast and furious. God shake the indifferent! Feeling a block. Not deep enough. Meetings for workers. Lord, lead us. A dead block. No new ones humbled, so stayed on in church fasting; prayer went on with power among the converted, but the mass at the back would not move [then it transpired that many present were involved in financial entanglements]. This caused a stir as to who were involved, and led to dismissing the meeting. Had a meeting for prayer with much power. But at last meeting for testimony some ringing false. I came away feeling defeated all over. Lord, forgive!”

The centre last touched was a noted mission station of the South. Visitors travel far to see it; to the outward eye all is right, and very admirable. The journal pierces the placid surface, “Dead weight of resistance.” There was nothing else to say, for nothing happened there. So ended thirty days’ continuous work in a district where Revival Power was abroad. Could anything show more clearly the need for revival than these unstudied notes?

It was very noticeable that in all his work, whether during revival or ordinary times, he thought of the people with whom he had to do as individuals, not as masses. It was as if he were always quoting to himself the words, “Souls are not saved in bundles. The Spirit saith to the man, ‘How is it with thee? — thee personally? Is it well? Is it ill? ‘And yet, perpetually, his thought and his prayer went out to the Church at large. “The sin which came to light was terrible,” he wrote to the C.M.S. later in the year, with reference to the revival movement, “and showed us forcibly the need of a flame of heavenly fire to sweep through the whole of our Tinnevelly Church.” And not only through that one church, he used to add, but through every company of Christians in the land. The sense of this need was a burden to him. He never seemed to slip from under it. It was with him to the end. Sometimes those who thought that things were going fairly well with the Church used to rally him on what appeared to them his overanxiety, and often tables of “results” would be produced, of the sort that look excellent in print. But he would rise from the study of those cheerful compilations as unsatisfied as ever. It was as if he were always measuring values in Eternity’s scales, and he could not feel sure they stood the test. His concern about the spiritual state of the Church was intensified by his feeling of doubt as to the trend of things ecclesiastical, and these two intertwined anxieties shadowed his years, although — blessed spiritual paradox — it was equally true that he lived above the shadows and walked in the light.

The year held more than Revival work, and all that came to be done was not of this soul-stirring character. The weeks in camp were followed by an Ordination class, and a class intended to ground young men in Scripture knowledge, and to prepare them for evangelistic work. The spaces between classes were, as usual, filled with literary work and correspondence; so that the impression the head of the family left upon the family mind during the class period, was of a back and profile. For he used to stand just within his study door, every foot of the small room being utilised for bookcases, tables, benches, and men, and the huge blackboard beside which he stood, covering it, many times a day, with Tamil writing, which the students took down in their notebooks. Between classes it was still a back and profile, this time bent over a desk; for his desk was moved to the general living-room during the year when an Ordination class was in progress, as the men used his room for study, and there was nowhere else for him but the sitting-room. This meant a test in calmness of spirit, appreciable perhaps only by Indian missionaries who know what the central room in a mission house is like. On either end were rooms where work was going on, and the walls do not touch the roof; at either side verandahs, one used as a sort of pantry by the servants, the other a place where every body came for everything. Quiet in that central room was something rarely attained; and to a man nervously built, the inevitable strain was not slight. It was upon such a day, a day of classes, struggles to get on with Commentary work, and interruptions, that he gave a friend for a birthday present, Matthew Arnold, with the words “Toil unsevered from tranquillity” underlined in the poem “Quiet Work.”

In June of this year, Dohnavur welcomed for the first time its new Bishop, Bishop Williams, who had succeeded Bishop Morley. The people of the congregation and circle generally claimed the Bishop for various functions; but the half-hours between these engagements were entirely devoted to the small life of the place, and the result in public was at times unexpected. As, for example, once near the close of the Harvest festival, when the clergy were dealing with gifts in kind in the chancel, and the Bishop was standing forth holding a tray to receive the offerings in money, and the Christians piloted and propelled by their anxious catechists into orderly lines were streaming up to the front, the course of events was suddenly interrupted by a person aged two, who with a derisive whoop had eluded her guard and darted to the Bishop. For one triumphant moment she held on to his feet, looking up un abashed for a welcome. She had just time to catch the smile which dropped upon her offending head, before she was clutched from behind and precipitately shot into the background. Such incidents, not infrequently, lightened the gravity of life.

1 This book in MS. was about to go to Press when news came of the unexpected passing of the good Bishop, beloved by all who knew him.

“October 25. — Heard of Arbuthnot’s smash, and all my little capital gone. God knows.”

This is the entry between the usual entries of the usual day, class, interviews, correspondence. There had not been time to open the paper till about noon, when he came unexpectedly upon the announcement that the bank in which most missionaries had their savings, had stopped payment. He had not much in it, but it was all he had; and there were still many responsibilities upon him connected with converts whom he was educating and starting in life. Next morning, at early tea out in the compound, he watched the crows attendant at every Indian outdoor meal, then quoting from the Tamil said with a smile, “Consider the crows.” That Sunday he preached to the Tamils upon losses greater than that of money, precious as money may be; and never, except in sympathy for someone to whom the bank failure had meant desolation, did he mention the subject again. But he did not forget it. A fellow-missionary contributes this most characteristic reminiscence:

“He had such a heart of sympathy and ready hand of help in times of need. When the terrible failure of Arbuthnot’s Bank threw thousands into hopeless want, and I had lost all the savings of twenty years wherewith to meet the College fees of my two sons, he ferreted out from me the hopeless state I was in, and even offered to pay a portion of the fees every year (an offer which I could only decline with warm thanks). Then, though he had himself lost, he found that twelve days before the failure I had sent the amount of their terms’ fees to the Bank for a draft, and that had been swept away too. So he insisted on my accepting a cheque for that amount.”

He was always noble about money matters. During his

As the little girl of whom he was so fond (and to whom he had often made time to write in the midst of all his busy life some quite delightful letters) said in speaking of Enoch, “God called him, and he went.” He had been feeling unfit, but was not known to be very ill; and on July 30th decided to leave the hill station, where he was staying with his wife, and go down to Madras. He took his ticket, and chatted in his kindly, self-forgetting way to the friends about him, one of whom turned aside for a moment, and upon turning back to him, found he was not: Ood had taken him.

early years in India a friend sent him a considerable sum of money; his first thought was the good of the mission at large, not his own private mission need, and the money was spent in helping to buy the bungalow since used for the Chairman of Council, whoever he may be. Again and again help was sent to someone in need out of a very slender store. A Tamil friend, a Christian lawyer, writes:

“He had no love of money. When he spent, he spent like a prince. He paid me most liberally for some service rendered, though I had refused a fee; and the money came as a godsend just at the time when I stood in need of the amount.”

It is in the trifles of life this kind of nobility shines most brightly. Pettiness of any sort was foreign to his nature, and money had no fascination for him. Among the few business papers left in his despatch box was a pencil note of a letter drafted for his wife to write concerning the disposal of a certain sum in which she had an interest; this is how he advised her to write:

“We do not wish to allow money matters to interfere with our work for God.... My own interests in the matter I leave in the hands of the executors, since I am not going to let money considerations influence my mind in any way.”

In August he went to Ceylon for convention work, and on the 17th wrote to his wife from Trinity College, Kandy.

The journal entry that day is, “Eddy and I had a time of prayer together at noon about Eraser’s case,” and the letter explains it:

“Yesterday was in one sense a day of heavy sorrow here. Eraser and Senior returned from Colombo with the news that Mr. Eraser has sleeping-sickness, contracted four years ago in Uganda. Some of us had prayer while he broke the news to his wife. She took it wonderfully. Oh, it strengthens one’s faith to see how some Christians bear a blow! She told her husband later it had been a glorious day, and yet I know her heart is bleeding. They have three little ones, and are just in the middle of a grand work here with endless possibilities of usefulness before them. God had given Mrs. Eraser beforehand those wonderful verses, ‘We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in Whom we trust that He will yet deliver us.’ I never saw anyone bear a blow so wonderfully, and their prayer is that God would draw them by it closer to Himself. This is real faith, God’s gift. There have been only so far two cases of sleeping-sickness cured, and they have been left wrecks.”

A few details follow as to the specially terrible nature of the disease as it runs its course, and then:

“Mr. Fraser knows all this; and, though wrung through and through, just bears it all grandly, and quietly makes arrangements for the college.”

He speaks of the younger man — “a dear fellow” he calls him — upon whom the great responsibility of carrying on the work must now fall, and of the quiet heroism of the husband and wife; and enlarges upon the line of prayer those who would give themselves to prayer for them should take. Upon his return to Dohnavur he went over it all again, for his heart was full of it; and the first meal broke up into prayer continued faithfully till the answer came from God which raiseth the dead, and the college welcomed its missionary back, healed and whole.

Towards the end of 1906, and for some weeks into 1907, the Dohnavur village was smitten by cholera; and the Ordination men, following the example of their teacher, helped to nurse the stricken people, carrying medicine to them in brass bowls, rubbing their poor knotted limbs, ready even if it had come to it to help to bury the dead, last and lowest of duties in the Indian scheme of life. And it all but came to that. For the disease entered the village by way of a single family whose perquisite it was to possess the clothes of the dead. They brought cholera- infected garments from another village into their little hut, on the edge of Dohnavur, and no one knew. One by one the children of the house sickened, then the parents; and the terror passed like wildfire through the place. Still those men and women clung to their death rags, hiding them away, denying that they had them; till almost the last of them all, the old grandmother, who had seen the whole household swept off, for nothing could save them, struggled out into the street, leaving in her despair her son at the point of death, alone with his motherless infant; and clutching her white widow’s cloth, she pulled it over her face like a shroud, and died where she lay in the street. Next morning she was found. There was not a living thing left in her house but a six months old babe, a pitiful bundle of wails, and the son now in collapse. Who was to bury her? Her own caste folk were dead, and no other would touch her. For an hour or two there was question. The Christians, led by the Ordination men, would have conquered themselves and come to the rescue; but just when it had become a matter to be immediately decided, kindred from outside appeared, hastily scooped the poor old huddle of rags out of the dust, and with their double burden of dead and living, fled to their own place.

Towards the end of the time the cholera medicine ran out; and till more could be obtained, quinine proved efficacious given in ten-grain doses every hour. But the type was virulent. Strong men went out to their work in the morning, and were buried in the evening. Children at play in the street at noonday were in their graves within four hours. Gradually the power of it abated; recoveries were more frequent, and the village took heart to hope again. But that strange Christmas Day will never be forgotten. Long before light, the call came for help; and the first case, happily successful, was no sooner dealt with than others called. And the hours were spent between the stricken people and the children of the compound, for whom the day, in spite of the awful presence stalking within a few yards of them all, must be made bright.

“Cholera still increasing,” says the journal, upon December 31st; “and so the year ends with something of cloud and sorrow and the shadow of death. Yet He is faithful. Oh for love and zeal and power, and the prayer-spirit by and through the Holy Ghost!”

That cry was pressed from a heart burdened afresh for the people. Does it seem as if this life were constantly entering into experience of burden? If so, it is only the truth. There are some who seem in a special manner set apart for fellowship in the sufferings of their Lord. The cause of the burden was the ceasing of the prayer-spirit so marked some months earlier in the congregation of Dohnavur, and indeed all over the district. It was as if a wave had come, swept over the place, and gone. There were results, but he had looked for greater things.

“Any point that is reached by a wave of light becomes a new centre of radiation from which the disturbance is propagated towards all sides.”

EncydopcKdia Britannica on “Light.”

“Keep up the flag, never ground arms, always advance.”

DUNCAN MATHESON.

1907]