The Monotone
There is something in the East, whether in city or in country village, which is like a certain type of Indian music, requiring for its perfect performance that a single low note should be sustained throughout the whole. This note may be played upon a conch shell or a flute; all that matters is that it should go on without a change to the end. The surface of such music may be anything from a series of moans to a bewildering dazzle; there is an extraordinary manipulation of time and scale in the different instruments, and the leading chanter has power of sustaining his breath and skill in the use of varied devices amazing to the unaccustomed. This surface movement, or series of movements, has for its peculiarity a singular responsiveness to the lightest indication of your wishes: enter into it with enthusiasm, and it becomes wildly enthusiastic; doubt, and it doubts with you. All the Indian sensitiveness to outward influence is shown forth in this quick response; but underneath, unaffected by any wish of yours, oblivious to such wish, that single note continues. There are some who never hear it. Others again catch it all too soon, and never lose it. It is like the sound of the sea heard from a little distance, behind and under more trifling sounds, the chirp of the sparrow, the laugh of a child — a solemn, ever-continuing sound; and the heart of the man who listens is filled with just this longing, to bring the force of another Continuance to bear upon the persistent note. The spirit of the East is in it. What of that? The Spirit of the Lord is stronger than the spirit of the East: it is old; He is eternal. So the missionary goes on; but a missionary journal often for pages together must have something of the note in it.
That is why it cannot be always interesting. It does not mainly deal with the changeful surface of things, but with that which lies behind; and there can be no variety there, for the note is a monotone. This year, 1908, offers little in the way of material for book writing. There are twenty-nine pages of entries after the fashion of the monotone. And that is all. Here and there, but hardly half a dozen times in all, other entries occur, and these recall moments not monotonous:
“February 22. — Talk with the ladies and Philipose about the position in Travancore.
“February 23. — Spoke on 1 Samuel xxiii. 18 (’ and they two made a covenant before the Lord’), finishing with crowning Him Lord of all. Rain prevented afternoon meeting. Laus Deo!”
The ladies, Mrs. Nicholson and Miss M’Kibben, fill up the spaces:
“He never took what he called the path of least resistance; but would meet them [the Syrian Christians] with his clear, decisive pronouncement of what he considered right. And from Mr. Philipose downward it was accepted and acted upon. Our headmaster told us some time ago how in the early days of his conversion he had a difficulty that he could not get over with his logical view of things. He wrote to a well-known English leader, and got pages of writing which gave him very little help. Then he wrote and asked another to explain, with no better result. Then he asked Mr. Walker, I think at the close of the convention, and got a clear answer upon an ordinary sheet of notepaper upon his return to Dohnavur.”
And as to that crowning meeting:
“It was Sunday, and the closing day of the convention. There was a crowded morning meeting, and there was to be another (the last) in the afternoon; his subject was David and Jonathan and their threefold covenant, of love, obedience, loyalty. He described how they two stood alone in that wood for the last time on earth, and how Jonathan crowned David king; and then he brought it home to the people, and asked who would make Jesus king, and all over the pandal there went up a sudden burst of ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah! ’
“As we walked home together along the river-bank he said. ‘I feel we have reached the climax this morning. There should be no other meeting; this should be our last.’ And so it was; for about half an hour afterwards, before the next meeting was to gather, a violent thunder-storm began, and it could not be held.”
April 20. — “Overdone by the heat” recalls a blazing day of the kind that takes something out of soul and body. The heat, if there is only physical or mental strain, is one thing; but, when all the time the spirit is hard at work, it tells. The work of that day was in camp among students. “Prayer with Eddy,” is the word of the day before; and that friend has told of what fashion the prayer was. Then came the conventions on the hills. Of one of his addresses the entry is “Felt no liberty: God forgive “; but that of another is set down as “a precious word.”
There were some fine walks that year, notably one to a gorge opening upon a glorious view of crag and torrent and far-reaching downs. Wordsworth was the companion that day — Matthew Arnold’s little blue Wordsworth, with a round gold Rydal Mount upon the cover:
“There’s joy in the mountains;
There’s life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone.”
Wordsworth, like his less-known brother poet of the lakes, C. A. Fox, asks to be read in the open air.
And now the entries are just a succession of duties of the ordinary sort. Occasionally fitted in between them was some thing difficult enough to be mentioned with special thanksgiving when it was over; as when an unworthy worker — who, hoping to obtain foothold in the district, had invited himself for a two days’ visit to Dohnavur, where he insisted upon singing hymns all day at the top of his voice — at length departed; then the entry is, “to my intense relief.” Or pleasant enough to have a line all to itself, as “Telescope arrived from England.”
This, though only a small instrument, was a real refreshment. Many a guest to Dohnavur recalls the pleasure of those starry evenings, when the Nebula 31 M. Andromedse, or the great Nebula in Orion opened out their mysteries, or the sparkling little Beehive, or the blue and golden double stars in the Swan. When Saturn and his rings were for the first time clearly visible, hanging just over the bungalow roof, the call sent forth to all the family was a peremptory “Come at once!” and the family came and gazed, hardly knowing which to enjoy most — the delight of enjoying the telescope or the delight of its owner. So again when Jupiter arrived with his moons, “playing ball” as an irreverent junior remarked, everyone assembled to see him, and for several successive evenings that majestic game in the sky filled the hour between eight and nine; for at nine, now as ever, everything stopped. The star-filled fields came near through those months; and there were some to whom the map of the moon was a better-known subject than the map of the earth. “Students’ wives to tea; singing and telescope,” is an entry fitted in between records of routine work. Once he quoted beautiful words from the Book of Baruch: “The stars shined in their watches and were glad: when he called them, they said, Here we be; they shined with gladness unto Him that made them,” and a line from C. A. Fox’s Prayer before Nature, upon “the moon’s white dream of holiness,” charmed him about this time.
The first break of importance that autumn was a mission to the American Presbyterian mission at Pasumalai. Dr. Jones of Pasumalai writes: “I remember very well his visit to our home and campaign in our church in September 1908. He was in the prime of his power then, and was full of deep, spiritual earnestness in conveying his fine message to our people. Many of our people spoke to me of the deep and abiding influence his addresses had upon them at the time. I never knew him to be among us with so prophetic a voice and so imbued with the spirit of his Master as at that time. He had a splendid vision of the possibilities of the mystical, spiritual life of the Indian Christian, and in that I have always had full sympathy with him. He and I talked much about this subject, and we were in full harmony as to what is the greatest need of the Indian Church to-day in the development of its spiritual life.” Or, as he himself expressed it, when he returned home a day or two after that conversation, “We agreed that what the people want to make them all they are meant to be, is grit, character.” That, to put it tersely, was to him the need of India. “Some grip. Lord, cleanse it all,” are the only journal notes of the Madura meetings.
A series of camp meetings held near Madras for students occupied a week or so that autumn; in some respects they were disappointing; but “God has blessed,” the journal says. Individuals were helped, as the long stream of young men who came for private] talks proved; but the inner question was, “Why not more? Why this hindrance to the full tide of power? Where is the block?”
Upon Sunday, November 19th, after his return home, there is a new kind of entry:
“At noon service people came so late that I stopped preaching, and this created some effect; and they held a prayer-meeting and later a meeting to arrange for regularity.”
It was a curious Sunday. Those who were at home, as some of the Dohnavur household usually were, so as to set others free to go to the service, were astonished to see the congregation returning in disconcerted groups long before the ordinary time. Astonishment sat upon the faces of all those returning ones; anything so amazingly unorthodox had never happened before in all their long experience of Tinnevelly ways. “I thought I would see how it would act,” was his own explanation; “it will be worth it, if it teaches the people reverence.” It certainly did seem to have some such effect. For months not a single man or woman came late to service; and the standard of punctuality, so difficult to keep up in a country congregation, had been
raised. “We must be in time or” and a twisted curl of the
right-hand fingers would forcibly finish the sentence.
It is impossible to read through the journal for this year
without feeling the distinct sadness of lowered hope. It was
not that nothing was being done; but eyes that have seen the
mysterious Moving of the Spirit upon the face of the waters never again can be satisfied with the laboured work of man, or even that which, before that strange experience was granted, had seemed enough to ask.
Night by night in the little side-room where the journal was written, there was searching of heart as the day was reviewed; another day without that for which its writer waited: “Lord, is it I?” he would ask again and again. “Am I hindering blessing?” “Revive me, 0 my God!” and being, as such souls cannot but be, very sensitive to those dimly perceived spiritual influences which surround us, he was sorely tempted to depression when the months passed, and nothing happened out of the ordinary; and most sincerely he sympathised with those who, hardly knowing how to bear the general lukewarmness, sent out from time to time fiery appeals for more earnestness in intercession. But his inward attitude and the calm way he judged things, even in the heat of desire, is shown in a letter written towards the close of the year to his friend, Rev. R. J. Ward of Coonoor:
“I have received from V. to-day some papers, one of which is entitled ‘Who is able to drink of this cup? ’
“While in full agreement with most of it, I think it unwise to circulate it in its present form; I have written to V. about it. Is it not better to avoid all criticisms of others in the interest of the Cause? e.g. Is it wise to refer, as the paper does, to the Anglican Congress and to Keswick? I feel more and more ‘Who am I, that I should criticise? ‘Lord, bring me lower. Surely we had better keep to positive positions and definite calls, and avoid the judicial altogether. Oh, the poverty of all we do! I write in case you are thinking of insert ing any of it in the Prayer Circular. We want to win fellow-missionaries to join us. Bat this kind of statement may repel where we wish to attract.”
The letter was signed, “Yours, less than the least.”
“Among the hindrances which will prevent anyone from having the ‘Tongue of Fire, ’ none acts more directly than any misuse of the tongue itself. If the door of the lips be not guarded, if uncharitable or idle speech be indulged, if political or party discussion be permitted to excite heats, if ’ foolish talking or jesting ’ be a chosen method of display, it is not to be supposed that the same tongue will be the medium wherein the sacred fire of the Spirit will delight to dwell. Who has ever worn at the same time the reputation of a trifler and of a man powerful to search consciences?”
WILLIAM ARTHUE, The Tongue of Fire.
1909]