First Things: December 1885 to July 1886

First things hold an interest of their own. The first voyage, no other is ever like it; the first impression of the new land; the first grapple with the language; the first temptation (often repeated) to discouragement; the first quick observation of the new environment, with, in this case at least, an eager booking of anything that offered telling illustration; the first flying visits to places destined to be battlefields and beloved homes; the first struggle with heat, sloth, and all the ills that flesh in the tropics is heir to; the first attempts at soul-winning, the first encouragements, the first disappointments, and the first fierce onslaughts of the foe of all true missionaries — these are things that never cease to touch us with the touch that makes us all akin.

To his mother, from s.s. Clan Grant, October 19, 1885, he writes of the appointments of the ship and its comforts for micsionary passengers as “too good to suit my taste. I am tired of modern luxuries, when I think of the Master Who had not where to lay His head.”

But the letter is full of freshness of pleasure:

“The voyage is most enjoyable. I wish you could have seen Gibraltar, the snow-covered heights of the Sierra Nevada, and the dark African mountains. And such sunsets we get! Gold and deep orange, fading into rosy pink. And the stars are marvellously bright, while the sea laughs at night with phosphorescent sparks. Truly we see God’s wonders in the deep. The first two days of rolling and tossing were overwhelmingly grand. Such a dashing about of cups and plates! It was quite a problem to keep the soup in one’s plate, and you looked round the table to find about six present for dinner instead of forty-three. As for sleeping at night, we had to fasten our selves in our bunks with portmanteau, etc. But now the sea looks smooth enough to skate on, and blue enough to dream over. I miss the privacy of my bachelor rooms most of all. My chief oratory is the stern of the ship, where I can lean over the side and lift up my heart to God for His blessing upon you all.”

“The whole town looked so dark spiritually,” he writes to a friend about Port Said. “You just felt in the darkness, as though no one cared or wished to care for anything better than the grovelling life of earth. London, with all its bitter cries and dark slums, may well be called a Christian city in comparison with a town like Port Said.”

To the Mpwapwas (a group of missionary-hearted men gathered together by himself and a friend during his time at St. James’s, and formed by him into a band, the first of those C.M.S. mission bands which have since spread all over the country) he writes, soon after his arrival in India:

“My desire for you all is that you may be out and out for Christ and on fire for the extension of His Kingdom. The labourers are so few, and those few so weak, ‘Pray ye, therefore.’ I will not stay to fill my letter with descriptive details, for I must get to my task in the shape of Tamil exercises. All I need say is that my impressions about missionary work are intensified tenfold now that I am in the midst of heathendom. We must all be up and doing. The world is perishing with hunger, and yet in the Father’s house there is bread enough and to spare, and the Master bids all true disciples ‘Give ye them to eat.’ ‘:

“December 19, 1885 — To his mother. — There is such need of workers. Tinnevelly is not half the Christian province which people represent it to be in England. Let me give you an example. Just across the river, about three miles from Palamcottah, is the town called Tinnevelly, with a population, I am told, of some 23,000 souls. Of this number, excluding the Mission agents, only eight souls are professedly Christian. Think of that eight out of 23,000! The other large towns in Tinnevelly are of a similar stamp. If anyone tells you that Tinnevelly is now a Christian province, please undeceive them at once. The streets here are full of people with the paint marks of Vishnu and Siva on their brows. Thank God for what has been done; but how much yet remains to be accomplished! England is asleep. If there were less waste of time in political affairs, and more earnest care for the polity of Christ, and the glory of His name, this would be a different world. I do pray that God will bless abundantly the C.M.S. meetings to be held throughout England at the beginning of the year, and will thrust out a whole army of workers into the world’s wide fields.”

The journal begins upon December 1, 1885. It has been suggested that he kept it in obedience to an old C.M.S. rule which directed that one should be kept; and faithfully night by night two or three lines or less record the outstanding events of the day. The habit has fallen out of use with busy men and women, but in his case it proved exceedingly useful many a time in later years when some date or event was in question; and certainly without it this book would be impossible, for he destroyed his letters the moment they were dealt with, and though many of his to his friends have been preserved, they rarely give quite the intimate touch that is required if he himself or any vital part of him is to live to the reader. During the earlier years the journal is often intensely inward, and so for the most part too private for use; then it becomes entirely impersonal, engrossed in the work. The last pages have little copyable in them. You cannot put into words the sound of swift feet racing round the course: the last journals are just that. Perhaps journal-reading has its disadvantages, but it has one advantage which for this book’s purpose is sufficient: it shows the man with a certain degree of distinctness, in his strength and in his weakness. What there is, at least is true, searchingly true. Far away in the dim memories of childhood lies one of an open door to an upstairs room, through which, as it was open, a child looked, attracted by the sound of someone talking carefully aloud. A tall pier glass faced the door. Before it stood a cleric, his back to the door, his face to the mirror: he was trying the effect of his pretty periods. This story is the exact antipodes to the mental attitude and atmosphere of the journal we herewith begin to trace. There is no “practising the prayers,” to quote a Cumberland story, wherein the landlady refrained from interrupting her lodger engaged in this exercise: everything here is unstudied, sincere.

“December 1, 1885. — Quiet day, learning Tamil words, and trying to hear and speak. Very disheartened, for my ear so slow to catch the sounds. The Lord give me grace and patience! Evening, fireflies flitting brightly in the darkness. Great idol day. Beating of drums and tom-toms at heathen temples. They keep it up all night, working themselves into a frenzy.

“December 2. — Still drumming at heathen temples. Bishop Sargent of Tinnevelly [with whom he was living] says they keep it up till one is supposed to be possessed by a demon who acts then as oracle; they sacrifice sheep, and drink blood as it flows from wound. Tamil-learning again; progress very slow. Reading life of Marsh: oh, to be real as he was!

“December 5. — Leaves of temple plant x scratched, bleed anywhere; but if the backbone [midrib] be severed, sap ceases to flow and they bleed nowhere. Ashamed to-night of my slothfulness this week; neglect of the Word and Throne; want of application to my Tamil. May grace be given for a new start from to-night.

“December 7. — A more determined set at my Tamil vocabulary. Have to work really hard to commit the words to memory. The long-looked-for rain came to-day in refreshing showers; so may grace rain down upon this barren heart! Insects a great hindrance to my reading, eye-flies by day and mosquitoes by night.

“December 8. — Morning chapter encouraging. ‘Who made man’s mouth? ‘Surely He can give me grace for this language learning; but I have made poor headway to-day.

“December 10. — A new munshi [teacher]. Went back to first sounds with him; he made me more disheartened than ever, while at the same time correcting many of my faults; many hours spent on Tamil seem to show little result. Bishop showed me in garden to-day how the birds drop strange seeds on the projections [axil of old leaf base] on side of young cocoanut trees; there they germinate, and become trees which often eclipse the cocoanut trees, hide them and strangle them to death. So Satan seeks to drop the seeds of sin.

“December 12. — Day spent chiefly in reading. Progress very slow, I fear. Find difficulties in language constantly accumulating. This week has seen so little done. But * in 1 Plumeria acutifolia, the Pagoda tree.

patience possess ye your souls.’ So glad to reach Sabbath rest again.

“Sunday, December 13. — Bishop preached. Very earnest, simple words, of which I gathered the drift here and there. Quiet, blessed day, reading Book of Haggai, which opened out in its missionary aspect. Alas! that I dwell in such ceiled houses of ease while ’ this house ’ that God would build in all the world lies waste. Read home letters and looked out texts sent by the members of my old mission choir. How unworthy I am of such sentiments as some of them convey! Resumed my acquaintance with Henry Martyn’s life, with profit, I trust.

“December 15. — Talk with pastor about darkness of Tinnevelly town. The Lord help us to get to work quickly!

“December 16. — Floundering in Tamil; seem to make literally no headway; great stupidity with my munshi.

“December 18. — To-night usual missionary gathering. Mr. Harcourt expounded with his usual loving simplicity the first few verses of Epistle to Ephesians. Oh, the grand vocation and the mighty purpose!

“December 19. — Been here one month to-day. Great cause for humiliation; so little progress either in Tamil or in spiritual life.

“December 20. — Bishop preached, but I could not catch what he said. How thankful I shall be when I can! English service. I preached. Desired to seek God’s glory and to preach faithfully, but fear it was a miserable failure.

“December 22, 1 A.M. — Started for Pannaivilai [where was an empty rat-infested bungalow, which was to be the first home, when, in 1897, Palamcottah was finally left for life in the district]. Could not sleep, but thought much. Saw Southern Cross clearly, and moon was glorious. At 7 a.m. reached mission compound. ... I had to shave over surface of still water in chatty [earthen water-pot] in bathroom, a primitive toilet glass!

“December 29. — Long day of Tamil-learning. Getting to feel my way better, but still no ear or tongue.

“December 30. — Went with Bishop through Tinnevelly town to see the Schaffters. Was struck by crystallised idolatry of the town. Bishop told me that once bridge had one of its arches broken in heavy flood. People escorted over weak places by policeman. When they stopped to look over the weak spot at the repairs below, policeman’s voice called, ‘Look not behind thee! ‘Apt illustration for spiritual things.

“January 1. — English mail in! The mail always does me good. Service, but I was too tired to attempt to follow in Tamil. I thought vaguely of the old Stratford meetings.”

January was broken by short visits to outlying stations, first Mengnanapuram (village of true wisdom), a night’s journey from Palamcottah, a place full of the memory of its stalwart missionary, Rev. John Thomas, now for many years with his Lord. “Was delighted with Mrs. Thomas, a dear old lady of the true stamp.” But the day was somewhat distracted, as such days are wont to be, and the journal says briefly: “I seem to have lived outside my own privacy, and certainly do not feel better for it, though thankful for all I have seen.” “Wrote my first Tamil letter to my munshi,” is an arresting entry in this journal of beginnings. The next place visited was Suviseshapuram (village of good tidings), and then on the evening of January 12, “we set out on our travels again under the moonlight.” By moon-set they had crossed the belt of sand which lay between them and the main road, and travelled on by starlight till they came to Nanguneri, six miles from Dohnavur,

“an important place where the Vishnavites have strongholds under a guru or chief priest. At 8.30 we breakfasted and set out again. I was delighted to find the mountains quite close. We reached Dohnavur about 11.45 a.m. Our course had been lying straight for the Southern Ghauts, and our destination was only about two miles from their feet. They looked glorious in the sun.”

The season was Dohnavur’s best, just after the north-east monsoon rains have filled the shallow lake-like reservoirs (tanks, in Indian speech), which in this part of the country lie under the hills in long reaches of silver. Less than a mile from the bungalow to the west is one such tank bordered on the eastern side by a fringe of bamboo, and on the west by the mountains, which rise almost straight up from its bank. This, the first walk in the Dohnavur district, was the delight of that first evening; crossed, as all such delights must be in India, by the shadow of the land:

“We stood by the tank and saw the Ghauts like an amphitheatre before us. Found an altar where cocoanuts are offered to the god every day; a huge heap of shells standing by.”

That night, the first spent in the house to become best-loved of Indian homes, could not have been very comfortable, for it was passed in the stuffiness of the central living-room, the happy haunt of bats, rats, and mosquitoes. But the view from the top of the church tower in the early morning light was sufficient compensation; “it was splendid,” one unbroken sweep of mountains, crags, and forests all defined in the clear dawn. The usual busy day of outstation work ended in “a hurried start back homewards. I had searchings of heart as to my want of a single eye, and desires for renewed consecration.”

“January 15. — At work with munsJii again. Evening, Bishop spoke simply on first verses of Matt. ix. I felt as he spoke what a change from the receipt of customs to be evangelist of the ages, what we may become if we only follow Christ.

“January 16. — Munshi gave me a written examination in Pope’s Grammar this morning, not with best results. But I am eager to learn the language quickly. Been here two months to-day, but so little done.

“January 21. — Heat greater to-day and trying. This evening first English lecture to educated Hindus. I was very nervous about it, but sought to cast myself upon God. He was so much better than my fears. The hall was full, and some stood outside and round door and windows. Many influential Hindus there. My subject, ‘Physical Forces of Universe,’ simple and poor enough. May God purge and bless this first effort.”

Upon the following Sunday a start was made with a class for young Hindus. “Twelve to sixteen came; I did not count accurate numbers.” On the following Sunday nearly thirty came. This class continued to grow in numbers and in influence; and later, when a young man who had not been attending regularly, tried to stir up opposition because of the directly Christian character of the teaching, the class as a whole sided with its teacher. This incident, which might so nearly have ended in the wrecking of the new endeavour, is thus recorded:

“I tried to bear patiently with him, and showed him that to preach Christ was the only reason for my coming here. He calmed down, and the general feeling of the class seemed with me.”

So the language study time was lightened by whatever direct spiritual work offered, but Tamil was always well first. In after years there was no uncertain ring in admonitions to young missionaries: “Stick to your language. It’s the only way to get it,” with, by way of grim comfort, “And if you find it hard, all the better. Nobody ever got it well who didn’t!”

Home links were still strong:

“January 17. — At English service I preached on the St. James’s motto for 1886, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.’ Found it kindling to my own soul, and do long to live it out.

“February 3. — Went to meet Keyworth, our new school master. May he bring blessing with him. At Provincial Council, many Indian clergy. Subjects discussed: condition of schools in which religious teaching unsatisfactory, and means of evangelising the heathen. One old man strongly recommended voluntary preaching bands, and I acquiesced internally, noting the suggestion for future use.

“February 8. — Very unhappy to-night about my Tamil learning and other things. But such unbelief is sinful, for God has so wonderfully helped me hitherto. Never was there a soul who sinned against grace and light as I have done. When shall I be able to say sincerely — Anywhere, Anything?

“February 13. — Been here three months to-day. Humiliating thought, what have I done for Christ? Who is the better for my coming?

“February 16. — Harvesters busy at work; saw them winnowing the paddy, tossing it in the air loosely with their basket fans, that the dust and chaff might be blown away by the wind. Bishop Sargent reminded me of Him Who will thoroughly purge His floor, and we spoke together of Psalm 1.

“February 17. — The first of our fortnightly English lectures in Tinnevelly town this evening. I spoke on Solar Facts and Fictions, seeking to draw attention to the great Creator from the sun of Whose love there is nothing hid. God helped me; but, alas, it is only very indirect yet. May I have grace to realise that each of these men is a soul redeemed.

“Pretty sight as we came home; harvesters from the villages camping down on the river banks were cooking their rice round frequent fires. The bridge looked very picturesque, the many groups of people and their little fires; the joy in harvest. As we went we met groups carrying their harvest baskets home wards: coming again with rejoicing.”

About this time he bought a pony for the itinerating work. It proved a difficulty at first, and five times threw its master, who was not an accomplished horseman. His first attempt at horse manship was upon a friend’s pony at Mengnanapuram, where water had to be crossed which was above the stirrups, and a branch hanging across a jungle path caught his ear, which bled profusely.

“While I was striving to staunch the blood with my handkerchief,” records the journal calmly, “my pony stumbled and I was precipitated over his head. I felt very like Don Quixote.”

Now a fresh attempt was made, but in vain.

“I tried my new pony, but he was beyond my control. How ever, Finnimore rode him and I rode his.” “My new pony is troublesome,” he wrote to his sister in March 1886; “strong and fiery; and since I am not a good rider, he tries hard to throw me. But I am taking early morning rides (out soon after 5 a.m.), and by perseverance I hope to be able to ride well enough for itinerating purposes. To poor nervous ’ me,’ this is part of my preparation and discipline, and has to be done, like the language learning, for the work’s sake.”

He did learn to ride, and rode many a mile across rivers, over deep sands, through thorny jungles, and by roads not always much better than tracks; and so mastered the art of good riding that his pony grew to know his voice and touch, and would “stand like a lamb to receive his reward, in the shape of a piece of bread or plantain.” But eventually horseback was discarded for walking wherever possible, as it led to more unhindered inter course with Indian fellow-workers.

The nervousness to which home letters occasionally allude was a curious form of that miserable trouble not easily conquerable. It was conquered to a great extent, and certainly was never allowed to interfere with duty. But to the end what would have been a mere uncomfortable detail to some, was a real trial to him; rats running round the dining-room at dinner time, for example, or staring crowds and rude noises. Such things greatly afflicted him, and he could not be chaffed out of minding them. But a disagreeable smell was the worst of the worst. This, if he had to endure it, made him quite ill.

“March 2. — My Tamil very discouraging. Cannot feel I am making any progress.

“March 3. — Bishop told me to-day about Tamils burying images with nails driven through them under the soil which their enemies have to pass over, supposing thus to injure them.

“March 10. — Struggles with munshi, for he does not see the force of the English and flounders over my translations into Tamil.

“March 16. — Long talk with K. about holiness. Alas, that I know so little of it experimentally!”

There seem to have been candid friends at hand, for a journal note is:

“Feel to-night how unsatisfactory my life is before God and men. Was told to-day that some have noticed my cold and reserved manner. May God make me genial in His service!”

a prayer answered, if by geniality is meant that quality of heart which contributes to the life and happiness of others. But the word somehow seems to connote something lighter in vein than his manner was, and it would not be the choice of the more intimate of his friends. Twenty-seven years later a chance acquaintance who met him in the last place he cared to be, a drawing-room, described him thus, “Such a genial man!” The description was detailed to him by his family to his immense amusement. “You never accused me of that!” For he was not by nature made for the chit-chat side of life, and took no pleasure in it; and he once scandalised the more orthodox by sympathising with Lord Kelvin, who carried his green note books everywhere with him, and lost himself in them when too much bored by talk. “So nice to be back,” is a usual entry after even the most pleasant time away from home; and “Isn’t it a relief to be quiet?” with a sigh of unmistakable relief, was always the conclusion of a function of any sort, however genially he may have smiled his way through it. It never was that promiscuous concourse of atoms, society so called, which drew his best from him, but intercourse with those with whom he felt affinity.

The sultriness of March was now upon the land, and to the new missionary as to the old, life was a daily struggle of the spirit against the flesh; the journal faithfully reflects the feeling of the hour:

“March 21. — Felt heat dreadfully to-day, and so had my reading seriously hindered.

“March 28. — Almost too hot to enjoy my Bible. Alas, that the flesh should so prevail.

“March 29. — Hot, but not impossible to work.”

In the beginning of April a move was made for the nearer hills, upon whose slopes at that time there was a little ramshackle house available for missionary use. A night’s journey, and Kuttalam was reached, one of the sacred places of the south, where at certain seasons thousands of pilgrims congregate to bathe in the beautiful waterfall and to worship in the adjoining temple. After breakfast there, chairs roped to bamboo poles were brought for the journey up into the hills. The path crosses and recrosses a mountain stream:

“I drank in the scenery,” says the journal, “and thought how much mother would enjoy it. Presently we came to a spot called Paradise (a corrupted word), where the gorge was grandly beautiful. Then still upwards alongside hedges of the scarlet hibiscus. At last reached Tekmalai. The Bishop first called me to his room that we might ask God’s blessing on our visit. All round us are mountain peaks with the gorge ravine opening into the plain below us. Goodness and mercy.”

Here it was refreshingly cool [thermometer ranging from 70° to 82°, a relief after anything up to 104° in the shade], and eight or nine hours unbroken Tamil was the order of the day. For recreation there were varieties. An Indian friend, Mr. Appaswami Pillai, who was the Bishop’s guest at the time writes: “The old Bishop, past seventy as he was, wanted to learn some Hebrew, and placed himself under the guidance of his young companion. I still recall the veneration he had for Mr. Walker’s learning and ability.” But a characteristically different version of the incident appears in a home letter: “I have been revising my Hebrew along with Bishop Sargent “; and this, as he always enjoyed sharing knowledge, must have been a pleasure. Other pleasures were those common to all dwellers upon Indian hills, climbs, and friendship with the wild things of the woods, among them the black-faced monkey, whose Tamil name, Jcapi, is imbedded in the Hebrew Bible between ivory (danta) and peacocks (togai), also old Tamil forms, a fact often pointed out to newcomers. Sometimes the spoor of wild elephants was found and traced into the wood. Once a tiger came near the bungalow; and once the Bishop’s dog, snatching at a snake, owed its escape to a frog upon which the snake was at that moment gorging. Often there was the delight of the whistling school-boy (Malabar thrush). “You dear bird!” as he once called one of its kind after luring it to answer his whistle. But Tamil was the main thing:

“There are some ambiguities in usage and construction which neither my old nor my present munshi seem able to explain and unravel. Patience, with God’s help.”

April 16 was what the journal calls a red-letter day.

“Started at 6.30 a.m., with two schoolboys as my companions, to climb hills at back of Tekmalai bungalow. Surmounted first hill, left boys behind, fought my way up rocks and elephant grass to top of peak next to Mt. St. Rose. In coming back lost my way in jungle. Got down with great effort into valley in other side of mountain to stream. Hoped to follow that down, but came to falls and had to climb into jungle again. Passed falls and made for jungle once more.”

Here a home letter goes more into detail:

“My foot slipped, and I was hurled head first down a steep, perpendicular rock. I knew then what it was to be face to face with death. I turned over and over in the air, and expected to fall dead at the bottom, but I found myself lying in a pool of water in the valley stream, with my left leg badly cut and my right shoulder rather painful. I could not help thinking then, God has miraculously saved my life, and the text came to my mind, ‘I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.’ I bound up the leg-wound tightly with my handkerchief, and climbed up the rocks into the jungle once more. Then I lay down fatigued, and thought I should never escape. God only knows all that passed through my mind as I lay there with swarms of tigerflies sucking my blood; but one thing I know, I resolved that if ever I were delivered my life should be more fully consecrated to His service. I made another attempt to get away, but now I found myself with steep rocks before me as well as beneath me, and I knew at last that unless God sent help I must perish where I lay.”

Here the search party sent out by the Bishop to scour the mountains found him. The journal resumes:

“They tried to make the descent with me, but could not, and so we had to climb back up mountain. They brought me food. By the time we crossed brow of mountain the sun had set, and as we were in steep rocks we were obliged to stay where we were all night, though we were able to make ourselves heard at the bungalow. Propped feet against thickets to prevent our slipping down rocks. The men kindly wrapped me in their cloths. I opened my lips for first time in Tamil prayer, committing ourselves to God. They lighted a fire of wood” [as much for protection from the wild beasts which frequent the mountains, wild elephants, tigers, leopards, as for warmth].

There are some to whom the story was told in after years who cannot forget the solemnity with which it closed:

“And I never knew the meaning of the text in the Psalms, ‘My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning; I say more than they that watch for the morning,’ until then, when I lay in pain of body, not daring to move lest I should slip down the rocks, cold and tired and hungry, watching for the first sign of dawn. It seemed such a long night; I knew then what it meant to watch for the morning.”

Bishop Sargent meanwhile was filled with alarm, knowing the perils of the forest. He wrote about it to the mother at home a letter full of detail, with, as he says, all the sympathy of a father:

“My distress was continued for hours, and you may imagine what my feelings were when after twenty-seven hours I was delighted to take him by the hand and say, ‘He was lost and is found.’ By nightfall I had got vague intelligence that he was found, but we could learn nothing as to the condition he was in, and I troubled myself all night with fear that he had met with some accident that disabled him from walking.... All day long I had some eight men out scouring the hills. I wrote an official letter to the native magistrate of the nearest town, telling him of our trouble, and asking him to send up 100 men as early as possible in the morning.”

The fatherly Bishop seems rather to apologise for his charge, explaining that he had been

“so accustomed to climbing at home that he made little account of the hills around. But he had not been ten minutes in making his way through the elephant grass when he found he could not see ten feet before him, and lost all idea of the direction he should take, for he could see nothing of the sky. Not knowing whither he was going, he missed his footing and fell.... His shoulder got seriously hurt, and one leg was fearfully cut by a projecting point of rock. His clothes were in tatters, torn by his efforts to make his way through the elephant grass.... Confined to the house here, he has been assiduous in his application to Tamil, upon the knowledge of which his future usefulness as a missionary depends. I rejoice to see what an aptness he has for the acquirement of Tamil. Knowing what a difficult language it is, I must say, without any intention of flattery, that I have never known a student from England make the progress he has made in the matter.”

The end of the letter must have touched that mother’s heart, for the old Bishop assures her that he cannot tell her what a help her son has been to him, and he concludes:

“You will not admire him the less when I say he has become to me as a son. I like the way St. Paul puts it when he says, ‘God comforted us by the coming of Titus.’ It is true the C.M.S.

CH. m.] FIRST THINGS 89

sent him out here, but there is a truth beyond that, in which I like to dwell, ‘God sent him,’ and certainly he has been a comfort to me. ... I hope you will dismiss from your mind all further anxiety regarding your dear son. His late deliverance from what might have proved a fatal result has become to his mind a second consecration to the Lord’s work. May God bless him and make him a useful and bright instrument in His hand for the good of the people of this heathen land.”

A few days’ semi-invalidism followed; but these offered good opportunities for reading, so Tamil was not interrupted.

“One thing is sure,” he writes to his sister, “that God saved me from an untimely death into which my own folly had almost hurried me. My life now, more than ever before, belongs to Him. Surely it is spared for service, and for service only. I want you all to pray that it may be true, earnest, single-eyed service for the Master’s glory.”

It was not his last experience of escape from serious dis ablement, if not death. A day or two later a snake was killed on the wall just over his bed; two out of his five pony accidents might easily have sent him home; and once he all but took some poisonous jelly pressed upon him by his unsuspecting nurse during convalescence after enteric. “Some instinct told me not to touch it.” But nothing could by any means hurt him then, for his work was not finished, it had hardly begun.

“Got a little insight from munshi into terrible state of Indian immorality. Oh for a pure heart myself through Christ!” he writes upon May 12.

This first painful insight was the beginning of a long and exhaustive study in the vernacular as well as in English of Hinduism as a religious system. A working knowledge of Sanskrit acquired later was a help in verifying the translations of modern scholars, and in throwing light upon statements otherwise obscure. It was no ignorant attack which was made through those twenty-seven years upon the strongholds which have not fallen yet. For he had no desire to fight with eyes blindfolded; vain beating of the air was never in his line. So he studied the position and the ever-shifting change of position, where Hindu thought is concerned; and he read the best that modern writers have to say about it. The true and the noble in the old Vedas were appreciated by him; he revelled in the finer parts of the three great pure Tamil classics, teaching them to a fellow-missionary, rejoicing in any kindred appreciation of what to him was truth, God’s truth, however and by whomsoever expressed; and he used these poems in dealing with the Hindus much as St. Paul used the classics of his day when he referred the Cretans to the Oracles of Epimenides and the Hymn to Zeus, or the men of Corinth to Menander, or the Athenians to Aratus. And yet all the time it was true of him that he knew nothing among the people but Christ and Him crucified, and he had no sympathy with the latest fashion of smiling at the drastic ways of the old missionaries: “They won converts where we don’t,” he used to say, and he would name notable men of the past generation won from the central fortress of Hinduism. “They did not play with these modern views of philosophy so called; they were in dead earnest, and God owned them.” During the last few years it seemed to him that too much emphasis was being laid upon a very intimate knowledge of non-Christian religious thought as a necessary part of the equipment of a missionary; and he considered much of the modern writing on the subject deceptive, and the use of certain words and phrases, now becoming common, misleading. To the end he held, what to him was the very core of truth, that Christ and Him crucified (not Christ as Example and Martyr, but as Saviour and Redeemer) was the one hope of India. Any presentation of the Gospel which appeared to him to be virtually an offer of Christ without His cross, was some thing to be regarded with keen distress and strong dissent; anything that touched what he held to be the foundation truth of our Christian religion, cut him to the quick:

“Upon a life I did not live,

Upon a death I did not die,
Another’s life, Another’s death,
I stake my whole eternity,”

he quoted once in a voice deep with feeling. This being his

CM. in.] FIRST THINGS 41

view of the essentials of belief, the attitude of mind which can regard Hinduism, however speciously dressed out and garlanded, as other than a high thing which has exalted itself against the knowledge of God, was very far from him. “Read one of these modern-view magazine articles and then read a page or two from the Acts of the Apostles, and you seem to be breathing another atmosphere,” he said one day, after long companionship with St. Paul; and he breathed that purer, more invigorating atmosphere so much himself, that the air on lower levels stifled him.

“The effect of Hindu philosophy on the thinking people of the country appears to me to be that they will argue about religion by the hour, without in the least feeling the reality of the thing. They will ask you what sin is like, where it is, and such vain questions; instead of facing the fact of sin, its exceeding sinfulness, its ugliness in the sight of a holy God, its certain end of perdition. In other words, the substitution of cold philosophy for heartfelt religion leads to a state of mind which is indifferent to its own deepest needs, while it reasons endlessly about abstruse things. It is like a man arguing about the nature and origin of fire, while his house is blazing round him.”

This from an early letter fairly sets forth the result of more ripened experience; and no appreciation of the beautiful in Hindu thought blinded him to the effect it has, as a system of religion, upon the peoples of the land. But the journal has little to say upon these matters as yet, it is still concerned chiefly with Tamil:

“May 14. — Bishop encouraged me about my Tamil, but I am far from satisfied myself.

“May 19. — Walked up to ridge which forms boundary between Travancore and Tinnevelly. Just getting a glimpse of Travancore district through the thick mist. [Travancore, land of campaigns as yet undreamed of: so thick are the mists which come between to-day and to-morrow’s life.]

“May 22. — Glad to lay aside secular studies and hail the Star of Sunday.

“May 24. — Not very successful day, head heavy and heart hard; yet sun-gleams.”

Early June saw a return to Palamcottah. “Felt heat more than ever.” The first attempt at Tamil talk was made on June 10, with a young Brahman who knew no English.

“So I was obliged to try and talk Tamil with him. We read and talked about Matt. xi. 28, 29. It was nice to do my first feeble missionary work in a foreign tongue.”

This first year brought the first home anxiety:

“I was much disturbed to hear of your sickness by last week’s post,” he wrote to his mother, July 20, 1886, “and heartily trust that, by God’s mercy, you are well again. It is at times like this that one feels the vastness of the distance from England, making it impossible to go and see those we love in sickness, and necessitating such lapses of time before we can even hear of their welfare. But you are safe, I know, in a Father’s hand, and the great rendezvous is not to be found in any spot of earth, however sacred, but in His home of light and love, to which in His mercy may He bring us all at last! I think that the great lesson He is teaching me in India is the lesson of His particular providences. Here, more than in England, where life is fenced about by so many safeguards, we should realise our entire dependence upon His momentary care. Were the everlasting Arms absent one moment from ’ underneath,’ where should we be? Of course this is true everywhere, but not realised everywhere. But it is sweet to know that those Arms are under all His own. The only anxiety we need have is that all we love should acquaint themselves with Him and be at peace. How little, really, are the things of time and sense! But we are long learning the lesson. Oh to look, as Paul looked, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen! Awaiting new tidings, I can leave your welfare in His care: He careth for you.”

The ordeal of the first year was now close at hand:

“July 26. — Visit from the Mahratta [an enquirer], who must soon decide. Eve of examination, rather in dismay. Lord, help me to do it for Thee.

“July 27. — First Tamil examination. Did badly enough, but God’s help not deficient. Oh for the tongue of the learned!

“July 28. — Safely through my examination; my weak points being conversation and reading of original letters. Nice to be over first boundary mark. His be the praise.”

Years afterwards, this journal, with what its writer called its “groans,” was produced for the benefit of a younger learner, then in the thralls of despair. Very patiently and seriously, with full belief in the efficacy of the preferred consolation, the writer thereof read these “groans” aloud. “So you see you are not the first one who has been tempted to be discouraged.” “But you were discouraged because you had set such a high standard for yourself,” the uncomforted student responded gloomily, to be quenched by a crushing, “You know nothing whatever about it!” And the journal was put away in disgust at the denseness which could not perceive that the two cases were exactly parallel. But no questions could have extorted the fact that in this first examination, taken under peculiar difficulties after eight months (instead of a year) of somewhat interrupted study, the percentage of marks gained was about eighty on the whole.

“We have ample warrant, by manifold evidence, by clear experience, for being sure for ourselves that the worth and happiness of life depend just on this — that in the strength which God gives, and in the eagerness of His service, the will should ever be extending the range of its dominion, ever refusing to be shut out or overborne, ever restless in defeat, ever pushing on its frontier.”

From the Sermon on Accidie, Life of Francis Paget,
Bishop of Oxford, by STEPHEN PAGET and
J. M. C. CRUM.

“And he goes on to say,” writes his biographer, “how [the dreary mental mood] accidie may be fought: — by sympathy with real pain and sorrow; by occupation over such work as does not depend on the weather of the mind — ’ the comparatively featureless bits of work, the business letters, the mechanism of life, the tasks which may be almost as well done then as ever ‘; and for a third way — it is strange, indeed, it would be inconceivable if it were not so very common — that a man can look back to Calvary and still be sullen.”

1886-87]