First Things Continued: August 1886 to June 1887

“All I want is a truer heart, and a stronger faith, and a constraining love for the work of the Gospel,” is a word from a private letter of the time. The immediate work of the Gospel was still Tamil study, so it was resumed with unabated diligence, though the journal “groans” are as profound as ever; for as the silenced but not convinced junior had declared, the standard set was unconsciously high, nothing less than the mastery not only of colloquial Tamil with all its ramifications, a world in itself, but of the higher Tamil, key to the position where the most difficult to reach for Christ are concerned. And the ideal was no mere passing of examinations, but what he used to call “the freedom of the language,” power to deal with men in it, power to use it in all its many phases as a mighty weapon for the winning of souls:

“Do you think I am coaching you for the examination?” he said once to the same student whom he was preparing for the final, in the days when he was chief examiner; “I am taking you far past what you require for that; but you will want it afterwards.”

This year’s reading included the Rdmdyana, India’s great epic, and specimen sentences from vernacular secular books were collated and shaped into a study in the structure of the language which proved invaluable to others. But it is one thing to know an Indian language and another thing to speak it so as to be understood by the more ignorant section of the people. This last difficulty, with which every true student will sympathise, was finally conquered; and the last but one of the uncounted Tamil addresses — they must have run into many thousands — was to a churchful of village children, whose delight when “Our Iyer,” as they called him, preached, was explained in direct child fashion: “For it is very interesting, because then the sense is clear (Tamil, shines) to us.” But the beginning held no promise of the future; we walk by faith, not by sight:

“Kather humbled by silly mistakes in my Tamil. Things which I knew quite well. How unprofitable I am! Finished reading the Praddpa Mudalliar, the style of which is excellent Tamil. Munshi impressed upon me the fact that all the reading in the world will not take the place of conversation and speech in Tamil, a fact to humble me. Much difficulty in understanding Tamil spoken. Feeling as usual deaf of ear and tied of tongue.”

Such are the entries in September; and again, “Disheartened over work with munshi. Will it ever?”

The first attempt at open-air work was in November 1886:

“In the evening went with Finnimore to a preaching under a tree, from branches of which a lamp depended. A little pulpit was set. Fair crowd of people sitting on raised mound under tree. Singing and preaching. K. [an Indian brother] and F. spoke; I just concluding, came away much humbled, finding that people with whom I got a word here and there did not understand me at all. Must seek to speak always with all. May God bless the meeting, for His Son was lifted up. Glad of coming Sunday.”

Two months later we have another entry: “Tried to speak in a little Tamil address, but came away hopeless about my Tamil. Need of patience. Hail, Sunday!” Again a month afterwards: “Gave little address to boys in boarding-school which humbled me as usual. So thankful for coming Sabbath.”

But perhaps only a missionary will appreciate the force of these peculiarly truthful details. Truth that literally peeled off any flattering shreds of self-congratulation, was characteristic of the man, so too was the welcome to the Sabbath:

“Hail, Sunday! — And now for the green pastures of the Sabbath. — Put away my studies to-night with pleasure and look towards Sabbath light. — So glad of Sabbath ahead. — Welcome the Lord’s day. Blessed day, better than a thousand.”

And so it goes on, with striking reiteration page after page.

Only ten years later, one who had recently arrived in India, hearing “Walker of Tinnevelly” mentioned everywhere as a sort of general referee whose opinion upon matters of importance carried quite exceptional weight, formed a mental picture of an elderly veteran, and was not a little incredulous when the owner of the name appeared upon a convention platform disconcert ingly young. The new arrival, being accustomed to a certain amount of venerableness in persons of importance, and not being created by nature to cry with the crowd, proceeded upon a somewhat searching study of the subject. It was soon evident that a rare combination of spirituality of mind with strong com mon sense, and a very keen perception into the ways of men and things, accounted for a good deal. But the first distinguishing mark observed was this: his warm affection for the Lord’s Day. (Was it like the honest eyes, a family heirloom?) Every hour of the day was a pearl to him. The hours were full enough; any quiet he might have expected, was frequently interrupted by people coming for talks; often by the evening he looked wearier than even on a week day; but the day was rejoiced over, and hallowed; and his careful way of keeping it taught the less careful many a lesson of reverence and godly fear. “A delight, honourable,” he used to say, if he heard anyone speak as if it were not the very joy of the week, and nothing tried him more than any thoughtless use of it. Guests in his home will remember how often his favourite George Herbert was brought out at the Sunday evening dinner-table and the poem “Sunday” read aloud:

“Thou art a day of mirth:
And where the week dayes trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, aa thy birth.
Oh, let me take thee at a bound,
Leaping with thee from seven to sev’n,
Till that we both being toss’d from earth,
Flie hand in hand to heav’n.”

So, characteristic in detail as in aim, the journal welcomes week by week “the star of Sunday “; and the saddest entries in a record which being sincere is sometimes sad, are those which confess to a lost or impoverished Sunday; while the happiest are lines which chronicle that upon which the writer’s heart was set, access to the Eternal.

There was never any exaltation of spirit over public work of any sort, rather the reverse:

“December 11, 1886. — Open-air meeting in Tinnevelly town. I wound up by my maiden address on ‘I am the Door.’ Painfully conscious of my bad accentuation, etc., but God can teach and strengthen. Trust that our gathering was not in vain. Longings to love these souls around and live for Him. — English service fell to me: preached on ‘Face to face ’ (Deut. xxxiv. 10), but not half lovingly or wisely, I fear. My Bible-class; subject, Christ’s temptation. Came home disheartened. My lack of power. And yet the Power from on High is promised.”

Such entries as these are frequent:

“Evening missionary gathering; I spoke on The Pattern Missionary. To speak to others is to condemn oneself. — My class; came home downcast. — Preached on 1 Tim. i. 11. The glorious Gospel of the Blessed God. Had some liberty, but oh for souls! — Missionary prayer-meeting to-night, which I took. Oh to believe in my own messages! — Usual missionary gathering, I speaking on prayer of Jabez. My spiritual life at low ebb, alas! How can I dare to call myself a missionary? — Missionary gathering, I spoke on John xvi., but can only be ashamed of the difference between such teaching and my own life. I preached on * When He shall come.’ Fear lest I was too harsh; but it is a solemn context. — Bishop on ‘My beloved is mine,’ very sweet and powerful. — Missionary gathering, which I took. Before Thee, alas, what?”

It is curious to read as the journal shows it, his own feeling about himself and all he did, and then turn to the letters of some of his oldest missionary friends. Mrs. Hayne of Hallashana writes:

“My first recollections are of a very quiet and retiring young man who seemed to me very careless of himself and the sun, and disinclined to the use of an umbrella. He lived first in the small bungalow in Bishop Sargent’s compound, and soon the Bishop spoke of him as a Godson, meaning God-send to him, and we all began to look forward to his Bible-readings on the Friday afternoons at Bishop Sargent’s. His preaching, too, in English was always a feast.”

As to the Bible-classes for Hindus, Mr. Appaswami sets forth, after the manner of the old Indian gentleman, how he took the life of Christ for his subject:

“and discoursed with fascinating eloquence. The Christians who attended those remarkable Sunday classes were edified, and many Hindus were driven by the force of his arguments to acknowledge the Divinity of Christ. Whenever he was in Palamcottah in later years he was pressed to occupy the pulpit, and the news that he would preach in Tamil would always bring a large congregation.”

Canon Harcourt, of Ramsgate, adds a touch as telling as Mrs. Hayne’s recollection of the antipathy to umbrellas.

“He wrote home for nicely bound hymn-books, and one day surprised the missionary community, at that time unaccustomed to hymn-singing at its weekly gatherings, by cheerfully handing them round. Always afterwards those hymns had an honoured place. It was an innovation, but tactfully introduced. He was wisely chosen for a very difficult position, for he was so tactful and humble.”

The position was difficult. The brave old Bishop, worn out after long battling with a painful tropical malady borne with dogged heroism, needed nothing so much as a younger man of character alongside; but such a man had to be as self-effacing as he was independent in spirit if the plan were to work happily; it did work happily, which is all that need be said. But, as he afterwards recognised, the discipline of life under these new conditions was excellent, and he wrote some time later words which bear the mark of experience:

“God has not placed us here to please ourselves. Even Christ pleased not Himself. Our temper must be restrained and our pride humbled, and we must be content to esteem others better than ourselves. It is the little things of everyday life which most try us in this respect, and therefore it is in these little things of house and family life that we need to be most watchful.”

From the beginning it seemed to those who looked on as if there were a good deal of quiet patience at command, and of forethought to avoid or ensure against ruptures; but where these were inevitable, as was sometimes the case when new work had to be done in new ways, no inward sensitiveness to blame and misunderstanding, no wincing of the spirit from the scourge of the tongue could ever cause the slightest swerving from duty: the will once set was as adamant. “I do not mind what is said about myself, for there is only One to please,” he writes in his journal, about a trying episode in which, however, he had the Bishop’s sympathy. But he did all he could to put things straight, and at last could write:

“God, I trust, has settled the matter so that all shall live and work in loving harmony. I feel that I am the cause of the trouble, however unwittingly, and must seek for grace to walk circumspectly.”

The trouble in question did not recur, and in writing about it in a private letter he is eager to explain the position of the other side, and to make loving large allowances. “Don’t give it another thought,” was always his attitude towards such things, and a translation x which charmed him in 1912, might have been his motto in 1886 and onwards:

“Love does not parade her gifts.... She grasps not at her rights; refuses to take offence; has no memory for injuries. Love’s flower petals never fall.”

But perhaps in so writing we anticipate. From the first there had been a single inflexible purpose, a passionate pursuit after holiness. To quote old words, this soldier of the Cross took holiness for an invincible shield. But the bright side of the shield was not always turned to men. The poor, the suffering, and all the discerning of the little world in which he moved, 1 From Way’s Letters of St. Paul.

knew the friendliness of the heart behind it; to the outward ring of observers he was the strong man, the man of iron will, with a brain like a fine lens for perception, and a way about him which commanded respect even where it did not win affection, a force to be reckoned with, rather than a brother to be loved. Like another strong man, he had something of the Boanerges in him, and he had to go through his Patmos, as sooner or later all strong souls must. “Real even almost to sternness some times,” writes Bishop Morley, late of Tinnevelly, “he had one object in view which he followed to the end.” “Real even to sternness,” shows the man as he was, and continued to be, where sin which touched his Master’s honour was concerned. Real even to tenderness, was the side developed later.

Finally, a sentence from the Bishop of Mombasa, written October 1912, may complete this outward view of one who was always in his own eyes, less than the least:

“The opinion I formed of him then (before Bishop Sargent’s death) has never changed during the many years we have known each other: I knew him to be a man of God. What he has been to many in different parts of India will, I think, be summed up in this: A man of God to men, in many and in enriching ways.”

“Fear I was too harsh. The Bishop sweet and powerful,” is a characteristic sentence from the journal; there are many similar appreciations of fellow-workers’ work:

“Went out with F. to village preaching. Nice quiet crowd. F. spoke, and myself stammeringly, K. grandly. Last address full of power — Tamil sermon; Bishop preached on ‘How old art thou? ’ a grand sermon, with application to spiritual birth days. Evening service, H. preached on Mark x. 13. Little children our pattern for trust, humility, and purity. An address of power, going to my inmost self. — Bishop preached. Alas, I was absent-hearted during the prayers, but the sweet Gospel of the sermon sounded home-like to me. — F. on 2 Tim. iv. 8, a sermon which quite forcibly appealed to me. Came home, as often, feeling so sad and dissatisfied with self, as though I only half believe in Christ. Life a blank without Him, and yet where is my love for Him, my realisation of His presence in these services of privilege? Cannot tell others all I feel, but

He knows. Am I a missionary at all? — This evening missionary gathering addressed by Bishop on Col. iii. 12. Our need of humility, love. It all applied to me exactly. May I have new grace from to-night. H. spoke simply and sweetly on privilege of Gospel ministry. Feel more and more I am not real. Will nothing wake me up? — Bishop spoke on Joy of the Lord; very sweet and telling. F. addressed us on latter part of 1 John iii. very faithfully on love. Alas, how true of me in the light of such a passage! If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Admire F.’s sterling piety more and more. So thankful for genuineness of all our missionary party. Lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.”

There could be discriminating criticism, however:

“Much thoughtful matter, though somewhat speculative. Our guest preached on Psalm xxix. 10, but took P.B. version without even saying so, and gave us such a mixture: Christ is our peace, and yet He is not sufficient for our peace; we must cultivate peace. A lot of stuff about being sacramentally justified. But for the beam in my own eye I might well be grieved to-night; it was a painful service to me.” “A curious sermon, with no Christ in it,” is the most scathing criticism of the year.

About this time the Rev. F. E. Wigram, Hon. Secretary of the C.M.S., visited Tinnevelly:

“I was struck by the way in which he is looking under all the appearances of external success for real eternity work and consecrated life. — Mr. Wigram and son left to-day. Had a little talk about future prospects of work here with me before he went. Who is sufficient? His visit has been cheering and searching to me.”

But viewed quite impersonally, such visits were never in his opinion satisfactory: a home letter of November 5 touches upon this:

“He will go away with rosy ideas of it [Tinnevelly], for he only saw the show part of the work. I should like to trot him out into the heathen towns and Brahman villages, where the darkness is almost unbroken. However, that cannot be, for there is only time for the sights. I should say that his tour will fail just in this point. He is pressed for time, and so can only visit the chief mission stations. At each of them the missionary will be sure to have on his Sunday best for the occasion, and so he will carry away coloured ideas of missionary work. He ought to take a second tour, to see what is left undone. That would give the other side. We are thankful as we look back, and hopeful as we look forward. But it is quite a mistake to think that the Christian Church has made a very great impression on heathendom yet. Even in Palamcottah, for our hundreds of nominal Christians, we can show thousands of real heathen, and we are supposed to be in the very forefront of victory; while heathen Tinnevelly town, 3 miles away, reminds us forcibly enough that Satan still reigns in our midst.”

“Going diligently through C.M.S. report. Missionary work seeming so different when one is actually in India.”

Three days later:

“I finished reading C.M.S. report. Have thoroughly enjoyed it. The zeal of fellow - missionaries is inspiring. Hannington’s Life reached me to-day sent by mother: — thrilled with his life.... Finished Hannington’s Life, for which life, glory to Him Who made him what he became by grace.”

The first records of clerical duty in the new language are too ch aracteristic to omit:

“September 16, 1886. — Trying ordeal this morning. Baptised, with help from Tamil clergyman, a child in Tamil language. I was very nervous at this my first essay in official Tamil work” [” so nervous over it that my hand shook,” he writes in a home letter].

“May 1, 1887. — Day of calm and help. For the first time read Tamil prayers at our little service, not without nervousness.”

The reader will pardon a pause. To those who knew the writer of these entries only in later days it will appear almost incredible that there ever could have been nervousness; there was such apparently perfect ease in all “official” Tamil work that any sense of its being official was entirely lost, and his intense reverence of manner vitalised everything. For the Church Service, with its heritage of riches, was a delight to him, and he caused it to open out its wealth to others by the reverent, joyous, real way in which he dealt with it. Once in an hour of severe pain a friend sent for him. The sick-room was dark, for not a ray of light could be borne. “I only want the Te Deum,” was all that was said; and he repeated it slowly through. When the last stanza was reached, the room was bright with the mercy of the Lord.

And the first baptism: “Christ sent me not to baptise but to preach the Gospel,” was a not infrequently quoted word, and he was never anxious to baptise; but no one who after earnest preparation brought to him either little child or convert, will forget the sympathy and strong co-operation which quickened faith, until it did indeed “give form and substance” to the good things claimed. The first baptism has been recorded; the last has a pathos of its own. There had been brought to him three, a young Hindu woman and two little children, nurslings greatly beloved, “For I cannot enter into the blessings of the Covenant alone,” she had said. So they were baptised together, he stepping down into the water first, she following; and the children were brought to him last. So the last, as the first, to be welcomed by him into the outward and visible Church, was a little child.

All through those months the Sunday Bible-class was continued, and enquirers were taught when they could be helped in English. A baptism of the time was one of great interest. Some months previously a fire had broken out in the Tinnevelly theatre. There was the usual panic: many were burnt, or crushed to death in the mad rush for life.

“One youth tried to escape by climbing up the pagoda, laying hold of the little images with which the tower is studded,” says a home letter of the time. “When he had passed safely a little way, the image which he was grasping broke off, and he fell down and was killed. Part of the veshti [loin-cloth] still flutters on the tower to tell the tale.”

Only a few escaped, among them a young man who was dragged out alive from under a heap of charred corpses. Upon the following Sunday, at the hour of morning service, he with another young man attended the Christian church. The Bishop’s text was, “Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” his illustratiou, the late fire. The living “brand” was convicted and converted. At his baptism he chose the name Arputhajivi [miraculous life].

Faith is not hard to the new missionary. He expects tokens for good, and, thank God, sees them, though perhaps not often in such wise; so it was with quickened hope that the young Mahratta of the previous chapter was welcomed, when after withstanding all his father could do to draw him back, he confessed Christ openly and asked for baptism. “Hope he is true,” is one rather cautious entry; but in the opinion of those best able to judge he was true, and he was baptised. “He has my special interest,” is the entry in the journal the night before this baptism. What must the joy of that first sheaf have been? “Sweet first-fruits” are very sweet, and first-won spoils of battle something which can never be forgotten. For a time all went well; then, “saddened by unsatisfactoriness in Mahratta, seems certain he has fabricated wilful falsehoods all along,” and a letter to his sister says:

“One of our recently baptised youths, in whom I was greatly interested, has turned out a bad lot. Just one of those bitter drops which missionaries have to drink. Fair promise, and apparent sincerity covering over the fickle heart. I couldn’t help weeping about him. However, facts are facts, and we must be honest in declaring them.”

These, not the mere physical trifles of life, are the trials of the missionary, wounds which cut deep into the soul and leave scars that never heal.

“But there is no life like the missionary’s,” was the rejoicing testimony years afterwards; “My watch stopped on board ship on my way to England, it no more liked leaving home than I did,” he wrote in 1893: and yet for him, as for many another, the first months were haunted by that vague sense of profitlessness and loneliness which cannot be conquered, but has to be borne till the new roots grow, and life becomes full and rich again, fuller and richer than ever. Often in after years young missionaries fresh to the country, wondered at the quick intuition which seemed to divine what they felt, and met the unexpressed need by some kindly touch of sympathy, as likely as not unspoken, only shown; sympathy never of the maudlin “pity thyself” type, but of that bright, bracing character which tightens up the sinews of the soul. Such a gift, the gift of spiritual perception and power to speak the word in season to him that is weary, was, as the entries in the journal and a rare letter or two tell, the fruit of experience of that form of temptation which attacks one whose life has been crowded with work at home, when the tameness and the pettiness of first essays into usefulness tease the spirit with the sense of the trivial, and the temptation comes to lose sight of the joy on before, in the cloud of the lonely present: “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured” was a favourite word with him; but he learned by the things which he suffered:

“Presiding over Middle School examination [which meant sitting in a chair with a watchful eye upon the boys] a weary day of work which seems no work from missionary point of view. Yet even the monotonous ought to be consecrated.... Most of day spent in helping to sort things for Christmas tree. No Tamil done; been very idle. Conscious of spiritual declension, neglecting Creator-love, and yearning after creature-love. Sad feelings of solitude, inexcusable because He is enough, and gives me abundance of every good.... One of my down days: when shall I be satisfied with Christ alone? Trials and conflicts. Weary of the way, yet know that grace suffices. The still waters of Sabbath rest ahead. Unsatisfaction even in Christian society, none but Christ can satisfy. Walking, though among friends, in a solitary way. Feeling rather lonely and much dissatisfied with self. Sat on a bridge and thought and thought.”

He wrote to his sister:

“November 6. — I have been having rather a ’ down ’ time. Cessation from active service does not improve one’s spiritual tone, and I find everywhere in myself failure and unsatisfactoriness. What I am feeling the need of, is a real faith in the Person and Work of the Son of God, and a soul-absorbing communion with Him. Face to face with those who are ignorant of saving truth, you are obliged to see well to your own foundations. Love is our great object, love to Christ, producing love for perishing souls. May He shed it abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Who is given unto us. I enjoy my Sundays here thoroughly, such opportunities for laying study of other things aside and turning Godwards.”

And again in December:

“I am glad to hear of the mission stirs. These are times of great activity and privilege. Perhap,1; the danger lies now not so much on the side of lethargy as on that of neglecting the cultivation of personal religion. It is easy enough (at least so I find it) to go from one meeting to another, and to fill up the day busily with multifarious occupations, but it is not easy to live in the spirit of prayer and in continual drawing from one’s Bible. And, after all, it is not the great rush which accomplishes results, but the steady flow of spiritual power from on high.

“I get very disheartened about my Tamil. Sometimes I think that I never shall learn. Certainly, I shall never have that freedom in speaking it which we have in English. I am just beginning to be thoroughly tired of inaction, and don’t believe I can possibly endure another year of it. I must do something or other soon. However, God will guide. At least, I am having time to look into my own deadness of heart and unreality of life. I trust the outcome will be a more sincere faith and a more fervent love. I don’t think I ever had such despondent times before, as I have here sometimes, and I suppose it is because there is too much opportunity for brooding. There is nothing like preaching Christ to others for strengthening one’s own faith in Him.

“It is too terrible to think of eternal things, except as we kneel at the throne of grace, sprinkled as it is with the Saviour’s blood. Oh that Thou wouldst bless us indeed!”

But buried in the midst of self-searching and depression in the journal, there is a brave little word: “Brighter day; more reconciled to solitude;” and he wrote to his mother:

“Remember me to G. I wish he knew what a joy it is to be a servant of Christ. I would not exchange my lot, cast as it is so far from all I held dear, for that of the happiest at home. Surely a Saviour Who can bring us to this must be a reality.”

The heat tried a frame never robust, and built for a cool climate: “Anywhere but the tropics,” had been the dictum of one doctor; but when, as we have seen, the need had arisen in S. India, whatever doubts he may have entertained as to the sincerity of his “Anywhere,” the committee apparently had no such misgivings; so to India he was sent. But the soaking heat touched him in his weakest place, and private home letters and his journal show the struggle begun which continued to the end:

“The difficulty in a climate where nature is reluctant to read or pray, is to maintain proper communion with God. I always feel weary when bedtime comes and ready to lie down for a stretch; as Mr. Latham said, it is prose, not poetry.” “Did little, but tired enough by night.”

“These little things,” as he calls the smaller disabilities of life, were burdensome, as they seemed to hinder service. “Find my powers of endurance decreasing,” is a rather distressed entry; but the prayer of a certain Monday, following the joyful word, “Truly a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand,” was surely abundantly answered: “‘Only let me be strong enough for Thy work.”

Towards the middle of May 1887, Bishop Sargent pressed the final language examination, knowing that the ten months’ study had much more than covered the required ground. The journal, however, fears, as usual:

“May 18. — Appaswami Pillai kindly came to converse in Tamil, but somehow I lose all heart. A big struggle all this for me.... Eve of examination. Oh to be of some use in fulfilling the missionary command!

“May 19. — Tamil written examination under difficulties, for my head was bad all day.

“May 20. — Tamil examination again, written, and viva voce, so that all is finished except the conversation part. The Lord fit me for His service! Feel more and more the difficulty of acquiring Tamil. Another Tamil conversation with A. P.”

The viva voce was concluded a few days later. “Heat rather trying, but what cause for thankfulness!” On June 2nd there is this brief record: “Results of my examination known to-day. It pleased God to grant me an honourable pass.” His marks were 529 out of a possible 600.

“Truly God is good,” concludes the journal as it ends the story of the First Things; “and now wisdom for my coming work!”

“Oh, let me live in Thy realities,
Nor substitute my notions for Thy facts.”

GEORGE MACDONALD, Diary of an Old Soul.