Camp, July to December 1887

India, as every one knows, lives for the most part in villages and old remote country towns. Here the life of the land goes on as it has gone on for centuries, hardly affected by new influences, hardly enough concerned in them to care to awaken itself and respond. Not that it is asleep: there is an apparent sleep something like the sleep of a pool with big ancient trees round it; drop a stone into the pool and there is a ripple; wait, and all is very still. But underneath there is movement all the time, the pool is not asleep. So the villages and towns lie in the hot sunshine as if dreaming their lives away; and if they open to admit an occasional interruption from outside, it is only to close into quietness after its departure, and yet the busy, interesting life goes on underneath and the sleepiness is only apparent. Those who have lived in the midst of this old life know how full of agitation it can be, for all its upper surface of Oriental calm. Those who have had the chance to bring it something good and vital, know with what hope they approach it.

Camp life began on Tuesday, July 5. The day before was given up to preparation, packing of tents and sdmdn (impedi menta of all sorts). And that day this prayer from Bishop Andrews (1648) was copied down upon a half sheet of paper and slipped into the back of the journal:

“Be thou, 0 Lord, within me, to strengthen me; without me, to watch me; over me, to cover me; under me, to hold me up; before me, to lead me; behind me, to bring me back; round about me, to keep off mine enemies on every side.”

“Lord, go before,” is the last entry, written just as the jingle of bullock bells in the compound told all was ready for the start. “If Thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence.”

And now for the prosaic details:

“Tuesday 5th. — Travelled last night by moonlight to Kopalasamuttiram [the long name will inspire sympathy in the imaginative. Here is another, Sankaranainarkoil, a town visited later]. Found my tent pitched in nice tope [grove of trees]. Took possession of what is likely to be my house for the rest of my life. About 6 a.m. we went off to a preaching in the village; afterwards, at request of people, I conducted prayer in the little Christian church. Catechists came to assist us in our work here. Began to re-read my Hebrew Psalter when alone. After breakfast, prayers in tent, several of the village Christians joining us. Afterwards, being alone, I read three chapters in the Vishnu Purdnam. About 5 p.m. we went off to the Brahman quarter, about half-mile distant, but the Brahmans would not listen, so we had to leave them sadly. Then had a preaching in another spot with a fair crowd of people; addresses, taking subjects in order: Unity of God, Sin, One Way of Salvation. At 7 p.m. we had another service in church.

“I am not feeling a bit lonely, but only long for wisdom for the work.

“Wednesday, 6th. — Went off at about 6 a.m. to village about a mile distant; simple folk listening with fair attention. After wards went on with Psalter.

“Afternoon, some Brahman boys and youths to see me. Evening preaching, fair and attentive congregation. Afterwards went for prayer to Christian house.

“Thursday, 1th. — Rode on to Seval in moonlight. Open-air preaching at 6.45 a.m. Good, attentive crowd. Head after wards as on previous days. Showed Wordless Book to some children who came to tent. Evening preaching in open spot not far from Brahman quarter. Very large crowd, amongst whom many Brahmans. On the whole, capital attention, but oh for souls! Afterwards conducted prayers in Christian church. Freedom in Tamil, power to win souls: Lord, give me these!

“Friday, 8th. — Yesterday a catechist came to assist. Morning preaching at Klrseval. Little crowd, some listening patiently. Read as usual, including three chapters of Vishnu Purdnam. [A later entry is, ‘Finished Vishnu Purdnam, and thankful to put away such a mixture of abstruse nonsense and carnal impurity. How different Thy light and Thy truth! ‘]

Evening, preached at village about three miles north-west of this; fair crowd of humbler classes, with only a few Brabmane. Back just before dark.

“Saturday, $th. — Morning, went to a village about half a mile distant. Several Vellalars and group of lower orders. One man argued and interrupted much, but afterwards he was answered fully and listened to us willingly. Admitted that Hinduism is a ‘Way of spiritual starvation ’ and the Purdnas fiction. Keceived from me a copy of St. John’s Gospel, and the Guide of the Blind [poetical booklet which uses Hindu poets’ words to point towards truth]. May God make the former light to his soul. English mail reached me, all the sweeter for my tent loneliness. Evening, went to village about a mile distant, where there is a Brahman quarter. A fair number of Brahmans heard us gladly and without interruption or mockery. To-morrow we are to rest and mingle with the Christian congregation. Thank God for the Sabbath.

“Sunday, 10th. — Morning service at 8, conducted by the superintending schoolmaster in charge of congregation. What a contrast all is to the stately services of England, but the same Gospel. Second service at 12.30, at which I made my first essay in the way of a church Tamil sermon on Acts xi. 26: ‘Disciples first called Christians at Antioch.’ Not much leisure for private study, as visitors came to tent. A Brahman, several Muhammadans, etc., and a little company of Muhammadan children who would not be gainsaid, and to whom I had to show some pictures and try to tell some Bible stories. Evening service, 7.30; short, with nice clear address by Subamani on ‘Behold, the Bridegroom cometh.’ The Lord’s day, though under new circumstances.

“Monday, llth. — Morning preaching near the Seval Brahman quarter, attentive little audience of the intelligent classes. Visit from more Muhammadans with their local spiritual guide, an ignorant kind of man. They could tell us of no way of salvation in their religion, so we told them of Jesus. Preparing to move to Shermadevi; saw the tent down before I started. Evening to Pattumadai, on our way to Shermadevi for a preaching; good crowd. Bore our testimony and came away. Rode into Shermadevi just in time to see the tent arrive, and had to wait quietly till it was pitched.”

This first week’s journal is like a finger-nail sketch of life as the itinerator finds it. The colours were left to be painted in when their true values were determined. Enquirers, converts — these blessed later enrichments to the plain black and white of itinerating life — are indicated throughout the journal rather than clearly shown. For there are some colours which require time to prove them. Expose them too soon to the glare of the day, and you lose them for ever. But apart from that, it was almost comically true of him:

“Hints haunt me ever of a More beyond;
I am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete,
Of a completion oversoon assumed — Of adding up too soon.”

Tamil, as every true student will understand, is still as engrossing as ever. “Disheartened again over Tamil: can’t write idiomatically a bit,” is a journal entry; and to his sister he writes:

“It takes such a long time to get into the ins and outs of these Indian languages, and then, though you may know how to speak and what word to use, there is the enormous difficulty of proper pronunciation. However, on we go, trying and struggling.”

And later:

“When I reach Palamcottah, I shall, I think, spend five or six weeks there, for I want to have my munshi again and go on with Tamil study. I am only a stammerer in it yet, and it is an endless kind of language, which requires a lifetime’s study to do it justice.”

The writing and speaking of idiomatic Tamil became his strong point. “He knows our language better than we know it ourselves,” was the not infrequent remark of both scholar and rustic; and there is a true story extant to the effect that a pundit engaged to read with him, suddenly left his chair and sat on the ground at his feet, “for you are my pundit,” he said.

“The town where I am quartered,” continues a camp letter, “is a typical Tinnevelly town, street after street of mud-walled houses, all with their worst side turned to the street; little shops or bazaars here and there, cows and buffaloes wandering about at will, here and there a pariah dog snarling at you as you pass, fowls picking up what they may in the roadway, and so on.”

This shows a country town in its material aspect once and for all. Spiritually, it is usually a place of stagnation:

“Modern Hinduism, with its all-embracing idolatry and its theory of transmigration, just keeps its captives in peace; that is, a Satanic peace which can be broken effectually by none other save the Stronger One Whose word is truth and Whose Gospel is liberty,”

is how it struck the young itinerator. Years afterwards he put it thus: “Dead, deader, deadest. But I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life.”

There was a break caused by a passing illness, then a fresh tour with the ordinary routine and the varying experiences common to all such work: crowds, attentive and the reverse; visitors to the tent, hopeful talks, and hours when it seems as if words fell without effect; contact with Christians in the different camping villages; reading and prayer with Indian fellow-workers; daily Tamil study, and that which was meat and drink to their leader, his own private Bible study in Hebrew, Greek, and English. Often a day’s record ends with the very prayer of the heart: “Oh for power to exalt Christ! Oh to be filled for a witness’s work, purified, empowered! Oh to yearn for souls!”

The life was packed with opportunity, for it dealt with all sorts and conditions of men. “The message is to all,” he used to say; and he had no sympathy with any mission policy which concentrated upon one class to the exclusion of another. The band went to every separate quarter in every town and village visited, in so far as time allowed; and as in South India each separate caste, or at least group of castes, lives in its own quarter, this meant that the men of each were, so far as might be, effectively reached. The fact that some are harder to win than others was never accepted by him as a reason for passing them by; though ho used the accessibility of those others as a great opportunity.

“July 22. — Morning preaching to the goldsmith caste; a nice quiet crowd. Later a catechist came to help. By his advice suddenly changed plans for evening; went to catch the fete-seers at Pavanasam [place of expiation of sin, a fine waterfall under the Ghauts frequented by pilgrims]. Catechists set off at once. I started pony -back at 3 p.m. Preached by roadside and amidst passers-by; not a few listened patiently. Afterwards went to see the famous fish [pretty golden-coloured things] which literally swarm in the stream at Pavanasam. Crowds of people. Scenery lovely.

“July 23. — Morning, off at about 5 a.m. towards Pavanasam again. All the people had journeyed over night; but we had preaching in the neighbouring places, finishing up with a grand crowd at the verandah of a large house of the Zemindar, the land owner, who kindly received me. Good attendance all through. Sun very hot and blazing, and knocked me up badly. Evening preaching to good crowds of weavers, good attention. One man of some power objected in Sanskrit-Tamil. We let him speak, and afterwards he left us in possession of the field.”

The training of the little band of catechists and the helping forward in spiritual ways of other Indian fellow-workers was a work in itself. There was one who spoke too stiffly, as if reading an address; and another whose appeal was like “that of the heathen, all to the senses rather than conscience.” Sometimes the early start, necessary in camp life if the labouring classes are to be caught on their way to the fields, was a difficulty. “Troubled because catechists were not ready. Don’t like to be hard, but all ought to be well prepared by 6.30 a.m.” But the whole tenor of the record is: “Getting a little glimpse of the awful lack in myself.”

Sometimes the usual baffling arguments, which are no arguments, stopped the preaching.

“While we were in the Vellalar and Brahman quarters, were invited into the school there. A good assembly inside; many educated Vellalars. D. [an Indian brother] spoke, and then they began to object. One man, evidently bent on puzzling us, asked about the nature of angels, the origin of sin, etc.; unless we could explain all these, he would not believe Christianity to be true. He would not hear me reply; so we had to leave them, while we insisted on the free agency of man and the fact that God is not the author of sin. ‘The world by wisdom knew not God.”

“September 10. — Morning and evening open-air at Srivaikimtham, large heathen town just across river. Good crowds drawn together, chiefly, I imagine, by curiosity at seeing an Englishman sitting in their streets. Strikes me as thoroughly heathen place in fullest sense. In evening helped by Christian vakil [court pleader], a man of power in Tamil speaking, and the C.M.S. schoolmaster. Finished up at entrance to a mud-walled fort, inhabited by a curious people whose women are never allowed to go out and whose men wear long earrings. Written up on walls of houses here and there through the town, are words denoting the fact that a man about six months ago gave it out that a certain god had appeared to him and commanded him to announce that he was coming to save and destroy. The man wrote it up on the street walls, and refused in spite of Government orders to take it down. Had been getting oppressed by heat, but God sent a grand wind out of His treasury.

“September 11. — Devanayagam [Indian fellow-worker] had a young man enquirer. Encouraging case. A happy day was spent with the Christians in the adjoining village. They were encouraged to try and evangelise their Hindu neighbours, and an open-air meeting was held, attended by a good crowd squatting on the church steps and all around.

“September 14. — Morning to Piragasapuram. Preaching to heathen there. Too much distressed by heat to do anything much to-day. Evening preaching to heathen, afterwards to Christians. There is a curious schism here, a joining of observance of law of Moses with Gospel.

“August 6. — Off by 4.30 a.m. Rode over to Kuttalam, where I arrived about 6.15, to find Bishop Sargent. Quiet, lazy day. Quite strange to be in a bungalow with friends again. Looking forward to happy Sabbath.

“August 24. — All Europeans in Kuttalam going for picnic to Tekmalai. I joined them. Picnic as usual, pleasant climbing and good exercise, but nothing of profit to the soul. Must risk offence in future and desist.”

The days in headquarters between returning from camp and setting out again were filled with the usual little things of life:

“Busy day seeing callers, dispensing moneys, preparing mathematical papers for Tinnevelly C.M.S. College. Bustle, but how little done! Another leisureless day, making up accounts, seeing callers, preparing for another tour. Feel anything but up to going in a quiet, restful spirit to the work.”

But in the next camp the joy of joys was granted:

“A young man, who has been reading about Christianity and has induced two or three others to do the same, was, I trust, stirred to make a definite decision to become a Christian. ...”

Tiruchendur, a strong Hindu fortress, was visited in September:

“Much rude opposition, though some spoke kindly. Saddened, for here idolatry appears in the very faces of many. Oh for the mind of Christ!”

“September 23. — Out round the town. Much opposition again, but got quiet hearings. Visit from the temple poet, and an old man, a Vedanti [one skilled in the school of Pantheism known as the Vedanta system], a very pleasing man, but quite set on his idea of religion. Evening, out again first in the Brahman quarter, where they listened to me kiudly, then on to a new station, where we were followed by some young Brahmans and others, with printed papers from Madras against Christianity. Much time consumed in answering them, after which we were left in peace to pursue our preaching course, the people evidently regarding us with no feeling of friendliness. The Lord turn their hearts. Have felt to-day that it is a real fight with Satan. Oh to be strong in Christ!”

A home letter tells the story of that morning in more detail. It was a time of special disturbance, which passed when the dissemination of violently anti-Christian literature ceased:

“This opposition reached its climax on the last morning of our stay in Tiruchendur. We had crossed one of the long Brahman streets into a little shepherd quarter close at hand. The Brahman youths followed us in force, this time not for a counter preaching, but bent on a more direct and active molestation. A scene of confusion ensued. They attempted to drown our Christian lyrics by boisterous shouts and songs. Stones were flung, one of which struck me in the back; a young Brahman took a handful of earth and threw it up in my face. I singled out an old Brahman who was standing near, and tried to explain that they were quite mistaking the meaning and purpose of preaching, for we were friends, not foes. He was somewhat wrathful, but eventually quieted down, and he and I conversed together. We came away, knelt down together in the little stone madam or rest-house where I was quartered, and prayed, ‘Now, Lord, grant unto Thy servants that with all boldness they may speak Thy word.’ And will not you unite your voice with ours in the old missionary prayer, ‘Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies! ’ in Tiruchendur, in Tinnevelly, in India at large, in any and every land?”

“September 24. — Morning, our last round in Tiruchendur. No open objectors, though still something of ridicule; however,

’ for a witness.’ Evening, across sand, sand, sand, to V,

where only a handful of Christians, all the rest heathen.”

“Rather a lazy day, somewhat weary,” is the summing up of a day spent in visiting four separate villages. “Good hearings, but oh to find souls who feel their sins!” A book on optics proved refreshing in the hot middle hour, and then came an effort to lead the poor, distressed Christians of the place into the ways of peace:

“A noisy day and a very sad one. The sub-Magistrate, after ordering a notice to stop the Roman procession from fetch ing a bride from our mission village, altered it, to the great grief, and, alas! anger of our people. Oh that we may learn that true victory consists not in such things, but in being humble followers of the Lamb and walkers in His light! Evening, noisy proceedings, the Romanists carrying out their procession under Magistrate’s order. Afterwards, some of our people to see me, and I tried to appease them and prayed with them. Lord, give us a day of rest after these storms.”

“Sunday, October 2. — A day of mingled joy and sorrow; sorrow, because many of our Christians kept away from church vexed by the procession of yesterday.

“October 16. — Saddened by finding my servants, on getting home from church, packing a sdmdn bandy [bullock cart for luggage] in direct contradiction to my orders. Obliged to be firm and severe about it. Oh to love, and see all men love this holy day of rest!”

The determination to keep the Lord’s Day holy necessitated forethought on Saturday, and it was here the servants had probably failed. It also involved an early start for work on Monday morning, if the new camp were to be reached before the heat of the sun made riding dangerous. Sometimes in later years, notably in connection with attendance at court fixed for Monday, irrespective, of course, of missionary convenience, a start had to be made just after midnight on Sunday. But it was an understood thing that the packing must be done on Saturday, and that no bandy came into the compound until it was fairly Monday morning. Never was a less legal spirit, but never one more sensitive to the right of others to enjoy the whole unbroken day of rest.

Next morning, after that doubtless decisive encounter with the servants, the record runs:

“Off early. Preached en route (for camp); nothing of opposition. Then on to Alvaneri, where is a church and pastor. At noon, church service for Christians, good attendance; preached as well as I was able on ‘I obtained mercy.’ ‘:

The opposition of the previous month continued:

“If it is a sign of a spirit of opposition excited on the part of a failing cause, we must hail it with delight,” he writes early in October. “At least I trust that it will lead some to search our Scriptures for themselves to see whether these things be so. There is no doubt that we are arriving at times of conflict in India. The youths educated largely in Government schools, where no religious instruction is given, are naturally prejudiced against the religion of the conquering race; and, alas! their prejudice is often strengthened by our own countrymen here. However, we must seek with faith and patience to set forth the Lord and Saviour before the people of India. And, after all, opposition is better than indifference. The too long lethargy of the Christian Church has done much, humanly speaking, to retard the work. But I trust that she is waking up at last and bracing herself for the coming missionary struggle. Mr. Wigram will doubtless be used of God to quicken the flame of missionary zeal at home; though, after all, his brief glance at each field as he passed through, could hardly have put him in possession of the real facts of the case. He will look upon Tinnevelly as a province containing a large Christian Church, because that is the phase of it which passed beneath his notice; whereas I look on it as a heathen province, with its large towns and higher classes scarcely touched, containing a native Church, large it is true, but needing much speedy attsntion if it is to be living and powerful. We must have more missionaries, I feel sure, but they ought not to be stationed any more as chief pastors to the native Church. Rather they should be continually moving about amongst heathen and Christian alike, with one aim and one message as they pass from place to place — to set forth Christ Jesus, the sinner’s Saviour and the believer’s Lord.”

Late October, the rainy season saw a return made to headquarters, and another vigorous onslaught upon the Tamil language. Then in one of the brief spells of fine weather, set like jewel days in the gloom of the monsoon, camp again.

The Tinnevelly district (Tirunelveli is its real name, Tiru = holy, nel = un husked rice, veli = hedge, Tinnevelly being an English adaptation) forms with the kingdom of Travancore the most southern portion of India. It is divided from Travancore by the Western Ghauts, a splendid range of mountains which sweep in semicircles down to the sea, dropping suddenly all but into the glorious blue. A river cuts it into two unequal parts, the Solen of the Greeks in the days of Ptolemy; but previous to that date and now, the Tamraparm, a rushing, beautiful river in flood -time, at other times a waste of sand, with a trickle of sleepy water in the middle. On either side of the river there is, in the season of young rice, a broad ribbon of emerald, “living green” is the only descriptive word. Great evergreen trees stand in groups about the river bed, and lead in noble avenues to towns almost as wholly Hindu as they were before the name of Christ was heard in India. Each town has its temple with the carved towers peculiar to the south; round about stands the agrahdram, the Brahman quarter, brain of the town as the temple is its heart. At a little distance live the other castes, fringe beyond fringe, till the outermost is reached; dependencies, controlled in some measure by the will of the brain within, and influenced to the furthest extremity by that which stands for heart. In some of these towns there are little congregations of Christians; but these are chiefly mission workers, for the harvest of Tinnevelly has been gathered from the sands beyond the green ribbons that lie across the land. In the south the oasis ends in terra-cotta coloured sand, dotted all over with the tall, straight palmyra palms; in the north there are miles of black cotton soil. On the sand in the south, camp was pitched that November, and letters went out from the edge of the desert to the Mpwapwas of London:

“This is a sandy region, hillocks of sand having drifted up under the action of the wind from the river, which is not far away. The land is good around, off the sand, and is under cultivation, and these two things, a neighbouring river and rich lands, always mean in our district that there are settlements of Brahmans. For they look out mainly for these two desiderata in their choice of location: a river, where they can perform their daily ablutions according to their shastras, without let or hindrance; and rich lands, where they may procure food, and by means of which they may accumulate wealth. Accordingly, there are many Brahman agrahdrams round this neighbourhood on both sides of the river.

“In some respects South India is the most conservative part of the Empire; and Tinnevelly forms no exception to this general statement. Brahmanism therefore has one of its strong holds here; and caste feeling, that great enemy to true Gospel brotherhood, is nowhere stronger than in the Tinnevelly province. Agraharams are often inaccessible to a European, and except in the larger towns, there is no thoroughfare through them. The itinerating missionary must therefore be content to take his station at the extremity of their streets, and trust their curiosity or courtesy to come and listen to the stranger’s message. The prevalence of caste necessitates much prudence in our modes of work, that the Gospel, and the witness to the Gospel, be not hindered by avoidable mistakes.

“My own impression after careful observation is that the Hindu philosophy, so far as it has touched the mass at all, has induced a cold and heartless manner of thinking about things Divine. Many a man with whom I have spoken has argued about the origin of sin (that sin which grieves and wounds true Chris tian souls beyond the power of words to tell) with as little heart and as much wit as though he were dealing with the most abstruse and amusing of hypotheses. People, for the most part, hear our message well and quietly. But one looks almost in vain for a conscience of sin and sense of need. The Brahman is lulled to sleep by his pride of caste and his religion of works.”

The journal touches upon various phases of life:

“November 21. — A Christian meeting in Appaswami Pillai’s house. Nice attendance. K. spoke, giving a nice, personal testimony about his conversion. Then myself, inviting the cooperation of friends in our work, and then A. P. Feeling strongly that we must begin with the Christians, and therefore with oneself.

“November 23. — In camp again. Had a good dip into Westcott’s Canon of the New Testament, which I have neglected for some years. Strange to wander back to those mysterious sub-Apostolic days. The evening of that day was spent among the Brahmans, then the Pallars (at the opposite end of the social scheme), and then in a preaching for all and sundry near the tent.

“November 26. — Palamcottah-wards. Preaching en route. Rode into Palamcottah, where arrived about 10 o’clock. Carr arrived by Madras mail; a thoroughgoing, warm Christian. Afternoon spent in going a round of visits with him. Evening, a visit from a young Brahman, formerly of C.M.S. College, who seems really convinced and moving. Long talk with him about O.T. types of Christ, and Jesus as the Saviour.

“November 30. — Missionary party prayer-meeting, bearing the different countries before God. Starting to-night for Nanguneri. Oh to go in the Spirit!”

Nanguneri proved then, as now, strong in resistance. “When will the light dawn in dark Nanguneri?” It was a woman who asked the question twelve years afterwards, the only Christian woman in the town. There is not at the date of writing, one resident Christian, native to the place; it is still dark Nanguneri.

“In some parts of the town the people listened well,” says the journal; “but afterwards objections, even rudeness. Surely there is something wrong in the messengers?”

The people in this part of the district were as a whole then much as they are now; sometimes there was attention, sometimes entire indifference. In Kalakadu, a town of temples and shrines just under the hills, an old Brahman said, “We know that Christianity is true, but what can we do as Brahmans? How can we join it?” Some Brahmans have “joined,” but as a caste the word is still, “How can we?”

In December, as rain was incessant, a move was made for the Dohnavur bungalow, and that first evening as it cleared, the band visited the little Hindu village at the gate. “Found the people rather hardened,” he wrote in his journal. Never yet has a convert come from the village at the gate.

On December llth, he who was to preach so often there preached his first sermon in the Dohnavur church. It is a simple, old-fashioned building, so bare and plain that, as a Hindu observed upon entering it for the first time, “there is no place where an idol could be hidden.” In this church, with its doors opening off the village life, and its windows looking out upon the everlasting hills, the text of the first sermon rang forth that day, “Be ye also ready.” Then back to the mission bungalow, set among tamarind and margosa trees, its tiled roof showing from the church tower a strip of red among green. And the word which closes the record of the first Sabbath, passed in what a guest once called the Place of Peace, sounds like the first chord of a song, “A day of rest and quiet and happiness.” And he wrote to a friend:

“Seek amidst the distractions of a busy life to cultivate that spirit of rest in Him, without which all our work is done in vain, however energetic it may seem to be.”

It was as if the peace of the place fell upon him even then; and it was while he was walking up and down the compound, with the everlasting hills in view, that he wrote his Tamil adaptation of Mrs. Cousin’s hymn, “The sands of time are sinking.”

Dohnavur in the wet season (mid October to early December) is compassed about on the east and north by wide marshes and shallow expanses of water. A mountain torrent racing down a rocky bed isolates it on the west and south. Itinerating work in the rain is therefore almost impracticable. But when weather allowed, the villages and towns within a ten-mile circuit were visited, and almost everywhere the people heard well.

Upon very wet days Tamil study and letter- writing filled the time. One of these first Dohnavur letters tells of an opportunity given in the neighbouring town of Kalakadu, a stronghold of Hinduism, famous for its temple and long Brahman street set against a background of mountains.

“The Brahmans there challenged me to a public discussion, and we had about two hours of argument, in which I mainly took the offensive. It was all conducted in a friendly manner, and some things they could not answer at all. But, alas! it is all a curious speculation to them. They have no heart in it. To eat and sleep and perform the prescribed daily rites, these make up the life of the average Brahman. There is no sense of sin, no knowledge of self, no desire for true holiness. Still, such opportunities give me the privilege of setting Gospel truths before them. “My dream, if I must call it so, is to have two European bachelor missionaries, going forth together and working together as itinerants, keeping each other glowing by true Christian communion. It ought not to be impossible, and it would be so helpful when we seek to attack large heathen towns where there is something like real opposition. The work amongst Christians in itself presents a wide field of labour, and the two modes of work may very well be carried on side by side by men who are kept free from secular cares.”

He was very keen on music as a help to work of all kinds, and in after years heartily welcomed and translated or re-made numbers of choruses for open-air meetings, which, set to simple old African airs, caught the Indian ear, and were passed on and over the district with correctness unusual where English music is concerned. “How people managed to collect and hold together crowds without such help it is difficult for me to conceive,” he wrote in 1887; and among the delightful later-time pictures left in many a Tamil lad’s memory is one of him on the floor, in the midst of the C.M.S. schoolboys on Sunday afternoons in Pannaivilai and Dohnavur, clapping his hands to keep time, while tambourines and cymbals clattered and jingled all about him, and the player at the baby organ found it difficult to keep up with what sometimes had a way of ending in a rather mad race. He loved the stately hymns of our Church books, and revelled in good, beautiful music; but he would say some times, with a half apology, “I do like the other sort sometimes. Let’s have ‘Praise the Saviour, ye who know Him! ‘” and the rhyme would be sung to a tune far from classic, and he would throw back his head and join in with entirely un -self conscious enthusiasm.

Upon Christmas Eve the band dispersed. The day fell upon Sunday. “Two lights in one, a double star,” as the journal says. “Oh for a grip, real and mighty, of its truth!”

“If any came to him with difficulties of conscience or belief, he would give much time to writing or talking with them; and would, as it were, take them by the hand and endeavour to lead their minds into some quiet place.”

JOSEPH LAEMOE, Memoir of Sir George Gabriel Stokes.

1888]