Part 23 (1/2)
And now we have heard that she has gone, and we know, from watching what happened before, just what will happen now. How day by day they will sear that child's soul with red-hot irons, till it does not feel or care any more. And a child's seared soul is an awful thing.
Forgive us for words which may hurt and shock; we are telling the day's life-story. Hurt or not, shocked or not, should you not know the truth?
How can you pray as you ought if you only know fragments of truth? Truth is a loaf; you may cut it up nicely, like thin bread and b.u.t.ter, with all the crusts carefully trimmed. No one objects to it then. Or you can cut it as it comes, crust and all.
Think of that child to-night as you gather your children about you, and look in their innocent faces and their clear, frank eyes. Our very last news of her was that she had been in some way influenced to spread a lie about the place, first sign of the searing begun. I think of her as I saw her that first day, bright as a bird; and then of her as I saw her last, drugged on the floor; I think of her as she must be now, bright again, but with a different brightness--not the little girl I knew--never to be quite that little girl again.
Oh, comrades, do you wonder that we care? Do you wonder that we plead with you to care? Do you wonder that we have no words sometimes, and fall back into silence, or break out into words wrung from one more gifted with expression, who knew what it was to feel!
With such words, then, we close; looking back once more at that child on the floor, with the hands stretched out and the heavy eyes shut--and we know what it was they saw when they opened from that sleep--
”My G.o.d! can such things be?
Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done Unto Thy weakest and Thy humblest one, Is even done to Thee?
Hoa.r.s.e, horrible; and strong, Rises to heaven that agonising cry, Filling the arches of the hollow sky, HOW LONG, O G.o.d, HOW LONG?”
CHAPTER XXIX
What do we count them worth?
”If we are simply to pray to the extent of a simple and pleasant and enjoyable exercise, and know nothing of watching in prayer, and of weariness in prayer, we shall not draw down the blessing that we may. We shall not sustain our missionaries who are overwhelmed with the appalling darkness of heathenism. . . . We must serve G.o.d even to the point of suffering, and each one ask himself, In what degree, in what point am I extending, by personal suffering, by personal self-denial, to the point of pain, the kingdom of Christ? . . . It is ever true that what costs little is worth little.”
_Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, China._
SHE picked up her water-vessel, and stood surveying us somewhat curiously. The ways of Picture-catching Missie Ammals were beyond her.
Afterwards she sat down comfortably and talked. That was a year ago.
Then in the evening she and all her neighbours gathered in the market square for the open-air meeting. s.h.i.+ning of Life spoke for the first time. ”I was a Hindu a year ago. I wors.h.i.+pped the G.o.ds you wors.h.i.+p. Did they hear me when I prayed? No! They are dead G.o.ds. G.o.d is the living G.o.d! Come to the living G.o.d!”
One after the other the boys all witnessed that evening. Their clear boyish voices rang out round the ring. And some listened, and some laughed.
[Ill.u.s.tration: She picked up her water-vessel, and stood surveying us somewhat curiously.]
Behind us there was a little demon temple. It had a verandah barred down with heavy bars. Within these bars you could see the form of an idol.
Beside us there was a shrine. Someone had put our lanterns on the top of this pyramid shrine. Before us there was the ma.s.s of dark faces. Behind us, then, black walls, black bars, a black shape; before us the black meeting, black losing itself in black. Around us light, light s.h.i.+ning into the black. That was as it was a year ago. Now we are back at Dohnavur, and almost the first place we went to was this village, where we had taken the light and set it up in the heart of the dark. An earnest young schoolmaster had been sent to keep that light burning there, and we went expectantly. Had the light spread? We went straight to our old friend's house. She was as friendly as ever in her queer, rough, country way, but her heart had not been set alight. ”Tell me what is the good of your Way? Will it fill the cavity within me?” and she struck herself a resounding smack in the region where food is supposed to go. ”Will it stock my paddy-pots, or nourish my bulls, or cause my palms to bear good juice? If it will not do all these good things, what is the use of it?”
”If it is so important, why did you not come before?” The dear old woman who asked that lived here, and we searched through the labyrinthic courtyards to find her, but failed. The girl who listened in her pain is well now, but she says the desire she had has cooled. We found two or three who seem lighting up; may G.o.d's wind blow the flame to a blaze!
But we came back feeling that we must learn more of the power of prayer ourselves if these cold souls are to catch fire. We remembered how, when we were children, we caught the sunlight, and focussed it, and set bits of paper on fire; and we longed that our prayers might be a lens to focus the Love-light of our G.o.d, and set their souls on fire.
Just one little bit of encouragement may be told by way of cheer.
Blessing went off one day to see if the Village of the Warrior were more friendlily inclined, and Golden went to the Petra where they vowed they would never let us in. Before Blessing entered the village she knelt down under a banyan tree, and, remembering Abraham's servant, prayed for a sign to strengthen her faith that G.o.d would work in the place. While she prayed a child came and looked at her; then seeing her pray, she said, ”Has that Missie Ammal sent you who came here more than a year ago?” Blessing said ”Yes.” Then the child repeated the chorus we had taught the children that first day. ”None of us forget,” she said; and told Blessing how the parents had agreed to allow us to teach if ever we should return. The village had been opened. He goeth before.
Golden's experience was equally strengthening to our faith. In the very street where they held a public demonstration to cleanse the road defiled by our ”low-caste” presence, twenty houses have opened, where she is a welcome visitor. But all this is only for Love's sake, they say. They do not yet want Christ; so let us focus the light!
Then there is need for the fire of G.o.d to burn the cords that hold souls down. There is one with whom the Spirit strove last year when we were here. But a cord of sin was twined round her soul. She has a wicked brother-in-law, and a still more wicked sister, and together they plotted so evil a plot that, heathen though she is, she recoiled, and indignantly refused. So they quietly drugged her food, and did as they chose with her. And now the knot she did not tie, and which she wholly detested at first, seems doubly knotted by her own will. Oh, to know better how to use the burning-gla.s.s of prayer!
There may be a certain amount of sentiment, theoretically at least, in breaking up new ground. The unknown holds possibilities, and it allures one on. But in retracing the track there is nothing whatever of this.
The broad daylight of bare truth shows you everything just as it is.