Lotus Buds Part 5

Old Devai keeps a brave heart. When she comes to see us, she cheers herself by nursing the cheerful little people she brought to us, small and wailing and not very hopeful. She is full of reminiscences on these occasions. "Ah," she will say, addressing an astonished two-year-old, "the devil and all his imps fought for you, my child!" This is unfamiliar language to the baby; but Devai knows nothing of our modern ideas of education, and considers crude fact advisable at any age. "Yes, he fought for you, my child. I was sitting on the verandah of the house wherein you lay, and I was preaching the Gospel of the grace of G.o.d to the women, when five devils appeared. Yea, five were they, one older and four younger. Men were they in outward shape, but within them were the devils. I had nearly persuaded the women to let me have you, my child; and till they fully consented, I was filling up the interval with speech, for no man shall shut my mouth. And the women listened well, and my heart burned within me--for it was life to me to see them listening--when lo! those devils came--yea, five, one older and four younger--sent by their master to confound me. And they rose up against me and turned me out, and told the women folk not to listen; and you--I should never get you, said they; and so it appeared, for with such is might, and their master waxes furious when he knows his time is short.

But the Lord on high is mightier than a million million devils, and what are five to Him? He rose up for me against them and discomfited them"--Devai does not go into secular particulars--"and so you were delivered from the mouth of the lion, my child!"

We are not anxious that our babies should know too much ancient history.

Enough for them that they are in the fold--

I am Jesus' little lamb, Happy all day long I am; He will keep me safe from harm, For I'm His lamb--

is enough theology for two-year-olds; but Devai's visits are not so frequent as to make a deep impression, and the baby thus addressed, after a long and unsympathetic stare, usually scrambles off her knee and returns unscathed to her own world.

CHAPTER XI

G.o.d Heard: G.o.d Answered

OLD Devai, with her vivid conversation about the one old devil and four younger, does not suggest a conciliatory att.i.tude towards the people of her land. And it may be possible so to misinterpret the spirit of this book as to see in it only something unappreciative and therefore unkind.

So it shall now be written down in sincerity and earnestness that nothing of the sort is intended. The thing we fight is not India or Indian, in essence or development. It is something alien to the old life of the people. It is not allowed in the Vedas (ancient sacred books). It is like a parasite which has settled upon the bough of some n.o.ble forest-tree--on it, but not of it. The parasite has gripped the bough with strong and interlacing roots; but it is not the bough.

We think of the real India as we see it in the thinker--the seeker after the unknown G.o.d, with his wistful eyes. "The Lord beholding him loved him," and we cannot help loving as we look. And there is the Indian woman hidden away from the noise of crowds, patient in her motherhood, loyal to the light she has. We see the spirit of the old land there; and it wins us and holds us, and makes it a joy to be here to live for India.

The true India is sensitive and very gentle. There is a wisdom in its ways, none the less wise because it is not the wisdom of the West. This spirit which traffics in children is callous and fierce as a ravening beast; and its wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. . . . And this spirit, alien to the land, has settled upon it, and made itself at home in it, and so become a part of it that nothing but the touch of G.o.d will ever get it out. We want that touch of G.o.d: "Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke." That is why we write.

For we write for those who believe in prayer--not in the emasculated modern sense, but in the old Hebrew sense, deep as the other is shallow.

We believe there is some connection between knowing and caring and praying, and what happens afterwards. Otherwise we should leave the darkness to cover the things that belong to the dark. We should be for ever dumb about them, if it were not that we know an evil covered up is not an evil conquered. So we do the thing from which we shrink with strong recoil; we stand on the edge of the pit, and look down and tell what we have seen, urged by the longing within us that the Christians of England should pray.

"Only pray?" does someone ask? Prayer of the sort we mean never stops with praying. "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it," is the prayer's solemn afterword; but the prayer we ask is no trifle. Lines from an American poet upon what it costs to make true poetry, come with suggestion here:--

Deem not the framing of a deathless lay The pastime of a drowsy summer day.

But gather all thy powers, and wreck them on the verse That thou dost weave. . . .

The secret wouldst thou know To touch the heart or fire the blood at will?

Let thine eyes overflow, Let thy lips quiver with the pa.s.sionate thrill.

"Arise, cry out in the night; in the beginning of the night watches pour out thine heart like water before the Lord; lift up thine hands towards Him for the life of thy young children!"

The story of the children is the story of answered prayer. If any of us were tempted to doubt whether, after all, prayer is a genuine transaction, and answers to prayer no figment of the imagination--but something as real as the tangible things about us--we have only to look at some of our children. It would require more faith to believe that what we call the Answer came by chance or by the action of some unintelligible combination of controlling influences, than to accept the statement in its simplicity--G.o.d heard: G.o.d answered.

In October, 1908, we were told of two children whose mother had recently died. They were with their father in a town some distance from Dohnavur; but the source from which our information came was so unreliable that we hardly knew whether to believe it, and we prayed rather a tentative prayer: "If the children exist, save them." For three months we heard nothing; then a rumour drifted across to us that the elder of the two had died in a Temple house. The younger, six months old, was still with her father. On Christmas Eve our informant arrived in the compound with his usual unexpectedness. The father was near, but would not come nearer because the following day being Friday (a day of ill-omen), he did not wish to discuss matters concerning the child; he would come on Sat.u.r.day.

On Sat.u.r.day he came, carrying a dear little babe with brilliant eyes.

She almost sprang from him into our arms, and we saw she was mad with thirst. She was fed and put to sleep, and hardly daring yet to rejoice (for the matter was not settled with the father), we took him aside and discussed the case with him. There were difficulties. A Temple woman had offered a large sum for the child, and had also promised to bequeath her property to her. He had heard, however, that we had little children who had all but been given to Temples, and he had come to reconnoitre rather than to decide.

The position was explained to him. But the Temple meant to him everything that was worshipful. How could anything that was wrong be sanctioned by the G.o.ds? The child's mother had been a devout Hindu; and as we went deeper and deeper into things with him, it was evident he became more and more reluctant to leave the little one with us. "Her mother would have felt it shame and eternal dishonour." We were in the little prayer-room, a flowery little summer-house in the garden, when this talk took place. On either side are the nurseries, and playing on the wide verandahs were happy, healthy babes; their merry shouts filled the s.p.a.ces in the conversation. Sometimes a little toddling thing would find her way across to the prayer-room, and break in upon the talk with affectionate caresses. To our eyes everything looked so happy, so incomparably better than anything the Temple house could offer, that it was difficult to adjust one's mental vision so as to understand that of the Hindu beside us, to whose thought all the happiness was as nothing, because these babes would be brought up without caste. In the Temple house caste is kept most carefully. If a Temple woman breaks the rules of her community she is out-casted, excommunicated. "You do not keep caste! you do not keep caste!" the father repeated over and over again in utter dismay. It was nothing to him that the babes were well and strong, and as happy as the day was long; nothing to him that cleanliness reigned, so far as constant supervision could ensure it, through every corner of the compound. We did not profess to keep caste; we welcomed every little child in danger of being given to Temples, irrespective altogether of her caste. All castes were welcome to us, for all were dear to our Lord. This was beyond him; and he declared he would never have brought his child to us, had he understood it before. "Let her die rather! There is no disgrace in death." As he talked and expounded his views, he argued himself further and further away from us in spirit, until he became disgusted with himself for ever having considered giving the baby to us. All this time the baby lay asleep; and as we looked at the little face and noted the "mother-want," the appealing expression of pitiful weariness even in sleep, it was all we could do to turn away and face the almost inevitable result of the conversation. Once the father, a splendid looking man, tall and dignified, rose and stood erect in sudden indignation. "Where is the babe? I will take her away and do as I will with her. She is my child!"

We persuaded him to wait awhile as she was asleep, and we went away to pray. Together we waited upon G.o.d, whose touch turns hard rocks into standing water, and flint-stone into a springing well, beseeching Him to deal with that father's heart, and make it melt and yield. And as we waited it seemed as if an answer of peace were distinctly given to us, and we rose from our knees at rest. But just at that moment the father went to where his baby slept in her cradle, and he took her up and walked away in a white heat of wrath.

The little one was in an exhausted condition, for she had not had suitable food for at least three days. It was the time of our land-winds, which are raw and cold to South Indian people; and it seemed that the answer of peace must mean peace after death of cold and starvation. It would soon be over, we knew; twenty-four hours, more or less, and those great wistful eyes would close, and the last cry would be cried. But even twenty-four hours seemed long to think of a child in distress, and her being so little did not make it easier to think of her dying like that. So on Sunday morning I shut myself up in my room asking for quick relief for her, or--but this seemed almost asking too much--that she might be given back to us. And as I prayed, a knock came at the door, and a voice called joyously, "Oh, Amma! Amma! Come! The father stands outside the church; he has brought the baby back!"

But the child was almost in collapse. Without a word he dropped the cold, limp little body into our arms, and prostrated himself till his forehead touched the dust. We had not time to think of him, we hardly noted his extraordinary submission, for all our thought was for the babe. There was no pulse to be felt, only those far too brilliant eyes looked alive. We worked with restoratives for hours, and at last the little limbs warmed and the pulse came back. But it was a bounding, unnatural pulse, and the restlessness which supervened confirmed the tale of the brilliant eyes--the little babe had been drugged.

From that day on till our Prayer-day, January 6th, it was one long, unremitting fight with death. We wrote to our medical comrade in Neyoor, and described the symptoms, which were all bad. He could give us little hope. Gradually the brilliance pa.s.sed from the eyes, and they became what the Tamils call "dead." The film formed after which none of us had ever seen recovery. Then we gathered round the little cot in the room we call Tranquillity, and we gave the babe her Christian name Vimala, the Spotless One; for we thought that very soon she would be without spot and blameless, another little innocent in that happy band of innocents who see His Face.

On the evening of the 5th, friends of our own Mission who were with us seemed to lay hold for the life of the child with such fresh earnestness and faith, that we ourselves were strengthened. Next morning we believed we saw a change in the little deathlike face, and that evening we were sure the child's life was coming back to her.

It was not till then we thought of the father, who, after signing a paper made out for him by our pastor, who is always ready to help us, had returned to his own town. When we heard all that had occurred we saw how our G.o.d had worked for us. It was not fear of his baby's death that had moved the man to return to us. "What is the death of a babe? Let her die across my shoulders!" He was not afraid of the law. After all persuasions had failed, we had tried threats: the thing he purposed to do was illegal. The Collector (chief magistrate) would do justice. "What care I for your Collector? How can he find me if I choose to lose myself? How can you prove anything against me?" And in that he spoke the truth. There are ways by which the intention of the law concerning little children can be most easily and successfully circ.u.mvented. Our pleadings had not touched him. "Is she not my child? Was her mother not my wife? Who has the right to come between this child of mine and me her father?" And so saying he had departed without the slightest intention of coming back again. But a Power with which he did not reckon had him in sight; and a Hand was laid upon him, and it bent him like a reed. We hope some ray of a purer light than he had ever experienced found its way into his darkened soul, and revealed to him the sin of his intention. But we only know that he left his child and went back to his own town. G.o.d had heard: G.o.d had answered.

CHAPTER XII

To what Purpose?

AMONG the closest of our little children's friends is one whose name I may not give, lest her work should be hindered; for in this work of saving the little ones, though we have the sympathy of many, we naturally have to meet the covert opposition of very many more, and it is not well to give too explicit information as to the centres of supply. This dear friend's help has been invaluable. From the first she has stood by us, interesting her friends, Indian and English, in the children, and stirring them into practical co-operation. Then, when the babies have been saved and had to be cared for and sent off, she made nothing of the trouble, and above all she has never been discouraged.

Sometimes things have been difficult. Some have doubted, and many have criticised, and even the kindest have lost heart. This friend has never lost heart.

For not all the chapters of the Temple children's story can be written down and printed for everyone to read. We think of the unwritten chapters, and remember how often when the pressure was greatest the thought of that undiscouraged comrade has been strength and inspiration.

No one except those who, in weakness and inexperience, have tried to do something not attempted before can understand how the heart prizes sympathy just at the difficult times, and how such brave and steadfast comradeship is a thing that can never be forgotten.

Among the babies saved through this friend's influence was one with a short but typical story.

The little mite was seen first in her mother's arms, and the mother was standing by the wayside, as if waiting. Something in her att.i.tude and appearance drew the attention of an Indian Christian, whom our friend had interested in the work, and she got into conversation with the mother, who told her that her husband had died a fortnight before the baby's birth, and she, being poor though of good caste, was much exercised about the little one's future. How could she marry her properly? She had come to the conclusion that her best plan would be to give her to the Temple. So she was even then waiting till someone from a Temple house would come and take her little girl.

The news that such a child is to be had soon becomes known to those who are on the watch, and it is improbable that the mother would have had long to wait. The Christian persuaded her to give up the idea, and the little babe was saved and sent to us. On the journey to Dohnavur a Temple woman chanced to get into the carriage where the little baby slept in its basket. There was nothing to tell who she was; and like the other women in the carriage, she was greatly interested in its story.

But presently it became evident that her interest was more than superficial. She looked well at the baby and was quiet for a time; then she said to the Christian who was bringing it to us: "I see it is going to be an intelligent child. Let me have it; I will pay you." The Christian of course refused, and asked her how she knew it was going to be intelligent. "Look at its nose," said the Temple woman. "See, here is money!" and she offered it. "Let me have the baby! You can tell your Missie Ammal it died in the train!"

Sometimes our babies have to run greater risks than this in their journeys south to us. The distances which have to be covered by train and bullock-cart are great, and the travelling tedious. And there are many delays and opportunities for difficulties to arise; so that when we know a baby is on its way to us we feel we want to wrap it round in prayer, so that, thus invisibly enveloped, it will be protected and carried safely all the way. Once a little child, travelling to us from a place as distant, counting by time, as Rome is from London, was observed by some Brahman men, who happened to be at the far end of the long third-cla.s.s carriage. Our worker, who was alone with the child, noticed the whispering and glances toward her little charge, and wrapped it closer in its shawl, and, as she said, "looked out of the window as if she were not at all afraid, and prayed much in her heart." Presently a station was reached. The language spoken there was not her vernacular, but she understood enough to know something was being said about the baby. Then an official appeared, and there was a cry quite understandable to her: "A Brahman baby! That Christian there is kidnapping a Brahman baby!" The official stopped at the carriage door.

She was pushed towards him amidst a confused chatter, a crowd gathered at the door in a moment, and someone shouted in Tamil, above the excited clamour on the platform: "Pull her out! A Christian with a Brahman baby!"

"Then did my heart tremble! I held the baby tight in my arms. The man in clothes said, 'Show it to me!' And he looked at its hands and he looked at its feet, and he said: 'This is no child of yours!' But as I began to explain to him, the train moved, and he banged the door; and I praised G.o.d!"

India is a land where strange things can be accomplished with the greatest ease. As all went well it is idle to imagine what might have been; but we knew enough to be thankful.

Among the unwritten chapters is one which touches a problem. There are some little children--often the most valuable to the Temple women--who cannot live with us, but can live with them, because the baby in the Temple house is nursed by a foster-mother for the sake of merit, and thus it is given its best chance of life; whereas with us it is impossible to get foster-mothers. Indian children of the castes approved for the service are not, as a cla.s.s, as robust as others; the secluded lives of their mothers, and the rigid rules pertaining to widows (girl-children born after the mother becomes a widow are, as has been seen, in special danger), partly account for this; and in other cases there are other reasons. Whatever the cause, however, the effect is manifest. The baby is seldom the little bundle of content of our English nurseries. It may become so later on, if all goes well. Often it lives upon its birth-strength for four months, or less, and then slips away.

We have often hesitated about taking such babies; and then we have found that by refusing one who is likely to die we have discouraged those who were willing to help us, and the next baby in danger has been taken straight to the house where its welcome was a.s.sured. So we have hardly ever dared to refuse, and we have taken little fragile things whose days we knew were numbered unless a foster-mother could be found, for it seemed to us that death with us was better than life with the Temple people; and also we have not dared to risk losing the next, who might be healthy. "One dies, one lives," say the Temple women in their wisdom, and take all who are suitable in caste and in appearance. "She will be 'fair,'" or, "She will be intelligent," settles the matter for them.

They give the baby a chance: should we do less?

One night I woke suddenly with the feeling of someone near, and saw, standing beside my bed out on the verandah, the friend who has sent us so many little ones. She had something wrapped in a shawl in her arms, and as she moved the shawl a thin cry smote me with a fear, for a baby who has come to stay does not cry like that.

It was a dear little baby, one of the type the Temple women prize, and will take so much trouble to rear. The little head was finely formed, and the tiny face, in its minute perfection of feature, looked as if some fairy had shaped it out of a cream rose-petal. Alas, there was that look we know so well and fear so much--that look of not belonging to us, the elsewhere, other-world look. But we could not do this work at all, we would not have the heart to do it, if we did not hope. So we go on hoping.

The baby filled the next half-hour, for a thing so small can be hungry and say so; and together we heated the water and made the food, till, satisfied at length that her little charge was comfortable, our friend lay down to rest. "Jesus therefore being weary with His journey, sat thus on the well." There is something in the utter weariness after a long, hot journey, ending with seven hours in a bullock-cart over rough tracks by night, which always recalls that word of human tiredness. How I wished that the morning were not so near as I saw my friend asleep at last! A few hours later she was on her homeward way, and we were left with our hopes and our fears, and the baby.

For three weeks we hoped against fear, till there was no room left for any more hope, or for anything but prayer that the child might cease to suffer. And after a month of struggle for life, the tiny, tossing thing lay still.

"To what purpose is this waste?" Was it strange that the question came again to ourselves, and to others too? Our dear friend's toilsome travelling--a journey equal in expenditure of time to one from London to Vienna and back again, and very much more exhausting, the faithful nurse's patience, the little baby's pain! And all the love that had grown through the weeks, and all the efforts that had failed, the very train ticket and bandy fare--was it all as water spilt on the ground?

Was it waste?