Lotus Buds Part 8

"While he was yet speaking, there came also another." Some evil men who had sought to injure us before, caused us infinite anxiety. And for a time that cannot be counted in days or in weeks it was like living through a nightmare, when everything happens in painful confusion and the sense of oppression is complete.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NEYOOR NURSERY.]

Out of the maelstrom came a letter from Ponnamal. "We are being comforted," she wrote. "You will be longing to come to us, but oh, do not come! If you were here all your strength would be given to fighting this battle with death, and you would have no strength left for prayer.

G.o.d wanted to have one of us free to pray; and so He has taken you up to the mountain, as He took Moses when the people were fighting down in the plain." This was the true inward meaning of it all, and I knew it. But Ponnamal is far from strong, and I feared for her; and to stay away with the babies ill--it was the very hardest thing I had ever been asked to do.

When the trouble pa.s.sed there were ten in heaven. One, a little child of two, had been saved so wonderfully from Temple dedication that we had looked forward to a future of special blessing for her; and another was a very lovely babe, dear to the missionary who, after much toil and many disappointments, had been comforted by saving her. Each of the ten had cost someone much. But this is an earthly point of view. They had cost Him most who had taken them, and he is only an owner in name who has no right to do as he will with his own.

The other side, the purely human side, pressed heavily just then. The doctors had most kindly at once ordered a mission room, vacated at that season, to be lent to the nursery, and another little house was taken for the month. How Ponnamal kept all four houses going in an orderly fashion, how she kept her nurses together through that time of almost panic, and how she herself, frail and delicate as she is, kept up till all was over, we cannot understand from any point of view but the Divine. She only broke down once. It was when her dearest child, our merry, beautiful little Heart's Joy, who, having more strength than most, had battled longer and almost recovered, suddenly sank. The visible cause was that a special nutrient, which, being costly, we stocked in small quant.i.ties, ran short, and the fresh supply reached the nursery just too late. "If only it had come yesterday!" moaned Ponnamal, and we with her when we heard of the series of contretemps which had delayed its arrival. The torture of second causes is as the blackness of darkness, but the Lord gave deliverance from it; for just as she had to part with all that was left her of our little Heart's Joy, a letter came from Dr. Davidson which was G.o.d's own blessed comfort to a heart almost broken. She never refers to that letter without the quick tears starting. "I could let my little treasure go after I read that letter.

It strengthened me."

While all this was going on in Neyoor, Ch.e.l.lalu, then just two years old, was very ill in Dohnavur. Mr. and Mrs. Walker were still there, and they nursed her night and day; but at last a letter came, evidently meant to prepare me for fresh sorrow. "Every little lamb belongs to the Good Shepherd, not to us," the letter said, and told of a temperature 106 and rising. The child, all spirit and frolic, had little reserve strength, and there was not much cause for hope. But we were spared this parting. Ch.e.l.lalu is with us still.

The sky was clearing again and we were beginning to breathe freely, when the worst that had ever touched us in all our years of work came suddenly upon us. How small things that affect the body appear when the point of attack wheels round to the soul! The death of all the babies seemed as nothing compared with the falling away of one soul. But G.o.d is the G.o.d of the waves and the billows, and they are still His when they come over us; and again and again we have proved that the overwhelming thing does not overwhelm. Once more by His interposition deliverance came. We were cast down, but not destroyed.

A time of calm succeeded this storm. Money came to build nurseries at Dohnavur, and buy more of the special nutrients we so much required. The Neyoor remnant picked up, and the nurses took heart again. I went out to them as soon as I could after our return from the hills, and found those who were left well and strong. "They shall see His face" had been the text in _Daily Light_, the evening the news reached me of the little procession heavenwards. I looked at the ten names written in the margin of my book; and, recalling the story of each, could be glad they have seen the face of the One who loves them best. Lower down on the page come the words, "We shall be satisfied." We thought of our babies satisfied so soon; and then we knelt together and said, "Even so, Father: for so it seemeth good in Thy sight."

Pretty pictures all in colours and bright sunshine tempt one to linger over that visit. I can see the white hammocks slung from the trees in the nursery compound, and happy baby-faces looking out of them. And another shows me one who had been like a sister to Ponnamal, lightening her load whenever she could; sitting with two dear babies in her arms, and another clinging round her neck. "She comes and helps us often in the mornings when we are very busy," said Ponnamal about the doctor's wife, as I noticed the babies' affection for her and her sweet, kind ways with them. "Sometimes when I am feeling down and home-sick, she comes in like this and plays with the babies, and cheers us all up." The Indian woman is very home-loving. Only devotion to the children could have kept the nurses and Ponnamal so long in exile for their sake; and there were times when even Ponnamal's brave heart sank. Then these love-touches helped.

When the time came for the nursery party to leave Neyoor and return to Dohnavur, after two and a half years in that hospitable mission, we were sorry to part. Days like the days we had pa.s.sed through test the stuff of which souls are made, and they prove what we call friendship. After the fire has spent itself, the fine gold shines out purified, and there is something solemn in its light. We had grown close to our friends in Neyoor; but the cloud had moved, so far as we could read the sign, and it seemed right to return. The missionaries were away when the day came, but the Christians surrounded Ponnamal with tokens of goodwill. "The nursery has been like a little light in our midst," they said; and this word cheered her more than all other words. And so farewelled, they arrived home, all glad and warm with the glow that comes when hearts meet each other and each finds the other kind.

CHAPTER XVII

In the Compound and Near it

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD NURSERY. THE "ROOM OF JOY."]

"NOW I know why G.o.d put you in Dohnavur when He wanted this work done.

He hid you from the eyes of the world for the little children's sake. He knew this work could never have been done by the road-side, so He hid you."

The speaker was a Christian friend from Palamcottah, an Indian lawyer who, for the first time, had come out to see us. He had found our approaches appalling, and had wondered at first why we lived in such an out-of-the-way place, three or four miles from the nearest road, and twenty-four from civilisation. When he saw the children he understood.

Later, he helped us in an attempt to save two little ones in danger, and insisted not only upon paying his own and our worker's expenses, but in sending us a gift for the nurseries. With the gift came a letter full of loving, Indian sympathy; and again he added as before: "The Lord hid you in that quiet place for the little children's sake." Sometimes when the inconveniences of jungle life press upon us, we remember our friend's words: "This work could never have been done by the road-side, so He hid you."

We have children with us who would not have been safe for a day had we lived near a large town or near a railway. The stretch of open country between us and Palamcottah (the Church Missionary Society centre of the Tinnevelly district), to cover which, by bullock-cart, takes as long as to travel from London to Brussels, is not considered very safe for solitary Indian travellers, as the robber clan frequent it, and this is an added protection for the children. Several times, to our knowledge, unwelcome visitors have been deterred from making a raid upon us, by the rumour of the robbers on the road. We are also most mercifully quite out of the beat of the ordinary exploiter of missions; few except the really keen care for such a journey; so that we get on with our work uninterrupted by anything but the occasional arrival of welcome friends and comrades. These, when they visit us for the first time, are usually much astonished to find something almost civilised out in the wilds, and they walk round with an air of surprise, and quite inspiring appreciation, being kindly pleased with little, because they had looked for less.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COURTYARD.]

The compound in which the nurseries are built is a field, bounded on three sides by fields, and on the fourth by the bungalow compound. The Western Ghauts with their foothills make it a beautiful place.

The buildings are not beautiful. With us, as elsewhere, doubtless, even the break of a gable in the straight, barn-like roof makes a difference in the estimate, and we have never had a margin for luxuries. But the walls are coloured a soft terra-cotta, the roofs are a dull red; while the porches (hidden by the palm trunks in the photograph) are a ma.s.s of greenery and bloom; and the garden at the moment of writing is rejoicing in over a hundred lilies, brilliant yellow and flame colour, each head with its many flowers rising separate and radiant in the sunshine. Then we have oleanders, crimson and pink and white, and little young hibiscus trees, crimson and rose and cream. The arches in the new nursery garden are covered with the lilac of morning-glory; and the Prayer-room in the middle of the garden is a ma.s.s of violet pa.s.sion-flower, the pretty pink antigone, and starry jessamine. The very hedges at this season are out in yellow flower, and a trellis round the nursery kitchen is a delight of colour; so though our buildings are simple, we think the lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places.

The first picture shows the old nursery, used now for the kindergarten.

It opens off the courtyard shown in the second photo. This courtyard serves as an open-air room, a bright little place which is filled with merrier children than the sober photograph shows. Tamils old and young move when they laugh or even smile; in fact they wriggle. Being still, with them, meant being seriously subdued; and so, where time-exposures were required, we had to choose between solemn photos, or no photos at all.

Opening off the courtyard on the opposite side to the kindergarten is a room used as a store-room and Bible-cla.s.s room combined. It was so very uncomfortable that last Christmas, as a surprise for the children, we divided the room into two halves with a curtain between. Their half is made pretty with pictures and texts, painted in blue on pale brown wood.

The children call this part of the room the Tabernacle. The part beyond the curtain is the court of the Gentiles.

The Coming-Day Feasts are a feature of Dohnavur life. Now that there are so many feasts to celebrate, we find it more convenient to combine; and the photograph overleaf shows as much as it can of one such happy feast.

The children who are being feted are distinguished from the others by having flowers in their hair. No Indian feast is complete without flowers. Jessamine is the favourite, but the prettiest wreaths are made of pink oleander; and sometimes a girl will surprise us with a new and lovely combination, as of brown flowering gra.s.ses and yellow Tecoma bells.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A COMING-DAY FEAST.]

Opposite the kindergarten room is the first of the two new nurseries--the lively Parrot-house. This nursery, really the Taraha (Star, called after its English giver, whose name means "star") is the abode of the middle-aged babies, aged between two years and four. Most of these attend the kindergarten, and are very proud of the fact.

The Premalia nursery (Abode of Love), given by two friends in memory of a mother translated, lies beyond the Taraha. Here the tiny infants live, and we call it the Menagerie. This nursery, like the other, looks out on the glorious mountains. If beautiful things can make babies good, ours should be very good.

On the eastern side of the field we have lately built two small sick-rooms, used oftener as overflow nurseries. These little rooms have names meaning "peace" and "tranquillity"; and those of us who have lived in them with our babies, sick or well, find the names appropriate. In the foreground there is a garden, in the background the mountain; and to give purpose to it all, the foreground is full of life. A new nursery now being built is a welcome gift from Australia; and a new field with a n.o.ble tree, in whose shade a hundred children could play, is the gift of a friend who stayed with us for one bright week last year.

All this is a later development, unthought of when our artist friend was with us. We have often wished for him since the nurseries filled. When he was with us our choice of subject was very limited: now, wherever we look we see pictures, which to be properly caught ask for colour photography.

The story of these buildings is the story of the Ravens, so old and yet so new. When first the work began, we had only one mud-floored room for nursery, kitchen, bedroom, and everything else that was needed. We hardly knew ourselves whereunto things would grow, and feared to run before the Lord by even a prayer for buildings. And yet we could not go on as we were. The birds were soon too many for the nest, and we needed more nests. No one knew of our need; for visitors at that time were few at Dohnavur, and we told no one. But money began to come. We ventured on a single room without a verandah or even foundations--built of sun-dried bricks as inexpensively as possible. But it was a palace to us. While we were building it, more little children came. We felt we should need more room, but had not more money; so we told the builders to wait for a day while we gave ourselves to prayer about the matter. Was the work going to grow much more? We were fearful of making mistakes. Were we right to incur fresh responsibility?--for buildings need to be kept in condition, and the cheaper they are the more care they need. No one at home was responsible for us. No one had authorised this new work. It would not be fair to saddle those on whom the burden might eventually fall with responsibilities for which they were not responsible. And yet surely the work of saving these little children had been given to us to do? Someone was responsible. Surely, unless we were utterly wrong and had mistaken the Shepherd's Voice, surely He was responsible! He could not mean us to search for the lambs for whom only the wolves had been searching, and then leave them out in the open, found but unfolded, or packed so close in the little fold that they could not grow as little lambs should?

We rolled the burden off that day as to the ultimate responsibility, and we asked definitely for all that was needed to build another room.

Three days later a registered letter came from a bank in Madras. It contained an anonymous gift of one hundred rupees, and was marked, "For a new nursery." The date showed that it had been posted in Madras on the day of our waiting upon G.o.d for guidance as to His wishes. A few days later, the same amount, with the same direction as to its use, was sent to us from the same bank. The giver, as we knew long afterwards, was a fellow-missionary in Tinnevelly, whose order to send these sums to us was given before even we ourselves had fully understood the meaning of the leading. The second room was built on to the first, and the children called it the Room of Joy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RED LAKE.

Water Palms, with Mountains in the background.]

There are no secrets in India. The Hindu masons were amazed at what they at once recognised as the hand of the Lord upon the work, and they spread the story everywhere. Later, when they built the nursery where poor little Mala stood and mourned, they understood why they had to stop before the verandah was built. Only enough was in hand to build the bare room; but to their eyes, as to ours, a verandah was much needed, and they were content to wait till what was required for one came. In this land of blazing sunshine and drenching monsoon a house without a verandah is hardly habitable, and a small square room without one has a Manx-cat appearance.

The story of the rooms has been repeated in the story of the work ever since. "Do not thank us. It is only a belated tenth," wrote a fellow-missionary not long ago, as she sent a gift for the nurseries.

Belated tenths have reached us sometimes when they have been like visible ravens flying straight from the blue above. All the long journeys in search of the children, all the expenses connected with their salvation, all that has been required to provide nurses and food (including the special nourishment without which the more delicate could not live at all), all that is now being needed for their education--all has come and is coming as the ravens came to Elijah. The work has been a revelation of how many hearts are sensitive and obedient to the touch of the Spirit; for sometimes help has reached us in such a way and in such form that we could not but stand and worship, awestruck by the token of the nearness of our G.o.d. There is many a spot marked in garden or in field or in the busy nursery or our own quiet room, where, with the open letter in our hand--the letter of relief from a pressure unknown even to the nearest fellow-worker--we have knelt in spirit with Jacob and said: "Surely the Lord is in this place!" and almost added, so dense are we in unilluminated moments, "and I knew it not."

Framed between red roofs and foliage, there are far blue glimpses of mountains shown in this lakeside photograph. We do not see the water from the compound. It lies on the other side of the boundary fields and hedges; but we see the mountains with perfect distinctness of outline, scarped with bare crags, which in the early morning are sometimes pink, and in the evening, purple. But the time to see the mountains in their glory is when the south-west monsoon is flinging its ma.s.ses of cloud across to us. Then the mountains, waking from the lazy sleep of the long, hot months, catch the clouds on their pointed fangs, toss them back and harry them, wrap themselves up in robes of them, and go to sleep again.

The road that skirts the Red Lake leads through two ancient Hindu towns, from both of which we have children saved, in each case as by a miracle.

In the first of these old towns there is a Temple surrounded by a mighty wall.

There are two large gates and one small side door in the wall; and, pa.s.sing in through the small side door, one sees another wall almost as strong as the first, and realises something of the power that built it.

The Temple is in the centre of the large enclosure. It is a single tower opening off the inner court. In the outer court a pillared hall is used as stable for the Temple elephant, and two camels lounge in the roughly kept garden in front. This Temple, with its double walls, its ma.s.sive, splendidly-carved doors and expensive animal life, is somewhat of a surprise to the visitor, who hardly expects to see so much in a little old country town on the borders of the wilds. But Hinduism has not lost hold of this old remote India yet. There are some who think that the country town is the place to see it in strength.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AT THE DOOR OF THE TEMPLE.]

It was early in August, three years ago, that we heard of a baby girl in that town, devoted from birth to the G.o.d. We set wheels in motion, and waited. A month pa.s.sed and nothing was done. We could not go ourselves and attempt to persuade the mother to change the vow she had made, as any movement on our part would only have riveted the links that fettered the child to the G.o.d. We had to be quiet and wait. At last, one evening in September, a Hindu arrived in the town with whom our friends who were on the watch had intimate connection. He, too, knew about the child; and he knew a way unknown to our friends by which the mother might be influenced, and he consented to try. His arrival just at that juncture appeared to us, who were waiting in daily expectation of an answer of deliverance, as the evident beginning of that answer; thus our faith was quickened and we waited in keen hope. Two days later, after dark, there was a rush from the nursery to the bungalow. "The baby has come!"

Another moment, and we were in the nursery. A woman--one of our friends--was standing with what looked like a parcel wrapped in a cloth hidden under her arm. Even then, though all was safe, she was trembling; and outside, two men, her relations, stood on guard. She opened the white cloth, and inside was the baby.

The men a.s.sured us that all was right. The mother had been convinced of the wrongness of dedicating the little babe, and would give us no trouble. But a day or two later, she came and demanded it back. She could not stand the derision of her friends, who told her she had sinned far more in giving her child to those who would break its caste than she ever could have done had she given it to the Temple. We pacified her with difficulty, and were thankful when the little thing was safe in the Neyoor nursery. For in those days, before we learned how best to protect our children, we were often glad to have some place even more out of reach than Dohnavur.

The second of these old towns is famous for its rock, and its Temple built into the rock. Looking down from above one can see inside the courtyard as into an open well. Connected with this Temple, some years ago, there was a beautiful young Temple woman, who had been given as a child--as all Temple women must be--to the service of the G.o.ds. She had no choice as regarded herself--probably the idea of choice never entered her mind--but for her babe she determined to choose; and yet she knew of no way of deliverance.

But there was a way of deliverance, and if it had only been for this one child's sake, and for the sake of the relief it must have been to that fear-haunted mother, we are glad with a gladness too deep for words that the nursery was here. For the mother heard of it. There were lions in the path. She quietly avoided them, and through others who were willing to help she sent her child to us. She herself would not come. She waited a mile or so from the bungalow till the matter was concluded, then returned to her home alone.

A week later she appeared suddenly at the bungalow. It was only to make sure the little one was safe and well, and in order to sign a paper saying she was wholly given to us. This done she disappeared again, refusing speech with anyone, and for months we heard nothing of her.