Things as They Are Part 22

Can we say we have improved upon His pattern?

Oh for a return to the simplicity and power of the Gospel of Christ!

Then we should not roll stumbling-blocks like these in our Indian brother's way. Oh for a return to the days of the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, to obscurity, and poverty, and suffering, and shame, and the utter absence of all earthly glory, and the winning of souls of a different make to the type thought sufficiently spiritual now! Oh for more of the signs of Apostleship--scars, and the cross--the real cross--the reproach of Christ the Crucified,--no mitre here, but there the crown!

CHAPTER XXVII

Though ye know Him not

"I have known cases of young ministers dissuaded from facing the missionary call by those who posed as friends of Foreign Missions, and yet presumed to argue: 'Your spiritual power and intellectual attainments are needed by the Church at home; they would be wasted in the Foreign Field.' 'Spiritual power wasted' in a land like India! Where is it so sorely needed as in a continent where Satan has constructed his strongest fortresses and displayed the choicest masterpieces of his skill?

'Intellectual ability wasted' among a people whose scholars smile inwardly at the ignorance of the average Western! Brothers, _if G.o.d is calling you_, be not deterred by flimsy subterfuges such as these. You will need the power of G.o.d the Holy Ghost to make you an efficient missionary. You will find your reputation for scholarship put to the severest test in India. Here is ample scope alike for men of approved spiritual power and for intellectual giants. And so I repeat, _if G.o.d is calling you_, buckle on your sword, come to the fight, and win your spurs among the cultured sons of India."

_Rev. T. Walker, India._

THE sensation you experience is curious when you rise from the study of Sir Monier William's _Brahmanism and Hinduism_ and go out to your work, and meet in that work someone who seems to be quoting that same book, not in paragraphs only, but in pages. He is talking Tamil, and the book is written in English; that is all the difference. He was standing by the wayside when I saw him: we got into conversation.

At first he reminded me of a sea anemone, with all its tentacles drawn inside, but gradually one by one they came out, and I saw what he really was; and I think the great Christian scholar, who laboured so hard to understand and translate into words the intricacies and mysteries of Indian thought, would have felt a little repaid had he known how his work would help in the practical business of a missionary's life. Part of our business is to meet the mind with which we are dealing half-way with quick comprehension. It is in this Sir Monier Williams helps.

When once this man felt himself understood, his whole att.i.tude changed.

At first, expecting, I suppose, that he was being mistaken for "an ignorant heathen" and worshipper of stocks and stones, he hardly took the trouble to do more than answer, as he thought, a fool according to his folly. The tentacles were all _in_ then.

But that pa.s.sed soon, and he pointed to the shed behind him, where two or three life-size idol horses stood and said how childish he knew it was, foolish and vain. But then, what else could be done? Idols are not objects of worship, and never were intended so to be; their only use is to help the uninitiated to worship Something. If nothing were shown them, they would worship nothing; and a non-worshipping human being is an animal, not a man.

He went on to answer the objections to this means of quickening intelligent worship by explaining how, in higher and purer ways, the thinkers of Hinduism had tried to make the unthinking think. "Look at our temples," he said. "There is a central shrine, with only one light in it. The darkness of the shrine symbolises the darkness of the world, of life and death and being. For life is a darkness, a whirlpool of dark waters. We stand on its edge, but we do not understand it. It is dark, but light there must be; one great light. So we show this certainty by the symbol of the one light in the shrine, in the very heart of our temples."

This led on to quotations from his own books, questioning the validity of such lights, which he finished the moment one began them, and this again led to our Lord's words,--how strong they sounded, and how direct--"_I am the Light of the World_." But he could not accept them in their simplicity, and here it was that the book I had been reading came in so helpfully. He spoke rapidly and eagerly, and such a mixture of Sanscrit and Tamil that if I had not had the clue I am not sure I could have followed him, and to have misunderstood him then might have driven all the tentacles in, and made it harder for the next one whom the Spirit may send to win his confidence.

He told me that, after much study of many religions, he held the eternal existence of one, Brahma. The human spirit, he said, is not really distinct from the Divine Spirit, but identical with it; the apparent distinction arises from our illusory view of things: there is absolutely no distinction in spirit. Mind is distinct, he admitted, and body is distinct, but spirit is identical; so that, "in a definitely defined sense, I am G.o.d, G.o.d is I. The so-called two are one, in all essentials of being." And he touched himself and said, "I am Brahma. I myself, my real I, am G.o.d."

It sounds terribly irreverent, but he did not for a moment mean it so.

Go back to Gen. ii. 7, and try to define the meaning of the words, "the breath of life," and you will, if you think enough, find yourself in a position to understand how the Hindu, without revelation, ends as he does in delusion.

But, intertwined with this central fibre of his faith, there were strands of a strange philosophy; he held strongly the doctrine of Illusion, by which the one impersonal Spirit, "in the illusion which overspreads it, is to the external world what yarn is to cloth, what milk is to curds, what clay is to a jar, but only in that illusion,"

that is, "he is not the actual material cause of the world, as clay of a jar, but the illusory material cause, as a rope might be of a snake"; and the spirit of man "is that Spirit, personalised and limited by the power of illusion; and the life of every living spirit is nothing but an infinitesimal arc of the one endless circle of infinite existence."

Of course there are answers to this sort of reasoning which are perfectly convincing to the Western, but they fail to appeal to the Eastern mind. You suggest a practical test as to the reality or otherwise of this "Illusion"--touch something, run a pin into yourself, do anything to prove to yourself your own actuality, and he has his answer ready. Though theoretically he holds that there is one, and only one, Spirit, he "virtually believes in three conditions of being--the real, the practical, and the illusory; for while he affirms that the one Spirit, Brahma, alone has a real existence, he allows a practical separate existence to human spirits, to the world, and to the personal G.o.d or G.o.ds, as well as an illusory existence. Hence every object is to be dealt with practically, as if it were really what it appears to be."

This is only the end of a long and very confusing argument, which I expect I did not half understand, and he concluded it by quoting a stanza, thus translated by Dr. Pope, from an ancient Tamil cla.s.sic--

"O Being hard to reach, O Splendour infinite, unknown, in sooth I know not what to do!"

"He is far away from me," he said, "a distant G.o.d to reach," and when I quoted from St. Augustine, "To Him who is everywhere, men come not by travelling, but by loving," and showed him the words, which in Tamil are splendidly negative, "He is NOT far from every one of us," he eluded the comfort and went back to the old question, "What is Truth? How can one prove what is Truth?"

There is an Indian story of a queen who "proved the truth by tasting the food." The story tells how her husband, who dearly loved her, and whom she dearly loved, lost his kingdom, wandered away with his queen into the forest, left her there as she slept, hoping she would fare better without him, and followed her long afterwards to her father's court, deformed, disguised, a servant among servants, a _cook_. Then her maidens came to her, told her of the wonderful cooking, magical in manner, marvellous in flavour and in fragrance. They are sure it is the long-lost king come back to her, and they bid her believe and rejoice.

But the queen fears it may not be true. She must prove it, she must taste the food. They bring her some. _She tastes, and knows._ And the story ends in joy. "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good." "If any man will do His Will, he shall know."

We got closer in thought after this. For the Oriental, a story is an illuminating thing. "I have sought for the way of truth," he said, "and sought for the way of light and life. Behind me, as I look, there is darkness. Before me there is only the Unknown." And then, with an earnestness I cannot describe, he said, "I worship Him I know not, _the Unknown G.o.d_." "Whom, therefore, ye worship, though ye know Him not, Him declare I unto you." One could only press home G.o.d's own answer to his words.

One other verse held him in its power before I went: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." With those two verses I left him.

It was evening, and he stood in the shadow, looking into it. There was a tangle of undergrowth, and a heavy grove of palms. It was all dark as you looked in. Behind was the shrine of the demon steeds, the G.o.d and his wife who ride out at night to chase evil spirits away. Near by was an old tree, also in shade, with an idol under it. It was all in shadow, and full of shadowy nothings, all dark.

But just outside, when I went, there was light; the soft light of the after-glow, which comes soon after the sun has set, as a sign that there is a sun somewhere, and shining. And I thought of his very last words to me, but I cannot describe the earnestness of them, "_I worship the Unknown G.o.d_."

Friends, who worship a G.o.d whom you _know_, whose joy in life is to know Him, will you remember and pray for that one, who to-day is seeking, I think in truth, to find the Unknown G.o.d?

CHAPTER XXVIII

How Long?

"I shivered as if standing in the neighbourhood of h.e.l.l."

_Henry Martyn, India._

I HAVE come home from vainly trying to help another child. She had heard of the children's Saviour, and I think she would have come to Him, but they suffered her not. She was, when I first saw her, sweet and innocent, with eyes full of light, great glancing, dancing eyes, which grew wistful for a moment sometimes, and then filled with a laugh again.

She told me her mother lived very near, and asked me to come and see her; so I went.

The mother startled me. Such a face, or such a want of a face. One was looking at what had once been a face, but was now a strange spoiled thing, with strange hard eyes, so unlike the child's. There was no other feature fully shaped; it was one dreadful blank. She listened that day, with almost eagerness. She understood so quickly, too, one felt she must have heard before. But she told us nothing about herself, and we only knew that there was something very wrong. Her surroundings told us that.

Before we went again we heard who she was; a relative of one of our most honoured pastors, himself a convert years ago. Then a great longing possessed us to try to save her from a life for which she had not been trained, and especially we longed to save her little girl, and we went to try. This time the mother welcomed us, and told us how our words had brought back things she had heard when she was young. "But now it is all different, for I am different," and she told us her story. . . . "So I took poison, but it acted not as I intended. _It only destroyed my face_," and she touched the poor remnant with her hand, and went on with her terrible tale. There were people listening outside, and she spoke in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. We could hardly believe she meant what she said, as she told of the fate proposed for her child. And oh, how we besought her then and there to give up the life, and let us help her, and that dear little one. She seemed moved. Something awoke within her and strove.

Tears filled those hard eyes and rolled down her cheeks as we pleaded with her, in the name of all that was motherly, not to doom her little innocent girl, not to push her with her own hands down to h.e.l.l. At last she yielded, promised that if in one week's time we would come again she would give her up to us, and as for herself, she would think of it, and perhaps she also would give up the life; she hated it, she said.

There was another girl there, a fair, quiet girl of fifteen. She was ill and very suffering, and we tried for her too; but there seemed no hope.

"Take the little one; you are not too late for her," the mother said, and we went with the promise, "One more week and she is yours."

The week pa.s.sed, and every day we prayed for that little one. Then when the time came, we went. Hope and fear alternated within us. One felt sick with dread lest anything had happened to break the mother's word, and yet one hoped. The house door was open. The people in the street smiled as we stopped our bandy, got out, and went in. I remembered their smiles afterwards, and understood. The mother was there: in a corner, crouching in pain, was the girl; on the floor asleep, _drugged_, lay the child with her little arms stretched out. The mother's eyes were hard.

It was no use. Outside in the street the people sat on their verandahs and laughed. "Offer twenty thousand rupees, and see if her mother will give her to you!" shouted one. Inside we sat beside that mother, not knowing what to say.

The child stirred in her sleep, and turned. "Will you go?" said the mother very roughly in her ear. She opened listless, senseless eyes. She had no wish to go. "She wanted to come last week," we said. The mother hardened, and pushed the child, and rolled her over with her foot. "_She will not go now_," she said.

Oh, it did seem pitiful! One of those pitiful, pitiful things which never grow less pitiful because they are common everywhere. That _little_ girl, and this!

We took the mother's hands in ours, and pleaded once again. And then words failed us. They sometimes do. There are things that stifle words.

At last they asked us to go. The girl in the corner would not speak--could not, perhaps she only moaned; we pa.s.sed her and went out.

The mother followed us, half sorry for us,--there is something of the woman left in her,--half sullen, with a lowering sullenness. "You will never see her again," she said, and she named the town, one of the Sodoms of this Province, to which the child was soon to be sent; and then, just a little ashamed of her broken promise, she added, "I would have let her go, but _he_ would not, no, never; and she does not belong to me now, so what could I do?" We did not ask her who "he" was. We knew. Nor did we ask the price he had paid. We knew; fifty rupees, about three pounds, was the price paid down for a younger child bought for the same purpose not long ago. This one's price might be a little higher.

That is all.

We stood by the bullock cart ready to get in. The people were watching.

The mother had gone back into the house. Then a great wave of longing for that child swept over us again. We turned and looked at the little form as it lay on the floor, dead, as it seemed, to all outward things.

Oh that it had been dead! And we pleaded once more with all our heart, and once more failed.

We drove away. We could see them crowding to look after us, and we shut our eyes to shut out the sight of their smiles. The bullock bells jingled too gladly, it seemed, and we shut our ears to shut out the sound. And then we shut ourselves in with G.o.d, who knew all about it, and cared. How long, O G.o.d, how long?