Things as They Are Part 25

So whether our message is welcomed or not, the fact remains we must go to all; and the worse they are and the harder they are, the more evident is it that, wanted or not, it is _needed_ by them.

M. Coillard was robbed by the people he had travelled far to find. "You see we made no mistake," he writes, "in bringing the Gospel to the Zambesi."

The second objection is, "_Why break up families by insisting on baptism as a_ sine qua non _of disciples.h.i.+p?_"

And again we answer, Because we believe our Master tells us to. He said, "Baptising them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." What right have we, His servants, to stop short of full obedience? Did He not know the conditions of high-caste Hindu life in India when He gave this command? Was He ignorant of the breaking up of families which obedience to it would involve? "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you nay, but rather division." And then come words which we have seen lived out literally in the case of every high-caste convert who has come. "For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.

The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." These are truly _awful_ verses; no one knows better than the missionary how awful they are.

There are times when we can hardly bear the pain caused by the sight of this division. But are we more tender than the Tender One? Is our sympathy truer than His? Can we look up into His eyes and say, "It costs them too much, Lord; it costs us too much, to fully obey Thee in this"?

But granted the command holds, why should not the baptised convert return home and live there? Because he is not wanted there, _as a Christian_. Exceptions to this rule are rare (we are speaking of Caste Hindus), and can usually be explained by some extenuating circ.u.mstance.

The high-caste woman who said to us, "I cannot live here and break my Caste; if I break it I must go," spoke the truth. Keeping Caste includes within itself the observance of certain customs which by their very nature are idolatrous. Breaking Caste means breaking through these customs; and one who habitually disregarded and disobeyed rules, considered binding and authoritative by all the rest of the household, would not be tolerated in an orthodox Hindu home. It is not a question of persecution or death, or of wanting or not wanting to be there; it is a question _of not being wanted there_, unless, indeed, she will compromise. Compromise is the one open door back into the old home, and G.o.d only knows what it costs when the choice is made and that one door is shut.

This ever-recurring reiteration of the power and the bondage of Caste may seem almost wearisome, but the word, and what lies behind it, is the one great answer to a thousand questions, and so it comes again and again. In Southern India especially, and still more so in this little fraction of it, and in the adjoining kingdoms of Travancore and Cochin, Caste feeling is so strong that sometimes it is said that Caste is the religion of South India. But everywhere all over India it is, to every orthodox Hindu, part of his very self. Get his Caste out of him? Can you? You would have to drain him of his life-blood first.

It is the strength of this Caste spirit which in South India causes it to take the form of a determination to get the convert back. Promises are given that they may live as Christians at home. "We will send you in a bandy to church every Sunday!"--promises given to be broken. If the convert is a boy, he may possibly reappear. If a girl--I was going to say _never_; but I remember hearing of one who did reappear, after seventeen years imprisonment--a wreck. Send them back, do you say? Think of the dotted lines in some chapters you have read; ponder the things they cover; then send them back if you can.

The third objection divides into two halves. The first half is, "_Why do you not go to the Christians?_" To which we answer, we do, and for exactly the same reason as that which we have given twice before, because our Master told us to do so. Our marching orders are threefold, one order concerning each form of service touched by the three objections. The third order touches this, "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." So we go, and try to teach them the "all things"; and some of them learn them, and go to teach others, and so the message of a full Gospel spreads, and the Bride gets ready for the Bridegroom.

The second half of this last objection is, "_Why not do easier work?_ There are so many who are more accessible, why not go to them?" And there does seem to be point in the suggestion that if there are open doors, it might be better to enter into them, rather than keep on knocking at closed ones.

We do seek to enter the so-called open doors, but we never find they are so very wide open when it is known that we bring nothing tangible with us. Spiritual things are not considered anything by most. Still, work among such is infinitely easier, and many, comparatively speaking, are doing it.

The larger number here are working among the Christians, the next larger number among the Ma.s.ses, and the fewest always, everywhere, among the Cla.s.ses, where conversion involves such terrible conflicts with the Evil One, that all that is human in one faints and fails as it confronts the cost of every victory.

But real conversion anywhere costs. By conversion we mean something more than reformation; _that_ raises fewer storms. The kind of work, however, which more than any other seems to fascinate friends at home is what is known as the "ma.s.s movement," and though we have touched upon it before, perhaps we had better explain more fully what it really is. This movement, or rather the visible result thereof, is often dilated upon most rapturously. I quote from a Winter Visitor: "Christian churches counted by the thousand, their members by the million; whole districts are Christian, entire communities are transformed." And we look at one another, and ask each other, "Where?"

But to that question certain would answer joyously, "Here!" There are missions in India where the avowed policy is to baptise people "at the outset, not on evidence of what is popularly called conversion. . . . We baptise them 'unto' the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and not because we have reason to believe that they have received the Spirit's baptism,"--we quote a leader in the movement, and he goes on to say, if it is insisted "that we should wait until this change (conversion) is effected before baptising them, we reply that in most cases we would have to wait for a long time, and often see the poor creatures die without the change."

Of course every effort is made by revival services and camp meetings to bring these baptised Christians to a true knowledge of Christ, and it is considered that this policy yields more fruit than the other, which puts conversion first and baptism second. It is certainly richer in "results," for among the depressed cla.s.ses and certain of the middle Castes, among whom alone the scheme can be carried out, there is no doubt that many are found ready to embrace Christianity, as the phrase goes, sometimes genuinely feeling it is the true religion, and desiring to understand it, sometimes for what they can get.

It must be admitted--for we want to state the case fairly--that a ma.s.s movement gives one a splendid chance to preach Christ, and teach His Gospel day by day. And the power in it does lay hold of some; we have earnest men and women working and winning others to-day, fruit of the ma.s.s movement of many years ago.

But on the whole, we fear it, and do not encourage it here. The dead weight of heathenism is heavy enough, but when you pile on the top of that the incubus of a dead Christianity--for a nominal thing is dead--then you are terribly weighted down and handicapped, as you try to go forward to break up new ground.

So, though we sympathise with everything that tends towards life and light in India, and rejoice with our brothers who bind sheaves, believing that though all is not genuine corn, some is, yet we feel compelled to give ourselves mainly to work of a character which, by its very nature, can never be popular, and possibly never successful from a statistical point of view, never, till the King comes, Whose Coming is our hope.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

"Show me Thy Glory!"

"Yesterday I was called to see a patient, a young woman who had been suffering terribly for three days. It was the saddest case I ever saw in my life. . . . I had to leave her to die. . . . The experience was such a terrible one that, old and accustomed surgeon as I am, I have been quite upset by it ever since. As long as I live the memory of that scene will cling to me."

_A Chinese Missionary._

"If we refuse to be corns of wheat falling into the ground and dying; if we will neither sacrifice prospects nor risk character and property and health, nor, when we are called, relinquish home and break family ties, for Christ's sake and His Gospel, then we shall abide alone."

_Thomas Gajetan Ragland, India._

"Not mere pity for dead souls, but a pa.s.sion for the Glory of G.o.d, is what we need to hold us on to Victory."

_Miss Lilias Trotter, Africa._

WE are all familiar with the facts and figures which stand for so much more than we realise. We can repeat glibly enough that there are nearly one thousand, five hundred million people in the world, and that of these nearly one thousand million are heathen or Mohammedan. Perhaps we can divide this unthinkable ma.s.s into comprehensible figures. We can tell everyone who is interested in hearing it, that of this one thousand million, two hundred million are Mohammedans; two hundred million more are Hindus; four hundred and thirty million are Buddhists and Confucianists; and more than one hundred and fifty million are Pagans.

But have we ever stopped and let the awfulness of these statements bear down upon us? Do we take in, that we are talking about immortal souls?

We quote someone's computation that every day ninety-six thousand people die without Christ. Have we ever for one hour sat and thought about it?

Have we thought of it for half an hour, for a quarter of an hour, for five unbroken minutes? I go further, and I ask you, have you ever sat still for one whole minute and counted by the ticking of your watch, while soul after soul pa.s.ses out alone into eternity?

. . . I have done it. It is awful. At the lowest computation, sixty-six for whom Christ died have died since I wrote "eternity."

"Oh my G.o.d! my G.o.d! Men are peris.h.i.+ng, and I take no heed!" . . .

Sixty-six more have gone. Oh, how can one keep so calm? Death seems racing with the minute hand of my watch. I feel like stopping that terrible run of the minute hand. Round and round it goes, and every time it goes round, sixty-six people die.

I have just heard of the dying of one of the sixty-six. We knew her well. She was a widow; she had no protectors, and an unprotected widow in India stands in a dangerous place. We knew it, and tried to persuade her to take refuge in Jesus. She listened, almost decided, then drew back; afterwards we found out why. You have seen the picture of a man sucked under sea by an octopus; it was like that. You have imagined the death-struggle; it was like that. But it all went on under the surface of the water, there was nothing seen above, till perhaps a bubble rose slowly and broke; it was like that. One day, in the broad noontide, a woman suddenly fell in the street. Someone carried her into a house, but she was dead, and those who saw that body saw the marks of the struggle upon it. The village life flowed on as before; only a few who knew her knew she had murdered her body to cover the murder of her soul. We had come too late for her.

Last week I stood in a house where another of those sixty-six had pa.s.sed. Crouching on the floor, with her knees drawn up and her head on her knees, a woman began to tell me about it. "She was my younger sister. My mother gave us to two brothers"--and she stopped. I knew who the brothers were. I had seen them yesterday--two handsome high-caste Hindus. We had visited their wives, little knowing. The woman said no more; she could not. She just shuddered and hid her face in her hands. A neighbour finished the story. Something went wrong with the girl. They called in the barber's wife--the only woman's doctor known in these parts. She did her business ignorantly. The girl died in fearful pain.

Hindu women are inured to sickening sights, but this girl's death was so terrible that the elder sister has never recovered from the shock of seeing it. There she sits, they tell me, all day long, crouching on the floor, mute.

All do not pa.s.s like that; some pa.s.s very quietly, there are no bands in their death; and some are innocent children--thank G.o.d for the comfort of that! But it must never be forgotten that the heathen sin against the light they have; their lives witness against them. They know they sin, and they fear death. An Indian Christian doctor, practising in one of our Hindu towns, told me that he could not speak of what he had seen and heard at the deathbeds of some of his patients.

A girl came in a moment ago, and I told her what I was doing. Then I showed her the diagram of the Wedge; the great black disc for heathendom, and the narrow white slit for the converts won. She looked at it amazed. Then she slowly traced her finger round the disc, and she pointed to the narrow slit, and her tears came dropping down on it. "Oh, what must Jesus feel!" she said. "_Oh, what must Jesus feel!_" She is only a common village girl, she has been a Christian only a year; but it touched her to the quick to see that great black blot.

I know there are those who care at home, but do all who care, care deeply enough? Do they feel as Jesus feels? And if they do, are they giving their own? They are helping to send out others, perhaps; but are they giving their own?

_Oh, are they truly giving themselves?_ There must be more giving of ourselves if that wedge is to be widened in the disc. Some who care are young, and life is all before them, and the question that presses now is this: Where is that life to be spent? Some are too old to come, but they have those whom they might send, if only they would strip themselves for Jesus' sake.

Mothers and fathers, have you sympathy with Jesus? Are you willing to be lonely for a few brief years, that all through eternal ages He may have more over whom to rejoice, and you with Him? He may be coming very soon, and the little interval that remains, holds our last chance certainly to suffer for His sake, and possibly our last to win jewels for His crown.

Oh, the unworked jewel-mines of heathendom! Oh, the joy His own are missing if they lose this one last chance!

Sometimes we think that if the need were more clearly seen, something more would be done. Means would be devised; two or three like-minded would live together, so as to save expenses, and set a child free who must otherwise stay for the sake of one of the three. Workers abroad can live together, sinking self and its likes and dislikes for the sake of the Cause that stands first. But if such an innovation is impossible at home, something else will be planned, by which more will be spared, when those who love our G.o.d love Him well enough to put His interests first.

"Worthy is the Lamb to receive!" Oh, we say it, and we pray it! Do we act as if we meant it? Fathers and mothers, is He not worthy? Givers, who have given your All, have you not found Him worthy?

"Bare figures overwhelmed me," said one, as he told how he had been led to come out; "I was fairly staggered as I read that twenty-eight thousand a day in India alone, go to their death without Christ. And I questioned, Do we believe it? Do we really believe it? What narcotic has Satan injected into our systems that this awful, woeful, tremendous fact does not startle us out of our lethargy, our frightful neglect of human souls?"

There is a river flowing through this District. It rises in the Western Ghauts, and flows for the greater part of the year a placid, shallow stream. But when the monsoon rains overflow the watersheds, it fills with a sudden, magnificent rush; you can hear it a mile away.

Out in the sandy river bed a number of high stone platforms are built, which are used by travellers as resting-places when the river is low.

Some years ago a party of labourers, being belated, decided to sleep on one of these platforms; for though the rainy season was due, the river was very low. But in the night the river rose. It swept them on their hold on the stone. It whirled them down in the dark to the sea.

Suppose that, knowing, as they did not, that the rain had begun to fall on the hills, and the river was sure to fill, you had chanced to pa.s.s when those labourers were settling down for the night, would you, _could_ you, have pa.s.sed on content without an effort to tell them so?

Would you, _could_ you have gone to bed and slept in perfect tranquillity while those men and women whom you had seen were out in the river bed?

If you had, the thunder of the river would have wakened you, and for ever your very heart would have been cold with a chill chiller than river water, cold at the thought of those you dared to leave to drown!

You cannot see them, you say. You can. G.o.d has given eyes to the mind.