01 CHILDHOOD

Chapter 1

CHILDHOOD

JAMES LIDDELL PHILLIPS and his twin brother John were born on January 17th, 1840, being the sons of the Rev. Jeremiah Phillips, D.D., and Mary Anne Grunditch, his wife. His father came out to India in 1836 with Mr. Noyes, to open a Free Baptist Mission at Orissa. It was a missionary speech that he heard, when he was only ten years old, which first put into his heart the desire to dedicate his life to the preaching of the Gospel to the heathen. Afterwards, when he was twenty-one, he heard Dr. Sutton tell the story of Orissa, and this decided him to offer himself for the work there.

He sailed from America in 1836, with several other missionaries, his first station being at Sumbulpore, where he suffered as few missionaries do now.

He had not been long in India when his wife and little daughter died, and he helped to bury them with his own hands.

Soon afterwards he came to Balasore, where he married Miss Mary Anne Grunditch. It was here, in Balasore, that the twin boys were born. Two months later, their father removed to Jellasore, a distance of about thirty miles to the north-east, where he founded the second permanent station of the India Free Baptist Mission. The following year Mrs. Phillips fell a victim to an Indian fever, and thus the twin boys were left motherless when only six months old.

Towards the close of the year 1840, Miss Anne Cummings, a member of the Lowell Free Baptist Church, in company with Dr. and Mrs. Bacheler, joined the mission. She subsequently became the third wife of Dr. Jeremiah Phillips. Nobly did she fulfill her duties as second mother to the orphan brothers. At first they were in the care of an ayah, or Indian nurse, who used to bring sugar tied up in the corner of her cloth for her " Jimmy baba," and watched him day and night. Soon it became apparent that the boy was likely to develop into a perfect little tyrant, so the ayah was sent away, and throughout the rest of their childhood the two boys were constantly nurtured and cared for by Mrs. Phillips. She took much pride in her flower garden, and when the boys were still but very small, she gave them light tasks in it every morning. John is said to have been the good boy, and stuck to his work, while Jimmy, the hero of our story, generally ran off to play with the native boys, and when carried back, resisted vigorously, until he found that his mother was not to be frightened so easily as the ayah, and that play came sooner by finishing the work quickly, and doing it well. In after years, Dr. Phillips often attributed his methodical and painstaking habits to the training of those early days. When they were a little older their father gave them a patch of ground in which to raise arrowroot, and all the profits were their own. Their small accumulations were a source of much pride to the little boys ; but even as children they were taught to take care of their money, and to give one-tenth of it to God, The first thing they did on receiving money was always to divide it into ten equal parts, and to set aside one for religious purposes.

Mrs. Phillips also taught them to sew and knit, and during the long hot days they made little garments and knitted socks. We shall see how, afterwards, during school and college days in America, Dr. Phillips found the advantage of these very practical acquirement’s.

All their days in India were regularly divided between work, study, and play. They had lessons in English and Oriya, and they studied on a little bench in their father’s room. The bench is now in the Midnapore chapel. Later on they also learned Bengali. A grand old banyan tree in the garden was an endless source of pleasure. They never tired of swinging from its long arching roots with the native boys. Under this banyan tree the British soldiers used sometimes to encamp. A second banyan tree near by, in the back compound, was planted by Dr. and Mrs. Phillips on the occasion of their marriage, and under it was held the first Indian Sunday School Convention in 1870. Not far from the missionary’s house was the quaint little mission chapel. The boys attended Sunday School with the native children, and Jimmy sat on a bench in the back of his father’s pulpit during service, and in after years admitted that the long sermons were dreadful.

Several little sisters came in due course, and added brightness to the missionary’s home, and the ingenuity of the two boys was constantly taxed to contrive new ways of carrying them about. In after years Dr, Phillips said — " One of my happiest recollections is that of putting a sweet, golden-haired sister into a basket, just large enough to hold her, and tying it to a pole, which I carried on my shoulder, spurred on by the bursts of glee and wild delight that came from the tiny bed suspended in the air behind me."

Camping out was great fun. Once a year Dr. Phillips took the boys with him. They took no books, but studied the jungle and the strange people instead. They delighted to collect the beautiful fragrant lilies, which grew up through the grass in damp and lonely places. The jungle had its dangers, and the little boys grew familiar with the sight of deadly cobras, stretched out in the sun. One little Oriya boy died in fifteen minutes after he had been bitten by one. Crocodiles, too, were seen sleeping on the banks of the streams, but sank down into the water too quickly to be examined. Then they caught scorpions, and tied strings to their tails, to their hearts’ content. During the night, bears came for the sugar-cane which grew near the missionary’s tent, and sometimes wild elephants hurried through the jungle forests, trampling down everything on their way. Sometimes, too, the boys followed the footprints of Bengal tigers in the sandy jungle paths. They went with their father and gave away tracts in the great markets, and ran into the little dark huts, sitting on mats and eating curry and rice (which the women piled up on fresh green leaves for them) with their fingers, and listening eagerly as the native women told them about ghosts that prowled about in uncanny fashion, and lived in hiding-places in the hills, and about unseen spirits that fluttered among the quivering leaves overhead, and about sacred creatures that roamed the neighbouring plains. They were in mortal terror one day, and the poor people were almost wild with excitement, when a newly arrived missionary shot a peacock.

John and " Jimmy baba " were welcomed everywhere. They soon knew the customs of the people, their secrets, and the way to win their affection; but sometimes into their everyday life came horrible scenes, which are now rarely, if ever, witnessed in India. Pilgrims passed the house in thousands, on their way to the Car Festival at Puri, and the boys eagerly rushed into the road to watch the great crowds. Between sunrise and sunset one day, 20,000 pilgrims were counted.

Sometimes cholera broke out among them. On one occasion during the morning walk, which the boys always took with their father, they saw within a mile thirty dead bodies by the roadside, while on the river bank some half-dozen funeral piles were burning. At the Swinging Festival they saw men suspended from poles by hooks fastened in their backs, and sometimes swinging with a child in their arms. Devotees passed by the missionary’s home, who held up their arms until the muscles were withered, and it was impossible to bring them down again. Others measured the road to Jagannath by stretching themselves on the ground. The most horrible of all was the sight of the Khand children who had been fattened for sacrifice, and were rescued by the missionaries, who afterwards kept them in their midst.

These horrible scenes and other influences which were to be dreaded made the father and mother very anxious to send the boys to America to complete their education. More than once they had traced the journey from Jellasore to New York on the map by day, and by night had dreamed it all out again. At last a day came when the father said, " Boys, Dr. Bacheler and his family are going to America. Would you like to go too ? " That was a great moment in their lives, and it was not long before they said " Yes." They were now nearly twelve years old. For boys so young to cross the seas, and to enter upon the unknown world of school life in America, was no light matter, and we can well imagine that not only were the parents’ hearts anxious, but the boys themselves were not without some degree of fearfulness as they looked forward to leaving India, and all the strange surroundings amid which their childhood had been passed, and to going forth to what was practically an unknown world ; but they brushed away their tears, and for some days were busy with preparations for the voyage. Their hearts swelled with pride as they imagined themselves astonishing the American natives with their grand new clothes. Poor little fellows, they little knew that the fashions of Jellasore were not a little out of date, and that their finery would give rise to more amusement than admiration in the distant land. At last all was finished, and the boxes duly locked and corded. The scene at their departure was one which European eyes can scarcely picture. It was one o’clock on a bright moonlight night on December 8th, 1851. The palkis and bearers were at the door, and the Oriya Christians were crowding the verandah, and sobbing as though their hearts would break, while the blue eyes of brother Jerry and the little girls were filled with farewell tears. The two boys were crying and hugging all alike, men and women, boys and girls, black and white, and then bounding into the palkis, they buried their heads in the pillows, and ultimately sobbed themselves to sleep. In an hour or two the moon went down, and they were awakened by the cries of the jackals, and the glare of the torches carried by the bearers. It took them five days to reach Calcutta, and on December 21st they sailed down the Hooghly, waving their handkerchiefs to their parents on the shore, until all they could see was a white speck, marking the place where their hearts were still.