1.07.21. Book 7: 21. It is a Serious Task

21. IT IS A SERIOUS TASK

FENN recovered and the Band pulled itself together and fought through that sinking of the spirits which makes us feel as if the bottom of things had been knocked out and nothing much mattered any more. Straight through the hot weather now upon them they worked steadfastly, preaching in hundreds of villages and towns, and rejoicing mightily when here and there they came upon ground already made soft with showers. In such ground they sowed the seed with a sure hope, and watched with grateful delight the ever-new miracle of its upspringing (there is no missionary song like the 65th Psalm). But though they had these good hours sometimes, they never dis­guised the fact that as a whole the ground was very dry. "To this-side-cow that side looks green," says the Tamil. "Far green cools the eyes." Far hills look blue. But the far green is probably tussocky elephant grass. Climb the hills, and you find them hard going.

Ragland was a man who had no use for paint where truth was concerned. Perhaps mathematics and paint do not run together. At all events he writes about things exactly as he finds them. Every now and then he strikes sharply against the much pleasanter view usually accepted now about the "Spiritual East." Is it always remembered that Westcott’s rather over-emphasized remark touched only that rarest type of soul, the seeker after God, whose ritual docs indeed express him? Be that as it may, here is the word of another Cambridge scholar, one who knew the people not from books only, but in the thousand contacts of life.

"I find it [the work] likely to prove not such as those I have spoken to in England and in India have thought, particularly interesting or exciting; but rather just what I expected myself from the first, quiet, humble plodding day after day, and returning again and again to the same dull-minded (or if quick-minded, gainsaying) people, and endeavouring to make them care about their souls and seek the Lord Jesus Christ; a work requiring very much patience and love, faith and perseverance. Oh that I might have all this!"

Pioneer work sounds splendid; there is glamour in the very word; there is usually none in the life itself. Hear another of God’s pioneers, Coillard of the Zambesi:

"The evangelization of the heathen world in the place where it is carried on is certainly not a tissue of strange customs and adventures as thrilling as a romance; it is a desperate struggle with the Prince of Darkness, and with everything his rage can stir up in the shape of obstacles, vexations, oppositions, and hatred, whether by circumstances or by the hand of man. It is a serious task. It should mean a life of consecration and faith." But because they had entered into the field with earnest hope, and because they could not be satisfied with anything short of reality, and never (this is a Tamil word) showed brass for gold, Ragland and his colleagues searched themselves to find cause for the disappoint­ments which did certainly meet them, and, ever methodical, Ragland drew up a set of questions and answers probing into the matter.

First, as regards the Hindus, there were cer­tain hindrances: their thorough worldliness, an almost universal forgetfulness of a future state (in spite of their doctrine of transmigra­tion) and a great unwillingness to believe in it; their habits of idolatry and sensuality, for both can co-exist with the most intriguing philosophy; and in the domestic arrangements of some castes, allowed gross immorality. These he regarded as natural difficulties; but, then, though confessedly great, they would prove as nothing before the power of God and His quickening Spirit. So he goes deeper: our preaching itself may be faulty. Is it always the Gospel? Always to the point? Do we avail ourselves of every opportunity and every mode of approaching the people?

Then, going deeper still: Do they see in us hindering things? Worldliness of mind? Levity? Impatience and anger? Selfishness? And our friends, "Do they not sometimes commend us too much?"

But, in spite of disappointment, the three who were left were very happy. They were often tired of the perpetual travelling under conditions which never grew restful. They were discouraged at times, being as we are. But they had the splendid, unassailable happi­ness of freedom to pour themselves out to the very last drop, and they dearly loved one another.

"His ways with the Hindus were most im­pressive and tender," writes Meadows; "he would put his two hands on their shoulders and plead with them." (These would be the peasant folk; others of course could not be touched, they would have felt it defiling.) And he tells how for himself and Fenn it was as if language would not yield strong enough words of love. It was the same with his Indian brothers and fellow-workers. "Oh, may we all faithfully grow in pure and fervent love to one another. Our time of labour will soon be over, but then our time of fullest enjoyment of our Saviour’s love and one another’s love will only just be beginning," he wrote to one of them.

Such love is never forgotten in India. "What was he like?" I asked one of our oldest pastors, who had been, I was told, one of Ragland’s men. The dear old man was breakfasting with us, he had just told us the frog and towel story, and he turned where he sat beside me and looked at me with eyes that shone with the coming of a host of sweet memories. "He was loving, he loved us much," he said in Tamil, after a long pause; "without measure, without boundaries he loved us." To one who could so love, the longing to see a great turning of the people to the Lover of them all was no endurable faint desire, but a consuming passion, and the chill of hope de­ferred was as ice to his hot heart. Not that there were no individuals; a little church was soon gathered out, to which Every was to minister: but he longed to see crowds. Who does not? And it never becomes easier to see the greater number turn away unaffected, as it would appear, and undesiring.

Still the joy when it does come is unearthly for sweetness. It is wonderful to watch the unyielding attitude, the definite choice of sin, change gradually or suddenly to a concern, a sense of need, the tenderness of penitence, a longing after Jesus the Saviour of the world, an understanding of what is meant by that mysterious but simple coming to Him for life. We rejoice with Ragland as he tells of one, a wealthy landowner, who, for no earthly reason but the love of our Lord, came to Him and followed Him through good report and ill. But here again we come straight upon the innate honesty of the man. He knows how the Christian public at home springs upon quick results, and how well it likes the man who will give it what it wants, but he utterly refuses to convey false impressions. "How many such converts may we expect to be given us? Will not nine out of every ten be persons brought to us and kept with us by motives more or less worldly, and at length, only after a long pressing of God’s word upon their hearts, brought just to such a measure of knowledge and correctness of walk and desire for salvation as to justify our admitting them to baptism? If we were to look only at what has been, there would be no grounds for any high expectations. But are we to limit our expectations by what has been only?" No, verily.

These words were written in that great year, 1858. Echoes of what was happening in America had reached South India and stirred most ardent longings. Nothing could satisfy Rag­land but souls. But, like many another as earnest, he never saw the fields white unto the harvest. He was trusted to go on without seeing what he longed to see; and he went on.