1.07.23. Book 7: 23. An Open Window

23. AN OPEN WINDOW

DOWN came the rain, and the Plains smoked. Indoors Ragland wrote letters, did accounts, and unpacked his box from home, a precious box from Cambridge long looked forward to. One can almost see his careful hands taking the first of his four old silver prize cups, and the plate to match, from their tissue-paper wrappings, his pleased, kind eyes examining every detail, almost feel the warm heart-glow over this sign of unforgetting affection (for the plate was the gift of the Master and Fellows), and follow him to the holy quiet Communion with his Lord and the newly-won disciples, those joys of missionary life that pass the reach of words. And now at last, as at first, obedience to his Master’s command translated into terms of service was to Ragland, office work.

He could help the younger men by counsel and by the ever-growing gladness of his love for them and faith in them. He could talk quietly to the people, often tedious folk, who came and went; but he couId not do the more strenuous part of the work any more. Letter-­writing, account-keeping, consulting, the thou­sand multiplicities of the "secular"-these he could undertake. "And if they were all thrown upon us two younger brethren I think things couId hardly go on," was David Fenn’s view of the matter. In the land where heavenly values are noted, the unselfish men and women in our mission offices are known for what they are. So Ragland went on and met his last day, but not at all recognizing it, sat down to write his mail. In it he explained how he now hoped to help, and David Fenn interpolated as above, adding out of the fulness of his loving heart as seemed good to him. And Ragland, cheered to think he was wanted so much, continued his letter. It was his last letter. On that morning, October 22, 1858, life was as usual brimful of duties, and, as usual in India, if one lives with the people, there was much coming and going; a small boy hanging half­way through an open window would not be noticed. There was nothing unusual in that. But as the small boy looked, taking stock of the white men’s ways, he saw the man whose kindly face had pleased his sense of the fitness of things, walk quickly across his bedroom to a little room opening off it; heard a stifled call, saw the younger man run to the older, help him to his camp-cot set in a corner of the room, into which the boy now gazed fascinated. The man on the cot said something the boy could not understand, and he looked up. The boy looked up too, and very quickly, eager to miss nothing. But he saw nothing. Only he heard one word he recognized, "Jesus," saw a smile that no passing of the years could blot from memory, and before he realized what it was he saw, he was looking upon death.

"And I could only look upon her as a wounded victor in possession of the field, and the enemy out of sight," wrote Henry Venn of his dead wife. He would have said the same of the dead man whom, to his eternal joy, he had called forth to the Great War, could he have seen him then.

They laid him beside Every and Baren­brock, his faithful forerunners. One Englishman (Fenn) and a little group of Indian brothers stood together amazed, in tears. Then they turned to the house and took up life again, and the heavy grey skies seemed in sympathy as they came low down in rain. But as a dream when one awakeneth is the memory of such hours when the clouds have broken and the sun streams forth; and for these three friends it has been for a long time a morning without clouds.

. . . . And yet it might all have happened yester­day; for times change and customs; phrases pass, our very speech takes to itself new dress, the old sounds outworn to us, but the great elemental things of life do not change at all; like earth, air, water, fire, they abide unaltered and unalterable.

Deep in the quiet heart of the man who came and went before we were born, burned the fire of a great love. Many waters cannot quench such love, nor can the dust of years smother it. "Oh what a name is that," he wrote from the midst of life’s oppressions, "the name of our dear Redeemer, how easily it makes every rough thing smooth." And we? We have warmed ourselves for an hour by his fire, can we be as we were before? Can we bear our tepid lives? Can we call that poor little smouldering heap of ashes within us by the fiery name of love? What do the angels call it? Oh they are winds and flaming fires, those ministers of His that do His pleasures. And we? Are we winds and flames of fire?