1.02.11. Book 2: Ch 11. Not . . . But
CHAPTER XI As soon as she understood about baptism the Brownie wanted to be baptised. And one glorious evening late in November, after great rain had washed the hot world and all creation sang, we went together to the nearest water, and the Iyer baptised her as he did all our converts, though he repeatedly declared he was not sent to baptise but to preach the Gospel.
It was a perfect service taken as he took it. No hint of formality in its reverence, no paralysing half reality; it was all vital, real, a visible sign and seal of the invisible. Then too, a baptism in the open air in fresh water, under evening skies, in India at any rate, is something very good. We almost heard the angels sing as we walked home together. The matter of her name had been important to the Brownie. Her own original name was Six-faced, the name of a pleasing demon. There was therefore no question about changing it. She had a shy little under-longing to have my name, but I persuaded her out of that. It is poor enough in its mangled English; in Tamil it is even less desirable. Consolation finally came through the translation of my second name, Beatrice, which, from the day when I pored over Dante in the Manchester Free Library and came out into the street afterwards wondering what the people who brushed past me would be like if they had seen his visions, had felt too high for me, and so had tucked itself out of sight.
Suhinie (Happiness, or Blessedness) she then became. The name fitted her, for she was a blessing to everyone she came across, though she would have been much astonished to know it, and she made a kind of sunny happiness all round her. She would have been a perfect wife and mother, but unfortunately in our district the Christians keep caste in marriage and there was not a bridegroom of Suhinie’s caste: So the Church lost the greatest gift we could have helped to give it, a new true Christian home set up in its midst. Not that it minded, or minds. Caste-keeping comes far first.
How far first can only be understood by remembering how important marriage is from an Indian point of view. Witness, for example, the following petition brought to our door not long ago, by the poor Christian brother himself, a man from Travancore, miles away from us. He was perfectly sure we should feel ourselves obliged to help him to buy the required jewels, and so on. Why not?
"The bearer (followed a description of the stalwart working man) is under troubles owing to expenses of a daughter’s marriage which is to take place soon, and therefore I invite the help of every true and duty-bound Christian to meet the demands of this poor Christian brother." It was signed by the pastor of the Church. And yet more important even than something considered so imperative that if it cannot be done on one’s own money it must be done on somebody else’s, is this matter of caste-keeping-the exceptions few and shining prove the rule-and never for one single moment is it questioned. Marriage is important, inevitable, imperative. Yes, but more so ten thousand times is the keeping of caste.
Still, marriage is the goal of life. Suhinie had been brought up to think so, and it had never crossed her mind that she would be unmarried. She did not break her heart, being an eminently sensible person, but being woman all through she would have pined away if she had been shut up to some dull life, and mercifully that was not necessary. The nursery work had just begun, and it held in itself enough to satisfy the latent mother in her; for it is mother-work, demanding those qualities of truth and unselfishness and patience and limitless love which shine forth in all the true mothers of the world, and it offered those sweet, secret consolations, those dearest of little human loves that return, oh so generously, all that is poured forth. Who that has known it does not bless the Love that first created the fresh, warm, ever-forgiving love of a child? For the Brownie had come to us at the right time. A work was beginning which in the purpose of our God was to grow beyond our thoughts for it, and during those first years we were feeling our way back through innumerable obstacles to the simplicity of New Testament Christianity, to an ideal which has for its very central word, Sacrifice. This ideal has never been wholly dead in India; disguised under many a false cover it walks about all over the land; here and there it is found in naked truth among the Hindus: among Christians, it is not more popular than it is at home.
It is not easy to write of how it worked out into practical action with us, and perhaps the less written the better. We at Dohnavur had proved that the words, "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus," were quite literally true. There was an hour, never to be forgotten, when alone in my room I faced what then seemed the utmost worst that could befall these children should no help come. Literal hunger unto death, so easy to accept for ourselves, was not easy to think of for them, and there are many practical difficulties in connection with it when it comes to the point of facing it for a family. But what was it in comparison with that other death to which, if we refused them, they were condemned? But help came. The steps of faith that day "trod on the seeming void and found the Rock beneath." So we had proved Him Enough for the care of the children. We were now to prove Him Comfort and Defence when the scourge of the tongue fell upon us, as it did, when the group of workers, so small when the Brownie came that we hardly knew how to compass the day’s work, grew larger as one and another drawn by the love of the Lord joined us at Dohnavur.
Those who thus came knew the children could not be saved if no one were willing to lose life’s usual best for their sake. They had been smitten to the heart by the wrong wrought through uncounted cruel years, they had looked at Calvary and seen that which melted the heart thus stricken. Surely if He could suffer so much they could suffer a little? And so they turned from what would have been their life, had they not felt that smiting, seen that heavenly vision; and they asked to be allowed to break through the law of their land, wise law, the land being what it is, and they said, "Let us pour out all we have at the feet of the Crucified." Could we refuse them? Could we, dare we set limits to their love because what they asked was difficult and dangerous and new? Difficult and dangerous indeed, for India is not England. We who have been long enough in the East to become more than half-Easternised find ourselves looking with wonder at the pictures of our illustrated papers which show English girls going about safely and freely where they will, none making them afraid. The unsafest country in Europe is safe in comparison with India; and many a black night of fear has rolled over the head of the one responsible for allowing these girls to choose, fear beside which that earlier fear of mere death for the children was as nothing. But what is faith if it is never to rise to anything but the safe and the easy? And does not our Lord sometimes call us to the new?
Just then, to our exceeding help, a little book published by the C.M.S. came to the house, a book to be read on the knees of the spirit. It was called "When God Came." We heard it was being studied and discussed. We did not find it possible to discuss it. It took us to a place where all talk ceases, and the cry of the spirit is, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
There in that secret place, that which had seemed impossible to do was done, the group of girls and young women already in being, was fashioned into a fellowship simple but recognised as the very core of the spirit of the work at Dohnavur. And a new quickening was granted to us all, a new love. This band of unmarried women Suhinie found entirely amazing. To work without pay (some lost all to join us, some who had a little shared it, some who had nothing received daily bread and raiment to put on, but no one wanted "pay"), this was the first astonishment.
Then the work they did: it was humble work, for from the first we took all work to be royal service; and there was no distinction of rank, all were one. Arulai Tara, just then herself walking through fires of trial, was the oldest sister in that little group and she led the Brownie on by sheer force of bright example, till upon that simple mind great thoughts dawned, and the life purchased at such cost was spent out in service to the uttermost, as one of a band so lowly, so weak in itself, so handicapped in various ways, that there can be no fear surely that any will mistake and give to it the glory that belongs to Another. Sometimes we think our God must have been looking for something very small when He chose us to do this work for Him in India. But such a life asks for a clear-cut separation from the things that are not of the Father. The two lives will not mix. And those who are seeking so to follow will feel as we feel more and more every day we live, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus."
Lover of the Unlovables The remembrance of Josias is like the composition of the perfume that is made by the art of the apothecary: it is sweet as honey in all mouths, and as musick at the banquet of wine.- Sir 49:1.