1.03.01. Book 3: 1. Crooked Patterns

1 CROOKED PATTERNS

IT was convention week in a hill-station in India. The afternoon meeting was just over. A few Christian station-people, some English-­speaking Indian friends, and the sixty or seventy missionaries who had been listening to the Bible-reading were hurrying out to get a cup of tea before the evening meeting. An Indian lady lingered in the empty hall, and the writer, seeing her alone, and think­ing perhaps she had no friend at hand and might be feeling lonely, sat down beside her. Conversation turned upon the Bible-reading, the Indian lady’s face darkened and she said bitterly, "What is the use of such meetings? You missionaries say one thing, and do another!" It was easy to see she had been wounded and soured, but not knowing her history, I could only urge that the meetings were held just because we felt our need of being better than we were. But this did not satisfy her, and in quick, eager sentences she began to explain herself. She said that her people had noticed that when a missionary came out first, he was usually warm and loving, and keen to win souls. Then gradually, she said, it was noticed that he cooled. "And who can say," she concluded, with an intensity that went through her hearer, "who can say you missionaries lead specially holy lives? We Indian Christians observe. We observe you not only when you are at work, but when you are off work too. Is there anything remark­able about you? Are you burning-hot people? We look to you to show us patterns, and you are showing us crooked patterns." The words scorched. Discount what we may because of some inward hurt or warp; granted, thank God, the picture painted thus is not wholly true, there was enough truth left to lay at least the one who listened low down in the dust. This writing is not meant for old, experi­enced missionaries who long ago have made up their minds concerning the questions dis­cussed. It is only meant as a little word offered in all humility to younger fellow­missionaries who have not made up their minds. Comrades, in this solemn fight, this awful conflict with awful powers, let us settle it as something that cannot be shaken; we are here to live holy, loving, lowly lives. We cannot do this unless we walk very, very close to our Lord Jesus. Anything that would hinder us from the closest walk that is possible to us till we see Him face to face, is not for us. We need to be sensitive to the first approach of the hindering thing. For the sake of the souls that may be stumbled if we turn even ever so little aside, for the sake of our Master’s glory-dearer surely to us than all else-let us ask Him now to show us whether in anywise we have been showing "crooked patterns."

If this message should reach a new recruit, one would say the same word, only turning it a little: Will you not wait upon your Lord before you come out, and every day there­after from the first hour on board ship onwards, asking Him to keep you, as we ask Him now to keep us, from showing "crooked patterns"?