ABSTRACT
I was due to leave for our Church and Mission conferences, and had been told to bring a servant. But the man had got himself entangled in a court case; it was to come on some days ago, but then postponed till the very day of my departure. I sent to ask the Magistrate kindly to give the case precedence, as the servant must leave with me at 4 p.m. “All right,” was the reply. But when the servant went to court in the morning the Magistrate had gone off to Penu-roy, and the case was postponed for a further two days. This is quite usual and convenient to the magistrate or to clients who ask for delay, but not to other people. I had to leave Rama Das behind and take a raw and untrained new-comer, and say to the little lapping waves of worry, “begone! we shall manage.”In the train, by appointment, a former teacher joined me further down the line. She is married to a wastrel whose trading always comes to nothing; now she is working in a Government school. She was a splendid little evangelist in former days; in her present appointment there is no way of direct spiritual service. Is this all life is to hold ? They have no children. Why not try wholeheartedly Mission work and take the headmistress-ship of our Dharmpalli school? Her eyes shone with longing as I propounded the needs there.“ I want to come. I must think. I will let you know. He will be against it.”“But you are earning for you both ? Does not, then, the power of choice of a post rest with you ?”“Yes, I earn our living. And so, you see . . . less money. . . . ”“But freedom to work for God ?”“Ye-es. Still, one must live. I will ask.”If the path of faith looked steep to her (too steep, it proved in the end) it does to others as well.“Look at our desperate state. In the men’s work; in the women’s work,” was the topic that depressed us even more
than the heat and dust, as a number of us travelled through the blazing noon next day over a stony ghaut road and a mile wide river-bed of blistering sand at its end. On arrival at the Mission station it was still the same; news of quarrels and scandals was waiting. “And only such a small missionary staff now,” lamented my hostess. “And only God left to help us,” I could not forbear adding. The response was immediate: “Rather a big Remainder!”But in our Church Council next day the same battle-line stood arrayed against that inner attitude. Our Indian helpers are now in charge alongside of missionaries; indeed, in democratically constituted councils like ours, they may be said to form the government, as brown outnumbers white. Are we expecting too much ? There appears to be a certain obtuseness to spiritual values or claims. The pastorate of a weak church was vacant, and no volunteer could be found in that assembly. “There are factions there; they will talk against the pastor.” My thoughts strayed to South Sea islanders; how many of those heroic native teachers had volunteered to go to other islands and endured there loneliness and danger, some of them being martyred in the end, and belonging to that succession of whom the world is not worthy. T o be sure, they had seen it happen to some missionaries first. Oh for some cannibals in India! I felt tempted to sigh. If a few of us were slain that would help greatly. But when discouragement threatened to gain the victory the signs of the Divine Spirit striving within the spirit of man became manifest. A worker stood up and declared his readiness to go to that difficult church and face the contradiction of sinners said to be so rife there.Our own business meetings followed and were depressing enough; anxious re-arrangements, to meet the curtailments in staff and finance. They lasted all day, from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m. Then from six o’clock till eight I was hard at work on a minute that had to be presented next morning. It was; but
after reading it and embodying the emendations suggested, I had to leave the meeting as temperature had crept up to 104. Merely over-fatigue, but “how shall I travel to-morrow?” a wave lapped near again. However, I had not to bother to beat it back; a small whisper said clearly, “ It will be all right” ; and so it proved. Though still 102 in the evening, I woke refreshed after a good night, gaily rose and packed, then fell on the minute again, partly dictated, partly copied, it; able for everything, including the whole tiring journey back.In the evening I arrived at the junction, where the catechist met me to arrange about a women’s Summer School. Sudden rain! I had brought no coat; but, undaunted, draped myself in a red table-cloth and proceeded in the dark to the little room behind the church, where I spent the night, the coolie having learned the ways of camp-cots, bedding, and supper fairly creditably by this time. The planned interview took place and details were worked out satisfactorily; but next morning, just at train time, it poured afresh. In the daytime a figure arrayed in a red table-cloth would look a little remarkable, I feared, but stalked brazenly through the downpour nevertheless and survived, along with the spectators, who may have found it more difficult.At Andapur the girls’ class was waiting, also an accumulated post; also visitors had arrived, old Krishnagi’s widow and her daughter and sister whom she wants taken into the Home; Rama Das, his court case over, was yearning to pour out his indignation over a fine-while I, still a little wobbly after the fever, had rather hoped for a day’s quiet to prepare for the impending Summer School.“ I object to everlasting climbing, I want to sit down,” I used to say. Somehow, these days I don’t feel like saying it. There is a sense of being carried. I cannot explain it. In the midst of everything, “the secret.”
