SOOBOO
It is not only to poor and outcast girls that the sight of the King
of India brings joy. There are women in that land whose lives were
happy and glad before they saw Him, who yet felt, whenever they knew
Him, that there was nothing that could make up to them for missing His
service.
Sooboo was one of these. She was a young girl of high caste in Madras.
Her father was wealthy and honoured and she still stayed with him,
though she was married, because, though she had all the honour that is
given to a wife, her husband would never take her to his house. She had
been born on a Friday and she was one of twin children, and because of
these things she would bring ill-luck to her husband’s house if she
entered it. She was very happy in her father’s house, and she gave her
time to the worship of the gods. All day long she thought of them, and
planned what she could do to show her reverence for them, and to win
merit by deeds of devotion.
One of her plans was to build a temple and to have within it an image
of herself bowing before her god, and the image and the god were both
to be made of gold. She had charge of the household gods too, and she
longed to learn to read in order that she might find out for herself
from the oldest Indian writings--the Vedas--what the will of the gods
really was, because different priests and teachers seemed to contradict
each other, and she thought that if she could get away back to the
sacred books she would know better how to worship.
She tried to find some Hindu woman who would teach her. But there was
not one. There were Zenana missionaries, but her friends were terribly
frightened to let them near her. “They will teach you this new religion
about Jesus,” they said. But Sooboo was so eager to learn to read and
so sure of her own faith in the Hindu gods that she said, “What they
teach me about that will go in at one ear and out at the other.” Sooboo
had said “that.” She meant the religion of the foreigners. She did not
know that the Christians had a real living King whom they knew and
obeyed. She thought they had just another set of rules about life and
stories of gods who could be worshipped but who sat apart and had no
care for the men and women who served them.
When she saw the King of India she knew Him to be her King, and the
thought of Him entered deep into her heart. At first she hoped that she
might stay at home and win her father and the others there to serve
Christ too. His service was so wonderful to her, so different from
the worship of the idols and so immensely better, that she could not
believe that those she loved so well, and whom she honoured, would not
serve Him too if they could only see Him.
But she did not know how fiercely her family hated the religion of the
foreigner. They tried every way they could to make her yield, and when
their pleading and their caresses failed, they began to ill-use her.
But she did not flinch. She only thought she must be patient and wait
till those whom she loved saw Jesus Christ for themselves. But one
night she heard an awful thing. She heard that her people were planning
to send her away to a far distant city to make her a priestess in an
idol temple there. She knew too well that if they took her there, she
would be forced to worship the god and to take part in rites that were
hateful to her, or else to die. She had been willing to bear pain and
unkindness in the hope that she might win her friends to Christ, but
she could not yield to this. So one night she left her father’s house
and reached the home of the missionaries in safety. She would not yield
to the entreaties of her friends who came to seek her, though she still
loved them, and they could not force her to go back, for she was old
enough to be free by law to decide for herself.
You remember the golden image of Sooboo that was being made to stand in
the Hindu temple. There was another image made of Sooboo now. It was
not made of gold, and it was large--as large as Sooboo herself. When it
was finished it was not set up in a temple. It was laid on a stretcher
like a dead body, and carried through the streets of Madras and
Sooboo’s father and brothers wailed out as they carried it, “Sooboo is
dead!” “Sooboo is dead!” And Sooboo listened as they passed along. She
heard the voices of those she loved wailing out this terrible dirge,
and in her misery she covered her ears with her hands.
The image of Sooboo was burned on the funeral pyre as if it had really
been Sooboo; and what followed after was even more terrible for the
girl, for she heard that her mother, who had always been so much cared
for, and had enjoyed the comfort and luxury of a wealthy home, and who
had lived away from the sight of all except those of her own family,
had taken the ashes of the image of Sooboo and had started out on foot
to beg her way to the Ganges and throw the ashes on its waters. No one
knew so well as Sooboo how great her mother’s love for her was, when it
could make her venture out into the unknown land to walk, in poverty,
hundreds of miles, in order, if possible, to win forgiveness for her
child. How she longed to fly to comfort her mother. But that could only
be by denying her King!
Sooboo had a pilgrimage of her own to make, for she carried the
devotion that had made her plan how she could best serve the gods into
her service of the King. Her pilgrimage took her into the villages and
the Zenanas round Madras that she might help the women of her land to
see the King of India. And ever when the sight of a funeral made her
think of that awful wail “Sooboo is dead,” or when some aged pilgrim
brought back the thought of her mother’s weary steps over the burning
roads of India, she turned to her own pilgrimage more eagerly, that
she might hasten the time when India would know that it was life and
not death to find the King, and when its peoples would crowd to Him,
instead of to the Ganges.
For there is something about the King of India that makes men and women
who have really seen Him feel that there is nothing so great as to
serve Him, and nothing so kind as to help some one else to see Him too.
But this King of India is the King of all the world, and He still asks
those who have seen Him to help Him in His kingdom. The boys and girls
in India to-day could win all their land for Him if they only knew Him.
But the boys and girls in Christian lands must help, for even those who
are far away have their part to do. Long ago if a boy wished to be a
knight he began by serving a knight. Christ the King needs many knights
to ride for Him in India, to redress wrong, to save the sad and dying
and the sinful; but He needs others to be servants of the knights, and
each boy and girl can find something to do to help the knights of the
King of India.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Man of low caste.
[2] Outcast races.
[3] “Kheddah,” the name given to the enclosed space.
[4] Elephant driver.
[5] Woman’s garments.
[6] Very small coins.
[7] Feminine of Pandit, teacher.
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Transcriber’s note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.