To what Purpose?
AMONG the closest of our little children's friends is one whose name I
may not give, lest her work should be hindered; for in this work of
saving the little ones, though we have the sympathy of many, we
naturally have to meet the covert opposition of very many more, and it
is not well to give too explicit information as to the centres of
supply. This dear friend's help has been invaluable. From the first she
has stood by us, interesting her friends, Indian and English, in the
children, and stirring them into practical co-operation. Then, when the
babies have been saved and had to be cared for and sent off, she made
nothing of the trouble, and above all she has never been discouraged.
Sometimes things have been difficult. Some have doubted, and many have
criticised, and even the kindest have lost heart. This friend has never
lost heart.
For not all the chapters of the Temple children's story can be written
down and printed for everyone to read. We think of the unwritten
chapters, and remember how often when the pressure was greatest the
thought of that undiscouraged comrade has been strength and inspiration.
No one except those who, in weakness and inexperience, have tried to do
something not attempted before can understand how the heart prizes
sympathy just at the difficult times, and how such brave and steadfast
comradeship is a thing that can never be forgotten.
Among the babies saved through this friend's influence was one with a
short but typical story.
The little mite was seen first in her mother's arms, and the mother was
standing by the wayside, as if waiting. Something in her attitude and
appearance drew the attention of an Indian Christian, whom our friend
had interested in the work, and she got into conversation with the
mother, who told her that her husband had died a fortnight before the
baby's birth, and she, being poor though of good caste, was much
exercised about the little one's future. How could she marry her
properly? She had come to the conclusion that her best plan would be to
give her to the Temple. So she was even then waiting till someone from a
Temple house would come and take her little girl.
The news that such a child is to be had soon becomes known to those who
are on the watch, and it is improbable that the mother would have had
long to wait. The Christian persuaded her to give up the idea, and the
little babe was saved and sent to us. On the journey to Dohnavur a
Temple woman chanced to get into the carriage where the little baby
slept in its basket. There was nothing to tell who she was; and like the
other women in the carriage, she was greatly interested in its story.
But presently it became evident that her interest was more than
superficial. She looked well at the baby and was quiet for a time; then
she said to the Christian who was bringing it to us: "I see it is going
to be an intelligent child. Let me have it; I will pay you." The
Christian of course refused, and asked her how she knew it was going to
be intelligent. "Look at its nose," said the Temple woman. "See, here is
money!" and she offered it. "Let me have the baby! You can tell your
Missie Ammal it died in the train!"
Sometimes our babies have to run greater risks than this in their
journeys south to us. The distances which have to be covered by train
and bullock-cart are great, and the travelling tedious. And there are
many delays and opportunities for difficulties to arise; so that when we
know a baby is on its way to us we feel we want to wrap it round in
prayer, so that, thus invisibly enveloped, it will be protected and
carried safely all the way. Once a little child, travelling to us from a
place as distant, counting by time, as Rome is from London, was observed
by some Brahman men, who happened to be at the far end of the long
third-class carriage. Our worker, who was alone with the child, noticed
the whispering and glances toward her little charge, and wrapped it
closer in its shawl, and, as she said, "looked out of the window as if
she were not at all afraid, and prayed much in her heart." Presently a
station was reached. The language spoken there was not her vernacular,
but she understood enough to know something was being said about the
baby. Then an official appeared, and there was a cry quite
understandable to her: "A Brahman baby! That Christian there is
kidnapping a Brahman baby!" The official stopped at the carriage door.
She was pushed towards him amidst a confused chatter, a crowd gathered
at the door in a moment, and someone shouted in Tamil, above the excited
clamour on the platform: "Pull her out! A Christian with a Brahman
baby!"
"Then did my heart tremble! I held the baby tight in my arms. The man in
clothes said, 'Show it to me!' And he looked at its hands and he looked
at its feet, and he said: 'This is no child of yours!' But as I began to
explain to him, the train moved, and he banged the door; and I praised
God!"
India is a land where strange things can be accomplished with the
greatest ease. As all went well it is idle to imagine what might have
been; but we knew enough to be thankful.
Among the unwritten chapters is one which touches a problem. There are
some little children--often the most valuable to the Temple women--who
cannot live with us, but can live with them, because the baby in the
Temple house is nursed by a foster-mother for the sake of merit, and
thus it is given its best chance of life; whereas with us it is
impossible to get foster-mothers. Indian children of the castes approved
for the service are not, as a class, as robust as others; the secluded
lives of their mothers, and the rigid rules pertaining to widows
(girl-children born after the mother becomes a widow are, as has been
seen, in special danger), partly account for this; and in other cases
there are other reasons. Whatever the cause, however, the effect is
manifest. The baby is seldom the little bundle of content of our English
nurseries. It may become so later on, if all goes well. Often it lives
upon its birth-strength for four months, or less, and then slips away.
We have often hesitated about taking such babies; and then we have found
that by refusing one who is likely to die we have discouraged those who
were willing to help us, and the next baby in danger has been taken
straight to the house where its welcome was assured. So we have hardly
ever dared to refuse, and we have taken little fragile things whose days
we knew were numbered unless a foster-mother could be found, for it
seemed to us that death with us was better than life with the Temple
people; and also we have not dared to risk losing the next, who might be
healthy. "One dies, one lives," say the Temple women in their wisdom,
and take all who are suitable in caste and in appearance. "She will be
'fair,'" or, "She will be intelligent," settles the matter for them.
They give the baby a chance: should we do less?
One night I woke suddenly with the feeling of someone near, and saw,
standing beside my bed out on the verandah, the friend who has sent us
so many little ones. She had something wrapped in a shawl in her arms,
and as she moved the shawl a thin cry smote me with a fear, for a baby
who has come to stay does not cry like that.
It was a dear little baby, one of the type the Temple women prize, and
will take so much trouble to rear. The little head was finely formed,
and the tiny face, in its minute perfection of feature, looked as if
some fairy had shaped it out of a cream rose-petal. Alas, there was that
look we know so well and fear so much--that look of not belonging to us,
the elsewhere, other-world look. But we could not do this work at all,
we would not have the heart to do it, if we did not hope. So we go on
hoping.
The baby filled the next half-hour, for a thing so small can be hungry
and say so; and together we heated the water and made the food, till,
satisfied at length that her little charge was comfortable, our friend
lay down to rest. "Jesus therefore being weary with His journey, sat
thus on the well." There is something in the utter weariness after a
long, hot journey, ending with seven hours in a bullock-cart over rough
tracks by night, which always recalls that word of human tiredness. How
I wished that the morning were not so near as I saw my friend asleep at
last! A few hours later she was on her homeward way, and we were left
with our hopes and our fears, and the baby.
For three weeks we hoped against fear, till there was no room left for
any more hope, or for anything but prayer that the child might cease to
suffer. And after a month of struggle for life, the tiny, tossing thing
lay still.
"To what purpose is this waste?" Was it strange that the question came
again to ourselves, and to others too? Our dear friend's toilsome
travelling--a journey equal in expenditure of time to one from London
to Vienna and back again, and very much more exhausting, the faithful
nurse's patience, the little baby's pain! And all the love that had
grown through the weeks, and all the efforts that had failed, the very
train ticket and bandy fare--was it all as water spilt on the ground?
Was it waste?
We knew in our hearts it was not. The dear little babe was safe; and it
might be that our having taken her, though she was so very delicate,
would result in another, a healthy child, being saved, who, if she had
been refused, would never have been brought. This hope comforted us; and
we prayed definitely for its fulfilment, and it was fulfilled. For
shortly after that little seed had been sown in death, information came
from the same source through which she had been saved, that another
child was in danger of being adopted by Temple women; and this
information would not have been given to our friend had the first child
been refused. Nundinie we called this little gift: the name means
Happiness.
Sometimes in moments of depression and disappointment we go for change
of air and scene to the Premalia nursery; and the baby Nundinie,
otherwise Dimples, of whom more afterwards, comes running up to us with
her welcoming smile and outstretched arms; while others, with stories as
full of comfort, tumble about us, and cuddle, and nestle, and pat us
into shape. Then we take courage again, and ask forgiveness for our
fears. It is true our problems are not always solved, and perhaps more
difficult days are before; but we will not be afraid. Sometimes a sudden
light falls on the way, and we look up and still it shines: and what can
we do but "follow the Gleam"?