In the Compound and Near it
[Illustration: THE OLD NURSERY. THE "ROOM OF JOY."]
"NOW I know why God put you in Dohnavur when He wanted this work done.
He hid you from the eyes of the world for the little children's sake. He
knew this work could never have been done by the road-side, so He hid
you."
The speaker was a Christian friend from Palamcottah, an Indian lawyer
who, for the first time, had come out to see us. He had found our
approaches appalling, and had wondered at first why we lived in such an
out-of-the-way place, three or four miles from the nearest road, and
twenty-four from civilisation. When he saw the children he understood.
Later, he helped us in an attempt to save two little ones in danger, and
insisted not only upon paying his own and our worker's expenses, but in
sending us a gift for the nurseries. With the gift came a letter full of
loving, Indian sympathy; and again he added as before: "The Lord hid you
in that quiet place for the little children's sake." Sometimes when the
inconveniences of jungle life press upon us, we remember our friend's
words: "This work could never have been done by the road-side, so He hid
you."
We have children with us who would not have been safe for a day had we
lived near a large town or near a railway. The stretch of open country
between us and Palamcottah (the Church Missionary Society centre of the
Tinnevelly district), to cover which, by bullock-cart, takes as long as
to travel from London to Brussels, is not considered very safe for
solitary Indian travellers, as the robber clan frequent it, and this is
an added protection for the children. Several times, to our knowledge,
unwelcome visitors have been deterred from making a raid upon us, by the
rumour of the robbers on the road. We are also most mercifully quite out
of the beat of the ordinary exploiter of missions; few except the really
keen care for such a journey; so that we get on with our work
uninterrupted by anything but the occasional arrival of welcome friends
and comrades. These, when they visit us for the first time, are usually
much astonished to find something almost civilised out in the wilds, and
they walk round with an air of surprise, and quite inspiring
appreciation, being kindly pleased with little, because they had looked
for less.
[Illustration: THE COURTYARD.]
The compound in which the nurseries are built is a field, bounded on
three sides by fields, and on the fourth by the bungalow compound. The
Western Ghauts with their foothills make it a beautiful place.
The buildings are not beautiful. With us, as elsewhere, doubtless, even
the break of a gable in the straight, barn-like roof makes a difference
in the estimate, and we have never had a margin for luxuries. But the
walls are coloured a soft terra-cotta, the roofs are a dull red; while
the porches (hidden by the palm trunks in the photograph) are a mass of
greenery and bloom; and the garden at the moment of writing is rejoicing
in over a hundred lilies, brilliant yellow and flame colour, each head
with its many flowers rising separate and radiant in the sunshine. Then
we have oleanders, crimson and pink and white, and little young hibiscus
trees, crimson and rose and cream. The arches in the new nursery
garden are covered with the lilac of morning-glory; and the Prayer-room
in the middle of the garden is a mass of violet passion-flower, the
pretty pink antigone, and starry jessamine. The very hedges at this
season are out in yellow flower, and a trellis round the nursery kitchen
is a delight of colour; so though our buildings are simple, we think the
lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places.
The first picture shows the old nursery, used now for the kindergarten.
It opens off the courtyard shown in the second photo. This courtyard
serves as an open-air room, a bright little place which is filled with
merrier children than the sober photograph shows. Tamils old and young
move when they laugh or even smile; in fact they wriggle. Being still,
with them, meant being seriously subdued; and so, where time-exposures
were required, we had to choose between solemn photos, or no photos at
all.
Opening off the courtyard on the opposite side to the kindergarten is a
room used as a store-room and Bible-class room combined. It was so very
uncomfortable that last Christmas, as a surprise for the children, we
divided the room into two halves with a curtain between. Their half is
made pretty with pictures and texts, painted in blue on pale brown wood.
The children call this part of the room the Tabernacle. The part beyond
the curtain is the court of the Gentiles.
The Coming-Day Feasts are a feature of Dohnavur life. Now that there are
so many feasts to celebrate, we find it more convenient to combine; and
the photograph overleaf shows as much as it can of one such happy feast.
The children who are being feted are distinguished from the others by
having flowers in their hair. No Indian feast is complete without
flowers. Jessamine is the favourite, but the prettiest wreaths are made
of pink oleander; and sometimes a girl will surprise us with a new and
lovely combination, as of brown flowering grasses and yellow Tecoma
bells.
[Illustration: A COMING-DAY FEAST.]
Opposite the kindergarten room is the first of the two new
nurseries--the lively Parrot-house. This nursery, really the Taraha
(Star, called after its English giver, whose name means "star") is the
abode of the middle-aged babies, aged between two years and four. Most
of these attend the kindergarten, and are very proud of the fact.
The Premalia nursery (Abode of Love), given by two friends in memory of
a mother translated, lies beyond the Taraha. Here the tiny infants live,
and we call it the Menagerie. This nursery, like the other, looks out on
the glorious mountains. If beautiful things can make babies good, ours
should be very good.
On the eastern side of the field we have lately built two small
sick-rooms, used oftener as overflow nurseries. These little rooms have
names meaning "peace" and "tranquillity"; and those of us who have lived
in them with our babies, sick or well, find the names appropriate. In
the foreground there is a garden, in the background the mountain; and to
give purpose to it all, the foreground is full of life. A new nursery
now being built is a welcome gift from Australia; and a new field with a
noble tree, in whose shade a hundred children could play, is the gift of
a friend who stayed with us for one bright week last year.
All this is a later development, unthought of when our artist friend was
with us. We have often wished for him since the nurseries filled. When
he was with us our choice of subject was very limited: now, wherever we
look we see pictures, which to be properly caught ask for colour
photography.
The story of these buildings is the story of the Ravens, so old and yet
so new. When first the work began, we had only one mud-floored room for
nursery, kitchen, bedroom, and everything else that was needed. We
hardly knew ourselves whereunto things would grow, and feared to run
before the Lord by even a prayer for buildings. And yet we could not go
on as we were. The birds were soon too many for the nest, and we needed
more nests. No one knew of our need; for visitors at that time were few
at Dohnavur, and we told no one. But money began to come. We ventured on
a single room without a verandah or even foundations--built of sun-dried
bricks as inexpensively as possible. But it was a palace to us. While we
were building it, more little children came. We felt we should need more
room, but had not more money; so we told the builders to wait for a day
while we gave ourselves to prayer about the matter. Was the work going
to grow much more? We were fearful of making mistakes. Were we right to
incur fresh responsibility?--for buildings need to be kept in condition,
and the cheaper they are the more care they need. No one at home was
responsible for us. No one had authorised this new work. It would not be
fair to saddle those on whom the burden might eventually fall with
responsibilities for which they were not responsible. And yet surely the
work of saving these little children had been given to us to do? Someone
was responsible. Surely, unless we were utterly wrong and had mistaken
the Shepherd's Voice, surely He was responsible! He could not mean us to
search for the lambs for whom only the wolves had been searching, and
then leave them out in the open, found but unfolded, or packed so close
in the little fold that they could not grow as little lambs should?
We rolled the burden off that day as to the ultimate responsibility, and
we asked definitely for all that was needed to build another room.
Three days later a registered letter came from a bank in Madras. It
contained an anonymous gift of one hundred rupees, and was marked, "For
a new nursery." The date showed that it had been posted in Madras on the
day of our waiting upon God for guidance as to His wishes. A few days
later, the same amount, with the same direction as to its use, was sent
to us from the same bank. The giver, as we knew long afterwards, was a
fellow-missionary in Tinnevelly, whose order to send these sums to us
was given before even we ourselves had fully understood the meaning of
the leading. The second room was built on to the first, and the children
called it the Room of Joy.
[Illustration: THE RED LAKE.
Water Palms, with Mountains in the background.]
There are no secrets in India. The Hindu masons were amazed at what they
at once recognised as the hand of the Lord upon the work, and they
spread the story everywhere. Later, when they built the nursery where
poor little Mala stood and mourned, they understood why they had to stop
before the verandah was built. Only enough was in hand to build the bare
room; but to their eyes, as to ours, a verandah was much needed, and
they were content to wait till what was required for one came. In this
land of blazing sunshine and drenching monsoon a house without a
verandah is hardly habitable, and a small square room without one has a
Manx-cat appearance.
The story of the rooms has been repeated in the story of the work ever
since. "Do not thank us. It is only a belated tenth," wrote a
fellow-missionary not long ago, as she sent a gift for the nurseries.
Belated tenths have reached us sometimes when they have been like
visible ravens flying straight from the blue above. All the long
journeys in search of the children, all the expenses connected with
their salvation, all that has been required to provide nurses and food
(including the special nourishment without which the more delicate could
not live at all), all that is now being needed for their education--all
has come and is coming as the ravens came to Elijah. The work has
been a revelation of how many hearts are sensitive and obedient to
the touch of the Spirit; for sometimes help has reached us in such a way
and in such form that we could not but stand and worship, awestruck by
the token of the nearness of our God. There is many a spot marked in
garden or in field or in the busy nursery or our own quiet room, where,
with the open letter in our hand--the letter of relief from a pressure
unknown even to the nearest fellow-worker--we have knelt in spirit with
Jacob and said: "Surely the Lord is in this place!" and almost added, so
dense are we in unilluminated moments, "and I knew it not."
Framed between red roofs and foliage, there are far blue glimpses of
mountains shown in this lakeside photograph. We do not see the water
from the compound. It lies on the other side of the boundary fields and
hedges; but we see the mountains with perfect distinctness of outline,
scarped with bare crags, which in the early morning are sometimes pink,
and in the evening, purple. But the time to see the mountains in their
glory is when the south-west monsoon is flinging its masses of cloud
across to us. Then the mountains, waking from the lazy sleep of the
long, hot months, catch the clouds on their pointed fangs, toss them
back and harry them, wrap themselves up in robes of them, and go to
sleep again.
The road that skirts the Red Lake leads through two ancient Hindu towns,
from both of which we have children saved, in each case as by a miracle.
In the first of these old towns there is a Temple surrounded by a mighty
wall.
There are two large gates and one small side door in the wall; and,
passing in through the small side door, one sees another wall almost as
strong as the first, and realises something of the power that built it.
The Temple is in the centre of the large enclosure. It is a single tower
opening off the inner court. In the outer court a pillared hall is used
as stable for the Temple elephant, and two camels lounge in the roughly
kept garden in front. This Temple, with its double walls, its massive,
splendidly-carved doors and expensive animal life, is somewhat of a
surprise to the visitor, who hardly expects to see so much in a little
old country town on the borders of the wilds. But Hinduism has not lost
hold of this old remote India yet. There are some who think that the
country town is the place to see it in strength.
[Illustration: AT THE DOOR OF THE TEMPLE.]
It was early in August, three years ago, that we heard of a baby girl in
that town, devoted from birth to the god. We set wheels in motion, and
waited. A month passed and nothing was done. We could not go ourselves
and attempt to persuade the mother to change the vow she had made, as
any movement on our part would only have riveted the links that fettered
the child to the god. We had to be quiet and wait. At last, one evening
in September, a Hindu arrived in the town with whom our friends who were
on the watch had intimate connection. He, too, knew about the child; and
he knew a way unknown to our friends by which the mother might be
influenced, and he consented to try. His arrival just at that juncture
appeared to us, who were waiting in daily expectation of an answer of
deliverance, as the evident beginning of that answer; thus our faith was
quickened and we waited in keen hope. Two days later, after dark, there
was a rush from the nursery to the bungalow. "The baby has come!"
Another moment, and we were in the nursery. A woman--one of our
friends--was standing with what looked like a parcel wrapped in a cloth
hidden under her arm. Even then, though all was safe, she was trembling;
and outside, two men, her relations, stood on guard. She opened the
white cloth, and inside was the baby.
The men assured us that all was right. The mother had been convinced
of the wrongness of dedicating the little babe, and would give us no
trouble. But a day or two later, she came and demanded it back. She
could not stand the derision of her friends, who told her she had sinned
far more in giving her child to those who would break its caste than she
ever could have done had she given it to the Temple. We pacified her
with difficulty, and were thankful when the little thing was safe in the
Neyoor nursery. For in those days, before we learned how best to protect
our children, we were often glad to have some place even more out of
reach than Dohnavur.
The second of these old towns is famous for its rock, and its Temple
built into the rock. Looking down from above one can see inside the
courtyard as into an open well. Connected with this Temple, some years
ago, there was a beautiful young Temple woman, who had been given as a
child--as all Temple women must be--to the service of the gods. She had
no choice as regarded herself--probably the idea of choice never entered
her mind--but for her babe she determined to choose; and yet she knew of
no way of deliverance.
But there was a way of deliverance, and if it had only been for this one
child's sake, and for the sake of the relief it must have been to that
fear-haunted mother, we are glad with a gladness too deep for words that
the nursery was here. For the mother heard of it. There were lions in
the path. She quietly avoided them, and through others who were willing
to help she sent her child to us. She herself would not come. She waited
a mile or so from the bungalow till the matter was concluded, then
returned to her home alone.
A week later she appeared suddenly at the bungalow. It was only to make
sure the little one was safe and well, and in order to sign a paper
saying she was wholly given to us. This done she disappeared again,
refusing speech with anyone, and for months we heard nothing of her.
Then cholera swept our countryside, and we heard she had taken it and
died. We leave her to God her Creator, who alone knows all the story of
her life: we only know enough to make us very silent. And through the
quiet we hear as it were a voice that chants a fragment from an old
hymn: "We believe that THOU shalt come to be our Judge."