NANG RUNGEAH, THE CAMBODIAN PROSELYTE.
TÂMSÈNG presented a picture of the sea at the moment when the tide is
on the turn: there is always a lull, and sometimes a profound calm,
before the mighty currents shift and set in another direction. The
eager child who is piling up castles of sand one upon another on its
shores pauses in wonder and astonishment at the sight. That strong
angel, the tide, that he had watched in breathless delight advancing
resistlessly, ever onward, nearer and nearer, rushing on to kiss with
its foaming mouth his wayward feet, then rolling back, and "laughing
from its lips the audacious brine," is suddenly arrested. The dull,
surging roar that filled his ear, as if it were the voice of some
mysterious sea-god, is hushed; the great sea has become silent and
still, and the strong angel has expired. His last faint effort, and his
feeble dying moan, fall upon the child's attentive eye and listening
ear like a death-knell, for he has been told that this "tide" keeps
the salt sea fresh and its shores healthful. He sets up a shout of
despair, and prays the strong angel to return and trouble again the
still waters, to renew the life which has passed away, and prevent that
in-setting of stagnation that must bring with it mortal disease to the
earth.
Religions have their tides as well as the ocean, and all life has
its grand cyclical currents, whether in the church, the state, the
individual, or the nation. Thus this little village of Tâmsèng seemed
long since to have arrived at the period of that reaction which
marks the disappearance of the tide from the sea, and the influx of
that sluggish insensibility which foretells the beginning of the
stagnation, which, if not removed, must inevitably end in mortification
and death.
But now, after the torpor of nearly half a century, and through the
death-like stagnation of the decaying village, there is heard a voice
of general rejoicing. The main features of the place undergo a slight
change; a gentle flow of life stirs its corpse-like visage; a beautiful
and wealthy Cambodian heiress, the Lady Nang Rungeah is a candidate for
baptism in the Roman Catholic Church.
On the 25th of June, it being the morning of her first confessional,
the bells are set in motion and ring all day till sunset, as is the
custom for a new convert, resounding in the glens and hollows and amid
the spires of the Buddhist and Roman Catholic temples.
The chamber into which I had looked at a young girl reading with
her heart and eyes a copy of the New Testament--translated, not by
a Roman Catholic, but by an American Presbyterian missionary, the
Rev. Mr. Mattoon--is now the centre of a most animated scene. Khoon
P'hagunn and his wife Jethamas are seated in the little room in earnest
conversation. They are interrupted by their daughter Rungeah, who comes
quietly in, throws her arms around her mother, kneels before her and
lays her head in her lap. The mother folds her arms tenderly around her
child, and caresses her lovingly, smoothing her soft hair.
"Ah! Rungeah, art thou dressed already? Thou dost not need much
adornment." And the old man's eyes brightened with pride and love as
they lighted on the pleasant beauty and the graceful proportions of his
daughter.
Nang Rungeah, the bright lotus-flower, was indeed pleasant to look
upon. Hers was the half Indian and half Cambodian beauty so rare in
Siam,--the large, long, drooping eye, round, oval face, and clear
complexion, with a touch of healthful ruddiness in her cheeks,
purple-black hair, soft and rich, falling loosely in long curls over
her shoulders. The charms of her face and feature, however, were as
naught to the brightness and kindliness that played over them like a
sunny gleam. Her figure was remarkable, tall and lithe, yet perfectly
rounded, and swelling fairly beneath the graceful bodice and the full
skirt that fell in soft folds to her sandalled feet. The pin by which
her veil was fastened was set off with a number of brilliants; her
arms were ornamented with gold bangles, and on her neck she wore a new
chain, a gift from her sad and loving mother, a rosary of gold and
black coral beads, to which was attached a massive gold figure of the
Christ on the cross.
"Alas! my child," said the mother at length, "I pray P'hra Buddh the
Chow that no harm will come to thee through this new religion."
"I wonder to hear you speak thus, dear mother," replied the young girl,
lifting her eyes reproachfully to her mother's face. "O, I wish you
could be brought to see how much more beautiful this religion of P'hra
Jesu is than that of Buddha; and then think of the beautiful 'Marie,'
his Holy Mother, who is ever at his side, ready to whisper words of
tender love and pity in behalf of such poor sinners as we are. I feel
as if I should never go astray, or do any evil thing, now that I have
the good priest to pray for me, and the Holy Mother and her Son to be
my gods."
"P'hra Buddha forbid that I should mistrust your gods, my child; but I
do mistrust the priests and my own heart," said the anxious mother.
In spite of her love and her faith, Rungeah's cheek grew pale and her
eyes filled with tears as she reached the chapel of Tâmsèng. With a
palpitating heart she knelt at the confessional-box, waiting for the
priest to take his place within, and open the small window through
which he heard the confessions of the congregation.
She hears a footstep on the other side. The priest enters, he shuts the
door upon himself and takes his place; he then pulls a cord which opens
the little window of the confessional-box, and shuts at the same time
the door which she had left ajar as she came into the chamber.
The confessional window is open, and the priest coughs a slight cough;
but Rungeah kneels there with her heart beating and her hands folded,
gazing on that ideal and perfect manhood who has given up his life to
save hers.
After a long interval of silence, the voice of the priest breaks upon
her ear, like the boom of a cannon amid a garden of flowers.
"My daughter," said the voice, "confess your sins."
"My father," replies Rungeah, her love and joy breathing from her heart
and struggling for utterance on her lips, "whenever I think of Him,
His goodness and His love, of which I never tire reading, I am filled
with gladness and praise; I am now never weary, never cast down, never
afflicted, nor does my heart or my pulse ever fail me in loving and
adoring Him."
"My daughter," interrupted the priest, suddenly, "this is not
confession; you must tell me of your secret sins, the guilty thoughts,
words, and acts you have cherished, spoken, or committed, when you were
still a believer in the false and horrible doctrines of the Buddha."
A deep flush of pride, which the girl herself does not quite
understand, overspreads her beautiful face, and her lips, still
quivering, remain parted in surprise. Her secret sins and guilty
thoughts! Why blame her for not remembering them?
She was as pure as the snow-flake upon the mountain-top.
She turned her thoughts upon herself, and tried to recall some sin; she
would have given the world to find some grave fault which she could
justly own as hers, to pour into the ears of the impatient priest. But
she could not recall a single one.
"My memory is treacherous, good father," said she; "I cannot now
recall any one of my sins in particular, though I must have done many,
many wrong things, unless, indeed, it is the one I have committed in
forsaking my dear old god Buddha, whom I did truly love and reverence
until I heard and read of the beautiful P'hra Jesu?"
"This is not satisfactory," said the priest, dryly; "you will have to
do penance for such thoughts as these; and where did you read of P'hra
Jesu?"
"Ah!" said the girl, "I have a beautiful book which tells me all about
him."
"But who gave it to you?" persisted the priest.
"I found it in the temple of Adi Buddha Annando, where it was left for
my brother by an American priest."
The priest of Tâmsèng turned uneasily in his seat, and coughed a low
cough preparatory to what he was going to say.
"My daughter," said he at length, in a voice of grave reproof, "this
last is a dreadful sin. That book is dangerous, and those American
priests are our enemies. They lie in wait to deceive the children of
the true Church. They deny the divinity of the Holy Mother of God, and
they go about the country preaching their false doctrines and giving
away their books only to delude the simple-hearted natives. Be sure
that you never listen to them, and that you abstain from looking into
that book again. Bring the book to me, and you will be saved from this
great temptation."
The girl listened, abashed, hanging down her head, and with tears of
repentance in her eyes.
He then proceeded to state the penance she would have to perform.
To repeat fifty _paternosters_, walk, on the following Sabbath morning,
barefooted, and dressed in her meanest garb, to the chapel of Tâmsèng,
and be admitted thus by baptism into the true Church.
The priest again pulled the cord; the window was shut, the door stood
ajar, and the girl rose and passed out to join her attendants. Her
bright face was overcast, unbidden tears were in her eyes, and all
her love and joy in the beautiful Saviour she had found blighted like
autumn leaves before the wind. When she gained her boat, great black
clouds lowered in the sky, the winds rose into a squall, and the waves
tossed and tumbled and rolled high upon the banks. It was one of
those sudden hurricanes that are so common in Siam. The boat proved
unmanageable, and, in spite of all the combined efforts of the three
women, she was capsized in the middle of the angry, surging waters.
Long and desperately the women struggle for life, again and again they
try to swim towards the bank, but the stronger waters carry them away
in their irresistible grasp.
The high-priest of the temple of Adi Buddha Annando has taken shelter
beneath the porch of his temple. He sees the empty boat and the
struggling women; he hesitates. His vows forbid him to touch a woman,
even his own mother, and still hold his office as a priest of Buddha.
He sees the women throw up their arms as if imploring his aid. He casts
aside his upper yellow robe, and plunges in to their rescue, regardless
of his vows, his office, of everything else.
And now a sudden dizziness veils the eyes of the Nang Rungeah; while
her companions are safe on the bank, she relaxes her efforts; a
sickness like that of death overcomes her, and she sinks. But again the
strong man plunges and dives deeper and deeper, and at last holds her
firmly in his herculean arms. She hears, or she thinks she hears, the
voice of the priest reproving her, and the jubilant chimes of Tâmsèng
clang at her fainting heart as she is home out of the dark waters
and laid upon the flowery bank; but at length she opens her eyes on
Maha Sâp, the chief priest of the temple of Adi Buddha Annando, her
brother's tutor and guide. A slight shudder, and then a blush of shame
passes over her as she recognizes her early religious teacher. But he,
stooping, gathers a handful of flowers, hands them to her, and says:
"Sadly and heavily did my heart ache to see thee in the grasp of the
strong demons of the storm, and to save thee I have violated the vows
of my order. But if thou wilt return to me one of these flowers as a
token, I will neither regret the loss of my sanctity nor yet of my
priestly office, but rejoice in the fates that have blessed me with a
new life."
To the sonorous rushing and wild dash of the waters is joined the deep
melodious voice of the priest, urging her to give him a token from
his flowers; and the chimes now seem to swell into joyful choruses of
jubilant anthems as she gives him the sweet token.
After the fury of the storm had abated, the priest left them and set
off to confess himself to the Archbishop of the Ecclesiastical Court;
and the women returned home.
The first thing Nang Rungeah did was to relate to her mother all that
had befallen her from the time she entered the chapel of Tâmsèng to
her return home. She then took the "dangerous book" from under her
pillow and laid it on a high shelf out of her reach, but put in its
place her crumpled flowers. Then she knelt down and repeated her fifty
_paternosters_ with lessening fervor, and tried to believe that she was
a better woman. But how was it that her thoughts would stray from the
morrow's bright vision, when she would publicly be baptized into the
Church of Christ, to the dark face of Maha Sâp and the tenderness she
had seen in his eyes.
She shut herself up in her chamber to weep and pray in agonizing doubts
and fears, because of that something which has come between her and her
beautiful P'hra Jesu.