THE PREACHER.
So entirely was Io absorbed in prayer that she did not notice when
Mouang was reached.
“What are your wishes, my love?” asked Oscar, as he helped his wife
out of the litter. “Shall we to-morrow proceed again towards Tavoy, or
return to Moulmein?” Coldstream had to repeat the question before Io
could even understand it; she was like one awakened from sleep.
“I do not wish to go on,” Io then replied in a faint voice. “Let us
rest for a while in the village if you will, and then go back to our
home.”
Io’s extreme quietness disturbed Oscar; it was not in her nature to
be so passive. There was no talking over the night’s adventures, no
remarks about the Karen deliverer. If she spoke, it was like one who
speaks in a dream.
“It is the effect of past terror,” said Oscar to himself; but he was
mistaken in the supposition. Io had almost for the time forgotten the
danger through which she had passed, her mind was so filled with the
question, “What can it be that separates my beloved from his God?”
The Karen villagers were asleep in their huts when, at the dead of
night, the travellers approached Mouang; but the voice of Ko Thah Byu
soon roused them from their slumbers. Everything that could be done for
the comfort of the white strangers was done with all possible haste.
The family who occupied the cleanest bamboo hut hospitably gave it
up to the lady. It was not the hour for milking cows or goats, fruit
was scarce, bread and green vegetables not to be had; but a fire was
lighted, rice hastily boiled, and dried river-fish, with the dainties
of red chillies and garlic, with leaves for plates, supplied the
Coldstreams and Maha with a midnight meal. Io could eat little――her
appetite was gone; but she was thankful to lie down and rest, and try
to forget her troubles in sleep.
Io was awakened in the morning by the beating of a small gong suspended
from the branch of a tree. She started to a sitting posture, a little
alarmed by the sound.
“It is only the call for the villagers to assemble for morning prayer,”
said Oscar, entering the hut with a large earthen vessel of fresh milk
in his hand. “Would you like to be present, my love?”
Io assented; and Oscar, who had been up for some time, left her to make
her morning preparations, and offer up her early devotions. During the
course of the night, the lost mules with their drivers had made their
appearance at Mouang, Ko Thah Byu having sent a Karen guide after them
to show them the way.
Before Io rejoined her husband, the early meeting for prayer was half
over. It was held in the open air: peasants, men and women, some of
the latter with babes in their arms and little children beside them,
listened to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, which Ko Thah Byu,
standing on a slight eminence, read and expounded. The Scriptures which
missionaries had caused to be translated and printed in the tongue of
the Karens, was a treasure gladly welcomed and still dearly prized by
this people.
A fragment of one of Ko Thah Byu’s addresses having been preserved in
his memoir, is inserted here, as a specimen of the untutored eloquence
of this remarkable man. The evangelist, in his own impressive and
vehement way, denounced that love of the world and its pleasures which
is found even in the secluded villages from which one might deem such
temptations excluded.
“A worldly man is never satisfied with what he possesses. Let me have
more houses, more lands, more buffaloes, more slaves, more clothes,
more children and grandchildren, more gold and silver, more paddy and
rice, more boats and vessels; let me be rich: this is his language.
He thinks of nothing so much as of amassing worldly goods; of God
and religion he is quite unmindful. But watch that man. On a sudden
his breath departs; he finds himself deprived of all he possessed
and valued so much. He looks around, and sees none of his former
possessions. Astonished, he exclaims, ‘Where are my slaves? where
are my buffaloes? I cannot find one of them! Where are my houses and
my chests of money? What has become of all my rice and paddy that I
laid up in store? Where are the fine clothes which cost me so much?
I can find none of them. Who has taken them? And where are my wives
and children? Ah, they are all missing; I can find none of them. I
am lonely and poor indeed――I have nothing!’ But what is this?” The
impassioned preacher here entered upon a description of the sufferings
of the sinner that is lost; after which he represented the rich man as
taking up this lamentation: “Oh, what a fool I have been! I neglected
God, the only Saviour, and sought only worldly goods while on earth,
and now I am undone.”
“All in this world is misery,” pursued the preacher: “sickness and
pain, fear and anxiety, old age and death, abound on every hand. But
hearken; God speaks from on high: ‘Children, why take ye delight and
seek happiness in that low village of mortality, that thicket of briers
and thorns? Look up to Me; I will deliver you and give you rest, where
you shall be for ever blessed and happy.’”