Missed Ends
"If you could only know what one feels on finding
oneself . . . where the least ray of the Gospel has
not penetrated! If those friends who blame . . .
could see from afar what we see, and feel what we
feel, they would be the first to wonder that those
redeemed by Christ should be so backward in
devotion and know so little of the spirit of
self-sacrifice. They would be ashamed of the
hesitations that hinder us. . . . _We must remember
that it was not by interceding for the world in
glory that Jesus saved it. He gave Himself. Our
prayers for the evangelisation of the world are
but a bitter irony so long as we only give of our
superfluity, and draw back before the sacrifice of
ourselves._"
_M. François Coillard, Africa._
"Someone must go, and if no one else will go, he
who hears the call must go; I hear the call, for
indeed God has brought it before me on every side,
and go I must."
_Rev. Henry Watson Fox, India._
THE tom-toms thumped straight on all night, and the darkness shuddered
round me like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay
awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this:
That I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer
down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud
shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows,
and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.
Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They
were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and
another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very verge.
Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step
. . . it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh,
the cry as they went over!
Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were
blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were
shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of
helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over
quietly, and fell without a sound.
Then I wondered, with a wonder that was simply agony, why no one stopped
them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I could
not call; though I strained and tried, only a whisper would come.
Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals. But
the intervals were far too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps
between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite
unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the gulf
yawned like the mouth of hell.
Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some
trees, with their backs turned towards the gulf. They were making daisy
chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached
them it disturbed them, and they thought it a rather vulgar noise. And
if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to
help, then all the others would pull that one down. "Why should you get
so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You
haven't finished your daisy chains yet. It would be really selfish,"
they said, "to leave us to finish the work alone."
There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was
to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go, and
sometimes there were no sentries set for miles and miles of the edge.
Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her
mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough
was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a
change, she had to go and rest for awhile; but no one was sent to guard
her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.
Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of
the gulf; it clung convulsively, and it called--but nobody seemed to
hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child
went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn-off
bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought
she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at
which they reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary
anywhere; the gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And then they
sang a hymn.
Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million
broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great
darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was--the Cry of the Blood.
Then thundered a Voice, the Voice of the Lord: "=And He said, What hast
thou done? The voice of thy brothers' blood crieth unto Me from the
ground.="
. . . . . . .
The tom-toms still beat heavily, the darkness still shuddered and
shivered about me; I heard the yells of the devil-dancers and the weird
wild shriek of the devil-possessed just outside the gate.
What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on
for years. Why make such a fuss about it?
God forgive us! God arouse us! Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us
out of our sin!
* * * * *
One afternoon, a few weeks after that night at the precipice edge,
Victory and I were visiting in the Red Lake Village, when we heard the
death-beat of the tom-tom and the shriek of the conch shell, and we knew
that another had gone beyond our reach. One can never get accustomed to
this. We stopped for a moment and listened.
The women we were teaching broke in with eager explanations. "Oh, he was
such a great one! He had received the Initiation. There will be a grand
ceremonial, grander than ever you have!" Then they told us how this
great one had been initiated into the Hindu mysteries by his family
priest, and that the mystical benefits accruing from this initiation
were to be caused to revert to the priest. This Reverting of the
Initiation was to be one of the ceremonies. We watched the procession
pass down the street. They were going for water from a sacred stream
for the bathing of purification. When they return, said the women, the
ceremonies will begin.
A little later we passed the house, and stood looking in through the
doorway. There was the usual large square courtyard, with the verandah
running round three sides. The verandah was full of women. We longed to
go in, but did not think they would let us. The courtyard was rather
confused; men were rushing about, putting up arches and decorating them;
servants were sweeping, and cooking, and shouting to one another; the
women were talking and laughing. And all the time from within the house
came the sound of the dirge for the dead, and the laugh and the wail
struck against each other, and jarred. No one noticed us for awhile, but
at last a woman saw us, and beckoned us to come. "We are all defiled
to-day; you may sit with us," they said; and yielding to the instincts
of their kindly Tamil nature, they crushed closer together to make room
for us beside them. How I did enjoy being squeezed up there among them.
But to appreciate that in the least you would have to work in a
caste-bound part of old India; you can have no idea, until you try, how
hard it is to refrain from touching those whom you love.
The house door opened upon the verandah, and we could hear the moan of
the dirge. "There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet." There was
no quietness, only the ceaseless moan, that kept rising into a wail;
there were tears in the sound of the wail, and I felt like a sort of
living harp with all its strings drawn tight.
But the women outside cared nothing at all. It was strange to see how
callous they were. It was not their _own_ who had died, so they chatted
and laughed and watched the proceedings--the tying of the garlands round
the arches, the arrangement of offerings for the Brahmans. It was all
full of interest to them. We tried to turn their thoughts to the Powers
of the World to Come. But no. They did not care.
Presently there was a stir. "The men are coming!" they said. "Run! there
is a shady corner under those palms on the far verandah! Run and hide!
They are here!" And, even as they spoke, in streamed the men, each with
his brass water-vessel poised on his head, and they saw us standing
there. We thought they would turn us out, and were quite prepared to go
at a sign from the head of the clan. But he was a friend of ours, and he
smiled as we salaamed, and pointed to a quiet corner, out of the way,
where we could see it all without being too much seen.
To understand this, which to me was a surprise, one must remember that
by nature the Indian is most courteous, and if it were not for Caste
rules we should be allowed to come much closer to them than is possible
now. To-day they were all ceremonially unclean, so our presence was not
considered polluting. Also the Indian loves a function; sad or glad, it
matters little. Life is a bubble on the water; enjoy it while you may.
And they sympathised with what they thought was our desire to see the
show. This was human; they could understand it. So they let us stay; and
we stayed, hoping for a chance later on.
Then the ceremonies began. They carried the dead man out and laid him in
the courtyard under the arch of palms. He was old and worn and thin. One
could see the fine old face, with the marks of the Hindu trident painted
down the forehead. He had been a most earnest Hindu; all the rites were
duly performed, and morning and night for many years he had marked those
marks on his brow. Had he ever once listened to the Truth? I do not
know. He must have heard about it, but he had not received it. He died,
they told us, "not knowing what lay on the other side."
The water-bearers laid their vessels on the ground. Each had a leaf
across its mouth. The priest was crowned with a chaplet of flowers. Then
came the bathing. They threw up a shelter, and carried him there. It was
reverently done. There was a touch of refinement in the thought which
banished the women and children before the bathing began. Tamils bathe
in the open air, and always clothed, but always apart. And as the
women's verandah overlooked the screened enclosure, they were all
ordered off. They went and waited, silent now, awed by the presence of
the men. While the bathing was going on the priests chanted and muttered
incantations, and now and again a bell was rung, and incense waved, and
tapers lighted. Now they were causing that mysterious Something which
still hovered round the lifeless form to leave it and return to them,
and when the bathing was over they signified that all was done; the
Influence had departed, descended; the funeral ceremonies might proceed.
And all this time, without a break, the dirge was being sung by the
mourners in the house. It was a sort of undernote to all the sounds
outside. Then the old man, robed in white and crowned and wreathed with
flowers, was carried round to the other side; and oh, the pitifulness of
it all! St. Paul must have been thinking of some such scene when he
wrote to the converts, "That ye sorrow not even as others which have no
hope." And I thought how strangely callous we were, how superficial our
sympathy. The Lord's command does not stir us, the sorrow of those we
neglect does not touch us; we think so much more of ourselves and our
own selfish pleasure than we think of the purpose for which we were
saved--and at such a tremendous cost! Oh for a baptism of reality and
obedience to sweep over us! Oh to be true to the hymns we sing and the
vows we make! _God make us true._
Forgive all this. It was burnt into me afresh that day as I sat there
watching the things they did and listening to what they said. We had
come too late for that old dead man, too late for most of the living
ones too. Can you wonder if at such solemn times one yields oneself
afresh and for ever to obey?
Rice was prepared for the dead man's use, and balls of rice were ready
to be offered to his spirit after his cremation; for the Hindus think
that an intermediate body must be formed and nourished, which on the
thirteenth day after death is conducted to either heaven or hell,
according to the deeds done on earth. The ceremonies were all
characterised by a belief in some future state. The spirit was
somewhere--in the dark--so they tried to light the way for him. This
reminds me of one ceremony especially suggestive. All the little
grandchildren were brought, and lighted tapers given to them; then they
processioned round the bier, round and round many times, holding the
tapers steadily, and looking serious and impressed.
Then the widow came out with a woman on either side supporting her. And
she walked round and round her husband, with the tears rolling down her
face, and she wailed the widow's wail, with her very heart in it. Why
had he gone away and left her desolate? His was the spirit of fragrance
like the scented sandal-wood; his was the arm of strength like the lock
that barred the door. Gone was the scent of the sandal, broken and open
the door; why had the bird flown and left but the empty cage? Gone! was
he gone? Was he really gone? Was it certain he was dead? He who had
tossed and turned on the softest bed they could make, must he lie on the
bed of his funeral pyre? Must he burn upon logs of wood? Say, was there
no way to reach him, no way to help him now? "I have searched for thee,
but I find thee not." And so the dirge moaned on.
I could not hear all this then; Victory told it to me, and much more,
afterwards. "Last time I heard it," she said, "I was _inside_, wailing
too."
As the poor widow went round and round she stopped each time she got to
the feet, and embraced them fervently. Sometimes she broke through all
restraint, and clasped him in her arms.
[Illustration: A photo rarely possible. The dead woman lies in her bier;
the white on her eyes and brow is the mark of Siva's ashes. Some of the
mourners are so marked, as they are all Saivites. The fire is lighted
from the pot of fire to the right. Just before it is lighted, the chief
mourner takes a vessel of water, pierces a hole in it, walks round the
dead, letting the water trickle out, pierces another hole and repeats
the walk. After the third piercing and walk, he throws the pot backwards
over his shoulder, and as it smashes the water all splashes out. This is
to refresh the spirit if it should be thirsty while its body is being
burned.]
After many ceremonies had been performed, the men all went away, and the
women were left to bid farewell to the form soon to be carried out. Then
the men came back and bore him across the courtyard, and paused under
the arch outside, while the women all rushed out, tearing their hair and
beating themselves and wailing wildly. As they were lifting the bier to
depart the cry was, "Stop! stop! Will he not speak?" And this, chanted
again and again, would have made the coldest care. Then when all was
over, and the long procession, headed by the tom-toms and conch shells,
had passed out of sight, the women pressed in again, and each first let
down her hair, and seized her nearest neighbour, and they all flung
themselves on the ground and knocked their heads against it, and then,
rising to a sitting posture, they held on to one another, swaying
backwards and forwards and chanting in time to the swaying, in chorus
and antiphone. All this, even to the hair-tearing and head-knocking, was
copied by the children who were present with terrible fidelity.
We sat down among them. They took our hands and rocked us in the
orthodox way. But we did not wail and we did not undo our hair. We tried
to speak comforting words to those who were really in grief, but we
found it was not the time. A fortnight later we went again, and found
the house door open because we had been with them that day.
But we could not help them then, so we rose and were going away, when,
held by the power of that dirge of theirs, I turned to look again. The
last rays of the afternoon sun were lighting up the courtyard, and
shining on the masses of black hair and grey. As I looked they got up
one by one, and put their disordered dress to rights, and shook out the
dust from their glossy hair, and did it up again. And one by one,
without farewell of any sort, they went away. An hour later we met
groups of them coming home from bathing. They would not touch us then.
Afterwards the chief mourners came out and bathed, and went all round
the village wailing. And the last thing I saw, as the sun set over the
hills and the place grew chill and dark, was the old widow, worn out
now, returning home in her wet things, wailing still.
I write this under a sense of the solemnity of being "a servant . . .
separated unto the Gospel." I would not write one word lightly. But oh!
may I ask you to face it? Are we honest towards God? If we were, would
these people be left to die as they are being left to die?
We feel for them. _But feelings will not save souls; it cost God Calvary
to win us._
_It will cost us as much as we may know of the fellowship of His
sufferings, if those for whom He died that day are ever to be won._
. . . . . . .
I am writing in the midst of the sights and the sounds of life. There is
life in the group of women at the well; life in the voices, in the
splash of the water, in the cry of a child, in the call of the mother;
life in the flight of the parrots as they flock from tree to tree; life
in their chatter as they quarrel and scream; life, everywhere life. How
can I think out of all this, back into death again?
But I want to, for you may live for many a year in India without being
allowed to see once what we have seen twice within two months, and it
cannot be for nothing that we saw it. We must be meant to show it to
you.
[Illustration: This needs to be looked into. Gradually the middle
clears. The women are holding each other's hands preparatory to swaying
backwards and forwards as they chant the dirge for the dead. The lamp
(you see its top near the vessel on the right) was lighted as soon as
the old woman died, and placed at her head on the floor. So blindly they
show their sense of the darkness of death. The brass water vessel, with
the leaves laid across its mouth, was filled with the water of
purification. This was poured in a circle on the floor round the body.
The bits of grass are the sacred Kusa grass used in many religious
ceremonies.]
The Picture-catching Missie and I were in the Village of the Tamarind
Tree, when for the second time I saw it. They are very friendly there,
and just as in the Red Lake Village they let us look behind the curtain,
so here again they pushed it back, and let us in, and went on with their
business, not minding us. We crouched up close together on the only
scrap of empty space, and watched.
Everything was less intense; the dead was only a poor and very old widow
who had lived her life out, and was not wanted. There were no near
kindred, only relations by marriage; it was evident everyone went
through the form without emotion of any sort.
The woman lay on a rough bier on the floor, and round her crowded a
dozen old women. At her head there was a brass vessel of water, a
lamp-stand, some uncooked rice, and some broken cocoanuts. Just before
we came in they had filled a little brass vessel from the larger one.
Now one of the old hags walked round the dead three times, pouring the
water out as she walked. Then another fed her--fed that poor dead mouth,
stuffed it in so roughly it made us sick and faint. There were other
things done hurriedly, carelessly; we could not follow them. The last
was the rubbing on of ashes--she had been a worshipper of Siva--also
they covered the closed eyes with ashes and patted them down flat. And
all the time the gabble of the women mocked at the silence of death.
There was no reverence, no sense of solemnity; the ceremonial so full
of symbol to its makers, the thinkers of Védic times, was to them simply
a custom, a set of customs, to be followed and got through as quickly as
might be by heedless hands. And yet they faithfully carried out every
detail they knew, and they finished their heartless work and called to
the men to come. The men were waiting outside. They came in and carried
her out.
It seemed impossible to think of a photograph then; it was most unlikely
they would let us take one, and we hardly felt in the spirit of
picture-catching. Yet we thought of you, and of how you certainly could
never see it unless we could show it to you; and we wanted to show it to
you, so we asked them if we might. Of course if there had been real
grief, as in the other I had seen, we could not have asked it, it would
have been intrusion; but here there was none--_that_ was the pathos of
it. And they were very friendly, so they put their burden on the ground,
and waited.
There it is. To the right the barber stands with his fire-bowl hanging
from a chain; this is to light the funeral pyre. The smoke interfered
with the photo, but then it is true to life. To the left stands the man
with the shell ready to blow. At the back, with the sacred ashes rubbed
on forehead and breast and arms, stand the two nearest relatives, who
to-morrow will gather the ashes and throw them into the stream.
The picture was caught. The man with the shell blew it, the man with the
fire came in front, the bearers lifted the bier; they went away with
their dead.
[Illustration: These are three of the mourners, but they were only
mourning ceremonially; and so, released for the moment from their duty,
they quite enjoyed themselves.]
Then the old women, who had been pressing through the open door, rushed
back in the usual way and began the usual rock and dirge. These
Comparison Songs are always full of soul. They have sprung into being in
times of deepest feeling, taken shape when hearts were as finely wrought
moulds which left their impress upon them. And to hear them chanted
without any soul is somehow a pitiful thing, a sort of profanation, like
the singing of sacred words for pay.
The photograph was not easy to take, the space was so confined, the
movement so continuous, the commotion so confusing. _How_ it was taken I
know not; the women massed on the floor were not still for more than a
moment. In that moment it was done. Then we persuaded three of them to
risk the peril of being caught alone. They would not move farther than
the wall of the house, and as it was in a narrow street, again there
were difficulties. But the crowning perplexity was at the water-side. It
was windy, and our calls were blown away, so they did not hear what we
wanted them to do, and they splashed too vigorously. Their only idea
just then was to get themselves and their garments ceremonially clean,
defiled as they were by contact with the dead.
But let those six whom you can partly see stand for the thousands upon
thousands whom you cannot see at all. Those thousands are standing in
water to-day from the North to the uttermost South, as the last act in
the drama which they have played in the presence of the dead.
. . . . . . .
The women have gone from the well. The parrots have flown to other
trees. The Tamils say the body is the sheath of the soul. I think of
that empty sheath I saw, and wonder where the soul has flown. It has
gone--but where? Has it gone home, like the women from the well? Has it
flown far, like the birds among the trees? It has gone, it has gone,
that is all we know. _It has gone._
Then I read these words from Conybeare and Howson's translation: "If the
tent which is my earthly house be destroyed I have a mansion built by
God . . . eternal in the heavens. And herein I groan with earnest
longings, desiring to cover my earthly raiment with the robes of my
heavenly mansion. . . . _And He who has prepared me for this very end is
God._"
The dead man missed his End. That old dead woman missed it too. And the
millions around us still alive are missing their End to-day. "This very
End"--think of it--Mortality swallowed up in Life--Death only an
absence, Life for ever a presence--Present with the Lord who has
prepared us "for this very End."
Can we enjoy it all by ourselves? Will there be no sense of
incompleteness if the many are outside, missing it all because they
missed their End? Will the glory make us glad if they are somewhere far
away from it and God? Will not heaven be almost an empty place to one
who has never tried to fill it? Yet there is room, oh so much room, for
those we are meant to bring in with us!
And there is room, oh so much room, along the edge of the precipice.
There are gaps left all unguarded. Can it be that you are meant to guard
one of those gaps? If so, it will always remain as it is, a
falling-point for those rivers of souls, unless you come.
Are these things truth or are they imagination? If they are
imagination--then let the paper on which they are written be burnt,
burnt till it curls up and the words fall into dust. But if they are
true--then what are we going to do? Not what are we going to say or
sing, or even feel or pray--_but what are we going to do?_
[Illustration: The ceremonial bathing. They are all old women, but the
very oldest old woman in India bathes most vigorously. After this
bathing is over, they are purified from the defilement contracted by
going to the house of the dead.]