Things as they are : $b Mission work in Southern IndiaCarmichael, Amy
Religion
Things as they are : $b Mission work in Southern India
Carmichael, Amy
India -- Social life and customs; Missions -- India
When the school examinations were over, and the Missie Ammal came back
to rest, I asked her about the Elf. "She really did very badly, seemed
to know nothing of her subjects; should not have gone in, poor mite!" It
suddenly struck me to ask what class she had gone into. "The first,"
said the Missie Ammal. "But she is in the infants'!" Then we understood.
The Elf had only been at school for a few months, and had just finished
the infant standard book, and had been moved into the first a day or two
before, as the teacher felt she was well able to clear the first course
in the next six months and take her examination in the following year,
two years' work in one. But it was not intended she should go in for
the Government examination, which requires a certain time to be spent in
preparation; so when, in the confusion of the arrangement of the
classes, she stood with her little class-fellows of two days only, the
mistake was not noticed. No wonder the poor Elf failed! We never told
her the reason, not desiring to raise fresh questions upon the
mysterious ways of Providence in her busy little brain; and to this day,
when she is betrayed into pride, she shakes her head solemnly at
herself, and remembers the rupee.
She has lately been staying with the Missie Ammals, "my very particular
friends," as she calls them, at the C.E.Z. House, in Palamcottah. She
returned to us full of matter, and charged with a new idea. "I am no
more going to spend my pocket money upon vanities. I am going to save it
all up, and buy a _Gee-lit Bible_." This gilt-edged treasure is a
fruitful source of conversation. It will take about six years at the
rate of one farthing a week to save enough to buy exactly the kind she
desires. "I don't want a _common_ Bible. It must be _gee-lit_, with
shining _gee-lit_ all down the leaves on the outside, and the name on
the back all _gee-lit_ too. That's the kind of Bible I want!" Just as I
wrote that, she trotted in and poured three half-annas in small change
upon the table. "That's all I've got, and it's six weeks' savings. Six
years is a long, long time!" She confided to me that she found "the
flesh wanted to persuade" her to spend these three half-annas on cakes.
"It is the flesh, isn't it, that feeling you get inside, that says
'sweets and cakes! sweets and cakes!' in a very loud voice? I listened
to it for a little, and then I wanted those sweets and cakes! So I said
to myself, If I buy them they will all be gone in an hour, but if I buy
that Gee-lit Bible it will last for years and years. So I would not
listen any more to my flesh." Then a sudden thought struck her, and she
added impressively, "But when _you_ give me sweets and cakes, that is
different; the feeling that likes them is not 'flesh' then. It is only
'flesh' when I'm tempted to spend my Gee-lit Bible money on them." This
was a point I was intended thoroughly to understand. Sweets and cakes
were not to be confused with "flesh" except where a Gee-lit Bible was
concerned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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