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
Just one little bit of encouragement may be told by way of cheer.
Blessing went off one day to see if the Village of the Warrior were more
friendlily inclined, and Golden went to the Petra where they vowed they
would never let us in. Before Blessing entered the village she knelt
down under a banyan tree, and, remembering Abraham's servant, prayed for
a sign to strengthen her faith that God would work in the place. While
she prayed a child came and looked at her; then seeing her pray, she
said, "Has that Missie Ammal sent you who came here more than a year
ago?" Blessing said "Yes." Then the child repeated the chorus we had
taught the children that first day. "None of us forget," she said; and
told Blessing how the parents had agreed to allow us to teach if ever we
should return. The village had been opened. He goeth before.
Golden's experience was equally strengthening to our faith. In the very
street where they held a public demonstration to cleanse the road
defiled by our "low-caste" presence, twenty houses have opened, where
she is a welcome visitor. But all this is only for Love's sake, they
say. They do not yet want Christ; so let us focus the light!
Then there is need for the fire of God to burn the cords that hold souls
down. There is one with whom the Spirit strove last year when we were
here. But a cord of sin was twined round her soul. She has a wicked
brother-in-law, and a still more wicked sister, and together they
plotted so evil a plot that, heathen though she is, she recoiled, and
indignantly refused. So they quietly drugged her food, and did as they
chose with her. And now the knot she did not tie, and which she wholly
detested at first, seems doubly knotted by her own will. Oh, to know
better how to use the burning-glass of prayer!
There may be a certain amount of sentiment, theoretically at least, in
breaking up new ground. The unknown holds possibilities, and it allures
one on. But in retracing the track there is nothing whatever of this.
The broad daylight of bare truth shows you everything just as it is.
Will you look once more at things just as they are, though it is not an
interesting look.
A courtyard where the women have often heard. May we come in? Oh yes,
come in! But with us in comes an old fakeer of a specially villainous
type. His body is plastered all over with mud; he has nothing on but
mud. His hair is matted and powdered with ashes, his face is daubed with
vermilion and yellow, his wicked old eyes squint viciously, and he shows
all his teeth, crimson with betel, and snarls his various wants. The
women say "Chee!" Then he rolls in the dust, and squirms, and wriggles,
and howls; and he pours out such unclean vials of wrath that the women,
coerced, give him all he demands, and he rolls off elsewhere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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