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
We went to another quarter. It was just the same. At a rest-house by the
way I noticed a Brahman, and went to see if he would listen. He would if
I would talk "about politics or education, but not if it was about
religion." However, I did get a chance of pleading with him to consider
the question of his soul's salvation, and he took a book and said he
would read it at his leisure. And then he asked me how many persons I
had succeeded in joining to my Way since I began to try. It was exactly
the question, only asked in another form, which the devil had been
pressing on me all the afternoon. After this he told me politely that we
were knocking our heads against a rock; we might smash our heads, but we
never would affect the rock.
"Rock! Rock! when wilt thou open?" It is an old cry; I cried it afresh.
But the Brahman only smiled, and then with a gesture expressing at once
his sense of his own condescension in speaking with me, and his utter
contempt for the faith I held, motioned to me to go.
Outside in the road a number of Hindus were standing; some of them were
his retainers and friends. I heard them say, as I passed through their
midst, "Who will fall into the pit of the Christian Way!" And they
laughed, and the Brahman laughed. "As the filth of the world, the
offscouring of all things, unto this day."
We walked along the road bordered with beautiful banyan trees. We sat
down under their shade, and waited for what would come. Some little
children followed us, but before we could get a single idea clearly into
their heads a man came and chased them away. "It is getting dark," he
said. "They are only little green things; they must not be out late." It
was broad daylight then, and would be for another hour. Some coolies
passing that way stopped to look at us; but before they had time to get
interested they too remarked that darkness was coming, and they must be
off, and off they went.
We were left alone after that. Within five minutes' walk were at least
five hundred souls, redeemed, but they don't know it; redeemed, _but
they don't want to know it_. Sometimes they seem to want to know, but
however tenderly you tell it, the keen Hindu mind soon perceives the
drift of it all--Redemption must mean loss of Caste. One day last week I
was visiting in the Village of the Red Lake. Standing in one of its
courtyards you see the Western Ghauts rising straight up behind. The Red
Lake lies at the mountain foot; we call it Derwentwater, but there are
palms and bamboos, and there is no Friar's Crag.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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