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INDIA 
 
 BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 BY 
 
 BRENTON THOBURN BADLEY 
 
 n 
 IN COLLABORATION WITH 
 
 OSCAR MacMILLAN BUCK 
 JAMES JAY KINGHAM 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 BISHOP W. F. OLDHAM 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 

 Copyright, 1918, by 
 BRENTON THOBURN BADLEY 
 
 OCT IS \m 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Preface 7 
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 I. On His Majesty's Service 11 
 
 Brenton Thoburn Badley 
 
 y II. Ponniah James Jay Kingham 29 
 
 III. For the British Raj .... Oscar MacMillan Buck 46 
 
 IV. The Tiger and tee Lamb . . .James Jay Kingham 63 
 
 V. A Mission School Romance 74 
 
 Brenton Thoburn Badley 
 
 ^ VI. When the Gods Are Dying 87 
 
 Oscar MacMillan Buck 
 
 VII. What's in a Name ? James Jay Kingham 106 
 
 ■> VIII. Roads to Peace Oscar MacMillan Buck 116 
 
 IX. The Lawyer-Preacher James Jay Kingham 133 
 
 y X. When Outcastes Dream 156 
 
 Oscar MacMillan Buck 
 
 XL In His Blindness Oscar MacMillan Buck 168 
 
 XII. With the Gods in Mdttra 181 
 
 Brenton Thoburn Badley 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Gulab Singh meets the Captdn Sahib 12" 
 
 "The Aryan white and the Aryan brown, on the battle- 
 fields of France" 24 *^ 
 
 "He removed his sandal and slapped the big idol across 
 
 the face" 38^ 
 
 "Your son is wounded, Thakur Das" 60 ^ 
 
 "Pakkia Nathan, you have scared them all away" 72'' 
 
 "Ask this miserable creature how much money a wife 
 
 would be worth to him" 84 ^ 
 
 "They were rejoicing at their escape from the dangers 
 
 of the way, and at their safe return" 100 
 
 "The men of India drink ttese words as thirsty children" 130^ 
 
 In an ancient stronghold of Hinduism 147 ^ 
 
 " 'What is it?' he pleaded, as if some one stood at his 
 
 elbow" 170 ^ 
 
 "High up on one side there grew two short misshapen 
 
 legs" 186 •/ 
 
 "We had reached the great temple that . . . opens out 
 
 ... on to the river" 200 'Z 
 
PREFACE 
 
 rriHIS is not a book of fiction, though 
 ■■■ there are elements of fiction in some of 
 the chapters. The chapters by Mr. King- 
 ham are faithful records of what he himself 
 has experienced in India. The stories by the 
 two other writers are founded on fact, 
 though in the matter of detail and treatment 
 the prerogatives of the story-writer have 
 been assumed. 
 
 The stories in these pages give some idea 
 of the far-reaching changes in life and 
 thought that are so rapidly coming over In- 
 dia. They have been written by three Lovers 
 of Hindustan, seeking to bring America and 
 India still closer together in the bonds of 
 the most disinterested international friend- 
 ship our world has yet known. 
 
 The unusually fine illustrations by Mr. 
 Jack Flanagan, of New York, have been 
 added through the generosity of friends of 
 the author without cost to the pubHshers. 
 
 B. T. B. 
 
 7 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 rilHE old India passes. The dreamy, puz- 
 '- zling, lovable, lotus-eating land, with 
 her beauty and tenderness, yet hiding much 
 that hurts her children, is rapidly undergo- 
 ing a new birth. 
 
 Not only do her forms change ; her brood- 
 ing spirit within and all her outlook change 
 — and yet her winsomeness remains. It in- 
 creases. 
 
 The poison flowers wither, but the champa- 
 das and the jasmines bloom. Languorous 
 odors fill the air, and the bulbul and the 
 nightingales sing; but the hiss of the cobra 
 dies down. 
 
 The healing Christ is somewhere around. 
 His transforming touch is on India. 
 
 This sweet, strange land, with her baffling 
 life, can be interpreted only by her lovers. 
 The writers of these tales are such — two of 
 them she bore on her bosom from helpless 
 babyhood. All three have drunk of Ganga's 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 water and have cried "Bande Mataram" — 
 *'Hail, blessed mother!" 
 
 Who would learn a little more of India, 
 the beloved of heaven, let him read. 
 
 W. F. Oldham. 
 
 10 
 
ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 
 
 T T was Gulab Singh's luck to run right into 
 "*■ a good thing quite unexpectedly. He 
 was in Bombay, on a trip from the docks 
 to the hotel, having failed to get in touch 
 with any prospective patrons among the 
 several who had landed that day. He saw 
 a sahib leaning out over a pile of luggage, 
 shouting at the driver of the victoria. Just 
 as the carriage came up to him a gust of 
 wind blew the gentleman's sola topi off his 
 head. Gulab Singh ran and picked it up, 
 brushing it with his jharan as he handed it to 
 the irate gentleman. 
 
 "Look here," exclaimed the handsome 
 young sahib, "can you tell this blooming idiot 
 to drive me to the Army and Navy Co-opera- 
 tive Stores?" 
 
 Now, Gulab Singh had picked up a little 
 EngHsh, and the Army and Navy Stores he 
 knew anyway. Accordingly, he jumped up 
 
 11 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 on the coachman's box and enhghtened the 
 driver, who happened to be a greenhorn, sup- 
 plying for his brother for a day. 
 
 Gulab Singh was an up-country man, who 
 had failed to secure service and was now in 
 Bombay. He had had to borrow money to 
 make the journey, for even the third-class 
 ticket from Agra had cost him more than 
 he could hope to earn in a month. He had 
 been spending his time partly at the docks 
 where the P. & O. liners come in, and partly 
 at the Taj Mahal and other hotels, hoping 
 that some young English officer just ar- 
 rived from England, might take him on as 
 "bearer" or valet. 
 
 Not that Gulab Singh — which, being in- 
 terpreted, means "Rose Lion" — had had 
 much experience. He had served a young 
 lieutenant at Meerut for a few months, and 
 at Agra had had a few transient nauharis — 
 services. He was young, only twenty-four. 
 His chief dependence was on some letters of 
 recommendation — "chits" we call them in In- 
 dia — ^that he could borrow from an uncle 
 who bore the same name and who had served 
 many families, chiefly military, in Bombay. 
 
 12 
 
Gulab Singh meets the Captan Sahib 
 
ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 
 
 A few of the best and most recent of these 
 he now had in his possession for possible use ! 
 
 After the sahib had bought what he needed 
 at the Army and Navy Stores, he noticed 
 that the extra man continued on the box with 
 the driver to the hotel. When his luggage 
 had all been placed on the veranda there, he 
 was faced by the salaaming Gulab Singh, 
 who, with "chits" in hand, offered his wilhng 
 services to the huzur, "the Presence." 
 
 "Huziir is going up-country and will need 
 a servant?" 
 
 "Yes, but I'm blowed if I know how you 
 found it out!" 
 
 Gulab Singh was not the only Indian with 
 a ready imagination and ability to make a 
 shrewd guess! 
 
 By this time several of the "chits" had 
 been opened up, ready for inspection. The 
 young captain, for such he was, took one 
 and read: 
 
 "Gulab Singh, bearer, has served me for 
 several months. He knows how to take care 
 of an officer's sword and uniform, and I 
 found him very handy about the Mess and 
 Polo grounds. He seems to have a knack of 
 
 13 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 doing very well a variety of things that are 
 a help to a military officer in this beastly 
 land. He leaves my service as I have been 
 posted to the hills and he prefers to remain 
 on the plains." 
 
 This was signed by a lieutenant of the 
 "Fom-th Ghurka Rifles." It sufficed our 
 young captain, who pushed aside the rest of 
 the letters, including most valuable ones that 
 belonged to the elder Gulab Singh. 
 
 "I don't go much on letters. I'm willing 
 to try you. Take charge of these things. 
 Put those two bags," tapping them with his 
 cane, "into my room here, and see that the 
 rest of the stuff gets to the 'Victoria Termi- 
 nus' for the Punjab mail this evening. I'm 
 off to Meerut." 
 
 And so Gulab Singh was again an afsar's 
 naukar — an officer's servant. Between 
 twelve and two o'clock he made a hasty trip 
 to his uncle's to return the borrowed letters. 
 
 "Ram's name be praised!" he exclaimed, 
 "a young captan sahib has taken me on. We 
 leave for Meerut this evening. Here are 
 your letters." 
 
 Saying this, he produced all the letters, 
 
 14 
 
ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 
 
 including several contained in a cloth-lined 
 envelope, with "On His Majesty's Service" 
 printed across the top left-hand corner. It 
 was a stout covering, and showed long and 
 hard usage. He had doubtless picked it up 
 somewhere. 
 
 "You still carry those old letters of your 
 father's that he got from the colonel sahib/' 
 
 "Yes," replied Gulab Singh. "Since my 
 father died, I keep them with me when I am 
 gone from home. Who knows when the old 
 chappar (thatch) that covers us may not 
 catch fire and burn up everything?" 
 
 He handled the envelope with reverence, 
 and added: "It has also a letter that was 
 given by the sahib whose life my grandfather 
 saved in the time of the great gadr [the In- 
 dian Mutiny of 1857]. My father often told 
 me to take special care of that." 
 
 Sentiment plays a great part in the lives 
 of India's sons. 
 
 Now, it is not the object of this story to 
 follow the brief career of Captain Clyde 
 Boynton Stanhope in India. He had landed 
 at Bombay in 1912, and in 1914 the great 
 war broke out. That changed the career of 
 
 15 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 hundi-eds of officers in the British army in 
 India. He had come to love India, and 
 though he had never been there before, he 
 could not forget that both his father and 
 grandfather, the one in civil, the other in 
 military service, had given their best years 
 to this land. 
 
 His first days in Meerut were lived as 
 in a dream. How strange that he should be 
 in this Indian city, where fifty-five years be- 
 fore his grandfather had been among the few 
 who escaped in the sudden massacre that 
 ushered in the tragic rebellion of the sepoys ! 
 He visited the scenes of the massacre, and 
 tried to imagine that hot and bloody Sunday 
 of May, 1857, when the houses of the Euro- 
 pean residents had been set on fire, and men, 
 women, and children had been butchered as 
 they fled from the flaming, thatch-roofed 
 bungalows. 
 
 The soldiers were at church — the parade 
 service — and were there without their rifles! 
 They had been set upon in the midst of the 
 service. Never since that day have British 
 soldiers attended a parade service without 
 their rifles and bayonets. 
 
 16 
 
ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 
 
 Yet Meerut was quiet and beautiful now. 
 What superb avenues of shady shisham 
 trees ! What fine polo and parade grounds ! 
 What pride and interest the officers took in 
 their men — descendants of those who had 
 shared in the massacre of the earlier day. 
 
 When the call came to England and 
 France, Captain Stanhope's regiment was 
 among the first to embark. He was again 
 at Bombay. Again his luggage was on the 
 veranda of the Taj Mahal hotel — but con- 
 siderably less in amount. Gulab Singh was 
 also there. The English officer had come to 
 have a real regard for his "bearer." The 
 young servant combined devotion and dig- 
 nity in his service, and with many short- 
 comings — among which lying figured duly 
 — still showed an undoubted and unusual 
 attachment to his young master. He served 
 with growing admiration the fine, strong, 
 enthusiastic young officer. The fact was 
 that the open, generous nature of his sahib 
 had won his heart. 
 
 When it came to the question of his mas- 
 ter's departure for Walayat (England), 
 Gulab Singh steadily maintained that he 
 
 17 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 would go along. As a first step, he came on 
 to Bombay, and now he insisted that he 
 should cross the seas. Was the sahib not 
 able to arrange it? 
 
 "O, yes, that part of it is all right, Gulab 
 Singh, for the colonel has permitted officers 
 to take their servants as far as London, if 
 they choose. But what will you do when 
 you get there?'* 
 
 "Do, Sahib? Is the great larai [battle] 
 not on? Are you not going to fight? Can 
 I not be with you on the campaign there, 
 as on the military excursions here?" 
 
 Now, Gulab Singh had no idea of what 
 he talked about. He was imagining a whole 
 lot, and had nothing to draw on except his 
 limited Indian experience. The fact is, he 
 longed to go. To him it seemed now like a 
 question of personal loyalty to his sahib. 
 
 "Namak — halal" was the greatest word 
 in the vocabulary of Gulab Singh. Liter- 
 ally it means "loyalty to one's salt." 
 
 "I have eaten the Sar^ars [govern- 
 ment's] salt," said he. "I think I can help 
 you there. Do not refuse me permission. 
 Sahib!" 
 
 18 
 
ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 
 
 And so Gulab Singh crossed the great kdld 
 pdnij the "black water" — ocean. Thou- 
 sands and multiphed thousands of India's 
 sons were soon to do the same. A new day- 
 had come for India. Indian troops were to 
 go to Europe. They had fought under Brit- 
 ish leadership in Africa, Egypt, China — 
 but who had expected to live to see this 
 great new day? A mighty thrill swept 
 through her ancient peoples. New dignity 
 entered into their hfe; a new future began 
 to open to their enlarged vision. India 
 would never be the same again! 
 
 For Gulab Singh, the new exalted life 
 had already begun. His wonder daily in- 
 creased. The nearer he got to England the 
 higher rose his pride. He was, at last, at a 
 man's work! There was something else — 
 he did not know it, but it was there never- 
 theless. The Aryan blood in him was astir. 
 
 We do well to think of this — the meeting 
 in India, after thousands of years of separa- 
 tion, of the two branches of the great Aryan 
 family. The gulf that has separated them 
 has changed both from the type in the 
 original family home in Western Asia, but 
 
 19 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 there they stand at last again, brethren, side 
 by side! Save for color, and certain admix- 
 tures of other blood, the two are still much 
 ahke. The clear-cut features remain the 
 same, the same fine sensitive nature marks 
 the two. The Enghshman or the Ameri- 
 can, when face to face with either Chinese, 
 Japanese, or African, cannot but feel that 
 he sees a man radically different from him- 
 self. When he meets the Indian it is dif- 
 ferent — there is an instinctive resumption 
 of the fellowship broken off in the dim 
 past. 
 
 ISTeither Gulab Singh nor Captain Stan- 
 hope thought of these things, but it was in- 
 teresting to note the growing regard of the 
 sahib for his servant, and the increasing re- 
 spect of the valet for his master. And so 
 the voyage terminated. While the young 
 Captain spent a brief period of leave with 
 his people, Gulab Singh, as a matter of 
 course, stayed on to serve him. When the 
 young officer was ordered to camp, there 
 still was no reason why his Indian servant 
 should be separated from him. But when, 
 a few weeks later, the regiment was ordered 
 
 20 
 
ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 
 
 off to France, there was a real question to 
 be settled. 
 
 Again Gulab Singh prevailed. He had 
 come thus far — what was there now to do 
 except to go on? Surely, if the sahib had 
 need of him in England, he could make 
 some use of him in France. Were the two 
 countries, then, so utterly different? 
 
 Thus we find Gulab Singh at last on 
 French soil, behind the British fighting 
 lines. Many were the ways in which he 
 made himself useful to his young captdn 
 sahib during those strenuous and perilous 
 days. Often did Captain Stanhope bless 
 the day when he picked up the faithful 
 Gulab Singh in the streets of Bombay. 
 Had not his first, unasked, service of help 
 been prophetic of all the assistance he had 
 been rendering since? 
 
 After several weeks, during which Gulab 
 Singh went through years of experience, 
 there came a terrible day — one of those days 
 that will go down in history. Gulab Singh 
 and his beloved captain were in the retreat 
 from Mons. Now, Gulab Singh did not 
 know why a British army should have to re- 
 
 21 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 treat. He had not been brought up on that 
 kind of tradition! He had yet to learn the 
 glory of that wondrous feat of courage and 
 endurance, whereby so slender an army was 
 able to foil the purposes of the Prussian 
 hordes, even in the act of falling back be- 
 fore the terrible onrush of their overwhelm- 
 ing numbers. 
 
 There came a perilous day toward the 
 end of that almost impossible feat of arms 
 by England, France, and Canada, when 
 Gulab Singh's master had to hold a position 
 with his company, covering the retreat of 
 important detachments. It was evident to 
 any man that it was a time to earn glory, 
 but not to save life. The young captain 
 explained the situation to his faithful In- 
 dian servant, and told him to fall back. 
 Gulab Singh remonstrated. 
 
 "If there is danger for my Sahib, he will 
 need me all the more," said he. 
 
 "It is not a question of danger merely, 
 Gulab Singh," exclaimed the Captain, "it is 
 a matter of death." 
 
 "If death is preferred by my Sahib, it is 
 good enough for me," he said, earnestly, 
 
 22 
 
ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 
 
 and refused to take the vanishing oppor- 
 tunity to withdraw. 
 
 We shall not be able to follow the for- 
 tunes of the fighting there during those 
 fateful hours. The undying heroism of 
 those who died in khaki that day may never 
 be chronicled. 
 
 Captain Stanhope's company held their 
 ground till the end, and saved the situation 
 at that point. Only a few wounded men 
 came out of that conflict to tell how the 
 foe had been checked. 
 
 The last to fall was the captain himself. 
 Gulab Singh, who had been in the thick of 
 it all, came instantly to his side. He was 
 only wounded. 
 
 "Go back, Gulab Singh. There is still 
 time. Tell the Colonel Sahib that we did 
 not yield." 
 
 Gulab Singh did not heed — he was con- 
 cerned only over the stream of blood that 
 flowed from the captain's wound. He 
 bound it up as best he could, tearing long 
 strips from his turban to do so. Then he 
 said — 
 
 "Come, Sahib, I will help you back." 
 
 23 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 There was nothing to be done by remain- 
 ing. The khaki forms on the ground moved 
 not. 
 
 Slowly and painfully the two made their 
 way back, Gulab Singh skillfully taking 
 advantage of every bit of cover, and some- 
 times almost carrying his master. 
 
 It must have been a stirring sight — the 
 Aryan brown and the Aryan white, on the 
 battlefields of France! Typical too of In- 
 dia helping England in her hour of need. 
 And Gulab Singh was only in the van- 
 guard of the one million sons of India who 
 were shortly to respond to the call of the 
 empire, for the cause of justice, liberty, 
 democracy. And Gulab Singh was typical 
 in this, also, that he came as a volunteer. 
 There has been no conscription in India ; no 
 draft is needed to bring her miUions on to 
 the scene of freedom's war against tyranny ! 
 
 The dangerous strip of land had just 
 been safely covered by the wounded, now 
 almost fainting officer, and his faithful In- 
 dian servant. They had just got touch with 
 a British column. 
 
 "You are safe, Sahib!" exclaim^ed the 
 
 24 
 
"The Aryan white and the Aryan brown, on the 
 battlefields of France" 
 
ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 
 
 proud and happy Gulab Singh, as he caught 
 sight of British uniforms near, and saw 
 some soldiers advance to their help. 
 
 The captain lost consciousness and Gulab 
 Singh allowed his form to sink upon the 
 ground. He kneeled beside him to adjust 
 the bandages and stanch the flow of blood. 
 They were still exposed to danger from an 
 occasional enemy bullet. 
 
 "He, Parmeshwar," he exclaimed, "grant 
 that he may live!" 
 
 The men coming forward to aid the officer 
 had seen Gulab Singh kneel to help the 
 wounded officer. The next instant they saw 
 him fall forward on his face. 
 
 He did not move. Gulab Singh was 
 dead! 
 
 The party coming up found that the In- 
 dian had been shot in the breast and killed 
 instantly. The officer was still alive. 
 
 They carried them both to the rear of the 
 lines. 
 
 The captain regained consciousness, but 
 was delirious. 
 
 "Go back, Gulab Singh. . . . Bring the 
 tea and toast. . . . I'm going to the Polo 
 
 25 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 ground. . . . See, there's the jjaltan [regi- 
 ment]. . . . Steady, boys — we can hold 
 them!" 
 
 He was taken to the base hospital, where, 
 with careful nursing, he recovered. 
 
 When he was able to understand things, 
 he was told of the death of his Indian serv- 
 ant. They did not need to add that Gulab 
 Singh had saved his life. He knew that. 
 
 Among the things found on Gulab 
 Singh's body was an envelope. It contained 
 a letter, said the nurse, signed by Colonel 
 James Randolph Stanhope, and so it had 
 been saved for Captain Stanhope. 
 
 "Perhaps it was an ancestor of yours in 
 the British army of India?" asked the nurse. 
 
 "It is my grandfather's name. Let me 
 see the letter." 
 
 A soiled, much worn, cloth-lined envelope 
 was handed to him. 
 
 The first thing he noticed was that the 
 top left-hand corner bore the familiar words 
 in print — "On His Majesty's Service." 
 
 Carefully the young captain took out a 
 faded, much-creased letter. He glanced 
 first at the signature. It was that of his 
 
 26 
 
ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 
 
 own grandfather, colonel of the 9th Sikh 
 Cavahy. The date was October 30th, 1858. 
 He read: 
 
 "On leaving India I take keen pleasure in 
 writing this letter for Gulab Singh. For 
 seven years he served me faithfully as 
 bearer. His work was always satisfactory 
 — a service that he crowned by helping me 
 to escape death at the hands of the muti- 
 neers in Meerut. Had it not been for his 
 timely and unhesitating assistance, both 
 Mrs. Stanhope and myself must certainly 
 have met a cruel death at the hands of the 
 rebellious sepoys. 
 
 "I have made suitable provision for him 
 and his family and am both proud and 
 grateful to accede to his request for a per- 
 sonal letter. The Stanhopes must ever re- 
 main grateful to the house of Gulab Singh." 
 
 The captain lay motionless a long time, 
 holding the letter in his hand. The thing 
 was fairly overpowering. Gulab Singh's 
 grandfather had saved his grandfather's 
 life! And here he himself was lying safe 
 in a base hospital, saved by the devotion of 
 the grandson ! 
 
 27 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 "Grateful to the house of Gulab Singh!" 
 And he could not express his gratitude to 
 his own Gulab Singh! 
 
 Then he read the letter once more. After 
 that he folded it up and put it back in the 
 old, cloth-lined envelope. This time he 
 noticed that a hole had been torn in the top 
 left-hand corner of the envelope, almost 
 obliterating the word "His." 
 
 He turned the env^elope over. It was 
 stained with blood. The hole was made by 
 the bullet that killed Gulab Singh! 
 
 His eyes took on a far-off look. His 
 thoughts went back to Meerut — to the 
 bloodstained Meerut of 1857 — to the quiet 
 and beautiful Meerut of 1914. 
 
 If he lived through the war, he would re- 
 turn to India, look up the family of Gulab 
 Singh and honor and reward them. 
 
 The Stanhopes were still more indebted 
 to "the house of Gulab Singh." 
 
 His gaze rested again on the envelope. 
 He read, "On His Majesty's Service." 
 
 "Ay, Gulab Singh," he said aloud, "both 
 you and I, both England and India, to the 
 glorious end — *0n His Majesty's Service!' " 
 
 28 
 
II 
 
 PONNIAH 
 
 TN the classroom of the old Jesuit mission 
 •*■ at Tuticorin a boy of sixteen was mulling 
 ov^er his lessons, humming them aloud, and 
 sometimes singing them in competition with 
 the twenty-five others of his class whose 
 nasal voices blended and discorded with his 
 from time to time. His blue-black hair was 
 luxuriant and gathered in a knot at the back 
 of his shapely head, but tendrils escaped 
 about the finely modeled forehead and he 
 brushed them back from his brows without 
 a moment's cessation of his reading, in his 
 carefully modulated, expressive sing-song. 
 Their Tamil lesson finished, at the 
 teacher's word the pupils gathered up their 
 books and placed them in small book-sacks, 
 which they rolled up and tied to carry home. 
 Ponniah remained to question his teacher, 
 a Tamil man of the same caste as himself, 
 
 29 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 presenting certain physical resemblances, 
 though somewhat heavier and taller than the 
 slim brown youth who stood before him. 
 
 "Sir, this lesson was most delightful, and 
 I have been waiting to ask you a question 
 on its application. Plere is a line in the 
 stanza, about which Kasthuri and I argued. 
 He said it was wrong, but I held it is right, 
 and said I should ask you." 
 
 "Ponniah, there are some very remark- 
 able expressions in the stanza, but the gram- 
 mar is correct. Where did you find it?" 
 
 "Teacher, I am fascinated by the classic 
 writers, and imitating their style, I wrote it 
 myself." 
 
 "This is not bad for a boy. Let me have 
 it to-night and you may get it in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 So, the teacher took the roll of manuscript 
 covered with Ponniah's somewhat irregular 
 penmanship, and Ponniah with a low bow 
 and the most respectful salaam passed out 
 of the room into the open sunlight. As he 
 stepped outside the building he walked al- 
 most into the arms of his uncle, who was 
 waiting for him. Not taking time to let 
 
 30 
 
PONNIAH 
 
 Ponniah get his breath, the older man began 
 speaking. 
 
 "Ponniah," he said, "everything is ready 
 for your wedding to my daughter Pushpam. 
 The guests are come, the wedding supper 
 is cooking, the gifts are ready, the Brah- 
 mans wait, only the bridegroom is lacking. 
 Come, enter my oxcart; let us get home to 
 our village." 
 
 "But, uncle, I have told you again and 
 again that I should not marry till I had 
 completed my education. How can I study 
 and succeed after taking a wife? If I spend 
 much time on my books she will be jealous." 
 
 "Ponniah, who are you to argue with me? 
 Your people and mine have arranged all 
 things. You have but to obey. Come with 
 me at once!" 
 
 But Ponniah merely looked a moment 
 into the darkening face of his uncle, and 
 then turned to run swiftly away. At the 
 exit from the great stone-walled compound 
 which contained the Jesuit mission build- 
 ings, he turned his head to see if he had 
 gained upon his pursuing uncle, and at the 
 same moment two heavy hands fell upon 
 
 31 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 his slim figure and he was thrown to the 
 ground by a man who had stood concealed 
 by the great gateway. A moment later his 
 uncle too was upon him and the two raised 
 him to his feet. The struggle was in vain, 
 so he allowed them to lead him to an oxcart 
 standing in the street near by. They loaded 
 him inside its capacious ribs and the uncle 
 ascended behind him, while the opportune 
 ally seized a goad and di*ove the oxen more 
 rapidly than such great beasts generally 
 travel, out through the narrow streets and 
 at last into the open country. Then on and 
 on till the stars shone out and the youthful 
 prisoner was sound asleep in the bumping 
 cart, between his two captors. 
 
 They reached their destination before 
 midnight, a large prosperous village with 
 towering palm trees and drooping plan- 
 tains, great fields of grain waving under the 
 moonlight which lighted the broad plains 
 and even showed the far-off mountains. As 
 they dismounted in the courtyard of a great 
 brick dwelling they found the wedding 
 guests asleep on mats and cots which filled 
 and overflowed the surrounding sheds. 
 
 32 
 
PONNIAH 
 
 Their showy garments and the fihny white 
 cloths spread over their heads gave them a 
 mysterious appearance, but it was only a 
 few minutes till the driver had unhitched 
 his oxen, placed fodder before them in their 
 stalls, and taken his place among the silent 
 forms, while Ponniah's uncle merely relaxed 
 beside the silent form he was watching. 
 
 A httle later he had fallen sound asleep 
 and there was not a sound in the courtyard, 
 except some snoring among the wedding 
 guests and the cattle munching their fodder. 
 
 A mosquito lighting upon Ponniah's un- 
 covered face awakened him, and he gazed 
 about him. Everyone was asleep and he 
 had no difficulty slipping out of the wagon 
 without arousing his uncle. From the great 
 open courtyard he passed into the house, 
 which was even more completely full of peo- 
 ple than the courtyard, but here were only 
 women, women sleeping as soundly as the 
 men outside. Ponniah looked about inside 
 the building for a place of concealment. At 
 first he thought there was none, but he re- 
 membered a great grain jar which reached 
 nearly to the ceiling and was some eight feet 
 
 33 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 in diameter. In the darkness he groped 
 carefully till he found it, then, avoiding one 
 of the sleepers whose shimmering white gar- 
 ments warned him of her presence, he 
 climbed from a wooden mortar up to its rim 
 and threw himself over the rim and inside 
 the jar. It was half full of rice and he was 
 soon sound asleep in that warm chamber. 
 
 When he awoke the whole house was in 
 an uproar. Every one asked his neighbor, 
 "Where is Ponniah?" They searched high 
 and low for him, dragged the wells and cis- 
 terns, hunted in the woods, searched the 
 neighboring houses, but Ponniah was not to 
 be found. Secure in his hiding place, he lis- 
 tened to the comments and bewildered ques- 
 tions of the guests and of his own family. 
 The day passed, but Hindu weddings are 
 not a matter of a day, they require three 
 days, and on the third day, because much 
 treasure had been spent and because a bride 
 whose wedding is postponed can never be 
 married, they married his uncle's daughter 
 to another cousin, one less fortunately en- 
 dowed than Ponniah both by nature and by 
 inheritance from his parents. 
 
 34 
 
PONNIAH 
 
 On the third day the wedding was over 
 and the guests were feasted and bade fare- 
 well to the parents of the bride and the 
 bridegroom. Ponniah, though within sound 
 of the feasting, had had no part in it and 
 was stiff with enforced movelessness and 
 hungry with long fasting. When certain 
 that all had left the room, he stood up and 
 looked over the rim of the great jar. Some- 
 thing of the feast remained. He could eat 
 and hide till evening, then steal away in the 
 darkness. He climbed over the rim and 
 lowered himself to the floor, dropping stiffly 
 the last two feet of the distance, and almost 
 at the same moment the door opened and his 
 uncle entered. 
 
 "Ha!" he shouted. "Now I have you 
 who caused me to marry my daughter to a 
 poor man, you who escaped and deceived 
 me. You will pay the penalty now. Scoun- 
 drel!" 
 
 And he seized Ponniah and tied him to a 
 pillar that supported the roof, while he went 
 out to look for a rod with which to beat him. 
 While he was gone his nephew shpped his 
 slim wrists out of the tight lashing, then 
 
 35 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 placed them so that his uncle would not sus- 
 pect him, remaining in the same posture with 
 his arms raised and encircling the pillar. 
 
 The rod was a stout bamboo, and it 
 whistled through the air as his uncle put his 
 force into every blow. Ponniah could only 
 bear two or three. He turned suddenly 
 and, to his uncle's great surprise, seized the 
 bamboo club and struck his assailant, almost 
 stunning him. He then rushed from the 
 house as fast as his young legs could carry 
 him. 
 
 Ponniah was free! It was a long time 
 before it was safe for him to return to his 
 father's house. The whole village was re- 
 lated as only caste villages in India can be, 
 family to family, and the hue and cry pur- 
 sued him for many a day ; but at last he got 
 home again, and remained there till his peo- 
 ple were ready to send him to school again. 
 
 While waiting, one day he heard an evan- 
 gelist telling the story of Jesus Christ, the 
 Lamb of God whose sacrifice taketh away 
 the sins of the world. While Ponniah was 
 not yet ready to leave home and wealth for 
 that gospel, he believed the simple story, be- 
 
 36 
 
PONNIAH 
 
 lieved the severe yet joyful evangelist, and 
 promised himself that some time he would 
 turn to that "Way" and yield to that 
 "Book." Sacrifice and persecution lay in 
 that path. 
 
 Outside the village and a half mile away, 
 upon a rising ground stood the village idol, 
 a huge image of brick and mortar, covered 
 with plaster and hideously fashioned and 
 painted, some eighteen feet high, turning its 
 great hollow eyesockets toward the village. 
 On festal occasions the village clerk would 
 place the big silver eyes, of which he was 
 official custodian, within the hollow sockets, 
 so their god might see and smile upon the 
 village. 
 
 Ponniah and his friend Peria Swamy 
 stood beside the idol and were speaking of 
 the futility of idolatry. Ponniah said, "I 
 don't believe in idols, and I do not fear 
 them." 
 
 "Neither do I," said Peria Swamy. 
 
 "Watch me," said Ponniah, and he leaped 
 lightly to the knees of the great idol, then 
 climbed to its arm which was laid across the 
 breast, then, standing upon the arm, he re- 
 
 37 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 moved his sundal and slapped the big idol 
 across the face with the most insulting ob- 
 ject imaginable to Hindu thought, his 
 leather shoe. 
 
 Now, Ponniah was not a Christian, he 
 only hoped to become one some day, and yet 
 he had thrown oft* the shackles of supersti- 
 tion so fully that he could renounce idolatry 
 forever. Had he been a Christian, he would 
 not have insulted the god his people wor- 
 shiped. His action was seen and the village 
 clerk determined to revenge the community 
 insult and punish Ponniah. He sent for 
 the inspector of police and informed him 
 that Ponniah had stolen the big silver eyes 
 of the idol. 
 
 In the house of the clerk the inspector 
 questioned the clerk: 
 
 "You say that you saw him steal those 
 eyes?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, sir, I saw him steal them," he said. 
 
 "What were they like. Clerk?" asked the 
 inspector. 
 
 "Sir, they were big silver balls, as big as 
 your two fists," said the clerk. 
 
 "Papa," said his little son, who had come 
 38 
 
"He romovcd his Htiudal and slapped the bif? idol 
 across the face" 
 
PONNIAH 
 
 in unnoticed, "they aren't the balls you keep 
 in that chest in the corner, are they?" 
 
 Then the big inspector looked in the chest, 
 and there were the silver eyes, and Ponniah 
 was proved innocent of the charge against 
 him. He had again escaped danger. 
 
 But Ponniah was unpopular at home, and 
 he slipped away to me and asked me to 
 baptize him, as he wanted to be a Christian. 
 I taught him to pray and in answer to his 
 prayers he found peace and joy. 
 
 I asked the leaders of the church at Tuti- 
 corin if we should baptize him, and if they 
 thought he would make a good Christian. 
 
 In the mat-walled church at Tuticorin he 
 was baptized and stayed with me for a day 
 or two while we were planning what he 
 should do. The second night we lay asleep 
 in my little room on the roof of a great 
 grain warehouse, a little room I rented for 
 one dollar and sixty-six cents a month, the 
 only quarters I had for months at a time. 
 I woke suddenly, for some one was fum- 
 bling at my feet. 
 
 "What do you want?" I asked. 
 
 "Where is that Pillay boy?" was the an- 
 
 39 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 swer. I knew then that Ponniah's friends 
 had come to take him away, for they were 
 of high caste and felt his defection to Chris- 
 tianity most keenly. 
 
 "Get out of here," I shouted, and rose 
 to pursue them. How they ran, and how I 
 ran after them! But they made their es- 
 cape, clattering down the three sets of stairs. 
 
 The next night, however, they found him 
 while he was at supper, waited till he came 
 out of the Hindu restaurant, then laid him 
 forcibly inside an oxcart and tied him hand 
 and foot. When they were not watching he 
 slipped his hands from their bonds, untied 
 his feet, and ran away in the darkness to 
 me. Brother Rajappan and I placed him 
 upon an early train to Madras, and he went 
 away, assuring me with boyish confidence 
 that he would study hard in the mission 
 school there and thus become a great 
 preacher. 
 
 So he stayed in Madras and studied as 
 hard as he was able, grinding away at that 
 beautiful but difficult Tamil poetry with its 
 marvelous capacity of saying much in few 
 words. There he learned the choice verse 
 
 40 
 
PONNIAH 
 
 of Tiruvalluvar, who "was wont to hollow 
 out a mustard seed and pour the Seven Seas 
 inside it." 
 
 But his longing for home and mother 
 overcame him. He had not yet found out 
 that Christ is all in all. One evening, with- 
 out my permission, he took the train south- 
 ward and the next evening reached Tuti- 
 corin. Thence he traveled afoot to his vil- 
 lage and his people. They welcomed him 
 with open arms. He was glad to be at home 
 again. His parents were the same dear 
 parents he had left behind when he came to 
 Christ. The evening passed, and Ponniah 
 lay down to rest in the same cot he had used 
 as a boy. 
 
 He woke suddenly, conscious that his 
 mother was bending over him. "My son," 
 she said, "we are so glad that you have come 
 home. We have been disgraced by your 
 falling into the evil way of the Christians, 
 and now your father has brought the Brah- 
 man priest, the branding iron is red-hot, and 
 we will brand your tongue to cleanse you 
 from the pollution of baptism and of min- 
 gling with the accursed eaters of flesh and of 
 
 41 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 kine. When thus you are clean once more, 
 we shall take you back into caste, and you 
 shall be our son again." 
 
 "But I cannot leave Jesus. He has saved 
 
 me." This was all he could say before his 
 father's viselike grip was upon him and the 
 hot branding-iron was before his eyes. He 
 struggled, and they were frantic, but his 
 youth conquered in the end, and when I saw 
 him the following evening at my camp in a 
 nearby village, he showed me his body 
 
 42 
 
PONNIAH 
 
 clawed and bleeding as if some wild beast 
 had met him. "The wounds," said he, "with 
 which I was wounded in the house of my 
 friends." 
 
 Then Ponniah went to a mission school in 
 Tinnevelly, but one day the letters from 
 home were too much for him, and one of 
 them told him that his uncle was dying. 
 Ponniah went home without my permission. 
 He found the man lying upon a cot, and 
 knelt beside him. 
 
 "Uncle," said he, "Jesus Christ has saved 
 me from my sins, and I have peace with 
 God. Do you beheve he could save you 
 too?" 
 
 "Of course, if he saved you. I never was 
 as bad as you," was his uncle's answer. 
 
 "Uncle, may I pray for you?" 
 
 "Yes, if you want to, pray." 
 
 Then Ponniah prayed for his uncle, who 
 had wronged him, had bound him, had 
 beaten him, and would have prevented his 
 education; and his prayer was like this: "O 
 God, my uncle has worshiped idols all his 
 hfe. He has bowed down to stocks and 
 stones. Wilt thou not come into his heart 
 
 43 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 and save him, for his heart has become like 
 the stones he worshiped ? O Jesus, come into 
 his heart to-day." 
 
 While Ponniah prayed, Jesus was knock- 
 ing at the stony portal of the old man's 
 heart. It opened a little and the old man 
 felt the warmth that had not been there for 
 years, the warmth of love like the shining 
 of the sun in springtime. It felt so good 
 that he just threw the door wide open and 
 Jesus came into his heart. 
 
 "O Ponniah, I've got it, I've got it," he 
 shouted. 
 
 "What have you got, uncle?" asked Pon- 
 niah. 
 
 "I don't know what it is, Ponniah, but I 
 think it's salvation," he said. 
 
 The death of the heathen is a most dismal 
 affair. They crowd a great number of folks 
 into the little room of the dying, and long 
 before his spirit goes, the death wail is 
 sounding through the whole village — that 
 wail that chills the marrow of your bones, 
 that tears your heart with its long-drawn 
 agonies. 
 
 But Ponniah's uncle did not die that way. 
 
 44 
 
PONNIAH 
 
 He refused all mourners and Ponniah kept 
 them away, and when he died, his spirit 
 went with praise and joy unspeakable, went 
 home to God. Ponniah came to tell me all 
 about it. He said he had never heard of 
 such a triumphant death, and read me a 
 beautiful Tamil poem he had written de- 
 scribing it. 
 
 Ponniah came to me a month before I left 
 for America, and gave me a deed for an 
 acre and a half of land in his village. He 
 has come into the possession of his own 
 property at last, and with a smile he said, 
 "I shall build a Methodist church building 
 upon that land, and when you return to In- 
 dia, I want you to dedicate it." 
 
 Ponniah's last letter told of thirteen con- 
 verts whom he had led into "the Way." 
 
 45 
 
Ill 
 
 FOR THE BRITISH RAJ 
 
 rpHIRTEEN years ago, in a village of 
 -*• North India, I saw the two for the first 
 time. I had jumped from the oxcart and 
 with the munslii was walking toward the 
 mohulla of the Christians. It was then that 
 I saw the one, the elder. He stood at the 
 entrance of the village street. Three silver 
 medals hung from his quilted jacket. As 
 I neared he stood sharply to attention, and 
 threw up his hand in a military salute. Then 
 I saw his face — a grizzled old veteran of the 
 Indian army. You have seen the face of 
 General Joffre? Darken it to a rich brown 
 and dress it in an Indian turban, and you 
 have my friend Thakur Das. 
 
 "Bandagi, Maharaj.^ Welcome to our 
 unworthy village. ''Hat! Get back! Will 
 you boys and girls trample the Maharaj 
 
 Literally, " Great King." 
 
 46 
 
FOR THE BRITISH RAJ 
 
 that you crowd him so?" — and he descended 
 on the naked children, unused to the sight 
 of a fair-skinned sahib from afar. 
 
 I turned with a laugh. 'Twas then I saw 
 the other. He was the leader of the array 
 behind me, a boy of ten. He had been herd- 
 ing cows, and his long bamboo staff still lay 
 on his shoulder. The cows were forgotten. 
 He saw only me, and as I walked into the 
 village I could have swung my hand behind 
 my back and caught him by the arm. 
 
 "Maharaj will honor my house first. 
 Run, Kanhai Singh, and bring some warm 
 buffalo milk. Take this pice for sweetening 
 in it." 
 
 The little cowherd came forward with 
 hand outstretched for the money. His eyes 
 were blazing with excitement and his bare 
 limbs were quivering. 
 
 "I perceive you have seen the world some- 
 what, Thakur Das," and I studied the shin- 
 ing medals on his bosom. I had learned to 
 recognize the ribboned clasps of many of the 
 wars England has waged in the East. "I 
 see the Punjab and Afghanistan. What is 
 the other?" 
 
 47 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 "It is Burma, Huzur," and the old man 
 chuckled. The crowd had gathered. I had 
 lighted a long-laid fuse. "You and I know 
 the world, Maharaj. I have told these 
 simpletons" — and he waved his hand indis- 
 criminately over the heads of all — "I have 
 been telling them the wonders and marvels 
 of the world. But what can they under- 
 stand? They are ganwars — they know 
 nothing but mud-walls, grass-thatch, and 
 cow dung. We have seen the world." He 
 dominated the situation, and their submis- 
 sion was complete. 
 
 The buffalo milk in the polished brass 
 lota was placed in my hands and the boy sat 
 on his haunches at my feet, staring un- 
 ashamed into my face. Thakur Das waited 
 while I drank. I handed the lota to the 
 boy. He bore it within and returned with 
 a fan. 
 
 Thakur Das could restrain himself no 
 longer. "You are here to confirm my 
 words, your Presence. I have told these 
 men of the world, of Calcutta and Bombay, 
 of the great 'black water' and the ships. 
 I have told them of Lord Roberts. He 
 
 48 
 
FOR THE BRITISH RAJ 
 
 loved our regiment. I have seen him halt 
 the sun in the heavens, when the Afghans 
 were waiting for darkness to ambush us in 
 the gorges. I have seen Lord Roberts hold 
 up his hand like this, and call down thunder 
 and lightning and rain till his enemies were 
 paralyzed with fear, and he would capture 
 them by thousands. Is it not so, Maharaj ?" 
 
 I hesitated one small moment. "You 
 have said it, Thakur Das," I answered. 
 
 " 'Tis so indeed. Ah, sir, the world is 
 very large and wonderful. You and I have 
 seen it." 
 
 He reached inside his quilted jacket and 
 drew forth a little book, dirt-stained, thumb- 
 marked, yet more precious than the gold of 
 Ophir. A glance at it would show that it 
 had been kept for years. 
 
 "Huzur, my certificates. Will you gra- 
 ciously read them and tell these what is 
 written there." 
 
 I opened the book. Kanhai had stopped 
 fanning. Faded pages and faded writing 
 were pasted in an old copybook. They were 
 certificates of good character, good service, 
 and good will that Sipahi Thakur Das had 
 
 49 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 managed to secure from officers of his regi- 
 ment — the Sixteenth Rajputs. There was 
 also his honorable discharge. 
 
 "But for my wound which took me to 
 Peshawar, Lord Roberts would have given 
 me one also," he added by way of apology 
 as I closed the book. 
 
 It was his day of triumph long awaited. 
 Why should I lessen the luster of it, or 
 deprive this village Caesar of his crown? 
 The simple crowd came closer. 
 
 "Men of Tilaspur, I have read these 
 certificates written by great officers of the 
 British Raj — majors, captains, and lieu- 
 tenants, men who know and understand the 
 world. They portray my friend here, 
 Thakur Das" (he was standing to attention 
 as on a dress parade), "as a man highly re- 
 spected by all who know him, a brave and 
 loyal soldier of the great Queen-Empress. 
 He has distinguished himself in every cam- 
 paign and earned the gratitude of the Raj. 
 In his retirement and old age he is worthy 
 of your obedience, love, and reverence. 
 And you, Kanhai Singh, be a blessing to 
 your father in his last days." 
 
 50 
 
FOR THE BRITISH RAJ 
 
 As I spoke I saw another soldier, small 
 but straight, standing to attention with a 
 palm-leaf fan. 
 
 That night in the quiet mango grove 
 where my tent was pitched I sat down to 
 Write. In the near distance the village had 
 already sunk to rest. Suddenly upon the 
 mango leaves beyond me appeared the 
 shadows of three heads, followed by a quiet 
 cough. I turned my head, feigning sur- 
 prise: 
 
 "Well, Kanhai Singh, who are these you 
 have brought with you? 
 
 "Maharaj, this is Daulat Ram, the son 
 of the lumhardar. He is betrothed to my 
 little sister, and is my brother. This is 
 Baldeo, a hhangi, an outcaste and a Chris- 
 tian. My father does not know we play 
 with him, but he can read, Maharaj, and 
 he reads to us about the great world beyond 
 out of his Second Reader. And so we let 
 him play with us, sometimes, when the dot 
 field yonder is the world and we go to see 
 its sights. He must stay far behind when 
 we attack the Afghans, lest perchance he 
 should be wounded, and we should have to 
 
 51 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 bring him in." A shiver ran through his 
 frame. 
 
 "You are cold, Kanhai, and the evening 
 is warm — " 
 
 "No, your Presence, I was thinking of 
 the beating our fathers would give us if we 
 carried Baldeo in. Yonder, Sahib" — he was 
 gathering confidence with every moment 
 and unburdening his little heart — "yonder 
 on that mound near that old well Lord 
 Roberts sits and watches us attack. O 
 Sahib, just three days ago Lord Roberts 
 with his own hand pinned a medal on me 
 here," and he touched his breast. 
 
 I laughed. "How could he do that, 
 Kanhai, when you wear no shirt or coat?" 
 
 My laugh hurt him and he wilted like a 
 sensitive plant. 
 
 "I do see it now, Kanhai. You must have 
 been a very brave soldier and done a marvel- 
 ous deed to have earned such honor." 
 
 "Yes, Sahib, I killed three thousand 
 Afghans in one hour, and Lord Roberts 
 said 'twas well done. He had been watch- 
 ing me, you see. Sahib, watching all the 
 time. Maharaj," and the boy sat down at 
 
 62 
 
FOR THE BRITISH RAJ 
 
 my feet, innocence and boldness combined. 
 "Will you take me with you into the great 
 world?" His eyes, his whole face, pleaded 
 with his words. 
 
 "No, Kanhai, you are but a boy now. 
 You must grow tall and strong. You must 
 tend your father too, you know." 
 
 "Yes, Sahib," and he lowered his voice, 
 "but my heart here tells me the Afghans 
 will be all gone before I grow big, Lord 
 Roberts may be dead, and where then shall 
 my medals come from?" 
 
 "There will be plenty of Afghans left, 
 my boy, and plenty of medals too. But 
 they are given only to the truthful and 
 obedient. Now you may go, all three of 
 
 you." 
 
 He half rose, but bent again, and touched 
 my shoe with his brown forehead: 
 
 "Maharaj, may I speak? May I utter 
 one request." His black eyes were pouring 
 forth the intensities within; from their 
 craters the deep fires below leaped out. 
 
 "What is it, Kanhai? I will do anything 
 that is good for you, my son." 
 
 "A certificate," he whispered. 
 
 53 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 "Of course," I answered, and I wrote: 
 "This is to certify that Kanhai Singh, son 
 of Thakur Das, is a brave lad, honest and 
 obedient. He will some day, I doubt not, 
 be a great and good man." 
 
 He held out his hand for the folded 
 paper, and could not keep back the laughter. 
 He held the priceless document close against 
 his heart, and bowed to the earth once more. 
 
 "Where will you keep it, Kanhai?" I 
 dared not risk another jest about that httle 
 brown body. 
 
 "In the inner band of my green cap that 
 I wear when I go to the fairs. No one will 
 know that I keep it there, Maharaj." 
 
 He was gone and I turned again to my 
 letter: "Even these little villages of India 
 are touched by the movements of the world. 
 There is no sight more interesting than to 
 watch the iSrst ripples of our world-civiliza- 
 tion striking these quiet shores." 
 
 All this was thirteen years ago. Lying 
 undisturbed it had grown dusty in the 
 pigeon-holes of memory. It would be lying 
 so yet but for an accident. 
 
 64 
 
FOR THE BRITISH RAJ 
 
 I had missed my train at a wayside sta- 
 tion. In my impatience I paced the 
 graveled platform. A train from the south 
 came slowly in and halted. Suddenly I was 
 aroused with curiosity. 
 
 "Babu, what train is this, all third-class 
 carriages, and guarded with soldiers?" 
 
 "Sir, it is a train of wounded returning 
 to their homes," answered the station 
 master. 
 
 The doors opened and eleven men were 
 lifted out by gentle hands and deposited 
 on the station platform. Some were lying 
 on light stretchers, others were sitting up, 
 one or two could even stand. 
 
 In far-off India the wreckage of the 
 storm in Flanders! It seemed unreal, un- 
 true. No quarrel of theirs, but theirs the 
 sightless eyes, the amputated hmbs, the torn 
 features, the shattered frames. These were 
 the hopelessly mangled — ^the ashes of the 
 furnace. 
 
 They laid the last one taken out near 
 my feet. It was not till the train pulled 
 out that I heard him speaking to another: 
 
 "The long journey is all but over. Home, 
 
 55 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 Shankar, home! Bear up, brother! What 
 honor they will give us in our villages ! And 
 when our medals come — ah then — " 
 
 I looked at the man who had spoken; 
 the voice sounded strangely familiar. The 
 man was sitting on his stretcher, sergeant's 
 stripes on his left sleeve. I could not see 
 the face under the large khaki turban. He 
 was speaking again as I stepped around to 
 a place more advantageous: 
 
 "Eh, Dilawar Singh, why such moaning? 
 Think you that you are the only man 
 wounded that you act the woman? Shankar 
 here is torn far worse than you. He lies 
 quiet when he is not laughing." 
 
 I was standing now behind Dilawar 
 Singh. The sergeant raised his eyes to me. 
 A moment of perplexity — then the flash of 
 mutual recognition. I saw my village lad 
 of years gone by. 
 
 "O Sahib, my Sahib," he cried in joy. 
 "Do I see you once more in a dream, as I 
 have seen you so often, or is it yourself 
 indeed?" 
 
 I rushed to him and kneeling took his 
 hand: 
 
 56 
 
FOR THE BRITISH RAJ 
 
 "Kanhai Singh, my son, you are wounded. 
 Tell me how badly." 
 
 "It is nothing, Sahib, nothing. Just 
 enough to keep me from my regiment and 
 from France." There was the same in- 
 tensity in his look, and the same expression 
 of high resolve. My cowherd had but be- 
 come a man. 
 
 "He is wounded worse than any of us," 
 spoke the soldier lying next him. 
 
 "It is untrue. Sahib. I can sit up, you 
 see. Shankar here will never sit again." 
 
 "Tell me how it happened, Kanhai Singh" 
 — but the attendants had now arrived and 
 were lifting his stretcher. 
 
 "If you will come with me a little way 
 in the bailij, Sahib, I will tell you all. But 
 that is asking much." 
 
 "Not too much," I answered, and fol- 
 lowed him to the waiting oxcart that was 
 to take him to his village. "I will go with 
 you to your home. Is your father yet 
 alive?" 
 
 "Still living. Sahib, but very old. When 
 he heard that war had broken out and that 
 my regiment was going he was bent on re- 
 
 57 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 enlisting. That could not be of course, but 
 he came to see me off, and blessed me as a 
 soldier of the Raj." 
 
 On that journey I heard the story in all 
 its details from the lips of the wounded 
 man: 
 
 "We began intrenching under fire. 
 Sahib. The men were unused to it. They 
 were like little children when the monsoon 
 breaks and the thunder-claps are near. So 
 many fell. I kept thinking of my father 
 and Lord Roberts. So I kept our company 
 to its task. For that they gav^e me this" 
 — and he pointed to his sergeant's stripes. 
 Then followed many a story of camp and 
 trench. He drew near to the end: 
 
 "One day at Shahvanshi [Givenchy], 
 Sahib — I cannot get those French names 
 well — I received this wound. 'Tis well it is 
 no worse. We were crowded in our trenches 
 to repel an attack. How little we suspected 
 they were mined. Suddenly the Germans 
 exploded them. I can remember the noise. 
 I tried to rise, to hold our line, but it grew 
 so dark I coidd not see. Some one fell upon 
 me. The rest I have forgotten." 
 
 58 
 
FOR THE BRITISH RAJ 
 
 Down went the sun, a ball of fire. It 
 would soon be dark. For a long time now 
 we had been silent, each thinking his own 
 thoughts, each dreading what lay ahead. 
 Finally he broke the silence : 
 
 "Yonder behind those babool trees lies 
 our little village. From France to Tilas- 
 pur — 'tis a long and painful journey, 
 Sahib." 
 
 "Yes, see the boys of your village. You 
 will know them. Even so you met me years 
 ago." 
 
 "Kanhai Singh has come back! Kanhai 
 Singh has come back! And an English 
 Sahib is with him." 
 
 Back to the village the cry was carried 
 by a score of boyish voices. The sound 
 swept through the village. They ran to- 
 gether from all its moliullas. The men and 
 women returning from the fields hastened 
 their steps, wondering what the shouting 
 was about. Perhaps some highway robbers 
 had been caught. Perhaps some quarrel had 
 occurred and bamboo lathis were raining 
 down on naked heads. Children in troops 
 formed the advance guard, rushing out. Be- 
 
 59 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 hind them hurried the men, bewildered and 
 questioning. The women ran as fast as 
 the jewehy on their ankles and the babies 
 on their hips would allow, peeping all the 
 while from close-drawn chadars. The 
 crowd surrounded us. Kanhai Singh 
 greeted them cheerily. 
 
 Down the road came Thakur Das, an old 
 man now. He had stopped to pin on his 
 medals. Perplexity was written on his face. 
 
 Again the military salute and the word 
 of welcome. Then the eager searching of 
 the father's eye: 
 
 "Leap down, Kanhai Singh! How is it 
 you sit up there when the Maharaj is down 
 and on his feet? Have you forgotten your 
 manners, boy?" 
 
 "Let him rest. Your son is wounded, 
 Thakur Das. Order a hhatiya and take him 
 down tenderly." 
 
 The father's eyes narrowed as he renewed 
 the search. His son looked sound enough 
 sitting covered by the rrmai. 
 
 "Where did the ball take you, my son? 
 All soldiers are wounded at some time. I 
 too bear my scars." 
 
 60 
 
FOR THE BRITISH RAJ 
 
 The hhatiya had come, and we lifted him 
 gently from the oxcart. The movement un- 
 did the razaij, and for one moment uncov- 
 ered the hmbs. The father's quick eye 
 caught their message. 
 
 ^'Hael HaeT he screamed, and threw 
 his arm before his eyes, as if the sight had 
 bhnded him. "He will never walk again. 
 Hae! Hae! Both gone! Both gone! My 
 son! My only son! 
 
 The wailing was caught up by the gath- 
 ered crowd and the little village gave itself 
 unrestrainedly to sorrow. Kanhai Singh 
 and I alone were quiet. I turned to Thakur 
 Das: 
 
 "Thakur Das, you are a soldier and 
 a veteran, as well as a father. You can be 
 steady under fire, and you can be steady 
 under affliction. You are a hero and have 
 been honored — your son is a hero too, and 
 must be honored in a way more fitting. 
 What welcome is this to give him who has 
 given his strength in the service of the Raj ?" 
 
 The father quieted his sobs, but still 
 looked the picture of unutterable woe. 
 
 "Father" (the voice was very steady), 
 
 61 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OP HEAVEN 
 
 "I bring to you the personal greetings and 
 salaams of Lord Roberts. I saw him with 
 these eyes of mine and heard his voice. He 
 inspected our regiment five weeks before I 
 was wounded, and asked if the sons of any 
 of his veterans were in the ranks. I stepped 
 forward. He came and spoke to me, and 
 bade me carry to you his greetings. I have 
 done so." 
 
 Thakur Das had heard with head bowed 
 low. He raised himself to his full height. 
 
 "Son, you have paid lightly for this 
 honor. Let me hear no sigh of regret pass 
 your lips. The village shall know of it." 
 
 Then turning to the crowd he shouted, his 
 voice stern, but trembling with emotion: 
 "Silence! Bid this foolish wailing cease! 
 Is this our answer to Lord Roberts' greet- 
 ing?" 
 
 As they bore him to his wife and to his 
 mother, I overheard their conversation: 
 
 "Kanhai, you and I now understand how 
 all things are. We know the world." 
 
 "We have seen the world, my father." 
 
 6? 
 
IV 
 
 THE TIGER AND THE LAMB 
 
 /^NE afternoon I was sitting in the home 
 ^-^ of Sister Martha in the httle Indian 
 village of Keela Karanthai. The reason we 
 called her Martha was that whenever the 
 pastor came to that village she was always 
 so busy getting dinner for the pastor that 
 she could not get out to the morning serv- 
 ice, and so when I baptized her "Martha" 
 the whole congregation smiled. We have 
 to change their names in many cases because 
 the old names are associated with odious 
 aspects of heathenism. 
 
 In one corner of the little house the cattle 
 were tied, munching away at their stalks of 
 millet fodder. Sister Martha was cooking 
 in another corner, and a number of the mem- 
 bers of the congregation were seated around 
 me on the floor, listening to my stories about 
 Christ and about America, until I got tired 
 of talking and excused myself on the 
 
 63 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 ground that I had to write some letters. So 
 I took out my fountain pen and began to 
 write. 
 
 They watched in silence for some time, 
 and then one nudged another and said in a 
 whisper, "Appa, where does he get that 
 ink?" 
 
 The other answered: "That isn't ink. 
 That is a pencil." 
 
 But the first insisted, "It is ink; I can 
 see it glisten." 
 
 Then the first said: "Haven't you any 
 manners ? Don't bother the missionary. He 
 wants to write. Let him alone." 
 
 And I thought, "If they have too much 
 politeness to ask me where I get the ink 
 from a fountain pen, I will just let them be 
 polite," and went on writing. 
 
 Very soon I found that they were far 
 more polite than I, for I heard them saying, 
 "That man is going to the city and will re- 
 turn again soon," and I butted right into 
 their conversation and asked, "What man?" 
 
 In response they covered their mouths 
 with their hands, and one answered, "Sh! 
 — you must not speak his name!" 
 
 fi4 
 
THE TIGER AND THE LAMB 
 
 "But," said I, "how can I speak his name 
 if you do not tell me his name?" 
 
 Seeing my lack of manners, they took me 
 by the hand and led me clear outside of the 
 village. Nobody tells secrets inside of an 
 Indian village, for the houses are jammed 
 so close together that what you say in this 
 house can be heard in the third house away, 
 so they always take people outside the vil- 
 lage to talk secrets. 
 
 When we got some distance away from 
 town, under a spreading banyan tree, they 
 looked around for possible eavesdroppers, 
 and seeing none, Channiah said in a whisper, 
 "lya, his name is Pakkia Nathan!" 
 
 "Well," said I, "that is very interesting." 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "he is a very danger- 
 ous man." 
 
 Another added, "lya, he has ten sons 
 bigger than himself, and he is a tremendous 
 big fellow with a chest as big as a barrel 
 and great big fists." 
 
 From consequent remarks I gathered 
 that they were approximately the size of 
 hams. 
 
 "Sir," said another, "they are the terror 
 
 65 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 of the whole coniiniinity and many villages 
 near here. We never even mention their 
 names, for we fear they will burn our houses 
 down as they have burned many houses 
 down before this. They have committed all 
 manner of crimes, and these eleven are just 
 the nucleus of the gang of scoundrels that 
 terrorize the country." 
 
 Now, the more they told me about Pakkia 
 Nathan, the more certain I felt that I did 
 not wish to have anything to do with him 
 or any member of his family. I regarded 
 them as undesirable acquaintances for any 
 Methodist minister, even though only a mis- 
 sionary. 
 
 The next morning I was leaving the vil- 
 lage, and although I had spoken late the 
 night before, nearly the whole congregation 
 came along to say good-by. There is an 
 etiquette which prevails in South India, and 
 in following it, I generally allow them all 
 to come several blocks distance outside the 
 village, and then, turning around and bow- 
 ing very low, say, "Salaam." The whole 
 congregation says, "Salaam," and remains 
 standing there. The missionary walks a 
 
 66 
 
THE TIGER AND THE LAMB 
 
 few paces away and again turns toward the 
 waiting people and says, "Salaam," and the 
 congregation again says, "Salaam," and 
 after repeating this ceremony five or six 
 times, it is quite fitting for the missionary 
 to enter his oxcart and drive away. 
 
 Brother Cook, of our South India Con- 
 ference, says that the Indian oxcart greatly 
 resembles the American "Ford." The 
 minor differences, he says, are entirely lost 
 in the striking similarities. The oxcart has 
 only two cylinders, but you seize both these 
 cylinders by the tail, and crank the tails. 
 By continual cranking you can secure a 
 speed of three miles an hour, but that is the 
 speed limit. When you cease cranking, 
 they drop back to two miles, which is very 
 slow for an American. 
 
 I was just about to enter this machine and 
 speed away at three miles an hour when I 
 saw around the end of the cart a very hearty- 
 looking man approaching, and I knew at 
 once that it was Pakkia Nathan, and I did 
 not want to see him or speak with him at all. 
 Just at that moment, however, it seemed to 
 me that the Lord said very clearly, "Tell 
 
 67 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 Pakkia Nathan that unless he repents of his 
 sins he will be lost forever." 
 
 My knees began to knock together and 
 my heart thumped in a most disagreeable 
 manner. The congregation had disappeared 
 from behind me, but I learned long ago not 
 to fear any man so much as God, and I 
 walked up to Pakkia Nathan and said to 
 him, "Pakkia Nathan, if all that I hear 
 about you is true, and you do not repent of 
 your many great crimes, God will send you 
 to hell." 
 
 Natives of India have very clear notions 
 about hell. You need not prove its exist- 
 ence by philosophy or theology, for they be- 
 lieve in a hell as thoroughly as any that 
 Dante ever imagined and depicted; and I 
 looked Pakkia Nathan over as I spoke, 
 noted his fine figure, his splendid bearing, 
 his muscles chiseled like those of a Hercules, 
 though he was not nearly so large as I had 
 expected; and I longed for his conversion 
 and salvation. I said, "I don't want you to 
 be lost, Pakkia Nathan, and I am going to 
 pray for you. Come along with me while 
 I pray for you." 
 
 68- 
 
THE TIGER AND THE LAMB 
 
 Then I seated myself in the oxcart and 
 he held the side of it and leaned over while 
 I prayed: "O God, this man has committed 
 every crime that the world knows anything 
 about, and his hands are stained with his 
 iniquities, and his heart is black with his 
 sins. Hear my prayer, for Jesus' sake, and 
 touch his wicked heart, and wash him in the 
 blood of the Lamb." 
 
 Now, while I was talking with God about 
 him, I almost forgot how near he was to 
 me, and when I looked up, was startled to 
 see him gazing intently into my eyes. 
 
 "Go away," he said, "and come back 
 again." 
 
 And I went. I did not want to argue 
 with Pakkia Nathan. 
 
 It was two weeks or more before I got 
 back to Keela Karanthai, and as I drew 
 near the village, I saw Pakkia Nathan com- 
 ing out to meet me. Though he was large 
 and muscular, he had the litheness and grace 
 that you see in the tiger, a magnificent com- 
 bination of power and ease of motion, and 
 I got out of my oxcart to meet him. He 
 was running till he halted before me. 
 
 69 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 "Sir, I have been thinking of what you 
 said," he cried. 
 
 I thought, "Surely I am in for trouble 
 now." 
 
 "And I have decided," he continued, "to 
 become a Christian." 
 
 If some old tiger had walked out of the 
 jungle and said, "I have decided to become 
 an ox. Kindly put a yoke on my neck and 
 hitch me up to a plow," I should have been 
 no more surprised. 
 
 "Pakkia Nathan, do you mean it?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered. "I have been talking 
 with the native pastor in the village, and I 
 have given my heart to Christ, and he has 
 forgiven me my sins." 
 
 And what he said was true. God had 
 forgiven him his sins and cleansed him 
 from them, and given him the gift of the 
 Spirit. We took him into the church, and 
 he is the leader of our Board of Stewards 
 in that village to this day. 
 
 A few weeks later, on the day I received 
 him into the church, he asked me to wait a 
 few minutes and brought his ten sons whom 
 he placed before me. 
 
 70 
 
THE TIGER AND THE LAMB 
 
 "What do they want?" I asked, for those 
 big black fellows looked very much hke a 
 thunder cloud. 
 
 "They all wish to be Christians too," said 
 he. We took them all in, and the family of 
 Pakkia Nathan, with his wife and his sons 
 and their wives, and their children, came to 
 over forty, and became a very important ad- 
 dition to the church in that village. 
 
 A few weeks later I came to the village 
 and spent the Sabbath there. After preach- 
 ing in the morning I wished to go to a near- 
 by village, Vembur, and preach there in the 
 afternoon, and suggested to Pakkia Nathan 
 that I wished him to come along too. He 
 said he would be glad to come, if I would 
 only wait a little while, and I consented. 
 
 Back he came with his ten big sons, and I 
 asked him, "What do they want now?" 
 
 "Sir," he said with a smile, "they want to 
 go along and preach too." 
 
 As we drew near Vembur the people of 
 the village saw us coming and knew us from 
 afar. How often we suffer by keeping bad 
 company! They knew Pakkia Nathan and 
 all his gang, or thought they did, and when 
 
 71 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 we got into Vembur there was no one to 
 preach to. They had all gone into their 
 houses and locked the doors, and even the 
 windows were barred. There was not one 
 movable object on the street, except an ox- 
 cart and the oxen were not hitched to that 
 or it also would have been taken away. 
 
 When I saw the emptiness, I said, "Pak- 
 kia Nathan, you have scared them all away. 
 You will have to get them back. Sing for 
 them, Pakkia Nathan." 
 
 Now you can have no conception of the 
 way he sang unless you can conceive of a 
 great pipe organ singing words instead of 
 the bare notes. Out of his deep chest, with 
 a mighty voice, he sang one of our simple 
 Christian lyrics set to a tune that all South 
 India knows: 
 
 "Praise Jesus, O my soul! 
 The spotless Son of God ! 
 Who came from heaven and earth 
 To save us from our sins ! 
 Praise Jesus, only 
 Jesus, O my soul!" 
 
 He had hardly finished the first stanza 
 when the windows were unbarred and folks 
 
 72 
 
THE TIGER AND THE LAMB 
 
 were looking out, and before he had ceased 
 singing, the doors were opened wide and the 
 crooked narrow streets were jammed full of 
 people. As I looked over the crowd I said, 
 "Pakkia Nathan, get up on the wagon, and 
 preach to them," and he did. 
 
 "O you people," he said in a musical voice 
 that was almost singing, "you were afraid 
 of me. You were afraid of my big sons. 
 You needn't be afraid of us any more. We 
 will not harm you any more. We will try 
 to do good now instead of evil, for God* has 
 taken away the fierce tiger-hearts and given 
 us all the hearts of little lambs. We will 
 try to make up for our wickedness of the 
 past, for Jesus has saved us." 
 
 He and his sons earn their living now by 
 honest toil, and are greatly respected, and 
 whenever I want to start a revival among 
 people of his caste in some new heathen vil- 
 lage, I get him to take one of his sons and go 
 there for a few days. The revival always 
 starts when he tells how his tiger-heart was 
 changed. 
 
 73 
 
A MISSION SCHOOL ROMANCE 
 
 rilHE young Wellesley graduate had been 
 -*■ in India just three years, and found 
 herself now in charge of the American Mis- 
 sion High School at Walayatpur. She was 
 seated in the veranda of the bungalow after 
 her early morning chhoti haziri of tea and 
 toast. School had just closed for the truly 
 hot weather (170^ in the sun). It was the 
 first of May, and the young lady from 
 Wellesley found her thoughts about evenly 
 divided between the May Days of old, when 
 she had been "queen," and the girls of her 
 graduating class whose "futures" now pre- 
 sented a present problem. 
 
 A slight shuffling of feet — repeated to at- 
 tract attention — brought her out of her 
 thoughts. She turned her head and saw 
 Shanti Masih, one of her "fair girl gradu- 
 ates." The girl was the brightest and most 
 
 74 
 
A MISSION SCHOOL ROMANCE 
 
 attractive in her class — one of the finest the 
 school had ever known. 
 
 "Well, Shanti, I am still rejoicing in your 
 great success in the government examina- 
 tion. First in the provinces out of seventeen 
 hundred candidates — and ahead of all the 
 boys! It's just lovely! You ought to be in 
 Wellesley." 
 
 "Miss Sahiba, that is in line with what I 
 have come to talk over with you. I want to 
 go on, and be somebody — do something. 
 We Indian women can, and I'm so glad that 
 our day is at last dawning." 
 
 "So you don't wish to get married, like 
 Piyari, and Nirmalini, and others of your 
 class?" 
 
 "No, Miss Sahiba, I want to study some 
 more." 
 
 And so they talked, and it was settled that 
 Shanti should take her college course at the 
 Isabella Thoburn College at Lucknow, and 
 then perhaps go to America for a Ph.D. 
 
 "What a pity," thought the young mis- 
 sionary from the West, "that Shanti has 
 neither father nor mother to share in our re- 
 joicing over her success! But, then, she's 
 
 75 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 a Christian, and they were Hindus. They 
 must have perished in the great famine." 
 
 Just then a man was seen entering the 
 mission compound. As he came closer the 
 missionary noted that he was a hunchback. 
 He made straight for the veranda, and when 
 he stopped at the foot of the steps, the mis- 
 sionary saw that his face was scarred by 
 deep marks of smallpox, and that he was 
 very dirty, though apparently not of the 
 lowest caste of Hindus. He appeared to 
 be about fifty years old. Looking at the 
 missionary, he said : 
 
 "I have come for my wife." 
 
 "For your wife!" exclaimed the mission- 
 ary. "We do not keep people's wives 
 around here — this is a girls' school." 
 
 "I know that," said he. "I was told by 
 the lawyer that she was in this school. He 
 said you would have to give her to me." 
 
 "We give you a wife? Never!" 
 
 "If not," said the man, strangely confi- 
 dent, "then I'll take her!" 
 
 He seated himself, unbidden, on the top 
 step of the veranda, and took out from the 
 inner folds of his clothes several papers 
 
 76 
 
A MISSION SCHOOL ROMANCE 
 
 wrapped in a greasy, smoky, fly-specked 
 piece of oilcloth. With these before him, he 
 said : 
 
 "I have here the legal papers, signed and 
 properly attested, showing that I was be- 
 trothed according to our Hindu rites to 
 Mohini Sarkar twelve years ago. The fam- 
 ine several years ago separated me from the 
 girl's family, but almost as by chance I got 
 trace of an uncle of the girl and have finally 
 learned that the girl was left here by her 
 parents during the famine and is now known 
 as Shanti Masih." 
 
 The hunchback looked at the missionary 
 to note the effect of his words. The lady sat 
 and stared, as if she had lost the power of 
 speech. It was her own dear Shanti that 
 this unsightly creature was demanding! 
 Married twelve years ago, when she was only 
 six! 
 
 Finally she summoned the mali (gar- 
 dener) , who was leading the oxen to the well 
 to draw water, and told him to go and call 
 the Christian munshi who gave her her daily 
 lesson in the vernacular. 
 
 When the munshi appeared, the mission- 
 
 77 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 ary asked him to read aloud the documents, 
 and as he did so her heart sank. There 
 seemed to be no question as to the pm-port 
 of the papers. 
 
 "Are those papers genuine, Munshiji?" 
 asked the missionary. 
 
 "There is no doubt about it," he rephed 
 in Enghsh. "They bear the proper seals 
 and stamps." 
 
 "Thank you," she said. "I don't need to 
 trouble you further." 
 
 When the munshi was gone, the mission- 
 ary said to the beggar: "I must talk with 
 our missionaries about this. You may call 
 again at three o'clock this afternoon." 
 
 "May I not see the girl now?" he asked. 
 
 "No," came the firm reply, as the door 
 closed and he was left on the veranda. 
 
 The missionary did some rapid thinking; 
 then she wrote and sent a note to the princi- 
 pal of the high school for young men, asking 
 him to come over and take tiffin at two 
 o'clock instead of dinner at seven-thirty, as 
 there was a question of great importance to 
 discuss. 
 
 Then she tried to read, but could not keep 
 
 78 
 
A MISSION SCHOOL ROMANCE 
 
 her mind on the subject. At the top of each 
 page was the sweet face of Shanti, and at 
 the bottom, always, the unsightly figure of 
 the hunchback. Under the spur of her emo- 
 tion she was able to dash off some appeaUng 
 letters to her patrons. 
 
 One thing she did not do — and that was 
 to call in Shanti to talk it over. How could 
 she ever do that ! 
 
 Just at ten o'clock, as breakfast had been 
 announced, a rumble of wheels was followed 
 by a call — "Any Americans around here?" 
 
 The missionary stepped out on to the 
 front veranda to find a middle-aged man, 
 with a smiling face, looking out at the door 
 of the theha gari (hackney carriage). She 
 invited him in, introducing him to her three 
 assistant teachers who had already answered 
 the call to breakfast. 
 
 The curry and rice was made to cover five 
 plates instead of four, some more tamarind 
 juice was added to the large water jug, and 
 the mali was told to bring in another papaya 
 from the tree near the well. The breakfast 
 was a success. 
 
 The American visitor — a Christian busi- 
 
 79 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OP HEAVEN 
 
 ness man out to appraise the value of mis- 
 sionary work, proved to be excellent com- 
 pany. He liked the Indian teachers, and 
 did not find them as shy as he had antici- 
 pated! One thing he took care to do — to 
 announce that he had come to see things, 
 but not to give inoney! 
 
 The school was inspected, and then he 
 drove on to see the great Hindu temple and 
 the unusually fine bazaar. He was asked 
 to return at two o'clock and take tiffin, when 
 the other missionary would be present. 
 
 The tiffin table was surrounded at two- 
 thirty, and the hostess then introduced the 
 subject of the hunchback. The globe-trot- 
 ter was intensely interested. The mission- 
 ary principal of the boys' school looked wor- 
 ried. The Indian teachers showed the deep- 
 est pain and concern on their faces. All 
 agreed that if the papers were genuine, there 
 seemed little hope for poor Shanti. It was 
 explained to the gentleman from America 
 that the marriage laws of both Hindus and 
 Mohammedans were absolutely valid in 
 British courts of justice. 
 
 Three o'clock had struck when the kliid- 
 
 80 
 
A MISSION SCHOOL ROMANCE 
 
 matgar (table servant) announced that a 
 cripple beggar was demanding to see the 
 Miss Sahiba. The poor missionary looked 
 white and scared, and very tired. 
 
 The principal of the boys' school left the 
 room, saying he would have a talk with the 
 hunchback. 
 
 The man from America asked to see 
 Shanti, his curiosity and sympathy having 
 been aroused by all he had heard. 
 
 In a short time the principal returned, 
 saying that it was a hopeless case — the 
 hunchback was determined to follow up his 
 legal rights. 
 
 It was then that the stranger from Amer- 
 ica proposed that they all go out on to the 
 veranda and see the hunchback. For him- 
 self, he wished to say something to the beg- 
 gar, and he would like Shanti to be his in- 
 terpreter. 
 
 The missionary stepped swiftly to his 
 side, and whispered, 
 
 "Don't tell her!" 
 
 On the veranda the American visitor, 
 through Shanti's able interjiretation, got out 
 of the hunchback many details of his past 
 
 81 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 life, even getting him to disclose his sordid 
 plans for the woman who might become his 
 wife. It was a shocking revelation, to all 
 except Shanti herself, as to what awaited 
 the fairest product of the mission school. 
 
 Then the hunchback cut things short by 
 producing the papers, saying: "I demand 
 my rights! Where is the girl?" 
 
 It was a tense moment. Every counte- 
 nance was worth studying. The mission- 
 ary's face was pale with dread, and her eyes 
 were fixed on Shanti. The principal's eyes 
 blazed, and as he looked at the hunchback 
 there took shape a grim determination to 
 fight this thing to the finish. One assistant 
 teacher sank into a chair, her face buried in 
 her hands, while the two others drew close 
 to Shanti, as if to protect her. Shanti her- 
 self could not understand what was happen- 
 ing, and looked in perplexity from one to 
 another. The hunchback's look was bold, 
 and with each added second of silence he was 
 gaining confidence, yet there lurked in his 
 eyes a fear lest by some trick he should yet 
 lose his rights. The visitor's face was calm 
 and confident. 
 
 82 
 
A MISSION SCHOOL ROMANCE 
 
 It was the stranger from America who 
 broke the silence, saying, "Now, ladies and 
 gentlemen, watch a real American 'disap- 
 pearing trick,' whereby the hunchback is 
 made to vanish into thin air." 
 
 His levity was not appreciated. 
 
 "Ask this miserable creature, Miss 
 Shanti," continued he, "how much money a 
 wife would be worth to him." 
 
 The hunchback looked perplexed, as 
 Shanti interpreted. "Ask him how many 
 rupees he would be willing to take instead 
 of a wife." 
 
 Light began to dawn on the entire group, 
 including the hunchback. He had heard a 
 good deal of America, that land of wealth, 
 where lakhpatis (millionaires) hved in every 
 town, and he began to do some figuring. 
 
 "Five rupees a month," he said to him- 
 self — "that would make sixty rupees a year, 
 a comfortable income; and for ten years — 
 that's six hundred rupees." He had made 
 a great flight of imagination and risen to 
 a dizzy height of mathematics! He an- 
 nounced: "She is worth six hundred rupees 
 to me. I ask six hundred." 
 
 §3 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 The visitor pulled out his American 
 pocketbook. 
 
 "Put down," said he through his young 
 interpreter, "your legal papers." 
 
 The hunchback put them on the veranda, 
 within easy reach of himself. 
 
 "Now," said the visitor, "I put down six 
 hundred rupees beside them," and he put 
 down six crisp Government of India notes, 
 each for one hundred rupees. Then he 
 went on, looking fixedly at the hunchback, 
 as the surprised Shanti translated his words ; 
 
 "You take this six hundred rupees, leave 
 your marriage papers on the veranda, and 
 go out at that gate — never to show your face 
 here again!" 
 
 The hunchback did not budge, but covered 
 his papers with his hand. 
 
 "I demand money,'' he said. 
 
 "What!" exclaimed the visitor, "is he not 
 satisfied with the bargain?" 
 
 The group on the veranda smiled, while 
 the principal said, "Yours is paper money; 
 he asks for silver." 
 
 The missionary, her face flushed with 
 gratitude as she looked at her American 
 
 84 
 
'Ask this miserable creature how much money a wife 
 would be worth to him" 
 
A MISSION SCHOOL ROMANCE 
 
 visitor, started for the door, saying: "I can 
 manage it. The salary for the school staff 
 has just come to-day from the bank. It is 
 in silver." 
 
 She ran to the safe, and a moment later 
 came out with a crocheted bag made of 
 strong white cotton cord. From it were 
 taken six hundred silver rupees, and counted 
 out on the veranda. 
 
 The hunchback's eyes ghstened. The 
 visitor shoved the six piles over toward him. 
 
 "Now you take it — and get!" he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 "Get what?" inquired Shanti, puzzled, 
 just how to translate the expression. 
 
 "Get out!" said he with real emphasis. 
 
 The hunchback gathered up the coins. 
 He rolled them in a long wad, and, with the 
 extra folds of his dhoti (long loin cloth), 
 bound them around his waist. Then he 
 made a salaam that took in the entire group 
 on the veranda, and was gone. 
 
 As he disappeared through the gateway 
 the American visitor thanked Miss Shanti 
 for her excellent service as interpreter, who 
 laughingly replied — 
 
 85 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 "The hunchback really disappeared!" 
 When the American globe-trotter left 
 that night after a genuine Indian pilau 
 dinner, he said to the missionary: "Don't 
 tell Shanti! That pleasure I reserve for 
 myself. I'll tell her — in America, when she 
 comes to get her Ph.D." 
 
 As he settled himself in the carriage, he 
 said aloud to himself, "Never spent two hun- 
 dred dollars to better advantage in my 
 hfe!" 
 
 86 
 
VI 
 
 WHEN THE GODS ARE DYING 
 
 I. The Village 
 
 "rilHE company is starting already and 
 -■■ the leading oxcarts are moving out of 
 the village. Why dost thou tarry, Chajju, 
 my son? The holy Mother Ganga^ is far 
 from here ; wouldst thou take the long j our- 
 ney alone? I fear for the many dakus^ 
 along the way, who handle the lonely pil- 
 grim as the hawk handles the chick. Go 
 with thy fellow villagers and give thy 
 mother's heart sweet peace." 
 
 Chajju bent his head and looked long at 
 the ground before he made reply: "I am 
 not worthy, my mother, to look with these 
 sinful eyes of mine upon holy Ganga, nor 
 to bathe in her sacred waters. Did not our 
 neighbor, Mangal Sain, contract the leprosy 
 by angering the fair goddess? Did not the 
 sore eyes of Jitu develop into blindness, all 
 
 ^ The River Ganges. * Robbers. 
 
 87 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 because he would have them healed in Ganga 
 water, knowing not how great the sin that 
 sat upon him? Ganga smote him for his 
 boldness. No, mother, ask me not to go this 
 
 year on pilgrimage to the bathing teohar} 
 For many months I have sinned exceedingly 
 and my burden of guilt presses me down. 
 It presses me down, mother, till my heart 
 
 * Festival. 
 
 88 
 
WHEN THE GODS ARE DYING 
 
 is bent with the load, and I stagger along. 
 I would atone by offerings at our village 
 temple. Let Mahadev^ forgive me, ere, as 
 a pilgrim at the river, I pray the prayers 
 of the pious and pour out holy libations, 
 praising the name of Ganga." 
 
 "My son, thy words are not the words of 
 comfort. How can I wait another year. 
 Ere Mahadev forgive thy sin, thy mother 
 may be far hence. I follow thy father on 
 the long pilgrimage of Awagawan.^ My 
 heart too is heavy, loiowing not what hes 
 ahead. Speak not to me of the weight of 
 guilt. Guilt is but clay to carry where 
 dread is stone. Go name my name to 
 Mother Ganga, and bid her be gracious to 
 me on my long journey. Bring me the 
 sacred water that I may offer it to Mahadev, 
 and have strong protection from the dakus 
 that infest the roads of eternity. O son, ere 
 thou bear my ashes to the sacred river, bear 
 my heart thither. Go and Ganga will not 
 smite thee, for thy mother's sake! Ganga 
 is woman, and Ganga understands." 
 
 Chajju walked toward the entrance of 
 
 * The Great God (Siva). ^ Transmigration. 
 
 89 
 
INDIA, BEL()Vi-:n OF iij:avi<:n 
 
 tlie coiirtynrd, then tunicd Jind came back. 
 "M oilier, 1 am still un|)ersiia(le(l. Thou 
 shall have (iaii/;a water. Our I'ellow vil- 
 Ia|»ers who ^o shnll hriti^ it to thee. My 
 eousifi, thy nephew, shall speak oT thee to 
 the goddess. Thy soul shall he at peace 
 when it ^oes hence. . . . Why wouldst 
 thou slay thy son, and drive him forth aliead 
 of thee upon the lonely ways of death!" 'I'he 
 ^ods, () mother, are ([uick to destroy the 
 nnholy. The gods fill heaven aiid earth; 
 the gods create terror in man's heart. I 
 know I shall he shiin for my |)resumptioii, 
 or have some dread I'ul issue of my journey, 
 lict my soul lirst he at peace; only thus can 
 peace come to thee from me." 
 
 His mother saidv to his I'eet, and covered 
 Iier lace with her hands. "C'hajju, I see 
 nothing hut darkness hei'ore me. I had 
 hoped to have light ahead. As on the sacred 
 waters the lamps go drifting to the sea., so 
 I had hoped to lloat down the river of time 
 with light burning in my heart. Hut thou 
 hast blown it out. () son, I sit in darls.ness. 
 Who is my nephew when thou art my son? 
 Who will bring cond'ort when thou hast 
 
 90 
 
wiii-:n 'nil': (ioDs aki: dyinc; 
 
 Ijroijglit sorrows"' SIic looked up into Jiis 
 face. "Wlicn 1 dandled Lhee a [)al)c in niy 
 arms and nursed thee at tliis breast, tlien 
 1 said, 'This is my Saviour. Throu^^h lliis 
 man-child the woman in me will he re- 
 deemed. My Av/rma' is /^ocxh The road ol' 
 motherhood is rough and j>aird'ul, yet il' it 
 he the motherhood ol' men, it hrings one to 
 I'air cities. I shall he hiessed in him.' And 
 so I sang thee happy songs and my heart 
 overllowed with laughter. And so I praised 
 the gods and taught thy hahy h'ps to praise 
 tliem too. 'Great is Mahadev! (ireat is 
 iranumani (.real; is (ianeshl' 1 can liear 
 tliee yet speak thus in thy hahy prattle." 
 She leaj)e(l to her feet and continued: "Am 
 I undone by this very praise I taught thee if 
 Have I so filled thy heart with fear that 
 thou fearest to redeem thy mothei*^ line! 
 line! the lot of woman is hard, so dependent 
 on man is she! When man fails her, then 
 is she ruined. This was my hour of hojx", 
 Cliajju, hut thou hast daslied it to llu; 
 ground. Dying in njy despair I shall he 
 horn woman again, ever woman to the end 
 
 91 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 of Awagawan.^ Never, never shall I find 
 release — " 
 
 She broke out in bitter weeping. Chajju 
 laid his hand tenderly upon her shoulder: 
 "My heart is crushed by thy sobs, my 
 mother. Great are the gods, but great is a 
 man's love for his mother. I obey thy word. 
 For thee I risk the anger of holy Ganga. 
 I go, mother. I shall confess at every shrine 
 along the way, and give alms to every 
 holy man I meet. Perchance at the end of 
 the journey I shall have rid me of my load." 
 He stood a moment looking off in deep 
 thought, then his whole face lit up with his 
 emotion: "And what if at the journey's end 
 Mother Ganga should be pleased with me, 
 and give me peace as well? O mother, with 
 what adoration of her name I shall step into 
 the sacred stream ! With what praise I shall 
 lift the water in my ojiened palms and pour 
 it forth an offering! With what prayer I 
 shall dip beneath the wave till I am covered 
 by her presence and altogether in her power ! 
 Then shall I name thy name to her, and 
 bring thee of her presence in this jar. . . . 
 
 * Transmigration. 
 
 92 
 
WHEN THE GODS ARE DYING 
 
 Look: the oxcarts are not yet beyond the 
 dal fields. I shall overtake them ere they 
 reach the mango grove." 
 
 II. The City 
 
 In the street of an Indian city many were 
 coming and going. Cheerful greetings of 
 "Ram! Rdmr passed from lip to lip. The 
 spirit of the teohar^ was abroad. Two young 
 men easily recognized as students of the 
 Government College met, seemingly by ap- 
 pointment, at the crossing near the hanyas 
 shop, and joined the stream of carts and 
 people flowing toward the river. 
 
 "A holiday, Hari Singh! Praise to the 
 good God that made men Hindus, Moham- 
 medans, and Christians, that we who study 
 in the schools might have Hindu holidays 
 and Mohammedan holidays and Christian 
 holidays. If all were Hindus, then should 
 we have to study so much the harder. Let 
 us pray the gods to preserve all unbelievers." 
 
 "Did I hear you speak of the gods, Basant 
 Ram? Since when have you become so in- 
 
 * Festival. 
 
 93 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 terested in them? We are Aryas,^ you 
 loiow — " 
 
 "Not the gods, Hari Singh, but hoHdays, 
 that is where my interest hes to-day. But 
 as for tlie gods, they are but names for the 
 One, the All-Supieme. I am Hindu and 
 I am Arya. I have been to worship this 
 morning, whieh you have not; so am I bet- 
 ter Hindu than you. I shall be a holy one 
 long before you are." 
 
 Hari Singh laughed heartily and with 
 folded hands bowed in moek adoration. 
 "Holy indeed! I worship the feet of this 
 Holy One! Worship in the morning and 
 villainy all day. Sueh is your program. 
 And now you go forth to enjoy the bathing 
 festival, because there is pleasure in it, and 
 yet in your heart there is despising of this 
 superstitious folly. So does the Holy One 
 offer the purchase money to Folly that he 
 may wed his daughter Sport." 
 
 "Why, what a muddy philosopher you are, 
 Hari Singh! If you had been to worship 
 this morning your brain would be more 
 settled. You talk as if you were not headed 
 
 * A Reform Sect in Hinduism, very strong in North India. 
 94 
 
WHEN THE GODS ARE DYING 
 
 for the river. Your brain seems traveling 
 backward to the city to sit in pious medita- 
 tion throughout this hohday, while your feet 
 keep ever stepping forward with the crowds. 
 Did we create this bathing festival? No. 
 
 -Is. 
 
 It has been given us and a holiday along 
 with it. Let us enjoy life's gifts. Which 
 is the wiser, Hari Singh — to despise a thing 
 and yet enjoy it, or to despise a thing and 
 lose some pleasure?" 
 
 Hari Singh, still dissimulating humility, 
 answered, softly: "I am no philosopher, 
 Basant Ram, yet I take it. Holy One, that 
 
 95 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 you would have me this day enjoy that 
 which I despise. Doing this, shall I attain 
 to wisdom?" 
 
 Basant Ram laughed. "Hari Singh, 
 sometimes I have great hopes for you. You 
 are not so stupid as you seem. This must 
 be a day of learning — call it not a holiday" 
 — he heaved a sigh — "I must give my pre- 
 cious time to teaching you a lesson. You 
 must know that there are many things that 
 may be despised and yet enjoyed." 
 
 "And what are they, O Philosopher?" 
 
 "The women at the river bank, the pre- 
 cincts of the temple, the dice, and" — he 
 looked around him as he spoke — "and these 
 simpletons of the villages who throng the 
 roads." 
 
 A look of disgust came over the face of 
 his companion. 
 
 "And how will you enjoy these simple- 
 tons who do nothing but kick up the dust as 
 they move along and choke themselves and 
 us with it? There is no enjoyment from 
 such as these. They are choked with their 
 own ignorance and superstition. I despise 
 them." 
 
 96 
 
WHEN THE GODS ARE DYING 
 
 "Blind as ever, Hari Singh, you have 
 yourself answered your own question. You 
 will never pass the government examinations 
 in spite of your long hours of study. One 
 lobe of your brain is filled with deep knowl- 
 edge of the sciences and the English classics, 
 but the other, I weep to say it, is black with 
 ignorance. One half of your mentality is 
 kept in pardah} and never sees the world. 
 The scales of your mind are uneven, Hari 
 Singh, they do not weigh truth with any 
 accuracy." 
 
 "Basant Ram, your words are covered 
 with the dust of these countless feet. 
 Would that Mother Ganga would wash you 
 too, though you believe not in her reputed 
 efficacy." 
 
 Basant Ram smiled again. "That is the 
 point, Hari Singh. Let us enjoy the dust. 
 'Quod erat demonstrandum f as we say in 
 mathematics. Let us enjoy their ignorance 
 and their crude faith in Ganga and the gods. 
 Let us have sport with that which we de- 
 spise. So may we be good Arya mission- 
 aries, teaching the truth, and at the same 
 
 * The veil, the seclusion of Indian women. 
 97 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 time Slick some sweetness out of the holi- 
 day. See here is a village company coming 
 down the dirt road from the East. Look, 
 ITari Singh, at the man who walks in front; 
 some Buddhu or Chaj ju of a distant village. 
 See how set his face, how rapt his look. 
 He walks as in a dream. The vision of 
 Mother Ganga is upon him. Poor fooll 
 lie is our man. Let us tell him what 
 Hindus of to-day should believe. Hari 
 Singh, share your new learning with this 
 village enthusiast and see the look on his 
 face change. Lift him and dip him in the 
 waters of knowledge and pour out libations 
 to truth on his belialf. It will be good for 
 him, for knowledge is cleansing, and it will 
 furnish us entertainment till we reach the 
 crowded river bank and find sport more ex- 
 citing." 
 
 Hari Singh caught his companion by the 
 arm and shook him playfully as he replied: 
 "Basant Ram, it would be well for these 
 pilgrims that you get not too close to the 
 water to-day, for at siglit of you Ganga 
 would flow backward to the mountains 
 whence she came." 
 
 98 
 
WHEN THE GODS ARE DYING 
 
 III. The Village Again 
 
 Large is the debt of gratitude that India 
 owes to November. May and June torment 
 her with hot winds and scorching sunhght; 
 July, August, and September drench her 
 with rain ; October shakes her with ague and 
 fever; but November hfts her up, puts 
 strength into her hmbs, adorns her with rich 
 garments, paints her dark eyehds, and sets 
 her forth the fairest daughter of the East, 
 ravishing man's eye with her beauty and 
 comi)eUing his heart to love. 
 
 It was a November evening when nine 
 great oxcarts with large wooden wheels and 
 bamboo frames, hemp -woven at sides and 
 bottom, slowly made their way along the 
 dirt road that leads to the village of Gurda- 
 spur. They were filled with all the sundry 
 belongings of men that go on pilgrimage. 
 There were bedding for the oxen, cooking- 
 vessels, cotton-quilts, grains and flour, 
 hookah pipes and black tobacco, half -dressed 
 children, and jars that hold the holy water 
 of the river. The women rode and many of 
 the men. Those that walked carried on 
 
 99 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 their shoulders, as protection from the 
 dakus, their bamboo lathis^ from which 
 dangled their coarse brown shoes, for why 
 should good leather be worn out unneces- 
 sarily? They were rejoicing at their escape 
 from the dangers of the way, and at their 
 safe return, for yonder, less than half a hos 
 away, lay their little village. 
 
 "Look, brothers, our village has not suf- 
 fered in our absence. The fields look fair 
 as any we have seen. Mahadev has been 
 compassionate. With offerings of flowers 
 and rice and holy Ganga water shall we re- 
 joice before his sacred ling am" 
 
 "See," said another, "our friends have 
 caught sight of us, and are hastening out 
 with drum and cymbal to give us welcome. 
 Now together let us shout, 'Ganga Ji ki 
 jai!' (Praise to great Ganga!), so that 
 they may hear us even at this distance. 
 Chajju, do you lead us; your voice is strong. 
 All together: 
 
 "Ganga Ji ki jai! Ganga Ji ki jai!" 
 
 The sound rolled out, sharp and clear, 
 over the intervening fields and filled the 
 
 » staffs. 
 
 100 
 
WHEN THE GODS ARE DYING 
 
 evening air. The cymbals and the drums in 
 the distance beat out a faint reply. 
 
 "Chaj ju, why did you not join. your shout 
 to ours? It is a bad omen. Do you anger 
 the goddess and spoil all the merit of our 
 long pilgrimage? Have we tramped these 
 weary miles that you might undo us at the 
 home-coming?" 
 
 "No, my brothers, I meant no harm to 
 you. My heart was heavy. My lips would 
 not frame the name of Ganga. Would you 
 have me shout false praises?" 
 
 "This speech is strange from you, Chaj ju. 
 Have you taken the fever on the way?" 
 
 "I have a fever indeed, brothers — a fever 
 of the soul. My heart is burning up. I am 
 parched within, and I shake as a child with 
 ague." 
 
 "What is fever that it should stop you in 
 your service of the gods? Ganga will not 
 accept this excuse of yours. Even the dying 
 take the names of the gods." 
 
 "Whose name, my brothers, do the gods 
 take when they are dying? Tell me that." 
 
 His fellow pilgrims looked one at the 
 other as Chajju spoke; it was some time be- 
 
 101 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 fore any one was bold enough to make reply. 
 
 "^Vhat words are these, Chajjii? You 
 are going mad. Have you the eurse of 
 Cianga on you for your sins!* l^rotlicrs, let 
 us keep our distanee from him lest we be 
 smitten too. Alas that we bear home sueh 
 sorrow! Life is indeed illusion. Our sor- 
 row was joy but a moment ago." 
 
 ''lUit a moment ago, did you say? No, 
 my brothers, long ages ago, as we ap- 
 proaehed the river bank, joy perished in sor- 
 row." 
 
 Kunners from the welcoming group of vil- 
 higers were now among the returning pil- 
 grims and questions and answers ilew 
 eagerl}' back and forth. Overhead the great 
 bats fle^v in solemn array toward the dark- 
 ness of the eastern sky. 
 
 "Tlie news of the village? The daughter 
 of Chiddhu is betrothed to the son of Jum- 
 man ; Soma has lost his ox ; and the mother 
 of Chajju lies siek to death." 
 
 A form bounded from the earavaii of 
 slow-moving oxcarts, down the rt)ad, past 
 tlic group where drums and cymbals were 
 making their noisy greeting, past the thorn- 
 
 102 
 
WHEN THE GODS ARE DYING 
 
 bushes in the lane that leads to the village, 
 clown the narrow alleys to the riglit, and 
 into a darkened eourtyard surrounded with 
 mud walls. There it stopped. In the room 
 beyond a little wiek was burning in must- 
 ard oil in an earthen saueer; all else was in 
 sliadow. The man outside looked and lis- 
 tened. Some one was moaning piteously 
 within : 
 
 "Chaj ju, my son, may the gods speed thee 
 on thy return. Haste thee, O haste thee, 
 for I am going fast. My hands are weary 
 with this hard holding on to life. It slips 
 through these old and palsied fingers. How 
 many kos art thou distant yet? . . . Me- 
 thought I heard the sound of drums. Is it 
 that he is coming? He is coming with 
 Ganga's blessing. Then shall I fold my 
 hands in peace, and breathe out as a child." 
 
 "My mother 1" 
 
 "Who spoke? It is Mahadev summoning 
 me. O greatest of the gods, call me not 
 forth till I have seen my child. He bears 
 me a necessity for my journey. He will 
 be here briefly. Be pitiful!" 
 
 "My mother!" 
 
 103 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 "O Chajju, is it thy voice, my son, or an 
 illusion of death?" 
 
 "Mother, it is I. I would be with thee in 
 this thy last hour. I am here. Let me sit 
 and hold thy hand." 
 
 He took her faded, feverish hands in his. 
 She looked into his face with bm-ning eyes, 
 as men look to their deliverer: 
 
 "O Chajju, thou art just in time. Ma- 
 hadev has been calHng. He had pity on 
 me and gave me a moment more. Be quick, 
 Chajju! It is but a moment I have. Give 
 me Ganga's blessing; anoint my head and 
 my hands with Ganga's water ; pour it down 
 my throat." 
 
 "Mother, let us not talk of Ganga now. 
 What is Ganga water at such an hour as 
 this?" 
 
 "Hqw strange thy voice sounds, Chajju. 
 The illusion of death is on me. If I had 
 strength to tell thee what I heard thee say, 
 thou wouldst be amazed. Say it again, 
 Chajju, and I will try to hear correctly." 
 
 "Mother, what is Ganga water — " 
 
 "It is the water of life, my son. Give me 
 it. Do not torment me in my last hour." 
 
 104 
 
WHEN THE GODS ARE DYING 
 
 "I have none, mother. I thought it not 
 worth the bringing. I have brought some- 
 thing else instead — something I heard." 
 
 "What is it, son? The blessing of some 
 other god or goddess? Speak, I am ready 
 for it!" 
 
 "No, mother. It is the learning of wise 
 Pandits by the banks of Ganga. They had 
 studied in great schools and they marveled 
 at my ignorance. They taught me what we 
 as Hindus should believe. Ganga and Ma- 
 hade v are but names, my mother — " 
 
 As he spoke he looked at her. She turned 
 her dying eyes on him. Her breast heaved ; 
 her breath came short. He could not en- 
 dure that look of hers, and laid his head 
 upon her arm. The moments passed. After 
 long waiting slowly in the darkness of the 
 room came her faint whisper: 
 
 "Chajju, dakus, dakus! We have been 
 robbed, my son." 
 
 105 
 
VII 
 
 "WHAT'S IN A NAME?" 
 
 TT was one of those warm days in South 
 '^ India when the mercury stands around a 
 hundred and twenty in the shade, and you 
 wish there were some shade. 
 
 The oxen had toiled through the sand all 
 morning, at the speed of two miles an hour, 
 and as we drew into the little village, they 
 halted in front of the tavern with its three 
 mud walls and a thatched roof, and there 
 they refused to walk another step. It was 
 midday and the sun shone straight down on 
 Talikat Apuram, and I crawled out of the 
 oxcart and into the tavern, feeling very 
 much the same as butter looks in Ohio on a 
 hot July day. 
 
 The first thing I observed was a palm- 
 tree pillar and I embraced it like a long-lost 
 friend and then sat on the ground with a 
 feeling of great relief, supporting myself by 
 means of the pillar. I was glad there was a 
 tavern with shade and a floor to sit on and 
 
 106 
 
WHAT'S IN A NAME? 
 
 a pillar to hold on to, for it was very, very 
 warm. 
 
 There were ten large black men seated 
 on the floor of the tavern, and one of them 
 stepped out for a few minutes and returned 
 with a large jar full of water which he 
 poised above me, and then without asking 
 my permission, poured all over me — and it 
 felt good. Then he went out and got an- 
 other bucket of water and poured that all 
 over me, and I felt better. Then another 
 and another, and when he had poured the 
 fourth bucket, I surprised that unsuspect- 
 ing man by starting in to preach. 
 
 Brother Shadrach, our Indian preacher, 
 slipped up close to me and nudged me with 
 his elbow, saying, "lya, they all belong to 
 the robber caste." 
 
 Meshach and Abednego have not yet ap- 
 peared in our Madras District, but Shad- 
 rach is a very useful preacher. When he 
 mentioned that they were all Maravars, and 
 hence robbers, I felt very much at home 
 among them. I started telhng them the 
 story of the thief on the cross, and how 
 Jesus saved him even there, and told him, 
 
 107 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 "This day shall thou be in paradise with 
 me." "You see," I added, "that was a man 
 of your own caste, and Jesus saved him." 
 
 Then I told them how Jesus saved me 
 from my sins, and without more preaching 
 I asked them, "How many of you would 
 like to accept this Saviour?" and every man 
 in the room stood up. 
 
 It seemed too good to be true, but Shad- 
 rach said, "These men are true men and 
 not afraid for anything, and if they set out 
 in this way, they will not turn aside from 
 it." 
 
 "Do you understand," I asked, "what 
 dangers he in the way? Your neighbors 
 will hate you and persecute you for being 
 Christians. Your houses will be burned 
 down, your children beaten on the streets, 
 your women insulted, your lives in great 
 danger all the time." 
 
 "All this we know, sir. Twenty-seven 
 years ago an evangelist built a chapel here, 
 and on the night it was dedicated, the Raj ah 
 sent his servants to tear it down, and they 
 stabled their horses where the church had 
 stood," was the answer. 
 
 108 
 
WHAT'S IN A NAME? 
 
 "Were there any Christians?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, many, but they were driven out 
 and scattered. Some denied the faith and 
 returned to their idols, and others left the 
 village, for this is the Rajah's village, his 
 own property, and he hated the Christians, 
 and now only one man of that Way remains 
 in our village, an old man, sir." 
 
 The name of the village meant many 
 things, and there were strange stories of its 
 origin. It might mean, "The village where 
 heads are displayed," or the "Village that 
 shows its head," or "The village where you 
 dare not show your head," just as you chose 
 to pronounce that ancient name ; but the last 
 pronunciation was by far the most common, 
 and bore its own testimony to the character 
 of the little town. 
 
 One of the men took from about his neck 
 the rosary of Rudraksha berries sacred to 
 Siva, and handing them over to me, said, 
 "Never will I worship Siva again, hence- 
 forth only Jesus Christ." They pleaded 
 with me for baptism, and on Brother Shad- 
 rach's advice, I baptized them and took 
 them into the church on probation. 
 
 109 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 The only other Christian of the village 
 was summoned, and when he heard the 
 news rejoiced beyond measure. For 
 twenty-seven years he had never heard the 
 sound of the gospel, though he had read his 
 Bible and prayed alone in his httle house. 
 For fear of persecution he had shut his 
 doors and barred his windows whenever 
 he worshiped God, but the fact that he 
 was a Christian was none the less known to 
 the village. Now he had ten brethren to 
 read and pray with him. Apart from other 
 Christians, he had gone astray in some of 
 his practices, and we had to arrange for 
 his separate maintenance of the second 
 wife whom he had taken when his first 
 proved barren. But he was glad to accede 
 to our requests and proved his eager desire 
 to serve God by every word and act. 
 
 Thus was founded the church in Talikat 
 Apuram, "The village where you dare not 
 show your head." When I returned after 
 visiting some other villages, I found thirty 
 new believers who desired baptism and 
 whom we baptized. Then they asked me 
 how they could build a house of worship. 
 
 110 
 
WHAT'S IN A NAME? 
 
 "How much money can you raise to 
 build it?" I asked them. 
 
 "Sir, we have no money, and our income 
 is cut off," they answered. 
 
 Now, while all Maravars are not robbers, 
 and all, even those that are robbers, are 
 regarded as very respectable by many 
 castes of Hindus, they have regular incomes 
 because they are of the robber caste, and 
 nearly every village has a few families of 
 Maravars whom they gladly support be- 
 cause long experience has taught them that 
 unless they do pay this regular income 
 frequent robberies will deprive the vil- 
 lagers of far more than the cost of that 
 support. And in every case the Maravars 
 of the village, to the last individual, will 
 have a gilt-edged alibi for the entire night 
 of the robbery. But as long as his salary 
 is paid, the Maravar insures the village 
 against robbery of all varieties. However, 
 when he becomes a Christian, the fact that 
 he is no longer a potential robber, or in 
 any sense a menace to the community, is 
 recognized, and the salary is immediately 
 cut off. Thus folks who were compara- 
 111 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 lively well to do were suddenly foreed to 
 seek remunerative employment, and they 
 had no funds to huild a church in Talikat 
 Apuram. 
 
 In their distress and urgent need of some 
 sort of building which would serve as a 
 place of meeting, they took me to a site 
 on the main street of the town, and there 
 urged me to kneel and pray. This I did, 
 asking God to give them some sort of 
 church, and, as they requested, grant that 
 we might build it on that very plot of 
 ground. Before I left that village, the 
 deed for that piece of land was in my pocket, 
 the donor having made a free gift of it to 
 the Mission for a church building. 
 
 But when a week or two had passed, I 
 found a new sign of (iod's wonderful mercy, 
 for a letter from a little town in southern 
 Ohio brought me news that an old lady 
 there was sending, through the Board of 
 Foreign Missions, eighty dollars to build a 
 little church in India. I fell upon my knees 
 and thanked him for his answer to the prayer 
 of that little congregation of new Christians 
 of the robber caste. 
 
 112 
 
WHAT'S IN A NAME? 
 
 When the little congregation started to 
 build, however, the villagers threatened them 
 with all sorts of trouble, and launelied a 
 suit in the neighboring Sub-Magistrate's 
 Court to prevent our work on that land. 
 Unable to secure the injunction they re- 
 quired, they carried the suit to a liigher court 
 and there again it was decided in our favor. 
 Tliey a])pcalcd again on the ground that 
 the judge, a (h'strict niunsiff, was a friend 
 of mine, utterly ignoring the fact tliat he 
 was a Mohammedan. Again, for the tliird 
 time, the case was decided in our favor, and 
 meanwliile without restriction, the work of 
 building had gone on, until now the tiles 
 were nearly ready to lay and they secured 
 two tile-layers to do the work. Tliese were 
 not Christians, and when the villagers who 
 had found no success l)y legal means climbed 
 upon the roof with knives and clubs, and 
 threatened to kill them, the tile-layers nearly 
 fell off the roof in their fear and anxiety 
 to get away. It seemed as if the church 
 would never be built in 'J'alikat Apuram. 
 
 But at daybreak the following morning 
 the three largest men of our congregation 
 
 113 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 stood out in front of the building with the 
 most blood-thirsty knives they could secure, 
 and with their turbans twisted in warhke 
 guise, and ponderous clubs over their 
 
 shoulders, guarded the gate while the tile- 
 layers completed their task on the roof. The 
 mob gathered as before, with clubs and 
 knives, but at sight of those determined 
 faces and huge weapons of destruction, they 
 said, "We declare our neutrality," and 
 
 114 
 
WHAT'S IN A NAME? 
 
 faded away. Thus the roof of the Httle 
 church was tiled at last. 
 
 After returning to America, however, I 
 found the best part of the story, for, while 
 visiting in southern Ohio, I called upon the 
 old lady who had built that church, and 
 found that her entire cash income was a 
 pension paid her by the United States gov- 
 ernment, because her husband had been a 
 soldier in our Civil War, and I asked her 
 how she could build a church with such an 
 income. She answered, "My daughter sup- 
 phes all my wants and I did not need the 
 money. It all belongs to God, and I merely 
 invested it for him." 
 
 After the Church had gained a real influ- 
 ence in the place, I detected a change in the 
 pronunciation of the name of the town, and 
 one day I asked Brother Mathura about it. 
 
 "Mathura," said I, "you call your place 
 Talikat Upuram now instead of Apuram. 
 Can you tell me the reason?" 
 
 "Sir," he answered, "the nature of the 
 place has changed. Why not the name too? 
 It is now the village that is showing its 
 head.'* 
 
 115 
 
VIII 
 
 ROADS TO PEACE 
 
 T WILL tell you the story as he told it to 
 "'■ me that day so eventful in both our lives. 
 That was the day on which I discovered his 
 soul and saw it laid bare and throbbing to 
 my brimming eyes. That was the day when 
 he knew I was his friend, when he learned 
 for the first time that I had been watching 
 his career with a solicitude equal to a father's 
 for an ambitious and devoted son. It was 
 the day of our long walk along the barley 
 fields and down the bank of the canal to our 
 distant camp. It all came about by a word 
 of praise cautiously given : 
 
 "Your soul was a blazing torch this morn- 
 ing, Tara Chand, and your words were 
 words of fire. The Hindus of the town will 
 have hard work to put out the conflagration 
 you lighted in their hearts." 
 
 I feared to say more and waited for his 
 reply. It was long in coming: "Only the 
 
 116 
 
ROADS TO PEACE 
 
 heart that burns feels. To be sensitive to 
 sorrow one must know sorrow. To know 
 the Hindu's burden one must have carried 
 it himself, one must still carry it. I am 
 Christian, Padri Sahib,^ but I am Hindu 
 too. You look strangely at me? It is the 
 Hindu's thirst that I slake at the Christian's 
 fountain; it is the Hindu's burden that I 
 pull with the yoke of Christ. There were 
 two of us — I was the younger — " 
 
 He stopped talking as if he had ah'cady 
 said too much, and remained silent, rubbing 
 an ear of barley in his hands. Silence is the 
 best of listeners. I was a good listener that 
 morning. Finally he threw away the barley 
 stalks, shrugged his shoulders, and con- 
 tinued : 
 
 "It is too long a story — " 
 
 "It is a long way to our tents, Tara 
 Chand." 
 
 "A long story takes much patience to 
 hear it out, Padri Sahib." 
 
 "When it is of friends, patience is an 
 eager listener," I replied. 
 
 "You are kind, Padri Sahib — " 
 
 ^ Title of respect given to a missionary. 
 117 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 He picked up a fallen twig and pulled off 
 the leaves as he spoke, slowly at first: 
 
 "There were two of us. I was the younger 
 brother. Our father was dead. My brother 
 took his place. How kind he was to me! 
 We were halwais [confectioners] in Sita- 
 pur. We were wealthy as Hindus go and 
 had all that we desired. I did not under- 
 stand my brother, though I thought I 
 knew him. It was he who set my soul on 
 fire — to feel, to suffer, to bear the burden. 
 And yet I knew not till that day that fire 
 consumed his soul. Until that day he kept 
 his burden so concealed that none ever sus- 
 pected it. That day! That day, Padri 
 Sahib! I count time now from that day. 
 From that day and the other!" 
 
 He looked into my face. The fires within 
 his soul were burning uncontrolled : 
 
 "I am confusing you. It is hard to tell 
 the thing in order. That day — the day when 
 my brother chose the Hindu's road to peace. 
 The other — when I chose the Christian's 
 road to peace. That day came months be- 
 fore the other, and it is of that day that I 
 shall speak. The other is another story. 
 
 118 
 
ROADS TO PEACE 
 
 . . . He was my brother and I knew him 
 not. He it is that set my soul on fire and 
 keeps it burning. It is the flame of my 
 brother's heart that I passed to others this 
 morning — " 
 
 "And to me as well, Tara Chand." 
 "You are kind, Padri Sahib. What was 
 I speaking of ? That day! He had been to 
 a wedding the night before, and in the morn- 
 ing, sitting in the halwais shop together, he 
 began to laugh, and then he said: 'You 
 should have been there last night, Tara 
 Chand. Such feasting and shouting and 
 jesting! You would have thought that the 
 whole city was getting married. There was 
 some drunkenness too, but what of that? 
 One must have merriment.' As he laughed 
 he took up his strainer, and dipping it into 
 the boiling sugar drew out the hot jalehis} 
 "I reached out my hand and lifted one of 
 the sweetmeats. 'Your jalebis are good this 
 morning. Din Dayal, my brother,' I said, 
 'When the heart of the halwai is light, his 
 sweets are excellent. You are ever laugh- 
 ing over some escapade, and the laugh goes 
 
 ^ An Indian sweetmeat. 
 
 119 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 into your sugar and flavors it. Tiiese wasps 
 and honeybees that settle on your wares 
 tasting their sweetness are related to you, 
 for you, like them, have ej^e and nose and 
 mouth for the joys of life, and you are ever 
 finding them where freshly made. I wish 
 I were like you.' 
 
 " 'I am as the Creator made me, Tara 
 Chand. I love a wedding song and a good 
 nautch;^ I love the clink of jewelry on the 
 ankles of women; I love a dark eye behind 
 a half -drawn veil; I love the stories of 
 Krishna — his sportings with the Gopis" of 
 Brindaban and his sixteen thousand wives. 
 I love the Holi festival with its throwing 
 of colored water, its gambling, and its free- 
 dom from restraint. Yet mark you, Tara 
 Chand, all these only on proper occasion. 
 The rest of the time you will find me in my 
 own home or shop as pious as any Hindu 
 householder. And when I fold my hands 
 in prayer before Lord Ganesh — ' 
 
 "I finished the sentence for him: 'Even 
 Ganesh, the elephant-headed, smiles be- 
 
 1 Dance. 
 
 * Female cowherds. ^ 
 
 120 
 
ROADS TO PEACE 
 
 tween his tusks ; for your smile, my brother, 
 is as contagious as the plague.' 
 
 "He stopped me with his raised hand. 
 'You are dipping your words in sugar this 
 morning, Tara Chand, and warm and fresh 
 they taste good to the soul. But, like a 
 good halwai (as you are), leave out the 
 flavor of bitterness. Speak not of the 
 plague ! That is a word for Lord Ganesh's 
 ear alone at the puja hour. ... But the 
 wedding, Tara Chand; you should have 
 seen what we did with the bridegroom. I 
 laugh to see him yet.' 
 
 "He laughed unrestrainedly, and I 
 laughed too, though I understood not the 
 cause of his merriment. Ram Das, a friend 
 of his, came by, and Din Dayal took up his 
 brass scales and adjusted the strings. 
 
 " 'My little brother would hear of the 
 bridegroom. Ram Das, and I cannot stop 
 laughing to tell it. You have a more sober 
 countenance than I. Tell him of the bride- 
 groom. Ram Das, while I weigh you out 
 some jalehis, four annas' worth.' 
 
 " 'The bridegroom is dead,' said Ram 
 Das. 
 
 121 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 " 'No, we didn't kill him. Ram Das. 
 Make it out no worse than it was. The 
 truth, the truth, that will make Tara Chand 
 laugh sufficiently.' 
 
 " 'The truth. Din Dayal, by the gods I 
 have spoken it. There is no laugh to the 
 truth. They are burning his body now. 
 The screams of the bride — have you not 
 heard them? But I forgot! What can you 
 hear, Din Dayal, surrounded by your 
 sweets? All the world to you is sweets; one 
 large hurfce wrapped in silver foil. Man, 
 outside your shop there is sorrow! Laugh 
 here all you choose at the bridegroom; yon- 
 der we beat our breasts for him.' 
 
 "I looked at my brother. He sat as one 
 in a trance, staring vacantly before him, 
 and Ram Das turned to go. I stopped him, 
 trying to excuse my brother. I understood 
 him not, Padri Sahib: 
 
 " 'He meant no harm, Ram Das. I am 
 sure he thinks of more than pleasure. He 
 was speaking to me but a moment ago of 
 bitterness. Speak, how came the bride- 
 groom to die?' 
 
 "Ram Das turned to me and pointed his 
 
 122 
 
ROADS TO PEACE 
 
 finger at my brother. 'Does he indeed know 
 one word of sorrow? Of bitterness did he 
 speak? Then I tell him, speaking so he 
 may understand. The bridegroom died of 
 — bitterness. I can say no more.' 
 
 " 'No, tell us more. Ram Das,' I pleaded, 
 while Din Dayal sat as one unconscious. 
 'What is bitterness? I bend my ear to you. 
 Stand on your toes and whisper in it !' 
 
 "Ram Das reached up his lips and as he 
 spoke in softest tone, my brother laid his 
 head alongside of ours: 'Bitterness? The 
 bubonic plague is bitterness.' 
 
 "Ere we had raised our heads Ram Das 
 was gone. It was then I saw for the first 
 time, and even then I understood it not, a 
 look of unutterable sadness steal over the 
 features of my brother. Before I could sus- 
 pect anything he shook it off with a smile. 
 
 " 'Why should you look so solemn, Tara 
 Chand? Let corpses look that! The bride 
 is the widow. You are neither the corpse 
 nor the bride. The bridegroom has had his 
 pleasure and is gone hence. But we are 
 still here. When we have had our pleas- 
 ure we shall follow him. Just because one 
 
 123 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 of us has ceased from eating and has risen, 
 shall the rest of us call the meal finished and 
 wipe our fingers? Nothing has really 
 changed since yesterday. Sorrow is still 
 sorrow; joy is still joy. Jalchis, see, are 
 still sweet — ,' and biting into one he held it 
 up between his fingers. 'My little brother, 
 eat that white pera next you, all sprinkled 
 with pistachio and cocoanut! There! We 
 feel better. Now let us laugh together I' 
 
 "Passers-by wondered at the hearty 
 laughing in the shop of the halwai. I my- 
 self wondered he could laugh so heartily. 
 He read my looks and answered: 
 
 " 'Tara Chand, I laugh because I am 
 wise. No man has better opportunity than 
 the halwai to learn true wisdom, as he sits 
 in his shop. Sit here beside me, and let 
 me teach you the true philosophy of life. 
 I am your older brother. Now give atten- 
 tion while I open a mouth of wisdom.' 
 
 "He coughed with mock solemnity and I 
 enjoyed hugely his manner. 
 
 " 'You see the crowds in the bazaar com- 
 ing and going, Tara Chand. Let us study 
 them as they pass this shop. There is the 
 
 124 
 
ROADS TO PEACE 
 
 rich man in his fine carriage — two servants 
 on the coachman's box, and two standing be- 
 hind as grooms. There is the Brahman 
 watching his step. There is the villager all 
 eyes and no brains, with legs like a crane 
 
 ■*r^^ 
 
 and mouth like an open well. Here is a 
 bhnd beggar, asking for alms with his 
 monotonous cry. He thinks I can feed all 
 the blind of the city. There is a leper, his 
 nose half gone, his fingers stumps. Here is 
 an orphan — see how his ribs protrude. 
 Sweets are too rich for the starving, there- 
 
 125 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 fore I refused him. There is the bold-faced 
 harlot, advertising her trade. The gods pity 
 her victims! Yonder far down the street, 
 headed this way, is a sadJiu in yellow robe, 
 with his rosary and begging-bowl. He will 
 no doubt reach out for a luddoo. These holy 
 men have renounced the world, but not the 
 halwai's shop. Their eyes are sharp and 
 their teeth strong for the curds and sugar. 
 And so, my little brother, we sit among the 
 sweetmeats and out yonder the world passes 
 before us, and from this we learn the true 
 wisdom. Be not too tender-hearted. The 
 bazaar is ever filled with people of all sorts. 
 Do not take their affairs to your heart. 
 Look from them to your sweets and to your 
 home behind, but look not too closely at the 
 street where men and women come and go. 
 So shall the joy of life not be given an 
 alms to beggars and diseased.' 
 
 "After this merry burst he lapsed into 
 silence. I made no reply, but sat watching 
 the movements of the sadhu working his 
 way through the crowd. The minutes 
 passed. Finally my brother heaved a sigh, 
 and taking his scales held them poised. I 
 
 126 
 
ROADS TO PEACE 
 
 turned to him and laughed, still unsuspect- 
 ing, unconscious of the truth. 
 
 " 'O philosopher of joy, why do you be- 
 lie yourself with such a groan f 
 
 "Pie made no reply, and laughing, I re- 
 peated the question. Then he spoke and 
 his tone was changed: 
 
 " 'These scales are accurate and these 
 weights are true. But, alas! Tara Chand, 
 the strings of my heart are all twisted and 
 my wisdom is weighing light. I have given 
 you short weight, little brother, and you, 
 foolish one, have not known it. I have 
 piled on laughter and words, and yet the 
 other scale lifts not. It is very heavy.' 
 
 " 'What is heavy. Din Dayal? What are 
 you weighing? I do not understand.' 
 
 "He remained silent. I was puzzled be- 
 yond all measure. When he spoke it was 
 to himself and very slowly: 
 
 " 'Very strange that Joy mates not with 
 Peace! Again and again have I married 
 Joy as bride to Peace, and Wisdom, as 
 priest, has tied their garments together. 
 Again and again, as now, I have sat down 
 to the wedding feast to enjoy their union. 
 
 127 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 But the bridegroom — the bridegroom dies 
 of bitterness — ' 
 
 "A voice broke in upon his meditation: 
 
 " 'Peace ! the peace of the sadhu upon 
 you!' 
 
 "Din Dayal raised his eyes. He looked 
 at the sadhu. The minutes passed and still 
 he looked. He leaned over his wares and 
 looked more deeply. I reached out my hand 
 to pull him back: 
 
 " 'Have a care, Din Dayal! You will 
 fall out of your shop. What do you see 
 that you stare so?' 
 
 "My brother still looked at the sadhu. 
 
 " 'Where did you get it, Holy One?' and 
 his voice trembled as he spoke. 
 
 " 'Get what, my brother?' asked the 
 sadhu. 
 
 " 'Get peace, peace!' 
 
 " 'I found it on the road of renunciation.* 
 The sadhu spoke the heart of Hinduism. 
 
 " 'Is it there for anyone who seeks it?' 
 
 " 'It is there, but the road is long and 
 weary. It is a search of many years, and 
 hunger and thirst are fellow pilgrims on 
 the road.' 
 
 128 
 
ROADS TO PEACE 
 
 "'Can it be found, Holy One? Will 
 there be no disappointment in it?' 
 
 " 'It is there if you have the will to reach 
 it. It is certain, sure.' 
 
 "My brother turned and looked at me. 
 I never saw that look before and knew not 
 what it meant. He looked at the house be- 
 hind, where his wife and his little son were 
 sheltered, and then he looked at the sadhu. 
 
 " 'Holy One,' and he rose as he spoke, 'I 
 follow you on the road of renunciation. 
 Tara Chand, the shop is yours. Go to my 
 child and his mother and give them your 
 best care. Bear them this one message: 
 "Peace is greater than joy!" ' 
 
 "Ere I could make out what was hap- 
 pening, the sadhu and his new disciple dis- 
 appeared around the corner. When I came 
 to myself I was saying : 'I warned him if he 
 leaned so far he would fall into the road, 
 but I dreamed not of the road of renuncia- 
 tion.' " 
 
 He finished the story. I was deeply af- 
 fected, and began to look for words to com- 
 fort him, but Tara Chand interrupted me: 
 
 "It is not all the story, Padri Sahib. The 
 
 129 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 rest is brief, but to me the harder in the 
 telling. If you had come earlier to our city, 
 the tale might have been different. My 
 brother might now be on the other side of 
 you, and this morning two brothers in place 
 of one might have broken the bread of life 
 in the hungry town. You were too late, 
 and he was gone." 
 
 I said nothing in reply and he went on: 
 "Three years ago I saw him once more. 
 It was at the river bank. I was the center 
 of a large crowd. Eager faces looked up 
 to me as I undid the foldings and revealed 
 the meanings of those words which brought 
 me into this way: 'My peace give I unto 
 you. Not as the world giveth, give I.' 
 Padri Sahib, the men of India drink these 
 words as thirsty children. The land you 
 see is parched and brown, but not so parched 
 as the hearts of its people. I had noticed 
 a Hindu sadhu on the edge of the crowd, 
 standing there in all his filth. His body 
 was smeared with cow-dung and streaked 
 with yellow ochre, his face and hair were 
 covered with ashes, his only covering was a 
 loin cloth. He stood at one end and I at 
 
 130 
 
ROADS TO PEACE 
 
 the other. There was some space between 
 us. He was not watching me, but staring 
 vacantly before him at the crowd. 
 
 "As I spoke, his hard stare — he was a 
 victim of drugs, Padri Sahib — came nearer 
 and nearer. I have felt a strange drawing 
 toward every sadhu since that day, and I 
 played for the gaze of this one. I knew not 
 why it was, but I told the story of my 
 brother. The sadhu listened unconcerned. 
 It was as though he did not hear. Before 
 I was through with it, a great suspicion 
 flashed upon me. 'Peace is greater than 
 joy,' I shouted and looked hard at him. He 
 lifted his gaze slowly and my eye met his. 
 'Peace is greater than joy,' I shouted again. 
 I knew him then — it was my brother. He 
 looked at me. He seemed to struggle with 
 his memory, as if trying, in great weakness, 
 to recollect some incident long forgotten. 
 All in vain. He lapsed into that vacant 
 stare. 
 
 "I rushed through the crowd to him. 
 They wondering at my action. 'Din Dayal, 
 halwai of Sitapur! I am your brother, 
 Tara Chand.' The man was drugged and 
 
 131 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 heard not. Passionately I seized him by 
 the arm. 'We have both been seekers after 
 peace, my brother. Speak, Din Dayal, if 
 you understand me now!' 
 
 " 'The Holy One hears you not,' said a 
 bystander; 'his thoughts are far from here.' 
 
 "As I stood looking at him the voices out 
 of the crowd became ever more insistent: 
 'Come, tell us more of a peace such as the 
 world gives not.' 
 
 "I yielded to them. ... I never saw my 
 brother again!" 
 
 "That was a test indeed, Tara Chand. 
 Did the peace that you had found stand the 
 strain?" I asked. 
 
 "That is why I speak to-day as I do, 
 Padri Sahib." He smiled and pointed 
 ahead. 
 
 "Here are the tents, and the end of my 
 long story." 
 
 132 
 
IX 
 
 THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 /~\NE day a big, broad-shouldered lawyer 
 ^-^ of my congregation came to see me, 
 and with one of those beautiful Oriental 
 smiles, said, "Missionary, I want to be a 
 preacher." 
 
 "Vetha Nayagam," said I, "aren't you 
 making by the practice of law three or four 
 times as much as any of my preachers ever 
 make?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered. 
 
 "Then why do you want to preach? Be- 
 sides," I added, "I cannot pay you even 
 what I am paying my other preachers. I 
 can pay you nothing at all." 
 
 "Sir," he asked, "have I asked you for 
 any money?" 
 
 "No," I answered, "but you have a wife 
 and children to support, and you cannot 
 work without any salary." 
 
 "Missionary," was the reply, "if you will 
 
 133 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 just give me permission to preach, I will 
 sell my property back in Sinnia Puram and 
 live on the proceeds as long as anything 
 remains, and when that is all gone, per- 
 haps I shall have gathered from among the 
 heathen a congregation which will at least 
 be able to support my family and me, and 
 if not, you have many rich people in Amer- 
 ica who could easily do that." 
 
 I was delighted, and with great pleasure 
 wrote him out an exhorter's license, signify- 
 ing that D. Vetha Nayagam was hereby 
 licensed to preach the gospel in Sinnia 
 Puram and the surrounding villages. We 
 knelt down together and thanked God for 
 giving us this new preacher, and he set out 
 at once for his village. Before he reached 
 home his house was burned down over the 
 heads of his wife and three little children. 
 Persecution is a very common means of pre- 
 venting the gospel reaching the poor and 
 downtrodden. I have had many of my poor- 
 est parishioners come to me with great 
 bleeding gashes across their backs, and more 
 than a hundred of their houses burned down 
 for the one crime of becoming Christians. 
 
 134 
 
THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 So when I heard of another house burned 
 down I just went as soon as I could to his 
 village and found Vetha Nayagam and his 
 family in that ruin of a house. They had 
 spread a few shocks of grain over the 
 charred remains of the rafters, so there were 
 a few spots within the walls where one could 
 sit down without getting sunstroke under 
 that blazing sun. After talking with them 
 all for a few minutes I suggested that it 
 would be well for us to pray, and we all 
 knelt down together, Vetha Nayagam, his 
 wife, and the three children — Paul Stephen, 
 aged ten; Grace, aged eight; and little 
 Arthur Theophilus, aged six. I wish you 
 could have heard that tiny fellow sing the 
 one hundred and thirty-third Psalm in 
 Tamil, "Behold how good and pleasant it is 
 for brethren to dwell together in harmony." 
 India sadly lacks the harmony. 
 
 Of course I prayed first, because God 
 listens first to white people. Don't you be- 
 Heve that? Well, haven't we always acted 
 as if he did? I said: "O God, this man has 
 lost his house because he started in to preach 
 thy gospel. Please give him another house, 
 
 135 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 for Jesus' sake. Amen." When I had 
 finished I felt as if I had really prayed a 
 great prayer, but I remembered and said, 
 "O Vetha Nayagam, will you pray?" 
 
 He prayed: "O God, I have not asked 
 this missionary for any salary, and I do not 
 want pay in money, but give me for my 
 salary the hearts of all the people around 
 here, that I may bring them into thy king- 
 dom, for Jesus' sake. Amen." 
 
 Now when I heard Brother Vetha Naya- 
 gam's prayer it seemed to me that the big 
 petition I had just asked of God was about 
 the size of little Arthur Theophilus, and 
 that was the way I felt too, alongside my 
 Indian brother, but over in the corner of 
 the house his little brown wife was kneeling, 
 and she looked so neat and nice and the chil- 
 dren were so sweet and clean, that I felt 
 sure she could pray too, and so I asked her, 
 "Sister, will you pray?" 
 
 "O Father," she pleaded, "please forgive 
 the people who burned our house down. 
 Forgive them and save them, and bring 
 them into thy kingdom, for Jesus' sake. 
 Amen." 
 
 136 
 
THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 In that one year Vetha Nayagam brought 
 three hundred and sixty people into the 
 kingdom of God. Three hundred and sixty 
 people are worth more than the finest house 
 that ever was built. Pray for your ene- 
 mies? Why, of course! That was what 
 Jesus commanded us to do. It is worth 
 while praying for your enemies when you 
 realize that you secure results like that. 
 
 In every village to which he went, people 
 sought the Lord and begged me to come 
 out and baptize them. I had just baptized 
 a hundred or more in the village of Kumara 
 Puram, and the next morning was sitting 
 in the village telling the people about 
 America. They have gotten Christ mixed 
 up with America in their minds and seem 
 to think they are connected in some way. I 
 wish we thought so more here in America! 
 So whenever I tell them about Christ, they 
 want to hear about America. 
 
 A good number of them sat around me 
 on the ground listening to my stories, when 
 there came across the village an old man, 
 all doubled up and leaning upon his staff, 
 crawling rather than walking. He would 
 
 137 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 have been quite tall had he stood erect, but 
 looked as if he never had stood erect. You 
 never saw anyone so hungry-looking in all 
 your life, yet he was only one of the fifty 
 million Indian people always on the verge 
 of starvation. Behind him walked ten or 
 twelve younger men, but not one of them 
 would walk in front of the old man; that 
 would not be respectful, and heathen India 
 knows how to respect old men. 
 
 Before I dreamed of his purpose he fell 
 at my feet and clasped them in his bony 
 arms and said, "Missionary, will you read 
 our petition?" 
 
 I took him by his bony old shoulders and 
 lifted him from the ground and seated him 
 upon the old wooden mortar that served me 
 as a seat. Then I said: "Never do that to 
 me any more. I am just a man like you. 
 Where is your petition, Old Man?" "Old 
 Man" is the most respectful title you can 
 use in addressing people in South India. 
 
 Out of his loin-cloth, his only garment, 
 he took a great sheet of paper and handed 
 it over to me, saying, "You will have to 
 read it. We do not know how to read." 
 
 138 
 
THE LAWYER -PREACHER 
 
 Written in Tamil, it read like this: "Rev- 
 erend and Dear Sir, we the undersigned, a 
 hundred and sixty-five people of Nagalapu- 
 rani Village, desiring to become Christians, 
 present this petition begging you to come 
 to our village and baptize us. We have 
 thrown away our old gods and will never 
 worship them any more. We have heard of 
 your God and want to serve him, and to 
 show you that we are in earnest we have all 
 signed our names to this petition." 
 
 Sign their names I There was not one 
 of them that could have read his name had 
 he seen it signed. Do you know how tliey 
 signed their names? In every large village 
 there lives a professional letter-writer and 
 Nagalapuram is a town of ten thousand peo- 
 ple, so they got the letter- writer to write 
 out the whole petition and then every one 
 of them put his thumb-impression in ink on 
 the back of that petition, and the scribe 
 wrote the name of each individual after the 
 thumb-impression. There they were, a hun- 
 dred and sixty-five of them. 
 
 Talk about your authentic documents I 
 Why, somebody might forge your signature 
 
 139 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 to-morrow, but nobody could ever forge 
 your thumb-impression. There aren't two 
 alike in the whole wide world. 
 
 So I took the petition and said to the old 
 man, "Kattayan, I am glad you wish to be 
 a Christian, and that the villagers want 
 to come to Christ, but I cannot give you 
 a pastor, and until you have a pastor, I can- 
 not baptize you, for you do not know how 
 to lead a Christian life." 
 
 "Sir, they may kill us, if they will, but 
 whether we live or die, we will surely be 
 Christians." 
 
 "Kattayan," said I, "I know you could 
 die for Christ, but you do not know how 
 to live for him. Till you have instruction 
 you cannot be baptized." 
 
 "Sir," he pleaded, "I am a very old man. 
 All these years I have waited and now you 
 have come. I may never see you again. 
 Please baptize me, so that when I die I can 
 go to God and tell him I am a Christian." 
 
 "Did you have cholera in the village last 
 year?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, sir, three hundred and seventy-two 
 people died in one month, with cholera." 
 
 140 
 
THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 "Will it come back this year?" 
 
 "Sir," he answered, "it comes every year." 
 
 "Suppose," said I, "we baptized you and 
 when the cholera came, your own boy should 
 lie dying of cholera and should ask you to 
 pray for him, what would you do. Old 
 Man?" 
 
 "Sir," he cried, "I do not know what I 
 should do." 
 
 "You would go down to the creek," said 
 I, "where your old gods were thrown into 
 the mud, and digging one of them out, you 
 would call on your old god to save your 
 son." 
 
 "That is right. That is what we would 
 do," he said. 
 
 "You see," I said, "you do not know how 
 to be Christians until we can send you a 
 pastor who will show you how to pray to 
 the living God who can hear and answer 
 your prayers." 
 
 "That is true. Give us a preacher, give 
 us a preacher!" 
 
 "But," I objected, "can you support a 
 preacher if I send you one? How much 
 money could you give him a month?" 
 
 141 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF PIE A YEN 
 
 "Sir," he pleaded, "we never get money, 
 but we will give him some of our millets, 
 ragi, cholam, kumbu." 
 
 "O, I cannot send a man there without 
 something better than that." 
 
 "But, sir, that is all we have, and we are 
 very poor." There was no need to mention 
 their want. I could count every bone of 
 his poor old body. 
 
 "Old Man," said I, "I will try to get some 
 friends of mine to help support your 
 preacher, and I will send you one as soon 
 as I can. Now, do not cry, but go back to 
 your village and I will tell my friends about 
 your desire to be Christians, and they will 
 help you." 
 
 And I sent the old man and his followers 
 back to Nagalapuram, but I translated their 
 petition and sent copies of it to many friends 
 and asked them to take the support of a 
 native preacher for Nagalapuram at fifty 
 dollars a year together with what Kattayan 
 and his people would pay toward his sup- 
 port. 
 
 A year passed and I found myself avoid- 
 ing Nagalajjuram, and because I had not 
 
 142 
 
fc> 
 
 THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 gotten them a preacher ; but thus far no one 
 answered my letters. They just concluded 
 that I was a beggar, and paid no attention 
 to my pleas. Another year hastened away 
 after the first, and still no answer — no 
 preacher. Then I sent Raju to visit the vil- 
 lage and his postcard spoke thus, "Dear 
 Brother Kingham: To-day I am in Naga- 
 lapuram as you instructed me. Old Kat- 
 tayan is dying, and said I should tell you 
 he wants you to come and baptize him, so 
 he can go to God and tell him that he is 
 a Christian." 
 
 It was the rainy season and oxcarts could 
 not be had for love or money, for all the 
 oxen were plowing, so I walked. It was 
 fifty miles to walk and the Vaippar was in 
 flood, but one night at midnight I found 
 myself in Nagalapuram, and hunted among 
 the houses of ten thousand people till I 
 found the little mud-walled, thatch-roofed 
 house of old Kattayan. There by the flicker- 
 ing light of a cocoanut oil lamp, I baptized 
 the old man in the name of the Father and 
 of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 I had hardly finished his baptism when 
 
 143 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 people crowded around me there and in the 
 street saying: "Baptize me, baptize me. I 
 too wish to be a Christian. I have been 
 waiting two years. Here is this little boy. 
 He has waited two years." 
 
 Perhaps you would have had more de- 
 termination than I had, for between mid- 
 night and morning I baptized every one 
 whose name was on that petition, a hun- 
 dred and sixty-five. I felt it was not right 
 to keep them waiting longer. 
 
 Then they gathered around me again and 
 said, "That preacher — have you got us that 
 preacher?" 
 
 "No," I said, "I could not get him. I 
 have no money for him." 
 
 "But you said you would write to Amer- 
 ica." 
 
 "I did write letters to my friends in 
 America." 
 
 "Did you tell them we wanted a 
 preacher?" 
 
 "Yes," said I. 
 
 "Did you tell them we were poor?" they 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes, I told them you were poor," I said. 
 
 144 
 
THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 There was a long interval of silence, and 
 then some one said, "Say, did you mail 
 those letters?" 
 
 I could stand it no longer, and so, bidding 
 them farewell, I came away, and for the 
 next two years I still avoided Nagalapuram. 
 For still I waited in vain for the answer 
 to my request for a preacher for that vil- 
 lage. 
 
 Then one day a brother of Vetha Naya- 
 gam, the lawyer-preacher, came to see me 
 and said, "Sir, I too desire to be a 
 preacher." 
 
 Knowing his knowledge of the Scrip- 
 ture and his general ability, I said, "Do you 
 know the salary I am paying your brother, 
 Vetha Nayagam?" 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I know." 
 
 "Will you take the same pay?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, sir," was his glad response, and 
 I appointed him as pastor of a hundred and 
 sixty-five probationers in Nagalapuram vil- 
 lage on a salary of "nothing a month and 
 board yourself," and sell what you have to 
 support yourself while you preach the gos- 
 pel. He was delighted to get it. 
 
 145 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 As soon as they had a pastor there, I went 
 to Nagalapuram. As I drew near I saw the 
 people coming out to meet me, and who do 
 you suppose was the very first in the proces- 
 sion? 
 
 You remember old Kattayan, who was 
 dying? Well, after he was baptized and re- 
 ceived into the church on probation he did 
 not die. He got well, and it was he who 
 came hobbling along on his old staff and 
 got my hand into that bony hand of his, 
 and shook and shook and shook. He was a 
 sort of natural born Methodist. 
 
 "What's the matter?" I asked. 
 
 "Matter?" said he. "Didn't you know we 
 had a preacher?" 
 
 "Is he any good?" I asked. 
 
 "Sir," he answered, "we never did have 
 such a preacher." This was quite true. 
 They did not have a man, woman, or child 
 who could read a verse out of the Bible 
 in their own Tamil tongue. They did not 
 have a Sunday school teacher, nor an Ep- 
 worth League officer, nor even a Ladies' 
 Aid Society, and yet for four years in the 
 face of a hostile and persecuting heathen- 
 
 146 
 

 In an ancient stronghold of Hinduism 
 
THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 ism, they had stood firm and had not back- 
 shdden. 
 
 "Well, I am glad you like your preacher," 
 I ventured. 
 
 "Yes, sir," was the answer, "he has 
 started a school, and our boys and girls 
 are learning to read and write, and my boy 
 can say a number of verses out of the 
 Bible, and I too have learned some Bible 
 verses and can recite them," and if I had 
 not headed him off, Kattayan would have 
 rattled off every verse he knew. 
 
 "I am glad you like your preacher," I 
 repeated. 
 
 "Yes," he said; "now we want a church." 
 
 "But, Kattayan, have you any money to 
 build a church?" 
 
 "No, we haven't any money, but that 
 preacher you gave us told us if there was 
 anything we wanted we should just ask God 
 for it, and we thought we could get you to 
 just tell him that we want a church." 
 
 Kattayan took me by the hand and 
 showed me the way up a back alley and 
 around a corner to an old cowshed. What 
 use any member of that congregation ever 
 
 147 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 had for a cowshed I do not know, but I am 
 sure that none of them had ever owned a 
 cow. Perhaps the grandfather of one of 
 them had. At any rate, there was the cow- 
 shed. 
 
 "What is this?" I asked. 
 
 "Missionary, this is where we hold serv- 
 ices." 
 
 There was room for twenty-five inside 
 and for a hundred and forty outside, so 
 the whole congregation was accommodated. 
 Some of us got inside, and as they had 
 asked me to pray, I prayed as follows: "O 
 God, these people have been starved all 
 their lives, and are hungry even now. They 
 have no money to build a church, but they 
 want a church. O God, please give them 
 some kind of a church, for Jesus' sake. 
 Amen." 
 
 Kattayan then took me out on the main 
 street of the town and showed me a httle 
 plot of ground. "There," he said, "is where 
 we are going to build that church." 
 
 "But," I said, "hadn't you better wait 
 till you get some money before you talk 
 of building?" 
 
 148 
 
THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 "Money?" said he. "Money? Say, didn't 
 you just ask God for that church?" 
 
 "Kattayan," said I, "excuse me — I have 
 — urgent business in Tuticorin. I must go. 
 Salaam." And I left the village. 
 
 Do you know why I went away so hur- 
 riedly? I can tell you the reason. When 
 your missionary finds that some of his new 
 converts out of heathenism have more faith 
 in the Uving God than the missionary, that 
 is a good time for the missionary to move. 
 So I moved. 
 
 I went back to Tuticorin, and when I 
 got there found a letter waiting upon my 
 table — a letter from a little town in Kansas 
 of which I had never heard and signed by 
 a lady whose name I did not know. It 
 read thus: 
 
 "Dear Brother Kingham: Dr. Scher- 
 merhorn was preaching in our church last 
 night and said that you needed a lot of little 
 churches in your villages in India, and that 
 the natives could put up quite a church 
 building if they had fifty dollars help. My 
 father was going to give me a diamond ring, 
 but I told him, 'Father, I don't want the 
 
 149 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 ring, just give me the money and I will 
 send it out to Brother Kingham to build 
 a church.' So here it is. Please build the 
 best church you can with this fifty dollars, 
 and when it is finished send me a picture 
 of it. This building is to be a memorial to 
 my little sister who died when she was five." 
 
 How many of the folks who are listen- 
 ing to this letter believe that the Almighty 
 God who swings the planets in their orbits 
 and keeps the seventy -year meteors on time 
 to the second, would listen to the prayer 
 of a group of poor, half-starved, half -naked, 
 ignorant black people praying in an old 
 cowshed under that blazing sun in South 
 India, and do what they asked of him? Do 
 you suppose he would listen to their prayer ? 
 Why, of course he did. And he heard it, 
 as he promised, even before it was uttered. 
 That is what God promises in his Word 
 to do. 
 
 I gave the money to Samuel and told 
 him to go ahead and build that church, 
 and he did. Every member of that little 
 congregation — men, women, and children — 
 helped. They managed to get a holiday 
 
 150 
 
THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 from their taskmasters, and the walls went 
 up rapidly. 
 
 One day Samuel, the pastor, was up on 
 the walls supervising and helping in the 
 work when three men came that way and 
 called him, "Hey you, fellow, come here. 
 We want no church in this village." 
 
 "Well, men," he answered, "what are you 
 going to do about it?" 
 
 "If you go on building that church, you 
 will die a sudden, horrible, and violent 
 death," they threatened, their black faces 
 still blacker with hatred. 
 
 "Men," said he, "I am building that httle 
 church for Jesus Christ, and I am not afraid 
 of anything you can do to me." 
 
 And with a smile, he said, "Salaam," and 
 returned to his work. The church was com- 
 pleted in a few days. 
 
 Then he sent me a note, "Please come 
 over and help us celebrate. The church 
 building is completed." 
 
 It was one of the darkest nights I ever 
 traveled, and I walked only five miles, but 
 over the roughest, rockiest road imaginable, 
 and when I got to the church the whole 
 
 151 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 congregation was out in front; and as soon 
 as I arrived they formed a procession, the 
 men carrying torches and the women and 
 children joining in the singing with the men 
 leading and the band in front. Such a 
 band! You never saw such a band. You 
 never heard such a band. And you would 
 not want to hear it again if you did hear 
 it. And last of all they brought me, seated 
 ten feet above the heads of the admiring 
 throng in a wedding car, the kind you ride 
 around in the day you get married down 
 there in South India. And we went around 
 the town, up one street and down another, 
 the band ahead, the people marching and 
 singing, and the wedding car in the rear, 
 pulled by two oxen, while the voices of our 
 Christians rang out in their favorite song: 
 
 "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. 
 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." 
 
 And while they sang there were many 
 who were hungry, many who had not had 
 one good square meal for years, if ever ! 
 
 Up in my exalted seat I found my heart 
 overflowing with joy for the light that was 
 
 153 
 
THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 beginning to shine after all these centuries 
 of idolatry. When the procession was over 
 we returned to the little church and knelt 
 there to thank God for his love in giving 
 us at last a preacher and a church. 
 
 Then Samuel said, "It is very late. Let 
 me show you where you are to spend the 
 night," and took me to a little stone build- 
 ing in a corner of the town, gave me a 
 cot, and left me to go to the little Hindu 
 restaurant where he always had his meals. 
 
 It was very late, but he had forgotten all 
 about supper until then. While he was 
 eating his food he collapsed there on the 
 floor of the little restaurant, for some one 
 had given him with his food enough arsenic 
 to kill five men. 
 
 He did not die that night. It was too 
 big a dose, and he did not die till the third 
 day, and then in excruciating agony. 
 
 Not dreaming of his danger I called his 
 brother, the lawyer-preacher, Vetha Naya- 
 gam, to come with me to Kottur, where we 
 had people to baptize. He did not return 
 to the village till the third day, just in time 
 to see Samuel's horrible and violent death. 
 
 153 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 The fifth day, returning from Tuticorin, 
 I met him on the road and got out of my 
 oxcart to meet him. His great chest was 
 heaving and his eyes were full of tears. 
 
 "What is the matter?" I asked. 
 
 "Pastor, they have murdered my brother," 
 and he told me of the threat and the whole 
 story. 
 
 As I remembered what he had undergone, 
 my blood boiled. 
 
 "What is the use of your preaching?" 
 I asked. "You gave up your law business 
 at which you were making money. You 
 labored a long time without any pay, and 
 even now are receiving but a little help 
 from the mission. On the day you started in 
 to preach, your house was burned down over 
 the heads of your family, and now — now 
 they have murdered your brother. They 
 would rather have murdered you, because 
 you have the larger congregation. You had 
 better give up preaching. Give it up and 
 go back to your law business. You have 
 had to sell nearly everything you had in 
 order to preach thus far, and you still have 
 a wife and children to support." 
 
 154 
 
THE LAWYER-PREACHER 
 
 As I looked I saw that through his tears 
 Vetha Nayagam was smiHng at me, as he 
 answered, "Pastor, my brother was a saint 
 of the Living God, and to-day he is a martyr 
 to Jesus Christ; and if God should give me 
 the privilege of dying such a death as he 
 died, I should praise his name forever." 
 
 155 
 
X 
 
 WHEN OUTCASTES DREAM 
 
 TIWAN DAS sat in the door of his 
 ^ little mud hut at the evening hour. He 
 held in his hand the stem of his hookah, but 
 he was not thinking of the flavor of the 
 black tobacco mixed with gur. He was not 
 thinking even of his own great weariness, 
 though he had been that day to a distant 
 village. His eyes were on the red glow of 
 the western sky, fading as quickly as the 
 red of the glowing embers in his pipe-bowl. 
 The children and the goats as they passed 
 in and out of the doorway almost stumbled 
 over him, but Jiwan Das paid no heed. He 
 was in deep thought — an unusual state for 
 any simple villager of North India, — or any 
 other part of the land ! 
 
 "The dream," he finally whispered to him- 
 self, "the dream. What means the dream?" 
 "The dream again!" snapped a woman's 
 voice within. "Shall we never be rid of the 
 
 156 
 
WHEN OUTCASTES DREAM 
 
 dream? Thy children are starving, thy cat- 
 tle grow daily less fit for work, thy neigh- 
 bors laugh openly at thy madness. Who 
 knows whither thou art wandering day by 
 day? Why not tell the dream and be done 
 with it?" 
 
 Jiwan Das arose, tall and so thin that if 
 any was starving you might say it was he. 
 His httle son was playing on the ground 
 before him, planting broken genda flowers 
 in the dirt. The father picked him up with 
 a laugh. 
 
 "Ah, we shall lift thee high, my boy, if 
 our dream lies not. The di-eam, portion of 
 my heart, the dream will make thee great. 
 Thou wilt Hve in a great house with many 
 servants and walk in gardens where more 
 than gendas grow. Then wilt thou look 
 down on thy old father, the Chamar, and 
 laugh at him, even as thou art doing now." 
 Jiwan Das shouted in exhultation. 
 
 "Listen to the outcaste," laughed the 
 voice within, a bitter laugh. "One would 
 think he was a Brahman trained at Kashi 
 to hear him talk. Thy son, man, will walk 
 his lifelong behind the buffaloes, twisting 
 
 157 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 their tails and thwacking their backbones 
 with his bamboo staff. Such is my dream 
 for him, the dream of a woman who knows." 
 
 The father drew the son to his heart, and 
 whispered low: "Child, the dream is our 
 secret. It will make thee great. 'Tis not 
 for ears of women. It is for men, and thou 
 shalt hear it." 
 
 He walked to the end of the courtyard, 
 and into the ear of his infant son whispered 
 long and low. Could you but have seen 
 the face that moment of our villager and 
 the smile of the three-year-old as though he 
 understood ! 
 
 The next afternoon it was the little 
 daughter that was troubled. 
 
 "Mother, where does our father go, leav- 
 ing the field and the boy to you and me? 
 Where is he now?" 
 
 "Thy father, Parbati, is mad. Some evil 
 spirit has possessed him. I have already 
 given of my jewelry to the priest to rid 
 him of the demon. He comes this very day, 
 he has promised me, with powerful man- 
 tras^ to speak over him. You must help 
 
 ' Incantations. 
 
 158 
 
WHEN OUTCASTES DREAM 
 
 me ere he comes to lay out the offerings. 
 The gods are angry and so we starve." 
 
 "But, mother, our father seems so sure — " 
 
 "So mad! Hush, laundia!"^ 
 
 Jiwan Das strode suddenly into the court- 
 yard. He brought with him a stranger. 
 
 "Be pleased to sit upon this cot. I will 
 call my brothers. You shall speak to all 
 of us. Your words will melt our hearts. It 
 is an assurance of my dream." 
 
 But the crowd had gathered akeady, won- 
 dering who the man might be. 
 
 "He is no Hindu of these parts, for he 
 wears a beard. He is no Moslem either: 
 see his Hindu cap! What can he be?" 
 
 "See you not his books that he is drawing 
 from his bag? He is some learned Pandit. 
 Knows he not we are Chamars?" 
 
 "His face is kindly, brothers. Let us 
 hear him, sitting here, for he makes signs to 
 speak to us." 
 
 The stranger had risen, and the simple 
 crowd bent forward to catch his every word. 
 
 "I will sing you a song of the new age, 
 a song of Ishwar's new incarnation, a song 
 
 159 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 of great salvation, a song which men now 
 sing through all of Hindustan. Would you 
 hear it?" 
 
 "Sing it," said they, "we hsten." 
 
 And the stranger sang: 
 
 "Jai, Prabhu Yishu, jai adhiraja, 
 Jai, Prabhu, jai jaikari. 
 
 "Pap nimit dukh laj uthai, 
 Pran diyo balihari. 
 
 "Tin dinon taba Yishu gora men 
 Tija diwasa nihari." 
 
 "Praise to Lord Yishu (Jesus); praise to the 
 great King. 
 Praise to the Lord; praise and rejoicings." 
 
 "For sin he suffered pain and shame. 
 His life he gave an offering. 
 
 "Three days he lay within the grave. 
 The third day he was seen again." 
 
 "But what means the song? I will now 
 explain it to you — " He was interrupted 
 by a voice: 
 
 "Munshiji, is there in your song nothing 
 of making our children great? They walk 
 behind the oxen now ; may they not ride be- 
 
 160 
 
WHEN OUTCASTES DREAM 
 
 hind them? From birth they are taught to 
 fear; may they not learn to be unafraid? 
 Honor is for Brahmans and high-caste men. 
 Is there not for the son of the outcaste some 
 share of wisdom and of wealth? Is it not 
 so in your book there? I have dreamed — " 
 
 The stranger paused a moment, then 
 opened the book: 
 
 "Your dream is true. There is such a 
 word written here. The great Avatar of 
 Ishwar, by name Yishu, took the children 
 of certain lowly in his arms and he said: 
 'Let these little children come unto me, and 
 do not hold them back, for to such as these 
 belongs the Raj of Ishwar.' " 
 
 "Good," said the voice. "Now tell us 
 what the Raj may be over which our chil- 
 dren are to rule, if we become devotees of 
 Yishu. Let us hear him, brothers. It is a 
 great word. I have heard it already in my 
 dream." 
 
 And the stranger began: "It is not to 
 men alone, but to women, and even to little 
 children that this good news comes. It is 
 written here," and he laid his finger on the 
 opened page, "that in this Yishu when we 
 
 161 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 take his sign upon us and name his name, 
 it is as though we were awakened from 
 long sleep. The night is passed away, the 
 day is come. And in the light of this new 
 day our children are to grow, to learn, to 
 become great. I was born such as you. 
 The name of Yishu has made me what I 
 am—" 
 
 Jiwan Das could restrain himself no 
 longer. He rose in all his height. 
 
 "We be simple people, Munshiji. We 
 know less than babes. We are slow to com- 
 prehend; we understand only in pictures. 
 There is much we can never know. We 
 hold together, living in the great biradari 
 of our caste. It is hard to change our ways, 
 the customs of our fathers. But your words 
 are pulling us. They are as the sun break- 
 ing through the rain-clouds. Send us then 
 a teacher and we will learn." He hesitated, 
 then spoke again more slowly: "As for me, 
 I am ready. Give me the sign of Yishu." 
 
 Till then no one had noticed the silent 
 figure in the doorway with close-drawn 
 chadar, her hand pressing hard upon her 
 beating heart. Parbati, holding her brother 
 
 162 
 
WHEN OUTCASTES DREAM 
 
 on her hip, clung to the woman's skirts. 
 Only now, when Jiwan Das had spoken, did 
 they see her standing there, did they hear 
 her scream, as if the evil demon had passed 
 to her. They watched her beat her breasts 
 and tear her hair. They saw her beyond all 
 control. They heard the frantic cries of her 
 frightened children. 
 
 Jiwan Das stood staring at the door of 
 his own home. 
 
 "The dream said nothing of this. It was 
 not in the dream. O Munshiji, what is there 
 in those books of thine that tells of this?" 
 
 The stranger hastily leafed the pages and 
 ran his eye up and down the columns: 
 
 "It is here. I have it now — the words 
 of Yishu," and he traced the passage with 
 his finger as he read, "Think not that I came 
 to send — " 
 
 He was interrupted by a solemn, sepul- 
 chral voice, speaking slowly, sonorously, 
 threateningly from beyond the entrance of 
 the courtyard: 
 
 "Am Hrim Krim 
 
 Shrim Swaha " 
 
 Jiwan Das and the stranger turned. 
 
 163 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 There at a distance stood the old Brahman 
 priest pouring out mantras,, incantations, 
 magic words, a stream of them. The crowd 
 scattered as sheep before the wolf. Who 
 would be caught in those sacred syllables 
 or those fierce curses? 
 
 Now was the soul of Jiwan Das hard 
 beset. The simple villager stood transfixed 
 with fear. The words of incantation fell 
 heavy upon him, and he reeled beneath their 
 weight. 
 
 "O Munshiji, quick, quick! Knowest 
 thou no mantras from thy book?" 
 
 The stranger was quick to respond, and 
 he joined his voice to the confusion, speak- 
 ing distinctly: 
 
 "The InjiP is greater than the Vedas. 
 Listen to the mantras of the Injil. They 
 protect the Chamar from the Brahman. 'All 
 authority hath been given unto me, and lo 
 I am with you alway. . . . And ye shall be 
 hated of all men for my name's sake, but 
 he that endureth to the end he shall be saved. 
 . . . And all things whatsoever ye shall ask 
 in prayer beheving ye shall receive.' Jiwan 
 
 > The Gospel. 
 
 164 
 
WHEN OUTCASTES DREAM 
 
 Das, let us ask : On that side, O Yishu, thou 
 hearest the screams of his wife and chil- 
 dren; on this side the incantations of his 
 priest. They bear him down. In the power 
 of the Injil, for the sake of his boy and the 
 fulfillment of his dream, now hold him 
 fast!" 
 
 Jiwan Das smiled faintly, as victors smile 
 after hard struggle. 
 
 "It is enough. I shall name the name 
 of Yishu in the hearing of the boy." 
 
 That night they brought him to his home 
 unconscious and talking wildly. His neigh- 
 bors had waylaid him on his way back from 
 a distant village, whither he had escorted the 
 stranger home. 
 
 "Seeing the mantras have failed, let us 
 see what a bamboo latin can do in driving 
 out evil spirits." They had made the test 
 in the sugar cane fields and were watching 
 the results. 
 
 "Fear not. It takes hard hitting to drive 
 out such spirits as possessed him," said one, 
 sitting by his bedside. "They go not out 
 by gentle strokes — " 
 
 "He seems to talk more sensibly thus than 
 
 165 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 when he is awake," said another. , "The 
 beating is ah'eady doing good. See, he 
 speaks of gods and priests." 
 
 "Rejoice, woman! He is caUing for a 
 priest. Thy man is better. Quick! Have 
 the priest here! He is coming to his senses 
 now. 'Twas the right remedy." 
 
 "Priest! Priest! the Brahman Priest!" 
 moaned the wounded man. 
 
 "The priest is here, Jiwan Das. Speak! 
 He can hear thee from his distance." 
 
 Jiwan Das raised himself — his eyes were 
 blazing : 
 
 "Priest! Brahman Priest! My dream 
 concerns thee. Thou hast heard of my 
 dream? Woulds't know it? Thou shalt 
 hear it. I am not afraid to tell it to thee. 
 It is more powerful than thy mantras upon 
 me. Listen." 
 
 He was sitting bolt upright and breath- 
 ing hard. 
 
 "Thy son, Priest, committed murder. He 
 was brought to trial. The Judge sat in his 
 court. The Judge pronounced sentence 
 upon thy son. It was a heavy sentence. 
 And the Judge? Who was he? Ha! The 
 
 166 
 
WHEN OUTCASTES DREAM 
 
 Judge? Yea, the Judge? . . . The Judge 
 was low-born, an outcaste. . . . The Judge 
 was Chamar. . . . Thy son was Brahman. 
 . . . The Judge was Christian. So I saw 
 it in my dream. . . . The Judge was 
 wealthy. The Judge was learned. The 
 Judge was just. . . . The Judge was . . . 
 the Judge, O Priest, was . . . my son!" 
 
 He fell back exhausted. Men covered 
 their eyes and shook with the terror of the 
 moment. Jiwan Das faintly but distinctly 
 took up his own words: 
 
 "Let it be so. I am ready. Give me the 
 sign of Yishu." 
 
 167 
 
XI 
 
 IN HIS BLINDNESS 
 
 rpHEY were repairing the bridge over the 
 -■■ Ganges Canal on the main high-road 
 and it was with great impatience that I 
 made the long detour. It was noon and 
 I was hot, tired, and dusty, for I had ridden 
 twenty miles that morning on my bicycle, 
 and had preached in three villages where 
 there were Christians. Here was a shady 
 mango grove beside the road. Its challenge 
 to stop and declare oneself its friend could 
 not be resisted. Walking well into its shady 
 depths, I leaned my bicycle against one tree 
 and myself against another. My lunch was 
 good. I had laid my head upon the book 
 I carried with me and was just falling off 
 into sleep when I heard a dull tap -tap -tap 
 at no great distance. I turned my head and 
 saw a blind man coming through the grove, 
 his bamboo staff hitting the ground before 
 him as he walked. Blind men are such com- 
 
 168 
 
IN HIS BLINDNESS 
 
 mon sights in India that I determined to 
 let him pass without a word. He was evi- 
 dently from the little village that lay half 
 a mile behind the grove. I watched him as 
 he came slowly on. He was an old man 
 with long, white beard. There was an air 
 of respectability about him. He was well 
 dressed, wearing kurta, pajama, and pagri, 
 an unusual combination for a blind man in 
 a village. He was evidently no beggar. I 
 began to be interested. As he drew nearer 
 I noticed that each tap of his lathi was ac- 
 companied by an ejaculation. I soon de- 
 tected what it was: 
 
 "Ai hamare Bap! Ai hamare Bap!" 
 ("Our Father! Our Father!") I wondered 
 at it. "I have never heard that expression 
 used before," thought I. "It is a queer 
 colloquialism." 
 
 Through the trees came the taps and the 
 strange words and the blind man drew very 
 near : 
 
 "Ai hamare Bap! Ai hamare Bap! Ai 
 hamare Bap!" 
 
 I had not noticed that my bicycle lay in 
 his path. He ran his staff against it, and 
 
 169 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 it fell over with a loud noise. The old man 
 stopped — terrified : 
 
 "Ai hamare Bap jo asman par hai" ("Our 
 Father who art in heaven"), fell from his 
 trembling lips. 
 
 I sat up as if struck a blow. 
 
 The old man was kneeling beside the 
 bicycle, his hands folded, his sightless eyes 
 lifted as he prayed: 
 
 "Hamare qusuron ko muaf kar." ("For- 
 give us our trespasses.") 
 
 Something held me still silent. I watched 
 him closely. He did not know what he had 
 done or how to repair the damage. Per- 
 plexity covered his features. His staff lay 
 on the ground. His hands groped over the 
 wheels, the frame, the saddle. 
 
 "What is it?" he pleaded, as if some one 
 stood at his elbow. "Ai hamare Bap, what 
 is it? I am old, I am blind, I am an igno- 
 rant villager — how should I know what to 
 do with it?" 
 
 My heart was overflowing with pity and 
 I opened my mouth to speak. But his words 
 forced me back to silence. 
 
 "Can it be? Can it be? Is it the An- 
 
 170 
 
'What is it?' he pleaded, as if some one stood at 
 his elbow" 
 
IN HIS BLINDNESS 
 
 swer? After all these years is this the An- 
 swer? At last the Answer? God be 
 praised!" His face was hghted up: "For 
 forty years I have been hungry, O so hun- 
 gry! And every morning and every night 
 I have prayed 'Hamari rozina ki roti aj 
 hamen baksh de' ["Give us this day our 
 daily bread"], bread to satisfy the hunger 
 here," and he laid his withered trembling 
 hand on his heart. "Is this the Answer? 
 Does this bring the bread? Surely this is the 
 handiwork of God!" His hands were finger- 
 ing the spokes. "No man could ever make 
 this. I have found the Answer." And 
 stooping low he laid his forehead reverently 
 upon the pedal and held the dusty chain in 
 both his hands. 
 
 His whole attitude was expectant, as if 
 he were sure he had received the gift and 
 yet understood it not. He needed some ex- 
 planation of it. He was as Moses who saw 
 the bush burning unconsumed, but as yet 
 had heard no words that told him what it 
 meant. 
 
 I leaped to my feet. He heard the noise 
 and turned his sightless eyes to me. Blind 
 
 171 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 they were, but not without expression. I 
 could see behind their drawn veils the fierce 
 struggle for vision. He knew not what 
 stood before him — God or angel or man. 
 He would compel his eyes to tell him. 
 
 Softly and slowly I spoke: 
 
 "Bare Mian,^ your prayer is heard. I 
 am sent with bread for thee. Sit up and I 
 will share it with thee." 
 
 He sat up. "You have brought the 
 bread" — and he reached out both hands 
 (hands covered with grease and grime) as 
 if to receive it — 
 
 "Not for your hands. Bare Mian, but for 
 your heart! It is not bread of earth, but 
 bread come down from heaven." 
 
 "I know it. I was as a silly child. In 
 my joy I forgot for the moment. But it is 
 You who 'forgives us our trespasses.' " 
 
 "It is not I who forgives, Bare Mian." 
 
 The look of perplexity again stole over 
 his face. 
 
 "I know not what to call you." 
 
 I hesitated, fearing a rude shock to his 
 simple faith. "Bare Mian, call me Padri 
 
 1 A title of respect, pronounced Burray Meeah. 
 172 
 
IN HIS BLINDNESS 
 
 Sahib. I am a missionary whom our heav- 
 enly Father has sent this way." 
 
 He caught at the word and his bhnd face 
 broke into a smile. "It is the Answer! 
 Padri Sahib! It was a Padri Sahib who 
 forty years ago taught me the Lord's 
 Prayer, and put the water on my head — 
 here! That was in the days when I could 
 see. I came back to my village and I lost 
 my sight. I have been unable to find him 
 since, though I go nearly every day through 
 this grove and sit beside the road, hoping 
 he or some other Padri Sahib may pass this 
 way and speak to me sitting there. The 
 Villagers laugh at me, thinking me very 
 silly. The passers-by think I am come to 
 beg, and drop their alms beside me. All this 
 I can endure — their laughter and their pity 
 — if in the end, before I die, I hear a Padri 
 Sahib's voice." 
 
 He paused a minute. "You are not my 
 Padri Sahib. A blind man's ear is sharp. 
 But you are his son whom he has sent in 
 his stead." 
 
 I hesitated — "What was his name. Bare 
 Mian?" I asked him, timidly. 
 
 173 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 He named a name. 
 
 "I am his son; you have said right. In 
 truth I am," I answered, proudly. 
 
 The old man laid his forehead on his 
 folded hands. "The answer to the hlind 
 man's prayer is complete. 'Thine is the 
 kingdom, and the power, and the glory.' " 
 He lifted his head again. "And now for 
 the bread, Padri Sahib." 
 
 That grass}'^ spot beside the Sea of Gali- 
 liee is found in all the world and men still 
 feed the hungry there; the well of Samaria 
 springs forth even in distant mango groves 
 and there men give to those that ask for 
 living w^ater. But such privilege of service 
 is reserved for those whom the King de- 
 lights to honor. For three long hours I 
 was the honored one that day. 
 
 "Look, Bare Mian" (I had forgotten I 
 was dealing with a blind man), "the smi is 
 half down the heaven. I have been long 
 with you. I have here bread that I must 
 break to-night to other hungry ones. They 
 will have waited hours when I reach them. 
 I must go." 
 
 "Hours, Padri Sahib? 'What are hours? 
 
 174 
 
IN HIS BLINDNESS 
 
 I have waited forty years. Let them wait. 
 They will be the hungrier and eat more 
 heartily. I am not yet filled — so great was 
 my emptiness." 
 
 I rose to go. "Bare Mian, one must not 
 let little children suffer for want of bread. 
 These I go to are little ones, Christians only 
 a year, and faint from hunger." 
 
 He took the end of his beard in his hand 
 and held it up trembhng. "Padri Sahib, 
 let not this white beard of mine deceive 
 you. I too am nothing but a child." 
 
 "I have many children," I said, "and I 
 must feed them all. Some are very small, 
 smaller, than you. You can walk, Bare 
 Mian; for forty years you have kept from 
 falling." 
 
 "True, Padri Sahib. I totter along with 
 my two staffs in the two darknesses, one for 
 each darkness. I am doubly bhnd, you 
 know." 
 
 "I do not understand." 
 
 "You see it is like this, Padri Sahib. In 
 the one darkness I tap-tap along with a 
 bamboo staff; in the other I tap-tap along 
 with the Lord's Prayer, which is all I know. 
 
 175 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 With my staffs I am ever sounding out the 
 ways of life." 
 
 "Remember what I have told you to-day. 
 Bare Mian. That will give you light along 
 your path when I am gone. I have many 
 others — " 
 
 "When you are gone? Many others? 
 Are they bhnd and neglected and left ex- 
 posed to die as I am? There is a story — 
 how often I have tried to tell it to others, 
 but I have forgotten its ending, Padri 
 Sahib. My neighbors are ever asking me 
 if I remember it. It is of a lamb that was 
 lost in the darkness, and the man whose 
 lamb it was left his many others. That is 
 as far as I get with it. Tell me, Padri Sahib, 
 was the lamb in the darkness found? Did 
 the man whose lamb it was feed it and leave 
 it there, saying he had other lambs to feed 
 and could not stay longer? Did the lamb 
 in the darkness bleat after him when he was 
 gone? Tell me the story, Padri Sahib." 
 
 It was hard to get away from him. I sat 
 down again. "Listen, Bare Mian, I will 
 tell you the story and then I must go. It is 
 getting night." 
 
 176 
 
IN HIS BLINDNESS 
 
 "Was the man whose lamb it was afraid 
 of the night? Was it only the little lamb 
 that grew accustomed to darkness?" 
 
 "Bare Mian, you do not understand. You 
 see this is an out of-the-way village — " 
 
 "Was the httle lamb lost on the high- 
 road then, Padri Sahib, in a place easy to 
 find? Why, then, was it lost so long? But 
 I have forgotten the story and sit here 
 silently to hear it told once more." 
 
 I told the simple story and the tears rolled 
 down the blind man's face. When I came 
 to the shepherd lifting the lamb on his 
 shoulder he broke into sobs and stopped me, 
 exclaiming — 
 
 "The lamb was found and lifted from 
 the darkness! For forty years sitting by 
 the roadside I have prayed that that might 
 be the ending of the story. So the lamb was 
 really hfted from the darkness! It is 
 enough!" 
 
 His heart was full. He had all he could 
 contain. I waited for his word to go on. 
 Ere it came a look of horror overspread his 
 face: 
 
 "The shepherd did not set him down 
 
 177 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 again, did he? Tell me it all. My prayer 
 is not yet answered." 
 
 I finished the story. 
 
 "O Padri Sahib, if I had only known the 
 ending all these forty years, how much more 
 quietly I should have waited in the darkness 
 for the Shepherd. For forty years I had 
 feared the lamb was lost." 
 
 I rose again. 
 
 "The end of the story has given me 
 strength to have you go, for the Shepherd 
 kept the lamb upon his shoulder. The lamb 
 was not lost again, you say?" 
 
 "It was not lost again," I repeated. 
 
 We walked out to the road. He was a 
 different man now — youth and sight seemed 
 to have returned to him. 
 
 "Let me go ahead, Padri Sahib, and show 
 you the way. There are many trees. Be 
 careful lest you stumble. I would carry 
 that which brought the Answer — I know 
 not what to call it — if I knew where to take 
 hold—" 
 
 "It is heavy, Bare Mian." 
 
 "But I am strong to-day, Padri Sahib. 
 I have had bread, you know." 
 
 178 
 
IN HIS BLINDNESS 
 
 "It runs itself, Bare Mian, with just a 
 touch now and then." 
 
 "With just a touch now and then? Then 
 it is hke our village, Padri Sahib. So might 
 we run ourselves along the ways of God 
 with just a touch now and then." 
 
 "Your village. Bare Mian? Does your 
 village know anything of truth?" 
 
 "It knows the Lord's Prayer. For forty 
 years the children have learned it from me. 
 When you return, Padri Sahib, with the 
 help now of the story, I shall have it ready 
 for the water. And you need not be spar- 
 ing of water, for our wells are deep. I 
 shall hold the vessel — that will be my privi- 
 lege — like this I will hold it." 
 
 He stopped and turned, laughing in his 
 excitement, as some child in eager expecta- 
 tion of some great event. 
 
 "But what if you stumble. Bare Mian, 
 and spill the water?" 
 
 "Then the ground will be baptized, and 
 all will be Christian, Padri Sahib." 
 
 I bade him farewell, promising to send 
 some one from my pitifully small body of 
 native helpers, and to return myself some 
 
 179 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 time within a year. With his forehead on 
 his folded hands he stood till I was gone. 
 As I rode off I heard him shout in a shrill, 
 sharp voice to some toiler in a near-by field : 
 "Ram Lai! The lamb was found, Ram 
 Lai! the lamb of the story was found!" 
 
 180 
 
XII 
 
 WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 TT was the peculiar Persian pattern of her 
 -■• chadar that had first attracted my at- 
 tention. Its unusual colors and the grace- 
 fulness of its folds over her head and 
 shoulders had caught my eye as I stepped 
 from the train at Muttra. 
 
 I had come for a day with my camera in 
 that ancient stronghold of Hinduism. Long 
 before the day was over I had used up all 
 my plates. Who would not, in Muttra? 
 
 It was then, just inside the magnificent 
 Harding gateway, in the midst of that 
 bazaar of never-ending interest, that I 
 caught sight again of the young Hindu 
 woman with the pretty Persian pattern on 
 her veil. 
 
 I was about to start for the mission house 
 to rest and write awhile, but a new idea 
 came to me. Why not follow this woman, 
 as she went along through the crowded 
 bazaar, and see what she would do? It was 
 
 181 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 not an impulse springing from mere curi- 
 osity; there was a real desire for a more 
 intimate knowledge of the people. I knew 
 the language — I could understand all that 
 I might hear. 
 
 My decision was quickly made, and I 
 turned back and took up the trail. There 
 was no danger of anyone knowing what I 
 was doing, for the bazaar was thronged 
 with people — almost like Fifth Avenue in 
 New York at luncheon time. I did not feel 
 as if I were intruding. I was ready, how- 
 ever, for an experience. It came — I never 
 spent a more illuminating day. 
 
 Together let us follow the Hindu woman. 
 
 She stopped in a short time at a little box 
 of a shop, measuring about five by eight 
 feet, where were displayed all manner of 
 boys' caps, made mostly of white muslin, 
 embroidered with gold tinsel. She picked 
 them over for a while, hesitated over one 
 of the more elaborately embroidered ones, 
 and finally bought it. She passed on, and 
 holding it up extended on her outstretched 
 fingers, exclaimed aloud to herself: "How 
 fine it would look on his head!" 
 
 182 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 Just then all unnoticed a monkey ran 
 along the edge of a veranda, jumped on the 
 branch of a nim tree that overhung the nar- 
 row street, and, swinging down, snatched 
 the cap from her hand. The next instant 
 he was back on the top of an adjoining 
 portico, where he sat and deliberately tore 
 the little cap into bits, flinging them down 
 into the street. 
 
 The woman had given a startled cry as 
 the monkey grabbed the cap, and now she 
 stood in the midst of the crowd that had 
 stopped to watch the monkey. It was a 
 matter of passing interest. Muttra is full 
 of monkeys — "sacred monkeys," incarna- 
 tions, as it were, of Hanuman, the great 
 monkey-god. They are a pest in the city, 
 breaking down cornices, loosening bricks 
 and mortar on the parapets of houses, break- 
 ing window panes, destroying latticework, 
 uprooting flowers and vegetables in the gar- 
 dens, and in themselves a perfect nuisance. 
 The shopkeepers suffer most at their mis- 
 chievous, impudent hands, for the wares are 
 always open to display on the stalls front- 
 ing the street. Up above, on the verandas, 
 
 183 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 arc the monkeys, ever alert, watching their 
 chance to shde down a post or pillar and 
 make off with a handful of grain, sweet- 
 meats, or anything else fancied by the impu- 
 dent creatures. 
 
 A Hindu can swear at a monkey, he can 
 threaten it. He might dare to go so far 
 as to hit one. He cannot go further to rid 
 himself of one of these "gods"! The imagi- 
 nation does not go so far as to think of 
 sliooting one! His anger, kindled for the 
 moment, will turn ultimately into philoso- 
 phy. 
 
 "Remember Hanuman, the great god, my 
 daughter," said a pious old merchant who 
 had witnessed the affair of the cap, "and be 
 content with the trifling loss." 
 
 The crowd moved on. The monkey had 
 been making suitable grimaces during his 
 work of destruction; and he sent his part- 
 ing shot at me, as I leveled the camera at 
 him! He would have had my scalp, had 
 he dared! 
 
 As the woman moved on, I heard her 
 mutter: "Is it a bad omen?" 
 
 I did not know then what she hftd in mind. 
 
 184 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 Almost immediately, however, she got a 
 chance to counteract the apparently unto- 
 ward event. 
 
 A Hindu faqir, tall, strong, and well fed, 
 came down the street, leading an unusually 
 small cow. The level of its back was not 
 more than three feet from the ground. But 
 the most striking thing about it was a queer 
 deformity. High up on one side toward 
 the front, there grew from the body two 
 short misshapen legs. The hoofs were on 
 them, dangling half way down to the 
 ground. 
 
 The faqir had stopped just before the 
 woman came up. He was talking to a small 
 group of passers-by. 
 
 "Put your money right here," said he, in- 
 dicating the spot where the extra legs took 
 their start. "It will please Mahadeo, whose 
 blessings will be showered on you. What 
 a chance to do a meritorious thing in our 
 great Muttra!" 
 
 The woman had heard his words. 
 
 "Will it bring good luck?" she asked, 
 timidly, as she approached the faqir. 
 
 "Luck!" exclaimed the ash-smeared 
 
 185 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 rascal. "It, will turn bad luck into good, or 
 good luck into bad, just as I may please 1" 
 He had sized up his victim. 
 
 She deposited two copper coins on the 
 "sacred spot," and the faqir said to her, 
 "How much iuck' can you get with two 
 pice, O woman ! Make that silver, and your 
 chances are quadrupled!" 
 
 His countenance was grave. She hesi- 
 tated a moment, then added to the copper 
 coins a silver coin worth four times as much. 
 The faqir muttered an unintelligible bless- 
 ing, and started for his next dupe. 
 
 The woman moved on down the street. 
 
 She stopped shortly at the shop of a con- 
 fectioner, whose wares — many of them 
 coated with silver foil beaten by hand to 
 an amazing thinness — were attractively dis- 
 played. She bought some peras, for which 
 I knew Muttra was justly famous. I could 
 have eaten the peras myself, but for the flies 
 that swarmed in myriads from the open 
 drain that ran reeking with filth right under 
 the framework of a counter on which were 
 piled the pyramids of sweets. That drain 
 was appalling to an American, even though 
 
 186 
 
bo 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 he had lived in India nearly his whole 
 life! 
 
 The woman turned into an alley and went 
 up the road that led along the river bank. 
 
 A little distance up this quaint street, under 
 a scrubby pipal tree was a group of men 
 and women. Coming up to them I saw an 
 ascetic. He was seated amidst his four 
 sacred fires, kept smoldering by means of 
 the fuel cakes of gohar (cow-dung mixed 
 with straw). I gathered from the con- 
 versation of several pilgrims in the group 
 that he had been rather rudely awakened 
 from sleep by the falling of a piece of a 
 
 187 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 dead limb from the pipal tree. It had 
 broken under the weight of a monkey, and 
 fallen on one of his fires from which a live 
 coal had been knocked over on to his leg. 
 Apparently, he either did not accept or un- 
 derstand the explanation. 
 
 Idle curiosity caused the woman to push 
 her way to the inner edge of the circle. 
 
 The faqir caught sight of her and ex- 
 claimed, "May the curse of the gods be upon 
 thee!" 
 
 The woman stood as if paralyzed, while 
 the faqir continued, apparently to the on- 
 lookers; "What does she in Muttra any- 
 way? Always it is a woman that is at the 
 bottom of a man's troubles!" 
 
 He had relieved himself by this outburst, 
 and turned to replenish the fires of his self- 
 torture ; but the poor woman was trembling 
 with fear under the sudden and so unex- 
 pected imprecation of the "holy one." 
 
 She fell on her knees at his feet. 
 
 "O, Maharaj," she wailed, "pardon the 
 fault of thy slave! Truly, I did not under- 
 stand. I own my guilt — I should not have 
 dared to interrupt thy holy meditations by 
 
 188 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 idly thrusting myself before thee. We are 
 so slow to learn the ways of the holy!" 
 
 She had no slightest idea of any injus- 
 tice done to herself. She did not know what 
 had caused the curse to descend upon her. 
 She was just a woman — she should not have 
 dared to approach the sacred person of the 
 devoted faqir in such a spirit of reprehensi- 
 ble curiosity. But the curse must be un- 
 done! 
 
 She prostrated herself at the feet of the 
 ash-smeared, high and mighty, stern and 
 offended "holy one." He affected not to 
 see her. She crawled nearer, took hold of 
 his feet around the ankles and kissed them 
 repeatedly. 
 
 "Pardon — forgiveness — mercy, O holy 
 Sadhu!" she moaned. "Terrible is the 
 weight of thy most righteous curse. I am 
 only a woman — I wist not what I did — I 
 cannot bear the awful burden of thy just 
 but fearful anathema!" 
 
 He drew back his feet with impatience, 
 and left her kissing the ground in her grief 
 and terror. The poor woman was almost 
 distracted. If there was any sympathy 
 
 189 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 among the numerous onlookers, fear of the 
 eru'aged faqir kept it baek. True, he was 
 no genuine Saclhu who woukl thus be of- 
 fended by any untoward event. Even if 
 the accident were the result of malice, the 
 very profession of a Sadhu should have 
 enabled him to bear with either hurt or in- 
 sult. This fellow was a rogue, a charlatan; 
 but even so, there was no one minded to 
 run the risk of his curse. Who knew but 
 that he had acquired special merit from the 
 gods by self-torture, and could blast the 
 fairest prospects of anyone now daring to 
 interfere. After all, why had the woman 
 crowded to the front in that !)old fashion? 
 Was the curse not deserved? Had she not 
 brought it upon herself? 
 
 My American spirit could not endure the 
 scene. I was touched by the woman's genu- 
 ine terror, and incensed at the faqir's cruel 
 attempt to "save his face," I stepped up 
 before him, and said in Hindustani: 
 
 "O, Sadhu ji, tlie woman is not at fault 
 — we all arc witness here. Her petition is 
 just. Unsay tlic curse!" 
 
 I had drawn his lire. He fastened his 
 
 190 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 eyes upon me, and gave an unusually loud 
 cough, as if seeking to bring himself fully 
 to alertness. 
 
 "So it is you, the white-faced foreigner, 
 who is at the bottom of it all!" he exclaimed, 
 and then, catching sight of my camera, 
 added, "with your infernal new-fangled 
 machine, that will yet be the undoing of all 
 that is sacred in our great Hindustan!" 
 
 lie looked at me steadily, with a de- 
 tei'mined penetration, and 1 realized that he 
 sought to intimidate me by his stare. It was 
 a duel! I stared back unflinchingly. He 
 was trying to hypnotize me by his look. The 
 facjirs all deal with the occult and mystical. 
 1 set my jaws with grim determination, 
 and looked down into the depths of his eyes. 
 Neither of us stirred. The crowd became 
 silent, wondering what would come next. 
 It came from the Sadhu — I was determined 
 that it should. 
 
 "I transfer the curse to youl" he ex- 
 claimed. This brought the woman to a sit- 
 ting posture. 
 
 "And I," said I, (leli})erately and with 
 all the solemnity 1 could muster, "can bear 
 
 191 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 your curse unmoved. Its weight is like the 
 feather's on the strong wing of the eagle. 
 It gives added strength to battle with the 
 elements!" 
 
 I awaited the effect of these words and 
 soon saw a look of apprehension steal into 
 his face. I knew he was unequal to the 
 situation, and so I added, with a tone of 
 magnanimity : 
 
 "And I will show you the heart of a true 
 Sadhu, one who has given up all for the 
 sake of your own fair Hindustan. I give 
 you my blessing in return for your curse. 
 May the peace that the world can neither 
 give nor take away come into your life. 
 May the light that shines more fair and 
 bright than Indra's beams on the snow- 
 white breast of Himachal enlighten your 
 dark path. May the power that comes from 
 the anointing of the Almighty God be upon 
 you, and turn your weakness into strength." 
 
 The man felt the melting heat of the coals 
 of fire thus heaped on his head. My words 
 had doubtless caused to leap up within him 
 an admiration for one who could return a 
 blessing for a curse — and a blessing of such 
 
 192 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 magnitude, couched in terms to him so new ! 
 He turned to the crowd and said: 
 
 "The gods themselves could not curse such 
 a one! The Sahib is a true Sadhu. The 
 Sadhu reveres the Sadhu." 
 
 He had saved his face! He replenished 
 his fires with some more fuel cakes and, 
 turning toward the river, plunged in medi- 
 tation. 
 
 The incident was closed. The crowd 
 moved on, their faith in Sadhus unshaken! 
 I took up the trail of the Persian pattern. 
 The woman had continued along the river 
 road. 
 
 "What is the tower?" I heard her asking 
 of a group of Bengali widows, on a pil- 
 grimage to Muttra, eight hundred miles 
 from home. 
 
 "That," repHed one of the widows, as she 
 turned wistful eyes on the tower of brown 
 sandstone, "is the Sati tower, erected in 
 lasting remembrance of the good women of 
 bygone days who here in Muttra mounted 
 the funeral pyres of their husbands and 
 ended noble hves by glorious deaths!" 
 
 "The Sarcar [government] is kind in its 
 
 193 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 thought in passing a law against Sati," said 
 another of the widows, "but it would be 
 easier to die once for all than to know the 
 living death that is oursl" 
 
 "You speak foolishly," replied a third. 
 "You burn your hand the way I accidentally 
 did not long ago, and then let us see how 
 ready you are for the flames of the Sati!" 
 
 "I dread such pain too," said the woman 
 I was following, "but how many problems 
 it would solve for some!" 
 
 I took it she was depressed after her ex- 
 perience with the sadhu. Her clothes and 
 jewelry showed she was not a widow, but 
 I thought she felt the burden of being just 
 a woman. It is a burden prepared by 
 Hindu men and Hindu law for all Hindu 
 womankind. The time draws near when the 
 burden is to be lifted. 
 
 She moved on up the street. In an angle 
 formed by a little temple and an adjoining 
 shop lay a faqir on a bed of spikes. At the 
 foot of the wooden platform that bore the 
 iron spikes was a place for the offerings of 
 passers-by. A number of copper and a few 
 silver coins were in evidence. To these she 
 
 194 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 added two pice, and moved on without a 
 word. 
 
 "How long have you been on this bed of 
 spikes?" I asked the faqir, a man with a 
 white beard, between fifty and sixty years 
 old. He deigned no reply. 
 
 "The holy one is meditating. Sahib," said 
 his young disciple, barely twenty years of 
 age, covered with ashes, seated beside his 
 guru (master). "I have heard him tell 
 others," he continued, "that he has spent 
 thirty years thus." 
 
 No one thought it strange. Beds of spikes 
 
 195 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 are as common in India as beds of roses in 
 America ! 
 
 I would have continued the conversation, 
 but my Persian pattern was almost out of 
 sight in the crowd ahead. 
 
 The afternoon had now drawn to a close 
 — the hour of evening worship had come. 
 The temple courts were thronged, the 
 temple bells were ringing. The pilgrims 
 filled the streets, the little shops were busy 
 selling doles of rice, oil, ghee, powdered 
 paint, flowers, and the many small neces- 
 sities of the devotees who seemed eager to 
 carry out to the letter the instructions of 
 the priests. 
 
 The woman seemed tired, and seated her- 
 self on the stone steps that lead down to the 
 river from this street along the bank of the 
 stream. It gave me another opportunity 
 to watch the crowd of worshipers. 
 
 Quite close to us I noticed a group of 
 five — ignorant, village folk — going through 
 the absurd minutia of the formula of 
 prayers for the souls of their deceased loved 
 ones. With what a simj)le and eager faith 
 they followed the strange directions of the 
 
 196 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 priest! They thought of the benefit to the 
 spirits of the departed, he only of the fees! 
 How cold and callous he had become! 
 
 Many pilgrims who had come too late in 
 the day to bathe earlier in the sacred stream 
 were now going through the forms of cere- 
 monial purification. There is a woman tak- 
 ing the three sacred dips in one breath. 
 Yonder is a man pouring out water as a 
 libation to the gods. Here is a group, waist 
 deep in the water, muttering prayers under 
 the guidance of a priest. 
 
 Men selling garlands of marigolds and 
 jasmine are going to and fro among the 
 bathers and worshipers offering their fra- 
 grant wares for sale. The gods always love 
 flowers! Look at yonder stone image of 
 the elephant-headed Ganesh, loaded with 
 wreaths of the yellow gendas and white 
 chamhelis. See, the attendant at the shrine 
 is putting another flowery necklace over the 
 willing head of the god of wisdom. He is 
 doing it for the youth who stands close by 
 with the palms of his hands joined in sup- 
 plication. He is doubtless a student in some 
 school. The time of the annual examina- 
 
 197 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 tion is drawing nigh, and he is anxious to 
 have the support of the god of wisdom in 
 his uncertain scholastic effort. Yes, the 
 priest will go through some special prayers, 
 if the proper offerings are made! 'Tis 
 wondrous indeed how offerings to the gods 
 fit in with the needs of those who minister 
 at their shrines! 
 
 The fat and jolly halwai (confectioner) 
 who passes is devoted to Lakhshmi, the god- 
 dess of wealth. Why dote on the god of wis- 
 dom when the gods have akeady bestowed 
 on you sense enough to acquire bags full 
 of rupees, and wisdom enough to enjoy the 
 fine flour, ghee and sweets that the skill of 
 the gods themselves have enabled you to 
 combine in such delicious fashion! 'Tis all 
 the same, whether one follows the solemn 
 Ganesh, the blood-thirsty Kali, or the hand- 
 some Sri Krishna, who in the most pleasing 
 form of all took incarnation here in Muttra, 
 making the city world renowned by his 
 knavish tricks as a boy and his fondness for 
 the pretty gopis (shepherdesses) when 
 grown up. True, the priests, the modern 
 devotees of Krishna in his own native city, 
 
 198 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 did not have the gopis, but was there any 
 lack of "daughters of the gods" in the temple 
 cloisters! Halwai and priest met and 
 passed: each understood the other. 
 
 The woman was interested in watching 
 the turtles. They swarm in the river, espe- 
 
 cially along this bank with its temples and 
 worshipers. The turtle is sacred too, and 
 the pilgrims feed them. It is one of the 
 best known direct methods of feeding the 
 gods! After a while the woman got up, 
 walked across the street to a little tempo- 
 rary shop, tucked in between two shrines, 
 and bought a few coppers' worth of popped 
 
 199 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 rice — the same thing that forms one of our 
 *'new" breakfast foods in America, eaten 
 in India by men, monkeys, and turtles be- 
 fore America was on the map of the world. 
 She returned to the river and flung hand- 
 fuls of the white flakes into the water along 
 the steps. In an instant they were snapped 
 down by the waiting turtles. I thought of 
 "Cast thy bread upon the waters," but I 
 knew there could be no "finding" of this 
 bread again! 
 
 She mounted the steps and proceeded up 
 the river road. Where an alley entered it 
 on the left from the city, a faqir had found 
 room enough to spread out a bit of blanket, 
 on one end of which stood a carved wooden 
 image of Krishna. His body was painted 
 the rich blue to which the god is partial, 
 and he was shown playing the flute, in his 
 usual attitude, standing on one foot. The 
 man in charge of the idol held aloft with 
 his left hand a big gong which he pounded 
 vigorously with a mallet in his right hand. 
 Meantime, he eloquently invited the noble- 
 minded passers-by to deposit their offerings 
 to Sri Krishna on the other end of the 
 
 200 
 
\. ■ ~ 
 
 "We had reached the great temple that . . . opens 
 out ... on to the river" 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 blanket. His efforts had not been in vain, 
 for there was a sprinkhng of coins on the 
 spot of advantage. To this store the woman 
 added a few coppers. She seemed to leave 
 nothing undone that a pious Hindu woman 
 could do. In everything she had done thus 
 far I had noted an earnestness and sincerity 
 that compelled my admiration. 
 
 By this time we had reached the great 
 temple that fronts the main street of the 
 city on one side, and on the other opens 
 out with a spacious paved court on to the 
 river. Here every evening at dusk is cele- 
 brated the now rare service of the Arthi^ the 
 fire-worship. I had seen it once before, and 
 wondered if the woman would stay for it. 
 
 The sun was down now, and the short 
 Indian twilight would soon pass into dark- 
 ness. Preparations for the Arthi were under 
 way, but there was time for the beautiful 
 ceremony of sending httle lighted floats 
 down the river. 
 
 The woman went to a man seated in a 
 sort of balcony to one side of the court of 
 the temple, and from him she purchased 
 three things. One was a queer httle raft, 
 
 201 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 about nine by six inches, made of pieces of 
 coarse, stiff straw. This cost one pice (half 
 a cent). Then she purchased three saucer- 
 like clay dishes for another pice, and for two 
 pice got enough crude mustard oil to fill the 
 dishes. A cotton dip for each dish came 
 free with the oil. With these things in her 
 hands she asked for the services of one of 
 the priests, and together they went down 
 the steps to the river's edge. The dishes 
 were put on the little raft, and the wicks 
 were hghted from the sacred fire within the 
 temple. Mystic words of incantation were 
 murmured, and then the frail craft was 
 launched and gently pushed out into the 
 current. It was bearing some message to 
 the unseen world, and however indifferent 
 the priest or the general company of on- 
 lookers, there was one that watched with 
 emotion as the tiny raft made its precarious 
 way down the stream. The woman stood, 
 peering into the dusk, her whole thought on 
 the life of her tiny raft. 
 
 Many other worshipers were setting 
 adrift similar little lights, and the river 
 afforded a beautiful sight. Altogether, I 
 
 202 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 thought I had never watched any scene of 
 Hindu worship that struck me as being so 
 quaint and attractive. Far down the stream 
 the flickering hghts could be seen. A barge 
 that was being forced up the river by means 
 of long poles pushed against the bottom of 
 the stream, made straight for a squadron of 
 the little rafts among which was the one 
 that the woman was watching. The boat 
 bumped into some of the rafts and sank 
 them. Hers escaped, and she gave an 
 exclamation of relief. She was like a child 
 in her solicitude for it. But she was to be 
 disappointed, for the wavelets started by 
 the barge struck the little messenger of light, 
 and the next instant its tiny flame disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The incident was a most ordinary one — 
 but not for her. This was her first visit to 
 Muttra, evidently, and she took everything 
 very seriously. Also she was young and 
 inexperienced. The sinking of her "light 
 ship" troubled her, and again she spoke 
 aloud to herself: "I wonder — is it a bad 
 omen?" 
 
 The crowd was beginning to surge in for 
 
 203 
 
IxNDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 the Arthi worship. The woman, to escape 
 the throng, had seated herself at the end of 
 an outer balcony of the temple court that 
 extended on each side toward the river. I 
 had had previous experience of the jostling 
 of the multitude at the hour of the Arthi, 
 and so I hailed a bargeman who was loiter- 
 ing near with the hope of being hired to 
 take a load of passengers up or down 
 stream, or possibly across to the villages on 
 the other bank. I was not intending to 
 leave yet — the barge would give me the 
 best opportunity of seeing the Arthi. 
 
 My interest in the woman had greatly in- 
 creased because of what I had seen her go 
 through during the afternoon. I wondered 
 now if she would share in the fire worship. 
 
 The scene before me was this: A large 
 temple in the background, with extensions 
 to the right and left, forming a kind of 
 courtyard on the river front. The inclosed 
 space was paved with stones, the outer edge 
 descending with a flight of steps to the 
 river's edge. In the middle of the court, but 
 on the side nearest the water, was a stone 
 table of the ordinary height, about four by 
 
 204 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 six feet. From the corners of this, but al- 
 lowing some space between, rose six carved 
 stone pillars, on whose tops rested heavy 
 stone beams. From these were suspended 
 several bells of various size. 
 
 When the time of the celebration of the 
 Arthi had arrived, three priests appeared 
 from the temple and began ringing the 
 bells. The ringing was continuous, unlike 
 any temple bells I had heard during the 
 day. The sounds jarred, and there was an 
 insistency about the ringing that was likely 
 to get on one's nerves. With the continual 
 appeal of the bells, the crowd surged in. 
 The river road, along which we had come, 
 emptied directly into the temple courtyard. 
 
 I bade the bargeman push up close to the 
 stone steps so that I might get a better view. 
 The people on the steps were coming and 
 going, some late comers even now perform- 
 ing their little religious ceremonies. But 
 it was not all religion with those at the 
 water's edge. Some washed their feet, some 
 rinsed out travel- stained garments, some 
 "brushed" their teeth, using their fingers 
 and Hberal quantities of powdered charcoal. 
 
 205 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 Some filled their lotas with the sacred water, 
 and others drank it. In the midst of it 
 all the slimy turtles kept moving around, 
 snapping at bits of food floating on the 
 surface. It was a strange sight! Where, 
 but in India, could one find its like? 
 
 Meantime the temple bells kept up their 
 clangor. The waiting multitudes crowded 
 the courts and filled the balconies. Then 
 the bells ceased, and through the crowd 
 came a priest, bearing aloft a flaming 
 metalhc candlestick, with several circular 
 platforms, one rising above another. On 
 the outer edge of each of these were several 
 little receptacles for oil, in which were burn- 
 ing cotton wicks. He came to the stone 
 table, which he mounted and, facing the 
 river, went through a series of fantastic 
 wavings. It was a weird scene — the deep- 
 ening shadows upon the temple in the back- 
 ground, the strange, expectant figures that 
 waited behind the priest, the dark current 
 of the river lapping the sides of my barge. 
 
 When the ceremony of waving and incan- 
 tations was over, the priest placed the flam- 
 ing candlestick on the table, while he and 
 
 206 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 two other priests took their stand beside 
 the table. 
 
 "Come forward now, and get the touch 
 of the sacred fire," exclaimed one of the 
 priests, "but bring your offerings with you," 
 he added, "and place them on the table." 
 
 The crowd surged forward. Their en- 
 thusiasm was refreshing, and I gave myself 
 up to a study of the scene. Each one, on 
 approaching the table, dropped some offer- 
 ing of money at the base of the candlestick, 
 and then passed a hand rapidly through the 
 flames. The devotee then touched his fore- 
 head with his hand. This was done three 
 times by each one — unless the crowd pushed 
 the worshiper past the fire before all three 
 touches could be secured. In that case one 
 touch would suffice. This became increas- 
 ingly the case as the multitude behind be- 
 came the more eager to reach the fire. 
 
 I noticed the faces of the people. There 
 were pilgrims, men and women, who had 
 journeyed far on foot to spend a few days 
 among the far-famed shrines and temples 
 of Muttra. Here came a group of hard- 
 headed farmers, men for whom this was one 
 
 207 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 of the crowning experiences of life, for 
 which they had planned and saved for many- 
 years. There were many widows among 
 the crowd, poor, broken creatures, with their 
 coarse garments and short-chpped hair. 
 What tales of misery, cruelty, and degrada- 
 tion could those uncomplaining lips tell if 
 they would speak! 
 
 I looked at the priests. The face of one, 
 the leader, was keen and strong, but hard, 
 unrelenting. Another looked cunning, but 
 weakly sensual. The third showed pure 
 animal. 
 
 The crowd did not move along fast 
 enough to suit the chief of the priests: the 
 flames of the Arthi would die down before 
 all the devotees had had an opportunity to 
 reach the table! The offerings would be 
 reduced. A company of slow village folk 
 who took an unduly long time in getting 
 the touch of the sacred fire, yet deposited 
 but little money — all copper — tried his 
 patience beyond endurance. Repeatedly 
 had he and his fellow priests urged the 
 crowds to increase their offerings and ac- 
 celerate their steps. It would require more 
 
 208 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 than exhortations! I saw him reach down 
 under the table and take a long piece of 
 cloth, probably a turban not then in use. 
 This he tied at one end into several large 
 knots, and began to use it in savage style, 
 laying it across the backs and shoulders of 
 those who happened to offend him. 
 
 "Move on, you wretch!" he shouted at a 
 young villager who, apparently overpow- 
 ered by his emotions as he took the touch 
 of the sacred fire upon him, forgot to heed 
 the injunctions for speed. The knotted 
 pugri descending on his shoulders brought 
 him quickly to a realization that his feet 
 were still upon the earth! Strangely 
 enough, he did not realize that the priests 
 looked on the people almost as so many 
 cattle ! 
 
 It was at this time that my eyes wandered 
 over the crowd, and I caught sight of the 
 woman in the Persian pattern. She was 
 back on the outer edge of the throng, mak- 
 ing her way down toward the table. She 
 came slowly, but as eager to reach the fire 
 as any. When she came nearer I noticed a 
 woman next to her who was carrying a baby. 
 
 209 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 The mother was quite short in stature, and 
 apparently frail. The two were talking to- 
 gether. As they finally neared the table, I 
 saw the mother hand the child to the other 
 woman. 
 
 By this time the fires were burning low, 
 and the throng pressed closer than ever to 
 get the undoubted benefit of a touch of the 
 sacred flame. There was no time now for 
 the desired three touches. The two women 
 whom I was watching were rudely jostled. 
 The mother made a dart with her hand at 
 the fire and barely reached it. The other 
 was stronger and more determined. She 
 passed her hand through the fire and touched 
 her forehead, but before she was beyond 
 reach she managed another coveted touch. 
 This time she carried her hand to the baby 
 and touched his forehead. 
 
 It was a beautiful thing. The whole scene 
 had deeply impressed me, and made me real- 
 ize anew the passionate yearning of the 
 ordinary man or woman of India for all that 
 is bound up with existence in the life be- 
 yond. What mighty things are in store 
 for India when her sons and daughters have 
 
 210 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 found the true Light, have felt the touch 
 of the real Fire from on high! 
 
 The tender thoughtfulness of the woman 
 for the Httle child had deeply touched me. 
 I admired her more than ever. On the 
 outer edge of the crowd she placed the baby 
 in its mother's arms, and the latter moved 
 on. The woman waited. The throng was 
 melting away. The flames of the Arthi 
 had died down. I stepped from the barge 
 on to the flight of steps, and followed the 
 priests up toward the temple. It was now 
 almost dark, and only a few worshipers 
 remained. 
 
 The woman addressed one of the priests. 
 
 "Maharaj," she said, "I am a woman in 
 distress and need thy help." 
 
 "In distress!" he exclaimed. *'Hast thou 
 not joined, then, in the Arthi worship?" 
 
 "Yes, but the touch of the fire does not 
 heal the sorrow of my heart. Most holy 
 one," she said, joining the palms of her 
 hands together in supplication, "I am a 
 childless wife. Is there help from the gods 
 for me?" 
 
 Then I understood her remark about the 
 
 211 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 boy's cap she had bought. Then I recalled 
 her apprehension lest there should be bad 
 luck in aiiy of the happenings of the day. 
 I remembered her readiness to do every- 
 thing she could to win the favor of the 
 devotees and their gods. She perhaps was 
 imagining she carried her own child in her 
 arms at the Arilii worship! 
 
 "Hast thou proved thy earnestness to the 
 gods?" he asked. "Hast backed up thy 
 petitions with gifts?" He was thinking of 
 the fees that might be forthcoming. 
 
 "I have taken long and weary pilgrim- 
 ages. I went once to Puri, and paid much 
 to gaze upon the lotus-face of Jagannath. 
 I visited the shrines at Adjudhiya to win 
 the favor of Ram, who showed such deep 
 love for his faithful Sita. The answer of 
 the gods has been only silence." 
 
 Another of the priests spoke up. 
 
 "Hast thou invoked the favor of our Lord 
 Krishna of Muttra?" 
 
 "I came but this day," she replied. "I 
 seek those who can help me to the favor of 
 the adored Sri Krishna." 
 
 The second man evidently thought of her 
 
 212 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 money. His glance was on the silver 
 anklets, the costly bracelets, and the silver 
 ornaments that decked her neck and ears. 
 Many such costly ornaments had found their 
 way to his hand via the gods ! 
 
 "Make sure thy case here with Lord 
 Krishna, but withhold not the silver and the 
 gold that so delight his heart. He hears 
 the better when the tinkle of coins and 
 jewehy is in his ears." 
 
 The third priest took up the conversation. 
 He it was whom I have called "all animal"! 
 
 "Thou art fair of form and face, and art 
 young besides," said he. "The gods them- 
 selves are not indifferent to such things in 
 their petitioners! Sri Krishna loved to look 
 upon the beauty of the gopis. Methinks he 
 had an eye for youthful comeliness if any 
 ever had! Thy plea is surer far, since thou 
 art favored by the gods with beauty. Take 
 courage fresh, and approach in hope the 
 sacred precincts." 
 
 He turned to the other priests. 
 
 "Say ye not, O reverend companions, that 
 now the hour has struck for the prayers of 
 all her past to be answered, here at last?" 
 
 213 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 "Ay," replied the first, who bore the still 
 warm Arthi candlestick, "she nears at length 
 the haven of her desires." 
 
 The other continued his theme. 
 
 "The ways of the gods are known best 
 to those who hve most near them. We 
 dwell within the shadows of these temples, 
 we can assure thee. Come now with us. 
 Spend but a night within the holy precincts 
 of these cloisters, and thy petition shall be 
 granted, or — the gods themselves are im- 
 potent!" 
 
 They started toward the entrance to the 
 temple inclosure. She hesitated, and then 
 followed them. I do not think she under- 
 stood the import of the words of the third 
 priest. 
 
 I understood! 
 
 I stood where I had been, in the shadow 
 of one of the balconies, as I had listened 
 to the conversation with the priests. Would 
 she enter that door, with the priests, into the 
 inner inclosure of the temple? 
 
 As they neared the entrance, I noticed the 
 forms of several women pass before a light 
 within the temple. They were young wom- 
 
 214 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 en — they were the "devadasis," the daugh- 
 ters of the gods. 
 
 The woman hesitated at the door. She 
 began to understand! An instant later she 
 turned suddenly away, and made her way 
 rapidly along the temple inclosure. She 
 entered an alley that led back into the main 
 thoroughfare, and was gone. 
 
 I turned, with a sigh of rehef, toward the 
 river. Out in the current a tiny raft of 
 straw, bearing a single light, went floating 
 down the stream. It had come thus far 
 safely on its uncertain way. 
 
 I thought of the woman. It was a good 
 omen! The abyss had not yet swallowed 
 her. But I knew she was on a treacherous 
 way — the darkness surrounded her. 
 
 • •«*•••• 
 
 Five years passed. I was back again in 
 Muttra, attending a convention at the Mis- 
 sion Training School for Christian women. 
 European, Indian, and Anglo-Indian young 
 women were receiving a practical training 
 for Christian service. 
 
 Among the candidates was a new arrival 
 — an Indian woman with a httle child. Her 
 
 215 
 
INDIA, BELOVED OF HEAVEN 
 
 story was on the lips of all. She had been 
 a pilgrim. Her husband had died and she 
 had wandered far from shrine to shrine, 
 carrying her child with her. She sought en- 
 lightenment — peace for a distracted spirit. 
 
 She came a few weeks since on a pil- 
 grimage to Muttra — had been there before. 
 In the darkness of that heathen stronghold 
 the light suddenly shone in on her. She 
 heard a man preach of a Saviour. It was 
 what she sought. She listened, and heard 
 for the first time the story of the love of 
 Jesus. Her hungry heart cried out for him. 
 She forgot Krishna, and Ram, and Jagan- 
 nath. She had found Christ! She spoke 
 to the preacher, and he brought her to the 
 missionaries at the Training School. Now 
 she was learning to read. Some day — soon, 
 she hoped — she could herself carry the mes- 
 sage, out into the darkness from which she 
 had come. 
 
 Later in the day I saw her, studying with 
 a group under the shade of a spreading nim 
 tree. Something in her face made me think 
 of the Hindu woman with the Persian pat- 
 tern, whom I had followed through the 
 
 216 
 
WITH THE GODS IN MUTTRA 
 
 crowded streets of Muttra a few years ago. 
 It was a passing fancy. It could not be 
 she — this woman was considerably older. 
 
 Just then her child — a girl of three — came 
 running toward her from behind the tree. 
 She was draped in a httle chadar with a 
 Persian pattern! Material and figures were 
 identical with the one so well remembered. 
 
 I looked at the mother, as she lifted her 
 smiling face to her winsome little daughter. 
 The love-light had taken away ten years 
 from her looks. I recognized the woman 
 with the Persian pattern! 
 
 I had left her in the darkness. I found 
 her in the hght! 
 
 217 
 
H 13 89 
 
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