by F. E. Penny
CHAPTER XII
After dinner that same evening Alderbury sat in the verandah with Eolaand her brother. The end of the verandah was enclosed with a trellisover which creepers were trained. From the roof hung a lantern thatshed a subdued light. If Eola desired to work or her brother to read,a lamp was brought and placed upon a table. This evening the lamp wasnot required.
While the servants waited at table, Alderbury could not speak of thesubject uppermost in his mind. No sooner had the coffee been handedround and the cigars lighted, than Ananda's name was brought up, and hedescribed his visit to the convert.
The chief thing accomplished was the moral support he had been able togive to the convert. He devoutly hoped that it would sustain Anandauntil something could be effected to improve his condition. All thathad happened since his return home was quite sufficient in itself toinduce depression; and there was always a danger lest depression shouldbe followed by apostacy.
"I want your help, Wenaston," said Alderbury suddenly.
"You shall have it," the other responded without hesitation.
"You promise without knowing what it is."
"You want to borrow the motor-car. It shall be ready at sunriseto-morrow. I can't drive you myself, much as I should like it. Ihaven't time. The chauffeur will take you where you want to go."
"I shall be very grateful. The car transforms travelling frompurgatory to pure delight. It was not the car, however, that was in mymind. I want something else--help for Ananda. His money won't holdout a week longer, and then it will be in the power of his people tostarve him."
"He will have to take food from his pariah servant--a practicalbeginning of his education in the brotherhood of man," remarkedWenaston.
"Lately no food of any description has been sent to his room. Unless Iam very much mistaken the supply will stop altogether."
"And his father will give him no money?"
"I am sure of that."
"What are Ananda's rights as a son? Can't he claim assistance andsupport from his nearest relatives by his caste laws?"
"If he were still a member of the Hindu religion he could claimhouse-room, food and clothing from his father. These benefits areconceded by the unwritten law of caste custom. Having abandoned hisfaith and become an outcaste, he loses all his rights legal and social."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite certain. I called on the chief lawyer in the town on my wayback to find out what his position really was--the reason I was latefor tea, Miss Wenaston--and from him I learned the law regardingconverts to Christianity as it stands in the native State."
"Is it different from the law in British India?"
"Entirely; the 'vert has no legal standing at all, no civil rightswhatever. He is an outcaste in every sense; in other words an outlaw.Neither by inheritance, nor by deed of gift, nor by a duly executedwill can he inherit his father's property. He has no power to compelhis wife to live with him. She may contract any other alliance shechooses as if he had never existed; and he has absolutely no controlover his children. What is more they are empowered to divide hispatrimony among themselves exactly as if he were dead."
"How unjust!" exclaimed Eola in indignation.
"It is nothing less than iniquitous," responded Alderbury, with somewarmth. "But there it stands. We cannot alter it and Ananda must faceit."
"He should get away from his home and his people; he is at too great adisadvantage where he is," remarked Dr. Wenaston.
"Exactly so; and we must help him," said Alderbury.
"If it means a sum of money, of course I am ready----"
"I don't want your money, Wenaston," protested Alderbury, speakingrapidly as was his wont when excited. "I want your help in anotherway. Ananda is very unwilling to leave his home to which he has onlyjust returned. He is devoted to his parents and cannot at presentbring himself to believe that they are lending themselves to thissystem of persecution. He attributes it to his uncle. Until he hasproof that his father's hand is actually turned against him, he wishesto continue living under his roof. He would like to obtain work ofsome sort in Chirapore that would enable him to keep house with hiswife and child separately. Can you find anything for him to do in yourschool? He is quite capable of teaching English, mathematics, history,geography or anything of that sort to boys."
Wenaston was silent and unresponsive to the appeal.
"I suppose you haven't a vacancy and don't see your way to making oneon the staff," said Alderbury in a disappointed tone.
"As it happens there is a vacancy, but----"
"Why this hesitation, then? It would be a clear way out of ourimmediate difficulty if you would give him a trial. I feel sure he canteach. You know him personally and need no testimonial as to hischaracter."
"I wasn't hesitating over his character or his qualifications as ateacher. I was wondering how much sympathy was extended in the town tothe family, and whether feeling runs strong on the subject of hisconversion."
"It will not affect his status in the college. Of course heunderstands that religious discussion is prohibited. You may dependupon him for not proselytising; he will not even introduce the subject;and I am sure that he will be ready to fall in with your wishes inevery way. Poor fellow! I know he will be very grateful."
The pleading on the part of Alderbury roused Eola's sympathy, and sheadded her entreaty to his.
"You must lend him a helping hand!"
"It is against my better judgment," replied her brother, giving inreluctantly.
"If it doesn't answer you can put an end to the arrangement at once; aday's notice, if you like, will be sufficient. Take him on for a week,and let me hear at the end of it whether the plan is workingsuccessfully or not. It will be a great relief to my mind to know thathe has employment of some kind, not only as a means of living but alsoas occupation. Later on I will try to persuade him to leave Chiraporeand get work elsewhere. With a testimonial from you he should have nodifficulty in finding a situation as schoolmaster in one of ourmissions. If he will only sever his connection with his family andplace himself beyond their influence I see a grand future before him inthe mission field. We so rarely win over a man of good caste. Atpresent he clings with all the force of a great love to his family andto his wife and child. Patience! patience! I am a most impatient man,Miss Wenaston," he concluded, turning to her with a boyish laugh thatechoed through the verandah.
Having discussed the details of Ananda's immediate employment,Alderbury dropped into a thoughtful silence. From a few words spokencasually by the Doctor he was not satisfied that Wenaston appreciatedand valued Ananda's conversion as much as he should. Eola's remarkearlier in the day also hung in his mind; yet he did not want to preachor to talk shop, as he sometimes called it. His difficulty of findingan opening was solved by a question put by Eola herself in the pausethat ensued.
"You said this afternoon that I knew nothing about Hinduism. Don't youthink you might enlighten me a little? I am open to conviction, andquite ready to believe that the Hindus will be the better for theChristianity you are giving them. Of course idolatry is only fit forsavages, and the people of India ought to adopt something better asthey are not savages."
"You mustn't think that the Hindus are a nation of idolaters. Theignorant masses worship idols and probably believe that the imagesthemselves have some mysterious power of divinity in them; but theeducated Hindu will tell you that the idol is symbolical; that theylook beyond and through the image to the Deity. Their conception ofthe Deity is different from ours. He is impersonal and He is thecreator of good and evil."
"A bold theory of the infinitude of the Deity on one hand and theexistence of evil on the other," said Wenaston, who was listening,although Alderbury addressed his remarks to Eola.
"The Hindu believes that the world exists for a retributive purpose sothat spirits may find embodiment, and suffer pain and joy according totheir deserts. Through their sufferings in cycles of rebirths theyprogre
ss towards their final state of impersonal beatitude. Theretributive world with its process is eternal and lasts through allages. If the world dies, it dies to be born again.
"A wonderful conception but deadening in its effects, whether onecontemplates rebirth in this world or absorption into Brahma,"commented Wenaston. "The marvel to me is that Hinduism has held itsown so long."
"Its preservation is due to its wonderful system, its width andbreadth. It preaches on one hand an asceticism which is acceptable tothe most exacting fanatic. On the other it gives a licence, in thename of religion and the worship of Kali, that appeals irresistibly tothe lowest and most sensual side of man. Hitherto its isolation andits marvellous power of absorbing other religious systems have been atower of strength; but it cannot be saved much longer from the inrushof the modern spirit and stands in danger of being broken down."
"By what?" asked Eola.
"By the response to modern thought and by the awakening of Hindus likeAnanda to a yearning after something better. Under the influence ofthe new spirit of inquiry they are demanding more freedom, morespirituality in their doctrines. They revolt as Ananda has revoltedagainst the hopeless theory of transmigration, and they requiresomething more satisfying in its place."
"The Hindus are a religious people, with strong cravings that must besatisfied. This is shown clearly by the absence of any desire on thepart of my boys to shirk their religious duties," said Wenaston.
"By and bye those boys won't be content with the performance ofsuperstitious pujah with a pantheistic leaning. They will require oneGod for India, not a million gods; they will demand an uplifting ofsuffering humanity, and they will rebel against a horrible creed offatalism and predestination."
"What have you to offer to a man like Ananda?"
"Our own faith."
"Can he comprehend it with its spiritual teaching?"
"Ask him some day and he will tell you that in the teaching of Christand in the following of Christ's example he has found a soul-satisfyingsubstitute for his worn-out creed and childish rituals."
"Alderbury, you are an incorrigible iconoclast. With one blow youwould annihilate the longest-lived religion of the world!"
He was on his feet in a moment, as was his way when excited, and hisvoice rang out into the night.
"You obsolete old professor! you bag of dry bones!" he cried, as hestrode up and down the verandah. "The ancient Greeks and Romans killedtheir conquered enemies, I know; but modern conquerors pursue adifferent plan. They preserve; at the same time they subdue and bendthe conquered to their will, making use of the good and pruning awaythe bad. We shall treat Hinduism in the modern manner; remodelling itsrites and its institutions. Even that bugbear to all mission work,caste, shall be reformed. Hinduism will be transfigured in God's goodtime by the spirituality of Christ. It will merge into a fuller,richer Christianity than we of the less imaginative West have evercontemplated."
Eola felt the blood coursing through her veins with an emotion that wasstartling. Alderbury's enthusiasm, his magnificent faith, his absoluteoptimism and trust in the future roused her admiration, almost herenvy. She felt the infection of his hope and belief; but because shewas a woman, there was something behind it that detached her mind fromthe cause for which he battled, and centred her thoughts upon the manhimself. While she listened, carried away by his words, she wasconscious of his splendid personality, his strength, his confidence,his purity of heart. He was a born leader of men with a strongpersonal influence that was not to be denied; and the messengeroccupied her mind more than the message he carried. Alderbury wasunlike any one else of her acquaintance; and each time they met shebecame conscious of a growing attraction that she was unwilling toacknowledge even to herself.
When the hour for retirement came, Wenaston said good-night to hisguest and departed to his sitting-room to read. Eola stood for a fewminutes after she had shaken hands. Alderbury waited, his quickenedperception where human beings were concerned telling him that she hadsomething to say which was for his ear only.
"I am sorry I spoke as I did about Ananda and his religion. I amafraid I gave you the impression that I thought one religion as good asanother."
"It certainly crossed my mind that such was your attitude," he repliedgravely.
"I ought not to have said that it was a pity that he had changed. I amsorry."
She was sweet in her penitence, and Alderbury was constrained to take afirm grip of himself.
"People have a habit of making loose statements of that kind, and ofexpressing a vague regret that we interfere with the Hindu creed. Theydon't realise what they are practically admitting.".
"It is so! I have often heard English men and women say that theywould rather have a good heathen servant for instance, than anindifferent Christian."
"The standard of one is entirely different from the standard of theother. A 'good heathen's' religion makes the practice of certain sinsa religious act. Among the 'indifferent Christians' there are a greatmany who have no religion at all; but they claim to be of the faith ofthose they serve, thinking that they will be more favoured."
"I mustn't get into the habit of making loose statements."
"Nor of believing everything a native tells you. I am sure Mrs. Hulveris careful how she receives what they say of themselves. I should liketo hear her on the subject, and also on their habits, good and bad.She would be sure to quote one of the Williams."
"I know what they would have said!" cried Eola, the cloud dispersed,and on good terms with herself again. "William the first would haveheld that habits had their advantages and might be acquired withdiscretion. William the second's views would have been more rigid.Habits were good and bad; the good were to be adopted at all costs andthe bad avoided. William the third would have been of the opinion thathabits, good and bad, were unavoidable in poor weak human natures andmust be accepted with the man."
Alderbury's laugh rang out; and Mrs. Hulver, dropping off to sleep onher cot under the mosquito curtains, heard it. She stirred in sleepyprotest. Missionaries had no right to joke and laugh like that with"society ladies." How could they expect to convert the heathen if theyindulged in such levity? As William used to say----; but here she fellasleep and happily forgot Miss Wenaston and the missionary, togetherwith the words of wisdom that fell from the lips of her trinity ofWilliams.