A Lady of England 40

A Lady of England 40

The whole question of our duty as Christians, on this point as on all

others, hinges here,--Are we doing, or are we not doing, that which God

wills us to do? All theories respecting outlays, values, results, sink

into utter insignificance beside this question. If we are called to

go, it is not for the sake of honour, it is not for the sake even of

success, but it is simply for the doing of the Will of God. If we are

bidden to remain at home, it is still for the doing of His Will,--and

that Will includes the spreading of the Church of Christ throughout the

world. Those who stay at home can at least help those who go on this

mission.

 

In the matter of results very unreasonable expectations are often formed.

The best results do not commonly appear at once, and may not appear for a

lifetime. A farmer ploughs his land, then sows his seed, and then waits

months for the harvest. The Church too frequently scratches the hard

ground with an impatient hand, drops in a few seeds, and immediately

breaks into lamentations, because no instantaneous harvest springs forth.

 

It may take twenty years merely to plough the hard ground in some heathen

spot, and to sow the seed; and years more may pass before the first

tokens of a harvest are seen. Sometimes the fuller results are the longer

delayed. Mustard-seeds spring up a good deal faster than acorns.

 

The main work of Charlotte Tucker’s eighteen years was to be that of

ploughing. And whether few or many converts rewarded her toil is an

entirely secondary consideration. They would have been very gratifying

to her own feelings, no doubt; and that said, all is said. Results there

were; but not all kinds of results can be reckoned upon one’s fingers.

Charlotte Tucker went out in obedience to what she felt to be the Divine

call, the Divine command. So long as she was steadily endeavouring to do

the Will of God, results might very well be left in His Hand. The Word of

God does not return to Him void; but naturally its working is not always

apparent to us.

 

 

 

 

PART II

 

LIFE IN INDIA

 

 

‘O Spirit of the Lord, prepare

All the round Earth her God to meet;

Breathe Thou abroad like morning air,

Till hearts of stone begin to beat.

 

‘Baptize the Nations; far and nigh

The triumphs of the Cross record;

The Name of JESUS glorify

Till every kindred call Him Lord.’

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

A.D. 1875

 

FIRST ARRIVAL IN INDIA

 

 

In the second week of October 1875, Miss Tucker left English shores,

never to return. The voyage was uneventful, differing therein from her

trip to Canada. On its very next voyage the good ship _Strathclyde_,

which carried her to the East, went down within sight of Dover. But no

threatenings of such a catastrophe disturbed A. L. O. E. on her way out.

 

A fellow-passenger on board the _Strathclyde_ wrote long afterwards:--

 

‘My first introduction to A. L. O. E. was when I was lying in

all the helplessness of the first days of my first voyage,

quite unable to stir from the deck. I became conscious of

a grey-haired lady stooping over me, offering some _eau de

cologne_, and with a winning smile asking if she could do

anything for me. She was a good sailor, and in those miserable

days moved about amongst the sea-sick passengers like an

angel of mercy. Even then dear Miss Tucker looked very frail

and delicate; and one could scarcely have expected that she

would be spared for eighteen years to work in all the heat and

discomfort of India. One thing remarkable about her on that

voyage was the influence she had over the men on board,--some

of them quite indifferent, if not hostile, to religion. No one

could withstand her genial, loving ways; and it was a sight to

be remembered, to see her gathering the young fellows round the

piano, while she led off in some old English ditty.’

 

Her own letters to Mrs. Hamilton, while on board, are cheery as usual,

and speak no word of pain or longing for all that she had left behind;

indeed the very first ends merrily: ‘Please give my kindest love to your

dearest girl, and tell her that I have already hung up her famous bag. I

hope that no ayah will _bag_ it! I could not resist the pun, bad as it

is.’

 

There were five ayahs on board, and she soon struck up an acquaintance

with one of them,--a Christian ayah,--reading aloud her Hindustani Bible,

and delighted to find that the ayah could understand what was read. ‘I am

bribing one to teach me,’ she wrote. ‘The ayahs ought to be glad to help;

for they, at least two or three of them, seem to regard me as a kind of

supplementary nurse, and if they want to go to work make over the baby to

me.’ In the same letter she states: ‘We have a strong Missionary force

on board; two Scotchmen, the wife of one of them, and six Missionary

ladies. We have not quarrelled at all; but then, most of us have been

sea-sick!’--again a little glimmer of fun. ‘We lady Missionaries get on

very well together,’ she says in another letter. ‘Very gentle and modest

are the Misses A., “your pretty girls,” as Lady I. called them to-day.’

 

As to amusements on board, she wrote:--

 

‘Lady I. has started a game which dear Leila and Fred may add

to their store at Christmas. She wrote something, missing out

all adjectives. A gentleman went round and collected adjectives

haphazard from the passengers, inserting them in the places

left blank. The piece was then read out. It was a description

of the voyage and many of the passengers. Of course nobody

could be offended, because the adjectives came haphazard. But

how your young folk would have laughed when, amongst other

personages described, came--“Miss Tucker, of a _grandiloquent_

disposition, with other _bouncing_ Missionary ladies.”’

 

About a fortnight later she wrote:--

 

‘A contrast to ---- is Mr. S., the competition-wallah,

probably the most highly educated man in the ship. I look

upon him as the Squire of the Mission ladies. In his most

quiet, proper fashion, he is ever ready to do our behests;

and he never seems to tire of hymn-singing.... He has evidently

plenty of moral courage. The very funniest thing was that Mr.

S. was actually present at the solemn conclave held by us six

M. L.[24] to decide whether we could conscientiously attend

a second theatrical amateur performance, _Mr. S. having been

the principal actor_ in the first one, which we did attend. It

was as if Garrick had been present at a Clapham conference on

the subject of whether it were right to go to see him act!!!

Mr. S. was very amiable and good: he had taken a great deal of

trouble to amuse the passengers, and _his_ part was perfectly

unexceptionable; but if we all absent ourselves next time I do

not think that he will take any offence. I proposed that we

should all sleep over the matter, one of my reasons being that

I could not but feel Mr. S.’s presence a _little_ embarrassing.

On the following day we met without him, and decided that the

question is to be an open one; each M. L. is to judge according

to her own conscience. I believe that we shall divide; but this

is not, we have agreed, to disturb the harmony between the M.

L.’

 

After a few days spent in ‘bright, beautiful Bombay’--these are her own

words--she proceeded by rail with one companion to Allahabad. A pause at

Jabalpur had been planned, but this fell through; and they accomplished

the whole long journey of 845 miles without a break. Wisely, her friends

had insisted on first-class, and she was none the worse for the fatigue.

On the very morning of her arrival at Allahabad she could say: ‘I had a

nice warm bath, and then a good breakfast, and I feel almost as fresh as

if I had not travelled 845 miles at a stretch, but merely taken a little

drive. Think how strong I must be!’

 

Later in the same letter, a long and cheery one, bearing no signs of

fatigue, she speaks of Mr. George Bowen, an American Missionary, who had

‘laboured without intermission for twenty-eight years’ in the East, and

who was known among Natives as ‘the English Faqir,’ on account of his

wandering and self-denying life.

 

‘He will take no salary,’ she wrote, ‘but has earned his own

living, I hear, by teaching, supporting himself on the merest

trifle. I esteem it a great honour that I sat beside him at

breakfast at the Zenana Mission House last Thursday. Mr. Bowen

looks quite skin and bone, wondrously thin, but not in the

least unhealthy, but as if there were plenty of work in him

still. He told me that he does not “believe in age.” He seems

to feel as fresh as he did twenty-eight years ago; and yet at

the beginning of his career he was so fearfully ill that his

life was given up, and he wrote his farewell to his mother.

As India has agreed so splendidly with Mr. Bowen, I asked

him--as I generally do those who thrive in the climate--whether

he drank only water. “Tea,” he replied, smiling. He gave his

opinion that to take stimulant here is “the way to have to

leave the country.” Almost all the Missionaries whom I have