‘Oh, I must tell you what a boon your Beaconsfield handkerchief is! It gave much amusement at Batala, both to Europeans and Natives; it is giving much here at Amritsar. I am engaged to dine with the Clarks this evening; so I dare say that the good Bishop, Archdeacon, and all will have a laugh over my puzzle. On Monday I am to go to Lahore, and sleep a night at Government House. I mean to take my handkerchief with me....
‘Batala will present rather a contrast to bustling Amritsar and Lahore. When I return, there will probably be no European but myself there for days, as Mera Bhatija must be absent at the Conference till the 6th.’
So ended the third year of Miss Tucker’s life in India. She had now thoroughly settled down to her own especial work in Batala.
CHAPTER VIII
A.D. 1878-1879
EARLY CHRISTIAN DAYS IN THE 19TH CENTURY
It is clear that Charlotte Tucker was profoundly impressed with the sense of living, as she said, in the First Century, instead of the Nineteenth. In another letter, soon to be quoted, she describes her Batala experience as ‘being carried back to the days of the Apostles.’
For in Batala the complex conditions of modern life, the intricacies of Nineteenth Century Christianity, were absent. Here in England it is more or less the correct thing to be in some measure religious, to be at least nominally a Christian. People are on the whole expected to go to Church,—or, if Dissenters, just as much to go to Chapel,—and though the going to Church, as a matter of course, does not at all indicate the lack of deeper reasons, of purer motives underlying, it does make the going a very easy matter. So, also, a mother takes her little one to Church for Baptism, again almost as a matter of course; often indeed with heartfelt prayer and longing, but with no question of danger involved in the act. It is a perfectly simple thing to do. More attention would in fact be drawn by not doing it than by doing it.
At Batala, as in thousands of other Heathen and Muhammadan cities, things are widely different. Sharp lines of demarcation are drawn between the Christian and the non-Christian,—between the Church and the heathen world around. It was so most markedly when Charlotte Tucker lived in Batala. There, as in Early Christian days, was the great mass of those who neither knew nor cared for the Names of God and Christ; and in their midst was the Infant Church, a tiny body of brave men and women, who had come out from amongst the Heathen and Muhammadans, to be known as the servants of Christ.[88]
And the step which led from the one to the other stood clear and defined, with no possibility of a mistake. The marching-orders which our Lord and Master issued were not only to go forth and teach. Here is the fuller version: ‘Go ye therefore, and teach’ (Rev. Ver. ‘make disciples of’) ‘all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.’