‘Many thanks, love, for the two copies of the nice work on Prophecies in the Old Testament. It ought to convince any candid mind.... It might be valuable to English-reading Muhammadans. But it is not at all necessary with them to avoid the Blessed Saviour’s Name. Yesterday, in a Zenana a bright-looking young woman exclaimed, not particularly apropos to anything that I was saying: “Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” “Beshakh!” (Without doubt!) instantly rejoined an older Bibi.
‘Not that the offence of the Cross has ceased. The persecution which dear —— is enduring shows this. He has been beaten five or six times; and I think that we shall have to try to get his enemies bound over to keep the peace. Personally, I am courteously, sometimes affectionately, treated. The poor converts are those who have to endure hardness!’
‘April 27.—I know that some of my dear ones think that I must be very lonesome, with no white woman near me. But there are three things to prevent this:—1st, The Presence of the Master. 2nd, The feeling that separation of body is nothing compared to separation of soul. My ties to loved ones in England are not, thank God, broken! They do not depend on mere space. 3rd, Real loneliness, as regards even this world, is the want of love and sympathy. Some count my brown friends for nothing in this way. I do not do so. They draw out one’s affections, and respond to them. The heart does not shrivel up in India, even when one lives in such an out-of-the-way place as Batala.’
TO MISS ‘LEILA’ HAMILTON.
‘May 1, 1879.
I am sure that your dear Mother and you would peruse with interest Keshab Sen’s lecture, or rather the review of it in the Statesman which I sent home.... Keshab Sen was a brave man, not only as regards the Hindus, but the English officials, to say what he did. To aver that it is Christ’s Religion—not our superior strength, wisdom, intelligence—that holds India for us, is likely to give great offence in high quarters. To say what this Hindu did of despised Missionaries, a band of weak-minded amiable enthusiasts, if not something more contemptible,—as the world thinks them,—showed moral courage.... He has probably made a good many people, both white and brown, angry. His cry, “Jesus alone!—Jesus alone! India for Christ!” would find no echo in the large majority of hearts....
‘I suspect that there is an impression amongst some Europeans, as well as Natives, that Auntie is very old. I have three times heard the latter say that I am a hundred; and I notice that in the last Female Evangelist I am pronounced “advanced in years.” To my mind that means at least seventy!!! I was guessed to-day as eighty in a Zenana. But I must be thought a pretty active old dame, to get up such steep stairs as I do.’
TO MRS. HAMILTON.
‘June 2, 1879.—Of course I cannot tell what God wills for me. I do not intend to do anything foolish. I do not even let my mind dwell much on the joy of going to a Heavenly Home, because it would seem selfish at present to wish to desert others. I realise more the value of life below than I used to do, and am thankful that at former periods God did not fulfil my wish to leave this Earth for a better. He is a poor soldier who is always pining for the end of the campaign!’
‘June 14.—I never felt so that the Word of God in my hand was rejected, as in a Zenana to-day. When I came out, V., my kahar, said, “You should not go to that house again. I was outside, but I heard words that grieved me.” But I had two nice Zenanas and a nice Native Christian home to balance. One of the nice Zenanas was N.’s. He spoke almost like a Christian, before his mother, grandmother, and handsome young bride. They all seemed quite friendly.’