She had left us in perfect health, but pneumonia set in upon her return to the colder air of the hills. She had been only a few days ill, and died very suddenly—died without anyone near her to comfort her with soothing words about the One to whom she was going. Even in the gladness that she was safe now, there was the pitiful thought of her loneliness through the dark valley; and we seemed to see the little wistful face, and felt she would be so frightened and shy and bewildered; and we longed to know something about those last hours. But one of the heathen women who had been about her at the last told what she knew, and our friends wrote what they heard. "She said she was Jesus' child, and did not seem afraid. And she said that she saw three Shining Ones come into the room where she was lying, and she was comforted." Oh, need we ever fear? Little Lala had been with us for so short a time that we had not been able to teach her much; and so far as any of us know, she had heard nothing of the ministry of angels. We had hardly dared to hope she understood enough about our Lord Himself to rest her little heart upon Him. But we do not know everything. Little innocent child that she was, she was carried by the angels from the evil to come.
Old Dévai keeps a brave heart. When she comes to see us, she cheers herself by nursing the cheerful little people she brought to us, small and wailing and not very hopeful. She is full of reminiscences on these occasions. "Ah," she will say, addressing an astonished two-year-old, "the devil and all his imps fought for you, my child!" This is unfamiliar language to the baby; but Dévai knows nothing of our modern ideas of education, and considers crude fact advisable at any age. "Yes, he fought for you, my child. I was sitting on the verandah of the house wherein you lay, and I was preaching the Gospel of the grace of God to the women, when five devils appeared. Yea, five were they, one older and four younger. Men were they in outward shape, but within them were the devils. I had nearly persuaded the women to let me have you, my child; and till they fully consented, I was filling up the interval with speech, for no man shall shut my mouth. And the women listened well, and my heart burned within me—for it was life to me to see them listening—when lo! those devils came—yea, five, one older and four younger—sent by their master to confound me. And they rose up against me and turned me out, and told the women folk not to listen; and you—I should never get you, said they; and so it appeared, for with such is might, and their master waxes furious when he knows his time is short. But the Lord on high is mightier than a million million devils, and what are five to Him? He rose up for me against them and discomfited them"—Dévai does not go into secular particulars—"and so you were delivered from the mouth of the lion, my child!"
We are not anxious that our babies should know too much ancient history. Enough for them that they are in the fold—
I am Jesus' little lamb,
Happy all day long I am;
He will keep me safe from harm,
For I'm His lamb—
is enough theology for two-year-olds; but Dévai's visits are not so frequent as to make a deep impression, and the baby thus addressed, after a long and unsympathetic stare, usually scrambles off her knee and returns unscathed to her own world.
CHAPTER XI
God Heard: God Answered
OLD Dévai, with her vivid conversation about the one old devil and four younger, does not suggest a conciliatory attitude towards the people of her land. And it may be possible so to misinterpret the spirit of this book as to see in it only something unappreciative and therefore unkind. So it shall now be written down in sincerity and earnestness that nothing of the sort is intended. The thing we fight is not India or Indian, in essence or development. It is something alien to the old life of the people. It is not allowed in the Védas (ancient sacred books). It is like a parasite which has settled upon the bough of some noble forest-tree—on it, but not of it. The parasite has gripped the bough with strong and interlacing roots; but it is not the bough.