Notwithstanding our disappointment in the delay of the school for boys, it proved a wise arrangement that the Girls’ School was started first. A mission church is sure to be greatly handicapped whose young men must either remain single—which they will not do—or be compelled to take ignorant non-Christian wives. Such are a dead-weight to the husband, and the children almost surely follow the mother. After marriage, the almost universal custom of the country has been that the husband lives with the wife’s family. He becomes identified with it, and for the time a subordinate member of it, almost to the extent of becoming weaned from his own family. Where all the atmosphere of the family is strongly Buddhist, with daily offerings to the spirits and gala days at the temple, the current would be too strong for a father, with his secondary place in the family, to withstand. For a while it was feared that Christian girls would have difficulty in finding husbands. But, on the contrary, our educated girls become not only more intelligent, but more attractive in manners, dress, and character; and, therefore, have been much sought after. The homes become Christian homes, and the children are reared in a Christian atmosphere. The result is that, instead of the wife’s dragging the husband down, she generally raises the husband up; and, as a general rule, the children early become Christians.
In August, 1876, our beloved Princess became very seriously ill. Dr. Cheek had been called upon to treat domestics in the family, but not the Prince or Princess. Hearing that she was in a critical condition under native doctors, and fearing the worst, I took the liberty of suggesting that they consult Dr. Cheek. They seemed pleased with the suggestion, and asked me to accompany him—which I did for one or two visits. His treatment was very successful, and soon she was convalescent.
About this same time we had an adventure with white ants which came near costing us our much-valued cabinet organ. It will serve to illustrate an experience formerly common enough, and still not unknown. One Wednesday evening before prayer-meeting Mrs. McGilvary sat down at the instrument to look over the tunes, when she found it full of white ants. Our house was built on higher ground, into which the creatures are driven when the lower grounds are filled with water from the annual floods. They do not attack the teak walls and floors of our houses, but, climbing up the posts, at last they stumbled upon the soft wood and leather inside the organ, and were just beginning their feast when our meeting broke in upon them. Had we not discovered them then, the instrument would have been completely wrecked before morning.
Once the white ants destroyed a trunkful of our children’s clothes, once a box of “knock-down” chairs, and once they attacked my library—evidently not at all deterred by the learned discussions and deep thought of Dr. Joseph A. Alexander’s Commentary on Isaiah. They had got through the margin, and would soon have digested the rest, had not an unexpected occasion for opening the library saved it.
XVI
SEEKERS AFTER GOD
On New Year’s Day, 1877, I went into the city to make some calls. The first was at the new palace. In the large reception hall I found the Princess, virtually alone. She was embroidering some fancy pillow-ends for the priests—a work in which she was an expert. Her maidens, some distance off, were sewing priests’ robes. The Prince was in his little workshop not far off, turning ivory rounds for the railing of an elephant howdah, a favourite amusement with him.
The subject of religion was one that continually came up in all my interviews with the Princess; but hitherto she had apparently argued more for victory than from a desire to reach the truth. She was as keen as a lawyer to seize a point, and her quick wit made her a very enjoyable antagonist. Not only she and her domestics, but the whole country as well, had been preparing for a great occasion of merit-making in connection with the approaching dedication of a shrine. Whether the peculiar interest of this conversation was due to the fact that these matters had been running in her mind, or to some particular mood in which I found her, I never knew. Most likely it was both. A chance allusion to the great event which was in every one’s mouth, at once brought up the question. Stopping her work and resting her arms on the embroidery frame, she asked, “Why is it that foreigners do not worship the Buddha or his images, and do not believe that merit is made thereby?”
She seemed to approach the question as a personal one for herself. If we were right and she were wrong, she would like to know it. We agreed on that point, and I encouraged her in her estimate of its paramount importance to every rational man or woman. If Buddhism does, indeed, lead to happiness in a future life, she was wise in diligently following its precepts; but if wrong, it would be a fatal mistake. Why do we not worship Buddha? Because he was only a man. We reverence his character, as we do that of other upright men who have tried to do good and to lead their fellow-men to better things. Gautama Buddha seems to have sought with all his soul for light—was willing to forsake a kingdom and to renounce all sensual and even intellectual pleasures in this life for the hope of escaping sin and its consequences in the next.
Why do we worship Jehovah-Jesus? Because He is our sovereign Lord. The Buddha groaned under his own load of guilt, and was oppressed by the sad and universal consequences of sin among men. The Christ challenged His enemies to convince Him of sin, and His enemies to this day have confessed that they find no sin in Him. Buddhists believe that Buddha reached Nirvāna after having himself passed through every form of being in the universe—having been in turn every animal in the seas, on the earth, and in the air. He did this by an inexorable law that he and every other being is subject to, and cannot evade. Our Jehovah-Jesus, as our Scriptures teach, is the only self-existent being in the universe, and Himself the cause of all other beings. An infinite Spirit and invisible, He manifested Himself to the world by descending from heaven, becoming man, taking on our nature in unison with His own holy nature, but with no taint of sin. He did this out of infinite love and pity for our race after it had sinned. He saw there was no other able to save, and He became our Saviour.