Co-operating With Governments
The Government of the Dutch East Indies, which was in the hands, at the time, of a military man, has won for ever the honour of appreciating and utilising The Army of The General they had never seen, before any of those who had seen him. Certainly, The General never ran after earthly rulers, or showed any disposition to court their favour; but he said constantly, "Here we are; if any Government, municipal or national, likes to use us, we can save them more than half of what they now spend upon their poor and criminal classes, and do for these far more than Christian Government officials, however excellent, ever hope to do. They are invariably so bound to avoid any meddling with religion that they cannot bring to bear upon those most in need of it, the heavenly light and love and power, in which we place all our confidence for dealing with these classes."
"Gentlemen," said a Town Councillor, in a German city, when the question of subsidising The Army was being discussed, "The Army can do for your poor what you never can attempt. You can only deal with them from without. The Army works upon them from within, and produces results that will considerably lighten your burdens."
The General had arranged for the Dutch Indies to be missioned from Australia, that country being our nearest Field and one accustomed to deal with pioneer effort. But when he found that Dutch officialdom dreaded contact with British agents, though ready to welcome Dutch ones, he very quickly changed his plans, and as soon as the Colonial Government found that The Army was as much Dutch as English, and could send them a Dutch leader, they showed themselves ready to use us as fully as possible.
Our Officers in every town and village are supplied with all the medicines and bandages they can use, for the Government has found that they live amongst the poorest all the time, and are always ready to bathe and bandage their wounded limbs and feet, or to give them the few medicines needed to combat the ordinary maladies. Moreover, from some terrible losses by death of Officers, in our earliest years there, it was made only too plain to every one that our Officers would not abandon their people in times of cholera or other epidemics, but would rather suffer and die with them.
More unsanitary surroundings than we have in lovely Java could scarcely be imagined, and no government can hope to alter the habits of an entire people very rapidly. The Chinese and others in the cities have never yet begun to consider dirt in house or street as dangerous, and the entire population has grown up with such a love for bathing in the very same canals which serve largely for drainage and every other purpose, that there cannot, for a long time to come, be great hopes of much sanitary improvement.
But when it was seen that we had Officers not only willing and ready to live and die with the people, but, also capable of lifting them into a new life, and of carrying out any simple administrative duties that might be laid upon them, we had first one and then another of the Government's institutions offered for our care, as well as the provisioning of the hospitals. From daybreak in the morning till the end of their evening Meetings, our Officers may be seen showing the people, old and young, brotherly and sisterly love; and though they may not, as yet, have succeeded in many places in raising up such a native force as we should desire, the Government has found them as persevering as if they had gained the crowd which their toils and endurances have deserved.
The first Leper Institution placed in our charge was so rapidly transformed from a place of despair and misery into a home of Salvation hope and joy, that the Government naturally desired to see more such institutions, adequate to receive the entire leper population of the islands, which is, alas! large.
Our position in Java, and the consequent discussion of us in the Dutch Parliament, led to our first public recognition in the world as a Christian force. Because we do not baptise with water there has been in Java a disposition amongst some Christian teachers to refuse to any of our people burial in a Christian cemetery. But when in the Dutch budget discussion this was made an objection to our receiving any grant, the Colonial Minister simply read out the whole of our Articles of War, and asked how any one could refuse to recognise as Christians those who had signed such declarations.
The Governments of the various Australian Colonies must, however, have the credit of first giving to our Officers public patronage. As has already been mentioned, the Governors, Premiers, and Ministers have, for some twenty-seven years past, been seen presiding over the anniversaries of our Colonial work, speaking in no measured terms of all our activities, and so helping us to get the means to support them.