Grasp the sword
Of the Lord,
And Forward!’
CHAPTER VIII
1867-1872
INDIA—THE APEX—THE END
The vision of millions upon millions in the far East worshipping idols had long haunted Macleod’s imagination, and, with his sense of apostleship waxing as the years went on, heathendom became more and more to him a mystery and a horror. The Asiatic was a man: reach his heart, it was the same as ours, and must open to the religion of humanity. To Macleod’s stamp of Christian the whole idea of foreign missions was peculiarly congenial; every enterprise in that field, whatever Church had the credit, he hailed with enthusiasm. In 1858, when Angell James was appealing for a hundred missionaries to go to China, Macleod sent forth, in the Edinburgh Christian Magazine, a voice to the British Churches:—
Let us say in justice to our own deep conviction as to the momentous importance of this subject—to the grandeur of the cause which our revered father advocates—to the sense we entertain of the clear and imperative duty of the Church of Scotland at this crisis—that we bid him God-speed with all our hearts; and express our firm faith that these hundred missionaries and many more will soon be in the field, with some contributed by our own Church, to take part in this glorious enterprise about to open for the establishment in China, so long enslaved by Satan, of that blessed kingdom which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
The Church of Scotland had a footing in India, and it was there that his interest was fixed. There be rosy thousand-pounders whose eloquent wails over the dearth of missionaries draw handkerchiefs in the ladies’ gallery, and if the cynic says that the command is not ‘Get others to go’ but ‘Go ye,’ it is good exegesis and a palpable hit. But Macleod was busy among the heathen at home, and from 1864, when he was made convener of the India Mission, his mind was possessed with the thought of an embassy to Hindostan. The Sabbath question arose, and, expecting ostracism, he gave up his prospect; indeed, a section of the committee, as he afterwards learned, moved for his resignation. The General Assembly, however, in 1867, upon advices from Calcutta, requested him to visit India. ‘How strange and sudden,’ he wrote, ‘that I, who two years ago was threatened with deposition and made an offscouring by so many, am this year asked by the Assembly to be their representative in India!’ Among his acquaintance far and near, high and humble, the news that Norman Macleod was going to India created a sensation. The Queen wrote: ‘his life is so valuable that it is a great risk.’ He received letters from Stanley, Helps, and Max Müller. The presbytery gave him a dinner, at which the chair was taken by the chief Sabbatarian. Fifty private friends, including ministers of all denominations, entertained him at a feast. He in his turn held a luncheon, in the course of which he perambulated the tables, speaking the befitting word to each of thirty guests. Portraits of himself, his wife, and his mother, painted by Macnee, were presented to him; and four hundred working men gave Mrs. Macleod her husband’s bust in marble. There was a general feeling that he might never return. ‘Come life or death,’ he said of his undertaking, ‘I believe it is God’s will.’ For several weeks he had worked so hard, and gone through so much excitement, that when he started he was utterly worn out; and throughout the tour, from first to last, he was afflicted with a swelling of the limbs.
Fortunate he was in having for his fellow-deputy Dr. Watson, the minister of Dundee, who thought with him on religious matters (though pawky to the point of genius) and was kin to him in spirit. To hear these two in the parts of Highland drovers was, by all accounts, the greatest treat in the world. After a short stay in Paris, where Macleod preached, and got a collection for the expenses of the deputation, on the sixth of November they embarked at Marseilles, having chosen the overland passage. Macleod was charmed with the coast scenery about Toulon; Corsica and Sardinia reminded him of the Western Highlands; but in all the Mediterranean there was no sight that affected him so much as the house of Garibaldi. At Alexandria he learned from his old dragoman, whom he happened to meet, that travellers, ever since the advice given in Eastward, were examining the backs of horses and mules before they bought them, so that Meeki, able to cheat no more, had taken to another trade. Thus Macleod had for certain done one good thing in his life. On the voyage down the Red Sea, having once preached for an hour with the thermometer at 90°, he got a warning of what might be in store for him in India. ‘At the close,’ says Dr. Watson, ‘he was almost dead; his face was flushed, his head ached, his brain was confused, and when he retired to his cabin the utmost efforts were required to restore him.’ Old Indians poured jugs of iced water over his head. Yet, referring to the heat, he could write home, ‘I just thaw on, laugh and joke, and feel quite happy.’ One morning he got up at three o’clock, and in ‘a white Damascus camel-hair dressing-gown’ sat on deck, sneering at the Southern Cross. According to his wont he was taken up with his fellow-passengers, among whom were soldiers who had fought in the Mutiny, young officers on their way to Magdala, civilians who had governed provinces and spent years among the remotest tribes, politicians, journalists, and adventurers. Unlike his companion, he had a cabin to himself, and, in the course of the voyage, it was more and more like a pawnbroker’s shop. One day Watson perceived in the chaos a decent silk hat with its sides meeting like a trampled tin pan. ‘Man,’ said Norman, by way of explanation, ‘last night I felt something very pleasant at my feet; I put my feet on it and rested them—I was half asleep. How very kind, I thought, of the steward to put in an extra air cushion! and when I looked in the morning, it was my hat.’ In the bustle of the preparations for landing at Bombay he was heard crying, ‘Steward, did you see my red fez?’ ‘Is it a blue one?’ ‘No!’ roared Norman, ‘it’s a red one. If you see it, bring it, and if any fellow won’t give it up, bring his head along with it.’ So Watson writes to Mrs. Macleod. Macleod, for his part, complaining to Mrs. Watson of her husband’s inextinguishable laughter, declares, ‘But for my constant gravity he would ruin the deputation.’ He was presented with an address, signed by the captain, the officers, and the whole of the passengers, ‘expressing their grateful sense of the peculiar privilege they had enjoyed in his society and his ministrations.’