<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
<h3>Lotus Buds</h3>
<div class='cap'>NEAR an ancient temple in Southern India is a large
calm, beautiful pool, enclosed by stone walls, broken
here and there by wide spaces fitted with steps leading
down to the water's edge; and almost within reach of the
hand of one standing on the lowest step are pink Lotus lilies
floating serenely on the quiet water or standing up from it
in a certain proud loveliness all their own.</div>
<p>We were travelling to the neighbouring town when we
came upon this pool. We could not pass it with only a glance,
so we stopped our bullock-carts and unpacked ourselves—we
were four or five to a cart—and we climbed down the
broken, time-worn steps and gazed and gazed till the beauty
entered into us.</p>
<p>Who can describe that harmony of colour, a Lotus-pool
in blossom in clear shining after rain! The grey old walls,
the brown water, the dark green of the Lotus leaves, the
delicate pink of the flowers; overhead, infinite crystalline
blue; and beyond the old walls, palms.</p>
<p>With us was a young Indian friend. "I will gather
some of the lilies for you," he said, with the quick Indian
desire to give pleasure; but some one interposed: "They must
not be gathered by us. The pool belongs to the Temple."</p>
<p>It was as if a stone had been flung straight at a mirror.
There was a sense of crash and the shattering of some bright<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</SPAN></span>
image. The Lotus-pool was a Temple pool; its flowers are
Temple flowers. The little buds that float and open on the
water, lifting young innocent faces up to the light as it
smiles down upon them and fills them through with almost
a tremor of joyousness, these Lotus buds are sacred things—sacred
to whom?</p>
<p>For a single moment that thought had its way, but only
for a moment. It flashed and was gone, for the thought was
a false thought: it could not stand against this—"All souls
are Mine."</p>
<p>All souls are His, all flowers. An alien power has possessed
them, counted them his for so many generations, that we have
almost acquiesced in the shameful confiscation. But neither
souls nor flowers are his who did not make them. They were
never truly his. They belong to the Lord of all the earth, the
Creator, the Redeemer. The little Lotus buds are His—His
and not another's. The children of the temples of South
India are His—His and not another's.</p>
<p>So now we go forth with the Owner Himself to claim His
own possession. There is hope in the thought, and confidence
and the purest inspiration. And, stirred to the very depths,
as we are and must be many a time when we see the tender
Lotus buds gathered by a hand that has no right to them,
and crushed underfoot; bewildered and sore troubled, as
the heart cannot help being sometimes, when the mystery of
the apparent victory of evil over good is overwhelming:
even so there will be always a hush, a rest, a repose of spirit,
as we stand by the Lotus-pools of life and seek in His Name
to gather His flowers.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</SPAN></span></p>
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