<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
<h3>The Neyoor Nursery</h3>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"The roads are rugged, the precipices steep; there may be
feelings of dizziness on the heights, gusts of wind, peals of thunder,
nights of awful gloom. Fear them not!</p>
<p>"There are also the joys of sunlight, flowers such as are not
in the plain, the purest of air, restful nooks, and the stars smile
thence like the eyes of God."—<span class="smcap">Père Didon</span> (<i>translated by Rev.
Arthur G. Nash</i>).</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus-19.jpg" width-obs="550" height-obs="385" alt="ON THE ROAD TO NEYOOR." title="" /> <span class="caption">ON THE ROAD TO NEYOOR.</span><br/><br/></div>
<div class='cap'>AND now for a chapter of history. We had not been
long at the new work before we discovered difficulties
unimagined before, and impossible to describe
in detail. Some of these concerned the health of the younger
children; and eventually it seemed best to move the infants'
nursery to within reach of medical help, and keep the bigger
babies and elder children, whose protection was another grave
anxiety, with us at Dohnavur.</div>
<p>Shortly before that time we had been brought into
touch with the medical missionaries at Neyoor, in South
Travancore. The senior missionary, Dr. Fells, was about to
retire; but his successor, Dr. Bentall, cordially agreed to let
us rent a little house in the village and fill it with babies,
though he knew such a houseful might materially add to
the fulness of his already overflowing day. He, and afterwards<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</SPAN></span>
Dr. Davidson (now the only survivor at Neyoor of
that kind trio of doctors), seemed to think nothing a trouble
if only it helped a friend. So the little house was taken
and the babies installed.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus-20.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="350" alt="ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF NAGERCOIL, WHERE WE STOPPED TO REST." title="" /> <span class="caption">ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF NAGERCOIL, WHERE WE STOPPED TO REST.</span></div>
<p>The first day, September 25, 1905, is a day to be
remembered. I had gone on before to prepare the house,
and for a day and a half waited in uncertainty as to what
had happened to the little party which was to have
followed close behind. I had left one baby ill. She
was the first child sent to us from the Canarese
country; and I thought of the friends who had sent her,
newly interested and stirred to seek these little ones, and
of what it would mean of discouragement to them if she
were taken, and my heart held on for her.</p>
<p>At last the carts appeared in sight. It was the windy
season, and six carts had been overturned on the road, so
they had travelled slowly. Then a wheel came off one of
their carts and an accident was narrowly averted. This
had caused the delay. The baby about whom I had feared
had recovered in time to be sent on. She was soon quite
well, and has continued well from that day to this.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The Welcome</div>
<p>How familiar the road between Dohnavur and Neyoor
became to us, as the months passed and frequent journeys
were made with little new babies! Sometimes those
journeys were very wearisome. There was great heat, or a
dust-laden wind filled the bandy to suffocation and blew
out the spirit-lamp when we stopped to prepare the babies'
food. How glad we used to be when, in the early evening,
the white gleam of the stretch of water outside Nagercoil
appeared in sight! We used to stop and bathe the babies,
and feed them under some convenient trees, and then go
on to our friends with whom we were to spend the night,
trusting that the soothing effect of the bathe and food
would not pass off until after our arrival. Those friends,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</SPAN></span>
our comrades of the L.M.S., like the Medicals at Neyoor,
seemed made of kindness. How often their welcome has
rested us after the long day!</p>
<p>Next morning we tried to start early, so as to arrive at
Neyoor before the sun shone in fever-threatening strength
straight in through the open end of the cart. This plan,
however, proved too difficult, so we found it better to travel
slowly straight on from Dohnavur to Neyoor. In this way we
missed the blazing sun; but we also missed the refreshment
of our friends at Nagercoil, and arrived more or less tired
out, after a journey which, because of slow progress and
frequent stops, was equal in time to one from London to
Marseilles. But the welcome at the nursery made up for
everything.</p>
<p>How vividly the photograph recalls it! The house
opened upon the main street of the village, and there was
nearly always a watcher on the look-out for us. Sometimes
it was Isaac, our good man-of-all-work, who never
failed Ponnamal through the two years he was with us.
Then we would hear a call, and Ponnamal (we used to call
her the Princess, but dignity gives place to something more
human at such moments) would come flying down the
path with a face which made words superfluous. Then
there was the scramble out of the bandy, and the handing
down of babies and exclamations about them; and all the
nurses seemed to be kissing us at once and making their
amazed babies kiss us, and everything was for one happy
moment bewilderingly delightful.</p>
<p>Then there was the run round the cradles in which
smaller babies were sleeping, and an eager comparing of
notes as to the improvement of each. And if there were
no improvement, how well one remembers the smothered
sense of disappointment—smothered in public at least, lest
the nurses should be discouraged. Then came a cup of tea<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</SPAN></span>
on the mat in the little front room, where four white
hammock-cradles hung, one in each corner; while Ponnamal
sat beside me with three babies on her knee and two or
three more somewhere near her. The babies used to study
me in their wise and serious fashion, and then make careful
advances. And so we would make friends.</p>
<p>Ponnamal had always much to tell about the exhaustless
kindness of the doctors and their wives and the lady
superintendent of the hospital. And the chief Tamil medical
Evangelist had been true to his name, which means Blessedness.
Once, in much distress of mind, we sent a little
babe to the nursery, hardly daring to hope for her. When
she arrived, the doctors were both away on tour, and the
medical Evangelist was in charge. He attended to her at
once, and by God's grace upon his work was able to relieve
the little child, who has prospered ever since.</p>
<p>But I must leave unrecorded many acts of helpfulness.
In those early days of doubt and difficulty, almost forgotten
by us now, we beckoned to our "partners which were in the
other ship," and their Master and ours will not forget how
they held out willing hands and helped us.</p>
<p>It was not always plain sailing, even at Neyoor. "You
are fighting Satan at a point upon which he is very sensitive;
he will not leave you long in peace," wrote an experienced
friend. On Palm Sunday, 1907, our first little band of young
girls, fruit of this special work, confessed Christ in baptism,
and we stood by the shining reach of water, and tasted of a
joy so pure and thrilling that nothing of earth may be
likened to it. A fortnight later we were ordered to the
hills, and then the trouble came.</p>
<p>The immediate cause was overcrowding. Why did we
overcrowd?</p>
<div class="sidenote">Could we Refuse?</div>
<p>Friends at home to whom the facts about Temple service
were new, were stirred to earnest prayer. Out here fellow-missionaries<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</SPAN></span>
helped us to save the children. God heard the
prayer and blessed the work, and children began to come.
Soon our one little room became too full. We had babies
in the bungalow and on our verandah, babies everywhere.
Then money came to build two more rooms, but they were
soon too full. At Neyoor the pressure was worse, for we
could only rent two small houses; and though we put up
mat shelters, and the children lived as much as possible in
the open air, it was difficult to manage. But how could we
refuse the little children? The Temple women were ready to
take them if we had refused. Their houses are never too full.
There was no other nursery to which they could be sent.
Little children who had passed the troublesome infant stage
could sometimes find a home elsewhere; but only the Temple
houses were open at all times to babies. Could we have
written to the friend who had saved a little child: "Hand
her back to the Temple. It is the will of our Father that
this little one should perish"? Should we have done it?
We dare not do it. We prayed that help would be sent to
build new nurseries, and we went on and did our best; but
it was difficult.</p>
<p>We had just reached the hills in early April, and were
forbidden to return, when news reached us of a fatal
epidemic of dysentery which had broken out in the Neyoor
nursery. Unseasonable rains had fallen and driven the
babies indoors; this increased the overcrowding. The doctors
were away. Letters telling us about the disaster had been
lost—how, we never knew—so that the second which reached
us, taking it for granted we had the first, gave no details,
only the names of the smitten babes—nineteen of them, and
five dead. Then trouble followed trouble. "While he was
yet speaking, there came also another." Some evil men who
had sought to injure us before, caused us infinite anxiety.
And for a time that cannot be counted in days or in weeks<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</SPAN></span>
it was like living through a nightmare, when everything
happens in painful confusion and the sense of oppression is
complete.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus-21.jpg" width-obs="550" height-obs="391" alt="THE NEYOOR NURSERY." title="" /> <span class="caption">THE NEYOOR NURSERY.</span></div>
<p>Out of the maelstrom came a letter from Ponnamal.
"We are being comforted," she wrote. "You will be longing
to come to us, but oh, do not come! If you were here all
your strength would be given to fighting this battle with
death, and you would have no strength left for prayer.
God wanted to have one of us free to pray; and so He has
taken you up to the mountain, as He took Moses when the
people were fighting down in the plain." This was the true
inward meaning of it all, and I knew it. But Ponnamal is
far from strong, and I feared for her; and to stay away with
the babies ill—it was the very hardest thing I had ever
been asked to do.</p>
<p>When the trouble passed there were ten in heaven.
One, a little child of two, had been saved so wonderfully
from Temple dedication that we had looked forward to
a future of special blessing for her; and another was a
very lovely babe, dear to the missionary who, after much
toil and many disappointments, had been comforted by
saving her. Each of the ten had cost someone much. But
this is an earthly point of view. They had cost Him most
who had taken them, and he is only an owner in name
who has no right to do as he will with his own.</p>
<p>The other side, the purely human side, pressed heavily
just then. The doctors had most kindly at once ordered
a mission room, vacated at that season, to be lent to the
nursery, and another little house was taken for the month.
How Ponnamal kept all four houses going in an orderly
fashion, how she kept her nurses together through that time
of almost panic, and how she herself, frail and delicate as
she is, kept up till all was over, we cannot understand from
any point of view but the Divine. She only broke down<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</SPAN></span>
once. It was when her dearest child, our merry, beautiful
little Heart's Joy, who, having more strength than most, had
battled longer and almost recovered, suddenly sank. The
visible cause was that a special nutrient, which, being costly,
we stocked in small quantities, ran short, and the fresh supply
reached the nursery just too late. "If only it had come
yesterday!" moaned Ponnamal, and we with her when we
heard of the series of contretemps which had delayed its
arrival. The torture of second causes is as the blackness of
darkness, but the Lord gave deliverance from it; for just
as she had to part with all that was left her of our little
Heart's Joy, a letter came from Dr. Davidson which was God's
own blessed comfort to a heart almost broken. She never
refers to that letter without the quick tears starting. "I
could let my little treasure go after I read that letter. It
strengthened me."</p>
<div class="sidenote">"The Lord sat as King at the Flood"</div>
<p>While all this was going on in Neyoor, Chellalu, then just
two years old, was very ill in Dohnavur. Mr. and Mrs.
Walker were still there, and they nursed her night and day;
but at last a letter came, evidently meant to prepare me
for fresh sorrow. "Every little lamb belongs to the Good
Shepherd, not to us," the letter said, and told of a temperature
106° and rising. The child, all spirit and frolic, had little
reserve strength, and there was not much cause for hope.
But we were spared this parting. Chellalu is with us still.</p>
<p>The sky was clearing again and we were beginning to
breathe freely, when the worst that had ever touched us in
all our years of work came suddenly upon us. How small
things that affect the body appear when the point of attack
wheels round to the soul! The death of all the babies
seemed as nothing compared with the falling away of one
soul. But God is the God of the waves and the billows,
and they are still His when they come over us; and again
and again we have proved that the overwhelming thing<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</SPAN></span>
does not overwhelm. Once more by His interposition
deliverance came. We were cast down, but not destroyed.</p>
<p>A time of calm succeeded this storm. Money came to build
nurseries at Dohnavur, and buy more of the special nutrients
we so much required. The Neyoor remnant picked up, and
the nurses took heart again. I went out to them as soon
as I could after our return from the hills, and found
those who were left well and strong. "They shall see His
face" had been the text in <i>Daily Light</i>, the evening the
news reached me of the little procession heavenwards. I
looked at the ten names written in the margin of my
book; and, recalling the story of each, could be glad they
have seen the face of the One who loves them best. Lower
down on the page come the words, "We shall be satisfied."
We thought of our babies satisfied so soon; and then we
knelt together and said, "Even so, Father: for so it seemeth
good in Thy sight."</p>
<p>Pretty pictures all in colours and bright sunshine tempt
one to linger over that visit. I can see the white hammocks
slung from the trees in the nursery compound, and happy
baby-faces looking out of them. And another shows me
one who had been like a sister to Ponnamal, lightening
her load whenever she could; sitting with two dear babies
in her arms, and another clinging round her neck. "She
comes and helps us often in the mornings when we are
very busy," said Ponnamal about the doctor's wife, as I
noticed the babies' affection for her and her sweet, kind ways
with them. "Sometimes when I am feeling down and home-sick,
she comes in like this and plays with the babies,
and cheers us all up." The Indian woman is very home-loving.
Only devotion to the children could have kept the
nurses and Ponnamal so long in exile for their sake; and
there were times when even Ponnamal's brave heart sank.
Then these love-touches helped.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">Goodbye to Neyoor</div>
<p>When the time came for the nursery party to leave
Neyoor and return to Dohnavur, after two and a half years
in that hospitable mission, we were sorry to part. Days
like the days we had passed through test the stuff of which
souls are made, and they prove what we call friendship.
After the fire has spent itself, the fine gold shines out purified,
and there is something solemn in its light. We had grown
close to our friends in Neyoor; but the cloud had moved, so
far as we could read the sign, and it seemed right to return.
The missionaries were away when the day came, but the
Christians surrounded Ponnamal with tokens of goodwill.
"The nursery has been like a little light in our midst," they
said; and this word cheered her more than all other words.
And so farewelled, they arrived home, all glad and warm
with the glow that comes when hearts meet each other
and each finds the other kind.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</SPAN></span></p>
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