"The Lone East"'
"The Lone East"
HE dawn will never break in the souls of those to whom we long to minister until it has first broken in our own hearts. And the first herald of the dawn is not beautiful crimson streamers, but merely an edge of translucency. The colourful part comes later, in spiritual experience. Maybe much later.
That little thin clearing off of the night had said to us, **Go to North Thailand.' And we had come.
Now our boat was slipping up the Chao Prya River, and Thailand—unknown and unexperienced by us—was spreading out before us on each bank. "The Lone East." It felt lonely. It was not teeming with human beings, as China had been. The jungle was thick to the very river's edge, here and there broken into little clearings. Flimsy bamboo shanties on stilts huddled together in the midst of these cultivated spots, but human life was seldom visible at first. A flat thick land, it appeared—thick with tangled jungle in which lurked cobras, scorpions, and tarantulas: things that made one's skin crawl to imagine. Would it be a friendly land? What awaited us here?
Gradually villages became more numerous, and a brownskinned people were revealed. The women wore straight slim skirts and blouses, or more often, in the villages, just a camisole top. Both blouse and skirt were freely splashed with colours, making them bright spots against the dark green jungle. The men mostly were in simple trousers and shirt.
Busy with fishing or farming, they scarcely glanced at our stately ship slipping silently up the river, farther and farther inland. Ships must be a daily sight not to inspire more interest.
Now we came to a place where the Chao Prya divides into two tributaries. Looking up one of these tributaries we saw other ships the same size as our own, and the spires of a temple. Yes, our boat chose that channel too, and soon we cast anchor by a town silhouetted against a wonderful sunset
""THE LONE EAST''
sky. Little teakwood houses on their high stilts were softening into black shadows. Palm trees, like long-stemmed fans of black lace against the flaming heavens, stood guard over the sleepy little houses. But right in front of us was a structure exotic in appearance. The corners of its roof were curved upward, and all of delicate tracery and little mosaic mirrors.
It gleamed jet against the ruby clouds. And beside it, a low bowl of a structure with a high tapering spire.
"What is this?' I asked John.
"It is what they call a wat," he answered. ''A sort of monastery, temple, and school combined. Buddhist."
As we stood looking, the shadowy objects became darker, but the heavens were alive with changing colour, almost as if they were breathing. Crimson at first, then changing to bloody orange, then to yellow gold, to jasper, to amethyst, finally into pearl. And all the time the black silhouetted wat remained motionless and stolid. Blacker and blacker it grew, ominous in its immovability, its dead beauty.
It symbolized the sinister forces which have long held Thailand in their merciless grip. Yet over it, the heavens quivered and glowed with all shades of lovely light. To the missionaries standing at the rail watching, questions inevitably arose in the heart. What awaited us in this land? So beautiful at surface glance, but out of sight such deadly things ever present on its jungle floors.
What did we think we were bringing to Thailand?
Civilization? They already have their own. The dainty mosaic of their temple roofs is the most beautiful I have ever seen in any land. Their intricate, fascinating orthography is surer, for the reader who has conquered its rules, than even the unchanging Chinese character.
Education? They have that, too. Schools everywhere along country roads, and universities in Bangkok. Government hospitals are many also.
Religion? The stolid black outline of the wat before me seemed to say, "I'm deeply rooted here. Do you know what will happen to you, if you try to touch me?" Instinctively I recoiled. Until I looked up and saw that living, breathing sky of glory. Buddhism says there is no God.
"And darkness was upon the face of the deep. But the
ASCENT TO THE TRIBES
Spirit of God was brooding upon the waters" (italics from Rotherham's translation). Someone has said that there are four factors in this verse, three of them leading to utter despair.
It is the presence of the fourth that changes the picture. ""Without form. Void. Dark.' But the Spirit of God was there.
From that fourth factor springs all hope. Rotherham has a footnote: "The beautiful word brooding—an exact rendering of the Hebrew—is most suggestive, since it vividly describes the cherishing of incipient life as a preparation for its outburst."
There, O wat, is your answer! We bring you nothing in ourselves; we would but add to your chaos if we tried that.
But the Spirit of God is brooding over you. He sees the incipient life. He is cherishing it, and He has called us to be hands, feet, and loving human heart for Him. We bring you the Christ, the Atoner for your sins, the only One who can bring you nigh unto God.
Beautiful, calmly entrenched Buddhist wat!
The Light brooded over you, and the more glorious it became, the blacker you grew and the deader you showed up, until you faded out into the enveloping curtain of night, and God's stars appeared, turning man's thoughts away from you and up to Him. eres lone and dark East, but—the Spirit of God is brooding ere.