Nest For Singing Bird 83
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and above. I seemed on top of the world. The high peaks opposite appeared to be just on my own level, while beneath us many lower peaks and ridges spread themselves north and south; in either direction one could see the twisting canyon for many, many miles—in fact for two or three days' journey—and all was sinking gradually into the black shadows of night. Such beauty
I have never seen surpassed. Up there close to the heavens God seemed-very near, and worship was an unhindered joy.
But one cannot live on scenic grandeur, so I had to turn at length and find my way back into the shanty, where around the crackling cosy fire a hot meal was ready for us. They had cooked rice, meat, and vegetables Chinese style, which was really enjoyable; then after supper a copper gong's mellow boom! boom! drifted through the night air, calling the village to chapel service. Our Lisu host led us over the pine-scented trail, and other forms, each holding a flaring pine-torch to light his way, loomed out of the darkness. The chapel was of their own building—earth floor, backless benches, and a huge elevated flat stone, up at the front, on which burning pine chips were piled to give light. Men sat on one side, women on the other, all peering at the new Ma-Pa and Ma-Ma, and smiling happily, if self-consciously, as their look was returned. I could not understand Lisu then, but we were all on common ground when the singing commenced. They in Lisu and we in English together could sing— I'm tired of sin and straying, Lord, Now I'm coming Home; I'll trust Thy love, believe Thy Word, Lord, I'm coming Home.
Coming Home, coming Home, never more to roam, Open now Thine arms of Love, Lord, I'm coming Home. or perhaps it was— What a friend we have in Jesus _ All our sins and griefs to bear.
White skin or yellow skin, we all had the same testimony, the same experience. As the flames leaped up, every face stood out
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clear and shining with joy, and as it waned, shadows stole forth and framed their faces softly. Through the crevices of the crude wall a pine-scented mountain wind sighed gently in. I thought of how far we were from home and civilization. I thought of the bitterly rugged road we had come over, and I was filled with exaltation and joyous thanksgiving to God that He had allowed me to be one of His messengers to the ends of the earth.
I imagine Mrs. Payne's experience was much the same. And the Lisu, on their backless benches, gazing at the white woman, marvelling at the colour of her skin and the height of her nose, trying to picture her natural background but quite in vain— what were their thoughts? Grace Payne was the first white woman ever to enter the canyon, and as Leah and the others watched her that first evening of their arrival I wish we might enter their thoughts. Of one thing I know for sure—gratitude and love were uppermost. One of the questions in the Lisu catechism is, ""Why should we be grateful to the foreign missionary?" and the answer tells clearly of the cost of leaving home and loved ones. And the Lisu do not forget it.
"You are the one who brought us salvation," they will exclaim, and pat your hand lovingly. And as Leah watched the white woman and remembered that she had left father and mother, brothers and sisters to come that long journey just to help earth people, a fount of love and gratitude sprang up in her heart that was never to die. In heaven they will see what it cost even more fully perhaps, and the love tie between us will be eternal.
"T'll pray for her every day," vowed the young heart, in all probability, for that is what our spiritual children do.
And then how enthralled they must have been to hear her sing! Grace Payne was a lovely soloist in the homelands, and the Lisu script, being based on our own English letters, is easy to master. We all can learn to read (and hence to sing, if the tune is familiar) long before we can talk.
"Isn't it funny?" whispers one of the girls to Leah. "When she sings I can understand what she says, but when she talks,
I can't!" Not realizing that the "'talk"' was, as yet, English!
"Her voice is different from ours," says another. "When she sings it touches my heart and the tears come out!"
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No wonder, through those precious months when Paynes were at Deer Pool, that lonely little Homay loved to slip in at the back tr the chapel and listen. It was worth a scolding when she got ome.
But to happy Leah they were the most wonderful days of her life. All day long while she herded the cattle on the wild mountain-side, or hoed corn with other villagers, or spun cotton a the family clothing, she would think and talk of nothing else.
"Did you hear of Ba-shia-nyio-pa?"' someone would say to her. "He wants to be a Christian, you know, but he is so tied to his opium. And when he broke it off to believe, Ma-Ma gave him medicine to help when the craving comes on, and dandy stuff to drink that she calls coffee—I drank some; he let me have a sip. My, it was good! Just imagine anyone being so kind as she is! She pities us so."
Mrs. Payne is a trained nurse, and the village has never forgotten her loving ministry among them.
Mr. Payne could already speak some Lisu, and was quite eloquent in Chinese. Leah loved the evening services when the white man opened up the Word of God to them. He had the whole Bible, while at that time all the Lisu church had were the four Gospels, Acts, a catechism, hymn book, and a small book of abbreviated Old Testament stories. Mr. Payne felt that the catechism alone might give an impression of legalism, and so he preached ardently on the grace of God, on the uselessness of man's doing anything to save himself apart from accepting that grace, and one young heart at least caught the vision of our heavenly Father's marvellous love and condescension—caught it so vividly that all the storms and trials which were waiting on the path ahead of her were unable to shake her faith in God's kindness.
But the hard life of privations was telling on the white woman.
I myself slept one night in the shanty that had been given to the Paynes for a home. The rats held carnival over my head and down the sides of the walls. Scared at their boldness, I wrapped myself tightly up in my bedding with only my nose sticking out in order to breathe, and part of my forehead. But there was no
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escape—a rat walked right over me—I could feel the coldness, on my forehead, of tiny feet sauntering across! But Grace
Payne's trials were much greater than mere rats. The rainy season had begun. Day after day the tent and miserable hut were swept by torrents: clouds and drizzle veiled the grand scenery.
All was just cold and mud and wet.
"From Sunday morning until Saturday night, I never had my galoshes off, except to go to bed," she told me.
But in addition to this, the work had spread so rapidly that Deer Pool was no longer the centre and so Mr. and Mrs. Payne felt the time had come to move on, to build a little shanty somewhere else that would be healthier and more central. The Village of Pine Mountain was chosen. How Deer Pool villagers lamented! Of course the missionaries would only be a day's journey away, but that is far when a loved one is sick and needs medicine.
And after they had gone? How empty the beautiful mountainside seemed! The shanty they had used was still there, but no loving forms to cheer and help them; and somehow in chapel even, everything seemed desolate; a cheeriness, a fellowship had one.
"I don't want to go to chapel any more; it makes me cry," someone would say.
"But God is still with us," urged young Leah, "and He will hear if we pray in Jesus' Name. We must keep on worshipping."
There she was always at service time, near the front seat, and her clear voice leading in the hymn singing cheered on many a disconsolate neighbour.
Loss of her missionaries was like a brisk breeze which foretells the coming of a storm. For some time now Leah's eyes had been itching. Knowing nothing of hygiene, she rubbed them, of course, when they itched, unconscious that her hand was not clean. Lisu homes are ventless, hence very smoky and sooty. In her person Leah was always remarkably clean and neat, but in cooking every Lisu has to handle sooty pots and hands cannot remain white. Little wonder, then, that dread trachoma had laid hold of her eyes. Her father was almost blind from it already, but, not understanding the danger of infection, Leah had not
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been careful in contacting him. Trachoma victims are everywhere in Lisuland.
Whenever anyone was going to Pine Mountain Leah would ask them to buy for her "a little eye medicine," and after using that, sight would be clearer for a few days, and so she was not alert to her danger.
My attention was first called to Leah when in 1935 I took sick, as mentioned in Homay's story, and Nurse Kathleen Davies came in to attend me. She and Miss Embery had stayed one night at Deer Pool, and Miss Davies was impressed with Leah.
"There is a young girl up here with eye trouble," she said.
"Ingrowing eyelashes is a part of it, and she asked me to pull them out for her, but her eyes are really very bad. I noticed her at Deer Pool that time we stayed there. She was sitting in the sun, practically sightless, but singing—singing away like a little bird. Extraordinary, to be so happy under such an affliction."
What a God, who, out of shade, Nest for singing bird hath made.
Life was to be an ever-deepening "shade" experience for Leah; yet through it all the testimony of those who knew her was that she was full of song, full of stout testimony as to the Lord's goodness. How could such a thing be? As mentioned above, the canyon contains many blind Lisu, but I never once, in all my ten years of travel there, saw a blind heathen with a song in her heart! They are the most wretched of the wretched unhappy ones. And lest you think that Leah's was just a chance case of a naturally cheerful temperament, let me testify that she was not the only blind Christian who had an inner joy that upheld.
I knew another woman, almost blind, eyes continually running pus, but who had light in her face. Her daughter, in the early twenties only, was really blind—could do no work. Her sister-inlaw, who lived with them, was totally blind and totally deaf and dumb. She, with her suffering eyes, had to farm and work for these afflicted ones, yet it was a blessing to meet her. I once asked her what made her happy. She answered, "It is the thought of Heaven, Ma-Ma. The Lisu teachers have told me what a wonderful place Jesus is preparing for me. There is no sickness up there,
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no blindness, and things that even good eyes have never seen or can imagine for beauty and wonder are being kept for us. God is going to wipe away every tear from our eyes. I like to talk and think about it."'
Yes, in the sad shade of blindness, God has made a nest for singing bird! He only can give songs in the night. When outward eyes fail, if the heart reaches out after Him, He will open the eyes of the spirit and lift the inner man from earth's drudgery to sit in heavenly places with Himself.
It was 1942 before I had much contact with Leah. I knew her only as the Blind Singing Girl of Deer Pool Village. But in February, 1942, we started a new venture: a month's Bible school for girls only. Lisu women were always the hardest to reach. Their husbands and brothers said with a laugh, "Oh, they can't learn!'' so when a Bible study week was planned for a village, the audience was mainly men. At such a time the farm work was thrust upon the sex that "couldn't learn." And of those that did attend Bible classes, I must say that it looked as if the men had spoken the truth. At any attempt to make them recite scripture or study in the simplest form, they would dissolve into giggles and silliness; to try to get them to pray in public was to ruin your service hour. It seemed hopeless. Yet there were
Homay, Leah, and as these pages proceed you will meet with others, here one and there one, who seemed an exception to the general rule, which made us hope that, with patience, work among the women also might be accomplished. When the Rainy
Season Bible Schools began, a few girls also would come and sit on the back row—mention of them will be made later. But we gradually saw that the mixed education was attracting the wrong type of girl, and endangering our boy students, so we had to forbid their coming.
That is why we decided to try a school for girls only. But, if there were no boys present would any girls come? We did not know. The right kind would come, we hoped. Another serious question was, when could they come? Lisu were free as soon as the year's harvest was over. Lisu women were never free. When farming ends, spinning, weaving, and sewing the year's garments for all the family commenced. Even the deacons were not much
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in favour of trying for such a thing as a girls' school, but one young evangelist said, "Except at Chinese New Years'! Everybody is more or less free then. If the school were in February, and those who planned to come were to weave cloth a little later at night and a little earlier each morning during January, they could get it all done and be free to come for February!"
Some shook their heads dubiously; others agreed it was a possibilitys.
None thought that teaching the girls would amount to much, but they hated to disappoint Ma-Ma! So at Christmas time, when the great crowd from all over the district was present, we gave notice that a girls' school would be held the next
February, and asked the applicants to sign up for it. Not everybody was invited. We had rules of admission:
1. The girl student must be a saved Christian, not just a professing one.
2. She must have a recommendation from the deacon of her village that for the past year at least, her conduct has been irreproachable.
3. She must be able to read and write. (In later years this rule was cancelled.) 4. She must be at least seventeen years old; no limit after that.
A great deal of talking, girls heads bowed together in whispering circles, and of course giggling, followed the above announcement. Only about six signed up; but the Lisu evangelist mentioned above said to me, "Don't be discouraged, Ma-Ma.
More than that are planning to come. They just don't know what 'sign up' involves and are afraid to sign lest later they are hindered from coming."
We had to make preparations for them in faith and prayer.
You can imagine our joy on the day of assembling, when twenty-four students arrived and enrolled! Two had to be turned away because their deacons would not recommend them.
But some of these girls came a day's journey from north in the canyon, south in the canyon and from across the river. And from the south came—Leah, with two other women from Deer Pool.
Her chum Tabitha came forward, that afternoon, while Leah hung back shyly and nervously, and Tabitha said, "Ma-Ma, the rules are that every student must be able to read and write. Well
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Leah used to be able to, but her eyes won't admit of it now. Still she'd like to come and listen; will you allow her?"
"We surely will!" I cried out most happily, reaching out for the blind girl's hand and patting it. "That rule is only to weed out girls that could not follow the meaning of the lectures, which does not apply to Leah. She.is very welcome indeed." And how the sightless face beamed with happiness!
Then the little band of three went off cheerfully to find a dormitory where they could all be together. The Chinese school had kindly lent us their little dormitories, as it was New Year's holidays and their students had gone home. These dormitories are merely shacks with wooden planks for beds, earth for floor, and three rocks for a fireplace!
Before school commenced, it was the custom for the white teachers to interview each student personally and alone, as to their salvation. When Leah came into my study, we went through the usual procedure of questions, even though I knew she was an exceptional Christian.
"Well, Leah, here you are at our first girls' Bible school. I want to know just what each of you understand about God's Word, before we begin to teach you. So I have a few questions to put to you. Are you yourself a born-again Christian?"
"Yes, Ma-Ma. I am born again from above."
"What does 'born again' mean, Leah?"
"It means to have eternal life as well as physical life, doesn't it?"
"That's right. And when were you born again, Leah?"
"When I took Jesus as my Saviour, who died on the cross for my sins.""
"Why do you want to study at this school, Leah?"
"Because I want to know the Holy Book better. I have not been able to read for some years now, Ma-Ma."
"How old are you, Leah?"
"About thirty years old...
. I don't know exactly."
"Well, we are very glad to have you, Leah, and if I can help you in any matter, you just come to me."
A shy twisting of her hands betokened there was just such a matter right now.
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OI "What is it, Leah?"
"Ym told that this girls' school is to be conducted just as nearly like the men's R.S.B.S. as possible." ee we are going to try and give you just what we give
-them."'
"Then there will be week-end preaching assignments for the girls each week?"
"That is'our plan, but..."
""Ma-Ma, I'd like to ask a favour. When you send me out, could you please send me with Tabitha and Abigail? I can see a wee bit, but I cannot walk quickly over strange trails. My friends are accustomed to that and don't mind it; but if I had to go with girls I do not know, they might not-—"
Tears were in my eyes. I had no thought of sending a blind girl out over these high and perilous paths, but the stoutness of her courage shamed me. If she was willing to go, who was I to say it was too much?
"Leah, set your heart at rest. You will never be asked to go with strangers. I am delighted that you are willing to go, and I am sure God will use you. I will arrange that Tabitha, Abigail, and you will always be on the same team." Her smile of relief betokened that her one dread in coming to school had been allayed. Now all before her was one sweet enjoyment.
In the classroom, Leah was given a seat at the front, near the speaker, of course, and her quiet, attentive, sightless face was an inspiration. It was on the first morning that she, and most of the others, received their Bible names. Heathen names often have such a polluted meaning, as I have explained before, but it is mostly to help the praying friends at home that we give the Bible students a Bible name. Leah, for instance, is much easier to remember than Sah-me-nyio.
At that first year of girls' Bible school, each evening I gave a talk on one of the women of the Bible. Biographies of the saints are rich in practical application to all our lives, but especially to the lives of women in the East. When we came to Leah, I tried to point out (as does Dr. Edersheim) how God was Leah's ally all throughout.
As we told the story, outside the little shanty the night wind
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howled and moaned bitterly. But inside a radiance rested on the young faces uplifted to mine. God taught us all precious lessons in those evening hours together. And the blind girl saw things as they really are, and was comforted and strengthened to accept the trial which is but for a moment and which worketh a far more exceeding weight of glory.
Another evening stands out in memory. It was when the story of Abigail was told. Leah's chum, Abigail, was also going through deep waters those days. It was she who had married
Philip, when Homay broke with him, and he had definitely backslidden, deserted her and their unborn babe for a heathen girl; and just before Abigail came to Bible school she was told that Philip had carried off her corn—her store of food for the winter. We named her Abigail purposely; for the Bible character of that name also was married to a churl, a son of Belial. The fact that the Abigail of old was very clever and beautiful only made her plight the more pitiful—and incidentally when that little matter of beauty was mentioned in class, there were many girlish grins and nods in Lisu Abigail's direction, which provoked a wan smile from the grim young face. Then the story unfolded; hopelessly tied to a man who did not deserve her and with whom there could never be any fellowship, Abigail must have faced the inevitable temptation of a woman in such a position—the temptation to take matters into her own hands, and run off with someone else more attractive. Lisu heathen readily do that. The only other alternative is to bank your all on God, and leave it for Him to work out. That Abigail did this latter is evidenced in the way she pleaded with David to do the very same thing, when the temptations to use force had swung David off his spiritual balance.
And then the wonderful "end of the Lord.'"' When she proved that her own lesson was humbly and faithfully learned, God suddenly worked for her. Within a few weeks the churl had been removed, and she was wife of—a king! And of David, at that.
Abigail ended her days as wife of a king. Someone had said it is not fair to judge a thing while it is in the making; wait until the product is finished, then we may pass judgment. And so we should never judge our lives and our trials, until God has
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completed in us what He is trying to do for us. When we see His finished product, we will be satisfied.
Friend, can you not see what balm the Word of God has for a torn young life which longs to do what is right, if it only knew the way? Can you feel the suffering of Abigail's little nest until the shelter of the Cleft Rock was pointed out to her? Can you know the gladness of the missionary, when at the end of that evening, at the close of the lesson, her hand was grasped and held, while two earnest young eyes looked into hers and said,
"Thank you, Ma-Ma. That helped me so much!"
And yet, my friend, as we stood there with clasped hands, both of us safely out of the danger of the sharp blast that blew towards the Abyss, how many were, and are, battling hopelessly against that Wind and that Abyss, with no knowledge of the Rock, Christ Jesus, nor of His way of salvation, because no one has gone to them. Always it presses on my heart. .
. Those others that would so gladly take Him as Saviour, if only someone would go and tell them the way!
At the end of school, although it was only of a month's duration, to encourage the girls, we held closing exercises and gave out certificates to those who had passed. The results were good, considering not one of the girls had ever been to school before, and had never studied to take an examination in her life. But only one girl got first-class honours. And who do you suppose she was? The blind girl, Leah! She had had exactly the same examination questions as the other girls had, only we took hers orally. They had written down notes from which to review; she had none. Always part of every examination was the recitation of scripture passages, and Leah could not read, yet she alone passed with first-class honours. I asked her how she did it. Her face glowed with pleased embarrassment as she answered.
"Well, I could hear the other girls in my hut going over their notes and scripture in preparation for the exams."
We were very proud of our twenty-two Lisu maidens as they marched into chapel to the music of the little portable organ, and separated in simple form to their designated seats. One of them conducted the singing for the whole service, and two of them gave valedictory addresses! One of them was chairman,
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and they had closing day songs and music just like the Rainy Season Bible Schools. Many of the boy students had come, some a day's journey, to "escort sister home" or some such excuse, but really to see what good the teaching of girls could ever accomplish. At the end of the service one such boy student exclaimed with beaming face, '""Why, wasn't it nice! It was almost as good as ours." Complacent male! I thought it was quite as good.
After all was over and as the happy, excited girls were rolling up bedding and clothes to go home with their proud brothers and friends, I called the three from Deer Pool aside, and, little dreaming what the future was to hold for them or me, I said something like this:
"Now you girls are going back home, and for none of you is life easy. I want you to promise me not to forget the power of prayer. | want you to promise me to meet together regularly and pray through your problems. You know Deer Pool Village is not now what it used to be, spiritually. The craze to make money by trading has been used of the devil to cool off many, and some of the first believers who were so consecrated are now dead. Is that not so?"
"Yes, Ma-Ma,"' they answered sadly. They promised to pray and not to faint, and we parted.
I never saw Leah again. A severe toothache and other ills warned me that I had better go out to Chinaland to seek dental aid. John had been attending a conference in Chungking and as I had not seen him for three months I hoped we might be able to come back together. But in the spring of 1942 the Japanese were walking up Burma as with ten-league boots. By the time I was physically fit to return, they had already reached
Lisuland, and I was evacuated out of the province by = British Consul. Six months elapsed before I was able to get back to the Munition of Rocks. When I did arrive, and had time to inquire into my dear girl student's affairs, this is what I was told of Leah.
Shortly after she got home from Bible school her young brother, the only son of the family and a fine Christian, died of tuberculosis of the leg bone. One of her younger sisters had died of a fever the year before. And within a few months, Leah herself was laid low of a fever, probably typhus. Up to that time she and
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Tabitha and Abigail had been faithful in holding their prayer meetings. But not long after she took sick, Leah knew that God was going to call her Home. She asked the family (then only mother, father and one married sister) to gather around her bed, and they said the strength with which she was able to talk was wonderful. "I know I am going back to God," she told them. "And my one concern is for you folk, lest your faith fail you.
You have' een afflicted much this last year; we none of us can understand why these troubles come, but two things we know; that is, that God loves us and that God is faithful. Everything that happens to us is for our good and some day He will show us why it had to be. You must not wail for me—I am going to the land of Happiness and Light, and where Christ is. But what concerns me now is lest you dishonour Him by complaining, because He is taking me! Dad, promise me you won't! Promise that you will go on believing and not doubt God's goodness!"
And they said that with her last strength she pleaded that God's honour should be defended by the ones she left behind. Who can account for a spirit like that, except it be, even as Christ said,
"Born from above"?
So they laid their third child in the grave and, as tears flowed, they strove as a family to follow out her injunctions and not let other people suggest that God was too hard on them.
But still the Sharp Wind from the Bitter Height continued its onslaught. The mother, one of the most faithful of the Christians, was ill with an unknown and very painful disease. I think it was cancer. Within a year she too had gone to be with the Lord; so the old sightless father and the married sister were left alone.
But the words of their dead Singing Bird were constantly with them. "Promise me that you will not complain! Promise me you will believe on!"' And they followed in her faith. "The Lord ets His best soldiers from the Highlands of Affliction," someone
# said. One little picture, as told me by a Lisu evangelist who was ministering at Deer Pool for a few weeks, will show the faith and trust which was their life.
"We had an exciting experience of fire while I was at Deer Pool," he said. "One or two of the huts were aflame, a keen wind was blowing and we were afraid the whole village would
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go. I was on top of David's house, spreading wet blankets over it to save the roof from flying sparks, and everyone was running around hauling water, etc., when I happened to look up, and there in the middle of the road was Leah's old blind father. His house was right in the path the flames were taking, but he had no one to help him now, of course. And there he was, lifting his sightless eyes up to the sky and praying. There he stood, and even as he prayed the wind began to veer around and his house was — saved. He, a layman, old and afflicted, was committing, and I the preacher, was rushing around working to save the house in which I was guest. He surely taught me a lesson. I came down from off that roof and went on to my knees. And the wind carried the flames out toward the wild mountainside, and no other house was harmed."
Friends, there is a blessed shelter in the Cleft of the Rock for you and me. Blindness is a cruel Wind from a Bitter Height, but a blind girl had her inner eyes so opened that her vision of faith lived on and enlightened others, long after her physical voice was silenced.
A Rock in a Weary Land a -s (This scene goes back many years, perhaps to 1921) TALL young figure clattered over the loose boards of the narrow veranda and plunged into the semi-darkness of the Lisu hut.
"Mamma!" he called out, "Have you heard the news?"
An equally tall lean woman, sprawled on a bed near the fire, faced streaked with soot, a dirty turban wound around her head from which the hair had all been shaven off, sat up, pulled a long pipe out of her mouth, and answered, ""What news? Ain't heard nothing."
"Well," answered her son, and as he talked he was hunting through the dim light of the shanty for his crossbow and arrow sheaf, "'Dad's gone and run off with Nyio-Er-Me, curse her!" and a string of profanity filled the air.
Then it was the woman's turn to get excited. Every other sentence a filthy curse, she ranted on, working herself up into a passionate rage.
"What's he done that for? Haven't I been a good wife to him?
I've given him sons! There isn't a pair of fellows on this mountain that can touch my two for stature or strength. And a daughter besides, have I given him. What's he want to run off with that ——' and more profanity.
By this time her tall son had found his bow and arrows and slung them over his shoulder. A dangerous knife, some three feet long, was fastened at his side. As he stretched himself up to adjust the weapons, he was a splendid-looking figure, despite uncombed hair and dirty face. About six feet tall, with broad shoulders, he was well-proportioned, and the comeliness of fine
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straight features was manifest in spite of dirt. His face was fierce with excitement.
"Give me a drink of wine, Ma!" he cried. "Don't you worry!"
And with a turn and a fling, he was clattering back over the loose boards and on to the trail above the house. The old mother, left alone, cursed and wept alternately as the sore evil which all Lisu women dread and fear loomed up on her horizon.
Up through the mountainside plunged the four young men, talking excitedly and laying their plans. Somehow they had learned which was the village where the eloping pair had decided to spend the night, and which family was befriending them. Of the capture details, I do not know. Being only sons, they could not force a separation, and this the father knew well. But of the fierceness and cleverness of his eldest son he had reason to know also, and likely he did not dare bring home his second wife immediately. Their persuasion was impotent to change his mind: his passion had fastened on Nyio-Er-Me and she knew how to hold him her slave. She was truly an evil woman. So with what lying promises he held off the wrath of his two formidable sons we do not know, but return home alone, he did not. To run off to Burma for a year or so had often proved successful for others, but he had aroused a strong character against him, one who did not forget. That oldest son—well, everybody dreaded him when he got into a fury. Give him a present of opium? Yes, that probably was the most potent way to calm things. Opium will destroy any character, if taken over a sufficiently long period.
And because it soothes pain it is greatly prized. His oldest boy was already an opium addict at the age of twenty.
But as the father and his evil companion were laying their lans, the oldest son was also laying his. It was time he was set married, anyway, and he had already started out to build his own house. When that was finished, and his bride brought home, his mother could come and live with him—and then her face would be saved and his father could do what he wanted.
In the deep ravine was another village named The Village of Tree Roots, and there he found a girl more or less to his liking,
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She was not pure, but then, who was? That does not reckon as important in heathen thinking.
"What do Lisu look for in a wife?' I once asked one of them.
"Oh, some want good looks," was the answer. "Others want to marry into a rich family; and still others want a wife who is hospitable. It's humiliating to a fellow if his wife does not want to entertain strangers, and some women don't."
One or'other of these motives influenced Lao-Ta, and the engagement was made. He must pay a lot of money for her— perhaps two hundred dollars in silver. Her family reckon they have had the expense of bringing her up, feeding and clothing her, and once she is married she is lost to them as a farmhand, so they reckon that the ones who get the benefit of her abilities should pay for what she has cost. This is called "dowry money"' and its various items are amusing. The mother will charge for having nursed her, i.e. a "milk bill' is sent in. Then sometimes there is a charge for Jwa-jwa-chwa, that is, the labour of premasticating her food for her when she was a baby! (The mother chews the corn or meat, and then with her own lips puts it into the baby's mouth.) And so on. To wed is expensive in Lisuland.
For this reason the Lisu church in our parts has voted against the dowry, and no Christian may pay it. But we are discussing the days before the gospel arrived; for our hero was already married and a father, when he first heard of Christ.
Time heals all wounds. Ten years later we see Lao-Ta and Lao-Er both married and living in their own house, and tilling their separate farms in the Village of Oak Flat. The father and his second wife live in the original homestead, and now have a son, and a daughter, Susanna. Father and sons have long forgotten their anger, and work and help each other noe but the two wives never forget. Bickering, jealous quarrels continuall upset the peace. The first wife has been offered a home wi her oldest son as he promised, but love for her husband probably drew her back to him after a few years. When the gospel came, and her husband wanted to become a Christian, however, a final break was made, and she came permanently into the home of her oldest boy.
That boy had now seen his first-born, a little girl, whom he
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
named Me-do-me, and so his own name is changed for the rest of his life. Lisu practise tknonymy; that is, the father takes the oldest child's name with pa (man) added to it, and the mother takes the same name, only with ma (woman) added to it. So automatically the family is now Me-do-me-pa and Me-do-mema and little Me-do-me. From now on their fellow villagers must address them as such; to call them by their childhood name is to insult them.
Now we must go back in thought to 1932.
One evening, up the long winding two-thousand-foot ascent from the ravine stream, climb two or three Lisu men of a slightly different costume. They stop at Cha-Lao-San's shanty and ask if they may spend the night there. Welcomed cordially, they sit down on the big low bedboards which inevitably act as fireside seats in the daytime, and take out books from a small bag slung over their shoulder.
"Oh, you read Chinese?" asks Lao-San curiously.
"No," said the visitors, 'these are Lisu books."
The effect is electric. Everyone in the shanty turns around and amazed attention is riveted on the speaker. He is, of course,
Job, with that little band.
"Tisu books? Didn't know there were such! Do you mean to say that those leaves speak our language?"
"Well, I'll read some and you judge for yourself," says the speaker casually. Whereupon the Book is made to tell its own message. Job's favourite was the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, but sometimes the Catechism was used.
Its first question, "Who made the earth and everything upon it?" is arresting.
Then the interest swung around from the books to the message and soon the shanty is filled with amazed questions and thrilling answers. Finally, someone says, "Better go call Me-do-me-pa!"' for our hero had now become the political headman of his village, and it is not convenient to do anything '"'different'' without consulting the headman. So Me-do-me-pa was summoned.
He enters, tall and matured now into young manhood, perhaps thirty-two years of age. But being a heathen he is still dirty, a wine-bibber and an opium-smoker. There is the gleam of a
A ROCK IN A WEARY LAND
IOI keen mind in his eye, nevertheless, as he listens to the story of Calvary.
As all wait for his verdict, he says, "I'd like to have eternal life—who wouldn't? But it's never been followed in these parts before. What do you do to get it? Could a Lisu receive it?"
"You must believe in God," was the Lisu evangelist's answer.
"Jesus died for your sins. You must cast out your demons and turn to Géd. You must stop unclean sinning, and so forth."
This was shock. The only excitements and pleasures of a heathen life are those just named! Immediately some voices were raised against it. But not so Me-do-me-pa. While the others clamoured that that was too much to expect of human mortal, he was thinking. A glimpse of something that answered a longfelt heart cry was holding him. Every now and again he shot a keen question into the hubbub, and always it brought a silence while all listened for the answer.
"Have you done all this?"
"Yes," was the sturdy reply. "We cast out our demons over fifteen years ago; hundreds of Lisu have done so in our parts, and nothing has happened to them. Jesus is stronger than the demons. Andas for worldly pleasures, God gives you other things in their place. We have wonderful songs to sing; happy fellowship in worship services. Once a year we all gather from all over the canyon and hold what we call the Christmas Festival. It is lots of fun. I would not go back to heathen life for anything.
And in your own district here, the people of Deer Pool have already cast out their demon altars and accepted Christ."
Long into the night the discussion waged. By that time most of the men of Oak Flat Village would be in the crowded little hut, listening to the new doctrine. At the close Me-do-me-pa stood up.
"T want to believe. Come to my house to-morrow morning, teacher, and cast out my demons. And have breakfast with me!''
Up stood Cha-Lao-San..""And you must cast out my demons for me also," he cried. "I'm going to believe in God, too."
And so the work began at Oak Flat Village. Word soon spread over the mountain. "Teachers have come with a strange doctrine.
They say we should not worship demons but should believe and
I02
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
trust in God. The headman of Oak Flat and some others have cast out their demons!'' And so as the teachers pushed on they found their way prepared for them. Joseph of Dried Fungus
(later engaged to Homay) joined the little band of Christians.
At Tree Roots Me-do-me-ma's brothers turned to God. At Pine Mountain, old Big and Pu-fu-si-pa. Plum Tree Flat turned as a village. At Spirea Flat a fine young man and his wife took their stand and became the nucleus of a church there, and so on.
Finally, word came to the Feudal Laird at Place-of-Action, and he was easy to stir up against the new movement. They whispered to him: "This new doctrine is not Chinese. It was brought by the white man. It is a ruse he is using to steal your land. Better stop it before all your people go over to the white man. Me-do-me-pa, of Oak Flat, has already joined them."
Of course it was all lies—the devil is the father of lies—but the Laird thought it was true, so he sent forth word that his people were not to accept the new doctrine. Such messages are taken to the headman of each village, who, in turn, is responsible for conveying it to each member of his village. Undoubtedly it came to Me-do-me-pa.
What conflict must have waged in that Lisu heart! He was quite a favourite with the Laird. It meant much to be a favourite
—no taxes, partiality in law suits, and innumerable other advantages. And to disobey him! Well, wealthy men who had done so had gradually been reduced to poverty. And some, who had wilfully disobeyed, had been tortured. He knew what the Laird could do, if he wanted to. I think it went this way.
Cha-Lao-San came running in the door.
"Oh, Me-do-me-pa! I hear that runners from the Yamen have come with orders that we are not to turn Christian. Is it so?"'
"Guess so,'' was the grim reply.
"Well, are you going to send the notice around to all of us?"
"No." A gasp from all who were listening.
Cha-Lao-San asked slowly, '""What will he do to you, if you don't?"'
The tall Lisu lifted his head and looked the questioner in the eyes. "Whatever he does can only be done to the outside of me— he can't take away the eternal life God has given to me. This