Have We No Rights? Part 2

Perhaps several years have gone by. You are in charge of the home yourself, and the "discipline" relaxes a bit. Perhaps you even resort to was.h.i.+ng your fruit in cold boiled water instead of scalding it, because scalding does spoil it so! Then the younger workers are sent to you, and you become the head of a new family. One day, suddenly, one of them gets a violently upset stomach. Is it cholera? The nearest hospital is two days' journey away. You catch your breath, and go ahead caring for her the best you can with your limited medical knowledge, a constant cry going up from your heart to the only One who can help, to Him who is the only all-sufficient One! If you are fortunate your junior recovers. From that time on, all the fruit that appears on your table will be thoroughly scalded.

This is not a chapter on missionary health. It does not purpose to instruct you in the rules of hygiene. Rather it inquires into att.i.tudes. Is the missionary to be as particular as he can about everything (fussy, some may call it), or should his faith be great enough so that he overlooks the rules of the doctors? Or perhaps, are there times when the one att.i.tude is desirable, and times for the other?

The Lord of the harvest has sent us forth. A dead laborer, or even a sick one, is not much use. It is surely our duty to take all sensible precautions, and whenever possible to use the safeguards to health with which modern science has provided us. We have no right at all to disobey the rules of hygiene just because we happen to feel like it.

But on the other hand, when those among whom we are ministering, people whose training is different from ours, who have no conception of modern hygiene, out of the love in their hearts provide us with things to eat and drink, surely then is the time to say with Paul, "asking no questions for conscience' sake" (I Cor. 10:27). Surely in cases where adhering strictly to the rules of hygiene would hinder the fulfilling of our commission, we can trust the One who sent us forth to look after us.

CHAPTER 4

_The Right to Regulate My Private Affairs As I Wish_

_"Wherefore, if meat causeth my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore, that I cause not my brother to stumble."_--I Corinthians 8:13

"Please, teacher," said a voice at my elbow, "wouldn't you like to wash your face?"

We were having a week in the country. For the fifth time that day, our first full day out, there stood the pastor's wife, holding out to me a basin of steaming water. She had just the right combination of humility and pride in her manner. I quickly stifled the desire to say, "I don't want to was.h.!.+ What in the world do I want to wash my face five times a day for?" Then I mumbled thanks, and reached wearily for my washcloth. But a little later I tackled her about it.

"Do you always wash your face as often as this?"

"Why, of course!" was the quick reply. "All clean people do! And I was brought up in a very clean family."

I let the matter drop, and washed my face (and my feet) as often as she thought best for the rest of the trip.

Grandmother Bay's little granddaughter had just come back from Shanghai. Grandmother Bay proudly appeared at church accompanied by a prettily dressed, well-behaved child of about nine. After the service several of us sat chatting. One old lady looked at the child's pretty frock, and then gave a quick glance at her grandmother.

"I suppose that's the Shanghai style," was all that she said, but Grandmother Bay divined her meaning.

"Just what I thought myself!" She quickly caught up the remark. "It's pretty material, and nicely made--cut a bit closely, but I suppose those Shanghai tailors do it that way. But the sleeves! Practically no sleeves at all! It's almost indecent! But you know, she has hardly a sc.r.a.p of the material, and I haven't been able to match it. Otherwise I should have lengthened them immediately. It's too good a garment to throw away. I don't know what in the world to do about it!"

I sat listening with my mouth open. The child was little enough so that I would hardly have been surprised to see her running around the yard with nothing on but a pair of trousers, as many smaller girls did. (The boys needed still less!) The objectionable sleeves were just long enough to cover her shoulders. What was wrong with that for a child of her size?

I looked at the two women, trying my best to understand their point of view. What I saw made me gasp. In that area the older women all wore thigh-length loose jackets, and loose trousers, as their regulation attire. It was warm, and one of the two women had just pulled up her trouser legs. Her short stockings reached about eight inches above her ankles, and were held in place by tight round garters. She vigorously fanned her bare knees as the two, with serious, troubled faces, continued the conversation about the "indecent" dress.

What is decency anyway? In certain groups in India it is not decent for a woman to show her face, but her bare feet peep from beneath her long robes. Things that look perfectly all right to us look indecent to someone else; and things that look indecent to us may look perfectly all right to someone else!

A young missionary goes inland to her first station. "I'm not going to look frumpy!" she declares, and takes all her prettiest dresses. When she comes out in gay colors that are not worn in that backward area, or in short sleeves when everyone else has elbows duly covered, her senior missionary attempts to suggest a bit of alteration in her wardrobe. All suggestions, however, are indignantly rejected. She plunges enthusiastically into work with the children, using pictures very effectively to supplement her limited vocabulary. One day her two favorite scholars do not appear, and she asks her helper, a bright high school girl, the reason. The embarra.s.sed and evasive answer does not satisfy, and she keeps after the poor girl until finally she is told the truth. An hour later her senior missionary finds her weeping in her room.

"She said," she chokes, "she said----that their mother won't let them come any more because I----because I can't be a good woman; I dress like a--a prost.i.tute!"

What is wrong? Why does the eager young missionary have to go through all this heartache? Just because she is not willing to see with someone else's eyes. Her own standards are the only right ones. She learns by hard experience the fact that other people _do_ see things differently from us, and that it _does_ make a difference. After all, this is their country, and these are their customs. We cannot expect them to adjust to ours. It is the foreigner in the strange land who has to adjust to the ways of that land.

To learn a new language, the ear must be alert to hear just that little turn with which a sound is p.r.o.nounced that makes all the difference between a foreign and a native accent. To become adjusted to a new people, the eye and the heart must be alert to perceive clearly, to understand and take in their feelings and their reactions.

May G.o.d grant us the seeing eye and the hearing ear!

"Oh, they're terribly strict at that Bible school!" someone remarks.

"There are rules about how long your dresses must be, and how you must wear your hair. I wouldn't stand for it! Why, it's things like that that give Christianity a bad name!"

Perhaps. At the same time, one who has shown that he is willing to give up his own standards and conform to someone else's, even though he may not see the reason for those standards, has shown an att.i.tude that will take him a long way on the mission field. The "how I do my hair and what kind of clothes I wear is my own business!" att.i.tude so frequently met with, both at home and on the field, is not a promising one. If we have fully given ourselves to Christ, nothing is our own business--it is all His.

CHAPTER 5

_The Right to Privacy_

_"There were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat."_--Mark 6:31

_"But when he saw the mult.i.tudes, he was moved with compa.s.sion for them."_--Matthew 9:36

I had just come back from a strenuous month in the country. Mr. and Mrs. Sprightly, the young married couple who were in charge of the mission station, and I were relaxing around the tea table. I told about the work I had been doing, and answered interested questions.

Finally the talk drifted into lighter channels, and Mrs. Sprightly told a funny incident she had witnessed the previous day in a courtyard down the street when she had been out for a walk with her little boy.

"I always like to have Sonny with me when I go out," she concluded, philosophically. "When he's along I can stick my nose in anywhere I like. All I have to do is to say, 'My little boy wants to see what that is,' and I can wander into their courtyards, or even into their houses, and n.o.body thinks anything about it!"

Curiosity is a common trait, and especially so among those who are uneducated and unsophisticated. Missionaries often find those to whom they go frankly curious. But, strangely enough, there is something in many of us that rebels against having one's private life a matter of common knowledge! The one who has grown up without becoming acquainted with the meaning of the word _privacy_, on the other hand, may find it impossible to understand why the missionary desires to be alone once in awhile!

The young missionary hears the sound of Chinese music from somewhere up the street. To her ears it is weird and unintelligible, but the children at their play instantly recognize the tune, and raise their voices in a shout.

"The new daughter-in-law[2] is coming! The new daughter-in-law is coming!"

A friendly youngster pokes his head in at the missionary's door.

"Wouldn't you like to come and see the new daughter-in-law?" he asks politely. "The sedan chair is just arriving. Hurry!"

"But--dear me!" protests the missionary. "Whose home is this new daughter-in-law coming to? Is it a family we are acquainted with?"

"Oh, _that_ doesn't matter!" the boy a.s.sures her. "Why, everybody goes to see a new daughter-in-law!"

The missionary, reluctantly allowing herself to be pulled along by the hand, finds it even as the child has said. Crowds of children, and older people too, are swarming in at the open gateway through which has just pa.s.sed the gaily decorated sedan chair. Though the courtyard is fairly commodious, it is packed with people, talking, gesticulating, pus.h.i.+ng to get a better vantage point from which to view the bride when she alights. The groom and his parents are graciously welcoming invited guests, entirely unconcerned about all the hubbub. The bridal chair is set down to a great popping of firecrackers, the appointed welcome committee of several girls and one older woman draws the curtain and a.s.sists the bride to her place in the yard, and the ceremony proceeds. After it is completed, the bride is escorted with much formality into the house, and to the bedroom prepared for her, where she is seated upon a bed resplendent with red satin quilts. Then the guests, invited and uninvited, pour into the room. They subject the bride and her clothes to an interested and careful scrutiny, commenting upon everything, with much joking and laughter. As soon as one group gets tired and takes its leave, another is ready to push in and view the "new daughter-in-law."

"The poor girl!" says the missionary. "She looks ready to drop! When will they ever leave her to herself?"

Not until late that night--and the same performance will start again early the next morning. Why, if there were not a continuous stream of visitors for three days, the wedding would be thought rather a flop!