CHAPTER XIII.
I had frequently in going about the station, seen a European whose name I learned was Jasper. He had a beautiful house and well kept grounds on a retired road. This much I saw as I passed his place, but had never spoken to him. One morning he came, as I was sitting in the veranda, and handing me his card said that his mali had told him that I had some very fine crotons, and with my permission, he would like to see them. We went into the yard, and through the garden, and I found he was greatly interested in botany. This suited me exactly, as I began to have a special delight in adding to my knowledge of that science, as well as increasing my stock of plants. He praised my collection of crotons saying that they could not be excelled in India. After a pleasant round of seeing and chatting, he invited me to call on him, as he had some things to show me and bade me “Good morning.”
Thus commenced one of the most pleasant friendships I could have formed, which continued until his death. He was about middle age, of good parts, well read, and I had not been with him an hour before I knew that he didhis own thinking. He always showed great respect for the opinions of others, the same that he claimed they should have for his.
A few mornings after, I returned Mr. Jasper’s call, and was delighted with his rare plants and flowers. We then took our seats on the veranda, and he called for tea. In the course of our conversation, I referred to my releasing the girl from the police. I could not forget that screaming cry for help in the night, and the oftener I thought of it, the more indignant I grew. At once he exclaimed “What an outrage! It seems incredible that such things could be possible. It is not only this one case, but all over India such seizures are taking place. Sometimes when I hear of such things, I wish I was God, or given His power for a short time, I would cause lightning to strike the men who organized such a devilish system, and those who carry it on. I would make such a retribution upon them all that they would feel they were in hell. If a daughter of the Queen, or of the Prime Minister, or of a member of Parliament, of the Viceroy or Commander in Chief, should be seized, to be kept as a prisoner to pass a short life in infamy and die of vice disease, what would happen? Why every paper in the United Kingdom would have gory articles on the subject; the whole nation would be aroused, and there would be a question in Parliament. If done in a foreign country it would be a cause for war. It is the old story of whose ox is gored. Admitting that she is an orphan, without friends, an Eurasian, pardon me Mr. Japhet for this word.”
“Go on,” I quickly replied, “I have been too often under the lash, or rather through the fire on account of that word to take any offence, for I know just what you mean.”
He commenced again. “Suppose this girl and other girls are friendless and weak, are they not the very ones to be protected? What are laws and governments for, if they are not to shield those who need protection the most? Are the laws for the rich, the strong and mighty, who do not need their aid? To whom should we be charitable if not to the poor? To whom shall we show mercy,if not to the weak and erring? These girls have immortal souls, or else Christianity and all human teaching is a lie. Have we not had it drummed into our ears, from our infancy that all souls are precious in the sight of God, and that He is not a respecter of persons; that the poor and helpless are his care? You know the teachings of Christianity and of the Church, but what is the practice? I am old enough to care very little about creeds and theories. I care more to know of a man’s life, what are his daily acts and thoughts. I don’t care to hear a man’s prayers, so much as to see what he does. He may pray for the poor with his lips, but I would rather see him pay for them from his pocket. But what is the practice here?
“We took this country because we had the power to do it. We hold it by might and force, and rule it with a sort of tyranny, a military despotism. We are not here because the people want us. If we did not keep the country by force, not by moral or religious power, but by real brutal force, it would slip out of our hands in a single day. Blink at it as we may, this is the fact and no one can question it. Here then is a force, of one hundred and fifty thousand English soldiers, more or less, sent out at an enormous expense to live by the sweat and blood of these poverty-stricken, overtaxed natives. Only ten per cent. of these soldiers are allowed to marry. A direct violation of the laws of God and nature. It is not enough that the people are taxed to support this great army, they must also provide victims to gratify the,—I will not say brutal, for that would be a libel on even the lowest of the brute creation,—but the foul, inhuman lust of these officers and soldiers. And what is enough to make infidels of all mankind, is that all this is done under a Christian Queen, a woman and a mother, by authority of a Christian Parliament, and executed by the Christian Government of India! By a nation ever ready to parade its civilization, chivalry and Christianity! No wonder that these heathen have so little faith in the Christian religion. I heard an old missionary say that the worst place for missionary work was in the vicinity of a cantonment; that the very lowest heathen were degraded by contact with the soldiers. It is so everywhere.
“A writer on Africa says, ‘The farther the traveler advances into the interior, the better is the condition of the natives found to be, less drunkenness and immorality!’ Yet it is pretended that we are holding this country for the glory of God, and the welfare of the people, and that the subjugation of the people of the world by Christian nations is for the promotion of civilization and Christianity! Out on such cant and hypocrisy! The biggest robbers get the loot, and we are the robbers. Why not say so, that we are after the loot and nothing else? Why not be truthful even if we are thieves and not try to cover up our iniquities with a film of religious varnish?”
I had no chance to put in a word and did not care to, as I thought he was hitting the bull’s-eye at every shot, but I interjected: “They say that it is necessary to make some provision.”
“All rot,” he exclaimed, “it is a slander on humanity. Don’t you know that men can frame excuses and apologies for everything they wish to do?
“Why not make provision for men to commit theft, or highway robbery or murder? It is false that men cannot restrain or subdue their sexual passion the same as they subdue their other passions. Are they worse than the brutes? If men are such gross animals that they cannot control themselves, they ought to do as Origen, the saint, did to himself, or as they cripple their fighting stallions.
“The fact is that the teachings of our people are wrong. They always uphold what they do themselves, and make excuses for those who do like them. One cannot take up a high society English novel but he reads of the seduction and ruin of some poor ignorant girl by some titled roue. High society seems to demand and gloat over such rotten mental food, as it enjoys its rank over ripe game. If not, why are such books written, and some of them by women, too? If the literature of every nation is the mirror of its mind, what can be the minds of those who write and read such books? The level of public morality must be very low when the higher classes can delight in such things. If these stories were written to condemn vice and licentiousness,to show the curse and crime of wrong-doing, I would say nothing, for I am not a prude, but the most of these stories make the amours and seductions by their heroes as something to be admired, rather than horrible and repulsive.
“If there is any truth in Christianity, or any force in morality, it should be used against the great vices of the nation, as well as of the individual. But, as the Rev. Mr. Morley, in the “Times,” says: ‘The church has nothing to say to public justice and mercy, to the spirit of our legislation, to the union of hearts and minds embracing all classes and conditions. All this it leaves to the world.’
“What are all the sweet mouthings in church about baptismal regeneration and holy communion, when the majority of those listening are constantly violating the laws of God and their own natures, and not a word about this? I suppose all the soldiers in these regiments have been baptized. Were they regenerated? If so, they must have got over it very quickly. If there is any virtue in baptism, they should be baptized every day, and by immersion, even to drowning, and then they would not be fit to live on earth, much less to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
“The trouble is, that in the churches, faith and morals, creed and practice have been divorced, and do not live together. Many of these soldiers would probably be astonished if it was suggested to them that their religion had anything to do with their passions or their lusts. They would probably answer as the old negro woman did, who had stolen a goose. She went to church and gave testimony for Jesus. When reproached by her mistress for doing such a thing, after her theft, she exclaimed: ‘Do you think I would deny my Lord and Master for the sake of a goose?’”
At this I interrupted him, by asking if these girls and women were restrained and prevented from leaving?
“Certainly,” he said, “as much so as if they were in prison for life, and there were armed sentries paraded before the gate. If, by any chance, they escape, they are seized and brought back as any escaped prisoner would be.The doors of these hells never open outward for these poor wretches, and it might be written on the portals ‘Death to all who enter here,’ and their lives are very brief when fresh victims must be got. Talk about slavery! Why, the very worst African slavery is Paradise to this, and our goody goody canting hypocrites make much ado over the enslavement of the negroes.
“What can we expect when the church is silent, and the priests and bishops make excuses, and apologies for this foul and ghastly pestilence of lust? What a comment on the morals of a people when the church is seriously considering the necessity of separate cups for administering the wine at communion to prevent the contagion of venereal disease! Such a proposition would be amusing and a sarcasm, if it were not so serious, and yet an outsider cannot forbear asking why the church does not attack the root of the matter instead of lopping the branches, or why such noxious persons should be allowed to partake of the communion at all?”
Again I interrupted, I inquired if there were not medical examinations, and did not the doctors give certificates?
“Certainly,” he said, “but what of them? They might as well give consecrated charms to carry in the pocket, as a protection against cyclones and earthquakes. Do you suppose any man can give a certificate to protect any one against the evil results of a violation of the laws of God and nature? Can we thwart God when He evidently intended to make the consequences of sin terrible? Heal the sick, cure and save all we can, but their medical examinations and so-called cures are for another purpose. When Jesus lived, and as it is said, healed the diseased, what did he always say? “Go and sin no more.” But these false cures are not to cure, but on purpose to let the victims go and sin again, and be damned. I am not giving my own opinions, for I have talked with doctors themselves, and they have told me what they thought of the business.
“One of them, a Scotchman, a true man in every fibre of his being, a surgeon who had been through the Mutiny, and at the siege of Delhi. I met him one morning, coming from the hospital. He referred to what he had been doing. Said he, ‘I hate the stinking business.’ ‘Whythen, don’t you refuse to do it?’ ‘Man, alive! I would then lose my position, if I did. I am nearly ready to retire on a pension, and I cannot afford to stop now, and lose that.’
“‘But you cure and give certificates,’ I suggested? ‘Certificates be damned,’ he said with disgust; ‘I might as well snap my fingers, and say that the wind shouldn’t blow again. Every time I have this hateful business to do I wish the Viceroy or the Commander in Chief had to do my dirty work, they would soon stop it if they had to make every soldier a eunuch, unseminare them. It is only a trick or deception to delude the soldiers to think they are safe, and let them go on from bad to worse.’
“I expressed surprise that those who made the law did not understand. ‘Understand,’ he replied, ‘they did not want to understand. They wished to please the soldiers, even if it was by deception, and so made their regulations, forgetting that the Almighty had made His laws some time ago. We cannot frustrate the plans of God.’ Much more the doctor told me. I hope Mr. Japhet,” said he, “that I have not detained you too long.” I replied that I was in no hurry, as I had no special business on hand.
He asked, “Were you ever in Naples?” “No,” I replied. “I want to tell you a little incident. One morning, while visiting a friend who had long been a resident of that city, we were seated at an open window, looking out at the belching fires of Vesuvius. I remarked, ‘Why not bore a hole or tunnel from the sea, and let in the waters to drown those infernal fires? Wouldn’t there be a muttering and a spluttering, and a—’
“‘Stop, stop!’ he exclaimed. ‘You do not know what you are saying! Should you dare suggest such a thing here in public, the Neapolitans would mob you at once!’ After a little hesitation he continued: ‘Why, it would be a crime! What a catastrophe would happen, and where would Naples be, or even the globe itself, if such a thing should be done?’
“As my friend was of a religious turn, he went on: ‘It would be the most stupendous attack on God’s order in nature that man ever attempted. The building of the Tower of Babel would be children’s play compared to it.It would be an eternal sin, involving not only the doer of it, but the entire human race. Why, your suggestion will give me the nightmare as long as I live in Naples, fearing that some God-defying man might do it.’
“I have often thought of his remarks, and the lesson of them to me was, that we cannot, or ought not to think of defying the physical laws of nature, any more than we should outrage the moral laws of the God of nature.” Thus ended my first call on Mr. Jasper.
On returning I had these thoughts: It is pitiable to think of the thousands of loving Christian mothers praying daily for their soldier boys in India, unaware of the cheap temptations furnished by the Government within a few steps of their barracks, and to be with them in camp, to march with them for their convenience.
It is pitiable to think of the thousands of pure, innocent women at home, accepting as husbands the returned gentlemen from India, where these have left a number of their own black-and-tan pickaninnies, or have been shorn of their strength, in the laps of many Delilahs among the native women.