Chik Lung's First White Man

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 21, 31 May 1923, Page 23

Chik Lung's First White Man

The Buddhist monk slowly unbent and stood up straight and held out his wet yellow robe. The river was low and he had to lean far over to wash the garment for services on the morrow. He was really too old, the neighbors said, for washing properly, and reverence was forgotten while watching his awkward attempts.

But the old man heeded no remarks; besides, he was almost deaf. His sixty years of cloistered life had dulled the senses to the noises of the busy Chinese about him, though his eyes were keen and under bushy whitened brows they took in much of what was lost to hearing or to touch.

He was no sluggard and usually worked steadily, but to-day his eye had caught a strange sight passing. Perhaps it was his startled snort of a buffalo that attracted his attention and made him look up, for the peaceful animal is usually majestic in its self-control. 1 He saw a boat approaching, one of the many sampans that squirm like beetles on the river, and at its prow a stranger stooda Western foreigner. A long black robe that differed somehow from the Chinese scholar’s gown, with a black sash having a dash of red at the fringe that caught the eye as it fluttered in the breeze.

The old monk paused and the yellow' robe lay unnoticed against the slimy rocks. A foreigner in these parts ! How the world was changing! He had heard a monk who had journeyed to Yeungkong tell of the adAent of the ‘‘foreign devils,” but here was one at his very elbow. Were the stories true, he wondered, that were told of these white men, their fast shins and flying vehicles and instruments that told the hours of the day, and the stranger tales of occult powers, the medicines they made of children’s eyes, their bitter drug that cured the chills and fevers of this marshy land, the salty water, signed and grayed over, that put the devils to rout. At any rate he would find s out whatever could he learned, for little passed unnoticed by the old rheumatic man.

The stranger landed a few feet away and picked his cautious Step up the slippery rocks. The monk was nearest the landing, but seemingly intent again on pounding the virtue of cleanliness into his faded tunic. “Pardon me,' Elder .Brother,” said the stranger to the monk, “can you, tell me where the Catholic Church is in Chik Lung?” . The monk, though deaf and busy, caught the words and answered in a. deep, clear voice. . ■"■“The dwelling next my own has such a sign above the door;, but I have never seen a Christian enter yet.” And

encouraged by a smile, lie added: “Are you a Catholic priest?”

“Yes,” answered the missioned “and I am glad to see you, for I shall be your neighbor for awhile. Which is the house you spoke of?” The monk, with the inbred courtesy of a Chinese, wrung his wet robe, still far from spotless, and shoving his feet into his sandals, began the ascent to the trow of houses above them. He paused at the back of a little shop and shoved open its broken door. A water rat rushed out and roaches scattered into corners; a spider’s web with dusty rays stretched from doorstep to lintel, while within the moss-green paving had sprouted scrawny, weeds. “This is sour home, and that is mine next door,” said the monk, “and you will excuse me for a moment.” “Be it never so humble,” the missioner tried to say as he registered a tired smile. A wave of his hat cleared the cobweb, and the.mission of Chik Lung had a resident priest. It was a new venture in the rapidly expanding Maryknoll Mission, a peaceful penetration into fields where white man never yet had lived. It was a resume of the history of the Catholic Church .the world over, a hearkening back to . apostolic times when first the / Gospel had been preached in pagan parts. “Thus far and no farther,” cried Canute to the unheeding- waves, and with like success can anything stop the progress of God’s message of salvation to all men.

But the moment was one of no exaltation to the misSionfer. A night on a draughty boat had robbed the sun’s halo of its poetry and with a grim smile the priest began to set up his simple altar. His “boy” had followed from the boat with handbag and the day’s provisions, and soon the altar tapers brightened another altar to the Unknown God.

Phe tinkling of the Sanctus . reached the neighbors’ ears and the shadow of the Buddhist monk peeped in as the consecrated hands raised the Saving Host. The monk stood ■ reverently till the end and then quietly slipped out and when the priest had unvested he returned with tea and cakes.

They were an odd sight as they sat down to tea, the aged monk and the younger priest: symbolic too of the two religions. The monk with shaven head and dull grey gown, ascetic and austere, looked like a figure from the past, a past that had grow old and withered; while the priest, although he too was simply dressed, and one accustomed to - austerity and prayer, had about him the grace of a living Faith, a religion ever young and never more v >g»rpris. It was ..like a valedictory repast for the old man. He had ministered'to the simpleminded natives, as generations in the monastery before him had done, and now the newer religion was, in God’s good time, to supplant the old.

They talked little during the meal, except in smiles, for the priest was already engrossed in plans for the future. The monk was too long habituated to silence to be a ready talker. A silent meal is soon ended. Besides, it was so scanty it did but whet the appetite of youth, and even now the boy was preparing some eggs and coffee on a more generous scale. * 1

The ofd monk Withdrew and through the open door could soon be heard the dull tom-tom and the-droning chant in which the monk spent half his day.

The priest had a busy morning ahead of him. An hour’s war on uninvited guests rid the house of its agelong tenants, three pans of dust and a motley collection of broken jugs and crockery. It was a simple house to clean: no panes of glass or draperies, no pictures on the walls or dusty furniture, no rugs or varnished floor. Simply and solely four walls and a loft and three openings that served as doorways and for light. Before the day had closed there were matting near the altar, four chairs and a table and a bed; the walls had been whitewashed and locks put on the doors.

The Christians of this mission were not so few as the monk had imagined; though even the altar bay was a pagan. "Within the town was one Catholic (out of 7000 souls), and'scattered in villages were fifty others, baptised, some of them, more than twenty years before by a passing missioner.—-The Ecclesiastical Review.