The Burnt Offering; A Sequel To 'The Leper Windows'

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Title:     The Burnt Offering; A Sequel To 'The Leper Windows'
Author: Arthur Shearly Cripps [More Titles by Cripps]

['The Headman made it generally known that he expected all the men, both Christian and heathen, to subscribe to the funds. One man refused to give anything, and was taken before the Magistrate in consequence.' Extract from a South African Church paper, December 22, 1910.]

The transepts had been built and blessed, the five leper windows were no longer over-crowded. Xanthos and Melanthos, gods of the fair and the swart skins, had in a measure met together, and in a sense kissed each other. Much remained to be achieved in the matter of mutual good understanding, and much more again in the supercession of these tribal deities by a Greater.

On the other hand, something had been done to teach the devotees of Xanthos toleration and a spirit of alms. The Bishop now turned his attention towards Melanthos more particularly what could he do to ennoble the aims and methods of his clients? He had made a journey to England and back not long before the blessing of the transepts. He regretted leaving his flock at the time. Yet certain observations he had made just ere he started gave him much food for thought on the voyage. And when he was home in the old country he was glad to find time and occasion to observe afresh, supplementing Africa by Europe, intuitions by research.

The Rev. Charles Topready, a keen missionary, had asked him to visit him the week before he went homewards. It was the season when that countryside threshed out its millet-grain in a revel of rhythmic labor. The Bishop delighted in some of those airs that the sticks beat time to. He was greedy of fantastic interpretations as he wrote their voweled refrains down in a note-book.

'We may have a Harvest Thanksgiving in church, may we not, this coming Sunday?' he said.

Now Harvest Thanksgivings were as red rags to Topready. 'Why should we bind upon Africa a burden that irks England?' he groaned. 'Surely it is a mercy that we can start afresh on the veld with no tradition of a Feast of Pumpkins.'

The Bishop smiled and smoked and argued by the hour. His point was that festivals of the soil were serviceable for sons of the soil. That agricultural festivals were serviceable for husbandmen, pastoral feasts for shepherds and goat-herds, hunting commemorations like that of Saint Hubert, for those who hunted. His knowledge of Greece and Rome, pagan and Christian, of mediaeval England and modern Brittany helped him with many apt illustrations. Topready stuck out his chin and kept bravely to his two points the danger of materialism and the menace to the spiritual cults and festas of Holy Church as by law established in the England of to-day.

'All right,' said the Bishop, 'let us have no Harvest Thanksgiving for the tillage of African earth. That is to say not this year. But keep an open mind.' Topready promised dubiously.

That struggle and waiving of victory had put the Bishop on his mettle. He had thought out the subject to some purpose before they met again.

Here are some pages from his English diary:

Sept. 21. Preached at a Thanksgiving in Essex. 'Happy harvest fields,' quiet tints in the Vicarage garden. A sun that seemed to make better use of a short day than an African sun would of a long one. What a festival Topready might have just about this time if he only liked. The masasas tinted with copper, crimson; mauve, and pink, and other leaves showing faery green and gold.

Saint Matthew's Day. The festival of the foolery of riches when Spring is everywhere and the sun is shining.

Oct. (date illegible). Preached at the blessing of the boats in a small Sussex harbor the herring season just beginning. What glorious girls' names some of the boats had that we prayed for 'Diana Elizabeth,' for instance, might have sailed out of the 'Faerie Queene.'

Nov. 1 (All Saints'). Went to church at Saint Paul's in a side chapel.

Nov. 2 (All Souls'). Went to pray in a cemetery chapel.

Both were misty mornings, but the sun each day came out before we had done, and broke through the dingy windows in a carnage of color. How fine a side of death, November, the month of the dead, presents here. Damp and fog and fall of the leaf doubtless the sorryness of the bad business of decay and punishment but on the other hand what bravery of sunlight at times, and what colors for the sun to shine upon. In Africa it's so different. There the month is a spring month. The gay side of death as a release from Africa's plentiful curses and bondages is happily prominent. All Saints' Day our May Day our Feast of Flora and the Rosa Mystica! What a day for converts suckled in animism! Let us commemorate the African Saints with garlands of spring flowers as well as with palms in their hands. Have written to Topready to suggest a May-Day Festival with African drums to dance to, if no English May-pole to plait.

Jan. 21 (St. Agnes' Day). Went to a down church, where they had a sort of special service. Lambing-time among the South Downs just coming on. The sacrifice pleaded with one main request in view the blessing on the flocks. If they had only brought some lambs in! I hope to live to see some pied African lambs and kids in church yet.

June 21. Went to Stonehenge on the longest day. Would have camped out there on the eve if the policeman would have let me. Took observations as to Flame-Stone. Compared notes with those I took at Zimbabwe this time last year on my way to Topready's.

June 24 (Saint John). Yes, in African Mission Stations we should have St. John's Fires or fires corresponding to them about Christmas time.

Then in Mashonaland, summer is at height. Yes, the other Saint John's Day, or its Eve, would do. Let us give thanks for the Light of the World and the Sun of Righteousness symbolized by things seen and enjoyed. What did Saint Patrick do about the sacred fire? He kept it going, didn't he? Let us light our bonfires with a good will this coming Christmastide we who live by sun-time so often.

 

Back from England came the Bishop full of the lore of early missions. He had enriched his zeal for broad-basing the people's worship on their own everyday earth, and for enlightening things opaque with effulgences invisible. He saw his way more clearly to further what he had at heart. Topready had had many letters, and they had had their effect. But he had not capitulated yet. He capitulated at a price, as we shall see.

'Church ready by Christmas,' wrote Topready, 'please come and consecrate.' 'Expect me the day after,' telegraphed the Bishop. He thought about a bonfire as he rode along on that Saint Stephen's Day. 'The kopje above the Mission!' he reflected. 'A magnificent place for a beacon-fire.'

To his delight the new church crowned the very kopje he had been thinking of. There it stood on the sky-line, its gold of fresh thatch crowned a huge pole building, and was itself crowned by a white cross.

'How fine!' said the Bishop to himself, 'but there's no room up there for a bonfire as well, alas!'

Topready did not look over-cheerful when his leader greeted him with congratulations on the building of the church.

'It's all very well, or rather it might have been ever so much better,' he said, as they went in.

In the evening there was much time to talk. They sat on the stony rise above the house with a wide valley view. The starlight was brilliant above them eager, perfervid, passionate. They were on the rocks smoking, the Bishop between Topready and Manners, who was not a parson, but a policeman.

'It's like this,' said Topready. 'Holy Innocents' is the first church that has been built since I came here. It was built on a system.'

He explained roughly how it worked. The native teacher used his personal and official majesty for what it was worth. The people on the Mission ground were asked for poles, grass, work, &c. 'These were given,' said Topready, 'or at least "given" is the word that I understand my predecessor would have chosen. The headman proclaimed that his will coincided with the will of the native teacher. They wanted a church built that would compare favorably with churches erected under the auspices of other native teachers and other headmen.

'The contributions came in plentifully, sylvan or grassy. People who never come to church, heathens who do not seem much overjoyed with the Gospel, gave just as handsomely as Church officers. No one was paid. The church is cheap and big, and the headman and native teacher are both unhealthily contented.'

'Well, what's the matter?' said Manners; 'it's the way we do these little things in Africa. White men don't build churches from base to spire on ideal principles exactly, do they. Bishop?'

'At least we haven't had a cafe chantant lately,' the Bishop said.

'Well, don't you be too sure one isn't going on in some outlying parish while we sit here. As it happens, I know of one advertised for next month.'

'Be sure of your facts,' said the Bishop.

'Anyhow, before you came, plenty of the society lash used to be applied to get church-building doles out of Europeans. Moreover, if you look into it, generally you'll find things at Missions much as you find them here. These gloriously "given" Mission churches on Mission lands that the home magazine ecstasizes over are not given so very freely, to say the least of it. They are put up by a sort of social pressure immensely effective,' Topready broke in.

'They say most of the churches this side of the river are built the one way and I don't like the one way. Archdeacon Maynard used to advocate the one way, and impress it on his missionaries black and white. It was he who started the church-rate and debarred defaulters from Easter Communion. I've stopped that, and I want to stop the one way.'

The Bishop groaned. 'Archdeacon Maynard's a vice-president of the Free and Open Churchmen in England. I heard him speak eloquently, if a little floridly, on the right of the poor to the House of God.'

Manners chuckled. 'England's some way off,' he said.

Topready spoke from his heart. 'I don't like it. I told the people that the proper way was for Christians and philo-Christians to build accordingly as they could spare money and time. But they said that they were too few. I answered "Then let them wait in the old church awhile." They said they wanted a new church this year, and that the heathen should be called to help the faithful as in other places. They said they ought to have a kraal levy as other places did it saved a great deal of trouble. They thought me mad, I think. Azariah, the teacher, practically told me so.'

The Bishop lit his pipe again.

'We'll think about it,' he said. 'The consecration is fixed for the day after to-morrow, is it not? It was to be christened Holy Innocents' Church on Childermas Day, was it not? Will you have it consecrated on the Eve instead, Saint John's Night? Time Sunset.'

Topready started. 'Rather late, is it not?' he asked.

It was a great concourse that lined the hillside on the morrow when the sun was going down. The Bishop had spoken that morning in the old plain church of how he wished them to observe certain days of prayer and thanksgiving.

He asked them to keep a festival of flocks on Saint Agnes' Day.

He asked them to keep a festival of herds on Saint Luke's Day.

He asked them to keep the feasts of Loaf-Mass in August and Wood-Mass in September as feasts of Harvest and Forestry.

He asked them to keep a thanksgiving for summer after Christmas on the night of Saint John, if they and their priest thought good.

He spoke of how the heathen had worshipped the sun in the grey northern lands. Then Christians better taught had thanked Christ, the Light of the World, for the glory of the sun, and lighted their joy-fires to a better purpose.

Doubtless, some in this land long ago, not only at Zimbabwe, but on many hills and high places, had honored the strong sun of the South. He asked them as Christians to be glad for that same sun's blessings at Christmas time. It seemed to him good for those who wished it (he gave no law) for those to light their bonfires to-night and to thank God not only for the summer, but for the Sun of righteousness. He himself had a mind to light a fire on that Saint John's Night to the glory of God.

Topready looked thoughtful after church. 'If I adopt your calendar loyally as far as may be, do you see your way to help me against the system?' he asked of a sudden. His grey-blue eyes were full of fight.

The Bishop nodded. He talked with him quietly a little while.

'The pact is made, then?' said Topready. 'No, I don't think we have sold our convictions, either of us. I don't feel penitent about my side of the bargain.'

'I feel it's a holy alliance,' said the Bishop, and his face glowed. 'People will keep this night, and remember what was done on it, may be, long after we are forgotten.'

That sunset a mighty crowd was there among the rocks. Much dead wood had been brought. Fathers, mothers, and children in costumes that ranged from skins to European fashions shouldered or headed their faggots.' A grim thought obsessed the Bishop as he watched them. These people, so quiet and yielding as to the selling of sacrament, and levying of church vote how easily they might be swayed to more sinister reminiscences of the Middle Ages! If he and Topready and Azariah and the headman enjoined it, what would save certain aged heathen neighbors from an auto-da-fe for alleged witchcraft one of these nights? Were not some of those old scenes at the stake much like this scene before him? Did not country people come together much as these, with dark impassive faces and bundles of firewood? Did not they listen and listen so, until the time came to pile faggots to the glory of God?

He stood on a rock and looked down on the faces. Topready stood close beneath him looking cheerful, the native teacher was near looking dubious, next to him stood the headman with his white beard, looking amused. Around them the crowd poised and posed itself among the rocks with innate grace and imposing silence. Even the babies in the goatskins were quiet.

The Bishop spoke of alms-giving. He said he did not like their plan of raising a house for Christ. Let people who loved Christ build churches if they wished to, but let them build churches according to their power to give! Let them not seek the labor or money of others, careless how it came! Rather let them worship in the old and the small, than build a new and great church anyhow! He, their Bishop, wished to buy their new church from them, paying back those who had helped to build, giving to each his due. He asked them, would they sell this church to him, to do with it as seemed to him good? If, when they built, they had made, as it were, a false start, let them start again, and this time so run that they might obtain the Promises of Christ. Would they sell their church to him?

He waited for an answer.

There was a hush. The eyes that watched him seemed almost overwhelming in their vigilance.

His eyes went wistfully off to the sky in front of him. What beaches of gold and weed-tangles of rose-color those were to the north-west the way of England.

Suddenly the silence was broken.

Azariah spoke out bravely. He had heard the words of his herdsman, and he knew that he had' gone astray, even like a lost bull. As for this thatched cattle-byre that they had built, let him who asked for it have it! Was it not his own?

One after another spoke. Their speeches all had the same import let the church be handed over to him that asked.

A roar of acclamation worth many speeches went up from the hill-side Then the Bishop asked those who carried faggots to follow him to the consecration. His shepherd's staff went before him. An earthen vessel smoked with incense in front of that again. He followed up the steep path in his shining robes. Behind him came blazing grass torches, and behind them again wood-carriers. When they reached the hill's crown there was some delay in the gathering dusk. They were stacking the wood for the sacrifice. At last Topready turned to his chief with a happy face. All was prepared. The Bishop's voice rang out in one sonorous prayer of oblation. Then someone handed him a grass torch and he kindled the thatch above the altar. The church that misbegotten innocent flamed up toward heaven amber and grey and crimson under the stars.

[The end]
Arthur Shearly Cripps's short story: Burnt Offering A Sequel To 'the Leper Windows'

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