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The commonness of death is the platitude of consolation. It has been so before and since the writing of Hamlet.
But human nature has always found it hollow and un-soothing, else the world were not a vale of tears. Of all the
conventionalities of comfort none is more unconsoling than this of the commonplace. Men have been blunted by familiarity
against realising the very existence of many things which they call common, but nothing from the days of the first
man has made men not to feel smitten and. striken before the presence of death. The resurrection itself of Christ,
in spite of its intense historicity, has not sufficiently familiarised the sons of men with this dread mystery
so as to disarm sorrow. Christ's victory over the grave and the believer's certain hope in the glorious resurrection
of his own body have only I sanctified grief and robbed it of despair.
Sorrow is natural and proper in all bereavement It is most fitting when the blow that causes the loss is severe.
It were to slight the purpose of Providence to count a great loss among the commonplace of life messageless.
I will not say, 'God's ordinance
Of death is blown in every wind';
For that is not a common chance
That takes away a noble mind.
The death of Hallam was no common chance. It was the taking away of a noble mind - The blow came heavily on
Tennyson, he was sorely smitten. He was too striken to be able to attend his friend's funeral. From the crushed
healt of the mourner was wrung the grief-red wine of the In Memoriam. Come, all ye that mourn your dead,
taste and see how sweet it is. It is intensely human. It is the first great outcome of that great grief. We need
hardly ask if the poet's sorrow brought him any other message beyond the one commissioning him to give to the world
the sublimest elegy in the English language. Surely the poet's sorrow was full of messages of self searching, chastening,
heart cleansing, uplifting and of ennobling. Many a chord of his heart was touched into tune by the fingers of
sorrow. Oh, ye that love to listen to his great music, hear ye not his many melodies of faith, hope, love, joy,
certainty, peace and the grand pean of the larger hope? As to the poet, so to every one sorrow has its messages.
It chastens. It ennobles. Its supreme service is disciplinary. 'To me and all who mourn my friend the message is
the same, the message of a great sorrow designed to be felt as great, remembered as great and acted upon as great
and its effectiveness depends on ones sense of conscience.
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'It will ever be a question, whether men abuse more, their sorrows or their joys; but know earnest
soul can doubt., which of these abuses is more fatal. To sin in one case is to yield to a temptation, to sin in
the one case is to yield to a temptation. To sin in the other is to resist a Divine grace. Sorrow is God's last
message to man; it is Gods speaking in emphasis. He who abuses it shows that he can shut his ears when God speaks
loudest. Therefore heartlessness or impenitence after sorrow is more dangerous than intemperance in joy; its results
are always more tragic. Now Isaih points out that mens abuse of sorrow is twofold. Men abuse sorrow by mistaking
it and hey abuse sorrow by defying it';
.(Smith's Isaiah) |
Chellam's message to those for whom it was specially meant had voiced itself a couple of months before it was heard
at its loudest and with tragic emphasis. He had always longed to see those- he held most dear out and out Christians.
He was very anxious about his mother. She was not till long after her great loss a Christian. To a niece of his,
Miss Jane Joshua, he wrote from Oxford:
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I have felt very sorry about those of our house. I really cannot see how I can remedy it. It is
all through want of true Christianity. I wish that your sisters 1ive the true Christian life and be an example
to others. Nothing is so convincing to people of the truth of the religion of Christ as the lives of Christians.
It Is easy to stand up and preach but to live the life of Christians is difficult. |
This was in Deecmber 1899.
From his bed of sickness in London he wrote to his brother, the Maniagair, at Tellipalai on May. 21. 1900:
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During the delirium had a curious dream in which all our household bore a part. I hope to tell it
to you some day Mother writes me a letter which is full of trust in Gods goodness. This is, I am afraid, a feeling
that comes over our house when someone is dying. A voice fiom the jaws of death is always heard. I hand on the
message. It comes to you now as a voice from the jaws of death. I tried to speak to mother and others many times
- but then I was not dying, nor was anyone else. |
His heart yearned. for his mother's salvation. He was terribly uneasy on her account. He interpreted his sufferings
as one eloquent appeal from God to all he loved. He was content so to suffer. On June. 29. 1900 he wrote to his
mother:
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I trust, dear mother, that you and others dear to me, understand by now the deep significance of
my illness. Its purpose is the glory of God. (S. John xi. 4). God has been very gracious to our house, his mercies
been. Forgetting all faults He offers you this opportunity, He calls you through me. Harden not your hearts.. Taste
and see that the Lord is God. As for me, my hope is in my God. |
There is no doubt as to the good effect of these impressive messages upon the hearts they were meant to move. One
must make large allowances for the mother Whose soul a sword had pierced through and through, and when all is said
and everything is taken in the light of her most pitiable situation, the verdict must decidedly be in her favour.
There, was undoubtedly going on in her mind for five long months of severe tribulation a desperate struggle for
the mastery between opposing forces. By August 1900 she hard commenced to yield to the Stronger than she, to the
mightier than man. But it was no complete capitulation. Crushed in spirit broken hearted, contrite, she openly
surrendered her stormy soul to God, a few weeks before her darling sons death, at Tellipalai Church. She was not
ashamed of the saying Name of Jesus, and into It she was duly baptized. It was a great act of trust, the unconquered
took refuge in the Rock of Ages. It was an act of hope, it was a prayer for the life that lay in danger - there
was a mental reservation in the solemn act, it was no complete surrender, it 'was conditioned in hope. Desperate
moods prompt us to offer grand bribes to God-may the Merciful pardon us, may He abundantly pardon her. To her eldest
son - son to whom since the writing of the previous pages sad necessity has made me devote the second part of this
book - the mother wrote on the 29th of August 1900, not knowing that on that very day the blow had fallen:
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I am in no way impatient. I am naturally anxious. I am not unbelieving. On the day that Chellam
left home for England I had cheerfully committed my darling boy to the care of the All-Gracious. I am only eager
to know, as a mother well may be, all that is possible to know about my child. |
Perhaps she had not fully surrendered even an the date of this letter or had only made up her mind on conditions.
But the Victor held a precious hostage-and He declared it forfeited. Unconditional and complete surrender was wanted.
Long had the stronghold been proof against the farces of the love of God, and at last the Conqueror effected a
bleeding breach in the stormy citadel of the mother's heart. It is movingly pathetic that on the very day the mother
penned her Ietter of trust and cheerful resignation, however conditioned by hope or hedged about by the limitations
of love, perhaps on that very hour, the spirit of her son, pleading to the last for her and hers, winged its flight
into the Great Peace. The words of Tennyson again occur to me:
O father, wheresoe'er thou be,
Who p1edgest now thy gallant son;
A shot, ere half thy draught be done,
Hath still'd the life that beat from thee.
O mother, praying God will save
Thy sailor,-whi1e thy head is bow'd, His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wondering grave.
Not to the mother only, whom none may judge harshly, smitten as she is with blow upon blow grievous and hard
to bear, but to all of the household of Chellam - nay, even to all, anywhere, similarly situated -may the message
of sorrow be unto repentance and peace and joy.
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