XXII. WHOM GOD
PROTECTS
I had now given up all hope of returning to India in
the near future. I had promised my wife that I would
return home within a year. The year was gone without any
prospect of my return, so I decided to send for her and
the children.
On the boat bringing them to South Africa, Ramdas, my
third son, broke his arm while playing with the ship's
captain. The captain looked after him well and had him
attended to by the ship's dector. Ramdas landed with his
hand in a sling. The doctor had advised that, as soon as
we reached home, the wound should be dressed by a
qualified doctor. But this was the time when I was full
of faith in my experiments in earth treatment. I had even
succeeded in persuading some of my clients who had faith
in my quackery to try the earth and water treatment.
What then was I to do for Ramdas? He was just eight
years old. I asked him if he would mind my dressing his
wound. With a smile he said he did not mind at all. It
was not possible for him at that age to decide what was
the best thing for him, but he knew very well the
distinction between quackery and proper medical
treatment. And he knew my habit of home treatment and had
faith enough to trust himself to me. In fear and
trembling I undid the bandage, washed the wound, applied
a clean earth poultice and tied the arm up again. This
sort of dressing went on daily for about a month until
the wound was completely healed. There was no hitch, and
the wound took no more time to heal than the ship's
doctor had said it would under the usual treatment.
This and other experiments enhanced my faith in such
household remedies, and I now proceeded with them with
more self-confidence. I widened the sphere of their
application, trying the earth and water and fasting
treatment in cases of wounds, fevers, dyspepsia, jaundice
and other complaints, with success on most occasions. But
nowadays I have not the confidence I had in South Africa
and experience has even shown that these experiments
involve obvious risks.
The reference here, therefore, to these experiments is
not meant to demonstrate their success. I cannot claim
complete success for any experiment. Even medical men can
make no such claim for their experiments. My object is
only to show that he who would go in for novel
experiments must begin with himself. That leads to a
quicker discovery of truth, and God always protects the
honest experimenter.
The risks involved in experiments in cultivating
intimate contacts with Europeans were as grave as those
in the nature cure experiments. Only those risks were of
a different kind. But in cultivating those contacts I
never so much as thought of the risks.
I invited Polak to come and stay with me, and we began
to live like blood brothers. The lady who was soon to be
Mrs. Polak and he had been engaged for some years, but
the marriage had been postponed for a propitious time. I
have an impression that Polak wanted to put some money by
before he settled down to a married life. He knew Ruskin
much better than I, but his Western surroundings were a
bar against his translating Ruskin's teaching immediately
into practice. But I pleaded with him: 'When there is a
heart union, as in your case, it is hardly right to
postpone marriage merely for financial consideratons. If
poverty is a bar, poor men can never marry. And then you
are now staying with me. There is no question of
household expenses. I think you should get married as
soon as possible. As I have said in a previous chapter, I
had never to argue a thing twice with Polak. He
appreciated the force of my argument, and immediately
opened correspondence on the subject with Mrs. Polak, who
was then in England. She gladly accepted the proposal and
in a few months reached Johannesburg. Any expense over
the wedding was out of the question, not even a special
dress was thought necessary. They needed no religious
rites to seal the bond. Mrs. Polak was a Christian by
birth and Polak a Jew. Their common religion was the
religion of ethics.
I may mention in passing an amusing incident in
connection with this wedding. The Registrar of European
marriages in the Transvaal could not register between
black or coloured people. In the wedding in question, I
acted as the best man. Not that we could not have got a
European friend for the purpose, but Polak would not
brook the suggestion. So we three went to the Registrar
of marriages. How could he be sure that the parties to a
marriage in which I acted as the best man would be
whites? He proposed to postpone registration pending
inquiries. The next day was a sunday. The day following
was New Year's Day, a public holiday. To postpone the
date of a solemnly arranged wedding on such a flimsy
pretext was more than one could put up with. I knew the
Chief Magistrate, who was head of the Registration
Department. So I appeared before him with the couple. He
laughed and gave me a note to the Registrar and the
marriage was duly registered.
Up to now the Europeans living with us had been more
or less known to me before. But now an English lady who
was an utter stranger to us entered the family. I do not
remember our ever having had a difference with the newly
married couple, but even if Mrs. Polak and my wife had
some unpleasant experience, they would have been no more
than what happen in the best-regulated homogeneous
familes. And let it be remembered that mine would be
considered an essentially heterogeneous family, where
people of all kinds and temperaments were freely
admitted. When we come to think of it, the distinction
between heterogeneous and homogeneous is discovered to be
merely imaginary. We are all one family.
I had better celebrate West's wedding also in this
chapter. At this stage of my life, my ideas about
#brahmacharya# had not fully matured, and so I was
interesting myself in getting all my bachelor friends
married. When, in due course, West made a pilgrimage to
Louth to see his parents, I advised him to return married
if possible. Phoenix was the common home, and as we were
all supposed to have become farmers, we were not afraid
of marriage and its usual consequences. West returned
with Mrs. West, a beautiful young lady from Leicester.
She came of a family of shoemakers working in a Leicester
factory. I have called her beautiful, because it was her
moral beauty that at once attracted me. True beauty after
all consists in purity of heart. With Mr. West had come
his mother-in-law too. The old lady is still alive. She
put us all to shame by her industry and her buoyant,
cheerful nature.
In the same way as I persuaded these European friends
to marry, I encouraged the Indian friends to send for
their families from home. Phoenix thus developed into a
little village, half a dozen familes having come and
settled and begun to increase there.
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