289. Isle of Palms

Isle of Palms

Isa_60:9 : ’93The ships of Tarshish first.’94

The Tarshish of my text by many commentators is supposed to be the island of Ceylon, upon which the seventh sermon of the ’93’91Round-the-World’94 series lands us. Ceylon was called by the Romans Taprobane. John Milton called it ’93Golden Chersonese.’94 Moderns have called Ceylon ’93The Isle of Palms,’94 ’93The Isle of Flowers,’94 ’93The Pearl-drop on the Brow of India,’94 ’93The Isle of Jewels,’94 ’93The Island of Spice,’94 ’93The Show-place of the Universe.’94 ’93The Land of Hyacinth and Ruby.’94 In my eyes, for scenery, it appeared to be a mixture of Yosemite and Yellowstone Park. All Christian people want to know more of Ceylon, for they have a long while been contributing for its evangelization. As our ship from Australia approached this island, there hovered over it clouds thick and black as the superstitions which have hovered here for centuries; but the morning sun was breaking through, like the Gospel light which is to scatter the last cloud of moral gloom. The sea lay along the coast calm as the eternal purposes of God toward all islands and continents. We swing into the harbor of Colombo, which is made by a breakwater built at vast expense. As we floated into it the water is black with boats of all sizes, and manned by people of all colors, but chiefly Tamils and Cingalese.

There are two things I want most to see on this island’97a heathen temple with its devotees in idolatrous worship, and an audience of Cingalese addressed by a Christian missionary. The entomologist coming to this island may have his capture of brilliant insects; and the sportsman his tent adorned with antler of red deer and tooth of wild boar; and the painter his portfolio of gorge three thousand feet down, and of days dying on evening pillows of purple cloud etched with fire; and the botanist his camp full of orchids and crowfoots and gentians and valerian and lotus. I want most to find out the moral and religious triumphs; how many wounds have been healed; how many sorrows comforted; how many entombed nations resurrected. Sir William Baker, the famous explorer and geographer, did well for Ceylon after his eight years’92 residence in this island, and Professor Ernst Haeckel, the professor from Jena, did well when he swept these waters, and rummaged these hills, and took home for future inspection the insects of this tropical air. And forever honored be such work; but let all that is sweet in rhythm, and graphic on canvas, and imposing in monument, and immortal in memory be brought to tell the deeds of those who were heroes and heroines for Christ’92s sake.

Many scholars have supposed that this island of Ceylon was the original Garden of Eden where the snake first appeared on reptilian mission. There are reasons which at first sight might confirm this belief that this was the site where the first homestead was opened and destroyed. It is so near the equator that there are not more than twelve degrees of Fahrenheit difference all the year round. Perpetual foilage, perpetual fruit, and all species of animal life prosper. What luxuriance and abundance and superabundance of life! What gorgeousness of plumage do not the birds sport! What glories of scale do not the fishes reveal! What varieties of song do not the groves have in their libretto! Here on the roadside and clear out on the beach of the sea stands the cocoanut tree, saying: ’93Take my leaves for shade; take the juice of my fruit for delectable drink; take my saccharine for sugar; take my fibre for the cordage of your ships; take my oil to kindle your lamps; take my wood to fashion your cups and pitchers; take my leaves to thatch your roofs; take my smooth surface on which to print your books; take my thirty million trees covering five hundred thousand acres, and with the exportation enrich the world. I will wave in your fans, and spread abroad in your umbrellas; I will vibrate in your musical instruments; I will be the scrubbing brushes on your floors.’94 Here also stands the palm tree, saying: ’93I am at your disposal. With these arms I fed your ancestors a hundred and fifty years ago, and with these same arms I will feed your descendants a hundred and fifty years from now. I defy the centuries!’94 Here also stands the nutmeg tree, saying: ’93I am ready to spice your beverages and enrich your puddings, and with my sweet dust make insipid things palatable.’94 Here also stands the coffee plant, saying: ’93With the liquid boiled from my berry I stimulate the nations morning by morning.’94 Here stands the tea-plant, saying: ’93With the liquid boiled from my leaf I soothe the world’92s nerves, and stimulate the world’92s conversation, evening by evening.’94 Here stands the cinchona, saying: ’93I am the foe of malaria. In all climates my bitterness is the antidote of fevers.’94

What miracles of productiveness on these islands! Enough sugar to sweeten all the world’92s beverages; enough bananas to pile all the world’92s fruit-baskets; enough rice to mix all the world’92s puddings; enough cocoanut to powder all the world’92s cakes; enough flowers to garland all the world’92s beauty.

But in the evening, riding through a cinnamon grove, I first tasted the leaves and bark of that condiment, which is so volatile and delicate that transported on ships the aroma of the cinnamon is dispelled if placed near a rival bark. Of such great value is the cinnamon shrub that years ago those who injured it in Ceylon were put to death. But that which once was a jungle of cinnamon is now a park of gentlemen’92s residences. The long, white dwelling-houses are bounded with this shrub, and all other diversities of growth congregated there, make a botanical garden. Doves, called cinnamon doves, hop among the branches, and crows, more poetically styled ravens’97which never could sing, but think they can’97fly across the road, giving full test of their vocables. Birds which learned their chanting under the very eaves of heaven overpower all with their grand melody of the tropics. The hibiscus dapples the scene with its scarlet clusters. All shades of brown and emerald and saffron and brilliance; melons, limes, magnosteens, custard-apples, guavas, pineapples, jessamine so laden with aroma they have to hold fast to the wall, and begonias, gloriosas on fire, and orchids so delicate other lands must keep them under conservatory, but here defiant of all weather, and flowers more or less akin to azaleas and honeysuckles and phloxes and fuchsias and chrysanthemums and rhododendrons and fox-gloves and pansies, which dye the plains and mountains of Ceylon with heaven. The evening hour burns incense of all varieties of aromatics. The convolvulus, blue as if the sky had fallen, and butterflies spangling the air, and arms of trees sleeved with blossoms, and rocks upholstered of moss, commingling sounds and sights and odors until eye and ear and nostril vie with each other as to which sense shall open the door to the most enchantment. A struggle between music and perfume and iridescence. Oleanders reeling in intoxication of color. Great banyan trees that have been changing their mind for centuries, each century carrying out a new plan of growth, attracted our attention, and saw us pass in the year of 1894, as they saw pass the generations of 1794 and 1694.

Colombo is so thoroughly embowered in foliage that if you go into one of its towers and look down upon the city of one hundred and thirty thousand people you cannot see a house. Oh, the trees of Ceylon! May you live to behold the morning climbing down through their branches, or the evening tipping their leaves with amber and gold! I forgive the Buddhist for worshiping the trees until they know of the God who made the trees. I wonder not that there are some trees in Ceylon called sacred. To me all trees are sacred. I wonder not that before one of them they burn camphor flowers, and hang lamps around its branches, and a hundred thousand people each year make pilgrimage to that tree. Worship something man must; and until he hears of the only Being worthy of worship, what so elevating as a tree! What glory enthroned amid its foliage! What a majestic doxology spreads out in its branches! What a voice when the tempests pass through it! How it looks down upon the cradle and the grave of centuries! As the fruit of one tree unlawfully eaten struck the race with woe, and the uplifting of another tree brings peace to the soul, let the woodman spare the tree, and all nations honor it’97if, through higher teaching, we do not, like the Ceylonese, worship it! How consolatory that when we no more walk under the tree branches on earth, we may see the ’93Tree of life which bears twelve manner of fruits, and yields her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations!’94

Two processions I saw in Ceylon within one hour, the first led by a Hindu priest, a huge pot of flowers on his head, his face disfigured with holy lacerations, and his unwashed followers beating as many discords from what are supposed to be musical instruments, as at one time can be induced to enter the human ear. The procession halted at the door of the huts. The occupants came out and made obeisance and presented small contributions. In return therefor the priest sprinkled ashes upon the children who came forward, this evidently a form of benediction. Then the procession, led on by the priest, started again; more noise, more ashes, more genuflexion. However keen one’92s sense of the ludicrous, he could find nothing to excite even a smile in the movements of such a procession. Meaningless, oppressive, squalid, filthy, sad!

Returning to our carriage, we rode on for a few moments, and we came on another procession, a kindly lady leading groups of native children all clean, bright, happy, laughing. They were pupils in a Christian school out for exercise. There seemed as much intelligence, refinement and happiness in that regiment of young Cingalese as you would find in the ranks of any young ladies’92 seminary being chaperoned on their afternoon walk through Central Park, New York, or Hyde Park, London. The Hindu procession illustrated on a small scale something of what Hinduism can do for the world. The Christian procession illustrated on a small scale something of what Christianity can do for the world. But those two processions were only fragments of two great processions ever marching across our world; the procession blasted of superstition and the procession blessed of Gospel light. I saw them in one afternoon in Ceylon. They are to be seen in all nations.

Nothing is of more thrilling interest than the Christian achievements in this island. The Episcopal Church was here the National Church, but disestablishment has taken place, and since Mr. Gladstone’92s accomplishment of that fact in 1880, all denominations are on equal platform, and all are doing mighty work. America is second to no other nation in what has been done for Ceylon. Since 1816 she has had her religious agents in the Jaffna peninsula of Ceylon. The Spauldings, the Howlands, the Doctors Poor, the Saunders and others just as good and strong have been fighting back monsters of superstition and cruelty greater than any monsters that ever swung the tusk or roared in the jungles.

The American missionaries, in Ceylon, have given special attention to medical instruction, and are doing wonders in driving back the horrors of heathen surgery. Cases of suffering were formerly given over to the devil-worshipers, and such tortures inflicted as may not be described. The patient was trampled by the feet of the medical attendants. It is only God’92s mercy that there is a living mother in Ceylon. Oh, how much Ceylon needs doctors, and the medical classes of native students, under the care of those who follow the example of the late Samuel Fish Green, are providing them, so that all the alleviations, and kindly ministries, and scientific acumen that can be found in American and English hospitals will soon bless all Ceylon. In that island are thirty-two American schools, two hundred and ten Church of England schools, two hundred and thirty-four Wesleyan schools, two hundred and thirty-four Roman Catholic schools. Ah! the schools decide the destiny of everything. How suggestive the incident that came to me in Ceylon. In a school under the care of the Episcopal Church two boys were converted to Christ and were to be baptized. An intelligent Buddhist boy said in the school, ’93Let all the boys on Buddha’92s side come to this part of the room, and all the boys on Christ’92s side go to the other part of the room.’94 All the boys except two went on Buddha’92s side; and when the two boys who were to be baptized were scoffed at and derided, one of them yielded and retired to Buddha’92s side. But afterward that boy was sorry that he had yielded to the persecution, and when the day of baptism came, stood up beside the boy who remained firm. Some one said to the boy who had vacillated in his choice between Buddha and Christ, ’93You are a coward, and not fit for either side;’94 but he replied, ’93I was overcome of temptation, but I repent and believe.’94 Then both the boys were baptized, and from that time the Anglican Mission moved on more and more vigorously. I will not say which of all the denominations of Christians is doing the most for the evangelization of that island, but know this: Ceylon will be taken for Christ! Sing Bishop Heber’92s hymn:

What though the spicy breezes,

Blow soft o’92er Ceylon’92s isle!

Among the first places I visited was a Buddhist College, about one hundred men studying to become priests gathered around the teachers. Stepping into the building where the high priest was instructing the class, we were apologetic and told him we were Americans, and would like to see his mode of teaching, if he had no objections; whereupon he began, doubled up as he was on a lounge, with his right hand playing with his foot. In his left hand he held a package of bamboo leaves, on which were written the words of the lesson, each student holding a similar package of bamboo leaves. The high priest first read and then one of his students read. A group of as finely formed young men as I ever saw surrounded the venerable instructor. The last word of each sentence was intoned. There was in the whole scene an earnestness which impressed me. Not able to understand a word of what was said, there is a look and intonation that are the same among all races. That the Buddhists have full faith in their religion no one can doubt. That is, in their opinion, the way to Heaven. What Mohammed is to the Mohammedan, and what Christ is to the Christian, Buddha is to the Buddhist. We waited for a pause in the recitation, and then expressing our thanks, retired.

Near-by is a Buddhist temple, on the altar of which, before the image of Buddha, are offerings of flowers. As night was coming on we came up to a Hindu temple. First we were prohibited going farther than the outside steps, but we gradually advanced until we could see all that was going on inside. The worshipers were making obeisance. The tom-toms were wildly beaten, and shrill pipes were blown, and several other instruments were in full bang and blare, and there was an indescribable hubbub, and the most laborious ritual of worship I had ever seen or heard. The dim lights and the jargon and the glooms and the flitting figures mingled for eye and ear a horror which it is difficult to shake off. All this was only suggestive of what would there occur after the toilers of the day had ceased work and had time to appear at the temple. That such things should be supposed to please the Lord, or have any power to console or help the worshipers, is only another mystery in this world of mysteries. But we came away saddened with the spectacle, a sadness which did not leave us until we arrived at a place where a Christian missionary was preaching in the street to a group of natives.

I had that morning expressed a wish to witness such a scene, and here it was. Standing on an elevation the good man was addressing the crowd. All was attention and silence and reverence. A religion of relief and joy was being commended, and the dusky faces were illumined with the sentiments of pacification and re-enforcement. It was the rose of Sharon after walking among nettles; it was the morning light after a thick darkness; it was the Gospel after Buddhism.

But passing up and down the streets of Ceylon you find all races of people within five minutes’97Afghans, Kaffirs, Portuguese, Moors, Dutch, English, Scotch, Irish, American; all classes, all dialects, all manners and customs, all styles of salaam. The most interesting thing on earth is the human race, and specimens of all branches of it confront you in Ceylon. The island of the present is a quiet and inconspicuous affair compared with what it once was. The dead cities of Ceylon were larger and more imposing than are the living cities. On this island are dead New Yorks and dead Pekins and dead Edinburghs and dead Londons. Ever and anon at the stroke of the archaeologist’92s hammer the tomb of some great municipality flies open, and there are other buried cities that will yet respond to the explorer’92s pickax. The Pompeii and Herculaneum underneath Italy are small compared with the Pompeiis and Herculaneums underneath Ceylon. Yonder is an exhumed city which was founded five hundred years before Christ, standing in pomp and splendor for twelve hundred years. Stairways up which fifty men might pass side by side. Carved pillars, some of them fallen, some of them aslant, some of them erect. Phidiases and Christopher Wrens never heard of, here performed the marvels of sculpture and architecture. Aisles through which royal processions marched. Arches under which kings were carried. City with reservoir twenty miles in circumference. Extemporized lakes that did their cooling and refreshing for twelve centuries. Ruins more suggestive than Melrose and Kenilworth. Ceylonian Karnaks and Luxors. Ruins retaining much of grandeur, though Wars bombarded them and Time put his chisel on every block, and more than all, vegetation puts its anchors and pries and wrenches in all the crevices. Dagobas, or places where relics of saints or deities are kept. Dagobas four hundred feet high, and their fallen material burying precious things for the sight of which modern curiosity has digged and blasted in vain. Procession of elephants in imitation, wrought into lustrous marble. Troops of horses in full run. Shrines, chapels, cathedrals wrecked on the mountain side. Stairs of moonstone. Exquisite scrolls rolling up more mysteries than will ever be unrolled. Over sixteen square miles, the ruins of one city strewn. Throne-rooms in which at different times sat one hundred and sixty-five kings, reigning in authority they inherited. Walls that witnessed coronations, assassinations, subjugations, triumphs. Altars at which millions bowed ages before the orchestras celestial woke the shepherds with midnight overture.

When Lieutenant Skinner, in 1832, discovered the site of some of these cities, he found congregated in them, undisturbed, assemblages of leopards, porcupines, flamingoes and pelicans; reptiles sunning themselves on the altars; prima-donnas rendering ornithological chant from deserted music halls. One king restored much of the grandeur; rebuilt fifteen hundred residences, yet ruin soon resumed its sceptre. But all is down; the spires down; the glory of splendid arches down. What killed those cities? Who slew the New York and London of the year 500 B.C.? Was it unhealthed with a host of plagues? Was it foreign armies laying siege? Was it whole generations weakened by their own vices? Mystery sits amid the monoliths and brick-dust, finger on lip in eternal silence, while the centuries guess and guess in vain. We simply know that genius planned those cities, and immense populations inhabited them. An eminent writer estimates that a pile of bricks in one ruin of Ceylon would be enough to build a wall ten feet high from Edinburgh to London. One thousand six hundred pillars, with carved capitals, are standing sentinel for ten miles. You can judge somewhat of the size of the cities by the reservoirs that were required to slake their thirst, judging the size of the city from the size of the cup out of which it drank. Cities crowded with inhabitants; not like American or English cities, but packed together as only barbaric tribes can pack them. But their knell was sounded; their light went out. Giant trees are the only royal family now occupying those palaces. The growl of wild beasts, where once the guffaw of wassail ascended. Anuradhapura and Pollonarna will never be rebuilded. Let all the living cities of the earth take warning. Cities are human, having a time to be born and a time to die. No more certainly have they a cradle than a grave. A last judgment is appointed for individuals, but cities have their last judgment in this world. They bless, they curse; they worship, they blaspheme; they suffer, they are rewarded; they are overthrown.

Preposterous! says some one, to think that any of our American or European cities which have stood so long can ever come through vice to extinction. But New York and London have not stood as long as those Ceylonese cities stood. Where is the throne outside of Ceylon on which one hundred and sixty-five successive kings reigned for a lifetime? Cities and nations that have lived far longer than our present cities, or natrons, have been sepulchred. Let all the great municipalities of this and other lands ponder. It is as true now as when the Psalmist wrote it, and as true of cities and nations as of individuals: ’93The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage