Agnes Giberne

“ For Robert Tucker himself, cut off though he was in the very prime of life, there could be no regrets, except on the score of all that he might have done, had he lived. No man could be more ready than he was to go. But the blow fell heavily on those who loved him; and though for nine years he had not seen his children, whereby the sorrow to them was softened, yet the loss to their future could not but be great. ”

“ TO MISS ‘LEILA’ HAMILTON.
‘Feb. 16.—The wood-pigeons are cooing, the little peach-trees displaying pink blossoms, the fields are green with young corn. Perhaps you will half envy us when you read this; but you would hardly envy us six weeks hence....
‘In Mission life so much depends on one’s companions.... One must not expect too much, for all Missionaries are fallible. One should remember one’s own infirmities, and make allowance for those of others. In India we seem to live in glass houses; people are so well known; such a one is quick-tempered, such a one—but you can imagine what it is. ”

“ Perhaps, Laura, nothing can better convey to you the impression left on me, than to tell you what was my repeatedly recurring thought. “If I had to suffer martyrdom, in no form could it appear more attractive than by being thrown over Niagara!” To be launched into eternity, shrouded in that cascade of diamonds, would rouse such a thrilling sense of the beautiful and the sublime, that half one’s fears would be swallowed up in something almost like joy. It would seem ten times more horrible to be flung from a high tower on to the hard, cold earth. ”

“ While one has the strongest impression of her resolute sternness, her horror of evil and self-indulgence, another cannot speak warmly enough of her intense unselfishness and her unlimited kindness, and yet another smiles over the remembrance of her irrepressible fun. All these things were included in her; but naturally not all these things were equally apparent at all times, or to everybody who knew her.
Nor need it be supposed that Charlotte Tucker was a being all light, with no shadows. She was thoroughly human. ”

“ TO MISS ‘LEILA’ HAMILTON.
‘March 24, 1879.
‘No, my dearest Leila, I could not in conscience urge poor dear —— to come out here. It would be cruel. Any one who in England suffers from headache, liver, back, and uneven spirits, I would rather entreat to avoid the Panjab.... She would be one of the choice delicate palfreys, yoked to artillery, who break down and give extra work to the already fully-taxed horses. If you only knew what the illnesses of those who ought never to have come out have cost others as well as themselves!... The Lord does not call all His children to India. ”

“ Her books, which were much read and appreciated in the youth of the present middle-aged generation, may to some extent have sunk into the background, as the works of successive story-tellers do in the majority of cases retire, each in turn, before newer names and newer styles; but the splendid example set by Charlotte Tucker, at a time of life when most people are intent upon retiring from work, and taking if they may their ease,—an example of then buckling on her armour afresh, and of entering upon the toughest toil of all her busy life, will surely never be forgotten. ”

“ You must remember that I am the adopted Aunt of a Doctor Miss Sahiba.
‘This is rather a frisky note, darling. When I am a real invalid, I am said to be a good one; but I am strongly averse to becoming one when I am in fair health.... I know how dear Laura and Leila would constantly be putting soft fetters of love round me; but they would find me an obstreperous bird. I should break the fetters by sudden astonishing efforts,—as I fled from the Doctor lady who came from Amritsar. ”

“ One-hundredth part—one-thousandth part—of Niagara, glorious Niagara, would be a boon at Dalhousie....
‘It is a curious thing, dear Laura, that kind of instinct which one acquires in India! I have often and often thought on the subject. One feels as if one belonged to such a lordly race. It is that odd kind of impression upon one that, though one may personally be weak as water, one forms a part of a mysterious power. There is a kind of instinctive persuasion that neither man nor beast would dare to attack one,—except perhaps a vicious horse. ”

“ For once in this little fit of down-heartedness, she seems to have somewhat lost her usual balanced view of the comparative unimportance of seemingly successful ‘results.’ But if in all these years of toil Charlotte Tucker had never known depression, she would have been more than human. Even her brave and dauntless spirit had occasionally to pass under a cloud; more often, as years passed on, and strength decayed. ”

“ The patient happily fell thereafter into kind and skilful hands; and Charlotte Tucker congratulated herself upon her own prompt and decisive action. Whether or no her fears were well founded, one cannot but admire her self-sacrificing readiness to endure any amount of worry, fatigue, and responsibility on behalf of another. The last thing Charlotte Tucker ever did was ‘to pass by on the other side,’ when a human being was in need of help. She never dreamt of sparing herself. ”

“ Soon afterwards a sharp attack of fever and inflammation laid him low, and most serious fears for his life were felt. It was a time of terrible suspense to his own family; not least so to Charlotte, who had always loved him with an intense devotion. Probably few fathers are quite so devotedly beloved as was old Mr. Tucker; but not many men, and especially not many men of his years, can throw themselves into the interests and amusements of their children, as he was able to do. ”

“ Charlotte Tucker, going as she did to India when well on in middle life, looked upon herself as a possible Pioneer, a possible example to others, and hoped that many more might be led to do the same. But she was never under the delusion that anybody and everybody is fitted for a Missionary life,—even granting the spiritual adaptedness. There must be of course whole-hearted devotion to Christ, whole-hearted love to man, and whole-hearted self-abnegation; but there must also be certain natural capabilities, certain conditions of health and vigour. ”

“ On Monday week sweet Eva Warren, one of my most lovable companions, leaves me.... I do not expect to see her again on earth. Next month Rowland Bateman, my very tip-top favourite amongst all Missionaries, is to start for England. What a blessing it is that there is One Friend Who says, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake”; “Even to hoar hairs I will carry you”!’
A few slight recollections of Miss Warren’s may well come in here. ”

“ Had she been, she would not have gone to India. But finding herself thus unfettered, the thought came up,—Why not devote the Evening of her life to Missionary work? Why not set an example to others who, like herself, might with advancing years be left free of ties? Or at least, why not put the matter to the test of actual trial, and prove whether or not elderly women, and not younger ones only, might go forth to work among the Heathen? ”

“ Baring’s to Mrs. Hamilton, soon after, are something of an echo to the above:—
‘The blessing she (Miss Tucker) is among those Christian boys is incalculable. Perhaps Eternity will show even more fruit from her bright, loving, holy influence over them, than over the people in the city. They are more able to appreciate her character and teaching than the poor degraded heathen, to whom she is much more like an angel afar off and above them, than a sister-woman whom they may seek to follow and grow like. ”

“ She sees good in all. And when she must acknowledge some blemishes, she finds some kind excuse for them. “Thinketh no evil” seems written on her brow. I believe she will do much for India, if spared; she sees where teaching is needed, and her ready mind so cleverly weaves the lessons into sweet stories which, when read by the people, will do wonders in opening their minds. I hope she will be persuaded to go to the hills in summer, for this work, which is so peculiarly her own, can be carried on there as well as here, and at one-thousandth part of the expense to physical strength.’ ”

“ Year after year she persisted in her steady round of Zenana visits; not, like the average district-visitor of England, going once a fortnight or once a week into her district,—which was the whole city of Batala,—but day after day giving hours to the work, never daunted because results seemed small, never apparently even tempted to throw up her arduous task in despair. She had to plough for the Master of the harvest; and she was content to leave results with Him.
It must have been a monotonous life, viewed from ordinary standpoints. Charlotte Tucker had had plenty of society in the past ”

“ To the majority of people religious conviction and experience come as daylight comes; not in one sudden burst, but gradually, heralded by grey dawn, slowly unfolding into brightness. Brought up as Charlotte was in [29] an atmosphere of kindness, of gentleness, of unselfish thought for others, of generosity, of high principle, and of most real religion, albeit not much talked about, she would naturally imbibe the latter almost unconsciously, and as naturally would say little. ”

“ When I was flogged at school for affirming that a furbelow must be an article, as I knew it to be an article of dress, my Master observed that all my brains lay at the root of my tongue; and the best position for them too, say I! Who would keep a prompter to bellow to one from the top of the Monument, and where’s the use of carrying one’s brains so high, that one must send a carrier pigeon express for one’s thoughts before one can express them at all? Better have wit to cover ignorance, than silence to conceal sense. One can’t squint into a man’s head to see what it contains. ”

“ It is easy to believe that she must have had many a hard battle with Giant Sloth, before she gained the habit of always rising at six o’clock in the morning, a habit persevered in through life. Again, one of her eager and impulsive temperament could not have been naturally free from a clinging to her own way, and from a certain vigorous self-seeking; and many a bitter conflict must have been gone through, before friends could, with an all but unanimous voice, speak of hers as a peculiarly unselfish character. ”

“ But, poor India! Where one sees less of the enemy attacking in one direction, we find him advancing in another. Over the Hindus and Muhammadans he throws the chains of Superstition, Idolatry, Self-righteousness,—he makes them choose a murderer instead of the Prince of Life. For the Europeans he has coldness, deadness, infidelity! I noticed at Church that but one man stayed to Holy Communion.’ ”

“ We hear in these days many a careless sneer levelled at attempts to convert the Heathen, at the uselessness and fruitlessness of such efforts. Nothing is easier than for a man, sitting at home in his luxurious arm-chair, to flout those who go forth into heathen lands. And there is a certain trick of seeming common-sense in the arguments used, which sounds convincing. So much money spent, and so many lives sacrificed,—and for what? Half-a-dozen converts, perhaps, in a dozen years, some of whom prove in the end to be faithless, while others are very far from being faultless saints. ”

“ As photographs, however faithful, convey but a very inadequate idea of the real Niagara, so must our highest conceptions of Heaven fall short of Heaven itself. Who that has merely seen a photograph, or many photographs, of the Falls, can drink in the beauty of the living, bounding, changing, glorious miracle of Nature, which is beheld here? Yet Niagara itself is but a bubble, compared with “the glory which shall be revealed.”’ ”

“ Heaven to her was ‘Home’; many of her nearest and dearest were already in Paradise; and ‘death,’ so called, would mean re-union with those dear ones. Charlotte Tucker could from her very heart re-echo the poet’s words,—with a most practical belief in them,—‘There is no Death; what seems so is Transition.’ During years past she had longed for this Transition; striving only not to be impatient, but to await cheerfully God’s own time.
And now, it seemed, she was to go! Not only to leave sin and sorrow behind; not only to be young and strong again ”

“ It may take twenty years merely to plough the hard ground in some heathen spot, and to sow the seed; and years more may pass before the first tokens of a harvest are seen. Sometimes the fuller results are the longer delayed. Mustard-seeds spring up a good deal faster than acorns.
The main work of Charlotte Tucker’s eighteen years was to be that of ploughing. And whether few or many converts rewarded her toil is an entirely secondary consideration. ”

“ There are some who would not agree with Charlotte Tucker in considering ‘Missionary work of all work the highest’; yet in one sense, if not in all senses, it certainly is so. The soldier who goes on a forlorn-hope expedition ranks higher in the minds of men than the soldier who remains in camp; and the pioneer is counted worthy of more honour than the settler. ”

“ Then those who do think, and have some concern for religion, are such earnest Muhammadans; it is with them a matter of heart-love! It is a mystery how it should be so, when Muhammad was not only a murderer and profligate, but has lowered woman altogether; but it seems especially the women who delight in his false religion. They do not care for its having no proofs; they love it.’ ”

“ And Miss Tucker believed that she was called.
Others were not so sure. Mrs. Elmslie wrote on the 8th of December to Mrs. Hamilton: ‘I agree with you that your beloved sister’s power lies in gifts which can be used to perhaps greater influence here than in an out-station. This isolation from European society is not what I should have chosen for one who can exercise so much influence for good among her own countrymen; and whose pen can do more for India than perhaps the lives of many others.’ No doubt this view of the question weighed greatly in the judgment of many. ”

“ Everybody seemed pleased with Batala; and the Bishop of Calcutta wrote such handsome things in the school-book, that I am sure dear Babu Singha was gratified. The Bishop of Calcutta is a striking-looking man; tall, with a simple, unaffected dignity.... He gives one the impression of both physical and intellectual strength, combined with true piety. As the vigorous, energetic practical man, he forms an interesting contrast to the fragile-looking, saintly Bishop of Lahore. Then Mr. Clark has a calm charm of his own,—described by a lad as “looking like an angel, with his beautiful white beard.” ”