little. Life is a bubble on the water; enjoy it while you may.
And they sympathised with what they thought was our desire to see the
show. This was human; they could understand it. So they let us stay; and
we stayed, hoping for a chance later on.

Then the ceremonies began. They carried the dead man out and laid him in
the courtyard under the arch of palms. He was old and worn and thin. One
could see the fine old face, with the marks of the Hindu trident painted
down the forehead. He had been a most earnest Hindu; all the rites were
duly performed, and morning and night for many years he had marked those
marks on his brow. Had he ever once listened to the Truth? I do not
know. He must have heard about it, but he had not received it. He died,
they told us, "not knowing what lay on the other side."

The water-bearers laid their vessels on the ground. Each had a leaf
across its mouth. The priest was crowned with a chaplet of flowers. Then
came the bathing. They threw up a shelter, and carried him there. It was
reverently done. There was a touch of refinement in the thought which
banished the women and children before the bathing began. Tamils bathe
in the open air, and always clothed, but always apart. And as the
women's verandah overlooked the screened enclosure, they were all
ordered off. They went and waited, silent now, awed by the presence of
the men. While the bathing was going on the priests chanted and muttered
incantations, and now and again a bell was rung, and incense waved, and
tapers lighted. Now they were causing that mysterious Something which
still hovered round the lifeless form to leave it and return to them,
and when the bathing was over they signified that all was done; the
Influence had departed, descended; the funeral ceremonies might proceed.

And all this time, without a break, the dirge was being sung by the
mourners in the house. It was a sort of undernote to all the sounds
outside. Then the old man, robed in white and crowned and wreathed with
flowers, was carried round to the other side; and oh, the pitifulness of
it all! St. Paul must have been thinking of some such scene when he
wrote to the converts, "That ye sorrow not even as others which have no
hope." And I thought how strangely callous we were, how superficial our
sympathy. The Lord's command does not stir us, the sorrow of those we
neglect does not touch us; we think so much more of ourselves and our
own selfish pleasure than we think