Old Daniel

Old Daniel, by Thomas Hodson

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Title: Old Daniel
Author: Thomas Hodson
Illustrator: Unsigned
Release Date: October 20, 2007 [EBook #23123]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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DANIEL ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Old Daniel; or, Memoir of a Converted Hindoo and Description of
Village Life in India.
By Thomas Hodson, with Introduction by the Rev W. Arthur, M.A.

Published about 1877.

PREFACE.
I can now, in my mind's eye, see Chickka, the washerman, as if I had
met him yesterday; and I can see the mud houses of Singonahully, the
mud wall of the village, and the temple of Runga, as if they were all
before me. Yet five and thirty years are passed and gone since the
afternoon when, in quest of medical aid, I rode past the village, hoping
yet to see it the abode of many follower's of Christ, not knowing that I
was never to see it more. At that time Chickka was still a heathen. He
was then between forty and fifty years of age, a grey-headed, resolute,
self-controlled looking man.
At the mission-house of Goobbe we knew Chickka well. He was often
present at our family prayer, but gave no signs of any religious
conviction; and I cannot remember that he ever expressed more
disapproval of idolatry than many did, who to this day have continued
in their heathenism. Certainly I had no idea of the processes through
which the mind of the washer man had passed. It would have been hard
to conceive that one so ignorant and so simple, had as a boy, all
untaught, seen as clearly the vanity of idols as well-instructed men
could do, and had in his own simple way taken practical and striking
steps to convince others of the justice of his views.
In the lifelike narrative of Mr Hodson,--where every touch is that of
one who has lived among the people, till their sayings and their doings,
their surrounding scenes and modes of thought, are all familiar,--the
reader will find a very curious light upon the processes of thought
which, in the deepest night of paganism, may be passing in the mind of
a labourer's lad who knows not a letter. We may feel assured that
similar lights are shining in the darkest places now, and that millions of
young minds are being prepared, as was the mind of Chickka, to turn
from dumb idols to serve the living and the true God. Even were the
incidents detailed in the following pages those only of the life of a
single boy, they would be of great interest. But it is not as incidents that

give interest to the story of an inward change of one mind, or of the
outward windings of one life, but as a sign of what is going on in
multitudes, and as a foretoken of the changes that are to come, that the
highest interest attaches to such scenes as that of Chickka breaking the
serpent-gods, turning the sword-gods into plough-shares, refusing to
bow to the idol, or speaking lightly of the great god of the vicinity
when his car was burned. Even the procession, which in all forms of
idolatry, from that of India to that of Rome, forms an important
instrument of public impression, failed to command the feelings of
Chickka. How many men in countries where weeping Madonnas are
exhibited have been tormented with the same curiosity which seized
Chickka on seeing the tears streaming down the cheeks of Mari, the
goddess of diseases! But seldom have courage and opportunity
combined to carry the inquirer to a conclusion so decisive as that which
rewarded the research of the poor washerman's son. I seem now as if I
could trace the boy, in the struggling grey of the morning, down the
gentle slope, till he reached the tank, found the spot where the idol had
been cast into it, and, daring to break its head, laid bare all the mystery
of the tears. That, too, was a step preparing him for the great change
when he was to turn to One who is not the work of men's hands, but is
the Maker of the mighty and the weak. And the same influences which
prepared Chickka, and which eventually changed him into Daniel, are
now at work in, I repeat it, millions of minds, where the influences are
as much unseen and