11 Gunnersbury Crescent,
London W.3 England,6th November 1940
My Dear Thala,
Thank You very much for your letter dated August 26th which reached me yesterday. It was good to hear from you again and to share with Pi Dari all the news you told us. I thank you also for the Lushai Periodicals which you sent. I always find something interesting in the ‘TLAWMNGAIHNA’ and also in the ‘KRISTIAN TLANGAU”. The Serkawn S.L.Church Press is to be congratulated on the way in which the former paper is printed. It is a real pleasure to read.
Will you please thank Naga and Lalsawma (Lianthawnga’s son) for their letters which they enclosed with yours. We were both very please from them and we send our CHIBAIS to them and to all the members of their family. I suppose it is because I am growing old, but I am sorry to find myself writing fewer and fewer letters to my friend both in India and England. I hope they will forgive me. It is not because I do not still remember them and love them, for to think about them is one of my greatest pleasures, and hope of meeting them again in the heavenly home robs death of all fears.
As you know, we in England are in the midst of the war which is raging, daily air raids are being made upon us by the enemy. London comes in for the biggest share of their bombing, and sometimes we have as many as six distinct raids in the course of a day. Early this morning, about 4 O’clock, when it was still quite dark, five bombs were dropped from the sky close to our house, the nearest by a stone’s throw away. The whole place shook as in a violent earthquake and we were very thankful when all was over to find that both we and our home were uninjured.
Almost every day and every night London and other towns on this Island are bombed by the enemy from the sky, but we do not all get the attacks in the same intensity. Of course many buildings are being destroyed, many people being bombed out of house and home, but the English people are wonderfully brave and plucky and refused to be down hearted. Winston Churchill said the other day in the house of Parliament that, since German blitzkrieg on Britain began early in September 1940, 14,000 civilians had been killed and 20,000 wounded.
Nearly four-fifths of these were in London. During that time scarcely 300 soldiers had been killed and 500 wounded. So you will see that in this war, it is the civilians who are being killed and wounded more than soldiers. This is due to the great development of air warfare, the sea raid our shores, our own flying men go up in to the air to meet and attack them. Terrific battles take place in the air sometimes so high above the earth that we are unable to see them, but at other times low enough in the sky for us to watch the fighting going on.
These fights generally take place in the day time, and daily these great bombing machines and fighters are shot down, sometimes falling from the sky in flames. The Germans have lost far more than we have, and thus far by God’s help we have been able to hold our own against our powerful and cruel foe. Not only our flying men so wonderfully brave and skilled, our sailors and soldiers are equally splendid. Although Germany has been doing it to invade our beautiful Island, up to the present not a single man of them has been able to land on these shores.
How long the war will last we do not know, but we do believe that ere-long, God will give us complete victory over the forces of evil, for the Nazi Regime is not only anti-christian but anti-God, and if it should succeed in overcoming us all that now makes life worth living for men and women of good will would be destroyed. Liberty, righteousness, justice, mercy, and all the blessed christian virtues which we love and which God loves would be banished from the world until Jesus himself comes and brings them in again by his own glorious reign of King of Kings and Lord of Lords
We are glad to hear that you Lushais are doing your part to help in this great war. This time you have not been asked to go across the seas to help, but you are helping all the same by letting everyone know that you are on the side of Britain and her allies, and that you refuse to be deceived by the lies which our enemies are scattering far and wide. For this is more than an ordinary war. It is a spiritual war also in which right is warring against wrong, righteousness and good against evil, God himself against the Devil and all his Setanic powers.
One of the strongest and sharpest weapons which you chistian Lushais have is that of prayer, and we do rejoice that you are meeting together regularly to prayer, and that you remember all those who are in any way engaged in this great conflict. We, your old Pi and Pu thank God that you pray for us also, even as we pray for you. Although we are really in the midst of the greatest battle England has ever seen God is keeping us in perfect peace. We daily at noon when both the hands of the clock point heavenward – meet together for prayer for our country, and at other times of the day and evening we bow before our father God and commit you and all our friends and neighbors and also our armies on sea, on land and in the air to His care.
I am posting to you by this mail a packet containing 40 copies of “Happy Greeting” for 1941. It is a little book containing a dairy, as well as other helpful reading. It is a publication of Lords Day Observance Society and Pi Dari and I send it with our best love and best wishes for Chrismas and the New Year. I want you dear Thala, to distribute these 40 booklets for us. We have had our names printed on the cover of each, booklet at the top of the cover, above the words “Happy Greetings”.
Thus :- To Pastor Challiana te chhung. I am not sending a list of names, but I am leaving you to make out a list and to distribute the books. I should like the list to include 1) All the Serkawn Upas and head of families(one copy for each house) including yourself of course and those who work in my old office. 2) All the Pastors and Evangelists. 3) All the School masters 4) Laia. 5) Darruma. 6) Zathanga. 7) Zakhama 8.) Haudala 9) Chhuahkhama 10) Liangkhaia; numbers 8,9,10 are at Aijal. Please send by post and charge my account with expenses.
I am only able to send 40 copies and am afraid that there will not be enough to go round. Therefore, when you make out the list you must omit those men who are not known to us personally. You need not send any to Sherkor, as I am sending under a separate cover a few copies to my brother R.A.Lorrain direct. If after you have completed your list there are still any copies left I should like them to go to any of the girl mission workers who would appreciate them especially those who know a little English and perhaps in distant villages.
In distributing these books however be very careful to do so in such a way as to prevent anything like jealousy or bad feeling. They had be go to only whom we knew well. I am leaving the whole matter to you because I know you will know even better than I do how to distribute them with the best result. I have included the Ajal pastors Chhuahkhama and Liangkhaia because the former always sends me a copy of Assembly Bu every year, and the latter was good enough to send me of his HISTORY OF LUSHAI. When you write the name of each recipient on the top of the cover please add any title which he has such as “Rev”, “Pastor”, etc..
If you find anything in this letter which you think might be published in either of Lushai Periodicals concerning the war, you are at liberty to translate it and have it printed. Since I began this letter we have been bombed again, but none of them did us harm. Zathanga will be able to tell you what bombing is like. He will remember the time when my Y.M.C.A hut in which I was sleeping –was nearly hit by a German bomb in France, the fragment of which, when it exploded, pierced the wall and roof of my hut in fifty different places.
That was the worst night I ever spent in France during the great war of 1914-1918. My Lushai friends however had many much worst experiences than that after I left them. Now we are often in great danger of losing our home- our lives and we thank you all sincerely for your prayers and kind thought of us. We hope that the visit of the Governor of Assam will be a very happy time for all of you, yourself are now strong and well inspite of your dangerous illness. It seems strange that you should be thinking of your retirement, but time flies and all are growing older every day. When I retire I had done 43 years foreign service (including my furloughs) and I was 63 years of age.
My father before me had done 42 or 43 years of service in the Civil Service when he retired at the age of 60. My great desire was to complete 50 years of foreign service and if possible to go even after that until called to Higher Service in Heaven. But that desire was not granted. I am glad however that I have been able with God’s help and that of friends whom he raised up to help me, I have been able to complete the Lushai Dictionary. It is only waiting now for the completion of an Epreta which I am preparing.
With every good Xmas and New Year wish to yourself and family and also to all other friends in which Pi Dari joins.
Yours affectionately,(J.H.Lorrain)
PS : Tunge Thala tih hi zawhna awm thei a ni a, Lunglei lam chhan atan ka dah ta mai !!!
No comments:
Post a Comment