Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1900-05-31
THE JUDGMENT OF DUNGARA.
BY RUDYARD KIPLIEG.

They tell the tale even now among
the sal groves of the Berbulda hill and
for corroboratioa point to the roofess
and windowless mission house. The
great god Dungara, the god of things as
they are, most terrible, one eyed, bear
ing the red elephant tusk, did it all,
and he who refuses to believe in Dun
CARA will assuredly be smitten by the
madness of Yat-the madness that fell
upon the sons and the daughters of the
Buria Kol when they turned aside from
Dungara and put on clothes. So says
Athon Daze, who is high priest of the
shrine and warden of the red elephant
tusk. But if you ask the assistant col
lector and agent in charge of the Buria
Kol, he will laugh-not because he
bears any malice against missions, but
because he himself saw the vengeance
of Dungara executed upon the spiritual
children of the Rev. Justus Krenk, pas
tor of the Tubingen mission, and upon
Lolita, his virtuous wife.
Yet if ever man merited good treat
ment Of the gods it was the reverend
Justus, one time of Heidelberg, who, on
the faith of a call, went into the will
derness and took the blond, blue eyed
Lolita with him. sWe will these hea-
then now by idolatrous practices SO dark
ened better make, said Justus in the
early days of his career. eyes. he add
ed, with conviction, "they shall be good
and shall with their hands to work
learn. For all good Christians must
work. And upon a stipend more mod
est even than that of an English lay
reader, Justus Krenk kept house beyond
Kamala and the gorge Of Malair, be-
yond the Berbulda river close to the
foot cf the blue hill of Panth on whose
summit stands the temple of Dungara
i'm the heart of the country of the
Buria Kol-the naked, good tempered,
timid, shameless, lazy Buria Kol.
Do you know what life at mission
outpost means2 Try to imagine lone
illness exceeding that of the smallest
station to which government has ever
sent you-isolation that weighs upon
the waking eyelids and drives you per-
force headlong into the labors of the
day. There is no post, there is no one
of your own color to speak to, there are
no roads There is indeed food to keep
you alive, but it is not pleasant to eat,
and whatever of good or beauty or in
terest there is in your life must come
from yourself and the grace that may
be planted in You.
{t,a ,,,c,.,,i,,rf MI ~, no &toV. e soft
feet, the converts, the doubtful and the
open scoffers troop up to the veranda.
You must be infinitely kind and pa
tient, and, above all, clear sighted, for
you deal with the simplicity of child
hood, the experience of man and the
subtlety of the savage. Your congrega-
tion has hundred material wants to
be considered. and it is for you, as you
believe in your personal responsibility
to your Maker. TO pick out of the clam
oring crowd any grain of spirituality
that may lie therein. If to the cure of
souls you add that of bodies, your task
will be all the more difficult for the
sick and the MANNED will profess any
and every creed for the sake of healing
and will laugh at you because you are
simple enough TO believe them.
AS the day wears and the impetus of
the morning dies away there will come
upon you an overwhelming sense of the
uselessness of your toll. This must be
striven against, and the only spur in
your side will be the belief that you
are playing against the devil for the
living soul 1t is a great and joyous be-
lief, but he who can hold it unwavering
for four and twenty consecutive hours
must be blessed with an abundantly
strong physique and equable nerve.
Ask the gray heads of the Bannock-
burn medical crusade what manner Of
life their preachers lead. Speak to the
Racine Gospel agency, those lean Amer
leans whose boast is that they go where
no Englishman dare follow. Get a pas
tor of the Tubingen mission to talk Of
his experiences. if you can. You will be
referred to the printed reports, but
these contain no mention of the men
who have lost youth and health, all
that man may lose except faith in the
wilds, of English maidens who have
gone forth and died in the fever strick-
en- Jungle of the Panth hills, knowing
from the first that death was almost a