p. 15 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 39. (10/7/1913)

The Failure of Aung Thein

By Robert Bruce Thurber

The Story of a Burmese Boy’s Struggles

By Robert Bruce Thurber

YES, there are failures in missionary effort—hundreds of them. That is, they are failures to human eyes. But as that is not a fall which is a fall forward, so failure is not failure when it is a part of success. And in a work, where not even an expired breath returns void, nothing really fails.

Missionaries have been censured for “not reporting conditions as they are.” This touches a great question, but just a word about it here. God alone sees things as they are, for things as they have been and will be have so close a connection with present conditions. Wise and honest men say that the world is growing better all the time, and other wise and honest men see it growing worse. Who can give a perfectly true impression of a people or a work?

The missionary often hesitates to tell of matters even as he views them, for fear that before the eyes of those who can not possibly get the true perspective, he may project a vision which is not of things as they are at all. The following short chapter of a Burmese boy’s life is a recital of facts as the writer sees them. Therefore it is called a failure.

Maung Bo, Aung Thein’s foster-father, is the owner of a small cotton-mill at Mahlaing, and withal a man of wealth and influence in the Oriental way. Without a child of his own, he adopted Aung Thein, gave him everything a Burmese child desires, and reached the height of his idea of parental providence by insuring the boy’s life for a good sum.

A bhogya, or Buddhist priest, begging for food — his only means of livelihood

Casting about for a good school to which to send his son, he was recommended to our institution at Meiktila. A trial would do no harm, so this little boy, with his long, black hair tied with a cord at the back, started to school. The length of his hair indicated that he was not yet old enough to be consecrated to the priesthood.

His heart was tender and very susceptible to religious influences, and soon he plunged heartily into the best the school taught by precept and example. He worked with a will at anything that was given him to do,—a very unusual procedure for a Burman nurtured in ease. He entered into Bible study with remarkable aptitude for one of his age, and in fact, was soon made over new. He went home for a short vacation, and his people were surprised at the change in him. He was obedient and respectful, eschewed bad companions, and was in general a good boy, yet not a “goody-goody” boy.

But at the first meal, the mother asked, “Why do you put your head down before you eat?” and later, “What book is this that you like so well to read?” Then the truth was revealed to them. So Aung Thein was getting evil as well as good at that school. They knew it was a Christian school, but hundreds of Buddhist boys had passed through other Christian schools uncontaminated. The general result of the work at this school was the best they had ever seen, but the hated faith would never do. So they attempted the impossible—to separate cause from effect, Christianity from goodness. Aung Thein was sent back with the solemn command to remain a good boy and a Buddhist.

Childhood is simple, and naturally chooses good means for good ends. The boy became more steeped in the anathematized truth than before. The news of his farther straying soon reached home; and there came a command for him to stop all manual labor, for perhaps it was the work which charmed him. Didn’t his father have money? He didn’t need to work. But still he progressed in the love of God and the Word. Maybe it was because he had not been made a priest yet. Thereupon he was called home, and that elaborate function of fasting, head shaving, and yellow robing was followed out according to approved custom. While every boy is consecrated to the priesthood, very few wear the robe more than a few days. An active boy dislikes to mumble, be idle, and beg.

In a short time Aung Thein was back, and rose, in the first praise meeting, with a strong testimony expressive of his love for God and his gladness to get back. Well do I remember the day he ran after me down the sandy lane and shyly put a two anna piece into my hand with the words, “Of ten parts, one part”—the Burmese expression for tithe.

The battle waged hotter. The boys of a family living near the school were set as spies to watch what Aung Thein did and said, and to report to his parents. The father made a hurried visit to the school, and at first greeting was met by this request from his son: “I want to be baptized and to be a Christian.” Maung Bo was furious, and threatened to remove the boy immediately. But sober judgment and the advice of friends prevailed, and he was still led to hope that his son could remain in the fire and not get burned.

Aung Thein was so young that it seemed best for us to do nothing more than to teach the Word and pray. We had not urged him, from the first, nor did we mention baptism to him individually; but like the Ethiopian eunuch, he said, “What doth hinder?”

Balaam of old, that broken mouthpiece for God, tried more subtle means when direct opposition to Israel failed. The inspirer of Balaam now put it into the father’s heart to take his boy out of the school home and have him board with an adjacent family. Perhaps he absorbed Christianity by contact, and partial separation would help. This was striking at a vital point, and, sad to relate, the scheme succeeded. Live with a boy or lose him, is a truth we have found to be practical.

Ridicule and scoffing, intentionally and systematically followed up day by day, soon played havoc with Aung Thein’s slender faith. He stopped attending the meetings, and the new influence soon told in his personal appearance and behavior. His dress became unclean and disorderly, and he took on the slouch and slink of the street boys. A few days before school closed for the year, he and a companion stole a neighbor’s duck and killed and ate it—a very disgraceful

action for even a Buddhist. He escaped prosecution by making amends.

Eight of Aung Thein’s schoolmates whom he had led in espousing Christianity, were baptized before they went home for the holidays. He stood on the bank of the lake and witnessed their start in a newness of life. We do not know what thoughts coursed through his mind then, nor what feelings tugged at his heart; but we hope and pray, and work and wait.

Do you wonder that this year we have made a rule that no boy whose parents do not live near the school shall board outside the school home? For we are fishers of boys, and try to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” This year Aung Thein has come back to the school home, his faith shattered. Are your prayers for him?

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Under the Law or Under Grace?

That question of “Under the law? or under grace?” is a constantly recurring one. Bible Students’ Library tract No. 163 gives a careful answer from the Bible. Single copy, 2 cents; a hundred, $1.00. This office.

The Law

An excellent tract to study in connection with the law of God is Bible Students’ Library, No. 178, “The Perpetuity of the Law of God.” Single copy, post-paid, 2 cents; $1.00 a hundred. This office.

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This Paper and the Immediate Future

By Editor

As has been previously announced, Elder M. C. Wilcox, who has been editor of this journal for about a quarter of a century, has been granted a leave of absence by our Board. Elder Wilcox was engaged in editorial work for a number of years before coming here, so that he has been in the constant grind of strenuous work for almost a third of a century, in the confining position of editorial labors. This long service had begun to tell on his nerves, and the Board felt that it was his due to give him this rest, so that he might return to the work a few months hence with renewed vigor for still further years of earnest labor. We need every one of our experienced men, and we can not afford to allow any of them to become broken down prematurely.

There will be three more issues of the paper after this week before the beginning of the next six-month series. The first issue of the new series will be dated November 11. At the beginning of that series, our Board is arranging for a number of our leading men to go on the paper as regular editorial contributors. Their names will be announced at that time. Brother Wilcox will remain as a member of the Board, and will have a voice, as heretofore, in laboring to make the SIGNS OF THE TIMES better and better, as the message of the soon coming of Christ rises and spreads into all parts of the world,

This journal has ever had before it a high standard, and it is our constant determination that this standard shall be maintained. The times in which we are living are causing the hearts of the strongest men to tremble as they view the situation confronting us. God said through His prophets, centuries in the past, that this would be the case. The very conditions of the time call upon not only the editors and publishers, but all the contributors and patrons of the paper, to make it the very best possible, and to give it the widest circulation.

Thousands of people are in despair because of their personal conditions and because of what they see coming upon the world. Those who know the truth of the prophecies, understand the joys of a personal belief in the soon coming of Christ. Every one should be made acquainted with these joys, and urgently invited to participate in them. And this is the great work that we have before us in this important publication.

The Clearness of Sabbath Truth

It would seem as the Lord had taken particular pains to place the obligation to observe His Sabbath beyond all reasonable questioning. In the first place, He gives a definite Sabbath command. He tells us the day upon which the Sabbath is to be observed. He tells us of the reason for observing the Sabbath, and tells us how to observe it. And having given this explicit direction concerning the Sabbath, He makes no mention of any other day.

You ask the Bible which day is the Sabbath, and it answers promptly, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20:10. You ask the Bible why God gave the Sabbath, and it promptly says, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth; . . . wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Ex. 20:11. Then the reason He assigns for giving His Sabbath is that He created this earth in six days, and has given us this weekly memorial of His greatness as manifested in creative power. If you ask the Bible for the manner of observing the Sabbath, it just as promptly answers, “In it thou shalt not do any work”; and through the prophet Isaiah we are told: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isa. 58:13, 14.

If we ask the good Book in regard to the law of which the Sabbath commandment is a part, we have the Master's own words, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets.” Matt. 5:17.

But when we come to asking the same Book for any authority for Sunday observance, it is absolutely silent. Nowhere do we find a text which says that the first day of the week is the Christian Sabbath. Nowhere do we find a statement that either Christ or the apostles have changed the Sabbath. The Bible is absolutely and completely silent upon the question of a divine law for Sunday keeping.

If we are to take the Bible for our guide, it should not require long to decide which day of the week we should observe as the Sabbath. We can not render obedience to God by offering Him a substitute for that which He has so plainly commanded.

The Charm of the Serpent.

Some one has uttered the statement that it is “with a fascinating, bewitching power unbelief and infidelity fasten themselves upon the mind.” The fascination toward doubting and unbelief has much of the charm of the serpent in it. The serpent charms the victim into doing something which it really should not do, and which, if left to itself, in its sober, reflective moments it would not do. And so when we find the fascinations of unbelief entering into our minds, we should put ourselves on guard at once.

We can cultivate unbelief if we so desire, or we can cultivate faith. We will have whichever we labor to produce. If we stand with God to cultivate faith, we stand with the great Creator, we stand with the source of all life and power. But if we stand on the side of unbelief, we stand with the great doubter himself, who, in his opposition to God and to truth, is seeking to charm the minds of men into the follies and absurdities of unbelief. Why should we stand with the doubters and be uncertain in regard to the future, when God has made it so that we may stand with Him upon the great foundation of truth, and have the consolations of the divine knowledge, day by day, that we are to have an eternal existence with Him amid the undimmed joys of immortality?

Another Attempt on General Otis’s Life

An infernal machine was sent to General Otis, the proprietor of the Los Angeles Times, through the mails, September 16. Through the watchfulness of a Japanese servant, the nature of the package was detected before it was allowed to explode. It was placed in the hands of officers, who said that it contained enough explosive to have killed a large number of persons if it had been opened in their presence. This is the second conspicuous attempt made on the life of General Otis, the first being the work of the McNamaras, who are now serving their sentences in the penitentiary in California, in the blowing up of his Times building, at which time a number of persons were killed. This matter of seeking to destroy prominent individuals by bombs is getting to be a very common thing for the lawless element of society.

Dunne’s Revolutionary Biplane

Lieutenant Dunne has devised a new model biplane that is said to be quite revolutionary in the field of flying-machines. The wings of the albatross were used as a model. In the trials that were given to the machine, the aviator cut circles, dipped, dived, and made all sorts of evolutions in the air, quite frequently having his hands above his head, wholly free from the controlling devices of the machine. He finally stood up on the seat, entirely away from the levers of control. Gusts of wind and special “air pockets” that have given so much anxiety to aviators in the past seem to be no terror to this new kind of biplane. The invention gives strong promise that the aeroplane will be made very much more popular for pleasure, as well as for commercial purposes; and the navies of the world, of course, are watching it with intense interest.

Wall Street and Rioting.

The despatches of September 18 stated that more than twenty-five hundred New York financiers petitioned the War Department to increase the number of troops on Governor’s Island. Governor’s Island is a little military island in New York Harbor, and is not far from the financial district of Wall Street. These financiers, in their petition, said that they desired this added protection not merely to guard against invasion of foreign troops, but also to guard against mobs and violence among our own citizens. Such conditions as these are not very reassuring, and yet they show unmistakably the tone of society and the fears of the great financial men. If you have never read with careful thought the fifth chapter of the epistle of James, it would be interesting to you to read it in this connection. It is a wonderfully vivid statement of the conditions that would prevail in these very times in which we are living.

The Spirit of War in the Last Days

Japan is said to be concentrating her war fleet at Nanking, in order to compel the Chinese government to apologize for the accidental killing of several Japanese in the recent fighting at that place. There is revolution in China; Japan is in a warlike mood, watching that nation and quarreling with her; all of the nations of Europe are in more or less turmoil and stir over the Balkan situation; we have a revolution in Mexico that is causing much anxiety in this country. It would look as if this old earth were not to be blessed again with peace until He comes who is the Prince of Peace. The prophets of the Bible have declared that the last days would be marked by a mighty spirit of war. The whole world will be stirred to action. There are a great many well-meaning men and women who believe and teach that we are on the eve of universal peace, that the nations will not learn war any more; but watch the events, and place these conditions side by side with what the prophets have said, and see which is correct.