Notes of a talk given by Miss Small, first Principal of St Colm's College, at the Annual Meeting of the House Guild, March 1935:
"Miss Mackenzie has asked me to speak to you on this specially 'College’ evening, about our College chapel, with special reference to its place as I conceited it, in the life of the College as a place of missionary preparation. It gives me great pleasure to try to do this.
The Purpose of the College:
One word about the purpose of the College itself- the preparation of missionaries of Jesus Christ, Home and Foreign. which are indeed one.
We are, any given generation of us, a community of women drawn together by one intention:
We may call it our realisation of the need of the world; our conviction that, its only hope lies in the discovery of, and submission to the Kingdom of God, so divinely pictured to us by Jesus Christ its reigning King and Lord; and the desire which has possessed us to offer ourselves to the service of the King, the Kingdom, and the world, in such ways as He may direct us.
Or, we may put it in this way, very simply, that having ourselves experienced something of the saving, uplifting, transforming, inspiring love of God, humanly revealed to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, we are impelled to go forth, as He may send us, to
Let all men know that all men move
Under a canopy of love,
As broad as the blue sky above;
And by every means in our poorer to exemplify that gracious saving love, with all its implications, to needy men, women, and little children. And College is here to try to help us to prepare ourselves for this high calling and adventure.
Individual preparation:
Individual preparation proceeds, as you have no doubt discovered, exactly as we respond to a manifold opportunity.
• The study of subjects which bear upon our purpose, and
• The adaptation of previous study to specific ends;
• The various practical service which brings us in contact with human need; our fellowship with others whose end is the same, and the mutual sharpening- as iron sharpeneth iron- of a constant give and take, mind with mind, character with character, spirit with spirit;
• The broadening and deepening of our interest. The missionary, who becomes so absorbed in his own job that he loses touch with the great whole, is a poor creature. We must never translate the Master's great missionary word, 'the yield is the World' into 'the Field is my own little corner' no student of a Missionary College has any excuse for becoming parochial. We learn to embrace the whole world as we learn that other embracement, the all-uniting Kingdom of God for which as a community we stand.
• And, not least, we have the privacy of our tiny rooms. If we have learned how to use that widely, we have, each for herself, her own room of prayer, her private chapel.
Common Preparation:
I can never separate in my own mind our college life from that of the students of that very first Missionary College because, surely, its guidance is in the hands of the same great Master, and because the elements of His guidance remain universal and unchanging, I name three of these elements which especially concern the preparation of the corporate life.
1. The experience of the team life and the practice of the team spirit, so immeasurably important in all service of the Kingdom.
2.The practice together of what I venture to call the leisured spirit in midst of the most exacting labour. Times are very different, but even then there was always more than enough to be done. She students of that first college thought so anyhow. Yet, how unbasting the pace, how perfect the poise maintained and demanded, by the Master! How happy also the occasional hours of relaxation. Isn't the story of that Sabbath Morning sauntering through the cornfield beautiful? The students just let themselves go, rubbing the corn-seed clear of the husk, and flipping little handfuls neatly into their mouths. They chatted and laughed the while, of course, and of course the
Master liked it. That Galilean training was very far removed from the intolerable busyness and hustle, bad in any circumstances, an evil thing in representatives of Jesus Christ, which is characteristic of our modern life. That open-air life in Galilee needed no common room and no chapel; our common room and chapel must stand for the needful preparation of the leisured, the re-creative spirit.
3. And then, other communities other traditions- in the Missionary College tradition of corporate life the great members are the humble members, not self-consciously, far less ostentatiously, but quite naturally, because the Master, eternally the same Master, is ever among us as 'He who serves.’ I cannot begin to tell you how vital this spirit of subjection of the self-life is to every missionary community. But let me tell you in passing that the competition in this department is not nearly so simple as it seems. It may easily become a nuisance I had once a student who was obsessed by this idea, and she carried it so far that nobody else had a look-in. That had to be remedied! You will note that all these elements of corporate preparation are elements of the interior spirit. The Figure in our chapel window represents our Master and Leader. I think that Mr Hole has wonderfully succeeded in suggesting that He is also the Exemplar of the interior spirit which He would have us achieve.
Spiritual and devotional preparation:
Is it not obvious that prayer in its most inclusive sense must have a great part in such a life as ours? Prayer first of all in the quietness of our own rooms, and then that prayer which unites us in worship, communion, desire?
• That prayer which asks great things from God, and which
offers all things to God?
• That prayer which speaks quite simply as child to father, saying just what comes uppermost' and that which also remembers that 'God is in heaven and we on earth, and that our words should be few (and the Authorised Version adds, 'well chosen')
• That prayer which is intercession, which prays with and for us all, prayer for specific mutual concerns, prayer in which we together take up some part of the world’s burden, and lay it lovingly down, for our part in it, before Him who does not need to be told, yet loves to be told; prayer which is deeply concerned with the will of God, and which makes us deeply sensitive to that will.
• It is very often prayer which cannot find words, and which need not find words; but which in silence waits upon God,
Our Practice of Prayer:
Now, rightly or wrongly, I was convinced that to practice common prayer was far better than to try to teach it, and from our earliest days, long before a chapel was thought of- unless it were in the depths of my subconscious being, we had discovered certain forms whereby to express our common devotional life. Some of these, no doubt continue to this day, others will have given place to expressions more in keeping with later conditions. But as I am trying to tell you of the evolution of the various Acts of corporate prayer which eventually centred in the chapel, you will allow me to name the more important of these.
The daily services, morning and evening, represented two of the aspects of worship to which I have referred. The morning service was our daily, united formal Act of worship, dignified, leisured, inclusive. We returned at evening tide to offer thanks for the day, and to give ourselves, our loved ones, and all our concerns unto the keeping of our Father for the night. This was our more intimate and informal Act, it was led by the students in turn; and to me at least, it was a very delightful half hour.
Then, we met at mid-week, on Wednesday afternoons, with an evening of various services before us, to offer, each for herself and all for each, our practical, social and other activities to God. This was our opportunity of unified remembrance of any matter of special interest or concern in any department of our work. We went our several ways on that evening with that sense of the unity at the heart of all diversity which means so much to us all.
Sunday afternoon brought to us the most intimate hour of all. We met to celebrate the 'communion of saints'. We did not use that phrase, but that was what we meant*. On the first Sunday of each term it became our custom to rise in token of our renewal o f our mutual promise of perfect mutual loyalty within the College, that promise which provides and assures that atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence which makes of any community life a pure joy. It was during that hour also that we reminded ourselves of the larger fellowship of our College, and we did so in full assurance that in every place whither we have wandered we also were being remembered.
We closed with an Act of communion with all whom under whatever name call upon the Name of our Lord Jesus, their Lord and ours. Any occasion or happening of interest in this connection, we also remembered.
It would be impossible to tell you in words of my own how central to our College life and service that hour became.
The words which I associate with my memories of it are those words of radiant assurance: “He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and they also shall overcome who are with Him, called, and chosen, and faithful.” (I know that the exigencies of College work have made it neccessary to change this hour; but I feel sure that that supreme expression of our common life of which it was the symbol is still cherished among you.)
Our Prayer Room:
In these developments of our devotional life lay the germ of the idea of a chapel. Long before we left Atholl Crescent, when whispers building a Missionary College began to be heard, we who were of the Institute began to discuss our share in it; and it was in the direction of rest and quiet and worship that our minds instinctively turned. Our first thought was of a Best room, then we began to dream of a Quiet room or Prayer room. (We did not then speak of it as chapel). We furnished the Best room, built the Prayer room, and out of the Prayer room fund we furnished a bedroom which we named 'lona'.
Let me make quite clear that we had no idea that our Prayer Room would be more sacred than any other room in the house. If it has become more sacred it is because for many of us sacred associations have gathered in it, which is another matter. The whole of the house was dedicated to the service of God in His Church and Kingdom; and in a true sense the Common Room and the Dining room were set apart for their purposes exactly as was the prayer room. 'Sacred' and 'secular' had no place in the first Missionary College, and we had no intention of making such distinctions, in ours. The chapel is simply the place where prayer is wont to be made! Besides, I was myself an old missionary, and knew that the missionary must learn the 'practice of the Presence of
God' in all sorts of places and circumstances, just as Brother Lawrence learned it, you remember, amongst the pots and pans in his kitchen. I expect there is no need to enlarge upon this. One of the most sacred experiences of my own life came to me neither in church nor chapel, but as I walked along the west end of Princes Street one May afternoon many years ago; and my shrine was the beloved old Castle Rock! Our sacred spots are just where we meet with God.
Why then a Chapel?
But there is another aspect of this need that we practice the Presence of God, especially in the case of such a community as ours. The corporate devotional life had evolved, as I have told you, during the passing years, and it seemed to us that we needed some quiet corner in which those Acts of common prayer, with any further Acts which should be added to them, should be perpetuated. I think we were rightly inspired "both in motive and in exeeution. Our chapel is a perfect trysting-place, is it not - quiet, simple, austerely beautiful?
I must, I think, mention a few of its memorable occasions during those earlier years. One of our own students was baptised in chapel just before she went abroad; and a whole family reclaimed from practical, heathism was also baptised. During the 1910 World Missionary Conference an actual representation of the Church catholic and apostolic, our guests, met in chapel daily for morning prayers: a Japanese, a Chinese, an Indian, a Burmese missionary, each to his own people; besides an American missionary bishop and his wife, Ruth Rouse the beloved representative of S.C.M. and of the Federation, and last but not least, Dr and Mrs Macnicol of Poona.
Lastly, we hold here, in our own home, our yearly Old Students' Retreat, and we are permitted to celebrate then as on other fitting occasions, the sacrament of the Holy Supper.
Associations may, as I have already hinted, be good or bad according to our re-action to them. We may, for example, learn to depend upon the chapel, and may suffer spiritual loss when separated from it. (I heard lately of one old student who suffered this experience). Attachment to it may become so strong that we make a sort of fetish of it. We may even turn it into a hot-house or forcing-house of the spiritual life- a fatal blunder.
But suppose that we make of College and chapel, for ourselves and for each other a true successor of that original Galilean College, that we move freely in the open spaces of the spirit, in closest fellowship with the Master Himself, is there any limit to the inspiration we may receive and carry out with us when we set out upon the Mission which He may entrust to us? And for those of us who are in the thick of the fight with evil, for those of us who have finished our course, does not the thrill of that inspiration remain with us, renewed every time we return."
(The above image is a preparatory sketch by Edinburgh artist William Hole for the stained glass window in the chapel at St Colm's. The window was given to the College by Miss Small in memory of her father, a missionary in Poona. As Jean Fraser notes, "the image depicts the Risen Christ crowned with thorns and laurel. Along the rocky path are featured a rose, a thistle and a shamrock to represent the nationalities of the first students. The mountains of Africa and the temples of Asia represent the world to which the Gospel must be preached.")
