Hulugalle’s Appreciation of Revd Senior’s Career in Old Ceylon-by Michael Roberts

In his writings he used “Lanka” for Ceylon long before our nationalists thought seriously of doing so. Here is a verse from Senior’s poem entitled “The Call of Lanka””:

I offer a voice, O Lanka,

I, child of an alien isle,

For my heart has heard thee, and kindled,

Mine eyes have seen thee, and smile;

Take, Foster-Mother, and use it;

Tis but for a little while.

He loved Ceylon with a greater love than anything we have bestowed upon her. Wherever he went, he yearned to come back to Lanka. He had a special place in his heart for the hills and streams around Kandy:

Yea, fair as Light is the Kandyan Land Yea, fair as Love her Youth,

The lads and maids of the golden glades; But yet more fair is Truth

Truth of the tongue, Truth of the hand, Truth of the Shrine and Mart;

Let Truth be King of the Kandyan Land, Lord of the Lion heart.

Senior had high hopes of the future, and believed that Lanka would find a poet

“of thine own children, born of thy womb.”

But most shall he sing of Lanka

In the brave new days that come

When the races all have blended

And the voice of strife is dumb;

When we leap to a single bugle,

March to a single drum.

We cherish Senior’s poems because they were born of love for Ceylon and her people. One of them begins:

I am tormented with an holy torment,

In that I know not all the lore of Lanka,

Land of heart’s longing, leaving her forever,

I have not dreamed by every bay and headland

Where the bland Ocean, emerald and turquoise,

Pours to the palms white worship of the billows.

He proceeds to deplore his ignorance of the local languages:

Skill-less alas! Of either liquid language,

Tongues of deep music, Sinhalese and Tamil.

Little know I of the pulses of a People;

Know not the ancient Soul that built the cities,

Still-living Soul slow-seeping from the ruins;

I am tormented with an holy torment

After Trinity, Senior served as Lecturer in Western Classics at the Ceylon University College and Vicar of Christ Church, Galle Face. For health and family reasons he left for Europe when he was already an old man; and worked in Geneva and Kent in England. A poem called “Goodbye” began:

“So you’ve had enough of the tropics, and the back is

growing bent,

And the heart is not so buoyant and it’s time you packed and went.”

He recalls his favourite spots in Lanka when “the English climate’s chilly, and the English clouds are grey;” he remembers faces and concludes: “my soul, you will break with longing – it can never be Goodbye.”

Robert Crossette Thambiah and I, devoted old pupils of his, published these short poems in a slim volume called “Vita Magistra.”This pleased Senior greatly. In a letter dated March 2, 1937, he said:

“I am more than delighted with the book, that is its make-up and appearance. It shows infinite care, and beautiful taste. Let me congratulate as well as thank, which I do most sincerely and heartily. You have shown me a very unusual and exceptional kindness, which I cannot repay.”

What we had done, with the help of that brilliant Lake House Printer, the late Bernard de Silva, pleased him. But it was less than a hundredth part of what we and many others owed him in making our own lives happy and purposeful in the best sense of those words. He was more than a father to me at critical periods of my life. In the letter from which I have quoted, he proceeds:

“Do you know, for some unexplained reason my mind, as I sit here typing, flies back to that never-to-be-forgotten day when you and I sat together for some hours if I remember right, on a high rock above Kurunegala Rest-house, and talked over everything in heaven and earth. How many years ago was that? And now you are what you are, and I am here, and you two have shown me loving kindness for which I thank God …. I am greatly interested in the additions you have made to your pleasant country house. One of the happiest and most vivid recollections of my visit a year ago, was the day I spent with you there I remember that the first sensation which came to me as the Maha Mudaliyar drove me from the Jetty to the Maligawa a year ago was the entire satisfaction given by the quality of the light and of the colours. I leaned back in the car and gave myself up to it.”

Senior’s wife was the daughter of a Bishop. While he was something of a genius and a restless character, she was one of the gentlest and kindest women anyone could meet. She was more than a second mother to many who knew her at Trinity. I have a sheaf of letters from her during the period 1932 to 1965. Their four children Hugh, Gerard, Margaret and Stella were delightful people.

Senior came to Trinity College, Kandy, as one of a brilliant team brought to the school by A. G. Fraser, after he became Principal. Fraser himself was a born leaderand had he taken to politics, would have been a Cabinet Minister. He was the son of Sir Andrew Fraser, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. The others brought to Trinity included N. P. Campbell – an outstanding scientist – who gave first place in his life to social service, K. J. Saunders, a profound student of Buddhism, J. P. S. R. Gibson and A. M. Walmsley.

Fraser was a different type from Senior. He knew me and my family and I got on well with him but for a single caning. But he could ride roughshod and did not have the understanding of youth and compassion which Senior brought to his mission. He was however a dynamic force and Fraser of Trinity will be remembered as long as Arnold of Rugby.

The high quality of the men and women drawn to the Christian missions in Ceylon of every denomination, made a massive contribution to the formulation of leadership which was able to take over from the British twenty five years ago without mishap. The missionaries themselves felt that it was their duty to lift up subject people. A large proportion of these missionaries were armed with first classes from Oxford, Cambridge and other universities. Their names are familiar to my generation, Highfield of Wesley, Small of Richmond, Le Goc of St. Joseph’s, Miller and Stone of St. Thomas’ and McLeod Campbell and Stopford of Trinity of a later vintage than Senior’s.

One can go further back to the Kotte Institution which was founded before the Royal College or the Colombo Academy, as it was first called. The students turned out by the CMS College at Kotte included Sir Richard Morgan, James de Alwis, James Dunuwille, Deputy Queen’s Advocate, Mr. Dehigama, Kandyan representative in the Legislative Council, Maha Mudaliyar Louis de Zoysa, Anagarika Dharmapala and in some ways, the most famous of them all, Sir Muttu Coomaraswamy, the friend of Palmerston and Disraeli.

This article was first published in April 1976……

  **************************