We could touch this visible wall, press against it, feel its solid strength. Run hard against it, and you would be hurt, you might fall back bleeding; it would not have yielded one inch.

And the other invisible wall? Oh, we can touch it too! Spirit-touch is a real thing. And so is spirit-pain. But the wall, it still stands strong.

It was moonlight. We had walked all round the great temple square, down the silent Brahman streets, and we had stood in the pillared hall, and looked across to the open door, and seen the light on the shrine.

Now we were out in God's clean light, looking up at the mass of the tower, as it rose pitch-black against the sky. And we felt how small we were.

Then the influences of the place began to take hold of us. It was not only masonry; it was mystery. "The Sovereigns of this present Darkness" were there.

How futile all of earth seemed then, against those tremendous forces and powers. What toy-swords seemed all weapons of the flesh. Praise God for the Holy Ghost!

While we were sitting there a Brahman came to see what we were doing, and we told him some of our thoughts. He asked us then if we would care to hear his. We told him, gladly. He pointed up to the temple tower. "That is my first step to God." We listened, and he unfolded, thought by thought, that strange old Vedic philosophy, which holds that God, being omnipresent, reveals Himself in various ways, in visible forms in incarnations, or in spirit. The visible-form method of revelation is the lowest; it is only, as it were, the first of a series of steps which lead up to the highest, intelligent adoration of and absorption into the One Supreme Spirit. "We are only little children yet. We take this small first step, it crumbles beneath us as we rise to the next, and so step by step we rise from the visible to the invisible, from matter to spirit—to God. But," he added courteously, "as my faith is good for me, so, doubtless, you find yours for you."

Next morning we went down to the river and had talks with the people who passed on their way to the town. It was all so pretty in the early morning light. Men were washing their bullocks, and children were scampering in and out of the water. Farther downstream the women were bathing their babies and polishing their brass water-vessels. Trees met overhead, but the light broke through in places and made yellow patches on the water. Out in one of those reaches of yellow a girl stood bending to fill her vessel; she wore the common crimson of the South, but the light struck it, and struck the shining brass as she swung it up under her arm, and made her into a picture as she stood in her clinging wet red things against the brown and green of water and wood. Everywhere we looked there was something beautiful to look at, and all about us was the sound of voices and laughter, and the musical splashing of water; then, as we enjoyed it all, we saw this:

Under an ancient tree fifteen men were walking slowly round and round, following the course of the sun. Under the tree there were numbers of idols, and piles of oleander and jessamin wreaths, brought fresh that morning. The men were elderly, fine-looking men; they were wholly engrossed in what they were doing. It was no foolish farce to them; it was reality.

There is something in the sight of this ordinary, evident dethronement of our God which stirs one to one's inmost soul. We could not look at it.

Again and again we have gone to that town, but to-day those men go round that tree, and to-day that town is a fort unwon.

Petra, I have called it; the word stands for many a town walled in as that one is. In Keith's Evidence of Prophecy there is a map of Petra, the old strong city of Edom, and in studying it a light fell upon David's question concerning it, and his own triumphant answer, "Who will lead me into the strong city? Who will bring me into Edom? Wilt not Thou, O God?" for the map shows the mountains all round except at the East, where they break into a single narrow passage, the one way in. There was only one way in, but there was that one way in!

Here is a town walled up to heaven by walls of Caste and bigotry, but there must be one way in. Here is a soul walled all round by utter indifference and pride, but there must be one way in.

"Who will lead me into the strong city? Who will bring me into Edom? Wilt not Thou, O God?"



CHAPTER XIII

Death by Disuse

"There is a strong tendency to look upon the Atonement of Christ as possessing some quality by virtue of which God can excuse and overlook sin in the Christian, a readiness to look upon sinning as the inevitable accompaniment of human nature 'until death do us part,' and to look upon Christianity as a substitute for rather than a cause of personal holiness of life." Rev. I. W. Charlton, India.

"From many things I have heard I fancy many at home think of the mission as a sort of little heaven upon earth, but when one looks under the surface there is much to sadden one. . . . Oh, friends, much prayer is needed! Many of the agents know apparently nothing about conversion.

"You may not like my writing so plainly, but sometimes it seems as if only the bright side were given, and one feels that if God's praying people at home understood things more as they really are . . . more prayer for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our agents and converts would ascend to God. . . . We do long to see all our pastors and agents really converted men, men of prayer and faith, who, knowing that they themselves are saved, long with a great longing to see the heathen round them brought out of darkness into His light, and the Christians who form their congregations, earnest converted men and women." A. J. Carr, India.

"Fifty added to the Church sounds fine at home, but if only five of them are genuine what will it profit in the Great Day?" David Livingstone, Africa.

"Oh for the Fire to set the whole alight, and melt us all into one mighty Holy-Ghost Church!" Minnie Apperson, China.

THE lamps were being lighted, the drums beaten, the cymbals struck, and the horns blown for evening pujah in all the larger temples and shrines of the "Strong City," when we turned out of it, and, crossing the stream that divides the two places, went to the Christian hamlet, which by contrast at that moment seemed like a little corner of the garden of the Lord. Behind was the heathenish clash and clang of every possible discord, and here the steady ringing of the bell for evening service; behind was all that ever was meant by the "mystery of iniquity," and here the purity and peace of Christianity. This is how it struck me at first; and even now, after a spell of work in the heart of heathendom, Christendom, or the bit of it lying alongside, is beautiful by contrast. There you have naked death, death unadorned, the corpse exhibited; here, if there is a corpse, at least it is decently dressed. And yet that evening it was forced upon me that death is death wherever found and however carefully covered.



The first of the Christians to welcome us was a bright-looking widow—this is her photograph. We soon made friends. She told us she had been "born in the Way"; her grandfather joined it, and none of the family had gone back, so she was sure that all was right. We were not so sure, and we tried to find out if she knew the difference between joining the Way and coming to Christ. This was only a poor little country hamlet, but everywhere we have travelled, among educated and uneducated alike, we have found much confusion of thought upon this subject.

"God knows my heart," she said, "God hears my prayers. If I see a bad dream in the night, I pray to God, and putting a Bible under my head, I sleep in perfect peace." Could anything be more conclusive?

There were numbers of other proofs forthcoming: If your grandfather gave six lamps to the church, value three and a half rupees each (the lamps are hanging to-day, and bear witness to the fact); if your father never failed to pay his yearly dues, besides regular Sunday collections (his name is in the church report, and how much he gave is printed); if you freely help the poor, and give them paddy on Christmas Day (quite a sackful of it); if you never offer to demons (no, not when your children are sick, and the other faithless Christians advise you); if you never tie on the cylinder (a charm frequently though covertly worn by purely nominal Christians); and finally, if you have been baptised and confirmed, and "without a break join the Night-supper," surely no one can reasonably doubt that you are a Christian of a very proper sort? As to questions about change of heart, and chronic indulgence in sins, such as lying—who in this wicked world lives without lying? And when it pleases God to do it He will change your heart.

We took the evening meeting for the villagers, who meanwhile had gathered and were listening with approval. Privacy, as we understand it, is a thing unknown in India. "That is right," they remarked cheerfully; "give her plenty of good advice!" And we all trooped into the prayer-room.

Once in there, everyone put on a sort of church expression, and each one took his or her accustomed seat in decorous silence. The little school-children sat in rows in front on the mats with arms demurely folded, and sparkling eyes fixed solemnly; the grown-up people sat on their mats on either side behind, and we sat on ours facing them. We began with a chorus, which the children picked up quickly and shouted lustily, the grown-ups joining in with more reserve; and then we got to work.

Blessing spoke. She had once been a nominal Christian, and she knew exactly where these people were, and how they looked at things. Her heart was greatly moved as she spoke, and the tears were in her eyes, for she knew none of these friends had the joy of conscious salvation, and she told me afterwards she had thirst and hunger for them. But they listened unimpressed. Then we had prayer and a quiet time; sometimes the Spirit works most in quiet, and we rose expectantly; but there was no sign of life.

After the meeting was over they gathered round us again. They are always so loving and friendly in these little villages; but they could not understand what it was that troubled us. Were they not all Christians?

Shortly afterwards they came, as their kindly custom is, to bring us fruit and wreaths of flowers on New Year's Day. I missed my first friend of that evening, and asked for her. "That widow you talked to?" said the old catechist, "three days ago fever seized her, and"—He broke off and looked up. Then I longed to hear how she had died, but no one could tell me anything. Oh, the curtain of silence that covers the passing of souls!

We went soon afterwards to the village, sure that at last the people would be stirred; for she had been a leader among the women, and her call, even in this land of sudden calls, had been very sudden. But we did not find it had affected anyone. They all referred to her in the chastened tone adopted upon such occasions, and, sighing, reminded each other that God was merciful, and she had always been, up to the measure of her ability, a very good woman.

We felt as if we were standing with each one of those people separately, in the one little standing space we were sure of, before that curtain, and we spoke with them as you speak with those whom you know you may never see again on this side of it. But they looked at us, and wondered what was the matter with us. Were they not Christians? Did they not believe in God? Did they not pray regularly night and morning for forgiveness, protection, and blessing? So they could not understand.

Was it that the power to understand had been withered up within them? Was the soul God gave them dead—"sentenced to death by disuse"? Dead they are in apathy and ignorance and putrefying customs, and the false security that comes from adherence to the Christian creed without vital connection with Christ. These poor Christians are dead.

"Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?" Lord, it is not a thing incredible. Thou hast done it before. Oh, do it again. Do it soon!

I have told you how much we need your help for the work among the heathen; but often we feel we need it almost as much for the work among the Christians. Over and over again it is told, but still it is hardly understood, that the Christians need to be converted; that the vast majority are not converted; that statistics may mislead, and do not stand for Eternity work; that many a pastor, catechist, teacher, has a name to live, but is dead; that the Church is very dead as a whole—thank God for every exception. We do not say this thoughtlessly; the words are a grief to write. We humble ourselves that it is so, and take to ourselves the blame. It is true that the corpse of the dead Church is dressed, just as it is at home, only here it is even more dressed; and because the spirit of the land is intensely religious, its grave-clothes are vestments. But dressed death is still death.

This will come as a shock to those who have read stories of this or that native Christian, and generalising from these stories, picture the Church as a company of saints. God has His saints in India,[1] men and women hidden away in quiet places out of sight, and some few out in the front; but the cry of our hearts is for more. So we tell you the truth about things as they are, though we know it will not be acceptable, for the best is the thing that is best liked at home; so the best is most frequently written.

This may seem to cross out what was said before, about the darker side of the truth being often told. It does not cross it out: read through the magazines and reports, and you will find truth-revealing sentences, which show facts to those who have eyes to see; but though this is so, all will admit that the sanguine view, as it is called, is by far the most in evidence, for the sanguine man is by far the most popular writer, and so is more pressed to write. "People will read what is buoyant and bright; the more of that sort we have the better," wrote a Mission secretary out in the field not long ago, to a missionary who did not feel free to write in quite that way. Those who, to quote another secretary, "are afraid of writing at all, for fear of telling lies"—excuse the energetic language; I am quoting, not inventing—naturally write much less, and so the best gets known.

This is nobody's fault exactly. The home authorities print for the most part what is sent to them. They even call attention sometimes to the less cheerful view of things; and if, yielding occasionally to the pressure which is brought to bear upon them by a public which loves to hear what it likes, they take the sting out of some strong paragraph by adding an editorial "Nevertheless," is it very astonishing?

Do you think we are writing like this because we are discouraged? No, we are not discouraged, except when sometimes we fear lest you should grow weary in prayer before the answer comes. This India is God's India. This work is His. Oh, join with us then, as we join with all our dear Indian brothers and sisters who are alive in the Lord, in waiting upon Him in that intensest form of waiting which waits on till the answer comes; join with us as we pray to the mighty God of revivals, "O Lord, revive Thy work! Revive Thy work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make known!"

FOOTNOTE:

[1] See Appendix, p. 303.



CHAPTER XIV

What Happened

"Some years ago England was stirred through and through by revelations which were made as to the 'Bitter Cry' of wronged womanhood. In India the bitter cry is far more bitter, but it is stifled and smothered by the cruel gag of Caste. Orthodox Hindus would rather see their girls betrayed, tortured, murdered, than suffer them to break through the trammels of Caste." Rev. T. Walker, India.

THERE is another ancient town near Dohnavur, and in that town another temple, and round the temple the usual Brahman square. In one of the streets of this square we saw the girl whose face looks out at you. It struck us as a typical face, not beautiful as many are, but characteristic in the latent power of eyes and brow, a face full of possibilities.



We were rarely able to get anything we specially wanted, but we got this. I look at it now, and wonder how it will develop as the soul behind it shapes and grows. That child is enfolded in influences which ward off the touch of the grace of life.

We saw numbers of women that day, but only at the distance of a street breadth; they would not come nearer, for the town is still a Petra to us, we are waiting to be led in.

But if we were able to get in enough to take a photograph, surely we were "in" enough to preach the Gospel? Why not stop and there speak of more important matters? What was to hinder then?

Only this: in that town they have heard of converts coming out, and breaking Caste in baptism, and they have made a law that we (with whom they know some of these converts are) shall never be allowed to speak to any of their women. That hindered us there. But even supposing we had been free to speak, as we trust we shall be soon, and supposing she had wanted to hear, the barriers which lie between such a child and confession of Christ are so many and so great that when, as now, one wants to tell you about them, one hardly knows how to do it. Words seem like little feeble shadows of some grim rock, like little feeble shadows of the grasses growing on it, rather than of it, in its solidity; or, to revert to the old thought, all one can say is just pointing to the Dust as evidence of the Actual.

"What is to hinder high-caste women from being baptised, and living as Christians in their own homes?" The question was asked by an Englishman, a winter visitor, who, being interested in Missions, was gathering impressions. We told him no high-caste woman would be allowed to live as an open Christian in her own home; and we told him of some who, only because they were suspected of inclining towards Christianity, had been caused to disappear. "What do you suppose happened to them?" he asked, and we told him.

We were talking in the pleasant drawing-room of an Indian Hotel. Our friend smiled, and assured us we must be mistaken. We were under the English Government; such things could not be possible. We looked round the quiet room, with its air of English comfort and English safety; we looked at the quiet faces, faces that had never looked at fear, and we hardly wondered that they could not understand.

Then in a moment, even as they talked, we were far away in another room, looking at other faces, faces unquiet, very full of fear. We knew that all round us, for streets and streets, there were only the foes of our Lord; we knew that a cry that was raised for help would be drowned long before it could escape through those many streets to the great English house outside. There were policemen, you say. But policemen in India are not as at home. Policemen can be bribed.

And now we are looking in again. There is a very dark inner room, no window, one small door; the walls are solid, so is the door. If you cried in there, who would hear?

And now we are listening—someone is speaking: "Once there was one; she cared for your God. She was buried into the wall in there, and that was the end of her." . . .

But we are back in the drawing-room, hearing them tell us these things could never be. . . . Three years passed, and a girl came for refuge to us. She loved her people well; she would never have come to us had they let her live as a Christian at home. But no, "Rather than that she shall burn," they said. We were doubtful about her age, and we feared we should have to give her up if the case came on in the courts. And if we had to give her up? We looked at the gentle, trustful face, and we could not bear the thought; and yet, according to our friends, the Government made all safe.

About that time a paper came to the house; names, dates, means of identification, all were given. This was the story in brief. A young Brahman girl in another South Indian town wanted to be a Christian, and confessed Christ at home. She earnestly wished to be baptised, but she was too young then, and waited, learning steadily and continuing faithful, though everything was done that could be done to turn her from her purpose. She was betrothed against her will to her cousin, and forbidden to have anything to do with the Christians. "She was never allowed to go out alone, and was practically a prisoner."

For three years that child held on, witnessing steadfastly at home, and letting it be clearly known that she was and would be a Christian. A Hindu ceremony of importance in the family was held in her grandfather's house, and she refused to go. This brought things to a crisis. Her people appointed a council of five to investigate the matter. "She maintained a glorious witness before them all," says the missionary; "declared boldly that she was a Christian, and intended to join us; and when challenged about the Bible, she held it out, and read it to the assembled people."

For a time it seemed as if she had won the day, but fresh attempts were made upon her constancy by certain religious bigots of the town. They offered her jewels—that failed; tried to get her to turn Mussulman, that being less disgraceful than to be a Christian; and last and worst, tried to stain that white soul black—but, thank God! still they failed.

At last the waiting time was over; she was of age to be baptised, and she wrote to tell her missionary friend about it. He sent her books to read, and promised to let her know within two days what he could arrange to do. "Her letter was dated from her grandfather's house," the missionary writes, "to which she said she had been sent, and put in a room alone. On the following day, hearing a rumour of her death, I went to N.'s house, and there found her body, outside the door. I caused it to be seized by the police, and the post-mortem has revealed the fact that the poor child was poisoned by arsenic. Bribes have been freely used and atrocious lies have been told, and the net result of all the police inquiries, so far, is that no charge can be brought against anyone."

Last year we met one of the missionaries from this Mission, on the hills, and we asked him if anyone had been convicted. He said no one had been convicted, "the Caste had seen to that."

Here, then, is a statement of facts, divested of all emotion or sensationalism. A child is shut up in a room alone, and poisoned; when she is dead, her body is thrown outside the door. It was found. There have been bodies which have not been found; but we are under the British Government—nothing can have happened to them!

The British Government does much, but it cannot do everything. It is notorious in India that false witnesses can be bought at so much a head, according to the nature of witness required. Bribery and corruption are not mere names here, but facts, most difficult for any straightforward official to trace and track and deal with. We know, and everyone knows, that the White Man's Government, though strong enough to win and rule this million-peopled Empire, is weak as a white child when it stands outside the door of an Indian house, and wants to know what has gone on inside, or proposes to regulate what shall go on. It cannot do it. The thought is vain.

"Why not have her put under surveillance?" asked a friend, a military man, about a certain girl who wanted to be a Christian; as if such surveillance were practicable, or ever could be, under such conditions as obtain in high-caste Hindu and Mohammedan circles, except in places directly under the eye of Government. We know there are houses where, at an hour's notice, any kind and any strength of poison can be prepared and administered: quick poison to kill within a few minutes; slow poisons that undermine the constitution, and do their work so safely that no one can find it out; brain poisons, worse than either, and perhaps more commonly used, as they are as effective and much less dangerous. But we could not prove what we know, and knowledge without proof is, legally speaking, valueless.

And yet we know these things, we have heard "a cry of tears," we have heard "a cry of blood"—

"Tears and blood have a cry that pierces heaven Through all its hallelujah swells of mirth; God hears their cry, and though He tarry, yet He doth not forget."



CHAPTER XV

"Simply Murdered"

"'Agonia'—that word so often on St. Paul's lips, what did it mean? Did it not just mean the thousand wearinesses . . . and deeper, the strivings, the travailings, the bitter disappointments, the 'deaths oft' of a missionary's life?" Rev. Robert Stewart, China.

THERE are worse things than martyrdom. There are some who are "simply murdered." There is one who belongs to a Caste which more than any other is considered tolerant and safe. Men converts from this Caste can live at home, and if a husband and wife believe, they may continue living in their own house, among the heathen. And yet this is what happened to a girl because it was known that she wanted to be a Christian.

First persecution. Treasure, as her name may be translated, had learnt as a child in the little mission school, and when we went to her village she responded, and took her stand. She refused to take part in a Hindu ceremony. She was beaten, at first slightly, then severely. This failed, so they sent her out of our reach to a heathen village miles away. This also failed, and she was brought home, and for some months went steadily on, reading and learning when she could, and all the time brightly witnessing. She was a joy to us.

She was very anxious to come out and be baptised, but her age was the difficulty. When a convert comes, the first thing to be done is to let the police authorities know. They send a constable, who takes down the convert's deposition, which is then forwarded to headquarters. One of the first questions concerns age. In some cases a medical certificate is demanded, and the girl's fate turns on that; if we can get one for over sixteen we are safe from prosecution in the Criminal Courts, but eighteen is the safest age, as the Civil Courts, if the case were to proceed, would force us to give her up if she were under eighteen. The difficulty of proving the age, unless the girl is evidently well over it, is very serious. The medical certificate usually takes off a year from what we have every reason to believe is the true age.

One other proof remains—the horoscope. This is a Hindu document written on a palm leaf at the birth of the child; but it is always carefully kept by the head of the family, and so, as a rule, unobtainable. When a case comes on in Court a false horoscope may be produced by the relatives; this was done in a recent case tried in our Courts, so we cannot count upon that. In this girl's case we got the Government registers searched for birth-records of her village, but all such registers we found had been destroyed; none were kept of births sixteen years back. So, though she believed herself to be, and we believed her to be, and the Christians who had known her all her life were sure she was, "about sixteen," we knew it could not be proved. She was a very slight girl, delicate and small for her age. This was against her, and there were other reasons against her coming just then. She had to wait.

I shall never forget the day I had to tell her so. She could not understand it. She knew that all the higher Castes had threatened to combine, and back up her father in a lawsuit, if she became a Christian; but she thought it would be quite enough if she stood up before the judge, and said she knew she was of age, and she wanted to come to us. "I will not be afraid of the people," she pleaded, "I will stand up straight before them all, and speak without any fear!"

I remember how the tears filled her eyes as I explained things; it was so hard for her to understand that we had no power whatever to protect her. It would be worse for her if she came and had to be given up. She was fully sensible of this, but "Would God let them take me away? Would He not take care of me?" she asked.

I suppose it is right to obey the laws. They are, on whole, righteous laws, made in the defence of these very girls. It would never do if anyone could decoy away a mere child from her parents or natural guardians. But the unrighteous thing, as it seems to us, is that the whole burden of proof lies upon us, and that in these country villages no facilities such as Government registers of birth are to be had, by which we could hope legally to prove a point about which we are morally sure. We feel that as the burden of proof rests upon us, surely facilities should be obtainable by which we could find out a girl's age before she comes, so that we might know whether or not we might legally protect her. Still more strongly we feel it is strange justice which decrees that though a child of twelve may be legally held competent to undertake the responsibilities of wifehood, six years more must pass before she may be legally held free to obey her conscience. Free! She is never legally free! A widow may be legally free; a wife in India, never! Hardly a single Caste wife in all this Empire would be found in the little band of open Christians to-day, if the missionary concerned had not risked more than can be told here, and put God's law before man's. But oh, the number who have been turned back!

One stops, forces the words down—they come too hot and fast. There are reasons. As I write, a young wife dear to us is lying bruised and unconscious on the floor of the inner room of a Hindu house. Her husband, encouraged by her own mother, set himself to make her conform to a certain Caste custom. It was idolatrous. She refused. He beat her then, blow upon blow, till she fell senseless. They brought her round and began again. There is no satisfactory redress. She is his wife. She is not free to be a Christian. He knows it. Her relations know it. She knows it, poor child.

O God, forgive us if we are too hot, too sore at heart, for easy pleasantness! And, God, raise up in India Christian statesmen who will inquire into this matter, and refuse to be blindfolded and deceived. His laws and ours clash somewhere; the question is, where?

To return to Treasure, we left her waiting to come. A Christian teacher lived next door, and Treasure used to slip in sometimes, as the two courtyards adjoined. We had put up a text on the wall for her: "Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine." This was her special text, and she looked at it now; and then she grew braver, and promised to be patient and try to win her mother, who was bitterly opposed.

But oh, how I remember the wistfulness of her face as I went out; and one's very heart can feel again the stab of pain, like a knife cutting deep, as I left her—to her fate.

You have seen a tree standing stark and bare, a bleak black thing, on a sunny day against a sky of blue. You have looked at it, fascinated by the silent horror of it, a distorted cinder, not a tree, and someone tells you it was struck in the last great thunderstorm.

Next time we saw Treasure she was like that. What happened between, so far as it is known, was this. They tried to persuade her, they tried to coerce her; she witnessed to Jesus, and never faltered, though once they dragged her out of the house by her hair, and holding her down against the wall, struck her hard with a leather strap. One of the Christians saw it, and heard the poor tortured child cry out, "I do not fear! I do not fear! It will only send me to Jesus!"

Then they tried threats. "We will take you out to the lake at night, and cut you in little pieces, and throw you into it." She fully believed them, but even so, we hear she did not flinch.

Then they did their worst to her.

It was a Sunday morning. The Saturday evening before she had managed to see the teacher. She told her hurriedly how one had come, "a bridegroom" she called him, a student from a Mission College; he was telling her all sorts of things—that Christianity was an exploded religion; and how a great and learned woman (Mrs. Besant) had exposed the missionaries and their ways, so that no thinking people had any excuse for being deceived by them.

Then she added earnestly, "It is the devil. Do pray for me. They want me to marry him secretly! Oh, I must go to the Missie Ammal!" And if we had only known, we would have risked anything, any breach of the law of the land, to save her from a breach of the law of heaven! For all this talk, between an Indian girl of good repute and her prospective husband, is utterly foreign to what is considered right in Old India. It in itself meant danger. But we knew nothing, and next day, all that Sunday, she was shut up, and no one knows what happened to her. On Monday she was seen again; but changed, so utterly changed!

We heard nothing of this till the following Wednesday. The Christians were honestly concerned, but the Tamil is ever casual, and they saw no reason for distressing us with bad news sooner than could be helped.

As soon as we heard, I sent two of the Sisters who knew her best, to try and see her if possible. They managed to see her for two or three minutes, but found her hopelessly hard. Every bit of care was gone. She laughed in a queer, strained way, they said. It was no use my trying to see her. But I determined to see her. I cannot go over it all again, it is like tearing the skin off a wound; so the letter written at the time may tell the rest of it.

"On Saturday I went. I went straight to the teacher's house, and sent off the bandy at once, and by God's special arrangement got in unnoticed. For hours we sat in the little inner room, waiting; we could hear her voice in the courtyard outside—a hard, changed voice. The teacher tried to get her in, but no, she would not come. Oh, how we held on to God! I could not bear to go till I had seen her.

"At last we had to go. The cart came back for us, thus proclaiming where we were, and the last human chance was gone. And then, just then, like one walking in a dream, Treasure wandered in and stood, startled.

"She did not know we were there. We were kneeling with our backs to the door. I turned and saw her.

"I cannot write about the next five minutes; I thought I realised something of what Satan could do in this land, but I knew nothing about it. Oh, when will Jesus come and end it all?

"Just once it seemed as if the spell were broken. My arms were round her, though she had shrunk away at first, and tried to push me from her; she was quiet now, and seemed to understand a little how one cared. She knelt down with me, and covered her eyes as if in prayer, while I poured out my soul for her, and then we were all very still, and the Lord seemed very near. But she rose, unmoved, and looked at us. We were all quite broken down, and she smiled in a strange, hard, foolish way—that was all.

"The cause no one knows. There are only two possible explanations. One is poison. There is some sort of mind-bewildering medicine which it is known is given in such cases. This is the view held by the Christians on the spot. One of them says her cousin was dealt with in this way. He was keen to be a Christian, and was shut up for a day, and came out—dead. Dead, she means, to all which before had been life to him.

"The other, and worse, is sin. Has she been forced into some sin which to one so enlightened as she is must mean an awful darkness, the hiding of God's face?

"I cannot tell you how bright this dear child was. Up till that Saturday evening her faith never wavered; she was a living sign to all the town that the Lord is God. The heathen are triumphant now."

I have told you plainly what has happened. God's Truth needs no painting. I leave it with you. Do you believe it is perfectly true? Then what are you going to do?



CHAPTER XVI

Wanted, Volunteers

"We have a great and imposing War Office, but a very small army. . . . While vast continents are shrouded in almost utter darkness, and hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of heathenism or of Islam, the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by Him to keep you out of the foreign mission field." Ion Keith Falconer, Arabia.

IN one of the addresses delivered at the International Student Missionary Conference, London, in January 1900, a South Indian missionary spoke of the Brahman race as "the brain of India." "Their numbers are comparatively small—between ten and fifteen millions—but though numerically few—only five per cent. of the Hindu population—they hold all that population in the hollow of their hand. They occupy every position of influence in the land. They are the statesmen and politicians, the judges, magistrates, Government officials, and clerks of every grade. If there is any position conferring influence over their fellow-men, it will be held by a Brahman. Moreover, they are a sacred Caste, admitted by the people to be gods upon earth—a rank supposed to have been attained by worth maintained through many transmigrations."



Among the Petras of this district is a little old-fashioned country town, held in strength by the Brahmans. No convert has ever come from that town, and the town boasts that none ever shall. None of the houses are open yet to teaching, or even visiting, but we are making friends, and hope for an entrance soon. We spent a morning out in the street; they had no objection to that, and as the free young Brahmans gathered round us, or stood for a moment against a wall to be "caught," it was difficult, even for us who knew it, to realise how bound they were. "Bound, who should conquer; slaves, who should be kings." Bound, body and soul, in a bondage perfectly incomprehensible to the English mind.

Afterwards, when we saw the photographs, we recalled one and another who, while they were young students like these, dared to desire to escape from their bondage; but back they were dragged, and the chains were riveted faster than ever, and every link was tested again, and hammered down hard.

We wanted to be sure of our facts about each of them, that these facts may further answer that smile which assures us things are not as we imagine; so the Iyer wrote to a brother missionary who had known these lads well, and asked him to tell what happened to each of them. This morning the answer to that letter came, and was handed to me with "I hardly like to give it to you, but it tells the truth about what goes on." These boys were students in our C.M.S. College.

The first one mentioned in the letter is a young Brahman who confessed Christ in baptism, and bravely withstood the tremendous opposition raised by his friends, who came in crowds for many weeks, and tried by every argument to persuade him to return to Hinduism; but he preached Christ to them. They brought his young wife, and she tore her hair and wailed, and besought him not to condemn her to the shame of a widow's life. This was the hardest of all to withstand; he turned to the missionary and said, "Oh my father, take her away! She is tearing out my heart!"



Then came the baptism day of another Brahman student, his friend, who previous to this had been seized by his relatives, shut up and starved, and then fed with poisoned food; but the poison was not strong enough to kill, and he had escaped, and was now safe and ready for baptism.

It was remembered afterwards how the friend of the newly baptised stood and rejoiced, and praised God. Then, the baptism over, fearing no danger in open day, he went to the tank to bathe. He was never seen again.

What happened exactly no one knows. It is thought that men hired to watch him seized their opportunity, and carried him off. What they did then has never been told. Contradictory reports about the boy have reached the missionaries. One, that he is still holding on, another that he is now a priest in one of the great Saivite temples of South India. Which is true, God knows.

But we are under the English Government. Could nothing be done? One of his near relatives is the present Judge of the High Court of one of our Indian cities. And among the crowd of Brahmans who came during those weeks, there were influential men, graduates of colleges, members of the legal profession—a favourite profession in India. And yet this thing was done.

There was another; the means used to get hold of him cannot be written here. That is the difficulty which fronts us when we try to tell the truth as it really is. It simply cannot be told. The Dust may be shown—or a little of it; the whole of the Actual, never.

There were others near the Kingdom, but it is the same story over again. They were all spirited away from the college; the missionary writes, "it makes one's heart sick to think of them, and the hellish means invented to turn them from Christ." These are not the words of sentimental imagination. They are the words of a man who gives evidence as a witness. But even a witness may feel.

He tells us of one, a bright, happy fellow, he says he was, whose friends made no objection to his returning home after his baptism, and he returned, thinking he would be able to live as a Christian with his wife. They drugged his food, then what they did has to be covered with silence again. . . . They did their worst. . . . When he awoke from that nightmare of sin, he sought out his missionary friend. Some of the Hindus even, "ashamed of the vile means used" to entice him and destroy him, would have wished him to be received again as a Christian, but his spirit was broken. He said he could not disgrace the cause of Christ by coming back; he would go away where he would not be known. He left his wife, and went. He has never been heard of since.

Our comrade tells of another, and again, in telling it, we have to leave it half untold. This one was eager to confess Christ in baptism; he was a student at college then, and very keen. His father knew of his son's desire, and he did what few Hindu fathers would do, he turned his home into a hell, in order to ruin his boy. The infernal plot succeeded. God only knows how far the soul is responsible when the mind is dazed and then inflamed by those fearful drugs. But we do know that the soul He meant should rise and shine, sinks, weighted down by the unspeakable shame of some awful memory darkened, as by some dark dye that has stained it through and through.

I think of others as I write: one was a boy we knew well, a splendid, earnest lad, keen to witness for Christ. He told us one evening how he had been delivered from those who were plotting his destruction. For several months after his decision to be a Christian, he lived at home and tried to win his people; but they were incensed against him for even thinking of breaking Caste, and would not listen to him. Still he waited, and witnessed to them, not fearing anything. Then one day, suddenly some men rushed into the room where he was sitting, seized and bound and gagged him. They forced something into his mouth as he lay on the floor at their mercy; he feared it was a drug, but it was only some disgusting stuff which, to a Hindu, meant unutterable defilement. Then they left him bound alone, and at night he managed to escape. A few months after he told us this, we heard he had been seized again, and this time "drugged and done for."

In South India baptism does not prevent the Caste from using every possible means to get the convert back; once back, certain ceremonies are performed, after which he is regarded as purified, and reinstated in his Caste. The policy of the whole Caste confederation is this: get him back unbaptised if you can, but anyhow get him back. Two Brahman lads belonging to different parts of this district decided for Christ, went through all that is involved in open confession, and were baptised. One of the two was sent North for safety; his people traced him, followed him, turned up unexpectedly at a wayside station in Central India, and forced him back to his home in the South. Once there, they took their own measures to keep him. The other lad was sent to Madras. The Brahmans found out where he was, broke into the house at night, overpowered the boy's protectors, and carried him off. They too did what seemed good to them there, and they too succeeded. No one outside could interfere. The Caste guards its own concerns.

"O Lord Jesus Christ!" wrote one, a Hindu still, "who knowest us to be placed in such danger that it is as if we were within some magical circle drawn round us, and Satan standing with his wand without, keeping us in terror, break the spell of Satan, and set us free to serve Thee!"

All this may be easy reading to those who are far away from the place where it happened. Distance has a way of softening too distinct an outline; but it is not easy to write, it comes so close to us. Why write it, then? We write it because it seems to us it should be more fully known, so that men and women who know our God, and the secret of how to lay hold upon Him, should lay hold, and hold on for the winning of the Castes for Christ.



Surely the very hardness of an enterprise, the very fact that it is what a soldier would call a forlorn hope, is in itself a call and a claim stronger than any put forth by something easier. The soldier does not give in because the hope is "forlorn." It is a hope, be it ever so desperate. He volunteers for it, and win or not, he fights.

There is that in this enterprise which may mark it out as "forlorn." For ages the race has broken one of nature's laws with blind persistency, and the result is a certain lack of moral fibre, grit, "tone." No separate individual is responsible for this, harsh judgments are entirely out of place; but the fact remains that it is so, and it must be taken into account in dealing with the Brahmans and several of the upper Castes of India. Side by side with this element of weakness there is, in apparent contradiction, that stubborn element of strength known as the Caste spirit. This spirit is seen in all I have shown you of what happens when a convert comes. It is as if all the million wills of the million Caste men and women were condensed into one single Will, a concentration of essence of Will not comparable with anything known at home.

Look at this face—it is a photographed fact. Does it not show you an absence of that "something" which nerves to endurance, stimulates to dare? Then listen to this:—A Christian man lies dead. The way to the cemetery lies through the Brahman street, in the chief town of this District; there is no other way. The Brahman street is a thoroughfare, it cannot be closed to traffic, but the Brahmans refuse point blank to allow that dead man to be carried through. The Bishop expostulates. No; he was a Christian, he shall not be carried through. Time is passing. In the Tropics the dead must be buried quickly. The Bishop appeals to the Collector (Representative of Government here). The Collector gives an order. The Brahmans refuse to obey. He orders out a company of soldiers. The Brahmans mass on the housetops and stone the soldiers. The order is given to fire. Then, and not till then, the Christians may carry out their dead; and later on the Brahmans carry out theirs. This happened some years ago, and outwardly times have changed since then in that particular town. But the spirit that it shows is in possession to this day, and as small things show great, so this street scene shows the presence of that "something" which intensifies the difficulty of winning the Castes for Christ. Each unit is weak in itself, but in combination, strong.

"A forlorn hope" we have called the attempt to do what we are told to do. The word is a misnomer; with our Captain as our Leader no hope is ever "forlorn"! But our Leader calls for men, men like the brave of old who jeopardised their lives unto the death in the high places of the field, in the day that they came to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. A jeopardised life may be lost.

Christ our Captain is calling for volunteers; here are the terms: "Whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's the same shall find it." The teachers' life may seem "lost" who lives for his college boys; the student's life may seem "lost" who spends hour after hour through the long hot days in quiet talks in the house. Be it so, for it may mean that. But the life lost for His Name's sake, the same shall be found again.



CHAPTER XVII

If it is so very important. . . ?

"Let us for a moment imagine what would have happened on the Galilean hillside, when our Lord fed the five thousand, if the Apostles had acted as some act now. The twelve would be going backwards, helping the first rank over and over again, and leaving the back rows unsupplied. Let us suppose one of them, say Andrew, venturing to say to his brother Simon Peter, 'Ought we all to be feeding the front row? Ought we not to divide, and some of us go to the back rows?' Then suppose Peter replying, 'Oh no; don't you see these front people are so hungry? They have not had half enough yet; besides, they are nearest to us, so we are more responsible for them.' Then, if Andrew resumes his appeal, suppose Peter going on to say, 'Very well; you are quite right. You go and feed all those back rows; but I can't spare anyone else. I and the other ten of us have more than we can do here.'

"Once more, suppose Andrew persuades Philip to go with him; then, perhaps, Matthew will cry out and say, 'Why, they're all going to those farther rows! Is no one to be left to these needy people in front?'

"Let me ask the members of Congress, Do you recognise these sentences at all?" Eugene Stock, at Shrewsbury Church Congress.

IT was only a common thing. A girl, very ill, and in terrible pain, who turned to us for help. We could do nothing for her. Her people resorted to heathen rites. They prepared her to meet the fierce god they thought was waiting to snatch her away.

We went again and again, but she suffered so that one could not say much, it did not seem any use. The last time we went, the crisis had passed; she would live, they told us with joy. They were eager to listen to us now. "Tell us all about your Way!" clamoured the women, speaking together, and very loud. "Tell us the news from beginning to end!" But, alas! they could take in very little. One whole new Truth was too much for them. "Never mind," they consoled us, "come every day, and then what you say will take hold of our hearts." And I had to tell them we were leaving that evening, and could not come "every day."



The girl turned her patient face towards us. She had smiled at the Name of Jesus, and it seemed as if down in the depths of her weakness she had listened when we spoke before, and tried to understand. Now she looked puzzled and troubled, and the women all asked, "Why?"

There, in that crowded, hot little room, a sense of the unequal distribution of the Bread of Life came over us. The front rows of the Five Thousand are getting the loaves and the fishes over and over again, till it seems as though they have to be bribed and besought to accept them, while the back rows are almost forgotten. Is it that we are so busy with the front rows, which we can see, that we have no time for the back rows out of sight? But is it fair? Is it what Jesus our Master intended? Can it be really called fair?

The women looked very reproachful. Then one of them said, looking up at me, "You say this is very important. If it is so very important, why did you not come before? You say you will come back again if you can, but how can we be sure that nothing will happen to stop you? We are, some of us, very old; we may die before you come back. This going away is not good." And again and again she repeated, "If it is so very important, why did you not come before?"

Don't think that the question meant more than it did. It was only a human expression of wonder; it was not a real desire after God. But the force of the question was stronger far than the poor old questioner knew; it appealed to our very hearts.

The people saw we were greatly moved, and they pressed closer round us to comfort us, and one dear old grandmother put her arms round me, and stroked my face with her wrinkled old hand, and said, "Don't be troubled; we will worship your God. We will worship Him just as we worship our own. Now, will you go away glad?"

The dear old woman was really in earnest, she wanted so much to comfort us. But her voice seemed to mingle with voices from the homeland; and another—we heard another—the Voice I had heard on the precipice-edge—the voice of our brothers', our sisters' blood calling unto God from the ground.

Friends, are these women real to you? Look at this photo of one of them. Surely it was not just a happy chance which brought out the detail so perfectly. Look at the thoughtful, fine old face. Can you look at it and say, "Yes, I am on my way to the Light, and you are on your way to the Dark. At least, this is what I profess to believe. And I am sorry for you, but this is all I can do for you; I can be very sorry for you. I know that this will not show you the way from the Dark, where you are, to the Light, where I am. To show you the way I must go to you, or, perhaps, send you one whom I want for myself, or do without something I wish to have; and this, of course, is impossible. It might be done if I loved God enough—but I love myself better than God or you."



You would not say such a thing, I know, but "Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"



CHAPTER XVIII

The Call Intensified

"Sometimes the men and boys will not go away and let us talk to the women; in such cases I find silent prayer the best refuge. In other places the people welcome you, but will listen to anything but the Doctrine of Jesus Christ; and this is harder to bear than anything else I know." Anna Gordon, China.

"Let the people that are at home not care only to hear about successes; we must train them that they take an interest in the struggle." Rev. A. Schreiber, Sumatra and India.

"It is a fight making its demands upon physical, mental, and spiritual powers, and there are many adversaries. The dead weight of heathenism, the little appreciation of one's object and purpose, and the actual, vigorous opposition of the powers of darkness, make it a real fight, and only men of grit, of courage, devotion, and infinite patience and perseverance, will win.

"Have I painted a discouraging picture? Am I frightening good men who might have volunteered and done well? I think not. I think the right sort of men, those who ought to volunteer, will be attracted rather than repelled by the difficulties." Rev. J. Lampard, India.

WE got this photograph that day in December which we spent in the friendly Brahman street. "There is not another woman in the town who would stand for you like that!" said the men, as she came forward, and, without a thought of posing, stood against the wall for a moment, and looked at the camera straight. Most of the women were afraid even to glance at it, but she was not afraid. She would not stay to talk to us, however, but marched off with the same resolute air. For Brahman widows as a whole are by no means an approachable race. Sometimes we find one who will open out to us, and let us tell her of the Comfort wherewith we are comforted; but oftener we find them hard, or hardening rapidly.



It is too soon to write about any of those who have listened during the past few months, but we put this photo in to remind you to remember those who are freer than most women in India to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, if only they would let His love have a chance of drawing them. We have been to the various towns in this and the upper curve of the mountains, but we have not reached the lower curve towns, or half of the many villages scattered close under the mountains, and, except when we went out in camp, we have not of course touched those farther afield.

There are only five working afternoons in a week, for Saturday is given up to other things, and Sunday belongs to the Christians; and when any interest is shown, we return again to the same village, which delays us, but is certainly worth while. Then there are interruptions—sometimes on the Hindu side; festivals, for instance, when no woman has time to hear; and on ours, and on the weather's, so to speak, when great heat or great rain make outdoor work impossible. Theoretically, itinerating is delightfully rapid; but practically, as every itinerating missionary knows, it is quite slow. There are other things to be done; those already brought in have to be taught and trained and mothered, and much time has to be spent in waiting upon God for more; so that, looking back, we seem to have done very little for the thousands about us, and now we must return to the eastern side of the district, for some of the boy converts are there at school, and there may be fruit to gather in after last year's sowing.

But I look up from my writing and see a stretch of mountain range thirty miles long, and this range stretches unbroken for a thousand miles to the North. I know how little is being done on the plains below, and I wonder when God's people will awake, and understand that there is yet very much land to be possessed, and arise and possess it. Look down this mountain strip with me; there are towns where work is being done, but it needs supervision, and the missionaries are too few to do it thoroughly. There are towns and numbers of villages where nothing is even attempted, except that once in two years, if possible, the Men's Itinerant Band comes round; but that does not reach the women well, and even if it did, how much would you know of Jesus if you only heard a parable or a miracle or a few facts from His life or a few points of His doctrine once in two years? I do not want to write touching appeals, or to draw one worker from anywhere else,—it would be a joy to know that God used these letters to help to send someone to China, or anywhere where He has need of His workers,—but I cannot help wondering, as I look round this bit of the field, how it is that the workers are still so few.

We have found the people in the towns and villages willing to let us do what we call "verandah work" when they will not let us into their houses. Verandah work, like open-air preaching, is unsatisfactory as regards the women, but it is better than nothing.

We spent an afternoon in the street this photo shows. It is a thoroughfare, and so we were not forbidden; but even so, we always ask permission before we walk down it. Such an ordinary, commonplace street it looks to you; there is no architectural grandeur to awe the beholder, and impress him with the majesty of Brahmanhood; and yet that street, and every street like it, is a very Petra to us, for it is walled round by walls higher and stronger than the temple walls round which it is built; walls built, as it seems, of some crystal rock, imperceptible till you come up to it, and even then not visible, only recognisable as something you cannot get through.

Our first day there was encouraging. We began at the far end of the street, and after some persuasion the men agreed to move to one side, and let us have the other for any women who would come. Nothing particular happened, but we count a day good if we get a single good chance to speak in quietness to the women.

Next time we went it was not so good. They had heard in the meantime all about us, and that we had girls from the higher Castes with us, and this was terrible in their eyes. For the Brahman, from his lofty position of absolute supremacy, holds in very small account the souls of those he calls low-caste; but if any from the middle distance (he would not describe them as near himself, only dangerously nearer than the others) "fall into the pit of the Christian religion," he thinks it is time to begin to take care that the Power which took such effect on them should not have a chance to perform upon him, and, above all, upon his womankind. So that day we were politely informed that no one had time to listen, and, when some women wanted to come, a muscular widow chased them off. We looked longingly back at those dear Brahman women, but appeal was useless, so we went.

In one of the other Castes, the Caste represented by this row of men, we found more friendliness; they let us sit on one end of the narrow verandah fronts, and quite a number of women clustered about on the other. They were greatly afraid of defilement there, and would not come too close. And they had the strangest ideas about us. They were sure we had a powder which, if they inhaled it, would compel them to be Christians. They had heard that we went round "calling children," that is, beckoning them, and drawing them to follow after us, and that we were paid so much a head for converts. It takes a whole afternoon sometimes simply to disabuse their minds of such misconceptions.

I heard this commercial aspect of things explained by one who apparently knew. A kindly old Brahman woman had allowed us to sit on her doorstep out of the sun, and bit by bit we had worked our way to the end of the verandah, which was a little more shaded, where a girl was sitting alone who seemed to want to hear. The old woman sat down behind us, and then an old man came up, and the two began to talk. Said the old woman to the old man, "She is trying to make us join her Way." (I had carefully abstained from any such expression.) The old man agreed that such was my probable object. "What will she get if we join? Do you know?" "Oh yes; do I not know! For one of us a thousand rupees, and for a Vellalar five hundred. She even gets something for a low-caste child, but she gets a whole thousand for one of us!"



They were both very interested in this conversation, and so indeed was I, and I thought I would further enlighten them, when the old woman got up in a hurry and hobbled into the house. After that, whenever we passed, she used to shake her head at us, and say, "Chee, chee!" No persuasions could ever induce her to let us sit on her doorstep again. We were clearly after that thousand rupees, and she would have none of us.

In the same village there was a little Brahman child who often tried to speak to us, but never was allowed. One day she risked capture and its consequences, and ran across the narrow stream which divides the Brahman street from the village, and spoke to one of our Band in a hurried little whisper. "Oh, I do want to hear about Jesus!" And she told how she had learnt at school in her own town, and then she had been sent to her mother-in-law's house in this jungle village, "that one," pointing to a house where they never had smiles for us; but her mother-in-law objected to the preaching, and had threatened to throw her down the well if she listened to us. Just then a hard voice called her, and she flew. Next time we went to that village she was shut up somewhere inside.

Often as one passes one sees shy faces looking out from behind the little pillars which support the verandahs, and one longs to get nearer. But it does not do to make any advance unless one is sure of one's ground. It only results in a sudden startled scurrying into the house, and you cannot follow them there. To try to do so would be more than rude—it would be considered pollution.

Only yesterday we were trying to get to the women who live in the great house of the village behind the bungalow. This photo shows you the door we stood facing for ten minutes or more, first waiting, and then pleading with the old mother-in-law to let us in to the little dark room in which you may see a woman's form hiding behind the door.

But we could not go to them, and they could not come to us. There were only two narrow rooms between, but the second of the two had brass water-vessels in it. If we had gone in, those vessels and the water in them would have been defiled. The women were not allowed to come out, the mother-in-law saw well to that; never was one more vigilant. She stood like a great fat hen at the door, with her white widow's skirts outspread like wings, and guarded her chickens effectually. "Go! go by the way you have come!" was all she had to say to us.

The friendly old man of the house was out. A friendly young man came in with some rice, and began to measure it. He invited us to sit down, which we did, and he measured the rice in little iron tumblers, counting aloud as he did so in a sing-song chant. He was pleased that we should watch him, and it was interesting to watch, for he did it exactly as the verse describes, pressing the rice down, shaking the iron measure, heaping up the rice till it was running over, and yet counting this abundant tumblerful only as one; then he handed the basketful of rice to a child who stood waiting, and asked what he could do for us. We told him how much we wanted to see the women of the house, but he did not relish the idea of tackling the vigorous old mother-in-law, so we gave up the attempt, and went out. As we passed the wall at the back which encloses the women's quarters, we saw a girl look over the wall as if she wanted to speak to us, but she was instantly pulled back by that tyrannical dame, and a dog came jumping over, barking most furiously, which set a dozen more yelping all about us, and so escorted we retired.

This house is in the Village of the Merchant, not five minutes from our gate, but the women in it are far enough from any chance of hearing. The men let us in that day to take the photograph, and we hoped thereby to make friends; but though there are six families living there (for the house is large; the photograph only shows one end of the verandah which runs down its whole length), we have never been once allowed to speak to one of the women; the mother-in-law of all the six takes care we never get the chance. One of the children, a dear little girl, follows us outside sometimes, but she is only seven, and not very courageous; so, though she evidently picks up some of the choruses we sing, she is afraid of being seen listening, and never gets much at a time.

These are some of the practical difficulties in the way of reaching the women. There are others. Suppose you do get in, or, what is more probable in pioneer work, suppose you get a verandah, even then it is not plain sailing by any means. For, first of all, it is dangerously hot. The sun beats down on the street or courtyard to within a foot or two of the stone ledge you are sitting upon, and strikes up. Reflected glare means fever, so you try to edge a little farther out of it without disturbing anyone's feelings, explaining minutely why you are doing it, lest they should think your design is to covertly touch them; and then, their confidence won so far, you begin perhaps with the wordless book, or a lyric set to an Indian tune, or a picture of some parable—never of our Lord—or, oftener still, we find the best way is to open our Bibles, for they all respect a Sacred Book, and read something from it which we know they will understand. We generally find one or two women about the verandahs, and two or three more come within a few minutes, and seeing this, two or three more. But getting them and keeping them are two different things. It is not easy to hold people to hear what they have no special desire to hear. But we are helped; we are not alone. It is always a strength to remember that.

Once fairly launched, interruptions begin. You are in the middle of a miracle, perhaps, and by this time a dozen women have gathered, and rejoice your heart by listening well, when a man from the opposite side of the street saunters over and asks may he put a question, or asks it forthwith. He has heard that our Book says, that if you have faith you can lift a mountain into the sea. Now, there is a mountain, and he points to the pillar out on the plain, standing straight up for five thousand feet, a column of solid rock. There is sea on the other side, he says; cast it in, and we will believe! And the women laugh. But one more intelligent turns to you, "Does your Book really say that?" she asks, "then why can't you do it, and let us see?" And the man strikes in with another remark, and a woman at the edge moves off, and you wish the man would go.

Perhaps he does, or perhaps you are able to detach him from the visible, and get him and those women too to listen to some bit of witnessing to the Power that moves the invisible, and you are in its very heart when another objection is started: "You say there is only one true God, but we have heard that you worship three!" or, "Can your God keep you from sin?" And you try, God helping you, to answer so as to avoid discussion, and perhaps to your joy succeed, and some are listening intently again, when a woman interrupts with a question about your relations which you answered before, but she came late, and wants to hear it all over again. You satisfy her as far as you can, and then, feeling how fast the precious minutes are passing, you try, oh so earnestly, to buy them up and fill them with eternity work, when suddenly the whole community concentrates itself upon your Tamil sister. Who is she? You had waived the question at the outset, knowing what would sequel it, but they renew the charge. If she is a "born Christian," they exclaim, and draw away for fear of defilement—"Low-caste, low-caste!" and the word runs round contemptuously. If she is a convert, they ask questions about her relations (they have probably been guessing among themselves about her Caste for the last ten minutes); if she does not answer them, they let their imagination run riot; if she does, they break out in indignation, "Left your own mother! Broken your Caste!" and they call her by names not sweet to the ear, and perhaps rise up in a body, and refuse to have anything more to do with such a disgraceful person.

Or perhaps you are trying to persuade some of them to learn to read, knowing that, if you can succeed, there will be so much more chance of teaching them, but they assure you it is not the custom for women in that village to read, which unhappily is true; or it may be you are telling them, as you tell those you may never see again, of the Love that is loving them, and in the middle of the telling a baby howls, and all the attention goes off upon it; or somebody wants to go into the house, and a way has to be made for her, with much gathering together and confusion; or a dog comes yelping round the corner, with a stone at its heels, and a pack of small boys in full chase after it; or the men call out it is time to be going; or the women suggest it is time to be cooking; or someone says or does something upsetting, and the group breaks up in a moment, and each unit makes for its separate hole, and stands in it, looking out; and you look up at those dark little doorways, and feel you would give anything they could ask, if only they would let you in, and let you sit down beside them in one of those rooms, and tell them the end of the story they interrupted; but they will not do that. Oh, it makes one sorrowful to be so near to anyone, and yet so very far, as one sometimes is from these women. You look at them, as they stand in their doorways, within reach, but out of reach, as out of reach as if they were thousands of miles away. . . .

Just as I wrote those words a Brahman woman came to the door and looked in. Then she walked in and sat down, but did not speak. Can you think how one's heart bounds even at such a little thing as that? Brahman women do not come to see us every day. She pulled out a book of palm-leaf slips, and we read it. It told how she was one of a family of seven, all born deaf and dumb; how hand in hand they had set off to walk to Benares to drown themselves in the Ganges; how a Sepoy had stopped them and taken them to an English Collector; how he had provided for the seven for a year, then let them go; how they had scattered and wandered about, visiting various holy places, supported by the virtuous wherever they went; and how the bearer would be glad to receive whatever we would give her. . . . She has gone, a poor deaf and dumb and wholly heathen woman; we could not persuade her to stay and rest. She is married, she told us by signs; her husband is deaf and dumb, and she has one blind child. She sat on the floor beside us for a few minutes and asked questions—the usual ones, about me, all by signs; but nothing we could sign could in any way make her understand anything about our God. And yet she seems to know something at least about her own. She pointed to her mouth, and then up, and then down and round, to show the winding of a river, and signed clearly enough how she went from holy river to holy river, and worshipped by each, and she pointed up and clasped her hands. There we were, just as I had been writing, so near to her, yet so far from her.

But the greatest difficulty of all in reaching the women is that they have no desire to be reached. Sometimes, as on that afternoon when the child came and wanted to hear, we find one who has desire, but the greater number have none; and except in the more advanced towns and villages, where they are allowed to learn with a Bible-woman, they have hardly a chance to hear enough to make them want to hear more.

Then, as if to make the case doubly hard (and this law applies to every woman, of whatever Caste), she is, in the eyes of the law, the property of her husband; and though a Christian cannot by law compel his Hindu wife to live with him, a Hindu husband can compel his Christian wife to live with him; so that no married woman is ever legally free to be a Christian, for if the husband demanded her back, she could not be protected, but would have to be given up to a life which no English woman could bear to contemplate. She may say she is a Christian; he cares nought for what she says. God help the woman thus forced back!

But, believing a higher Power will step in than the power of this most unjust law, we would risk any penalty and receive such a wife should she come. Only, in dealing with the difficulties and barriers which lie between an Indian woman and life as a free Christian, it is useless to shut one's eyes to this last and least comprehensible of all difficulties, "an English law, imported into India, and enforced with imprisonment," an obsolete English law!

We have no Brahman women converts in our Tamil Mission. We hear of a few in Travancore; we know of more in the North, where the Brahmans are more numerous and less exclusive; but there is not a single bona fide Brahman convert woman or child in the whole of this District. There was one, a very old woman; but she died two years ago. We may comfort ourselves with the thought that surely some of those who have heard have become secret believers. But will a true believer remain secret always? We may trust that many a dear little child died young, loving Jesus, and went to Him. But what about those who have not died young? I know that a brighter view may be taken, and if the sadder has been emphasised in these letters, it is only because we feel you know less about it.

For more has been written about the successes than about the failures, and it seems to us that it is more important that you should know about the reverses than about the successes of the war. We shall have all eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only the few hours before sunset in which to win them. We are not winning them as we should, because the fact of the reverses is so little realised, and the needed reinforcements are not forthcoming, as they would be if the position were thoroughly understood. Reinforcements of men and women are needed, but, far above all, reinforcements of prayer. And so we have tried to tell you the truth—the uninteresting, unromantic truth—about the heathen as we find them, the work as it is. More workers are needed. No words can tell how much they are needed, how much they are wanted here. But we will never try to allure anyone to think of coming by painting coloured pictures, when the facts are in black and white. What if black and white will never attract like colours? We care not for it; our business is to tell the truth. The work is not a pretty thing, to be looked at and admired. It is a fight. And battlefields are not beautiful.

But if one is truly called of God, all the difficulties and discouragements only intensify the Call. If things were easier there would be less need. The greater the need, the clearer the Call rings through one, the deeper the conviction grows: it was God's Call. And as one obeys it, there is the joy of obedience, quite apart from the joy of success. There is joy in being with Jesus in a place where His friends are few; and sometimes, when one would least expect it, coming home tired out and disheartened after a day in an opposing or indifferent town, suddenly—how, you can hardly tell—such a wave of the joy of Jesus flows over you and through you, that you are stilled with the sense of utter joy. Then, when you see Him winning souls, or hear of your comrades' victories, oh! all that is within you sings, "I have more than an overweight of joy!"



CHAPTER XIX

"Attracted by the Influence"

"It seems to have been a mistake to imagine that the Divine Majesty on high was too exalted to take any notice of our mean affairs. The great minds among us are remarkable for the attention they bestow upon minutiae . . . 'a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without your Father.'" David Livingstone, Africa.

WE have now left Dohnavur, on the West, and returned to our old battlefield on the East. The evening after our arrival one of those special things happened, though only a little thing some will say—a little child was brought.



There is a temple in the Hindu village near us. We have often tried to reach the temple women, poor slaves of the Brahmans. We have often seen the little girls, some of them bought as infants from their mothers, and trained to the terrible life. In one of the Mission day schools there is a child who was sold by her "Christian" mother to these Servants of the gods; but though this is known it cannot be proved, and the child has no wish to leave the life, and she cannot be taken by force.

Sometimes we see the little girls playing in the courtyards of the houses near the temple, gracious little maidens, winsome in their ways, almost always more refined in manner than ordinary children, and often beautiful. One longs to help the little things, but no hand of ours can stretch over the wall and lift even one child out.

Among the little temple girls in the Great Lake Village was a tiny girl called Pearl-eyes, of whom we knew nothing; but God must have some purpose for her, for He sent His Angel to the house one afternoon, and the Angel found little Pearl-eyes, and he took her by the hand and led her out, across the stream, and through the wood, to a Christian woman's house in our village. Next morning she brought her to us. This is what really happened, I think; there is no other way to account for it. No one remembers such a thing happening here before.

I was sitting reading in the verandah when I saw them come. The woman was looking surprised. She did not know about the Angel, I expect, and she could not understand it at all. The little child was chattering away, lifting up a bright little face as she talked. When she saw me she ran straight up to me, and climbed on my knee without the least fear, and told me all about herself at once. I took her to the Iyer, and he sent for the Pastor, who sent a messenger to the Village of the Lake, to say the child was here, and to inquire into the truth of her story.

"My name is Pearl-eyes," the child began, "and I want to stay here always. I have come to stay." And she told us how her mother had sold her when she was a baby to the Servants of the gods. She was not happy with them. They did not love her. Nobody loved her. She wanted to live with us.

But why had she run away now? She hardly seemed to know, and looked puzzled at our questions. The only thing she was sure about was that she had "run and come," and that she "wanted to stay." Then the Ammal came in, and she went through exactly the same story with her.

We felt, if this proved to be fact, that we could surely keep her; the Government would be on our side in such a matter. Only the great difficulty might be to prove it.

Meanwhile we gave her a doll, and her little heart was at rest. She did not seem to have a fear. With the prettiest, most confiding little gesture, she sat down at our feet and began to play with it.

We watched her wonderingly. She was perfectly at home with us. She ran out, gathered leaves and flowers, and came back with them. These were carefully arranged in rows on the floor. Then another expedition, and in again with three pebbles for hearthstones, a shell for a cooking pot, bits of straw for firewood, a stick for a match, and sand for rice.

She went through all the minutiae of Tamil cookery with the greatest seriousness. Then we, together with her doll, were invited to partake. The little thing walked straight into our hearts, and we felt we would risk anything to keep her.

Our messenger returned. The story was true. The women from whose house she had come were certainly temple women. But would they admit it to us, and, above all, would they admit they had obtained her illegally?—a fact easy to deny. Almost upon this they came; and to the Iyer's question, "Who are you?" one said, "We are Servants of the gods!" I heard an instructive aside, "Why did you tell them?" "Oh, never mind," said the one who had answered, "they don't understand!" But we had understood, and we were thankful for the first point gained.

They stood and stared and called the child, but she would not go, and we would not force her. Then they went away, and we were left for an hour in that curious quiet which comes before a storm. Our poor little girl was frightened. "Oh, if they come again, hide me!" she begged. One saw it was almost too much for her, high-spirited child though she is.

The next was worse. A great crowd gathered on the verandah, and an evil-faced woman, who seemed to have some sort of power over Pearl-eyes, fiercely demanded her back. When we refused to make her go, the evil-faced woman, whose very glance sent a tremble through the little one, declared that Pearl-eyes must say out loud that she would not go with her, "Out loud so that all should hear." But the poor little thing was dumb with fear. She just stood and looked, and shivered. We could not persuade her to say a word.

Star was hovering near. She had been through it all herself before, and her face was anxious, and our hearts were, I know. It is impossible to describe such a half-hour's life to you; it has to be lived through to be understood. The clamour and excitement, and the feeling of how much hangs on the word of a child who does not properly understand what she is accepting or refusing. The tension is terrible.

I dared not go near her lest they should think I was bewitching her. Any movement on my part towards her would have been the signal for a rush on theirs; but I signed to Star to take her away for a moment. The bewilderment on the poor little face was frightening me. One more look up at that woman, one more pull at the strained cord, and to their question, "Will you come?" she might as likely say yes as no.

Star carried her off. Once out of reach of those eyes, the words came fast enough. Star told me she clung to her and sobbed, "Oh, if I say no, she will catch me and punish me dreadfully afterwards! She will! I know she will!" And she showed cuts in the soft brown skin where she had been punished before; but Star soothed her and brought her back, and she stood—such a little girl—before them all. "I won't! I won't!" she cried, and she turned and ran back with Star. And the crowd went off, and I was glad to see the last of that fearful face, with its evil, cruel eyes.

But they said they would write to the mother, who had given her to them. We noted this—the second point we should have to prove if they lodged a suit against us—and any day the mother may come and complicate matters by working on the child's affections. Also, we have heard of a plot to decoy her away, should we be for a moment off guard; so we are very much on the watch, and we never let her out of our sight.

By this time—it is five days since she came—it seems impossible to think of having ever been without her. Apart from her story, which would touch anyone, there is her little personality, which is very interesting. She plays all day long with her precious dolls, talking to them, telling them everything we tell her. Yesterday it was a Bible story, to-day a new chorus. She insisted on her best-beloved infant coming to church with her, and it had to have its collection too. Everything is most realistic.

Tamil children usually hang their dolls up by their limbs to a nail in the wall, or stow them away on a shelf, but this mite has imagination and much sympathy.

In thinking over it, as, bit by bit, her little story came to light, we have been struck by the touches that tell how God cares. The time of her coming told of care. Some months earlier, the temple woman who kept her had burnt her little fingers across, as a punishment for some childish fault, and Pearl-eyes ran away. She knew what she wanted—her mother; she knew that her mother lived in a town twenty miles to the East. It was a long way for a little girl to walk, "but some kind people found me on the road, and they were going to the same town, and they let me go with them, so I was not afraid, only I was very tired when we got there. It took three days to walk. I did not know where my mother lived in the town, and it was a very big town, but I described my mother to the people in the streets, and at last I found my mother." For just a little while there was something of the mother-love, "my mother cried." But the temple woman had traced her and followed her, and the mother gave her up.

Then comes a blank in the story; she only remembers she was lonely, and she "felt a mother-want about the world," and wandered wearily—

"As restless as a nest-deserted bird Grown chill through something being away, though what It knows not."

Then comes a bit of life distinct in every detail, and told with terribly unchildish horror. She heard them whisper together about her; they did not know that she understood. She was to be "married to the god," "tied to a stone." Terrified, she flew to the temple, slipped past the Brahmans, crossed the court, stood before the god in the dim half-darkness of the shrine, clasped her hands,—she showed us how,—prayed to it, pleaded, "Let me die! Oh, let me die!" Barely seven years old, and she prayed, "Oh, let me die!"

She tried to run away again; if she had come to our village then, she could not have been saved. We were in Dohnavur, and there was no one here who could have protected her against the temple people. So God kept her from coming then.