I '0, i'1'' .';*f»)<:^:**, |. Mj ^lA "^'♦•■' . ■■ ■ 'v V ■'• 'kXt: PRINCETON, N. J. Purchased by the Hammill Missionary Fund. BV 3265 .H48 1886 Hewlett, S. S. Daughters of the king %S<\i' : --^ .r ' \c Jf-: ?.- *' , , A \ ■.v\' ■"; y ^:|-- "' 'V:'. "Iff I-' -9 . • ''. ■ DAUGHTERS OF THE KING T. AND A. CONSTABLE PRIiNTERS TO HER MAJESTY. DAUGHTERS OF THE KING BY S. S/HEWLETT OF SAINT CATHERINE S HOSPITAL, AMRITSAR, PANJAB ; MISSIONARY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ZENANA MISSIONARY SOCIETY WITH A PREFA CE BY THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF LAHORE ' Bring my sons from far, my daughters from the ends of the earth ' LONDON (2lf)urcl) of (ZEnGsIanD Ecnana iBfltssionarp Society 9 SALISBURY SQUARE, E.G. JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET 1886 Preface, HE more that our Missionary brethren are precluded by Hindu law and usage from fulfilling their office, and carrying their message of the Kingdom of God and the Gospel of Christ beyond the outer precincts of the Indian home to the inner home circle, where one-half — Woman's half — of this branch of the great Aryan family lives an enslaved, suppressed, and partly disinherited life — so much the more prayerful and loving must be the sympathy with which they regard the cross- ing of the long untrodden threshold by English ladies, whether of the educational, medical, or itinerating and evangelistic departments of labour, their feet ' shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.' Christ has stood and knocked everywhere — at the city gate, at the school door, at the door of the temple vi PREFACE. and of the mosque — but not till lately at the door of the home. Now at length, however, in the person of 'KING'S DAUGHTERS/ who have ' forsaken their own people and their father's house,' He stands and knocks at the door of the Indian home ; and now that character for love and devotion — which made the Suttees of India the admir'ation of the world when the sacrifice was spontaneous, and the world's horror when it sprang of constraint, and was the product of fraud, greed, and frantic fanaticism — is beginning to give proof of its inviolate fidelity and its capacity for high resolve and persistent self-surrender, in some typical Daughters of India, whom we might almost venture to call the * Suttees of Christ,' and its ability and readiness to exhibit that form of devotion which could never be more perfectly expressed than in those holy words, ' Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto me according to Thy word.' The labours of Christian women in India are attract- ing so much attention, and so many very young ladies are among those bound on these ventures of faith, that I cannot but anticipate thankfully the appearance of this work, to which the author has most kindly requested me to attach a short Preface. To call it commendatory would be out of place, as inviting attention to a work PREFACE. vii which the Lord Himself commends, and ripening fruits of experience attest. I doubt not the treatise will render good service by setting forth clearly the chief motives and purposes, the methods and principles of action, which determine and inspire the movement ; and this for the sake (i) of out- siders and the uninitiated ; (2) of those helpers at home who desire to circulate information in a compact and comprehensive form ; and still more (3) for the sake of the younger and less practised recruits in the band of Zenana workers. We shall find summarised, I doubt not, rather in terms of depreciation than exaggeration, the results under God attained hitherto, and the promises and prospects of the future. It is on the whole well, too, that fathers, husbands, and brothers, to whom belong the proprietorship and rule of the Zenanas, should learn that there is no such great mystery in it after all, but open- ness and straightforwardness, candour and purity of intention : that no other desire animates the hand- maids of Christ but to add to the secrecy and sanctity of the Zenanas — which deserve respect, except when purchased by the degradation and incarceration (if not immolation) of the inmates — the happiness and en- lightenment, the culture, elevated and refined, of the English home ; the expansion of what is cramped and dwarfed — not the feet, as of the Chinese ladies, — but the best instincts and purest aspirations, long stifled viii PRE FA CE. and stunted, in the mind's workings and the heart's affections. None of us would press for rash and unseasonable haste ; but an expansion on national lines, gradual, gentle, and legitimate, after settling and grounding the untutored child-mothers in those highest and purest principles of Christian morals, which alone could justify and render innocuous the gathering of the ripe fruits of Christian Freedom. India waits — the Church of Christ waits — not in vain, we are per- suaded, — for the forth-flow from the Indian hearth and home of those blessed and holy influences of female piety which even now are being fostered there ; the exercise of that supreme mission of Christian woman- hood, whereby there steals forth from ' life's stillest shades,' and its lowliest self-concealments, the fra- grance of that which is pure, lovely, and of good report, and which is constantly devising solaces and healing balms and self-sacrificing ministries of love and sympathy. Must we not, then, heartily congratulate our sisters in Christ to whom is given this commission to have and to hold from our Lord and His Church ; and who are deputed by the Lord to fulfil for Him this His threefold office : ' The Lord looseth the prisoners ; the Lord openeth the eyes of the blind ; the Lord raiseth up them that are bowed dozvn! For those who are doing such a work I cannot pray PREFACE. ix better than that the four lessons which our Lord ex- emplified in His walk and work on earth, and in which His fellow-workers are taught and trained by Him — as St. Paul tells us — may be both their strength and their reward, viz. — HIS FAITHFULNESS, Hebrews iii. HIS RESTFULNESS, Hebrews iv. HIS OBEDIENCE, LEARNED BY SUFFERING, Hebrews v. HIS FRUITFULNESS AND HOPEFULNESS, . Hebrews vi. and that these things may have real effect by being, as the same Apostle teaches, bound into a bundle by the clasp of Divine love. It has been a momentous epoch in more ways than I can say in the history of our Missions in this country of late ; and why should we not believe that now in the Panjab, as in many serious crises in the ancient Church of God in Old and New Testament days, it has pleased God to call the Women of His choice to meet the present grave needs of India's Women ; to help in righting their ancient wrong ; to come ' to the help of the Lord against the mighty ; ' to respond to that 'exceeding great and bitter cry,' which, immured as they are behind stronger than iron gratings, India's Women have contrived at last to utter, fully and loudly enoueh for their Eng^lish sisters to hear ? The best Preface to such a work as this must be the X PREFACE. labours which have gone before, and which are still being steadily sustained. Still, as having the oversight appointed me of that branch of the Church in whose behalf they have offered themselves as Christ's fellow-labourers, I cannot with- hold this prefatory word to express my thankful and hopeful recognition of the work of these our ' helpers in Christ Jesus,' accompanied by the best blessings which a chief Pastor of the Flock is privileged to offer. THOS. V. LAHORE. Content0» INTRODUCTION, INFLUENCE, . PAGE I CHAPTER I. CHAPTER n. THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN, CHAPTER HI. THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN {continued). A CALL TO MOTHERS, CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. A CALL TO CHILDREN, ..... CHAPTER VI. BRINGING THE SICK TO JESUS THE HEALER, . CHAPTER VH. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF WORK IN CITIES AND VILLAGES, MANY-LINKED CHAINS, CHAPTER vni. CHAPTER IX. SCATTERED SEEDS, CHAPTER X. 'I AM DEBTOR ... I AM READY,' 43 64 92 114 142 162 187 208 list of auustrations. GOLDEN TEMPLE, AMRITSAR, .... Frontispiece ZENANA LADY AND PUPIL, .... Facing page 24 BACK VERANDAH OF SAINT CATHERINE'S HOSPITAL, AMRITSAR, ,,54 BURNING GHAT, BENARES, ,,76 MASJID, OR THE MOHAMEDAN WORSHIPPING-PLACE, AMRITSAR, ........ 80 MONKEY TEMPLE, AND BATHING GHAT, BENARES, . „ 100 GROUP OF LEPERS AT LEPER ASYLUM, TARAN-TARAN, ,, 114 COURT OF ZENANA DWELLING-HOUSE, ATTACHED TO SAINT CATHERINE'S HOSPITAL, . . . „ 136 VIEW OF THE MASJID FROM THE ROOF OF SAINT CATHERINE'S HOSPITAL, 14S BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF AMRITSAR, . . . . ,, 162 GROUP OF MISSIONARIES AND ASSISTANT WORKERS, WITH CONVERTS, AT CONVERTS' HOME, BARRACK- PORE, ......... 190 NEPAULESE TEMPLE, BENARES, . . . . ,, 200 HINDUSTANI CHURCH AT AMRITSAR, . . . „ 228 Dauobtecs of the Ikino. ——ooyoio INTRODUCTION. NDIA! At the mention of the name, what thoughts crowd Into the mind ! — ' Thoughts,' as has been ably said, ' of what England has done we//, thoughts of what England has done aviiss, thoughts of what England has /eft undone.''^ India has a claim upon every Eng/ish subject, because so many of her people own the sway of the British Sovereign; India has a claim upon every woman who lives in light and liberty, because so many of her women are prisoners, and in darkness ; India has a claim upon every Cliristian, because so many of her children are living without the knowledge of the only way of salvation. Christian women may find In India employment among millions of women, who are their fellow-subjects, whose lives are so sad, so terrible, that, in attempting to ' lift the purdah,' and tell of the sorrows of Hindu and Mohamedan ladies, we feel that our story may sound 1 See a Sermon on behalf of the Chuicli of England Zenana Mission, by his Grace the Archbishop of Dub'in, on Ascension Day, 1885. 2 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. almost like a romance beyond belief. ' What is a Zenana ? ' is a question which it might fairly be hoped one had heard for the last time ; but again and again, even by those who have had relatives and interests in India, the question is put ; and now and then, even in these days, it is followed by a guess as to whether a tribe in Africa, or a wild animal in the prairies of America, or a large district 'somewhere in India,' is designated by the name Zenana I The word itself simply means zvoman, and it has come to be applied to that part of the house where the women live. Among the friends and sup- porters of Zenana Missions, the word has generally come to mean only a house where women of the upper classes are secluded. This narrows very unfairly the field of the Zenana Missionaries' work, which is really d.mong India's Women, be they the high caste Hindus, the rich Mohamedans, or the poor and outcast, the degraded and homeless ; for Zenana is simply zvoman, and it is even common in some parts of India to be told that a ' Zenani ' is waiting to see you. Concerning these ' Zenanis ' not a few mistakes are made by people who have had no opportunity of seeing them for themselves. It is supposed, because the woman of India is often secluded and kept in a state of ignorance and darkness, that, therefore, she has no power or influ- ence. The very opposite is the fact. The women have really great power in their families. Young men have a profound respect for the opinions of their mothers ; and husbands rarely do anything contrary to the known wishes of their wives, especially of wives who are INTR OB UCTION. 3 mothers of children. In these days of advanced ecUica- tion, many a young man, grown too well-informed to hold any longer to the absurdities of a heathen creed, would cast in his lot with Christians, but for the fear so often expressed in the words — ' It would break my mother's heart.' It has been well said, ' The empire is at the fireside ; ' it is not more true of any country in the world than it is of India. Eveh the despised little girl often gets her own way, and is allowed to give opinions on the conduct of her parents and others. The writer met only the other day with a case in which a woman was herself most anxious to be treated in a Mission Hospital, but said she must first ask her daughter's advice ; that daughter was about six years of age ! This child's opinion was against the move, and so the idea had to be given up, and the patient had to be treated at home. It is sometimes supposed that the women of the Zenanas are wanting in mental power and intellect ; this again is a mistake. If we imagine what the bright pro- mising children one often meets with in England would become, if left entirely to themselves without tutor or governess, until they were twenty years of age, and if we realise that they would be simply children still, we have then a fair idea of the state of many a lady in her Zenana home in India; she may be a mother — nay, a grand- mother — and yet be as a child among the children of the family, not from lack of intellectual power, but from lack of teaching and training. One old lady, the mother of a large family, asked a Zenana missionary whether a certain little doll, given to one of the children, would 4 BA UGHTERS OF THE KING. grow, and how much it would grow in a week ! Another bright, interesting-looking woman, in the same house, pleaded that she too might have a gift of a doll ; and when her visitor said she had not just then one to give, she eagerly replied, ' But do bring me one, and I will give you my baby instead!' It is scarcely necessary to add that had this proposal been accepted, that young mother would soon have cried to have her baby back. But in spite of all this, which seems so childish, once let these prisoners (for such thousands of them really are) be given a fair chance of learning, once let a good teacher and a few books be placed at their disposal, and it is wonderful v/ith what rapidity they will master alphabets and ' first readers,' and, almost before one is aware, be reading and eagerly entering into the meaning of some more advanced book. Those who really understand these interesting women, and can converse freely with them in their own language, generally find them any- thino- but stupid or wanting in intelligence, and reckon the time spent w^th them most pleasantly and happily employed. Ap-ain, it is sometimes fancied that because India is not a Christian country, its people are like savages ; and probably very many of those who have never seen India would be extremely surprised if they could be introduced into a Zenana belonging to some gentleman of good social position ; they would be astonished to find among women who have never been out (and who therefore can know nothing of the ways of the world), refinement, gentle manners, and politeness ; and they would also TNTR on UCTION. 5 be unprepared to find themselves feeling awkward and embarrassed, and continually in danger of making some serious mistake in etiquette, either by mentioning the name of the husband of one of the ladies, or by inquir- ing something concerning her nose-ring or toe-rings,^ or by neglecting to touch the sweetmeats or other offer- ings brought for their acceptance, or by rising to go without politely asking permission to do so ! Another mistake is to imagine that the women of India are irreligious. The fact is, that they are often very religious indeed, and in the observance of all duties connected with their various forms of faith are most punctilious ; not seldom indeed in this particular, and in their ready defence of what they believe, they would put to shame some English Christians! It is in the hope of preventing mistakes concerning these our Indian sisters, and enabling the many who in various ways work in order to send blessing and help to them, to understand, and consequently to sympathise with them better, that the following chapters are offered especially to Zenana Mission Working Parties, with the earnest prayer that yet deeper interest may be excited in these women, who may become the divinely adopted S)auGbtcr0 of tbe Ikinol and that every year an increasing number of women from Christian lands may go forth to help to gather in India's Women into the Kingdom of our adorable Redeemer — ' to the praise of the glory of His grace ! ' ^ A great insult to the husband. ^p CHAPTER I. Influence. Thy Kingdom come, O God ; Thy reign, O Christ, begin : Break with Thine iron rod The tyrannies of sin. O'er heathen lands afar, Thick darkness broodeth yel , Arise, O Morning Star, Arise, and never set I ' NE of the most subtle agencies in the world is influence ; in every country, among all races, we know it is silently but surely at work. In so large a country as India, there must of necessit}^ be a vast number of influences, some opposing others, some acting together, and their effects seen in different ways in the conditions of the great multitudes of people of various races living there. We may think of the influence, for example, of heathenism and idolatry. Idolatry is degrading ; we know from many passages of God's Word written, that it must be so — that it is not INFL UENCE. 7 alone because it is so dishonouring to Himself, but also because it is so degrading to man, that God utterly condemns and forbids every form of idolatry. ' As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed ; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, saying to a stock. Thou art my father ; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth.' ^ I. In the early development of Hinduism, idolatry was comparatively uncommon, and in those times many of the customs which we truly designate ' degrading ' were unknown, a proof that the increase of idolatry has been the cause of the increase of all which has lowered the race. With the gradually firmer and yet firmer hold which idolatry gained among Hindus, there was a steady deterioration in customs and in morals. Doubtless, in the very early ages, they worshipped God through nature, and next they deified the many objects they saw in nature, and so continued until they worshipped no longer Himself, but the things which He had made. Whereas in the earliest Hindu writings there is much that is lofty in aspiration and pure in sentiment, in the later stories, as, for instance, the recitals of the incarna- tions of Vishnu, the most shameless and wicked things are said, and these are repeated by men and women, and taught to little children, without the least hesitation ; indeed, the details of acts ascribed to heathen deities are often so abominable that women, recounting them with ^ Jeremiah ii. 26, 27. 8 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. delight to each other and to their tiny children, will suddenly stojD, and put their fingers on their lips as a sign to each other to be silent, if an English lady comes unexpectedly among them ; and, when asked to tell her the subject of their conversation, will say, 'It is not fit ioi' yottr ears.' It is unnecessary to add that, with a list of about thirty-three millions of objects of worship, with all the principal ones of which there are such grossly immoral stories connected, the stream of Hindu- ism is deeply polluted ; whatever good there was in it, whatever h.\Q\\ moral tone mio^ht once have been claimed o o for it, is gone — swept away by an overwhelming wave of idolatry. In the Golden Temple at Benares, the follower of the holy Jesus will turn sick at heart, as he sees man degrading himself below the level of the beasts which perish, grovelling on the ground in the filth of animals considered sacred, and receiving himself from other poor degraded sinners homage and reverence, because of his devotion to this service ; and while he presents offerings of rice, flowers, etc., for them, before round black balls placed upon pillars here and there in the midst of the dirt and disorder, he details to them, and presumably firmly believes in himself, tales whose moral filth is but feebly portrayed by the condition of the whole place where these miserable fanatics spend their weary lives. It was not the original custom of Hindus to keep their women ignorant, and it seems most probable that in early times they went freely about paying social visits, and so on, without restriction. But gradually, as the standard of morality brought in by idolatry gained I NFL UENCE. 9 ground, woman's condition became worse and worse ; she was married in infancy, and therefore could have no choice of her own, as we know Hindu women used to have in better times ; she was disgraced directly she became a widow, and considered a blighted and accursed thing, being stripped of her fine clothing and jewels, allowed only one coarse cloth to wear, and only one meal in a day of the commonest kind of food, and compelled to fast entirely once every fortnight, and her life frequently became one of open or secret sin and shame. This state of things continues among Hindus to the present day. Caste exerts its baneful influence among all Hindus. Concerning the highest and lowest of the four castes, it is a fact that ^ ' you may behold a Brahman as poor as a church mouse going along the road ; approaching him is a portly, well-dressed, well-to-do Sudra. You may see that Sudra, with an air of abject reverence, come up to the feet of the Brahman, then, taking off his turban, prostrate himself, and put his forehead in the dust, whilst the Brahman gives his benediction by placing his foot on the head of the prostrate man. You may see another Sudra rush up to the Brahman with a dish of water in his hand ; into this the Brahman dips his foot, and forthwith the other devoutly drinks the holy draught. In the native army you may see a Sudra captain drilling his company, which contains, perhaps, several Brahmans. Whilst on parade the Brahman private, of course, obeys and salutes the Sudra captain ; but wait until drill is ' Tlie Trident, the Ci-esceiit, and the Cross, by Rev. J. Vaughan, page 21, note. lo DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. over, and you may behold the Sudra captaui throw himself at the feet of the man who, though his military subordinate, is relighusly to him a god.' The low caste man in India is reckoned an unclean being, whose very touch is polluting. We have seen a Brahman — a poor one too — cast away all his breakfast because accidentally the shadow of a Christian fell upon it. It is held impossible for a person of low caste to be anything but degraded and degrading ; he can never be other than utterly separate from the favoured classes above him, he has no part or lot in any matter of theirs. The Brahmans or priests are said to have come from the mouth of Brahma ; the Kshatryas, or soldiers, from his arm ; the Vaisyas, or cultivators of the soil, from his thigh ; and the Sudras, or slaves, from his feet ; these last were probably the aborigines, who (for purposes of convenience to the other castes) were made part, though but the lowest part, of the social system of the Hindus. The Brahman is really counted a divinity, and it matters not to how lowly a trade or office circumstances may drive him, he is never to be regarded as degraded, for that is impossible to him on account of his being in his very nature a god. One great result of the caste system is intense hard-heartedness. Whereas among Mohamedan women we see many acts of kindness shown to the sick and dying, even though they be only poor outcasts, among the Hindus there is really no active benevolent Qrivino- or doingf for the afflicted and sad. It is said that on the way to shrines where Hindus go for worship, hundreds of bodies may sometimes INFL UENCE. 1 1 be seen of those who have fallen down by the way, sick or weary, and who have died without help or comfort, just because to offer a drink of water, or any kind of assistance to a man of low caste, or of unknown caste, would be a defiling act to a Hindu ; and it Is added by an eye-witness : ' We do not remember. In connection with such distressing scenes, ever seeing a sign or hearing a word of pity expressed by the passers-by. This may appear still more unaccountable, for we could conceive of a religious dread of pollution deterring a person from actively aiding the sufferer, though he really felt for his sufferings. Here, however, another consideration comes in to complete, so to speak, the ossification of the feelings — the doctrine of transmigra- tion teaches that all our sufferings and enjoyments in the present life are merely the natural and necessary consequences of our good or evil doings in a previous life. Hence the Hindu reasons : " That poor wretch is only suffering the due recompense of his former mis- deeds. Fate decrees it. Why should I interfere with fate in giving him his just desert ?" ' ' It needs but little consideration to realise the un- womanising effect all this must have upon women and girls. If it is terrible to see a man pass by his fellow- creature in his time of suffering, and leave him unpitied and unhelped, how much more does it shock the feelings to know that women, whose very characteristics should be love and tender kindness, should become so hardened by the requirements of caste as to utterly refuse kind- ^ The Trident, the Ci-esceiit, and the Cross, 1iy Rev. J- Vaughan, page 32, note. 12 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. iiess or assistance to a sister-woman in her hour of distress and anguish, or even in death ? The woman in such beings is destroyed ; the tender love, implanted by God Himself, which constrains a woman to take into her arms the suffering or weary child, or her degraded outcast sister, and minister to any and every need as long as her ministrations can avail to lengthen life or relieve pain, this love is extinguished by the cold, stern hand of caste. The same inexorable slave-driver would probably incite the sick or dying woman (if she were of high caste) to inquire of any one who might be kind enough to bend over" her with the view of comforting her, ' Of what caste are you ? ' and unless she could prove herself equal or superior, she might receive ' hands off' instead of thanks, the sense of gratitude being in such cases entirely overcome by the tyranny of caste ! Cases such as are presented by the following fact must be familiar to every Zenana medical missionary : — A Hindu gentleman of good caste desired a lady doctor to see his wife in consultation with the family doctor, who was also a Hindu gentleman. This doctor had, of course, not seen the patient, as the purdah custom pre- vented that, but he had been working, as it were, in the dark, and he desired a full and careful account of the case from the lady doctor. Having completed her interview with the patient, this lady represented that great care must be taken to protect the patient from cold, and that bathing must be prohibited, and the services of a trained nurse were necessary, also a INFLUENCE. 13 medicine was needed which was, it happened, prepared only as a tincture. Upon this three difficulties arose. With regard to the medicine, it coiild not be given, as it was impossible to make sure of any liquid being pure unless it was known to come out of the well of a Hindu of good caste. ^ With regard to the trained nurse, the only ones who could be offered were either Christians or Mussalmanis, and their touch would be pollution (albeit no Hindu woman of really good caste would offer herself to be trained for such work, and so difficulty meets difficulty) ; and when the missionary lady, making an attempt to solve the problem, said, ' But you have allowed me to touch the patient, and I am a Christian,' the husband replied (with some hesitation, for he ivas a gentleman), * Yes, because we are helplessly obliged to let you touch her, but we shall consequently have to give her a bath the moment you are gone.' Thus the strict orders against the bath had also to be disregarded. Yes, caste does not care for saving life or adding to the comforts of the sick and needy ; its one grand object seems to be to divide man from man, and to foster selfishness, coldness, unkindness, where the beneficent Creator intended there should be mutual comfort and love. As an instance of this among the Sikhs, who are a sect of Hindus, the follow- ing fact is interesting : There are three sisters ; the eldest married a Rajah, the second a Munshi, and the ^ In the event of such a well getting polluted by a Mussalman or Christian, or low caste person using it, the excretions of a cow would be cast in to purify it, and all would be right again ! 14 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. third a Sardar's son. Now, the wife of the Munshi is at liberty to visit her sisters, but neither the wife of the Rajah nor the wife of the Sardar can ever visit each other, each being too grand to leave her own house. This results in a life-long separation between the sisters, who, untij the time of their marriages, lived very happily together, the elder being in fact as a mother to the younger, both being orphans. II. The influence of Mohamedanism upon the women of India has next to be considered. Mohamedanism won its way in India, as elsewhere, by the sword. It has effected, however, no substantial changes in all these eleven hundred years in Hindu customs, and certainly none at all in the Hindu religion and the question of caste. It seems probable that to the example of Moha- medans we may trace the beginning of the custom of keeping Hindu ladies in purdah ; for prior to the invasion of the false prophet's followers no word of their strict seclusion is to be found in any Hindu writings. Still, in some parts of the country, they are free to go out, even though they be of good caste ; while all Mohamedan women of any position must be most care- fully kept in purdah, and in many places a good pro- portion of Hindus follow this fashion. Among these prisoners we find many proofs of the powerful influence of Mohamedanism. One important point is that it is a religion which takes no cognisance of sin — original sin, heart sin, the Mohamedan ignores. Hence, when the INFLUENCE. 15 missionary who has gained an entrance into a Zenana is trying to impress upon some Mussalmani the fact of God's readiness and power to forgive sins, she will not unfrequently be met by the startling assertion, ' But I have not sinned.' Anything like an attempt to argue the point, and show that we are all sinners, will simply result in the reiteration of this announcement, and in a difference of opinion as to what sin is. Sometimes, when it seems hopeless to get a woman to believe that lying, theft, and murder are sins, it is possible to touch her by an appeal to what is certainly due to God, as love, reverence, worship, and so on, and by asking whether duty has been fulfilled in these parti- culars ; but just as one hopes that there may be a con- fession of failure in some point, the scared conscience will fall back on its having been 'lachari se,' or not through any fault, simply because it could not be helped. What sin in that ? And the Mohamedan women are generally not well instructed in their own religion, though they will often try to argue hotly and loudly on any disputed point. In some Mohamedan Zenanas they will ask a question on some subject, such, for instance, as the Christian method of fasting ; and as soon as the answer is fairly commenced, but long before they have had time to hear the speaker out, especially if any reference is made to the Bible for corroboration, they will begin to clamour, and all call out at once, ' Hae! tauba, tauba.' {Taubd is repentance, and is a very common expression in case of 1 6 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. shocked feelings.) Doubtless the utter seclusion of the lives of these women conduces to their remaining in a state of ignorance ; for they have none of the knowledge which is gained from contact with the outside world, and, except in very rare instances, have not the resource of gaining knowledge from books, for they cannot read. It is exceedingly difficult for those who have enjoyed freedom all their lives, to realise what it must be to live always in one set of rooms, especially when those rooms have no outside windows from which the streets can be seen. A lady missionary, who had spent a few months in England, and had of course been in almost innumer- able scenes of interest, and seen many places and many people, was very forcibly struck on climbing the dark stair of a Mohamedan Zenana soon after her return to India, and looking up to the crowd of eager women waiting at the top to welcome her— by the thought : ' These women have not descended this stair or seen the outside world since I saw them nearly a year ago ; all the time I have been travelling and enjoying change and social intercourse, and interests of many kinds, these prisoners have been here in one ceaseless monotony.' What a life ! And, in hundreds of cases, that one year may be many times multiplied, for Mohamedan ladies of good position have been known to say in quite advanced life, that they cannot remember ever having seen a tree or any out-of-doors sight. Do they not crave for some- thing beyond their own doors ? Are they not like caged birds beating their wings against the bars of the cage, and pining for fresh air and liberty } In the majority of cases, INFLUENCE. 17 no, or at least not as far as one can judge by any outward sign. Now and then there will be eager inquiries as to what something in the great world outside is like, and perhaps a sigh, as one describes a garden, or a building, or rivers, or railways ; but in a moment it is suppressed, and the prisoner reminds herself that it is ' qismat ' (fate). And even were means afforded for going out to see what is to be seen, and the consent of the gentlemen of the family gained to such a proposal, it is highly improbable that in a strict Mohamedan house, the women themselves would be willing to take advantage of such a permission ; for when a Mission lady has offered to take some dame even of advanced years out for a drive in a carriage, to give her a peep of some public gardens through the care- fully closed Venetian blinds, it has only provoked the utterance of the inevitable ' Tauba, tauba ! ' The life- long captivity hardens the feelings, the women settle down into a state of not caring, and of being satisfied with the small gossip of their servants and poor dependants, and the usual round of weddings and other ceremonies within their own houses, as the only alleviation of the intense monotony of their lives, and so in this way we see another of the degrading influences of Mohamedanism. And the Mohamedan notion of ' keeping purdah,' by no means corresponds with the Christian woman's idea of modesty. Little, if any, real modesty will be found in the closely secluded Zenana, where no one has learned what true womanhood is, and where those whom God in- tended to be companions and helpsmeet for man have become his degraded slaves. There are, doubtless, ex- B 1 8 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. ceptions, but they are few and far between, and the pic- ture of the ordinary Mohamedan Zenana it is scarcely possible to paint too darkly. There is a large class of women whose husbands imitate the fashion of those in higher rank, and, though only in the grade of poor shopkeepers or servants, keep their wives and daughters in strict purdah. We have seen many a woman of this class, living in a tiny house with only one room, and a little enclosure in front of the door like a porch of straw, with a fence on three sides, called a ' chhappar,' within which they manage to do their household duties, and outside of which they never come, except carefully enveloped from head to foot in a shroud-like dress called a ' burqa.' If such women were asked to come out without this precaution, they would express the utmost horror at the idea ; and great, and almost laughable, is the difficulty, if for any purpose — such, for example, as seeing a sick child — a gentleman has to visit the house. The child's mother will, in such a case, be hidden away in the corner, or will answer questions in a muffled voice from under a sheet thrown over her entire person. Her husband's annual income as a household servant may be ^7, or a little more, but even in poverty the imitation of those in better circumstances must, if possible, be carried out. III. Would that, in speaking of pernicious influences, we could pause at heathenism and Mohamedanism ; but, alas ! Christians, too, have sent some evil influences into Zendnas. What ! it may be said, even into those secluded homes can evil from Christian lands penetrate ? Surely INFLUENCE. 19 only those who desire to do good enter Zenanas as visitors? But let us remember that our influence goes where our bodily presence has never been known ; and it is sadly true that some who in England * profess and call them- selves Christians,' have added somethino- to the deerada- tion and evil of Zenanas. How ? The vile pictures of scenes., of women, supposed by the poor, ignorant Zenana lady to represent Christian England, have often brought the blush of shame to the face of the Zenana missionary, as, after some earnest effort to make her listeners under- stand something of the beauty and pnrity of our holy religion, she has been asked to explain such pictures, which from the land zvhence the missionaries come, have found their way into Indian bazaars, and thence have been carried home by Indian men to please the women of their Zenanas. In the same direction, though presumably more inno- cent, is the influence of books of fashions, etc., which one not uncommonly meets with in Zenana homes. Thus every English woman and girl who resolutely sets her face against folly and vanity in dress, and against idle amusements, and the pandering in art-work to evil tastes, is doing something, perhaps unconsciously, towards hin- dering the progress of sin in heathen countries, which are more or less under the influence of English customs and manners ; while the Christian woman who would fain do her part towards spreading abroad the Gospel, and send- ing help and blessing to heathen women, but yet allows herself to be in any degree drawn into fellowship with the world, may well tremble, lest she should be undoing with 20 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. one hand what she and many others have laboriously striven to do with the other. IV. But, thank God ! another influence is at work. The Gospel is i7i India ! What a subject for Prayer is suggested by this thought. There are missionary homes in many parts of India, there are messengers of peace, carriers of good tidings to the women as well as to the men of that country, where heathenism and Mohamedan- ism have so long held many captive in the bondage of sin. Not alone by preaching; not merely — nay, not even chiefly, by word of mouth, but by holy influence, can mis- sionaries hope to attain the end for which they have been sent. Thus it behoves those who have been instrumental in sending them, to ask and obtain for them in believing prayer, the power of a Christ-like life ! All God's children are watched by the scrutinising eye of an adverse world, and especially those who go forth as teachers of others must lay their account for having welhnigh every action criticised. One of the thousands of ways in which the devil tries to hinder the great cause of our Lord in India, is by persuading the workers to neglect their own souls, their own spiritual growth, and the right exercise of their own power and influence over others, in the urgency of their work, and the zeal and earnestness with which they strive to do it. Daughters of the King, who in the good providence of God, tarry at home ! in no way can you more surely send the power of the King's Message into the homes and hearts of His daughters of India, than by beseeching Him to pour out His grace upon the messengers who have gone forth from INFLUENCE. 21 you to those your sisters, that their home-hfe, their every act and word, in work and in rest, may lead the many whom they can influence to know that ' the King's daughter is all-glorious within, her clothing is of wrought gold.' Then will that great and gracious King himself be glorified, and then will be hastened the full answer to our constant prayer — '^l)P KINGDOM come!* HEAVEN LY Father, we, Thine unworthy servants, humbly desire to praise Thee, and to yield Thee hearty thanks for Thine unspeakable mercy and love in making us to know that Thou art the Aid of all that need, the Helper of all that flee to Thee for succour, the Life of them that believe, and the Resurrection of the dead. We call upon Thee now for the millions of women who are living and dying under the evil mfliiences of false religions. Stretch forth Thine hand and help them; rescue them from ignorance, from captivity, from death. Let the message carried to them by Thy handmaids be to them ' the savour of life unto life.' And upon those Thy handmaids, pour out Thy Holy Spirit ; may they be so wholly under His gracious guidance and teaching, that their lives may be powerful, and their influe7ice felt for great good, and for Thy glory, wherever they go. And grant to us, and to them, and to Thy whole Church, a more fervent, earnest, faithful, expectant spirit of prayer, for the sake of our adorable Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen. CHAPTER II. Cfte Ctp of JnDia'iS Woimn, ' Far and loide, though all tinknowi7ig, Patitsfor Thee each human breast, Human tears for Thee are flowing, Huma7i hearts in Thee would rest. ' HERE is something peculiarly delightful in the consideration of a gathering of Christian women for the purpose of using busy hands, in obedience to the dictates of loving hearts, for the aid of those in far-distant lands in circumstances of trial or need or ignorance. It is impossible not to recall the working parties in many homes in England ; they may be homes of plenty, or homes where great care and economy must be prac- tised in order to make this effort for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they are generally homes where luxury and self-indulgence have no place. Periodically ladies with their friends and neighbours meet to devote time and industrious effort to needlework, the result being that the funds of a Missionary Society may be largely increased, and the time and strength of weary mission- aries spared, because they are provided by this kindness with necessary gifts for school children, which they must THE CR V OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 23 Otherwise have made themselves. One has seen many deHghtful instances of this kind, and has felt constrained to thank God for all this warm-heartedness and love. Or one thinks with joy and gratitude of ' Mothers' Meetings,' where poor women, after a hard day's toil, and with perhaps many little anxieties, many places ' where the shoe pinches,' many sorrows and cares which they often say are 'known only to God,' will diligently stitch away, it may be with really weary fingers, just to do their part towards helping in some way to send the Gospel to the heathen ; and by many a young women's or servants' Bible-class, or by members of Christian Young- Women's Associations, this good example is followed ; and acts of self-denial with regard to money, time and work are seen by Him whose 'eyes are in every place,' and are accepted and owned in His service in the great Mission held. The work done by all these kind busy fingers may be sold, or it may go forth to India in the shape of children's garments, or school gifts, or beautiful counterpanes for some Mission Hospital. To the workers themselves it may seem very little, perhaps scarcely worth sending ; but to the gracious Master for whom it is done, it is very precious, and precious also is the tear which will now and then fall unbidden upon the work, as the stitchers listen to some story of the sorrows of India's Women. And with real pleasure, too, one's thoughts go to many a juvenile party, where merry little girls have come, leaving their play very willingly behind them, that they may have a share in work done to send the good news 24 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. of salvation to tiny girl brides and poor sorrowful little widows not yet in their teens ! The great charm about all these gatherings for work is the thought of these being Ch^istimi women and girls, the motive power in bringing them together being the love of the Redeeuiei^ If this may not be truly said of every individual engaged in this service (and God grant that it may!), it must at least be acknowledged to be that whicji has operated in calling such organisations into existence at all ; and it is undoubtedly true of every woman in Christian England that she lives surrounded by Gospel sounds, Gospel privileges, Gospel light, and liberty, and love, and it may be fairly assumed that the busy workers at the Mission working- party are animated by the thought of living ' not unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again.' How deep, then, must be the gratitude with which we regard such gatherings of Christian women ! ' For happy homes, for peaceful days, For all the blessings earth displays, We yield Thee thankfulness and praise, Giver of all ! ' And how grave is the responsibility of every woman who enjoys such privileges ! Let us lift the purdah, and in imagination go with the missionary behind it, and sit by the side of this bright, intelligent-looking Hindu lady. She has had no joys beyond those of a wedding, or feast, or other ' tamasha;'^ she has rarely left the narrow lane in which her husband's house stands, and knows nothing at all 1 Tamasha means show or sight. ZENANA LADY AND PUPIL. THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 25 of the great world outside. She has been hsteiiing to some passage from God's Word about the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ, and has been attracted by the beauty of the promises of the Christians' absent Friend, and by the evident confidence felt by her teacher that all these promises will be fulfilled, and the ' King in His beauty' be seen by His expectant people; and at last, with a very eager look, she says — ' Do you pray that your Master may come again ?' And when she is assured, ' Yes, every day,' she most earnestly replies, ' Oh, then, go on praying for it — -pray more and more, and ask Him to come while I live!' And when the surprised visitor asks why she should be so much in earnest about this, she answers, ' Because, if He comes, then all Hindus will be convinced, and our men will let ils believe ! ' Such incidents as these, happening every here and there in the darkness of this country of dark homes, startle us into a recognition of the fact that there is a cry from India's Women to women of more favoured lands — a piteous, yearning, helpless cry ; a cry which we must either hear, or sin deeply against the pitiful, tender Father who loves us all ; a cry which, hearing, we must respond to, lest hereafter it should be our bitter experience to hear the gracious Master Himself say, ' Ye did it not to Me.' Let us imagine our readers asking some questions concerning this cry from India. I. As it is a mtite appeal, hoiv are zue to hear it f — in other words, In what does it consist ? Answers to this 26 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. question at once crowd Into the mind of one who has hved or travelled in India. We hear it in the astonish- ine facts of the numbers of India's Women. How wonderful it is to see the crowds of people everywhere, in every city, town, and village ; in the narrow bazars your carriage must be carefully driven, for there are no pavements, and the people seem literally to swarm like bees ; while out in the country, scores, nay hundreds, will soon gather round any stranger who stops by the large pipul-tree and chhappar which are so commonly to be seen at the entrance to a village. And among all these crowds one sees so many women and girls ! Little girls may be seen going to school, carrying books and slate, looking eaeer about their business ; but alas ! in very much larger numbers they may be seen idly and often rudely playing in the streets. Sometimes one may see a poor mite, playing no longer, but, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, dragging about in her young arms a child which will soon be old enough to call her mother. And then one sees poor women, hurrying along to some work which will enable them to earn daily bread ; better off women, heavily laden with jewels, carrying sometimes as much as fifty or a hundred pounds' worth on arms and feet, on ears, and nose, and head ; and lost degraded women, scarcely realising that they have sinned against womanhood, for they have never been taught what a woman should be. Crowds of women, of all ages and castes, protecting themselves more or less completely from the gaze of the passers-by, are met with in everv street and lane, so that one can THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEA. 27 only feel astonishment, and exclaim, Where do they come f^^oni f And if we leave the bustle of the bazar, and turn into the narrower lanes and alleys, the same fact meets us — women and girls are everywhere ! Are we visiting and trying to comfort a sufferer, there will be twenty-five or thirty women crowded into her little room : they are not relatives, perhaps not even acquaintances, and they have, we may suppose, no right to come into the house just because we have business there ; but it is enough for them that a stranger is to be seen, and in they come, talking loudly without ceremony, and taking turns at smoking- the hookha of the house without invitation ! It has often reminded one of a flock of pigeons coming suddenly when grain is scattered, the curious way in which a quiet house in a quiet alley is all at once filled with women ! But when the house is filled, it is by no means the end of the women ; for lejt one only do something for a sick person which looks as if it were giving relief or proving in any way successful, and often in a moment one will hear, ' Shabash !' (which means 'Well done! ' ) and, looking up, will find the commendation proceeds from crowds of admiring onlookers on the roof of the next house, or perched, balanced on their heels, all round the wall of the court or enclosed space where one may be sitting. Truly the women are everywhere ; they literally swarm. Can It be that, over and above all these, there are thousands above thousands who never go out at all into the streets ? Yes, for the number of India's Women is about a hundred and thirty millions. It is Impossible to be in the country, and realise the numbers of the female 28 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. population, and not hear the cry going up to God from all these millions. In a sense, India is ' stretching out her hands unto God.' But we hear the cry again in the social position of these women. In India a woman seems to be defined as a thing made to be married. Of late years, indeed, education has been making way, and even women, not Christians, are entering the medical profession, and otherwise distinguishing themselves, so that it is evident that if this wave of progress does not recede, we shall soon have much better and brighter accounts to give of the social state of the Women of India, for what woman who had taken a B.A. or an M.D. degree would submit to the mere slavery which is now the lot of many thousands in India! It is clearly out of the question to be at once in a learned profession and a prisoner in a Zenana ! There is no reason to anticipate that the wave will recede ; the only point in which there is room for anxiety is lest Christianity should not keep pace with education and general advance, and the nation be given the curse of educated women, too sensible and well in- formed to hold their old faiths, but without a better hope — the case, alas ! with many well educated ineii in the present day. It may enable the reader to understand something of the life of a woman in India, if a description be ofiven of the wedding- customs of both Hindus and Mohamedans, with the reminder that nothing nobler or better worth living for than such ceremonies is known among the majority of the women ; these are the only THE CR V OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 29 things for which a girl is trained and instructed from her earhest infancy, and except in rare cases, nothing else is thought of than such ' tamashas,' the simple slavery in which they end seeming forgotten in the childish joy of the ceremony, by these poor child- women ! ^ Among the Mohamedans, the engagement is made for a orirl to be married according to the sect to which she belongs, when she is either an infant or about twelve or thirteen years of age. The grand-parents or parents arrange it all, and even if the girl be old enough to choose her state, or to have a voice as to who her partner shall be, her consent is never asked, and for her to express any opinion in the matter would be con- sidered most immodest. Very often, even among the poorer classes, whose women and girls are not in strict purdah, the bride-elect has never heard of the boy to whom she is formally engaged. On the evening before the wedding, feasting and rejoicing begin, and all friends and neighbours are invited. The bridegroom is always dressed in yellow, and arrives at the bride's house at about four o'clock in the morning, the men of the house going out to meet him, and bringing him into their part of the house. A Mullah is called, who reads the wedding service, according to Mohamedan rites, in the presence of the chief men of the family. When this is over, a cup of sherbet is brought, half of which the bridegroom drinks, and the other half is taken in and given to the bride. ^ These are all customs of the Panjab. 30 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. As soon as she has drunk the sherbet, a gold nose- ring is put on, a sure sign that the wedding is complete. All the friends are again feasted, and have dancing, fireworks, and music^ (if one does not belie the sweet name by giving it to the dreadful sounds of ' tum-tumming ' which one hears on such occasions !) The next ceremony is called ' Retan.' In this the girl, dressed in crimson clothes, worked over with gold or silver braid, and decked with all her jewels, is made to sit on a ' charpaie,' or bed- stead — commonly used instead of chairs — where she is covered over, and the boy comes in. Some spices are brought, which he and some of the young girls of the family grind to a very fine powder, of which he takes a little and puts it on the bride's forehead ; and his new mother-in-law at the same time takes some and puts it on his forehead, and a gold ring on the third finger of his right hand. He then sits by the girl with a looking- glass in his hand, and a sheet is thrown over them both, and they look at each other (for the first time) in the looking-glass ; then he gives her either a gold or silver ring. After that a bracelet made of silk is put on, and she is taken away in a doolie, the bridegroom riding on a horse. The next morning she returns to her mother, when that bracelet made of silk is thrown away, and, after remaining three days with her parents, she finally goes to her husband's house. Among the Hindus, the richer a man is, or the higher he wishes to be thought in the social scale, the sooner ^ A sad thing for any tired missionary who happens to live near, if this kind of thing takes places in the night ! THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 31 must his daughter be engaged to be married, very often a few months after her birth, and very seldom later than the age of four or five years. The wedding takes place when the girl is about ten or eleven years of age. Three days before the marriage the girl's father sends a letter or a message by a Brahman to the boy's father, and fixes the day. With the letter he sends some sugar and one rupee, and afterwards twenty-one pieces of sugar and twenty-one rupees. Then some Brahmans are called, and a feast is given them, and sugar is distributed among friends and relatives. The boy and girl are made ready by being rubbed all over every day with a kind of oint- ment made of flour and spices. On the day of the wedding the bridegroom is dressed in yellow garments, and on his head is a tire of silver, with a fringe hanging over the face made of gold or silver threads or flowers. These ornaments are called ' sahras ; ' they can be hired by the poor, who cannot afford to have them made, and very often rich people keep several, and lend them to their poorer neighbours. At the time of the actual wedding, the family Brahman is called, who reads a kind of religious service called ' Shanti ' (the word ' shanti ' means /^^^^), and, of course, the implied wish is that these young people may always have peace. Poor children ! very little of it do they get in many cases. Some money is given to the Brahman who performs the ceremony, and the friends give money to the boy. This is called ' Tambol.' The origin of this custom of giving money seems to be that the need of extra money is felt at this time of 32 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. great expense, and so the giving of presents was insti- tuted as a way of meeting the need. However, the money is rather lent than given, for the names of all who give ' tambol ' are written down, and whenever the people of the house get invited to the weddings of any of these their guests, they have to give twice as much as they received ! After this, the boy is anointed with some oil, half of which is kept to anoint the girl. Between six and twelve in the evening the wedding procession arrives at the girl's house, the boy riding on a horse ; there is a great deal of noise and music. When the boy starts from his own house his mother waves a jug of water over his head (a sign of great joy), and one of his sisters takes hold of his bridle, and does not let him start until he has given her a present. The bride's father meets the proces- sion at his own door, and waves one or two rupees over the heads of the boy and his father, which money is distributed among the servants. A Brahman then calls out the names of both parties back to the third genera- tion, for every one to hear. Then they go in to an inner room, where the young girls of the family come to meet the bridegroom. One of them, who must be a married girl, and not a widow (as must be proved by her wearing jewels on her head, and having one corner of her chaddar tied to a portion of her husband's garment, which she keeps tucked under her arm), carries a plate, a small burning lamp, a few grains of rice, a piece of newly-woven thread, some betel nut, turmeric, saffron, and sugar, and a few small toys. The bride is then brought, and stood in a vessel THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN, 33 containing a little milk and water (intended for a good omen of their always having plenty in the house). The boy stoops down and touches her feet, and lifts her out of the vessel ; and she next touches his feet, a sien of mutual respect. Four posts are put into the ground in the open courtyard, between which posts are placed seats of wicker-work ; on the one towards the right side the girl is seated, with her parents on her left side, and the Brahmans in front, with some fire and a little heap of saffron, spices, rice, flour, green leaves, thread, and nuts. In the centre a square pattern is drawn with seven colours, and on this are placed seventeen idols made of flour, which are then worshipped. Next, the bride's parents take a little water in their hands, over which the Brahmans say some sentences, and give it to the boy-bridegroom, and his father-in-law gives him a gold ring, and he gives the chief Brahman a cow, some money, and clothes. Then the boy is made to lay his hand on the girl's, some incense is burnt, and they both walk three times round the fire, the chief Brahman all the time repeating something from the Shastras. A fourth time they go round the fire, and this time the hem of the boy's dress is tied to a corner of the girl's chaddar, and she walks in front of him. This promenade com- pletes their wedding ! The dowry being given, the bride is sent to the house of her mother-in-law, accompanied by her youngest brother and a servant. Just before she starts a bracelet made of silk is put on her arm ; this bracelet contains an iron ring, which is removed when she arrives at her husband's house. After two or three days, 34 i^A UGHTERS OF THE KING. she returns to her parents' house, and there she remains, perhaps for several years, if she is only a little child at the time of the wedding. When she finally leaves her mother, her father-in-law brings presents for her, and fetches her away. If she does not become a mother, she is despised and hated, and after a time has a rival wife ; and if she should have children, it is a joy peculiarly full of sorrow, for, as a Panjab village woman pathetically said to a missionary, ' Girls are a curse ; no mother desires them, and if she give them a place in her heart, what is the use ? — she would have to tear them out of it to give them up to be married ; and even boys are scarcely a blessing, because when they would begin to help and comfort their mothers they get wives, and are taken up with their own families. No, Miss Sahiba! there is no joy in the life of a Hindu woman; she is man's plaything, and a mere machine.' We hear the cry of India's Women, again, in their mental ignorance. Just at this present time it seems as if a great deal were being done in the way of education, and a spirit of desire for learning seems to have been excited, but the masses remain unaffected by this ; and, while apparently much is being accomplished, it is really only the few who are as yet brought under regular in- struction — only about 130,000 out of 130,000,000; while all who are not taught at all are in a state of the darkest ignorance. When the Zenana Missionary first visits native ladies, she does not find them like adults, but like children to talk to. They question her concerning THE CR V OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 35 her dress, her income, the colour of her hair — is it dyed or not ? — the age and occupation and income of her father and brothers, her own age, etc. etc. ; and they seem to have no ideas beyond. Perhaps at first sight this may seem ahnost laughable, but it is in reality one of the most sad and lamentable facts connected with the nation. Here are mothers ignorant, childish, unthinking, untrained as the children in their arms. What is to become of a nation whose mothers may be spoken of as almost nonentities ? Wherever we go, among high and low, rich and poor, we see the urgent need for education ; and in this need we hear again the cry, the mute appeal, from India's millions to England's favoured daughters, with all their privileges and possibilities in the way of education — ' Come and teach us ! ' We hear the cry again when- ever the fact of the moral depravity of India's homes is impressed upon us. As we tried to show in a former chapter, the false religions of the land have dragged down Woman from the place God intended her to hold. From her earliest years she is a stranger to what is noble and refining and pure ; she is conversant with all that is the reverse. It needs the power of the Holy Spirit, and all the influences He graciously brings to bear upon any soul of fallen man, to make and to keep that soul pure and holy. Shall we then wonder that secluded Zenana homes, open to every evil influence, but unpenetrated by His divine power, are often dens of iniqiiity ? We, who have been intimately acquainted with the pardah system, can most emphatically deny that 36 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. it has any other than a demoraHsing effect upon its millions of prisoners. The idea that because a woman is kept in seclusion she is more modest or womanly is a sentiment without any foundation in fact, as frequently where pardah is most strictly kept the greatest im- modesty and impropriety prevail behind the scenes. Christian teachers should strive to do away with a system so morally depraving, especially insisting on allowing no nominal Christian to 'keep pardah.' We are again startled by the cry when we come to a knowledge of the facts connected with times of sickness among India's Women. Not exempt from any of the ills which flesh is heir to, and peculiarly liable to be affected by many of them on account of their unhealthy surroundings and unnatural lives, they are (in all ranks above the very low and degraded) denied the advantage of skilled surgical and medical aid.^ The native hakim and dale (or midwife) not un- commonly carry on practices which might well lead their victims to cry for the favour of being left to die in peace ; and although in these days there are many hakims who have studied something, and risen above the folly and wrongdoing of their predecessors, and many really good native civil surgeons and assistant surgeons, of whose abilities and painstaking efforts to excel in their profession one can scarcely speak too 1 In common with other statements concerning so vast a country as India, excep- tions may be quoted. For example, many princesses may see a man doctor, and in some of the large towns prejudice is giving way, and many ladies — as Parsees — never keep pardah ; but exceptions prove rules. THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 37 highly, still the case of the Zenana lady is not bettered. If her husband be sensible enough to describe her illness to one of these well-educated men before he has allowed her to undergo every conceivable torture at the hands of the family daie, she has, it is true, a slightly better chance ; but even then the doctor, however conscientious and skilled, must work in the dark, for he may not see his patient, and he may be utterly misled by the often ignorant and conflicting statements of her female relatives and friends, which of course can only reach him through the men of the family. The women themselves know nothing of nursing, and hence many a sufferer drags out weary days and nights with no medical help, and with no proper nursing, and the miseries of such sufferers can be better imagined than described. In England and other Christian lands at the present day, women — gentle, refined, educated women — are countinof it a most honourable life-work to tend con- stantly the sick and suffering, to spend days and nights in hospital wards, or in the homes of the afflicted. Might not many of such consecrated lives be spent in India? Millions of women and girls in India send across the wide ocean the thrilling, heartrending cry, ' When we are sick, no one tends us ; we have no 07ie to soothe, to comfort, to ease us ! ' Oh that their voice of suffering may be heard and eagerly responded to ! Oh that the gracious Master may say of many in Christian lands concernins^ their work for the women of India, ' I was sick, and ve visited me!' 38 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. Once more we hear the cry of these helpless ones in their Christless religions. We sit by sick-beds, we see wretchedness in many forms, we witness the sorrows of the dying and bereaved, and we feel our hearts bleeding with grief at the thought of all that the women of India have to endure; but the deepest depth is only reached when we remember that there is no knowledge whatever of any true comfort, no hope in sorrow and death, no light beyond the grave. Their religions bring them no rest or joy, because they are all without Christ. In favoured Christian lands, in happy homes, times of sickness, sorrow and death must come. God's own children often have to say, ' My flesh and my heart faileth.' So far, the women of India can join them, but beyond that they cannot go ; they cannot mingle their voices in the glad song of triumph over sorrow, ' but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever! ' It rests with those who can sing that song to carry it in all its sweetness and power to those w^ho cannot. Yes, wherever we go in India, we hear the cry of the women. We believe it enters into the ears and into the heart of the Lord of the whole earth ; let it enter also the ears and the hearts of His people ! But our readers may ask another question — 2. Is it possible to reach and to elevate siich as those who have been described f In these days the country can be reached in a way which seems simply marvellous, when we think of diffi- culties which existed only a few years ago ; and if we THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 39 look back to the times of Carey and the other Serampore Missionaries, we cannot but be struck by the ease with which missionaries can now come to the country, and begin and carry on their work. Science has lent her powerful aid in every possible direction, and then we have the increasing love of learning among the men of the country, especially of learning English, which is a valuable help to those who are desiring to bring the Gospel to bear upon the people. The fact that educated men are beginning to feel the desirability of having educated wives, is throwing open Zenanas in a way which would have delighted the hearts of missionaries of thirty years ago. Womicn can be reached by thousands where formerly they could not by tens. And in a deeper and more important sense they can be reached — their intelligence is good, they respond to teaching ; their sympathies are quick, their hearts can be touched ; yes, and, thank God, we can add from blessed experience, their so2i/s can be saved I A short history of one family, of which a younger member is now workings as an assistant Zenana Medical Missionary, may suitably close this portion of the subject ; and it is instructive as showing the wonderful way In which God causes men and women to be brought out of O darkness into light, and from the slavery of Satan to joy- ful participation in His own service ; often putting many strange links In the chain of His providence and grace. Koylash Chandra Mookerji, while studying In the Mission School at Mirzapore, was converted by the power of God's Spirit, and became a real and earnest Christian. 40 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. He was baptized in 1842, being about twenty years of age. He anxiously instructed his little wife, who was less than twelve years old, and she became quite willing to join him wherever he might go, and to let him be a Christian, but she herself did not want to be a Christian also. She would probably not have been willing at all to leave her home and follow his fortunes, but for the hard Hindu law, which would have condemned her to a degrading and well-nigh intolerable life of widowhood on account of her husband's changed religion. But her consent to joining him was alone not sufficient, and the consent of her relations could not be obtained. However, this young Christian man went on praying to God for his wife, until at length a good opportunity occurred of taking her away (a step which, of course, he had a perfect legal right to take). There was in his family an old nurse, a Brahman, and she was exceedingly fond of him ; he persuaded this old woman to go to the Zenana and bring away his wife. The Brahman did her part well, not from love of Christianity, but from love of the boy whom she had nursed from his birth. After joining her husband, the young wife still con- tinued to be a Hindu — indeed, two of her servants embraced Christianity before she became convinced of its truth ; but at length, while living in Calcutta, and at the time of the birth of her first child, in the year 1846, the prayers so long offered for her by her husband were answered, and she expressed her desire to be baptized. She had been well taught by the wife of the Missionary under whom her husband worked. She became a widow THE CR Y OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 41 in 1858, being left with five children, of whom the eldest was only twelve years of age. This child ultimately became the wife of Babu K. C. Basu, a well-known Christian in the Panjab, and had a large family. Her eldest daughter, the granddaughter of the young man and his wife whose history we have thus briefly traced, is now workine in the Amritsar Zenana Medical Mission. It is interesting to watch Mrs. Basu and her mother, now both widows, walking together to God's house of prayer, mature Christian women, who have long proved His love and faithfulness, and rejoiced in His service, and to watch also the busy useful life of Mrs. Basu's daughter, in the Hospital or Dispensary, or visiting her suffering heathen sisters, and to reflect on the fact that but for Christianity — but for missionary effort and God's blessing upon it, all these would have been Zenana prisoners, in the hopeless and helpless condition elsewhere described, whereas now they afford a delightful proof of the fact that India has hidden in her dark places many ' Daughters of the King.' Here are three generations of them, at one time, and in one family, calling for our earnest and hearty thanks to the Giver of all blessing ! Reserving for another chapter two important ques- tions, — What is being done ? and What can we do to help ? — we leave with our readers the thought of the urgent, earnest, pleading cry of these sisters of ours, who in all their darkness, ignorance, and depravity are not beyond the possibility of becoming in glorious reality ' Daughters of the King.' ^(Lfllljere tlje Voorti of a King i0, tljere i0 potoeiV 42 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. prater, ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, whose ears are graciously attent to the cries of Thy creatures, Who knowest their weaknesses, sorrows, and temptations, and Who seest the deepest depths of the depravity in which so many are kept by the power of Satan ; We earnestly beseech Thee to make bare Thine arm, and to let Thine abounding pity and mercy meet the terrible cry of sorrow and wrong from India. Cause all Thy faithful and true servants to hear this cry, and to go forth, or to give gladly of their substance to send others forth, in Thy strength, that the millions of India's Women and Girls may be delivered from their present state of captivity, from suffering, from ignorance, from sin, and from death. Grant to each of us grace to hear the story of their woes with a tender pity like unto Thine, and be pleased to give such a blessing upon our unworthy prayers and efforts, that by our means many from India may be numbered among those daughters of Thine whom Thou hast promised to bring ' from the ends of the earth ; ' to the praise of the glory of His grace. Who hath redeemed both us and them, to Whom, with Thyself and the Holy Spirit, be everlasting praises. Amen. UPCOUNTRY CART. CHAPTER III. Cfte Ctp of Jntiia's Wiomm {continued). ' And •with that cry from Macedon, The very car of Christ rolls on ; " I come! Who -would abide My day In yonder wilds prepares My toay ; My Voice is crying in their cty, ' Help ye the dying, lest ye die!' " Jcsu,for men of man the Son, Yea, Thine tlie cry from Macedon ; Oh, by tlie Kingdom and the power And glory of Thine Advent hour, Wake heart and will to hear their cry — Help its to lielp them, lest we die ! ' llTH SO urgent and thrilling a cry coming to us from our great Indian Empire, and with such abundant opportunities and openings for work among the daughters of that vast country, the next question comes most naturally — 3, J-V/ia^ is the Church of Christ doing to meet the occasion f Compared with the need, compared with her own immense privileges, compared with the love which has been shown her by the Great Head of the Church, her effort has been puny indeed ; and there is room for much penitential sorrow on this account, and an urgent 44 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. need for prayer that a spirit of more true and heartfelt pity and love may be poured out upon her, so that she may bestir herself and ' ivork while it is day' Still, something has been attempted, and the opportunities of entering dark homes with the message of light and joy are not beinof altogether lost. We must not be down- cast and discouraged by the fact that there is one Lady Missionary to about every hundred thousand of the female population of India, but rather thank God, and take courage, as we remember that in the ten years from 1871 to 1881 ^ the number of women and girls under regular instruction more than doubled, being at the latter date 65,761. It is estimated that about one-fifth of the work among women is carried on by agents of Zenana Societies, pro- perly so called, and about four-fifths by married ladies and others in connection with general Missionary Societies. It is impossible to show by statistics the leavening influence that is going on everywhere where God's true people are living and working ; to estimate, for example, the results of the life lived by so many missionaries' wives amonof servants and Bible-women and others. Only in eternity will the far-reaching effects of that prayerful, praising spirit, those kind loving deeds and words, that ready sympathy, that courageous example, be fully known ! But in that which is more apparently, though not more truly, work, where shall we begin to describe what is beinof done ? I. Suppose we begin with Schools for Heathen and * Statistical Tables of Protestant Missions in India for 1881. THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 45 Mohamedan Girls. We have entered a field of the deepest interest and richest promise. It is impossible to overrate the importance of the education of young girls in relation to Mission work and the future of India. In the children of to-day is our hope for the Christian India of the future ; these girls will become very early in life the wives and mothers of the men of the country, and we have, as it were, a few fleeting hours of sunshine in which to do all the work which human instrumentality can effect for the great harvest which we have an eager longing to see ; we have to perform the important duty of giving to these impres- sionable young minds the right bias, and of sowing the seed of everlasting life in these hearts. Of day-schools for girls there are now no less than 1 1 20, numbering in all upwards of 40,000 pupils. The work in these schools has, like all other work, its bright and its dark aspects, its sunny hopeful side, and its disappointing trying one. We have but to read the letters of mission- aries engaged in this particular branch of work to see this. Now they can tell of full schools and eager pupils, of one and another casting off faith in heathen teaching and yielding her young heart to Jesus ; of some little one taken away in His mercy from evil to come, and passing through the dark waters of death, trusting Him with the simple faith of a child, and causing the heart of the teacher to realise joyfully that she has not laboured in vain ; and anon they must tell of closed schools and scattered pupils, of persecution for their beloved little ones and sorrow for themselves. But, on the whole. 46 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. must not our hearts yield hearty thanks to the Good Shepherd, who Himself said that, ' Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," when we hear that in His pro- vidence and by His grace it has come to pass that at this time in India there are more than 40,000 heathen and Mohamedan girls under daily missionary instruction and influence ! It is very easy to write and read (and forget !) figures which represent thousands, and it is easy for even those who have read those large figures with a moderate amount of interest to be sceptical as to how much work missionaries do. The figures require analysing. We must try to have before our mind's-eye more than 1000 schools, and picture to ourselves an average number of 40 pupils. We must think of all the provision needed for their instruction, of the details of arrangements for daily work, of the various characters of the children, of the impossibility of mixing castes, of the difficulty of securing good teachers (generally only overcome by the mis- sionary training them for herself), and of the prejudices of many kinds, which must not be too rashly gone against, unless the school is to be closed, and which yet must not be allowed to interfere with the principles upon which the work is carried on. We must try to place ourselves in imagination by the side of each missionary's wife, or Zenana missionary, in the daily round of her duties in such a school, and to appreciate her earnest wish to give the children all necessary secular instruction, and to keep the character of the school up to the THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 47 required standard, and her yet more yearning desire to bring those children, in this precious bit of time before marriage, into the fold of Christ ; and if in this way we bear in mind upwards of 1000 schools, we shall scarcely be able to help acknowledging thankfully that a mighty work is being attempted, and to a certain extent accomplished, among the Girls of India. We may be satisfied that in the fresh and com- paratively unoccupied soil of the young girls' hearts many seeds are finding an abiding place. Instances such as the following could be given in large numbers. A little child learned in her school that an idol was nothing, and could not see, speak, hear, feel, or do anything. She resolved to test the statement, and went to a temple where there was an idol in the form of a large black stone. She climbed on the stone, and sat kicking it with her heels ; and then, getting down, removed all the offerings of flowers, etc., and threw them away, expressing her conviction that if the god could have defended himself and punished her, he would have done so. The father, a devout Hindu, was exceedingly angry at his daughter's conduct, and cursed her bitterly ; and, to avert any great evils coming on the family, he spent large sums in seeking to propitiate the god. It may fairly be believed that no efforts of his could ever erase the impression made upon that thoughtful young mind ! 1 1. We may next glance at that which is properly called Zenana zvork, that is, the regular systematic visitation of the upper-class houses by the missionaries as teachers. 48 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. At the end of 1881 these houses numbered 7522, representing 9132 Zenana pupils. It may be well to consider the principles upon which this work is carried on, and to distinctly assert that, in giving Bible instruction to a lady in a Zenana, the missionary is not acting without the knowledge, or contrary to the expressed wishes, of the master of the house. It has often been wrongly alleged that Hindu and Mohamedan gentlemen have been deceived as to the true nature of a missionary lady's work. The fact is, they are fully aware that her primary object in coming to India is to make known the Gospel of the grace of God, and they know at the same time that there are in these days other teachers to be had — teachers who are prepared not to interfere with the religions of the country ; yet in the majority of cases they prefer that their wives and daughters should be under the care and influence of a decided Christian lady, who is true to her colours, and we cannot but know that these people have an immense respect for those who are loyal to the religion they profess. Two incidents on this point are worth recording. A Mohamedan gentleman, resident at one time in London, had yielded to his wife's earnest desire to cross the sea and join him ; but, in writing to give her per- mission, he said it was on condition that she travelled with a missionary lady ! Again, a Hindu gentleman, in conversation with a Zenana missionary, expressed his opinion that she would get invited into a very great THE CR V OF li\DIA'S WOMEN. 49 many more houses if she did not always take her Bible. She replied : ' And suppose that I, believing this book to contain the good news of the one and only way of life, were to go among those whom I consider to be lost and helpless for want of it, and not make known to them what I hold to be the truth, what would you think of me ?' Looking thoughtful for a moment, he answered : ' Well, madam, of course I should not respect you.' If the case can be imagined of a missionary with- holding her message for fear of losing her pupils, or consenting to suppress her Master's teaching and impart only secular knowledge, or, on the other hand, striving as it were on the sly, to give religious instruction while allowing the husbands to think she was not doing so, then the want of blessing and success which would inevitably result would be entirely due to her fault ; but none can say that, with her Bible fearlessly open, and her intention to read it with her pupils fully made known, she has acted unfairly, or gained access to the houses of Indian gentlemen under false pretences. Let us now try to picture to ourselves our missionary seated, among her Zenana pupils, these preliminary difficulties all got over, and her secular teaching only undertaken with the full understanding that the Gospel is also taught. If we accompany her to a house where she is paying her first or second visit, and afterwards to one where there are pupils of long standing, we shall soon see why primary education at least is such a very important part of Woman's work in India. In the first case, there will be difficulty in being understood, as, although she may D 50 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. speak' the language well, her different accent, and par- ticularly the strange ideas to which she may give utterance, form a barrier between herself and these dear women for whose salvation and happiness she is yearning, but from whom she seems so far away. In an English house her instinct would lead her perhaps to take the baby and play with it, as a way of gaining confidence and getting friendly ; but this simple device is generally out of the question in India, for what stranger would venture on the risky task of tossing or playing with a baby who, instead of wearing clothes, is well greased from head to foot ! Another source of difficulty at these first visits is that one or two of the gentlemen often accompany the visitor into the Zenana, and wait about politely to see her established at work. As long as they remain every face among the women is hidden beneath her chaddar, so that conversation with them is out of the question. The gentlemen in such cases frequently know enough English to be very anxious to speak it, and they will commence a conversation with the English lady, which she will, if she is wise, discourage, as it is thought by many (with great reason) that to talk to the husbands in a foreign tongue in the presence of their wives is a most unpardonable breach of good manners. But the longest lane has a turning, and presently these awkward moments will come to an end, and the men will retire with a salam, followed perhaps by some little fellow aspiring to be manly, who will make a bow, and say to the lady visitor (at seven or eight o'clock in the morning), ' Sir, I THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 51 wish you good night!' The chaddars are soon pushed back, and the eager faces look out, and many tongues are set agoing ! We cannot help being surprised as we see how many women are before us, and hear what a noise they are capable of making. There will be the old mother-in-law, with her sons' wives, perhaps three or four in number — and very likely one or two of these comparatively young wives are themselves mothers-in- law — and their little ' Bahus ' ^ are there. In addition to these, there will often be several other relatives, as, for example, a niece whose father-in-law is dead, or a sister of the master of the house, who may be a widow, and so on ; and then, further, there are not unfrequently relatives from distant places paying a long visit, or acquaintances from the next house or street come for the day, in order to be present at the reception of the Miss Sahiba. All are easier to ask questions, and sometimes much laughing and pushing of each other, and scuffling, and playing go on, which to those unacquainted with the people would seem rude, but no rudeness is intended. Perhaps, out of all these women and girls, only one wishes to be a pupil, and it is no easy task to give her her first lesson in the alphabet with so many looking on, making remarks and causing endless interruptions, offering tea, sweets, etc., to the visitor, and being generally like a rather large nursery party, each anxious to be heard and to have her own questions answered. One might almost be tempted impatiently to exclaim, * Can any impression ever be made T ^ Dautrhters-in-law. 52 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. But if we go to a house where, for some weeks or months, one or two young women have been learning, we see a ereat difference. The first difficulties of read- ing have been overcome, the books and writing materials are all ready for the teacher, and, the novelty having worn off, the women of the house no longer besiege one with questions, or noisily make remarks, but as a rule sit quietly by and spin or cook^ while the learners read, write, and listen. There is sofnething like the order of a small school, and it is evident, progress is being made. Very often, too, by this time, a real affection for their friend has sprung up in the hearts of the pupils, and, as they learn more and more, and better understand why she came to teach them, this feeling grows. It is touch- ing to see the wistful way in which such pupils will cling to their teacher, who has brought into their dark lives that beautiful thing of which they knew little or nothing before — the light of Love ! They are visited by her week by week until in many instances they can read anything in their vernacular, and perhaps sometimes English, and also have learned other useful things, as arithmetic, writ- ing, and needlework. Higher education is given in those cases in which it seems desirable, but, as one Zenana missionary has most forcibly argued, this ought not to be in those instances where the Gospel message is evidently persistently rejected, though listened to with outward ears from time to time. * Are we,' she asks, ' to educate first and evan-* gelise afterwards, or does our Master call us to evan- eelise first and educate afterwards ? In other words, THE CR Y OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 53 shall we spend our time and strength in pruning' and training the wild vines in hope that eventually they may get grafted with grace, or shall we seek first to get our pupils engrafted on the true Vine, and train them after- wards ? Shall we spend our best energies in teaching, year after year, pupils who show not a shadow of interest in the great truths we seek to impart, or shall we give higher education only to those who desire to know Christ ? ' The simple primary education is undoubtedly an invaluable aid in the first instruction of the women in heavenly things, and more especially as it gives them the power to read for themselves God's Holy Word. The uncultured woman, who just believes as a child when she hears a religious teacher, is certainly — if that faith be real — as truly brought to Christ as her better educated sister ; yet who can question the advantage of the convert being able, from her own study of Scripture, to give an answer to every one who asketh her a reason of the hope that is in her. And another point not to be forgotten is that, in the event of a Zenana being closed against missionary influence, or the pupil removing, as at marriage, to a city or village where there are no teachers, the missionary who has educated her has been able to give her two blessings — \}^& power to read, and the Book to read, and that Book is God's Word, which cannot ' return void ' to Him who sent it. It is not possible to estimate the far-reaching and abiding effects of this simple education, when going hand in hand with prayerfully, earnestly-given Bible lessons. 54 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. III. Another important branch of Woman's work in India is the Medical Mission, and this may not unfairly be reckoned among the most interesting, the most promis- ing, and the most difficult of missionary undertakings. (i.) Among the most intei^esting, because it brings the missionary into contact with a very large number of women whom she would probably never see but by its means, shows her an infinite variety of cases of need and suffering, reveals to her many of the sorrows and trials as well as the habits of thought and ways of living of the people among whom she is labouring, and sometimes brings to light one and another who are * feeling after God if haply they may find Him.' (2,) Among the most promising, because, in minister- ing to suffering bodies, it teaches the sufferers that love is a real and livinof thingf, that those who come to their homes to help them in sickness, asking nothing in return, must be actuated by love, and that God is Love. It is thus, even when no words are spoken, pointing the weary and afflicted away from all their misery and pain, straight up to the One who loves them, and who has sent His servants for their relief. The simple preaching of the Cross is indeed ' the power of God,' and men do feel and acknowledge this ; but when, by His gracious blessing upon the use of means, we can say to the sometime helpless cripple, * Rise ; take up thy bed, and walk,' who can doubt that the message of ' forgive- ness of sins ' comes with increased power to the heart ? And it is a promising work, because it tends to improve the moral and physical condition of the women, to teach THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 55 them how they may best avert sickness from themselves and from their children, and how they may meet it with some amount of common sense if it should come. That there is sad need for work in these directions every Zenana missionary can abundantly testify. (3.) Among the most diffiadt — [ci), because it can be undertaken in all its branches by women only, and" their facilities for fitting themselves for the work have hitherto been very limited, and further, when they are as fully equipped as they can be, they are but women after all, weaker than men, less able to stand alone, and more likely to suffer from hard work and exposure to weather in a country like India ; (b\ because the prejudices and habits of the people of India in their normal condition, while they form immense barriers to missionary efforts in other respects, are most especially hindering in the treatment of disease. The well-known difficulty in giving fiuid medicines and nourishing food to Hindu patients, the custom of taking the advice and drugs of some hakim (or of more than one) without informing the European doctor in attendance, the fact that the more ill the patient the more crowded will be the room and the more noisy her friends, and the prejudice which in severe and lowering types of fever puts a hundred leeches to each foot, and refuses to allow the patient any food, are sufficient instances. iyC) Because it is a double zvork. One has often heard it spoken of as if to attempt the healing of body and soul at the same time were the easiest thing in the world. A moment's thought will show that the very opposite is 56 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. the case. Even allowing that there were no more obstacles than there are in English Medical Missionary work, and allowing that the patients, though ignorant and unbelievine as London heathen are, were neverthe- less not unwilling to listen to a short address, and not without some perception of its truth and the impor- tance of receiving it, there would still be double work, double responsibility, double thought, double prayer, while neither work may give place to the other ; for, on the one hand, we dare not let those go away without hearing the Gospel message to whom the Master has commissioned us to tell it, and on the other hand we have no right to gather people together with the pro- mise of bodily healing, and then give so much time to spiritual instruction that we must hastily slur over the cases, and make our medical treatment less satisfactory than at any other hospital. The difficulty of doing wisely and well these two great works in combination is very great. In dispensaries, and as in-patients in Zenana hospitals, and also in their own homes, whether rich or poor, the women of India are reached by the Medical Mission ; and we have great reason to thank God that so powerful an agent for their good has been introduced among these poor sufferers. How great a boon it has already proved to the sick of all classes, and how efficiently it prepares a way for the Gospel, it would be impossible to tell. IV. The Village Mission is a branch of work which is making itself felt among the poor and ignorant, and often unsophisticated women of the rural districts. The vil- THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 57 lages have few Zenanas, but many many women, and there are swarms of children, as wild and untaught as the jackals in their fields, and crowds of sick, both women and children, whose pitiable condition for lack of medi- cine and nursing is entirely beyond description. Some peculiar features of the work among these villagers are — ( I .) They are easy of access. One has but to stand for a few minutes at the entrance to any village, to be sur- rounded by numbers of them, eager to see and know everything about the stranger, and not unwilling to listen, for a short time at least, to what she has to say. They ^ have often very handsome features, and are fine, strong women ; they carry heavy burdens (as large quantities of milk in brass vessels) nicely poised on their heads ; they will walk many miles with apparently little fatigue, tucking up the large skirt (which is generally their only clothing except the chaddar over the head), and striding along with a business-like determination to get over the ground ; they work much in the fields, and among the buffaloes and cows they may possess. A number of such women clustering round a missionary form a very striking group, and it gives a splendid oppor- tunity to one who has a ready tongue to tell them the story of His love who sent her to India for their help and blessing. And such an interview generally leads to in vitations being given into several houses, where women in almost any number may again be met with and spoken to. (2.) These villagers are 7'eniarkably friendly. They have no suspicions of the missionary lady who has taken 1 In the Panjab. 58 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. SO much pains to come and see them ; they beHeve in her love, even though they may not fully understand it, and they are most anxious to persuade her to take milk or fruit from them to refresh her after her long ride or drive. Of course there are villages where the chief man is a proud bigot, and where no entrance is gained, but in thousands of Indian villages the missionary may be quite sure of a friendly reception. (3.) The work is emphatically pioneering. The vil- lage missionary has, and is likely to have for many years, a very large field unentered, and she must always be going on and on, passing into the regions beyond, con- tinually carrying out her plan of alighting at the entrance of some village, 2invisited before, and gathering together a crowd of women, beginning to tell them the story of God's love, to which they will listen, with very rare ex- ceptions, for the first time in their lives. Hence it is evident that the pioneer village missionary needs fol- lowing everywhere by other earnest workers, who will enforce and further expand the great lessons she has tried to begin to teach, who can regularly visit all who open their houses, and who may also begin and carry on schools for women and girls. It may fairly be said that the oppo7'tttnities and pro- mise of this village work are simply immense, and it is a matter for great thankfulness that now, in several parts of India, it is being proved that the missionary who uses the opportunities need have no fear as to the pro7Jtise being richly realised. Boarding-schools for Christian Girls must not be for- THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 59 gotten among the various agencies which come under the head of ' Woman's Work.' This may be perhaps said to be ' not Zenana work,' but wherever the lady missionary can bring influence to bear upon a woman of India, directly or indirectly, there is Zenana work. Few influences will be more powerful in the future of this country than the lives of Christian mothers, and the homes they are able to make. The effects of the boarding-school life will be seen in the young woman who goes forth from school to be the wife of clergyman or catechist, or, if one of humble rank, she will impress upon her children, and they upon theirs, the marks of her school training. The work of ladies who conduct such schools is therefore of very great importance ; they are not only by their didactic teaching, but by their own daily lives among their pupils, moulding these characters for time and for eternity. It is satisfactory to know that in 1 88 1 there were 155 boarding-schools for girls in India, representing 6379 pupils; and it is a thought full of encouragement and hope that, although there must be some failures and disappointments among so many, still the majority of these girls are receiving what they will hand on to others — the good influence of the lives and teaching of whole-hearted, earnest Christian women. V. Work among ividoivs might well claim to be a special branch of missionary effort. It is a fact that there are in India more than twenty-one millions of widows-^that is, one widow for every five males of the whole population. A very large proportion of these are still mere children. 6o DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. and very many among the adults have been widows from babyhood. In Bengal alone, at the last census, there were found to be more than 43,000 little widows under ten years of age, and it is estimated that nine-tenths of these child-widows must grow up to a life of sin. Very little has as yet been done in the special behalf of these poor creatures, but doubtless many Zenana missionaries have made efforts to organise work among them, to have classes for them, to strive in different ways to lift them up out of their degradation and wretchedness, though we have yet to see the day of anything like an adequate attempt to reach and influence this great mass of the population. Work among Eurasians and country-born Europeans, and also in Christian families in every part of the country, is ever increasingly called for. Something to strengthen and encourage the earnest among these classes, to instruct the ignorant, to warn the careless, and to comfort those in trouble, is attempted by most missionary ladies ; but in this, as in every other department, the demand for workers is far greater than the supply. With nearly five hundred thousand Christians of the country, in addition to the very large Eurasian population, there must be a wide field for work, and we must not forget that if Christians are taught and helped, and built up in their most holy faith, the labour bestowed upon them must surely have its ultimate fruit in the bringing in of more heathen, and the spread of the Gospel into places now dark as the shadow of death ! It has been attempted to show how the great cry of THE CRY OF INDIA'S WOMEN. 6i India's Women is being responded to, and how many opportunities there are for a far larger response; and now we may imagine the reader asking one more question — 4. ' IVkat can I do to help ? ' All loyal subjects of the King of kings must ever rise from the fresh study of His work and the progress of His kingdom in the world, with this question more urgently than before pressing on their hearts. Many answers might be given, but some leading thoughts will embrace all — {a) Let us syinpathise zvitk the King. He has many rebel subjects, and many who do not yield Him loyal obedience because they know not of His claims. Precious to Him is the sympathy of the heart, which out of its deep love for Hint yearns over millions of Mohamedans and heathens sunk in darkness, degradation, and woe. {6) Let us pray for the I<[ing. ' Prayer also shall be madey^r Him continually :' 'Thy Kingdom Come.' To how many Christians in favoured, enlightened England might the question be put with well-merited rebuke — ' Why speak ye not a word of bringing the King back ? ' Why do not the exquisite words of one of the prayers of our own Church find a more constant echo on the lips and from the hearts of God's children — ' That it may please Thee, of Thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of Thine elect, and to hasten Thy kingdom ' ? Surely this matter ought to be very near to the heart of every follower of Jesus ! In these dark Zenanas, by these weary roadsides, in these clustering villages, and languishing on these wretched beds of sickness and suffering, He has His elect. 62 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. {c) Let 7is go foi'th in this service for the King. It is peculiarly the duty and the privilege of England's daughters to enlist energy, talent, zeal, life itself, in the cause of carrying messages of joy and peace into Indian homes. And where personal going is clearly shown to be not the path of duty — id) Let us send help to those servants of the King zvhoni He has sent forth ; gifts for their scholars, work prepared for their Zenana ladies, texts worked or illuminated for distribution, needlework for sale, gold and silver into God's treasury for the general support and carrying on of the work. There is an infinite variety of ways and means of giving most valuable aid to Missionary Societies without leaving England, and sanctified ingenuity will not be slow in searching out those ways and means, as many a working party, or other well-organised effort to interest and draw them into the work, abundantly testifies. And all who thus strengthen the hearts and hands of those gone forth to heathen countries will realise that while some are engaged in direct evangelistic effort for the heathen, and others are working indirectly in what may seem (and only seeni) humbler modes — all alike share the great blessing and joy of the service, and as her part is that goeth down to the battle, so is her part that tarrieth by the stuff — they part alike. '^ije^ 0ljcill 0pe:.lv of tijc n;lor^ of ^Ijj? Kingdom anti tallv of C^H poVDCC • to malxc knoton to tIjc 00110 of men 1^>10 migtt^ att0, anti tljc 0;lonou0 majc0tp of il?i0 Kingdom.' PRAYER. 63 GRACIOUS and loving Saviour, we acknowledge that this service which we render unto Thee cometh of Thee, and is all Thine own. Look with compassion on its many imperfections, ignorances, shortcomings ; in love pass by its mistakes and blemishes ; pardon its sins ; cleanse the hands and lips that offer it from all stain of evil, and our hearts from all irreverence and self-seeking, all sloth, double- mindedness, and backwardness in Thy cause. Having put our hand to the plough, may we set our face, every one, straight forward, and never look back. Forbid it, Lord, that our life should be like that earth which bringeth forth briars and thorns, and is rejected of Thee. Rather may it be as the earth which ' hringeih forth fruits meet for them by whom it is dressed, and receive th a blessing from God.' May we seek each to please his neighbour for his good to edification, even as Christ pleased not Himself. May the talents which Thou hast given in charge to each of us neither be wasted nor buried, but kept for Jesus Christ, and occupied till He comes again. Be pleased so to increase and confirm Thy grace in us, that, having our lights trimmed and burning, we may be ready to go forth to meet the Bridegroom, and may so abide in His love that when He shall appear we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. Finally, may the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, fortify and establish our hearts, and make them fruitful with His plen- teous dew, and the anointing oil of His sevenfold gracious gifts, that each one of us may be as a green olive-tree in the house of God, and may bring forth more fruit in our age, to show how true the Lord our strength is ; and that our trust may be in the tender mercy of God for ever and ever : through Thine own merits and mediation, Who art the King of Saints and Lord of Glory. Amen. CHAPTER IV. a Call to a^otbetg. ' Oh, hearts are bruised and dead. And homes arc bare a?id cold, A?id lambs, for whom the Saviour bled, Are straying from the fold. To comfort and to bless, To find a bahn for woe, To tend the lo?ie and fatherless Is angels' work below. ' URELY there never was a mother who did not love to hear stories of mothers and children ! It is sad to have to begin a descrip- tion of Indian homes for English mothers, by telling them to lay aside every preconceived idea of home life, to forget pretty cottages, happy wives, fathers returning from work to meet happy merry children ; and to try to imagine the anomaly of children having lives without that delightful stage, so full of blessing and joy in our country — childhood ; to imagine infants married before they are weaned, and precocious little mites of five or seven years old knowing nothing they ought to know. A CALL TO MOTHERS. 65 and nearly everything- they ought not ! No wonder if the mothers of England start, and feel as if they were going to hear stories not of children, but of monsters. But, dear readers, if these little ones are to be made happy and good, and if their mothers are to be helped and raised, we women of England must strive to under- stand their homes, their wants, their woes ; and to bring to bear upon them, by God's grace, the light and joy of our own happy lives. We often hear the words ' our Indian Empire,' and we may once more remind ourselves of the famous say- ing, ' The Empire is at the fireside.' True, in every land, this is not more true anywhere than in India. It is one of the laws of nature that if any class of the com- munity is oppressed or injured, it will sooner or later tyrannise over all the classes which have united in that oppression or injury ; accordingly, if we were asked what it is which more than anything else acts as a dead weight upon progress and civilisation in India, we should have to reply, the position of the women. Socially degraded, treated as animals of a lower order than man, excluded from society, kept in grossest ignorance, women (O strange contradiction ! ) yet wield the sceptre in the home circle. Their influence is mighty, and all the power they possess is spent upon an ignorant and bigoted upholding and enforcing of their own religions. There can be little doubt that in the present day there are large numbers of thoughtful men no longer Hindus or Mohamedans at heart, who dare not confess themselves persuaded (as they are) of the truth of E 66 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. Christianity, because of the storm it would create at home ! Pathetically and truly has one Zenana missionary said, ' Let us in our Master s name lay our hand on the hand that rocks the cradle, and tune the lips that sing the llillabies. Let us win the mothers of India for Christ, and the day will not be long deferred when India's sons also shall be brought to the Redeemer's feet. ' It is very difficult for one who has lived in India to realise how those whose lives are being spent in Eng- land cannot all at once follow descriptions of Oriental life ; they need to have so many things explained so as somewhat to understand the common customs and manners of the country, before they can enter into scenes which a writer may describe. Those who have spent many years in a land far distant from England, and very unlike it, are apt to forget how everything about ' foreign parts ' has an interest for stayers at home, and as one thing after another grows familiar to them they insensibly lose sight of the fact that it would take pages upon pages of writing, hours upon hours of talking, to give to those who have not seen, the faintest idea of what has now become to them so common-place, and so thoroughly a part of everyday life ; but we hope the following pictures from Indian homes may, with the aid of a good imagination, bring some facts vividly before the minds of English mothers. To such readers what can be more interesting to begin with than some account of the first birthday of a little Panjabi boy ! A CALL TO MOTHERS. ~ 67 The father was a Sarclar, or chief, of a village. He was very rich, but the room set apart for the special use of his wife at the time of the birth of her son was literally unfit to be used as a stable ; it was dark and close, and utterly destitute of the smallest comfort. It was not, however, destitute of women, of whom many had gathered together to show interest in the important event. Not to help ! Think not, kind reader, with motherly instincts, that one in that noisy chattering crowd of women could do anything for the poor mother in her hour of trial ; indeed, the moment the child was born they all rushed hastily from the room, except one, the mother-in-law, who had to make up her mind to remain, and become temporarily defiled, at the trouble and expense of many subsequent ceremonies to enable her aoain to be amonof Hindus. With resfard to this idea a little incident is worthy of record. An English lady who had done some kind office for a sick Hindu woman, was washing her own hands, and accidentally splashed her patient with soapy water, an article for which the patient would have been much better had she used it freely ! With instinctive politeness, the English lady said, ' I beg your pardon.' ' Oh, never mind,' said her Hindu sister, meaning to be equally polite, ' while I am ill I am as unclean as you are ! ' To return to the Httle son of our Panjabi Sardar. At length he was born, and the glad news was communicated to his father, who was waiting anxiously with large numbers of friends in the open court of the house below, the women's apart- ments being, as they often are, on the roof. The 68 JDA UGHTERS OF THE KING. father's anxiety was not due to any particular interest in the safety of his wife (except the very mercenary one which the expensiveness of another marriage in case of her death might suggest) — no ! his anxiety was only lest the infant should be a girl. Had the news of a daughter's birth been announced from the roof, all the assembled friends would have dis- spersed silently, no one would have ventured to congra- tulate the father on the event, and a grim and sullen acceptance of the provisions of an inexorable fate would have been the attitude of the different members of the family. But the moment it was heard a son had arrived, there were shouts of joy, with the playing of various musical instruments and the beating of drums, all of which sounds were exceedingly distressing to the poor weak mother. When the lady missionary, who had been a friend in need, looked for the baby to wash and dress him, she discovered that he had been carried out of the close little room in which he had been born to be held over the edoe of the roof for the satisfaction of admirino- friends and relations in the court below ; and when, at her urgent request, he was brought back, he was shivering from this rash exposure to the severely cold air of a January morning in the Panjab ! A few minutes later a man came up and stood outside the door, and sang a lonor, low mutterino- sonaf. In this sono- a man's name occurred, and the poor weary mother was told to listen for the name, as it would be her son's ; then, again, the hapless infant was carried forth, without clothing, into the raw cold air, and presented with a sword. A CALL TO MOTLLERS. 69 The next day he was dressed very gaily with silk and embroidered cloths and jewels, and looked exceedingly unnatural and uncomfortable. For many days after- wards the noise and disturbance of the whole house with feasting and rejoicing must have been enough to make any sick woman there sigh over her hard lot. We may now ask our readers to accompany us to another Hindu house. This time it is in the large and important commercial centre of the Panjab, the city of Amritsar, and our gari must proceed cautiously along a narrow, crowded bazar. The stranger cannot but be struck by the industry of the people in front of whose shops we slowly move. Workers in ivory, winders of silk, silversmiths, goldsmiths, cutters of precious stones, cloth merchants, with their bales of Manchester goods, are as busy as they could be in London. But how different is the scene ! Here there are no shop fronts and no glass windows — in fact, in the majority of cases, there is scarcely any shop. The industrious craftsman or merchant is not doinof his work in larae factories with thousands of ingenious contrivances, or keeping his books and doing his accounts in a closed private office; but, on a board which projects a little over the gutter at the side of the street, he sits on his heels in the midst of his wares, which he has not seldom to protect from being swept off the narrow board by a passing bullock gari, which looks rather too wide for the street. Leaving all these interesting people and their occupations, we say a kind word to the poor old man who sits on the ground at the corner of the narrow galli or lane we are going to 70 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. enter, where he has been employed for years in the business of patching up old shoes, to be bought for a copper or two by some customer a trifle less able to be luxurious than the passer-by who generously kicked these off and presented them to the poor old cobbler ; and then we send our servant on in front to grive a salam to a Zenana lady. ' What,' exclaims the new-comer, 'ladies live in such places!' Yes; our servant brings back saldm, and on we go. The galli is very narrow and very dirty ; and it is so difficult to keep out of the gutter in the middle, and yet not come into too close contact with the houses on either side. This difficulty must be overcome in some places by just skipping from side to side, something after the manner of the goats whom we carefully try to avoid. Umbrellas are scarcely needed here for the sun, as the close high walls designedly keep it off; but they are useful for beating off evil-looking dogs, and for helping us to balance when an unusually difficult piece of gutter has to be stepped over. It is all very well if we do not meet a buffalo, who leaves us hardly any room to get by, or a dozen or two of cows, who, though fairly friendly, are very likely to splash us by hurrying from fear of us into the gutter ; and, O mothers ! look at the children ; the uncared-for, miserable babies, the poor little toddling mites, nearly blind with ophthalmia and flies, and others, only a little older, with the faces of those initiated into all sorts of evil ! We wind and turn about out of one galli into another, and at length reach the doorway of a large house. The part we should call the hall or entrance- A CALL TO MOTHERS. 71 lobby is probably occupied by the family buffalo, and we may have to climb over this mountain before we are fairly in the house. From the lower court a servant shouts up the news that we have come, and up we go, the staircase having- nearly as many difficulties and nearly as much want of cleanliness as the galli ; but when we reach the top, there is the lady ; and she really is a lady, so gentle and refined, you wonder how she can live in such a place. She has five children, one a boy, and in him, of course, all the hopes of the family centre, and four pretty winning little girls. One is still a baby, and the ages of the other three ranQ^e from eisfht to eleven. These children are so attractive, it has always been a pleasure to gather them together and tell them Bible stories, and sing hymns to them ; they have always seemed to under- stand so nicely, and the eldest has begun to learn to read. The mother, too, has listened with interest, and shown much intelligent pleasure in what she has been taught, and, as to-day we find her so listless and in- different, we are surprised, until we notice that there is evidently something troubling her, some burden on her mind. At last we venture to ask, ' Are you sad ? — is anything the matter to-day?' The sympathetic words touch her at once, and the tears begin to fall. True sympathy is a very rare experience in the life of a Hindu woman. She sends away the wondering children, and then begins to explain as well as she can between her sobs : ' It is for these three little girls I am so troubled ; they are all going to be married at once ; we cannot 72 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. afford many different weddings, and we are of too good a caste to risk the disgrace of letting them remain unmarried much longer, so we are making the arrange- ments for all at the same time, and I shall lose three at once ; they will go away from me, and never be quite my own again.' We ask why it must be, and the reply is ' custom! Alas ! we can easily in imagination follow these babes into the houses of mothers-in-law, or into the horrors of possible early widowhood, and we feel, as we take the poor mother's hand, as though words fail ; we can only sit by her in speechless sorrow and sympathy. Mothers of England, how can we comfort her ? If only India were wholly won for Christ, sufferings such as these would never be heard of again ; for before His light deeds of darkness would vanish, and in His blessed freedom the people would escape from the galling yoke of these cruel and foolish customs. Let but every woman, who has proved that His yoke is easy and His burden light, do all she can to extend the knowledge of that freedom, and the day of the emancipation of India's mothers and daughters will be hastened. The lot of sick children in India is very sad indeed. It must be remembered that in thousands of cases their mothers are but children themselves, and it would be unreasonable to expect them to understand their ail- ments, and how to nurse them. It makes a woman's heart ache to see the innumerable cases of fever, cough, sore eyes, lameness, and other deformity, all going uncarecl for, all calling dumbly for woman's help. A CALL TO MOTHERS. 73 Pitiable, too, it is to see the little creatures loaded with jewellery, which is not unfreqiiently made of impure metal, of which the consequence is much suffering for the hapless victim. Sometimes, when pure gold is used for a nose or ear ring, its value excites the cupidity of some thief who meets the child in the street, and it is hastily snatched away, leaving, of course, a long tear in the delicate flesh ; in such cases the chief anxiety of the mother, who takes or sends the child for surgical treatment, is not to allay the little one's sufferings, but only to make the part speedily fit to wear the ring again, as she firmly believes it will be a family disgrace if her child appears without it. The hair of little girls is plaited up into scores of plaits, and thickly covered with heavy jewels, which are hooked into the plaits and drag on the hair. One wonders how children can possibly endure such misery, but it seems they get used to it. In times of severe sickness there is generally real anxiety to do something for relief, and indeed the poor little sufferer becomes the victim of almost endless attempts to make it well, on the part of different advisers, and is frequently brought to an English doctor when the whole formidable array of leeches, blisters, cupping, etc., have done their worst, and the weary little face seems to plead, ' Oh, please let me die in peace !' Of course, in multitudes of. cases they do die ; and let the Christian mother contrast what follows with the beautifully significant and hopeful ceremonies of our religion. As soon as any one among the Hindus is thought to be dying, the friends send for the Brahmans 74 ^A UGHTERS OF THE KING. and give them money, food, and clothes, and, if they can afford it, a cow ; this is called Mansna, and they hope by the due performance of this duty to obtain pardon for the departing soul. If it can be avoided, no Hindu is allowed to die on a bedstead or in any upstairs room, and if this happen by accident to any person, it is believed he has com- mitted so terrible a sin that he can never go to heaven unless his relations spend very large sums of money to get the sin forgiven, for which purpose they must go to one of the holy cities, as Benares, Mathra, or Pohowa in the Amballa district, where they offer to the Brahmans cows, clothes, and money, and repeat a particular portion out of the Ved one hundred and tiventy-five thotisand times, giving to a Brahman four annas for each time this portion is repeated ! A place is prepared on the ground for the dying person or child, by spreading ' phalgu ' sand brought from the bed of the Ganges, and over this 'Kusha' grass ; upon this he is laid to breathe his last ; near his feet a little hole is dug, which is filled with Ganges water, so that he may die with his feet in that holy water ; and close to his head they place a heap of wheat, cotton- wool, curdled milk, iron, and ' maha ' (a kind of lentil), with seven kinds of grain mixed together, and some fruit, while two little lamps made of flour-and-water paste, and having wicks floating in mustard oil, are placed in the hands, so that to the last there may be light before the eyes, for the soul. All the time small quantities of Ganges water are occasionally poured into A CALL TO MOTHERS. 75 the mouth, and some one goes on repeating the name of Rdiii. These ceremonies have to be performed by the nearest relative, as a son for his father, a wife for her husband, and so on. The dead body is called ' paret,' which means with- 07Lt soul, and whoever touches becomes unclean. After death, the next ceremony is called ' Kiriya.' This also must be performed by a near relative ; it consists in drawing water for washing the body, and otherwise preparing for the burning. If a man performs this, he must be shaven, and go barefoot, and wear a new sacred thread ; in the case of a woman performing it, in con- sequence of there being no sufficiently near male relative, she is not obliged to be shaven. A class of Brahmans called ' Acharaj ' have only to do with laying out the dead, and they are never admitted into any house except for this purpose, neither would any Hindu at other times touch them or have any dealings with them. An acharaj goes with the man who is to perform the ceremony of ' Kiriya,' and while this man draws water in a new vessel out of a well the acharaj repeats portions of the Shastras. With this water the dead body is bathed, and it is subsequently dressed in accordance with certain rules. In the case of a married woman whose husband is living, she is dressed after death entirely in red, and must wear three chief jewels, one on the head, one on the nose, and a finger ring ; if she is a widow or unmarried, she is dressed in white and has no jewels. A man has a simple white shroud and a pagri (turban). 76 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. The bier, in the case of the very young and unmarried, is made of several short pieces of wood put together hke a ladder, the use of small pieces of wood signifying that the life has been prematurely cut off. For young married people a single plank is used. For older people there is a canopy over the bier made of bamboos, covered with red cloth, and decorated with flags and flowers, and cocoa-nuts covered with silver leaf, each married daughter ultimately getting one cocoa-nut from the bier of her parent. In the case of people who have lived beyond middle life or on to old age, there are music and rejoicing at the funeral. Before the procession leaves the house the acharaj makes four balls of barley and rice flour kneaded together; these balls are called 'pinds,' and they are for offering to different gods, but ultimately of course fall to the share of the performer of this puja. He offers the first to the god on the spot on ivhicJi the person died ; this is done at the moment of liftinof the bier. The second is offered to the orod of the house as' the corpse passes out at the door ; the third to the god of the gate at which the procession happens' to leave the city ; and the fourth, on arriving at the place of burning, to the presiding deity there. On reaching this place, the friends tear open the winding-sheet over the face, and turn the corpse so that the face is towards the sun. A large quantity of wood is then arranged, and the body placed upon it, ghi and gold-leaf being stuffed into the mouth, ears, and nostrils. Much ghi is also poured over the wood to cause it to burn more rapidly, and the friends throw sandal-wood and tulsi-wood on to the ri m "V n J , '^^' h- A CALL TO MOTHERS. 77 pile, to show their love and respect. The body is then covered with the remainder of the wood, and the per- former of 'Kiriya' sets fire to it. The acharaj next makes (or pretends to make) an astronomical calculation, and declares that before the year is over five of the family will die ; whereupon five little figures are made of grass and thrown into the burning pile, and the acharaj prays to Shiv, the god of death, to avert the calamity. The performer of 'Kiriya' next takes a- thick stafi" and breaks the skull, the meaning of which is, that as the nearest relative, presumably the most loved, is the one who breaks the dead man's head, the affections ought not to be set on anything in this world. Penally every one picks up a small piece of straw, and the acharaj says, ' Whatever is past, is past ; there is no use in weep- ing ; such is the way of the world ; the spirit has returned unto the God who gave it;' all the people then say, 'From where the spirit came, there it is gone,' and, breaking the straw in two, they throw it over their heads towards the burning pile, and all go away without looking back. They go to a tank or well, and wash themselves and their clothes. The performer of 'Kiriya' fasts all that day strictly, and for thirteen days eats only once a day ; on reaching the house he has to put a little lamp on the spot where the person died, and this lamp is never allowed to go out for ten days. Near it a hole is dug in the ground, over which is suspended a porous cup containing milk and water, which during the ten days continually dribbles into the hole, an oftering to the gods to induce them to protect the departed on his journey 78 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. through the spirit-world. Every morning and evening an acharaj comes and helps the performer of ' Kiriya' to make pinds, not of barley and rice as before, but of thirteen other ingredients. These pinds are offered to ensure the formation of a new body for the departed soul. It is believed to take 360 days (the length of the Hindu year) for the spirit to reach God ; and either one Brahman is fed every day for a year, and given large supplies of clothes, etc., such as it is supposed the dead man requires, or else 360 Brahmans are fed at one time, and given enough for the wants of the deceased relative for a year. Every evening the ProJiat, or Brahman of the family, comes and reads about heaven and hell, from a book believed to have been written by a prophet who had visited both places. The Prohat gets every evening a lamp, and some milk and flowers, in order to secure a quiet night for the dead. On the fourth day they go to pick the bones out of the ashes, taking with them milk and water, and offerings of sweets, scents, flowers, etc., placed on little plates made of leaves. The offerings are placed on either side of the heap of ashes, and puja is done to eight gods, and some passages from the Shastras are read. The eight gods are — (i) Rajah Inda, the god of the East, the greatest god, and the last to whom the spirit goes before reaching its final destination; (2) Dhurram Rai, the god of the South, the god of judgment ; (3) Baran, the god of the West, and god of water ; (4) Kuber, the god of the North, the god of riches ; (5) Chandar Ma, the god of A CALL TO MOTHERS. 79 light ; (6) Shiv, the god of death ; (7) Agni, the god of fire ; (8) Paun, the god of air. The meaning of offerings being made to all these is, that each may in his special region protect the soul and help it on its way to Rajah Inda. The ashes are generally still hot, and the acharaj and performer of ' Kiriya ' have little spades to rake out the bones, and milk and water to cool them before picking them up, and collecting them in a cloth spread for the pur- pose. They next gather the ashes, and throw them into water, and the bones they keep in a bag made of deer's- skin, till they have an opportunity of sending them to be cast into the Ganges, which must be within six months. On the tenth day all the friends assemble, and take the little lamp which has been burning on the spot where the person died, and, going together to a far-distant tank, they float it on the water, and offer with it a pind ; this is the last act of puja to Shiv, the god of death. On the thirteenth clay the acharaj comes to do the last pujas to all the other gods. He makes three pinds (one for each of three generations), which are then cut up and mixed together, signifying that the departed person is now gathered to his fathers. He is then seated on a bedstead, and swung round and round, while he shouts, ' worthy of heaven.' He next makes twelve more pinds, one for each month in the year, and receives clothes and anything else of which the dead man is supposed to be in need, and departs with milk and water thrown after him, to signify, ' Never come again ! ' On the seventeenth day everything given to the acharaj is given over again 8o DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. to the prohat, and a number of Brahmans are fed. Mean- while, the soul for whom all this trouble is taken may pass, after weary journeyings, into any of the lower animals — a horse, a cat, a rat, even a snake ! O religion destitute of comfort and joy ! If we turn to the Mohamedans, their ideas as to the departure of the soul from the body give an insight into the dark, comfortless, superstitious rites of their religion. There Is a belief that after death the angel washes the knives with which he killed the person in any vessels of water which may happen to be in the room, so the rela- tives of the deceased run and empty all such vessels as quickly as they can. Some think that after death life still remains in the brain, and that the sound of weeping and wailing is heard by the dead ; this idea incites the friends to make as much noise over their mourning as is possible. A hired woman is engaged, who stands in the centre of the room or court, all the relatives and friends of the dead person standing in a circle round her ; she keeps on repeating the virtues of the deceased, and the others have to beat their breasts, tear their hair, and cry as loudly as they can : this goes on for forty days. There are also hired men and women who lay out the dead. From fifteen yards of new long cloth two sheets are made, one upper and one lower, and a long piece is torn off to make a shroud, while a little piece is reserved for a cap. When all this has been arranged, a third large sheet is provided for enveloping the whole body, and this is tied above the head and below the feet. A mixture of rose- water and camphor is thrown over the body, verses from A CALL TO MOTHERS. 8i the Koran being all the time repeated in the ears, with the idea that something may be heard and remembered. The grave is dug with an excavation on one side within it, which must be long enough for the body to lie in, and deep enough for it to sit up in. It is supposed that while the funeral service is being read the soul finally departs from the brain. When the funeral is over, the mourners move away forty steps from the grave, and then all turn round and lift up their hands towards heaven, and pray for mercy. It is believed that at this juncture the angel Gabriel comes into the grave to question the dead. The angel is said to tell him to sit up (hence they are so particular about having the cave high enough), and to ask him, ' Whose servant are you .^ ' If the dead man has been a good man, the answer is, ' The servant of God ; ' but a wicked person becomes frightened at the dreadful appearance of the angel, especially because his eyes burn like flames of fire, and in his terror he answers, ' Thy servant,' at which the angel beats him with an iron rod ; and the same question is asked again, but he can orive no other answer. The Mohamedans believe that in their graveyards screams and groans may be heard, which are explained on the supposition that Gabriel is administering chastise- ment to refractory followers of the prophet. Hence the custom, as soon as the lio-hts are lio-hted in the evening-, for all devout Mohamedans to repeat some portion of the Koran and pray. At length an ant that happens to be in the grave goes into the dead man's ear, and tells him to say, ' I am the servant of God, and follower of F 82 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. Mohamed ; God is the only Lord, and Mohamed is the true prophet of God.' After this the angel leaves off beating, and goes away, saying, ' Rest in peace until the judgment day.' The poor are fed for forty days by the relatives of the deceased, in the hope that in some way or other he will be benefited by it. The miseries of the women of India when they are ill are such as almost to surpass our powers of belief. Stories might be told of their treatment by hakims, and -)f the exceedingly great difficulty of taking into Zenana nomes any good system of doctoring or nursing, which would, perhaps, cause our readers to suspect exaggera- tion ; but it may be safely asserted that it is scarcely possible to overdraw the picture. It is, of course, an old and oft-repeated story how, when in some great emer- gency a doctor is called in to prescribe for a lady who lives in pardah, he is only allowed to feel her pulse and see her tongue through holes cut in a curtain or sheet held between himself and his patient ; but the following fact may be new to many readers, and it well illustrates the absurdities practised with regard to medical treat- ment, and, perhaps, also the very light esteem in which the life and health of women are held in India. A Hindu gentleman called an English doctor to prescribe for his wife. On arriving, the doctor found he was expected to write the prescription and tell what was to be done for the patient merely from the account he could get of her malady from other persons, and he was not to see her at all. At this he demurred, and expressed a wish to at least feel her pulse and examine her tongue in the way A CALL TO MOTHERS. 83 above described. The reply was that it could not be allowed, and there was much discussion as to what had better be done. At length the husband said, ' My father and brothers and I have carefully considered the point, and we cannot allow you even to feel the pulse of the lady of this house' (a Hindu gentleman never says 'my wife,' unless he becomes extraordinarily anglicised) ; ' it would not be consistent with our ideas of our family honour ; but we have thought of a good plan : you may feel the pulse of her servant-woman, and after that you can prescribe.' It need scarcely be said that no treat- ment was attempted. One almost smiles at the tyranny of customs which make men, otherwise intelligent and well-informed, act with such folly ; but let us not forget that while we may laugh at such absurd conduct, to the poor suffering woman, who could not get the medical aid which she needed, and which was actually so near to her, it was no laughing matter. We know not what her malady was ; perhaps she was in great pain, or extreme weakness, perhaps dying; perhaps it might have been possible to alleviate her sufferings, or, better still, save her life. But she was ' in pardah,' and the family honour was involved, and this consideration overcame every other ; it is too probable she was but the representative of millions, who in the course of years are sacrificed for such absurd folly. Many cruel and superstitious customs prevail, which add considerably to the list of sick and dying among the women. After the birth of a child, a Hindu woman is kept in a very small, close, dark room, with a fire' (which 84 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. is generally placed under her bed), without any possi- bility of fresh air ; on the next day she is given a cold bath, and returned to her cell like a prisoner ! Small wonder that the mortality among young mothers is frightfully high ; indeed it seems as though means were devised for shortening their lives. In some parts it is the custom in a time of great drought to propitiate the gods by pouring water over any unhappy old woman who can be caught in a galli, and who is too feeble to run away from her persecutors. The water is drawn up from a well in an iron bucket, and the performance ends with beating the old woman with the empty bucket. Of course, when she is allowed to go, no one attends to her or dresses her wounds, unless she is so fortunate as to be able to turn her steps towards the Zenana Mission Hospital, where she can be comforted and cared for. But Mission Hospitals are few and far between, and multitudes of the victims of superstition are quite beyond the reach of all the means of help at present to be found in India. How loudly do their sufterings appeal to every woman who has known pain a7id ease, weakness and sickness with kind care, and gentle, skil- ful treatment ; who can scarcely imagine what it must be to endure anguish without the least hope of any comfort, help, or relief, almost without the knowledge that there are such things in this world of sorrow ! We have often been struck by a hopeless, stolid kind of power of bearing misery which these women seem to acquire : it is only now and then that they give way to complaining of their undoubtedly hard lot. We have A CALL TO MOTHERS. 85 seen the totally blind, for whom there was no hope in this world, come to a doctor fully persuaded that they would soon see, and on being told there was nothing to be done, they have risen to go without the least change in their faces, without a look of sorrow or disappoint- ment, and have just said, ' Achchha, Khudd Ki marzi ' {i.e. Very good, God's Will), or perhaps they have used the less happy expression, ' Qismat' (Fate), and some- times they will say, ' It is what is written for me,' referring to an idea that all that is to happen to a person is written on the frontal bone, or bone of the forehead, and that whatever is written there must surely come to pass, and generally in using this expression they touch their foreheads and say, ' Mere nasi'b,' which means ' My des- tinies.' A cripple woman who was visited by some missionaries had been twenty years unable to walk, and she said she had only grumbled once all the time, and that was when her dear son, aged twenty-three, went out one morning strong and well, and was drowned in a sacred tank where he had gone to bathe. She said she did not mind being such a helpless cripple, if only God would let her go once to see the tank, and the place where her boy was drowned ! Many touching stories of the possibility of reaching the depths of these women's hearts, although they are so thickly crusted over with sorrow and sin as to be very hard, may be told by those who have been among them, not alone as missionaries, but as medical missionaries, to relieve their sufferings, to soothe them in pain and weakness, and then to tell them of the great spring and 86 r>A UGHTERS OF THE KING. source of the love which they themselves are trying, by God's grace, to pour out upon these sad, weary lives. A poor woman, very ill with cancer in the throat, was received into a Mission Hospital. She was a devout Mohamedan, and it was remarkable the fervour with which she used to ask a blessing before every meal, and give thanks after it, and never take her medicine with- out first lifting up her eyes towards heaven and saying, * God bless this medicine, and make me well.' She was at first very angry when any allusion was made to the Saviour, and she said many bitter things in her ignor- ance against Him and His people; but she softened by degrees and began to listen to the story of His love, and at length she took His name in her prayers. She was wonderfully patient about her terrible disease, which continued its ravages until her head was nearly severed from her body, but she was never once heai^d to grumble. What a lesson for some Christians ! She passed away confessing her faith in ' Jesus, the Son of God, the Saviour of sinners.' She was not baptized, but we quote her case as a proof that tenderness and pitying love in times of sickness are means of reaching and softening the heart, and that women in India, hardened as they often are by circumstances, are not beyond the power of the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. But God works by means, and the channels of that love and grace it is His will to find among His re- joicing, free, and favoured daughters in Christian lands ! With one story of a poor girl brought into the fold A CALL TO MOTHERS. 87 of Christ, we must close this appeal to mothers, and it is a story likely to touch every mother's heart. Rahmo was a despised outcast, disliked by those who had charge of her on account of her helplessness, for she was a paralytic, and having no father or mother or other responsible relation, she was left in a large Civil Hospital to be never claimed aofain. In course of time she was discharged incurable, and her story was told to a Medical Mission lady, who was begged to take her in and have her nursed. She replied, ' We can scarcely take incurables into our little Hospital.' But it was urged that she had no home or friends, that she must end her days as a Mohamedan in a workhouse, where of course none would care for her soul, but that perhaps in the Mission Hospital she might become a Christian ! So Rahmo was received into the Mission Hospital, which has ever since been her home. For nearly three years she listened day by day to Gospel teaching, and began at length to learn by heart many texts, the Lord's Prayer, and some hymns. Her paralysis proved incurable, but her general health improved greatly, and her mind strengthened with good diet and happy surroundings, until at length she was quite intelligent and bright. In January 1884 she was, at her own earnest desire, baptized, after giving decided evidence of a true and lively faith in her Saviour. She was very happy about her baptism, and entered into everything in a manner which surprised those who had regarded her as somewhat weak. The service was private, because of the great diffi- 88 r>A UGHTERS OF THE KTNG. culty of taking- so helpless a person to church. The name Rahmo means mercy, and it was retained, as every one felt it could not be improved upon. God had indeed had mercy on her! After her baptism she developed much as a Christian, endeavouring to be very patient under her trying affliction, and to overcome a naturally bad temper. She also often spoke to those who were ill in beds near to her, concerning the love of God, and it was interesting to see her at the time of evening prayers, lifting up a finger and trying to silence the patients. In the next year she heard about the approaching confirmation of a Christian nurse and Bible- woman, living at the Hospital, and she said to the missionary who had been the means of rescuing her, and whom she always regarded as a mother, ' Mama, dear, I want to be confirmed ; you know I am God's child, but I have never seen my Father's House.' After this touching appeal difficulties were put aside, and Rahmo was taken to church and confirmed, lying on her bed. There were about thirty other candidates, and the service was long, but the girl's devout ' Amen ' was never wanting, showing how closely she was follow- ing everything that was said, and she was very solemnly quiet as the Bishop walked down the aisle and stood by her couch to confirm her. Probably none of those present had ever witnessed such a scene before, and none could help giving thanks at the thought that this happy girl was rescued from evil, misery, and death without hope, and brought to the place which she could truly call her ' Father's House.' Shortly afterwards A CALL TO MOTHERS. 89 she was permitted to commemorate the dying love of her Saviour, the opportunity being offered to her of joining with a dying Christian woman in the Hospital, to whom the Holy Communion was going to be admin- istered. She was very full of joy about this, and her quiet and reverent manner showed that she really under- stood the solemnity of the service in which she took part. She used on that occasion an extraordinary expression for one who had so lately been brought to know God, and who had been through the greater part of her life so ignorant. She said to young companions and others in the Hospital, ' Don't come and talk to me to-day ; I want to be alone with Him.' Truly in this dear girl's case we may rejoice over one who is ' a King's daughter.' ^ How overwhelming is the thouo-ht that there are thousands of such now neglected, despised, oppressed, and afflicted, who viight be brought up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay, to have their feet set upon a rock, and to have a new song put into their mouths, even praise unto our God ! Oh that we could rouse the women of England as with a trumpet-call, to engage in the blessed service of seeking- them out and bringfinof them to Jesus ! This work demands — (i) Enthtisiasin. Let us enter lovingly, feelingly into this enterprise, — engaging in it talents spiritual, mental, physical, — realising it to be something worth living for,— yes ! and worth dying for. ^ Since this was written Rahrno has passed peacefully away into her ' Fathers House on high,'' on Whit-Monday, June 14, 1886. 90 DA UGHTERS OF THE KING. (2) Earnestness. Let not mere enthusiasm expend itself in feeling without advancing to real earnest effort ; let collections, subscriptions, working parties, gifts for schools and Zenana pupils, lively interest, heartfelt prayers, all prove that in a work so near the Saviour's heart we are enlisting earnest energy. And shall not one still greater proof of this be seen in the readiness of England's mothers to give daughters to God for India ? (3) Endurance. ' It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing.' Difficulties will meet workers in India, and those who seek to help and encourage them ; but to all alike comes the message, so full of solemn warning and holy comfort, ' Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.' ^f 1^10 Kingdom tljece ^Ijall lie no enli» OMOST merciful and gracious God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; in His name we offer unto Thee our heart- felt praises for the many mercies and favours vouchsafed to us. We have light and comfort, knowledge and joy, the blessing of Christian homes and peaceful days, while so many millions of our fellow-beings are in darkness, ignorance, and sorrow, living without the knowledge of Thy great Salvation, and dying without hope. By Thy grace we are what we are, and of Thy goodness and mercy we enjoy all these privileges. Accept our thanksgivings and praises, and enable us to show them forth in our lives ; make us more diligent in prayers, in gifts, in efforts for those who have not the means of grace and the hope of glory, and grant in Thy great mercy that many of Thy servants may be sent forth to heathen and Mohamedan countries, to carry good tidings, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to offer to the sad ' the garment of praise for the spirit PR A YER. 91 of heaviness ; ' and do Thou give to those who shall be taught, the hearing ear and the understanding heart, so that Thy word may be unto them ' the savour of life unto life,' 'the power of God unto Salvation.' Let those who have believed and obeyed the Gospel be made stronger and stronger in faith, and enabled to live as very members of the body of Christ, becoming themselves, by earnest words and holy lives, mis- sionaries to those still unsaved. Accept whatever we have tried to do in the name of Jesus to further Thy cause in the world, cleanse us and our services in His precious blood, confirm and strengthen us in every good word and work, establish Thou the work of our hands upon us, and let all redound to Thy glory. Finally, do Thou advance the Kingdom and hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and cause thy whole Church to be watching and waiting for Him, and so living and working for her absent Lord, that when He shall appear she may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming : for His only merits' sake who hath loved her, and washed her from her sins in His own blood, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever ! Amen. SACRED BULL. CHAPTER V. a Call to C|)iltiten. ' A grain of corn an infant's hand A/ay plant upon an inch of land, Whence twenty stalks may spring and yield Enough to stock a littlefield. The harvest of that field might then Be multiplied to ten times ten, Which sown thrice more would furnish bread, Wherewith an army might be fed. A penny is a little thing Which e'en a poor man's child may fling Into the treasury of Heaven , And make it worth as tnuch as seven. As seven ! Nay, worth its weight in gold, And that increased a hundredfold. For lo I a pemiy tract, if well Applied, may save a soul from hell. That soul caTi scarce be saved alone, It must, it will, its bliss make known ; Come, it will cry, and you shall see What great things God hath done for me I Hundreds that joyful sound may hear. Hear with the heart as well as ear. And these to thousands more proclaim Salvation in the Only Name. That Only Name, above, below, Let Jews and Turks and Pagans knoic, Till every tongue and tribe shall call On Jesus as the Lord of all!' OW many times In every year do happy English children join in singing the beautiful words — 'Jesus shall reign where'er the sun Doth his successive journeys run ; His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more.' A CALL TO CHILDREN. 93 We know that this hymn is really founded on Psalm Ixxii., and is therefore full not only of happy thoughts concerning the future, but of actual promises of God. We who are His children are watching and waiting for the fulfilment of these promises. When we leave England and travel far in other lands, we soon begin to see that the fulfilment has not come yet. It is quite true that 'the Lord reigneth ' over the universe, and orders everything that happens, and ' doeth according to His will;' but He is not yet reigning in all hearts, not yet being loyally obeyed by all men as their true and only King. Ah ! if He were, what a different world it would be ! Why, it would really be heaven ! Think of what the hymn calls the sun's journeys. Of course we know that the sun does not journey at all ; it remains quite still, and its 'rising' and 'setting' are only, as we '^'^y, figures of speech. But the meaning is, all round the world, and if we think round the world, our thoughts will have to travel across many countries where Jesus is not loved, where hearts are not yielded to Him, where lives are not lived for Him, where His wise and holy laws are not kept. There is one who is called ' the God of this world.' We all know who that is ; he is blinding people's eyes, so that they shall not see the Holy King Jesus. All the object of missions to the heathen is 'to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.' Every Chris- tian is distinctly called to help in some way in this great work, even children having their part to take. To His disciples Jesus said, ' Go ye into all the world and preach 94 DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. the Gospel to every creature,' and every Christian child is His disciple, and therefore under the obligation to obey this command. There is no part of the world which does not present this work for us to do. Calls come to us from China, from Japan, from Africa, from the isles of the seas, and from the vast country called India, where our beloved Queen rules as Empress. How interesting to children to read and hear accounts of these countries, of their inhabitants, their customs, their scenery, their many strange and wonderful sights ; and how much must the interest increase when they are told that they, in the earnestness of their young hearts' love for Jesus Christ, may be allowed to help in beautifying with His holy religion countries now charming in many other ways, but having all their beauty spoilt, only because 'man is vile'! It is particularly about India that we have to tell our young readers, and, out of all India's millions, more especially about the mothers and children. How difficult it is to enable those who have never seen to understand how vast is the multitude of girls and women in India ! Suppose you could have them pass before you as you sit reading, and suppose that one girl or woman should pass you every minute, it is a fact that it would take more than 250 years for all to go by. Only try to imagine the days, weeks, months, and years slowly passing away, and every minute, with- out any cessation, one woman or girl coming and going, until two and a half centuries were ended ! We can scarcely imagine this, but if we try, it will enable us a little better to understand how many many mothers and A CALL TO CHILDREN. 95 daughters there are in India. You shall now hear one of the foolish stories which poor, dark Indian mothers teach to their little children as sacred history. The Hindus believe that many lakhs ^ of years ago God had a desire in His heart to have some form. He was then, they say, moving like a Spirit on the face of water. When this desire came it was soon gratified, and the Deity took the form of an ^g