The one kindergarten class taught entirely in Tamil is the Scripture lesson, illustrated whenever possible by pictures; and being always taught about sacred things in Tamil, the babies have no doubt about the language in use in Bible days. But sometimes a little mind is puzzled, as an instructive aside revealed a day or two ago. For their teacher had told them in English, not as a Scripture lesson, but just as a story, about Peter and John and the lame man. The picture was before them, and they understood and followed keenly; but one little girl whispered to another, who happened to be the well-informed Cock-robin: "Did Peter and John talk English or Tamil?" "Tamil, of course!" returned Cock-robin, without a moment's hesitation.

The Scripture lessons are usually given by Arulai, whose delight is Bible teaching. "So that as much as lieth in you you will apply yourself wholly to this one thing, and draw all your cares and studies this way," is a word that always comes to mind when one thinks of Arulai and her Bible. She much enjoys taking the babies, believing that the impressions created upon the mind of a little child are practically indelible.

Sometimes these impressions are expressed in vigorous fashion. Once the subject of the class was the Good Samaritan. The babies were greatly exercised over the scandalous behaviour of the priest and the Levite. "Punish them! Let them have whippings!" they demanded. Arulai explained further. But one baby got up from her seat and walked solemnly to the picture. "Take care what you are doing!" she remarked impressively in Tamil, shaking her finger at the two retreating backs. "Naughty! naughty!"—this was in English—"take care!"

One of the favourite pictures shows Abraham and Isaac on the way to the mount of sacrifice. This story was told one morning with much reverence and feeling, and the babies were impressed. There were tears in Bala's eyes as she gazed at the picture, but she brushed them away hurriedly and hoped no one had noticed. Only Chellalu appeared perfectly unconcerned. She had business of her own on hand, and the story, it seemed, had not touched her. The babies are searched before they come to school, and all toys, bits of string, old tins, and sundries are removed from their persons. But there are ways of evading inquisitors. Chellalu knows these ways. She now produced a long wisp of red tape from somewhere—she did not tell us where—and proceeded to tie her feet together. This accomplished, she curled herself up on the bench like a caterpillar on a leaf, and to all appearances went to sleep. Why was she not awakened and compelled to behave properly? asks the reader, duly shocked. Perhaps because on that rather special morning the teacher preferred her asleep.



The story finished, the children were questioned, and they answered with unwonted gravity. "What did Isaac say to his father as they walked alone together?" An awed little voice had begun the required answer, when Chellalu suddenly uncurled, sat up, and said in clear, decided Tamil: "He said, 'Father! do not kill me!' Yesh! that was what he said."

When first the babies heard about Heaven, they all wanted to go at once, and with difficulty were restrained from praying to be taken there immediately. There was one naughty child who, when she was given medicine, invariably announced, "I will not stay in this village: I am going to Heaven! I am going now!" But they soon grew wiser. It was our excitable, merry little Jullanie who summed up all desires with most simplicity: "Lord Jesus, please take me there or anywhere anytime; only wherever I am, please stay there too!" Some of the babies are carnal: "When I go to that village (Heaven), I shall go for a ride on the cherubim's wings. I will make them take me to all sorts of places, just wherever I want to go."

The latest pronouncement, however, was for the moment the most perplexing. "Come-anda-look-ata-well!" said Chellalu yesterday evening, the sentence in a single long word. The well is being dug in the Menagerie garden and is surrounded by a trellis, beyond which the babies may not pass, unless taken by one of ourselves. As we drew near to the well, Chellalu pointed to it and said: "Amma! That is the way to Heaven!" This speech, which was in Tamil, considerably surprised me, as naturally we think of Heaven above the bright blue sky. The yawning gulf of the unfinished well suggested something different.

But Chellalu was positive. "It is the way to Heaven. I may not go there, but you may! Yesh! you may go to Heaven, Amma, but I may not!" She had nothing more to say; and we wondered how she could possibly have arrived at so extraordinary a conclusion, till we remembered that it had been explained to the babies that any baby falling in would probably be drowned and die, and so until it was finished and made safe no baby must go near it. Chellalu had evidently argued that as to die meant going to Heaven, the well must be the way to Heaven; and as only grown-up people might go near it, they, and they alone apparently, were allowed to go to Heaven.

These babies are nothing if not practical. Arulai had been teaching the story of the Unmerciful Servant; and to bring it down to nursery life, supposed the case of a baby who snatched at other babies' toys, and was unfair and selfish. Such a baby, if not reformed, would grow up and be like the Unmerciful Servant. The babies looked upon the back of the offender as shown in the picture. "Bad man! Nasty man!" they said to each other, pointing to him with aversion. And Arulai closed the class with a short prayer that none of the babies might ever be like the Unmerciful Servant.

The prayer over, the babies rushed to the table where their toys were put during the Scripture lesson. Pyarie got there first, and, gathering all she could reach, she swept them into her lap and was darting off with them, when a word from Arulai recalled her. For a moment there was a struggle. Then she ran up to Tingalu, the child she had chiefly defrauded, poured all her treasures into her lap, and then sprang into Arulai's arms with the eager question: "Acca! Acca! Am I not a Merciful Servant?"



CHAPTER XXIV

The Accals

"This sacred work demands not lukewarm, selfish, slack souls, but hearts more finely tempered than steel, wills purer and harder than the diamond."—PERE DIDON.



THE Accals, without whom this work in all its various branches could not be undertaken, are a band of Indian sisters (the word Accal means older sister) who live for the service of the children. First among the Accals is Ponnamal (Golden). With the quick affection of the East the children find another word for Gold and call her doubly Golden Sister.

Sometimes we are asked if we ever find an Indian fellow-worker whom we can thoroughly trust. The ungenerous question would make us as indignant as it would if it were asked about our own relations, were it not that we know it is asked in ignorance by those who have never had the opportunity of experiencing, or have missed the happiness of enjoying, true friendship with the people of this land. Those who have known that happiness, know the limitless loyalty and the tender, wonderful love that is lavished on the one who feels so unworthy of it all. If there is distance and want of sympathy between those who are called to be workers together with the great Master, is not something wrong? Simple, effortless intimacy, that closeness of touch which is friendship indeed, is surely possible. But rather we would put it otherwise, and say that without it service together, of the only sort we would care to know, is perfectly impossible.



In our work all along we have had this joy to the full. God in His goodness gave us from the first those who responded at once to the confidence we offered them. In India the ideal of a consecrated life is a life with no reserves—which seeks for nothing, understands nothing, cares for nothing but to be poured forth upon the sacrifice and service. Pierce through the various incrustations which have over-laid this pure ideal, give no heed to the effect of Western influence and example, and you come upon this feeling, however expressed or unexpressed, at the very back of all—the instinct that recognises and responds to the call to sacrifice, and does not understand its absence in the lives of those who profess to follow the Crucified. Who, to whom this ideal is indeed "The Gleam," that draws and ever draws the soul to passionate allegiance, can fail to find in the Indian nature at its truest and finest that kinship of spirit which knits hearts together? "And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul": this tells it all. The spring of heart to heart that we call affinity, the knitting no hand can ever afterward unravel—these experiences have been granted to us all through our work together, and we thank God for it.

Ponnamal's work lies chiefly among the convert-nurses and the babies. She has charge of the nurseries and of the food arrangements, so intricate and difficult to the mere lay mind; she trains her workers to thoroughness and earnestness, and by force of example seems to create an atmosphere of cheerful unselfishness that is very inspiring. How often we have sent a young convert, tempted to self-centredness and depression, to Ponnamal, and seen her return to her ordinary work braced and bright and sensible. We are all faulty and weak at times, and every nursery, like every life, has its occasional lapses; but on the whole it is not too much to say that the nurseries are happy places, and Ponnamal's influence goes through them all like a fresh wind. And this in spite of very poor health. For Ponnamal, who was the leader of our itinerating band, broke down hopelessly, and thought her use in life had passed—till the babies came and brought her back to activity again. And the joy of the Lord, we have often proved, is strength for body as well as soul.

Sellamuttu, who comes next to Ponnamal, is the "Pearl" of previous records, and she has been a pearl to us through all our years together. She is special Accal to the household of children above the baby-age—a healthy, high-spirited crow of most diverse dispositions; and she is loved by one and all with a love which is tempered with great respect, for she is "all pure justice," as a little girl remarked feelingly not long ago, after being rather sharply reproved for exceeding naughtiness: "within my heart wrath burned like a fire; but my mouth could not open to reply, for inside me a voice said, 'It is true, entirely true; Accal is perfectly just.'"

This Accal, however, is most tender in her affections, and among the babies she has some particular specials. One of these is the solemn-faced morsel of the photograph, to save whom she travelled, counting by time, as far as from London to Moscow and back; and the baby arrived as happy and well as when the friends at "Moscow" sent her off with prayers and blessings and kindness. But the photograph was a shock. "Aiyo!" she said, quite upset to see her delight so misrepresented, "that is not Suseela! There is no smile, no pleasure in her face!" We comforted her by the assurance that any one who understood babies and their ways would consider the camera responsible for the expression. And at least the baby was obedient. Had she not told her to make a salaam, and had not the little hand gone up in serious salute? A perfectly obedient baby is Sellamuttu's ideal, and she was satisfied.



Both these sisters came to us at some loss to themselves, for both could have lived at home at ease if they had been so inclined. Ponnamal lost all her little fortune by joining us. She could, perhaps, have recovered it by going to law, but she did not feel it right to do so, and she suffered herself to be defrauded. "How could I teach others to be unworldly if I myself did what to them would appear worldly-minded?" That was all she ever said by way of explanation.

Next to Ponnamal and Sellamuttu come the motherly-hearted Gnanamal and Annamai. They came to us when we were in circumstances of peculiar difficulty. The work was just beginning, and we had not enough trustworthy helpers; so, wearied with disturbed nights, we were almost at the end of our strength. "Send us help!" we prayed, and went on each trying to do the work of three. It was one hot, tiring afternoon, when we longed to forget everything and rest for half an hour, but could not, because there was so much to do, that a bright, capable face appeared at the door of our room, and Annamai, Lulla's beloved, came in and said: "God sent me, and my relative" (naming a mission catechist) "brought me. And so I have come!"

And Gnanamal—we were in dire straits, for a dear little babe had suffered at the hands of one who thought first of herself and second of her charge, and the most careful tending was needed if the baby was to survive—it was then Gnanamal came and took charge of the delicate child, and became the comfort and help she has ever continued to be. When there is serious illness, and night-nursing is required, Gnanamal is always ready to volunteer; though to her, as to most of us in India, night work is not what the flesh would choose. Then in the morning, when we go to relieve her, we find her bright as ever, as if she had slept comfortably all the time. We think this sort of help worth gratitude.

The convert-workers, dear as dear children, but, thank God, dependable as comrades, come next in age to the head Accals. Arulai Tara (known to some as "Star") is what her name suggests, something steadfast, something shining, something burning with a pure devotion which kindles other fires. We cannot imagine our children without their beloved Arulai. Then there is Sundoshie (Joy), to the left next Suhinie in the photo, a young wife for whom poison was prepared three times, and whose escape from death at the hand of husband and mother-in-law was one of those quiet miracles which God is ever working in this land of cruelty in dark places. And Suhinie (Gladness), whose story of deliverance has been told before;[E] and Esli, the gift of a fellow-missionary, a most faithful girl; and others younger, but developing in character and trustworthiness. All these young converts need much care, but the care of genuine converts is very fruitful work; and one interesting part of it is the fitting of each to her niche, or of fitting the niche to her. Discernment of spirit is needed for this, for misfits means waste energy and great discomfort; and energy is too good a thing to waste, and comfort too pleasant a thing to spoil. So those who are responsible for this part of the work would be grateful for the remembrance of any who know how much depends upon it.

Among the recognised "fits" in our family is "the Accal who loves the unlovable babies." This is Suhinie. We tried her once with the Taraha children; but the terrible activity of these young people was altogether too much for the slowly moving machinery of poor Suhinie's brain, and she was perfectly overwhelmed and very miserable. For Suhinie hates hurry and sudden shocks of any sort, and the babies of maturer years discovered this immediately; and Suhinie, waddling forlornly after the babies, looked like a highly respectable duck in charge of a flock of impertinent robins.



It was quite a misfit, and Suhinie's worst came to the top, and we speedily moved her back again to the Premalia nursery.

For there you see Suhinie in her true sphere. Give her a poor, puny babe, who will never, if she can help it, let her Accal have an undisturbed hour; give her the most impossible, most troublesome baby in the nursery, and then you will see Suhinie's best. We discovered this when Ponnamal was in charge of the Neyoor nursery. Ponnamal had one small infant so cross that nobody wanted her. She would cry half the night, a snarly, snappy cry, that would not stop unless she was rocked, and began again as soon as the rocking was stopped. Ponnamal gave her to Suhinie.

"Night after night till two in the morning she would sing to that fractious child"—this was Ponnamal's story to me when next I went to Neyoor. "She never seemed to tire; hymn after hymn she would sing, on and on and on. I never saw her impatient with it; she just loved it from the first." And a curious thing began to happen: the baby grew like her Accal. This likeness was not caught in the photograph, but is nevertheless so observable that visitors have often asked if the little one were her own child.

This baby, Sununda by name, is greatly attached to Suhinie. As she is over two years old now, she has been promoted to the Taraha, and being an extremely wilful little person, she sometimes gets into trouble. One day I was called to remonstrate, and a little "morning glory" was required, and I put her in a corner to think about it. Another sinner had to be dealt with, and when I returned Sununda was nowhere to be found. I searched all over the Taraha and in the garden, and finally found her in the Premalia cuddled close to Suhinie. "She has told me all about it," said Suhinie, who was nursing another edition of difficult infancy; and she looked down on the curly head with eyes of brooding affection, like a tender turtle-dove upon her nestling. Then the roguish brown eyes smiled up at me with an expression of perfect confidence that I would understand and sympathise with the desire to share the troubles of this strange, sad life with so beloved an Accal.

The question of discipline is sometimes rather difficult with so many dispositions, each requiring different dealing. We try, of course, to fit the penalty to the crime, so that the child's sense of justice will work on our side; and in this we always find there is a wonderful unconscious co-operation on the part of the merest baby. But the older children used to be rather a problem. Some had come to us after their wills had become developed and their characters partly formed. Most of them were with us of their own free will, and could have walked off any day, for they knew where they would be welcome. Discipline under these circumstances is not entirely easy. But three years ago something of Revival Power swept through all our family. It was not the Great Revival for which we wait, but it was something most blessed in effect and abiding in result; and ever since then the tone has been higher and the life deeper, so that there is something to which we can appeal confident of a quick response. But children will be scampish; and once their earnestness of desire to be good was put to unexpected and somewhat drastic proof.

At that time the mild Esli had charge of the sewing-class, and the class had got into bad ways; carelessness and chattering prevailed, so Esli came in despair to me, and I talked to the erring children. They were sorry, made no excuses, and promised to be different in future. I left them repentant and thoroughly ashamed of themselves, and went to other duties.



Shortly afterwards Arulai found them in a state of great depression. They told her they had promised to be good at the sewing-class, but were afraid they would forget. Arulai's ideas are usually most original, and she sympathised with the children, but told them there was no need for them ever to forget. They asked eagerly what could be done to help them to remember. They had prayed, but even so had doubts. Was there anything to be done besides praying? Arulai said there was, and she expounded certain verses from the Book of Proverbs. "Sometimes the best way to make a mark upon the mind is to make a mark upon the body," she suggested, and asked the children if they would like this done. The children hesitated. They were aware that Arulai's "marks" were likely to be emphatic, for Arulai never does things by halves. But their devotion to her and belief in her overcame all fears; and being genuinely anxious to reform, they one and all consented. So she sent a small girl off to look for a cane; and presently one was produced, "thin and nice and suitable," as I was afterwards informed. The younger children were invited to take the cane and look at it, and consider well how it would feel. This they did obediently, but still stuck undauntedly to their determination, in fact, were keen to go through with it. Then Arulai explained that when the King said, "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying," he must have been thinking of a very little boy who had not the sense to know what was good for him. They had sense. The mark on the body would be waste punishment if it were not received willingly and gratefully; so if any child cried or pulled her hand away, she would stop. Then the children all stood up and held out their hands—what a moment for a photograph! Arulai's "mark upon the body" was a genuine affair, but the class received it with fortitude and gratitude.

When I heard this history, an hour or so after its occurrence, I rather demurred. The children had appeared to be sincerely sorry when I spoke to them, and if so, why proceed to extremities? But Arulai answered with wisdom and much assurance: "They have been talked to before and have been sorry, but they forgot and did it again. This time they will not forget." And neither did they. As long as that class continued, its behaviour was exemplary; and "the mark upon the mind," to judge by their demeanour, remained as fresh as it must have been on that memorable day when the "mark" upon the body effected its creation. The story ought to end here; but most stories have a sequel, and this has two.

The first occurred a few weeks later. A little girl, one of the sewing-class, had slipped into the habit of careless disobedience, followed too often by sulks. If we happened to come across her just when the thunder-clouds were gathering, we could usually divert her attention and avert the threatened trouble; but if we did not happen to meet her just at the right moment, she would plunge straight into the most outrageous naughtiness with a sort of purposeful directness that was difficult to deal with. Knowing the child well, we often let her choose her own punishments; and she did this so conscientiously that at last, as she herself mournfully remarked, "they were all used up," and there was nothing left but the most ancient—and perhaps in some cases most efficacious, which, the circumstances being what they were, I was naturally reluctant to try. But the child, trained to be perfectly honest with herself, apparently thought the thing over, and calmly made up her mind to accept the inevitable; for when, anxious she should not misunderstand, I began to explain matters to her, I was met by this somewhat astonishing response: "Yes, Amma, I know. I know you have tried everything else" (she said this almost sympathetically, as if appreciating my dilemma), "and so you have to do it. I do not like it at all, but Arulai Accal says it is no use unless I take it willingly, so Amma, please give me a good caning." (The idiom is the same in Tamil as in English, but there is a stronger word which she now proceeded to use with great deliberation.) "Yes, Amma, a hot caning—with my full mind I am willing. And I will not cry. Or if I do cry" (this was added in a serious, reflecting sort of way), "let not your soul spare for my crying!"

The second is less abnormal. Esli, whose placid soul had been sadly stirred at the time of the infliction of the "mark," was so impressed by its salutary effect that she conceived a new respect for the methods of King Solomon. The application of "morning glory" is a privilege reserved, as a rule, for ourselves; but one day, being doubtless hard pressed, Esli produced a stick—a very feeble one—and calling up the leader of all rebels, addressed herself to her. Chellalu, as might have been expected, was taken by surprise; and for one short moment Esli was permitted to follow the ways of the King. But only for a moment: for, suddenly apprehending the gravity of the situation, and realising that such precedent should not pass unchallenged, Chellalu, with a quick wriggle, stood forth free, seized the stick with a joyous shout, snapped it in two, and flourished round the room: then stopping before her afflicted Accal, she solemnly handed her one of the pieces, and with a bound and a scamper like a triumphant puppy, was off to the very end of her world with the other half of that stick.

When the Elf came to us on March 6, 1901, and we began to know some of the secrets of the Temple, we tried to save several little children, but we failed. The thought of those first children with whom we came into touch, but for whom all our efforts were unavailing, is unforgettable. We see them still, little children—lost. But we partly understand why we had to wait so long; we had not the workers then to help us to take care of them. We had only some of the older Accals, who could not have done it alone. These convert-girls, who now help us so much, were in Hindu homes; some of them had not even heard of Christ, whose love alone makes this work possible. For India is not England in its view of such work. There is absolutely nothing attractive about it. It is not "honourable work," like preaching and teaching. No money would have drawn these workers to us. Work which has no clear ending, but drifts on into the night if babies are young or troublesome—such work makes demands upon devotion and practical unselfishness which appeal to none but those who are prepared to love with the tireless love of the mother. "I do not want people who come to me under certain reservations. In battle you need soldiers who fear nothing." So wrote the heroic Pere Didon; and, though it may sound presumptuous to do so, we say the same. We want as comrades those who come to us without reservations. But such workers have to be prepared, and such preparation takes time. "Tarry ye the Lord's leisure," is a word that unfolds as we go on.

Yet we find that the work, though so demanding, is full of compensations. The convert in her loneliness is welcomed into a family where little children need her and will soon love her dearly. The uncomforted places in her heart become healed, for the touch of a little child is very healing. If she is willing to forget herself and live for that little child, something new springs up within her; she does not understand it, but those who watch her know that all is well. Sometimes long afterwards she reads her own heart's story and opens it to us. "I was torn with longing for my home. I dreamed night after night about it, and I used to waken just wild to run back. And yet I knew if I had, it would have been destruction to my soul. And then the baby came, and you put her into my arms, and she grew into my heart, and she took away all that feeling, till I forgot I ever had it." This was the story of one, a young wife, for whom the natural joys of home can never be. But if there is selfishness or slackness or a weak desire to drift along in easiness, taking all and giving nothing, things are otherwise. For such the nurseries hold nothing but noise and interruptions. We ask to be spared from such as these. Or if they come, may they be inspired by the constraining love of Christ and "The Glory of the Usual."

FOOTNOTE:

[E] Overweights of Joy, ch. xxiii. Suhinie left the nursery for a few hours' rest at noon on February 2, 1910. She fell asleep, to awaken in heaven.



CHAPTER XXV

The Little Accals

But Thou didst reckon, when at first Thy word our hearts and hands did crave, What it would come to at the worst To save. Perpetual knockings at Thy door, Tears sullying Thy transparent rooms.



THESE lines come with insistence as I look at the little Accals, who follow in order after the Accals, convert children, most of them, now growing up to helpfulness. If part of the story of one such young girl is told, it may help those to whom such tales are unfamiliar to understand and to care.

December 16, 1903, was spent by three of us in a rest-house on the outskirts of a Hindu town. We were on our way to Dohnavur from Madras, where we had seen Mr. and Mrs. Walker off for England. The two days' journey had left us somewhat weary; and yet we were strong in hope that day, for we knew there was special thought for us on board ship and at home, and something special was being asked as a birthday gift of joy. Arulai (Star) and Preena (the Elf), the two who were with me, were full of expectation. The day had often been marked by that joy of joys, a lost sheep found; and as we looked out at the heathen town with its many people so unconscious of our thoughts about them, we wondered where we should find the one our thoughts had singled from among the crowd, and we went out to look for her.



Up and down the long white streets we looked for her; on the little narrow verandahs, in the courtyards of the houses, in their dark inner rooms when we were invited within, out again into the sunshine—but we could not find her. That evening I remember, though we did not say so to each other, we felt a little disappointed. We had not met one who even remotely cared for the things we had come to bring.

No one had responded. There was not, so far as we knew it, even a little blade to point to, much less a sheaf to lay at His feet. After nightfall a woman came to see us. But she was a Christian, and beyond trying to cheer her to more earnest service among the heathen, there was nothing to be done for her. She left us, she told us afterwards, warmed to hope; and she talked to a child next morning, a little relative of her own, whose heart the Lord opened.

For three months we heard nothing; then unexpectedly a letter came. "The child is much in earnest, and she has made up her mind to join your Starry Cluster" (a name given by the people to our band, which at that time was itinerating in the district), "so I purpose sending her at once." The parents, for reasons of their own, agreed to the arrangement, and the little girl came to Dohnavur. It was wonderful to watch her learning. She is not intellectually brilliant, but the soul awakened at once, and there was that tenderness of response which refreshes the heart of the teacher. She seemed to come straight to our Lord Jesus and know Him as her Saviour, child though she was; and soon the longing to win others possessed her, and a younger child, who was her special charge among the nursery children, was influenced so gently and so willingly, that we do not know the time when, led by her little Accal, she too came to the Lover of children.

But one day, suddenly, trouble came. The parents appeared in the Dohnavur compound and claimed their daughter; and we had no legal right to refuse her, for she was under age. We shall never forget the hour they came. They had haunted the neighbourhood, as we afterwards heard, and prowled about outside the compound, watching for an opportunity to carry the child off without our knowledge. But she was always with the other children, so that plan failed. When first she heard they had come, she fled to the bungalow. "My parents have come! My father is strong! Oh, hide me! hide me!" she besought us. "I cannot resist him! I cannot!" and she cried and clung to us. But when we went out to meet them, she was perfectly quiet; and no one would have known from her manner as she stood before them, and answered their questions, without a tremble in her voice, how frightened she had been before.

"What is this talk about being a Christian?" the father demanded stormily. "What can an infant know about such matters? Are you wiser than your fathers, that their religion is not good enough for you?" And scathing mockery followed, harder to bear than abuse. "Come! Say salaam to the Missie Ammal, and bring your jewels" (she had taken them off), "and let us go home together." The child stood absolutely still, looking up with brave eyes; and to our astonishment said, as though it were the only thing to be said: "But I am a Christian. I cannot go home."

We had not thought of her saying this. We had, indeed, encouraged her as we had encouraged ourselves, to rest in our God, who is unto us a God of deliverances; but we had not suggested any line of resistance, and were not prepared for the calm refusal which so quietly took it for granted that she had no power to refuse.

The father was evidently nonplussed. He knew his little daughter, a timid child, whose translated name, Fawn, seems to express her exactly, and he gazed down upon her in silence for one surprised moment, then burst out in wrath and indignant revilings. "Snake! nurtured in the bosom only to turn and sting! Vile, filthy, disgusting insect, born to disgrace her caste!" And they cursed her as she stood.

Then their mood changed, and they tried pleadings, much more difficult to resist. The father reminded her of his pilgrimage to a famous Temple at her birth: "He had named her before the gods." Her mother touched on tenderer memories, till we could feel the quiver of soul, and feared for the little Fawn. Then they promised her liberty at home. She should read her Bible, pray to the true God, "for all gods are one." I saw Fawn shut her eyes for a moment. What she saw in that moment she told me afterwards: a fire lighted on the floor, a Bible tossed into it, two schoolboy brothers (whose leanings towards Christianity had been discovered) pushed into an inner room, the sound of blows and cries. "And after that my brothers did not want to be Christians any more." Poor little timid Fawn! We hardly wonder as we look at her that she shrank and shut her eyes. I have seen a child of twelve held down by a powerful arm and beaten across the bare shoulders with a cocoa-nut shell fastened to the end of a stick; I have seen her wrists twisted almost to dislocation—seen it, and been unable to help. I think of the child, now our happy Gladness, lover of the unlovable babies; and I for one cannot wonder at the little Fawn's fear. But aloud she only said: "Forgive me, I cannot go home."

The father grew impatient. "Get your jewels and let us be gone!" Fawn ran into the house, brought her jewels, and handed them to her father. He counted them over—pretty little chains and bangles, and then he eyed her curiously. A child to give up her jewels like this—he found it unaccountable. And then he began to argue, but Fawn answered him with clearness and simplicity, and he could not perplex her. She knew Whom she believed.

At last they rose to go, cursing the day she was born with a curse that sounded horrible. But their younger daughter, whom they had brought with them, threw herself upon the ground, tearing her hair, beating her breast, shrieking and rolling and flinging the dust about like a mad thing. "I will not go without my sister! I will not go! I will not go!" And she clung to Fawn, and wept and bewailed till we hardly dared to hope the child would be able to withstand her. For a moment the parents stood and waited. We, too, stood in tension of spirit. "They have told her to do it," whispered Fawn, and stood firm. Then the father stooped, snatched up the younger child, and departed, followed by the mother.

All this time two of our number had been waiting upon God in a quiet place out of sight. One of the two went after the parents, hoping for a chance to explain matters to the mother. As she drew near she heard the wife say in an undertone to her husband: "Leave them for to-day. Wait till to-night. You have carried off the younger in your arms against her will. What hinders you doing the same to the elder?" And that night we prayed that the Wall of Fire might be round us, and slept in peace.

As a dream when one awaketh, so was the memory of that afternoon when we awoke next morning. And as a dream so the parents passed out of sight, for they left before the dawn. But weeks afterwards we heard what had happened that night. They had lodged in the Hindu village outside our gate. There has never been a Christian there, and the people have never responded in any way. It is a little shut-in place of darkness on the borders of the light. But when the parents proposed a raid upon the bungalow that night they would not rise to it. "No, we have no feud with the bungalow. We will not do it." The nearest white face was a day's journey distant, and a woman alone, white or brown, does not count for much in Hindu eyes. But the Wall of Fire was around us, and so we were safe.

If the story could stop here, how easy life would be! One fight, one fling to the lions, and then the palm and crown. But it is not so. The perils of reaction are greater for the convert than the first great strain of facing the alternative, "Diana or Christ." Home-sickness comes, wave upon wave, and all but sweeps the soul away; feelings and longings asleep in the child awake in the girl, and draw her and woo her, and blind her too often to all that yielding means. She forgets the under-side of the life she has forsaken; she remembers only the alluring; and all that is natural pleads within her, and will not let her rest. "Across the will of Nature leads on the path of God," is sternly true for the convert in a Hindu or Moslem land.

And so we write this unfinished story in faith that some one reading it will remember the young girl-converts as well as the little children. Fawn has been kept steadfast, but she still needs prayer. These last five years have held anxious hours for those who love her, and to us, as to all who have to do with converts. "Perpetual knockings at Thy door, tears sullying Thy transparent rooms," are words that go deep and touch the heart of things.



CHAPTER XXVI

The Glory of the Usual



"AND all things were done in such excellent methods, and I cannot tell how, but things in the doing of them seemed to cast a smile"—is a beautiful sentence from Bunyan's Holy War, which has been with us ever since we began the Nursery work. Lately we found its complement in a modern book of sermons, The Unlighted Lustre, by G. H. Morrison. "No matter how stirring your life be, it will be a failure if you have never been wakened to the glory of the usual. There is no happiness like the old and common happiness, sunshine and love and duty and the laughter of children. . . . There are no duties that so enrich as dull duties."

The ancient voice and the new voice sing to the same sweet tune; and we in our little measure are learning to sing it too.

As we have said, India is a land where the secular does not appeal. When we were an Itinerating Band, we had many offers from Christian girls and women to join us, as many in one month as we now have in five years. Sometimes it has seemed to us that we were set to learn and to teach a new and difficult lesson, the sacredness of the commonplace. Day by day we learn to rub out a little more of the clear chalked line that someone has ruled on life's black-board; the Secular and the Spiritual may not be divided now. The enlightening of a dark soul or the lighting of a kitchen fire, it matters not which it is, if only we are obedient to the heavenly vision, and work with a pure intention to the glory of our God.



The nursery kitchen is a pleasant little place. We hardly ever enter it without remembering and appreciating John Bunyan's pretty thought, for there things in the doing of them seem to cast a smile. Ponnamal, who, as we said, superintends the more delicate food-making work, has trained two of her helpers to carefulness; and these two—one a motherly older woman with a most comfortable face, the other the convert, Joy—look up with such a welcome that you feel it good to be there. Scrubbing away at endless pots and pans and milk vessels is a younger convent-girl, who, when she first came to us, disapproved of such exertion. She liked to sit on the floor with her Bible on her lap and a far-away look of content on her face until the dinner-bell rang. Now she scrubs with a sense of responsibility.

All the younger converts have regular teaching, for they have much to learn, and all, older and younger, have daily classes and meetings; above all, it is planned that each has her quiet time undisturbed. But it is early understood that to be happy each must contribute her share to the happiness of the family; and one of the first lessons the young convert has to learn is to honour the "Grey Angel," Drudgery, and not to call her bad names.

The kitchen has an outlook dear to the Tamil heart. A trellis covered with pink antigone surrounds it, but a window is cut in the trellis so that the kitchen may command the bungalow. "While I stirred the milk I saw everything you did on your verandah," remarked one of the workers lately, in tones of appreciation. The opposite outlook is the mountain shown in the photograph; only instead of water we have the kitchen-garden with its tropical-looking plantains and creeping marrows. "And the warm melon lay like a little sun on the tawny sand," is a line for an Eastern garden when the great marrows ripen suddenly.

The kitchen thus favoured without, is adorned within, according to the taste of its owners, with those very interesting pictures published by the makers of infant foods. "How do you choose them?" we asked one day. "The truest and the prettiest," was the satisfactory answer. Our Dohnavur text, which hangs in every nursery, looks down upon the workers, and, as they put it, "keeps them sweet in heart": "Love never faileth."

When first we began to cultivate babies we were very ignorant, and we asked advice of all who seemed competent to give it. The advice was most perplexing. Each mother was sure the food that had suited her baby was the best of all foods, and regarded all others as doubtful, if not bad. One whom we greatly respected told us Indian babies would be sure to get on anyhow, as it was their own land. And one seriously suggested rice-water as a suitable nourishment. Naturally we began with the time-honoured milk and barley-water, and some throve upon it. But we found each baby had to be studied separately. There was no universal (artificial) food. We could write a tractlet on foods, and if we did we would call it "Don't," for the first sentence in it would be, "Don't change the food if you can help it." This tractlet would certainly close with a word of thanks to those kind people, the milk-food manufacturers, who have helped us to build up healthy children; for feelings of personal gratitude come when help of this kind is given.

The nursery kitchen is a room full of reminders of help. "I have commanded the ravens," is a word of strength to us. Once we were very low. A little child had died under trying circumstances. One of the milk-sellers, instead of using the vessel sent him, poured his milk into an unclean copper vessel, and it was poisoned. He remembered that it would not be taken unless brought in the proper vessel, so at the last moment he corrected his mistake, but the correction was fatal, for there was no warning. The milk was sterilized as usual and given to the child. She was a healthy baby, and her nurse remembers how she smiled and welcomed her bottle, taking it in her little hands in her happy eagerness. A few hours later she was dead.

At such times the heart seems foolishly weak, and things which would not trouble it otherwise have power to make it sore. We were four days' journey from the nursery at the time, and had the added anxiety about the other babies, to whom we feared the poisoned milk might have been given, and we dreaded what the next post might bring. Just at that moment it was suggested, with kindest intentions, that perhaps we were on the wrong track, the work seemed so difficult and wasteful.

It was mail-day. The mail as usual brought a pile of letters, and the top envelope contained a bill for foods ordered from England some weeks before. It came to more than I had expected, in spite of the kindness of several firms in giving a liberal discount; and for a moment the rice-water talk (to give it a name which covers all that type of talk) came back to me with hurt in it: "To what purpose is this waste?" But with it came another word: "Take this child away (away from the terrible Temple) and nurse it for Me." And with the pile of letters before me, and the bill for food in my hand, I asked that enough might be found in those letters to pay it. It did not occur to me at the moment that the prayer was rather illogical. I only knew it would be comforting, and like a little word of peace, if such an assurance might even then come that we were not off the lines.

Letter after letter was empty. Not empty of kindness, but quite empty of cheques. The last envelope looked thin and not at all hopeful. Cheques are usually inside reliable-looking covers. I opened it. There was nothing but a piece of unknown writing. But the writing was to ask if we happened to have a need which a sum named in the letter would meet. This sum exactly covered the bill for the foods. When the cheque eventually reached me it was for more than the letter had mentioned, and covered all carriage and duty expenses, which were unknown to me at the time the first letter came, and to which of course I had not referred in my reply. Thus almost visibly and audibly has the Lord, from whose hands we received this charge to keep, confirmed His word to us, strengthening us when we were weak, and comforting us when we were sad with that innermost sense of His tenderness which braces while it soothes.

Surely we who know Him thus should love the Lord because He hath heard our voice and our supplication. Every advertisement on the walls of the little nursery kitchen is like an illuminated text with a story hidden away in it:—

When Thou dost favour any action, It runs, it flies; All things concur to give it a perfection.

The nursery kitchen, we were amused to discover, has a sphere of influence all its own. Our discovery was on this wise:—

One wet evening we were caught in a downpour as we were crossing from the Taraha nursery to the bungalow, and we took shelter in the kindergarten room, which reverts to the Lola-and-Leela tribe when the kindergarten babies depart. The tribe do not often possess their Sittie and their Ammal both together and all to themselves, now that the juniors are so numerous, and they welcomed us with acclamations. "Finish spreading your mats," we said to them, as they seemed inclined to let our advent interrupt the order of the evening; and we watched them unroll their mats, which hung round the wall in neat rolls swung by cords from the roof, and spread them in rows along the wall. Beside each mat was what looked like a mummy, and beside each mummy was a matchbox and a small bundle of rags.

Presently the mummies were unswathed, and proved to be dolls in more or less good condition. Each was carefully laid upon a morsel of sheet, and covered with another sheet folded over in the neatest fashion. "If we teach them to be particular when they are young, they will be tidy when they are old," we were informed. It was pleasant to hear our own remarks so accurately repeated.

The matchboxes were next unpacked; each contained a bit of match, a small pointed shell, a pebble (preferably black), and a couple of minute cockles. "I suppose you don't know what all these are?" said Lola, affably. "That," pointing to the match, "is a spoon; and this," taking the pointed shell up carefully, "is a bottle. This is the 'rubber,' of course," and the black pebble was indicated; "and these" (setting the cockle-shells on a piece of white paper on the floor) "are bowls of water, one for the bottle and the other for the rubber." We suggested one bowl of water would hold both bottle and rubber; but Lola's entirely mischievous eyes looked quite shocked and reproving. "Two bowls are better," was the serious reply; "it is very important to be clean." "What does your child have?" we inquired respectfully. "Barley-water and milk, two-and-a-half ounces every two hours—that's five tablespoonfuls, you know." "And Leela's?" "Oh, Leela's child is delicate. She has to have Benger. Two ounces every two hours; and it has to be a long time digested." "Do all your children have their food every two hours?" Lola looked surprised, and Leela giggled: how very ignorant we seemed to be! "No, only the tiny ones; our babies are very young. After they get older they have more at a time and not so often. That child there," pointing to another mat, "has Condensed, as we haven't enough cow's milk for them all. It suits her very well. She has six ounces at a time; once before she goes to sleep, and then none till she wakens in the morning. She's a very healthy child." "How do you know the time?" we asked, prepared for anything now. "Oh, we have watches. This is mine," and a toy from a Christmas cracker was produced; "Leela's watch is different" (it was indeed different—a mere figment of the imagination), "but she can look at mine when she wants to." "Why does your child sleep with Leela's?" (All the other infants had separate sleeping arrangements.) Lola looked shy, and Leela looked shyer. These little matters of affection were not intended for public discussion.

By this time the rain had cleared, so we prepared to depart, and the further entertainments provided for us by the cheerful tribe that evening do not belong to this story. We escaped finally, damp with much laughter in a humid atmosphere. "Come every evening!" shouted the tribe, as at last we disappeared, and we felt much inclined to accept the invitation.

The kitchen is a busy place in the morning, and again in the evening, when the fresh milk is carried to it in shining aluminium vessels to be sterilized or otherwise dealt with. But even in the busiest hours there is almost sure to be a baby set in an upturned stool, in which she sits holding on to the front legs in proud consciousness of being able to sit up. Or an older one will be clinging to the garments of the busy workers, or perched beside them on a stool. Once we found Tara and Evu seated on the window-sill. Ponnamal was making foods at the table under the window, and the little bare feet were tucked in between bowls and jugs of milk. "But, indeed, they are quite clean," explained Ponnamal, without waiting for remark from us, for she knew what we were thinking of her table decorations. "We dusted the sand off their little feet before we lifted them up." The babies said nothing, but looked doubtfully up at us, as if not very sure of our intentions. But Ponnamal's eyes were so appealing, and the little buff things in blue with a trellis of pink flowers for background made such a pretty picture, that we had not the heart to spoil it. Then the little faces smiled gratefully upon us, and everybody smiled. The kitchen is a happy place of innocent surprises.



CHAPTER XXVII

The Secret Traffic

"Sir, to leave things out of a book because they will not be believed, is meanness."—DR. JOHNSON.

WHEN first, upon March 7, 1901, we heard from the lips of a little child the story of her life in a Temple house, we were startled and distressed, and penetrated with the conviction that such a story ought to be impossible in a land ruled by a Christian Power. The subject was new to us; we knew nothing of the magnitude of what may be called "The Secret Traffic of India"—a traffic in little children, mere infants oftentimes, for wrong purposes; and we did not appreciate, as we do now, the delicacy and difficulty of the position from a Government point of view, or the quiet might of the forces upon the other side. And though with added knowledge comes an added sense of responsibility, and a fear of all careless appeal to those whose burden is already so heavy, yet with every fresh discovery the conviction deepens that something should be done—and done, if possible, soon—to save at least this generation of children, or some of them, from destruction.

"It is useless to move without a body of evidence at your back," said a friend in the Civil Service to us at the close of a long conversation. "If you can get the children, of course they themselves will furnish the best evidence; but, anyhow, collect facts." And this was the beginning of a Note-book, into which we entered whatever we could learn about the Temple children, and in which we kept letters relating to them.

By Temple children throughout this book we mean children dedicated to gods, or in danger of being so dedicated. Dedication to gods implies a form of marriage which makes ordinary marriage impossible. The child is regarded as belonging to the gods. In Southern India, where religious feeling runs strong, and the great Temples are the centres of Hindu influence, this that I have called "The Traffic" is worked upon religious lines; and so in trying to save the children we have to contend with the perverted religious sense. Something of the same kind exists in other parts of India, and the traffic under another name is common in provinces where Temple service as we have it in the South is unknown. Again, in areas where, owing to the action of the native Government, Temple service, as such, is not recognised, so that children in danger of wrong cannot, strictly speaking, be called Temple children, there is yet need of legislation which shall touch all houses where little children are being brought up for the same purpose; so that the subject is immense and involved, and the thought of it suggests a net thrown over millions of square miles of territory, so finely woven as to be almost invisible, but so strong in its mesh that in no place yet has it ever given way. And the net is alive: it can feel and it can hold.

But all through this book we have kept to the South—to the area where the evil is distinctly and recognisably religious. Others elsewhere have told their own story; ours, though in touch with theirs (in that its whole motive is to save the little children), is yet different in manner, in that it is avowedly Christian. India is a land where generalisations are deceptive. So we have kept to the South.

We ourselves became only very gradually aware of what was happening about us. As fact after fact came to light, we were forced to certain conclusions which we could not doubt were correct. But at first we were almost alone in these conclusions, because it was impossible to take others with us in our tedious underground hunt after facts. So the question was often asked: "But do the children really exist?"

I have said we were almost alone, not quite. Members of the Indian Civil Service, who are much among the people, knew something of the custom of child-dedication, but found themselves unable to touch it. Hindu Reformers, of course, knew; and two or three veteran missionaries had come into contact with it and had grieved over their helplessness to do anything. One of these had written a pamphlet on the subject twenty years before our Nursery work began. He sent it to me with a sorrowful word written across it, "Result? Nil." But we do not often meet our civilian friends, for they are busy, and so are we; and the few missionaries whose inspiring sympathy helped us through those earlier years were in places far from us, and so were all the Reformers. So perhaps it was not wonderful that, beset by doubting letters from home and a certain amount of not unnatural incredulity in India, we sometimes almost wondered if we ourselves were dreaming. "Well, if they do exist, I hope you will be able to find them!"—varied by, "Well, if you do find them, they will be a proof of their own existence!"—were two of the most encouraging remarks of those early days.

From the beginning of this work, as stated before, we have tried to collect facts about the traffic and the customs connected with it. Notes were kept of conversations with Hindus and others, and these notes were compared with what evidence we were able to gather from trustworthy sources. These brief notes of various kinds we offer in their simplicity. We have made no attempt to tabulate or put into shape the information thus acquired, believing that the notes of conversations taken down at the time, and the quotations from letters copied as they stand, will do their work more directly than anything more elaborate would. Where there is a difference of detail it is because the customs differ slightly in different places. No names are given, for obvious reasons; but the letters were written by men of standing, living in widely scattered districts in the South. The evidence contained in them was carefully sifted, and in many cases corroborated by personal investigation, before being considered evidence: so that we believe these chapters may be accepted as fact. Dated quotations from the Madras Mail are sufficient to prove that we are not writing ancient history:—

January 2, 1909.—"The following resolution was put from the chair and carried unanimously: 'The Conference (consisting of Hindu Social Reformers) cordially supports the movement started to better the condition of unprotected children in general, and appreciates particularly the agitation started to protect girls and young women from being dedicated to Temples.'"

May 8, 1909.—"Once more we have an illustration from Mysore of the fact that the Government of a Native State are able to tread boldly on ground which the British Government in India are unable to approach. At various times, in these columns and elsewhere, has the cry raised against the employment of servants of the gods in Hindu Temples been uttered; but, as far as the Government are concerned, it has fallen, if not on deaf ears, on ears stopped to appeals of this kind, which demand action that can be interpreted as a breach of that religious neutrality which is one of the cardinal principles of British rule in India. The agitation against it is not the agitation of the European whose susceptibility is offended at a state of things that he finds hard to reconcile with the reverence and purity of Divine worship; but it is the outcry of the reverent Hindu against one of the corrupt and degrading practices that, in the course of centuries, have crept into his religion. In this particular instance the Mysore Government cannot be accused of acting hastily. As long ago as February, 1892, they issued a circular order describing the legitimate services to be performed in Temples by Temple women. In 1899, the Muzrai Superintendent, Rai Bahadur A. Sreenivasa Charlu, directed that the Temple women borne on the Nanjangud Temple establishment should not be allowed to perform tafe (or dancing) service in the Temple; but that the allowances payable to them should be continued for their lifetime, and that at their death the vacancies should not be filled up. Against this order the Temple women concerned memorialised H.H. the Maharajah as long ago as 1905, and the order disposing of it has only just been issued. In the course of the latter the Government say:—

"'From the Shastraic authorities quoted by the two Agamiks employed in the Muzrai Secretariat, it is observed that the services to be performed by Temple women form part and parcel of the worship of the god in Hindu Temples, and that singing and dancing in the presence of the deity are also prescribed. It is, however, observed that in the case of Temple women personal purity and rectitude of conduct and a vow of celibacy were considered essential. But the high ideals entertained in ancient days have now degenerated. . . . The Government now observe that whatever may have been the original object of the institution of Temple women in Temples, the state in which these Temple servants are now found fully justifies the action taken by them in excluding the Temple women from every kind of service in sacred institutions like Temples. Further, the absence of the services of these women in certain important Temples in the State has become established for nearly fifteen years past, and the public have become accustomed to the idea of doing without such services.'

"The exclusion of Temple women from Temple services obtains in Mysore in the case of a few large Temples whose Tasdik Pattis have been revised. But the time has come, the Government think, for its general application, and they therefore direct that the policy enunciated in the abstract given above should be extended to all Muzrai Temples in the State. It is to be hoped that the good example thus set will bear fruit elsewhere, where the Temple women evil is more notorious than it was in Temples of Mysore."

A copy of the Government document to which this cutting relates lies before me. It is bravely and clearly worded, and its intention is evident. The high-minded Hindu—and there are such, let it not be forgotten—revolts from the degradation and pollution of this travesty of religion, and will abolish it where he can. But let it be remembered that, good as this law is, it does not and it cannot touch the great Secret Traffic itself. That will go on behind the law, and behind the next that is made, and the next, unless measures are devised to ensure its being thoroughly enforced.

Cuttings from newspapers, quotations, evidence—it is not interesting reading, and yet we look to our friends to go through to the end with us. Let us pause for a moment here and remember the purpose of it all; and may the thought of some little, loved child make an atmosphere for these chapters!



CHAPTER XXVIII

Blue Book Evidence

"The precipitous sides of difficult questions."—E. B. B.

OUR first evidence consists of abridged extracts from the Census Report for 1901. After explaining the different names by which Temple women are known in different parts of the Madras Presidency, the Report continues: "The servants of the gods, who subsist by dancing and music and the practice of 'the oldest profession in the world,' are partly recruited by admissions and even purchases from other classes. . . . The rise of the Caste and its euphemistic name seem to date from the ninth and tenth centuries, during which much activity prevailed in South India in the matter of building Temples and elaborating the services held in them. . . . The duties then, as now, were to fan the idol with Tibetan ox-tails, to carry the sacred light, and to sing and dance before the god when he is carried in procession. Inscriptions show that in A.D. 1004 the great Temple of the Chola king at Tanjore had attached to it four hundred women of the Temple, who lived in free quarters in the four streets round it, and were allowed tax-free land out of its endowments. Other Temples had similar arrangements. . . . At the present day they form a regular Caste, having its own laws of inheritance, its own customs and rules of etiquette, and its own councils to see that all these are followed, and they hold a position which is perhaps without a parallel in any other country. . . .

"The daughters of the Caste who are brought up to follow the Caste profession are carefully taught dancing and singing, the art of dressing well, . . . and their success in keeping up their clientele is largely due to the contrast which they thus present to the ordinary Hindu housewife, whose ideas are bounded by the day's dinners and babies."

Closely allied to this Caste is that formed by the Temple musicians, who with the Temple woman are "now practically the sole repository of Indian music, the system of which is probably one of the oldest in the world." In certain districts the Report states that a custom obtains among certain castes, under which a family which has no sons must dedicate one of its daughters to Temple service. The daughter selected is taken to a Temple and married there to a god, the marriage symbol being put on her as in a real marriage. Henceforth she belongs to the god.

Writing in 1904, a member of the Indian Civil Service says: "I heard of a case of dedication (three girls) at A. at the beginning of this year, but I could not get any evidence. The cases very rarely indeed come up officially, as nearly every Hindu is interested in keeping them dark." We, too, have had the same difficulty, and the evidence we now submit is doubly valuable because of its source. It is very rarely that we have found it possible to get behind the scenes sufficiently to obtain reliable information from those most concerned in this traffic.

The head priest of one of our Temples admitted to a friend who was watching for opportunities to get information for us that the "marriage to the god is effected privately by the Temple priest at the Temple woman's house, with the usual marriage-symbol ceremony. To avoid the Penal Code (which forbids the marriage of children to gods) a nominal bridegroom is sometimes brought for the wedding day to become the nominal husband. This Caste is recruited by secret adoption."

A Temple woman's son, now living the ordinary life apart from his clan, explains the very early marriage thus: "If not married, they will not be considered worthy of honour. Before the children reach the age of ten they must be married. . . . They become the property of the Temple priests and worshippers who go to the Temple to chant the sacred songs."

A Temple woman herself told a friend of ours: "The child is dressed like a bride, and taken with another girl of the same community, dressed like a boy in the garb of a bridegroom. They both go to the Temple and worship the idol. This ceremony is common, and performed openly in the streets." In a later letter from the same friend further details are given: "The child, who should be about eight or nine years old, goes as if to worship the idol in the Temple. There the marriage symbol is hidden in a garland, and the garland is put over the idol, after which it is taken to the child's home and put round her neck." After this she is considered married to the god.

A young Temple woman in a town near Dohnavur told us she had been given to the Temple when she was five years old. Her home was in the north country, but she did not remember it. She had, of course, understood nothing of the meaning of the ceremony of marriage. She only remembered the pretty flowers and general rejoicing and pleasure. Afterwards, when she began to understand, she was not happy, but she gradually got accustomed to it. Her adopted relations were all the friends she had. She was fond of them and they of her. Her "husband" was one of the Temple priests.

A Hindu woman known to us left home with her little daughter and wandered about as an ascetic. She went to a famous Temple, where it is the custom for such as desire to become ascetics to enter the life by conforming to certain ceremonies ordained by the priests. She shaved her head, took off her jewels, wore a Saivite necklet of berries, and was known as a devotee. She had little knowledge of the life before she entered it, and only gradually became aware of the character borne by most of her fellow-devotees. When she knew, she fled from them and returned to her own village and the secular life, finding it better than the religious.

In telling us about it she said: "I expected whiteness, I found blackness." She told us that she constantly came into contact with Temple women, none of whom had chosen the life as she and her fellow-ascetics had chosen theirs. "Always the one who is to dance before the gods is given to the life when she is very young. Otherwise she could not be properly trained. Many babies are brought by their parents and given to Temple women for the sake of merit. It is very meritorious to give a child to the gods. Often the parents are poor but of good Caste. Always suitable compensation and a 'joy gift' is given by the Temple women to the parents. It is an understood custom, and ensures that the child is a gift, not a loan. The amount depends upon the age and beauty of the child. If the child is old enough to miss her mother, she is very carefully watched until she has forgotten her. Sometimes she is shut up in the back part of the house, and punished if she runs out into the street. The punishment is severe enough to frighten the child. Sometimes it is branding with a hot iron upon a place which does not show, as under the arm; sometimes nipping with the nail till the skin breaks; sometimes a whipping. After the child is reconciled to her new life, occasionally her people are allowed to come if they wish; and in special circumstances she pays a visit to her old home. But this is rare. If she has been adopted as an infant, she knows nothing of her own relations, but thinks of her adopted mother as her own mother. As soon as she can understand she is taught all evil and trained to think it is good."

As to her education, the movements of the dance are taught very early, and the flexible little limbs are rendered more flexible by a system of massage. In all ways the natural grace of the child is cultivated and developed, but always along lines which lead far away from the freedom and innocence of childhood. As it is important she should learn a great deal of poetry, she is taught to read (and with this object in view she is sometimes sent to the mission school, if there is one near her home). The poetry is almost entirely of a debased character; and so most insidiously, by story and allusion, the child's mind is familiarised with sin; and before she knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the instinct which would have been her guide is tampered with and perverted, till the poor little mind, thus bewildered and deceived, is incapable of choice.



CHAPTER XXIX

"Very Common in those Parts"

"The dark enigma of permitted wrong."—F. R. H.

THE mixture of secrecy and openness described by the Temple woman is confirmed by Hindus well acquainted with Temple affairs. "All the Temple women are married to the gods. In former times the marriages were conducted upon a grand scale, but now they are clandestinely performed in the Temple, with the connivance of the priest, and with freedom to deny it if questioned. Some ceremonies are performed in the Temple, the rest at home. Sometimes the marriage symbol is blessed by the priest, and taken home to the child to be worn by her. In all these cases the priest himself has to tie it round her neck. The previous arrangements for the marriage are made by the priests with the guardians of the child who is to be initiated into the order of Temple women.

"The ceremony of tying on the marriage symbol is never in our district performed in public. None but intimate friends know about it. There is a secret understanding between the priests and the Temple women concerned. When the time arrives for the marriage symbol to be tied on, after the usual ceremonies the priest hands over the symbol hidden in a garland of flowers.

"Of course, there is music on the occasion. When outsiders ask what all the noise is about, the people who know do not say the real thing. They say it is a birthday or other festival day. The symbol is tied on when the child is between five and eleven, after which it is considered unholy to perform the marriage ceremony. The symbol is at first hidden from the gaze of the public. Later it is shown publicly, but not while the girl is still young."

This tallies exactly with our own experience. More than once an eager child in her simplicity has shown me the marriage symbol, a small gold ornament tied round her neck, or hanging on a fine gold chain; but the Temple woman in whose charge she was has always reproved her sharply, and made her cover it up under her other jewels, or under the folds of her dress.

The reason for this secrecy, which, however, is not universal, is, as is inferred in the evidence of the head priest, because it is known to the Temple authorities that what they are doing is illegal; though, as a matter of fact, as will be seen later, prosecutions are rare, and convictions rarer still.

The Caste is recruited, as the Blue Book states, by "admissions and even purchases from other classes." On this point a Brahman says: "When the Temple woman has no child, she adopts a girl or girls, and the children become servants of the gods. Sometimes children are found who, on account of a vow made by their parents, become devotees of the gods." Another Brahman, an orthodox Hindu, writes: "In some districts people vow that they will dedicate one of their children to the Temple if they are blessed with a family. Temple women often adopt orphans, to whom they bequeath their possessions. In most cases the orphans are bought."

The position of the Temple woman has been a perplexity to many. The Census Report touches the question: "It is one of the many inconsistencies of the Hindu religion, that though their profession is repeatedly vehemently condemned in the Shastras (sacred books), it has always received the countenance of the Church." Their duties are all religious. A well-informed Hindu correspondent thus enumerates them: "First they are to be one of the twenty-one persons who are in charge of the key of the outer door of the Temple; second, to open the outer door daily; third, to burn camphor, and go round the idol when worship is being performed; fourth, to honour public meetings with their presence; fifth, to mount the car and stand near the god during car-festivals." The orthodox Hindu quoted before remarks on the "high honour," as the Temple child is taught to consider it, the marriage to the god confers upon her.

We have purposely confined ourselves almost entirely to official and Hindu evidence so far, but cannot forbear to add to this last word the confirmatory experience of our own Temple children worker: "When I try to persuade the Hindus to let us have their little ones instead of giving them to the Temples they say: 'But to give them to Temples is honour and glory and merit to us for ever; to give them to you is dishonour and shame and demerit. So why should we give them to you?'"

We have said that convictions are rare. This is because of the great difficulty in obtaining such evidence as is required by the law as it stands at present. One case may be quoted as typical. A few years ago, in one of our country towns, a father gave his child in marriage to the idol "with some pomp," as the report before us says. He was prosecuted, but the prosecution failed, for the priest and the parents united in denying the fact of the marriage; and the evidence for the defence was so skilfully cooked that it was found impossible to prove an offence against the Penal Code.

Once, deeply stirred over the case of a little girl of six who was about to be married to a god as her elder sisters had been a few months previously, we wrote to a magistrate of wide experience and proved sympathy with the work. His letter speaks for itself:—

"I have been waiting some little time before answering your letter, because I wanted time to think over your problem. As far as I can make out, there is no way in the world of preventing a woman marrying her own daughter to the gods at any age; but you can prosecute her if she does. If you could get her into prison for marrying the elder girls, the younger might be safe; but I don't think you can do anything directly for her. She is not being 'unlawfully detained'; and even if she were, all you could do would be to get her returned to her parents and guardians, which would be worse than useless.

"The question is whether you can hope to get a conviction in the other case.

"I don't see how you can. You can say in court that you saw the little girls with their marriage symbol on, and that they said they had been married to the god. The little girls will deny it all, and say they never set eyes on you before. Moreover, I don't think the ordinary Court would be satisfied without some other evidence of the fact of dedication; and considering how everyone would work against you, I think you would find it extraordinarily hard. The local police would be worse than useless."

To every man his work: it appears to us that expert knowledge is required, and ample means and leisure, if the expenditure involved is to result in anything worth while; and a careful study of all available information regarding prosecutions, convictions, and, I may add, sentences, has convinced us, at least, of the futility of such attempts from a missionary point of view: for even if convictions were certain, as long as the law hands the child back to its guardians after their unfitness to guard it from the worst that can befall it has been proved, so long do we feel unable to rejoice exceedingly over even the six months' rigorous imprisonment, which in more than one case has been the legal interpretation of the phrase "up to a term of ten years," which is the penalty attached to this offence in the Indian Penal Code.

In this connection it may be well to quote a paragraph from the Indian Social Reformer:—

"The Public Prosecutor at Madras applied for admission of a revision petition against the order of the Sessions Judge, made in the following circumstances:—

"One, S., a priest, was convicted by the first-class subdivisional magistrate of having performed the ceremony of dedicating a young girl in the Temple of N., and thereby committing an offence punishable under Section 372 of the Penal Code. He accordingly sentenced him to six months' rigorous imprisonment. On appeal, the Sessions Judge reduced the sentence to two months, on the ground that the rite complained against was a very common one in those parts. The Public Prosecutor based his petition on the ground that it had been held in a previous case 'that such a dedication was an offence, and that it was highly desirable that the interests of minors should be properly protected.' This protection, it was submitted, could only be vouchsafed by making offending people understand that they would render themselves liable to heavy punishment. The present sentence would not have a deterrent effect, and he accordingly applied for an enhancement of the same. His lordship admitted the petition, and directed notice to the accused."

It is something to know the six months' sentence was confirmed. But is not the fact that a Sessions Judge should commute such a sentence, on the ground that the offence was "very common," enough to suggest a doubt as to the deterrent effect of even this punishment?



NOTE

During the last few months the Secretary of State for India has addressed official inquiries to the Government of India regarding the dedication of children to Hindu gods, and the measures necessary for the protection of such children.

If the anticipated change in the law is to result in more than a Bill on paper—a blind, behind which things will go on as before only more out of sight—it is, we believe, needful to ensure:

1st. Protection for all children found to be in moral danger, whether or not they are or may be dedicated to gods.

2nd. That, irrespective of nationality or religion, whoever has worked for and won the deliverance of the child should be allowed to act as guardian to it.

3rd. That such a Bill shall be most thoroughly enforced.

February, 1912.

To face p. 268.



CHAPTER XXX

On the Side of the Oppressors there was Power

I HAVE been looking over my note-book, in which there are some hundreds of letters, clippings from newspapers, and records of conversations bearing upon the Temple children. It is difficult to know which to choose to complete the picture already outlined in the preceding chapters. A mere case record would be wearisome; and indeed the very word "case" sounds curiously inappropriate when one thinks of the nurseries and their little inhabitants; or looks up to see mischievous eyes watching a chance to stop the uninteresting writing; or feels, suddenly, soft arms round one's neck, as a baby, strayed from her own domain, climbs unexpectedly up from behind and makes dashes at the typewriter keyboard. Such little living interruptions are too frequent to allow of these chapters being anything but human.

The newspaper clippings are usually concerned with public movements, resolutions, petitions, and the like. There is one startling little paragraph from a London paper, dated July 7, 1906; the ignorance of the subject so flippantly dealt with is its only apology. No one could have written so had he understood. The occasion was the memorial addressed to the Governor in Council by workers for the children in the Bombay Presidency:—

"Society must be very select in Poona. There has been a custom there for young ladies to be married to selected gods. You would have thought that to be the bride of a god was a good enough marriage for anyone. But it is not good enough for Poona." It is time that such writing became impossible for any Englishman.

In India the feeling of the best men, whether Hindu or Christian, is strongly against the dedication of little children to Temples, and some of the newspapers of the land speak out and say so in unmistakable language. The Indian Times speaks of the little ones being "steeped deep from their childhood" in all that is most wrong. A Hindu, writing in the Epiphany, puts the matter clearly when he says: "Finally, one can hardly conceive of anything more debasing than to dedicate innocent little girls to gods in the name of religion, and then leave them with the Temple priests"; and another writer in the same paper asks a question which those who say that Hinduism is good enough for India might do well to ponder: "If this is not a Hindu practice, how can it take place in a Temple and no priest stop it, though all know? . . . In London religion makes wickedness go away; but in Bombay religion brings wickedness, and Government has to try to make it go away." This immense contrast of fact and of ideal contains our answer to all who would put sin in India on a level with sin in England.

Christian writers naturally, whether in the Christian Patriot of the South or the Bombay Guardian of the West, have no doubt about the existence of the evil or the need for its removal. They, too, connect it distinctly with religion, and recognise its tremendous influence.

But we turn from the printed page, and go straight to the houses where the little children live. The witnesses now are missionaries or trusted Indian workers.

"There were thirteen little children in the houses connected with the Temple last time I visited them. I saw the little baby—such a dear, fat, laughing little thing. It was impossible to get it, and I see no hope of getting any of the other children."

"When I was visiting in S. a woman came to talk to me with her three little children. Two of them were girls, very pretty, 'fair' little children. 'What work does your husband do?' I asked; and she answered, 'I am married to the god.' Then I knew who she was, and that her children were in danger. I have tried since to get them, but in vain. Everyone says that Temple women never give up their little girls. These two were dedicated at their birth. This is only one instance. We have many Temple women reading with us, and many of the little children attend our schools."

"There are not scores but hundreds of these children in the villages of this district. Here certain families, living ordinary lives in their own villages, dedicate one of their children as a matter of course to the gods. They always choose the prettiest. It is a recognised custom, and no one thinks anything of it. The child so dedicated lives with her parents afterwards as if nothing had happened, only she may not be married in the real way. She belongs to the god and his priests and worshippers."

"The house was very orderly and nice. I sat on the verandah and talked to the women, who were all well educated and so attractive with their pretty dress and jewels. They seemed bright, but, of course, would not show me their real feelings, and I could only hold surface conversation with them."

We are often asked if the Temple houses are inside the walls which surround all the great Temples in this part of the country. They are usually in the streets outside. Most of the Brahman Temples are surrounded by a square of streets, and the houses are in the square or near it. There is nothing to distinguish them from other houses in the street. It is only when you go inside that you feel the difference. An hour on the shady verandah of one of these houses is very revealing. You see the children run up to welcome a tall, fine-looking man, who pats their heads in the kindest way, and as he passes you recognise him. Next time you see him in the glory of his office, you wish you could forget where you saw him last.

Sometimes we are asked who the children are. How do the Temple women get them in the first instance?

We have already answered this question by quotations from the Census Report, and by statements of Hindus well acquainted with the subject. It should be added that often the Temple woman having daughters of her own dedicates them, and as a rule it is only when she has none that she adopts other little ones. A few extracts from letters and notes from conversations are subjoined, as they show how the system of adoption works:—

"We are in trouble over a little girl, the daughter of wealthy parents, who have dedicated her to the gods and refuse to change their mind. The child was ill some time ago, and they vowed then that if she recovered they would dedicate her."

"The poor woman's husband was very ill, and the mother vowed her little girl as an offering if he recovered. He did recover, and so the child has been given."

"It is the custom of the Caste to dedicate the eldest girl of a certain chosen family, and nothing will turn them from it. One child must be given in each generation."

"She is of good caste, but very poor. Her husband died two months before the baby was born, and as it was a girl she was much troubled as to its future, for she knew she would never have enough money to marry it suitably. A Temple woman heard of the baby, and at once offered to adopt it. She persuaded the mother by saying: 'You see, if it is married to the gods, it will never be a widow like you. It will always be well cared for and have honour, and be a sign of good fortune to our people—unlike you!' (It is considered a sign of good omen to see a Temple woman the first thing in the morning; but the sight of a widow at any time is a thing to be avoided.) The poor mother could not resist this, and she has been persuaded."