THE HINDU WOMAN AND HER REDEMPTION.

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India, as in the Roman Empire, idolatry seems to be taking on new life as it competes with a growing and powerful Christianity. We do not wish to substitute English or French for her vernacular. The patriarchal life, which has survived so many and so mighty changes in India, and which is in so many of its forms worthy to be perpetuated,—this we will not attempt to change. These things are the setting of her life; such they must remain; and we will leave them to that possible evolution which is a law of Christian growth.

But is she worthy your effort, your sacrifice? Has she brains? Has she heart? Your Hindu sister is a bright woman. She is intelligent where she has an opportunity. She is quick with her hands, and apt with her brain. Surely you will believe this, you who have heard Ramabai's earnest words, and recognized her intellectual brilliancy? You who have noted Mrs. Joshee's devotion to her religion, and the resolution with which she pursued her purpose of education, coming far across seas, a great task for a Brahman, in order that she might study medicine, and Mrs. Karmarkar, who is now among us, helps us to appreciate the ability and attractiveness of our Hindu sister. Now, as in the past, we find the woman in India worthy to stand by the side of man. There is no doubt as to the power of her brain or her heart. As to her capacity for loving, one can hardly think of the women who were eager to sacrifice themselves on the funeral pyre, as devoid of devotion or self-forgetfulness! Patient is she, and painstaking as well, persevering in labors many and hard.

As we study her surroundings and her character, from what should we say does she need to be redeemed? First of all from her ignorance; then from the fetters of caste and superstition; and finally from herself! Until recently it has not been the fashion in India to educate the girls, except, perhaps, the dancing girls, who live in the precincts of the temples. These, indeed, were taught to read and to write, and to sing; but their life and reputation have not been such as to recommend education to respectable Hindu parents.

We can also help to redeem our Hindu sister from other and stronger bonds than those of ignorance; namely, from her social system, which is founded upon caste. Of all strong things in this world, the system of caste in India is one of the strongest, and the Hindu woman is the life of it. She does more to preserve it than any one else. In fact it can never be changed or done away with without her consent. Unwieldy and false as it is, it had its origin in natural conditions, and its roots strike down into ethnic differences among the people. Directly we can do very little to break it down; the people are very jealous of any interference in their social customs; the

rules of caste were written two thousand years ago; the spirit of Christ will change them, but not in a day!

With thousands of women in India if caste goes, life might as well go also. Nor is this feeling by any means confined to the higher castes. The Sudra

THE HINDU WOMAN AND HER REDEMPTION.

209 and the Pariah are as careful to preserve their social position, which to the Brahman woman is simply none at all, as she is to preserve hers.

One noonday a poor thief caste woman came into our compound and begged for medicine to cure the painful ophthalmia from which she was suffering. She was dirty, unattractive, a few yards of soiled cotton cloth her only garment; she could neither read nor write, and had no conception at all of life as we regard it. She was told that her eyes must first be washed with warm water. As soon as she learned that this water came from our kitchen, and the teakettle in which it had been heated had been touched by our Pariah servants, she would not allow that water to touch her person, lest she should be defiled and lose her caste. She ran away out of the compound, and it was only by dint of hard persuasion on the part of some of her own caste people, that we could get her back. Such was the power of social custom upon her.

Looking at this vast system from the outside we wonder at it, sometimes laugh at it, and yet is it not human nature, after all? And do we not have in our Northern land the same spirit and similar foolish expressions of it? "Sir," said one of our native pastors, "caste is not of the Devil; it is the Devil himself." It yields here and there. But it will never be materially changed -certainly it will never be eradicated—until the Hindu woman is educated, and until her heart is filled with the love of Christ. Here is her power and your opportunity.

One thing more, yes, two, must be done for this Hindu sister of yours, and perhaps the doing of these two implies and includes the accomplishment of all else that I have said. One is, that in the place of darkness, or, at the best, of partial illumination, you must give her the light. She has "The Light of Asia"; she needs "The Light of the World." But for the religious feeling of the woman in India, it would almost seem as if her false religions must have utterly perished before this. Are you surprised that I speak of her as religious? You should not be. Women are everywhere more religious than men, and the Hindu woman is no exception. By religious here, we mean that temper of mind which does things, even little, trivial things, from a sense of duty, with the religious idea back of them all; that reverent tone of mind which even now often looks up with real faith and devotion and the essence of true piety, even to gods of wood and stone. We have seen in the great temple at Madura, a Hindu mother with her children bringing gifts to the altar of the goddess, and lifting hands of prayer, with upturned face, to that awful image of Kali; and if there was ever sincerity in any worshiper's attitude, it was to be found in hers, and in her face as well. Her religion does not make her truthful, or pure in heart, or help

her to keep the Golden Rule; but religion, according to her standard of it, is not neglected.

I cannot linger to tell you here what idolatry is,—what it means. Alas! who can tell that? We cannot, because Christianity and our history has swung us away from it. She cannot, because she will never realize what idolatry is until she becomes Christian. Idolatry is not so much the hideous images at the street corners, the unmentionable objects of worship under almost every green tree; it is not alone the wayside shrine, with its rude image and gifts of flowers before it, nor is it to be found in the mighty-yes, magnificent temples of India. We cannot get its true essence out of the vedas. It is in the brain and heart of the Hindu people, in their daily life, in their moral distinctions, in their weakened wills, in the paralysis which seems to hinder every good work, in the malaria of sin which fills the atmosphere and poisons the mind.

"India," writes Miss Cornelia Sorabji, "looks about for a moral crutch when she ought to walk alone." All this and more is implied in that word idolatry, and even then you haven't told the half of it. Mohammedanism, proudly sneering at the idolatry of India, and claiming to worship the true God, as it does, theoretically, in its practical outworking is not very much better. A few enlightened minds in India are moving toward theism; but how few they are amid the two hundred and eighty-eight million! This receptive, reverent Hindu sister of yours must be brought out into the liberty wherewith Christ makes men free. Last of all, this Asiatic woman must be saved from herself; and who of us does not need in greater or less degree this same salvation?

How can all this be done? you ask. Not by any spasmodic effort; certainly not by any cold weather tours through India. Not by an educational system which takes in the boy, and leaves out his sister; nor by a dogmatic spirit which would force her at once to leave home, and husband, and children, and go into the street in order that she may make a public profession of Christianity. Of the thousands of women who have read the Bible in Madura under Mrs. Chandler, Mrs. Capron, and Miss Houston, but very few have united openly with the church. The greatest instrument of good in India is the Christian home. The Hindu man and woman together must build the home, together they must attain knowledge, together seek the truth. and approach the throne of God.

From the sacred flame kept burning by the faithful hands of the vestals in old Roman days, the fire first lighted on every new hearthstone was always kindled; in like manner, from the flame of Divine love (heavenly love) vouchsafed the Christian woman in America, must the Hindu woman, and through her every Hindu home, be illumined!

A CHRISTIAN DEATH IN A HEATHEN LAND.

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A CHRISTIAN DEATH IN A HEATHEN LAND.

BY MRS. H. P. BRUCE, OF SATARA.

It

THIS Sabbath afternoon our pastor preached such a beautiful sermon. was enough to make one wish to be in heaven, as the man of God discoursed on its glories, in connection with the departure of our native Christian sister, Rumabai, whose body, after a week or more of suffering, was laid away yesterday, in hope of a glorious resurrection.

On the third or fourth day after the birth of a little daughter, she was attacked with a bad type of fever, which was very distressing to the friends, as she was quite wild in her delirium.

Our kind English physician gave remedies which subdued some of the symptoms, and she was more quiet; but the fever continued most of the time, and we knew that, humanly speaking, she might die almost any hour.

However, very much prayer was offered for her at her bedside and in the church. One of the Christians prayed thus: "O Lord, we would not dictate to thee, but if she should die, what would become of the little babe and family?" One morning, after she had been delirious for some days, she awoke with a clear mind, and calling her husband to come close to her, gave a kiss, which he returned. Soon afterward, on entering the room, she recognized me at once, and with a most radiant smile, which I think I never shall forget, she said to me, "I am going to Jesus Christ this day." She repeated passages of Scripture and lines of hymns which she had learned. Together, she and I took up the 23d psalm, and carried it nearly to the end. She did not falter at the "valley of the shadow," but added, "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." I reminded her, in the words of the hymn, that we are but strangers here; she added, "Heaven is my home," and continued, in the words of the Marathi translation, "I will not complain; heaven is my home."

After such a long time of wandering it was so delightful to see her in this lucid state, and to hear her dying testimony to the grace of God, that the tears fell freely from my eyes; but I thought maybe she did not notice them. On another occasion she looked up to me with the same joyous expression, and told me what happiness there would be with Christ and the angels. "But you are sorrowful," she remarked, looking into my face.

Her mother, who had been sent for, had arrived and was sitting by her bed on the day that she talked so much of going. Calling upon her mother to start quickly, she would call out, "Take me up; let me go," at the same time trying to raise her head from the pillow. Then she would look up to me, and ask again and again, "May I go! May I go !" adding that she would return on