In

gave that we are remembered, even though it be in a semiofficial way. any case, I feel assured that you will be richly blessed in the outgiving of a bit of brightness from your own life to a fellow-worker for our dear Lord. I do not mind being alone as much as many persons do; but sometimes for a moment it comes over me desolately how I am working on, week after week, month after month, with no human companion as daily confidant and sympathizer, for all my associates have other special lines of work,-using a strange language all day long, except the bits of conversation at meal times; though perhaps it is hardly fair to count it "strange," since I am coming to think in Arabic, and even use it in my sleep, my attendant says. It is a life of deep, quiet happiness, more soul-satisfying than any that has come into my life in all its varied experiences, this daily hand-to-hand work with girls, children, and women whose lives have been so forlorn; to see the daily growing, to feel the constant dependence and love, to know of noble efforts in self-control, and victory over besetting sins,-all this brings such a consciousness of being within the blessed influences of the Spirit's workings, that I could not choose to leave it even in response to many affectionately urgent calls to come back to my native land.

For three years we have been asking for a "suitable young lady,” well equipped to help in either or both schools, in vain.

It seems a boon to me to be able to use my beloved pen again, even though all inadequately; since for months I was forbidden all intellectual work, being disabled by what our physician called "nervous prostration," the chief and only persistent feature being a hard, heavy, constant headache. And it is not entirely gone yet, although lightening all the time. I was allowed to resume charge of the girls' high school from the new year, Mrs. Andrus having providendially come down from Midyat on a visit, just at the time when I was shut off from work, and kindly assuming charge for three months. The cause, chiefly the double work falling to my share the past two or three years, is not removed; but by our physician's orders I am not overseeing the little school, as before, nor attempting so much of close daily work with the girls. I worked hard all vacation time trying to secure suitable pupils and the means for them, chiefly through correspondence both in Arabic and English, since Dr. Thorn does not allow me to go touring, because of the heat. And I was not a little discouraged at receiving even fewer in number than last year, only twenty-four in all, parents are so averse to spending money for a girl's education, and to braving the ridicule of sending a girl to school. The boarders are nearly as many as before, but day pupils are fewer, on account of the resuming of the girls' middle school in the city. After all, it may be the dark state of affairs in general that keeps pupils from coming, since the boys' high school also is smaller. But it is as a band of selected girls here now; and I feel daily the heart-glow of seeing them grow in grace, of getting more intimately acquainted with their inner lives, their real motives and inclinations. And it is a happy experience to find them coming to me so confidingly to confess faults or ask about this or that. Yesterday one of the Seniors, the daughter of one of our village pastors, after telling me of the morning service, opened to me her heart's desire to be of some use to the savage natives of the island of the sea.

With best wishes and grateful love,

MARIA G. NUTTING.

FEMALE EDUCATION IN INDIA.

393

THE OBSERVER.

HOW SHALL WE PRAY?

IN our Board we question not, "For what shall we pray?" We ask for more laborers, for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and just now, as the year is nearing its close, we beseech the Lord to send us the $80,000 required for our work this year. But do we pray in the right way? Let us beware that we do not fall into the fault of Adam Slowman, in "Expectation Corner," to whom the Lord's messenger said: "Your petitions, Adam, have had so many 'ifs' and 'buts,' there have come along with them so many 'I don't expects' and 'perhapses,' and so many 'I don't know whether this will ever get into my Lord's hands, and, if it does, I don't know whether he'll hear me,' that they have been, though you may not have meant them so, half insults to his goodness. As if he had paid such a price for setting up his royal posts that there should be a doubt as to his receiving and seeing to any petition sent out to him in due course, and according to his orders, and made in his Son's name."

If we could all read this little book we might understand why there are so many "missed blessings" in our lives,-blessings ready for us, but waiting till we shall open our hearts to receive them.

FEMALE EDUCATION IN INDIA.

BY MRS. M. A. BADLEY.

THERE were sitting together at five o'clock tea, one pleasant afternoon, two fashionable society ladies, when one said to her friend, "My dear, what is this novelty called zenana work; do you know the stitch?" The other lady, equally in the dark, could not answer her questioner. There are, no doubt, many in India to whom this question would be equally puzzling, and yet zenana work is destined to be one of the great factors in the enlightenment of India's secluded millions.

The stitch is a most difficult one to learn. In the first place, she who desires to become the possessor of this new accomplishment, must leave her home, her friends, cross wide seas and travel over continents. She must be willing to undergo all sorts of hardships and privation. She must devote herself for days and months to the study of a strange and difficult language. She must wend her way through narrow streets, up winding stairways, into filthy courtyards which open into darkened and poorly ventilated rooms. She must learn to sit on the edge of an uncomfortable charpoy, or double herself up on an uninviting mat, or even seat herself upon the uncarpeted earth floor. See must share the narrow veranda with the buffalo, the cow, or the goat. She must educate herself to endure the sickening odor of the hookah and the disagreeable munching of pan, and the smoky, stifled atmosphere caused by the cooking. She must patiently submit to the inquisitiveness of the women she would help. She must permit her looks to be commented upon, her dress to be examined, her boots to be unbuttoned, her

wonderful braids of hair to be admired. And under all these persecutions she must be patient, and seem pleased.

In a word, zenana work is an organized system by which educated ladies visit the women and girls who are confined in the palaces and homes of all the cities of India, to carry to these secluded ones education, light, and love. To-day thousands of homes in India are made happier, brighter, and more like what the abodes of intelligent beings should be, by the educated mothers, wives, and daughters to be found in them.

All honor to the brave women from England and America who are willing to devote their lives to this needful, but arduous, task of uplifting the degraded, uneducated women of this land! They are not fanatics, walking the streets in bare feet, wrapped in a sarree, and carrying a begging bowl to demonstrate their devotion to the cause they have espoused, thus dragging themselves down instead of lifting India's women up to a higher ideal of life; but they are all talented, refined, accomplished, many of them musicians of high order, with cultivated voices, and many of them are artists of no small reputation. Many a drawing room in the home lands misses its brightest ornament, and many a social circle lost its most brilliant member when these ladies left their native shores to assist in this grand educational work.

"The hand that rocks the cradle moves the world," is as true in India as it is elsewhere; and these devoted women who, with noiseless step, open the doors of India's homes; who, with winning voice and touch of sympathy, unlock the hearts of India's women; who, with the brightness of their presence, cause the light of education and refinement to stream into the darkened zenanas; who help to abolish the rites of idolatry by replacing the shrine of the household God with an altar erected to truth and purity; . . . who cause ignorant, degraded women to become educated, refined wives and mothers, by substituting knowledge for superstition, and womanly dignity for abject slavery and forced subjection,-these women have touched the keynote to India's enlightenment, India's freedom, India's successful future.

-Abridged from "The Pioneer," Allahabad, North India.

WOMAN'S BOARD OF THE INTERIOR.

ILLINOIS.

MRS. J. B. LEAKE, TREASURER.
RECEIPTS FROM MAY 18 TO JUNE 18, 1892.

BRANCH.-Mrs. W. A. Talcott, of Rockford, Treas. Bloomington, 3.36; Champaign, 11; Canton, 12.25; Crystal Lake, 19; Chicago, Covenant Ch., 30, Forestville Ch., 10.25, Leavitt St. Ch., 27.84, Lincoln Pk. Ch., 7, New Eng. Ch., 42, South Ch., 157, Union Pk. Ch., A Friend, 25, Miss Spence, to const. L. M. Mrs. E. S. Ochs, 25; Danville, Mrs. A. M. S., 20; Emington, 2: Galesburg, First Cong. Ch., 50; Glencoe, 18.75; La Grange, 10; Moline, 22; Oak Park, 200; Port Byron,

13.40; Polo, L. H. B., 5; Sterling, 26;
Udina, 2.60,
JUNIOR: Chebanse, C. E., 1.43; Chicago,
May Rally, 25, Englewood Pilgrim Ch.,
C. E., 10, New Eng. Ch., Y. L. Guild,
42.63, C. E., 15, South Ch., 25, Union Pk.
Ch., C. E., 25, Warren Ave. Ch., 22; Gales-
burg, Knox College, 42; Granville, 10;
Geneva, 30,

JUVENILE: Chebanse, C. E., 1.05; Evans-
ton, Light Bearers, 14.07; Glencoe, Op-
portunity Club, 63.11; Harvey, Coral
Workers, 1.75; Hinsdale, M. B., 17; Mo-

739 45

248 06

RECEIPTS.

39 85

13 62

3 56

57 03

304 34

43 63

5 10

17 30

370 37

18 32 1 00

33 62

40 95

40 00

133 89

16.25