th of the lion, my child!"

We are not anxious that our babies should know too much ancient history.
Enough for them that they are in the fold--

I am Jesus' little lamb,
Happy all day long I am;
He will keep me safe from harm,
For I'm His lamb--

is enough theology for two-year-olds; but Devai's visits are not so
frequent as to make a deep impression, and the baby thus addressed,
after a long and unsympathetic stare, usually scrambles off her knee and
returns unscathed to her own world.

CHAPTER XI

God Heard: God Answered

OLD Devai, with her vivid conversation about the one old devil and four
younger, does not suggest a conciliatory attitude towards the people of
her land. And it may be possible so to misinterpret the spirit of this
book as to see in it only something unappreciative and therefore unkind.
So it shall now be written down in sincerity and earnestness that
nothing of the sort is intended. The thing we fight is not India or
Indian, in essence or development. It is something alien to the old life
of the people. It is not allowed in the Vedas (ancient sacred books). It
is like a parasite which has settled upon the bough of some noble
forest-tree--on it, but not of it. The parasite has gripped the bough
with strong and interlacing roots; but it is not the bough.

We think of the real India as we see it in the thinker--the seeker after
the unknown God, with his wistful eyes. "The Lord beholding him loved
him," and we cannot help loving as we look. And there is the Indian
woman hidden away from the noise of crowds, patient in her motherhood,
loyal to the light she has. We see the spirit of the old land there;
and it wins us and holds us, and makes it a joy to be here to live for
India.

The true India is sensitive and very gentle. There is a wisdom in its
ways, none the less wise because it is not the wisdom of the West. This
spirit which traffics in children is callous and fierce as a ravening
beast; and its wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly,
sensual, devilish. . . . And this spirit, alien to the land, has settled
upon it, and made itself at home in it, and so become a part of it that
nothing but the touch of God will ever get it out. We want that touch of
God: "Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke." That is why we write.

For we write for those who believe in prayer--not in the emasculated
modern sense, but in the old Hebrew