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,