s the burden of proof rests upon us, surely
facilities should be obtainable by which we could find out a girl's age
before she comes, so that we might know whether or not we might legally
protect her. Still more strongly we feel it is strange justice which
decrees that though a child of twelve may be legally held competent to
undertake the responsibilities of wifehood, six years more must pass
before she may be legally held free to obey her conscience. Free! She is
never legally free! A widow may be legally free; a wife in India, never!
Hardly a single Caste wife in all this Empire would be found in the
little band of open Christians to-day, if the missionary concerned had
not risked more than can be told here, and put God's law before man's.
But oh, the number who have been turned back!

One stops, forces the words down--they come too hot and fast. There are
reasons. As I write, a young wife dear to us is lying bruised and
unconscious on the floor of the inner room of a Hindu house. Her
husband, encouraged by her own mother, set himself to make her conform
to a certain Caste custom. It was idolatrous. She refused. He beat her
then, blow upon blow, till she fell senseless. They brought her round
and began again. There is no satisfactory redress. She is his wife. She
is not free to be a Christian. He knows it. Her relations know it. She
knows it, poor child.

O God, forgive us if we are too hot, too sore at heart, for easy
pleasantness! And, God, raise up in India Christian statesmen who will
inquire into this matter, and refuse to be blindfolded and deceived. His
laws and ours clash somewhere; the question is, where?

To return to Treasure, we left her waiting to come. A Christian teacher
lived next door, and Treasure used to slip in sometimes, as the two
courtyards adjoined. We had put up a text on the wall for her: "Fear
not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art
Mine." This was her special text, and she looked at it now; and then she
grew braver, and promised to be patient and try to win her mother, who
was bitterly opposed.

But oh, how I remember the wistfulness of her face as I went out; and
one's very heart can feel again the stab of pain, like a knife cutting
deep, as I left her--to her fate.

You have seen a tree standing stark and bare, a bleak black thing, on a
sunny day against a sky of blue. You have looked at it, fascinated by
the silent horror of it, a distorted cinder, n