one worker from anywhere else,--it would be a joy to know that God used
these letters to help to send someone to China, or anywhere where He has
need of His workers,--but I cannot help wondering, as I look round this
bit of the field, how it is that the workers are still so few.

We have found the people in the towns and villages willing to let us do
what we call "verandah work" when they will not let us into their
houses. Verandah work, like open-air preaching, is unsatisfactory as
regards the women, but it is better than nothing.

We spent an afternoon in the street this photo shows. It is a
thoroughfare, and so we were not forbidden; but even so, we always ask
permission before we walk down it. Such an ordinary, commonplace street
it looks to you; there is no architectural grandeur to awe the beholder,
and impress him with the majesty of Brahmanhood; and yet that street,
and every street like it, is a very Petra to us, for it is walled round
by walls higher and stronger than the temple walls round which it is
built; walls built, as it seems, of some crystal rock, imperceptible
till you come up to it, and even then not visible, only recognisable as
something you cannot get through.

Our first day there was encouraging. We began at the far end of the
street, and after some persuasion the men agreed to move to one side,
and let us have the other for any women who would come. Nothing
particular happened, but we count a day good if we get a single good
chance to speak in quietness to the women.

Next time we went it was not so good. They had heard in the meantime all
about us, and that we had girls from the higher Castes with us, and this
was terrible in their eyes. For the Brahman, from his lofty position of
absolute supremacy, holds in very small account the souls of those he
calls low-caste; but if any from the middle distance (he would not
describe them as near himself, only dangerously nearer than the others)
"fall into the pit of the Christian religion," he thinks it is time to
begin to take care that the Power which took such effect on them should
not have a chance to perform upon him, and, above all, upon his
womankind. So that day we were politely informed that no one had time to
listen, and, when some women wanted to come, a muscular widow chased
them off. We looked longingly back at those dear Brahman women, but
appeal was useless, so we went.

In one of the other Castes, the Caste represented by this row