. She is married, she
told us by signs; her husband is deaf and dumb, and she has one blind
child. She sat on the floor beside us for a few minutes and asked
questions--the usual ones, about me, all by signs; but nothing we could
sign could in any way make her understand anything about our God. And
yet she seems to know something at least about her own. She pointed to
her mouth, and then up, and then down and round, to show the winding of
a river, and signed clearly enough how she went from holy river to holy
river, and worshipped by each, and she pointed up and clasped her hands.
There we were, just as I had been writing, so near to her, yet so far
from her.

But the greatest difficulty of all in reaching the women is that they
have no desire to be reached. Sometimes, as on that afternoon when the
child came and wanted to hear, we find one who has desire, but the
greater number have none; and except in the more advanced towns and
villages, where they are allowed to learn with a Bible-woman, they have
hardly a chance to hear enough to make them want to hear more.

Then, as if to make the case doubly hard (and this law applies to every
woman, of whatever Caste), she is, in the eyes of the law, the property
of her husband; and though a Christian cannot by law compel his Hindu
wife to live with him, a Hindu husband can compel his Christian wife to
live with him; so that no married woman is ever legally free to be a
Christian, for if the husband demanded her back, she could not be
protected, but would have to be given up to a life which no English
woman could bear to contemplate. She may say she is a Christian; he
cares nought for what she says. God help the woman thus forced back!

But, believing a higher Power will step in than the power of this most
unjust law, we would risk any penalty and receive such a wife should she
come. Only, in dealing with the difficulties and barriers which lie
between an Indian woman and life as a free Christian, it is useless to
shut one's eyes to this last and least comprehensible of all
difficulties, "an English law, imported into India, and enforced with
imprisonment," an obsolete English law!

We have no Brahman women converts in our Tamil Mission. We hear of a
few in Travancore; we know of more in the North, where the Brahmans are
more numerous and less exclusive; but there is not a single _bona fide_
Brahman convert woman or child in the whole of this District. There was
one, a very