ple women called out that the child was a
wicked thief. This is an ordinary charge. They think it will compel
submission. "We will make out a case, and send the police to drag you
off to gaol!" they yell; and sometimes there is risk of serious trouble,
for a case can be made out cheaply in India. But this did not promise to
be serious, so we inquired the stolen sum. It came to fourpence
halfpenny, which we paid for the sake of peace, though she told them
where the money was, and we found out later that she had told the truth.

I never thought she would remember it--the excitements of the day
crowded it out of my mind--but weeks afterwards, when I was teaching her
the text, "Not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold,"
and explaining how much Jesus had paid for us, she interrupted me with
the remark, "Oh yes, I understand! I know how much you paid for
me--fourpence halfpenny!"

And now to turn from small-seeming things to large. Ragland, Tamil
missionary, is writing to a friend in 1847. He is trying to express
astronomically the value of a soul. He asks, "How does the astronomer
correct the knowledge of the stars which simple vision brings him?
First, having discovered that the little dot of light is thousands of
miles distant, and having discerned by the telescope that it subtends at
the eye a sensible angle, and having measured that angle, a simple
calculation shows him the size of the object to be greater perhaps than
that of the huge ball which he calls his earth." Then, "Take the soul of
one of the poorest, lowest Pariahs of India, and form it by imagination
into, or suppose it represented by, a sphere. Place this at the
extremity of a line which is to represent time. Extend this line and
move off your sphere, farther and farther _ad infinitum_, and what has
become of your sphere? Why, there it is, just as before. . . . It is
still what it was, and this even after thousands of years. In short, the
disc appears undiminished, though viewed from an almost infinite
distance. _Oh, what an angle of the mind ought that poor soul to
subtend!_"

The letter goes on to suggest another parallel between things
astronomical and things spiritual. He supposes an objector admits the
size as proved, but demurs as to the importance of these heavenly
bodies. "They are, perhaps, only unsubstantial froth, mere puffs of air,
vapoury nothings." But the astronomer knows their mass and weight, as
well as their size: "Long ob