ed, and he said, '_Tell the
Christians not to pray. I can do nothing against their prayers. Their
prayers are hindering me!_' And so, I beseech you, stop your prayers for
fourteen days--only fourteen days--till I get my daughter tied!"

"And after she is tied?" we asked. "Oh, then she may freely follow your
God! I will hinder her no more!"

Poor old mother! All lies are allowed where such things are concerned.
We knew the proposed bridegroom came from a place three hundred miles
distant, and the idea was to carry the poor girl off by force, as soon
as she was "tied." We have been praying night and day to God to hinder
this. And He is hindering! But there is need to go on. That mother is a
devotee. She has received the afflatus. Sometimes at night it falls upon
her, and she dances the wild, wicked dance, and tries to seize the girl,
who shrinks into the farthest corner of the little house; and she dances
round her, and chants the chant which even in daylight has power in it,
but which at night appeals unspeakably. Once the girl almost gave way,
and then in her desperation, hardly knowing the sin of it, ran to the
place where poison was kept, drank enough to kill two, straight off,
then lay down on the floor to die. Better die than do what they wanted
her to do, she thought. But they found out what she had done, and
drastic means were immediately used, and the poison only made her ill,
and caused her days of violent pain. So there is need for the hindering
prayer. Lord, teach us how to pray!

Is India crammed with the horrible? "Picturesque," they call it, who
have "done it" in a month or two, and written a book to describe it. And
the most picturesque part, they agree, is connected with the temples.

India ends off in a pointed rock; you can stand at the very point of the
rock, with only ocean before you, and almost all Asia behind. A temple
is set at the end of the point, as if claiming the land for its own. We
took our convert boys and girls to the Cape for the Christmas holidays,
and one morning some of us spent an hour under an old wall near the
temple, which wall, being full of hermit crabs, is very interesting. We
were watching the entertaining ways of these degenerate creatures when,
through the soft sea sounds, we heard the sound of a Brahman's voice,
and looking up, saw this:

A little group of five, sitting between the rocks and the sea, giving a
touch of life to the scene, and making the picture perfect. T