uneral pyre of his dead father and living
mother. When he attained manhood and had received a University
education, he became a Christian. He was then not only renounced by
his family, but his young wife also spurned and denied him. In
accordance with her faith, she regarded and treated him as dead,
performed his funeral rites, and, with shaven head, unjewelled body,
and the widow's white cloth, mourned his decease as if he had actually
died. For Christ's sake he had been an outcast from his people and was
twice dead to his beloved. This experience has been repeated a
thousand times in India in the case of Christian converts. But, in
this particular instance, there was a remarkable denouement. The young
man, deserted, divorced, and ceremonially buried by his wife, married
a Christian woman, with whom he lived happily for many years. But
after her death he returned to his first love and _remarried the
widow_ of his youth, who, in the meanwhile, had relented and become a
Christian. This was the experience of Professor Chuckerbuthy, of the
General Assembly College, in Calcutta, who died in 1901.

Marriage among Hindus differs in many respects from the same compact
among western people. It is in no instance dependent upon the
initiative of the contracting parties, if such the bride and the
bridegroom may be called in India. Neither of them is a direct
participant in the arranging of the contract. It is all done by the
parents or the guardians of the boy and girl. It is entirely a
business, and not a sentimental, affair. No other system would be
possible under past and present conditions in India. In the case of
infant marriages, the children concerned have, of course, neither
knowledge of, nor special interest in, the matter. Even in cases where
the future bride and bridegroom have attained puberty, no sentiment is
ever allowed to enter, as a consideration, into the matter. The first
question asked is whether the parties belong to the same caste and are
connected by family ties. If so, the marriage may be a suitable one.
It is strange that the children of brothers and sisters furnish the
most suitable marriage relationships. But the children of brothers, or
those of sisters, furnish a prohibited relationship! It is regarded as
improper for a boy to marry the daughter of his mother's sister, or of
his father's brother, as it would be to marry his own sister. The
marriage of those remotely connected by blood is rarely conside