r though of good caste, was much
exercised about the little one's future. How could she marry her
properly? She had come to the conclusion that her best plan would be to
give her to the Temple. So she was even then waiting till someone from a
Temple house would come and take her little girl.
The news that such a child is to be had soon becomes known to those who
are on the watch, and it is improbable that the mother would have had
long to wait. The Christian persuaded her to give up the idea, and the
little babe was saved and sent to us. On the journey to Dohnavur a
Temple woman chanced to get into the carriage where the little baby
slept in its basket. There was nothing to tell who she was; and like the
other women in the carriage, she was greatly interested in its story.
But presently it became evident that her interest was more than
superficial. She looked well at the baby and was quiet for a time; then
she said to the Christian who was bringing it to us: "I see it is going
to be an intelligent child. Let me have it; I will pay you." The
Christian of course refused, and asked her how she knew it was going to
be intelligent. "Look at its nose," said the Temple woman. "See, here is
money!" and she offered it. "Let me have the baby! You can tell your
Missie Ammal it died in the train!"
Sometimes our babies have to run greater risks than this in their
journeys south to us. The distances which have to be covered by train
and bullock-cart are great, and the travelling tedious. And there are
many delays and opportunities for difficulties to arise; so that when we
know a baby is on its way to us we feel we want to wrap it round in
prayer, so that, thus invisibly enveloped, it will be protected and
carried safely all the way. Once a little child, travelling to us from a
place as distant, counting by time, as Rome is from London, was observed
by some Brahman men, who happened to be at the far end of the long
third-class carriage. Our worker, who was alone with the child, noticed
the whispering and glances toward her little charge, and wrapped it
closer in its shawl, and, as she said, "looked out of the window as if
she were not at all afraid, and prayed much in her heart." Presently a
station was reached. The language spoken there was not her vernacular,
but she understood enough to know something was being said about the
baby. Then an official appeared, and there was a cry quite
understandable to her: "A Brahman baby! That
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