Christian there is
kidnapping a Brahman baby!" The official stopped at the carriage door.
She was pushed towards him amidst a confused chatter, a crowd gathered
at the door in a moment, and someone shouted in Tamil, above the excited
clamour on the platform: "Pull her out! A Christian with a Brahman
baby!"

"Then did my heart tremble! I held the baby tight in my arms. The man in
clothes said, 'Show it to me!' And he looked at its hands and he looked
at its feet, and he said: 'This is no child of yours!' But as I began to
explain to him, the train moved, and he banged the door; and I praised
God!"

India is a land where strange things can be accomplished with the
greatest ease. As all went well it is idle to imagine what might have
been; but we knew enough to be thankful.

Among the unwritten chapters is one which touches a problem. There are
some little children--often the most valuable to the Temple women--who
cannot live with us, but can live with them, because the baby in the
Temple house is nursed by a foster-mother for the sake of merit, and
thus it is given its best chance of life; whereas with us it is
impossible to get foster-mothers. Indian children of the castes approved
for the service are not, as a class, as robust as others; the secluded
lives of their mothers, and the rigid rules pertaining to widows
(girl-children born after the mother becomes a widow are, as has been
seen, in special danger), partly account for this; and in other cases
there are other reasons. Whatever the cause, however, the effect is
manifest. The baby is seldom the little bundle of content of our English
nurseries. It may become so later on, if all goes well. Often it lives
upon its birth-strength for four months, or less, and then slips away.
We have often hesitated about taking such babies; and then we have found
that by refusing one who is likely to die we have discouraged those who
were willing to help us, and the next baby in danger has been taken
straight to the house where its welcome was assured. So we have hardly
ever dared to refuse, and we have taken little fragile things whose days
we knew were numbered unless a foster-mother could be found, for it
seemed to us that death with us was better than life with the Temple
people; and also we have not dared to risk losing the next, who might be
healthy. "One dies, one lives," say the Temple women in their wisdom,
and take all who are suitable in caste and in appearance. "She