month passed and nothing was done. We could not go ourselves
and attempt to persuade the mother to change the vow she had made, as
any movement on our part would only have riveted the links that fettered
the child to the god. We had to be quiet and wait. At last, one evening
in September, a Hindu arrived in the town with whom our friends who were
on the watch had intimate connection. He, too, knew about the child; and
he knew a way unknown to our friends by which the mother might be
influenced, and he consented to try. His arrival just at that juncture
appeared to us, who were waiting in daily expectation of an answer of
deliverance, as the evident beginning of that answer; thus our faith was
quickened and we waited in keen hope. Two days later, after dark, there
was a rush from the nursery to the bungalow. "The baby has come!"
Another moment, and we were in the nursery. A woman--one of our
friends--was standing with what looked like a parcel wrapped in a cloth
hidden under her arm. Even then, though all was safe, she was trembling;
and outside, two men, her relations, stood on guard. She opened the
white cloth, and inside was the baby.

The men assured us that all was right. The mother had been convinced
of the wrongness of dedicating the little babe, and would give us no
trouble. But a day or two later, she came and demanded it back. She
could not stand the derision of her friends, who told her she had sinned
far more in giving her child to those who would break its caste than she
ever could have done had she given it to the Temple. We pacified her
with difficulty, and were thankful when the little thing was safe in the
Neyoor nursery. For in those days, before we learned how best to protect
our children, we were often glad to have some place even more out of
reach than Dohnavur.

The second of these old towns is famous for its rock, and its Temple
built into the rock. Looking down from above one can see inside the
courtyard as into an open well. Connected with this Temple, some years
ago, there was a beautiful young Temple woman, who had been given as a
child--as all Temple women must be--to the service of the gods. She had
no choice as regarded herself--probably the idea of choice never entered
her mind--but for her babe she determined to choose; and yet she knew of
no way of deliverance.

But there was a way of deliverance, and if it had only been for this one
child's sake, and for the sake of the relief it must