ined this time
to be forearmed. So I visited the house of distress, found things clean
and tidy, but cupboards empty and a man in bed, supposed to be the
husband of the woman who had sought my aid. It was with apparent
difficulty he spoke to me. I hurried to order from the adjacent market a
full supply for several days. After exhausting my strength I felt myself
unable to go farther into the city where I could replace an undershirt
his loving spouse said had been stolen from the clothes line, and his
need of a change was most pressing. On my way home, tired and footsore,
I resolved to call on a neighboring friend where gentlemen were more
plentiful than with me, and ask for cast-off underwear. On interrogating
me, my friend laughed to see my distress, and informed me it was an old
trick of the woman. The sick man was a perfectly strong, well man--and
rarely was the same man on exhibition. Alack, for me! I had, during the
day, met our pastor, Mr. Monroe Gibson, and begged that he might call at
his earliest convenience, lest the dying man might go out of the world
without a prayer, for his soul's salvation. In the twilight I retraced
my steps to tell Mr. Gibson how, in common parlance, "I had been sold."
After a sympathetic look, he in his Scotch brogue said: "Well, never
mind; you remember the man who put a crown in the contribution box where
he intended to put a penny and, on retiring from the church, went to the
man who had charge of the alms box and told him that he had made a
mistake. The pastor did not offer to refund it, but simply said:
'Brother, you will have your reward in heaven'" (for a good intention,
not for the amount given).

Low mud houses, hid among the palms, afforded shelter from the sun
during the noonday hours. Men, women and children, the former and latter
nude or scantily clad, grouped together along the road; the faces of the
women were partially veiled. The scene is rather picturesque, with the
chatter of the monkeys and the singing of bright plumaged birds. They
lend some animation to the otherwise barren prospects. We learn there
are common schools throughout the country for the male population, but
women are uneducated except in religious art and duties. Government no
longer tolerates the wife sacrificing her body on the pyre of her dead
husband; but death is preferable to a life of widowhood, owing to the
self-denial forced upon her by his family.

The climate of India is conducive to econom