et of people is never really
easy.

"=It takes the Ideal to blow a hair's-breadth off the Dust of the
Actual.="

It takes more. It takes =God=. It takes =God= to do anything anywhere.
Yesterday we were visiting in one of the Caste villages, and one old
lady, who really seems to care for us, said she would greatly like to
take my hand in hers; "but," she explained, "this morning one of the
children of the place leaned over the edge of the tank to drink, and he
fell in and was drowned; so I have been to condole with his people, and
I have now returned from bathing, and do not feel equal to bathing
again." If she touched me she would have to bathe to get rid of the
defilement. Of course I assured her I quite understood, but as she sat
there within two inches of me, yet so carefully preserving inviolate
those two inches of clear space, I felt what a small thing this
caste-created distance was, the merest "Dust of the Actual" on the
surface of the system of her life; and yet, "to blow a hair's-breadth
of it off, nothing less is needed than the breath of the power of God."
"Come, O Breath, and breathe!" we cry. Nothing else will do.

Something in our talk led to a question about the character of Jesus,
and, as we tried to describe a little of the loveliness of our dear Lord
to her, her dark eyes kindled. "How beautiful it is!" she said; "how
beautiful He must be!" She seemed "almost persuaded," but we knew it was
only almost, not quite; for she does not yet know her need of a Saviour,
she has no sense of sin. Sometimes, it is true, that comes later; but we
find that if the soul is to resist the tremendous opposing forces which
will instantly be brought to bear upon it if it turns in the least
towards Christ, there must be a _conviction_ wrought within it; nothing
so superficial as a _feeling_, be it ever so appreciative or hopeful or
loving, will stand that strain.

So, though the eyes of this dear woman fill with tears as she hears of
the price of pain He paid, and though she gladly listens as we read and
talk with her and pray, yet we know the work has not gone deep, and we
make our "petitions deep" for her, and go on.

In India men must work among men, and women among women, but sometimes,
in new places, as I have told before, we have to stop and talk with the
men before they will let us pass. For example, one afternoon I was
waylaid on my way to the women by the head of the household I was
visiting, a fine old man o