force us to give her up if she were under eighteen. The
difficulty of proving the age, unless the girl is evidently well over
it, is very serious. The medical certificate usually takes off a year
from what we have every reason to believe is the true age.

One other proof remains--the horoscope. This is a Hindu document written
on a palm leaf at the birth of the child; but it is always carefully
kept by the head of the family, and so, as a rule, unobtainable. When a
case comes on in Court a false horoscope may be produced by the
relatives; this was done in a recent case tried in our Courts, so we
cannot count upon that. In this girl's case we got the Government
registers searched for birth-records of her village, but all such
registers we found had been destroyed; none were kept of births sixteen
years back. So, though she believed herself to be, and we believed her
to be, and the Christians who had known her all her life were sure she
was, "about sixteen," we knew it could not be proved. She was a very
slight girl, delicate and small for her age. This was against her, and
there were other reasons against her coming just then. She had to wait.

I shall never forget the day I had to tell her so. She could not
understand it. She knew that all the higher Castes had threatened to
combine, and back up her father in a lawsuit, if she became a Christian;
but she thought it would be quite enough if she stood up before the
judge, and said she knew she was of age, and she wanted to come to us.
"I will not be afraid of the people," she pleaded, "I will stand up
straight before them all, and speak without any fear!"

I remember how the tears filled her eyes as I explained things; it was
so hard for her to understand that we had no power whatever to protect
her. It would be worse for her if she came and had to be given up. She
was fully sensible of this, but "Would God let them take me away? Would
He not take care of me?" she asked.

I suppose it is right to obey the laws. They are, on whole, righteous
laws, made in the defence of these very girls. It would never do if
anyone could decoy away a mere child from her parents or natural
guardians. But the unrighteous thing, as it seems to us, is that the
whole burden of proof lies upon us, and that in these country villages
no facilities such as Government registers of birth are to be had, by
which we could hope legally to prove a point about which we are morally
sure. We feel that a