usehold, their husbands and their children. An occasional
glimpse has been got by our ladies into their state, and, as might have
been expected, their minds have been found utterly childish and dwarfed.
Happily for themselves the vast majority of the women of the country
are under no such bondage. Their husbands cannot afford to curtain them.
They move about freely as they do in our country, only with the hood
ready to come down over the face. They are seen in the streets of
Benares as they are seen in the streets of our own towns.

All have heard of the low view of woman entertained in India, and of the
humiliating customs to which she is subjected; but nature asserts itself
there as elsewhere, and notwithstanding all the inferiority with which
she is charged, she exercises a profound influence on the male portion
of the community. This is recognized by the people always saying, _Ma,
Bap_--Mother, Father--not _Father and Mother_, as we say. It is well
known that in the large households of which I have spoken the dowager
lady is the supreme ruler, often the tyrant--not the less a tyrant
because in her youth she had been treated as a slave. The state of
widows, many of them mere children, is sad indeed.

Shut out though we be to a large extent from native families, we have
many proofs presented to us of the power of female influence, a power
often most perniciously exerted, as it is the power of ignorance and
superstition, a power opposed to all intellectual and spiritual
progress. The devout women of India are often our most formidable
enemies, as they were of Paul in Antioch in Pisidia, and no doubt in
other places. Some of our converts have known from painful experience
what their opposition to the Gospel is, and it cannot be doubted that
many have been prevented from joining us by the pressure brought to bear
on them by their mothers, wives, and sisters. Well may every friend of
India pray earnestly that Zenana Missions may be crowned with success.

A returned missionary is often asked what are the prospects of missions.
From careful and trustworthy statistics we learn the number of
Christians is increasing rapidly. It is right to observe that this
increase has come mainly from the non-Aryan tribes, and people of low
caste. We have valuable converts from the higher castes, but they are
few. When we leave statistics we have recourse to impression, and that
impression depends greatly on circumstances, and still more,