put to it, and have to live on
short commons during the last days of the month. People
holiday-making, or out of work, will forage about in search of free
meals, and will drop in here and there just about dinner time without
much thought as to whether their company is welcome or not. Even the
poorest persons will cheerfully produce all that they have got in
order to feed these chance comers, with whom perhaps they have only a
slight acquaintance. Christians are also generous with their money in
helping other Christians who are in difficulties, or out of work. Some
who may have got good appointments are, nevertheless, often kept poor
by their efforts to help relations who, on their part, seem to have no
delicacy about making urgent demands for assistance. Even mothers will
prey without compunction on married children who can ill afford to
render help.

But the petition of the mother is never rejected. In Hindu family life
the respect and affection which the son has for his mother is a most
touching and beautiful characteristic, which only intensifies the
older he grows. The Indian boy is often wilful and disobedient and
rude to his mother, but he makes up for this by his dutiful conduct
when he grows to manhood. It is almost comical to find Hindus of
mature years referring everything to their mother, and even in small
matters of daily life saying that they must ask their mother before
they can do this or that. This filial conduct does not arise from fear
of the maternal wrath, but because of the son's deep respect for his
mother as such.

Many a Hindu has said to me, when discussing the possibility of
acceptance of Christianity, "It would grieve my mother, and I cannot
do that." When conversions have taken place, the final and most bitter
struggle has nearly always been when the lamentations and entreaties
of the mother had to be faced, and some men have not been able to
stand this pressure, and have turned back on that ground alone. The
tears of the wife are of small account compared with the distress of
the mother.

It must be added that the Hindu mother appears to accept the
considerate regard of her sons very much as a matter of course, and
that if she looks upon them with equal affection, her manner of
displaying it is, at any rate, different from the English ideal.

Happily Christian boys and men retain much of the same reverential
feeling concerning their mother. The Indian equivalent of the English
parish c