e old stagers will suggest that he must see the
church, and they are eager to display their knowledge of our
religious ways by explaining to him the meaning of what he finds
there.

[Illustration: YERANDAWANA CHURCH FROM A DISTANCE.]

The English stories which are given as text-books in the upper classes
of Indian schools sometimes present great difficulties to the Hindu
masters, who have to explain the meaning of words and phrases. Miss
Yonge's _Little Duke_ was being read in some of the Poona City High
Schools one year. Even the Christian and surname of the author,
pronounced with exact reference to the spelling, produced such a
mysterious result that it was some time before I recognised the real
name buried up in strange sounds. Miss Yonge's references to churches
were often particularly perplexing, and a boy asking what was meant by
"the chancel," his master wisely advised his pupil to pay a visit to a
Christian church and see for himself. Quite a number of young students
at this period came and asked to be shown over the church, and to have
its various parts explained to them. Some of the questions were not
easy to answer, considering that the questioners were Hindus. What is
meant by "Holy Communion?" asked one of these young men. And later on
another, having had the font explained to him, said, "And how about
the ceremony of bread and wine?"

Even a little party of seven or eight female students from a Hindu
college, escorted by the one Christian girl in the establishment, came
to see the church. Some of them were carefully dressed with due
regard to Hindu fashion, but one or two were advanced women of the
modern school, who had introduced several innovations, especially as
regards a freer way of arranging the hair. There was something almost
pathetic in their interest in what they saw, because the hope of their
ever being otherwise than outsiders was, to say the least of it, very
distant. It was, however, a distinct mark of progress that the
Christian girl who brought them was not only tolerated as a boarder in
the college amongst high-caste girls, but she was evidently popular
and looked up to.

About a dozen Hindu widows came over one morning to see the church
from their home in the next village. They displayed a curious
combination of curiosity, apprehension, and interest. One oldish widow
literally fled to the other side of the church when she suddenly
realised that I was standing behind her. The other