great Destroyer. None but God can keep us from falling into his power: therefore we pray, "Deliver us from evil," or from the evil one.

THE HINDOO WOMEN.

It is a miserable thing to be a Hindoo lady. While she is a very little girl, she is allowed to play about, but when she comes to be ten or twelve years, she is shut up in the back rooms of the house till she is married; and when she is married she is shut up still. deed walk in the garden at the house, but nowhere else.

She may in

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Hindoo ladies are not taught even those trifling accomplishments which Chinese ladies learn they can neither paint, nor play music; much less can they read and write. They amuse themselves by putting on their ornaments, or by making curries and sweetmeats to please their husbands: but most of their time they spend in idleness, sauntering about and chattering nonsense. As rich Hindoos have several wives, the ladies are not alone: and being so much together, they quarrel a great deal.

Some English ladies once visited the house

of a rich Hindoo. They were led into the court at the back of the house, and shown into a little chamber. One by one some women came in, all looking very shy and afraid to speak; yet dressed very fine in muslin sarees, worked with gold and silver flowers, and they were adorned with pearls and diamonds. At last they ventured to admire the clothes of their visitors, and even to touch them. Then they asked the English ladies to come and see their jewels; and they took them into a little dark chamber with gratings for windows, and displayed their treasures. They talked very loud, and all together and so foolishly, that the ladies reproved them. The poor creatures replied, "We should like to learn to read and work like the English ladies; but we have nothing to do, and so we are accustomed to be idle, and to talk foolishly. Do come again, and bring us books, and pictures, and dolls."

You see what useless, wearisome lives the Hindoo ladies lead. Now hear what hard and wretched lives the poor women lead. The wife of a poor man rises from her mat before it is day, and by the light of a lamp spins cotton for the family clothing. Next she feeds the children, and sweeps the house and yard, and cleans the brass and stone vessels. Then she washes

the rice, bruises, and boils it. By this time it is ten o'clock, when she goes with some other women to bathe in the river, or if there be no river near, in a great tank of rain-water. While there, she often makes a clay image of her god, and worships it with prayers, and bowings, and offerings of fruit and flowers, for nearly an hour. On her return home she prepares the curry for dinner her kitchen is a clay furnace in the yard, and there she boils the rice. When dinner is ready, she dares not sit down with her husband to eat it: no, she places it respectfully before his mat, and then retires to the yard. Her little boys eat with their father; but her little girls dine with her upon the food that is left.

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It is not the busy life she leads that makes a poor woman unhappy: it is the ill-treatment she endures. A kind word is seldom spoken to her but a hard blow is often given. Her own boys are encouraged to insult her because she is only a woman. She is taught to worship her husband as a god, however bad he may be. There is a proverb which shows how much women are despised in India. "How can you place the black rice-pot beside the golden spicebox!" By the rice-box a woman is meant: by the spice-box a man: and the meaning of the

proverb is that a wife is unworthy to sit at the same table with her husband.

In this manner a wife is treated: a widow is still more despised. However young she may be, she is not allowed to marry again; but is obliged to live in her father's house, or (if she has no father) in her brother's house, to do the hardest work, and never to eat more than one meal a day, and that meal of the coarsest food. Widows used to burn themselves in a great fire with their husbands' dead bodies; but the English government has forbidden them to do so any more; but their hard-hearted relations make them as miserable as possible.

MISSIONARIES.-There are hundreds of missionaries in India; but not nearly enough for so many millions of people. The Hindoos call them Padri-Sahibs, which means "FatherGentlemen," and they give them this name to show their love, as well as respect.

Once a missionary who had been long in India was going back to England for a little while. It was from Calcutta that he set sail. The Christian Hindoos stood in crowds by the river-side to bid him farewell. Among the rest was a little girl with her parents. She was a gracious child, who had turned from idols to serve the living God. The missionary said to her, "Well, my child, you know I am going to

Picture of children on the Ganges.

England. What shall I bring you from that country?"

"I do not want anything," she modestly replied. "I have my parents, and my brother, and the Padri-Sahibs, and my books, what can I want more?"

But," said the missionary, "you are only a little girl, and surely you would like something from England. Shall I bring you some playthings?"