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Touring in Madura

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me and proceeded to fan so violently that I was nearly smothered again! Men and women were pushing over one another in the foreground, trying to see my every motion. Quiet having been secured and the first excitement over with, I turned my attention to a group of women sitting on the floor near me. They were my pupils, and were really interesting women. One woman was reading the Bible, and knew many verses in the Scripture lesson. Another one, whose daughter was studying, could only recite verses, but she was very intelligent and talked with me very earnestly about Jesus Christ. She seemed influenced by the Bible woman and the school and the little touch of Christianity which had come to the village. After a

VILLAGE SCHOOL IN MADURA FIELD, TEACHER AT THE RIGHT

while I stopped, and went on a short distance to a small grove, where I ate my breakfast. It was very hot and I did not get much rest, but was glad of a little respite from the noise and confusion. After this I visited the school. The catechist was absent with a sick man, and the boys were not in their usual places. It was a pitiful little place, just an ordinary village building, and the only furniture that I noticed was a chair, and a small, dilapidated box which seemed to do service for a table and book shelves. The boys gathered inside this rude schoolroom and recited Bible verses to me and sang a song, not very musically, but heartily!

I felt as I was driving home that after all the discouragements had been considered, the slow progress, the indifference, the evils and wrongs, there

was yet great hope that the seed planted there would grow and thrive. I came home in a shower, which helped to make me a little more comfortable as it cooled the air very much.

August 7th. Since writing the above I have been out on another tour in an opposite direction. I camped in a fine grove of mango trees, tamarind trees, etc., and had for constant company little birds, owls and monkeys! I heard the owls occasionally, and saw the monkeys jumping from branch to branch, but none of them intruded upon me so I was not disturbed. Not so many people as usual came to my tent, as I was off at a little distance from the nearest village. I went to them, however, visiting villages where I have no pupils and conducting short preaching, and the villages where the women and girls are reading. I heard the lessons, examining them in

AVENUE OF BANYANS, NEAR ARRUPUKOTTAI

the Scripture study, dispensed a few medicines, sold books, had some quiet talks with the women, and a good many noisy times with the crowd. When I was walked out and talked out I wondered if I had accomplished anything!

I am convinced that this Bible women's work, or the work of these Christian women among the homes, is a far-reaching work. It is one which is helping to undermine heathenism-a work which, as it tries to elevate the women, tends to do away with superstition and ignorance in the home, and so directly influence father, husband and children. When the women let go their grasp of heathenism, then India will be far on its way toward Christianity. It is interesting to note the gradual change which comes to the women in the home, and I attribute this mostly to the work

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Touring in Madura

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amongst them, as outside influences for good do not come to them directly. It takes courage to reach the point where she is willing to begin to study. She has been taught directly or indirectly that it is a disgrace for women to read, and she herself does not think it a very necessary thing in her life; but she responds to the influence of the Bible woman and begins. It is a great occasion when she recites her first lesson to the foreign lady and she is anxious to appear well. After a few times we notice more expression in her face, and she begins not only to recite the Bible verses but to answer a few questions in the Scripture lesson intelligently. Then sometime there comes a real interest in her face, and she comes to us as if she trusted us and wished to understand what we say about the true way. Then comes the time of conflict, when she distrusts her own religion, but knows not how to seize hold of the new. Later when some measure of peace comes to her, she reads her Bible and prays and tries in the midst of heathenism to live a Christian life. This is not an easy thing to do. In some cases she may be unhindered and unmolested by husband and mother-in-law, but generally it finally comes to her to decide between Christ and heathenism, and that may mean between Christ and her home and family.

These women need our sympathy and help. We cannot encourage them to leave their home and family, but sometimes they are obliged to flee for their lives. Will not the Christian women at home pray earnestly for these pupils in the homes, that they may be led into the light and guided by the Holy Spirit in their difficult course in life?

NEWS FROM PERSIA

AN encouraging result of the work of Presbyterian missionaries in Persia is seen daily in one of their schools: Moslems, Armenians and Jews drink from the same water pail! This will be the more appreciated if you realize that here we are not surprised to hear that in a high Moslem home orders were given to smash a water jug because our American physician, ministering to the sick in the house, had handled the jug. The same result appears when a titled Moslem young man allows a Jewish boy to jump over him in playing leap frog.- Assembly Herald.

A missionary in Teheran writes:

More people have been attending the religious services this year than ever before, and five Moslem converts have been baptized. Two are women, one a pupil in the girls' school. The fifth is a man who came twenty-two days' journey in quest of baptism and instruction. A year or two ago he

procured a Bible, and by reading it repeatedly had acquired a wonderful grasp of Christian doctrines. It was almost startling to hear him explain spiritual truths with an understanding seldom found in maturer Christians.

I

A VISIT TO OUR SCHOOL IN MADRID

BY MISS MAY MORRISON, TEACHER IN THE SCHOOL

WISH you could see the school instead of being told about it, but I think I will tell you as nearly as I can what you would see if you were making us a visit. You may be sure we would meet you at the train with a hearty welcome, and then we would take the long drive across the city, when you would see a few touches of Spanish life, such as the uncovered heads of the women of the lower classes, a few mantillas on those of the middle classes and churchgoers, and the apron-like blouses worn by the boys and workingmen; but you would be impressed more probably by the cosmopolitan air of the city, the clean streets and beautiful carriage horses, for most visitors expect to find Madrid as Oriental as the smaller towns in the provinces.

As we turn into Calle Fortuny, a quiet, pretty street near the finest avenue in the city, we would begin to show you our different possessions. First would be Number 14, a three-story corner house, not very pretentious, but with a small garden and coach house. The house, we would explain to you, is the home of some thirty of our girls, two Spanish teachers, our sewing girl and a matron; the coach house serves as the school laundry and residence of our porter and his family; and the garden is one of the centers of activity of the girls who are lovers of flowers. Probably none of these facts would need explanation, as some of the girls are almost always en evidence; the washing adorns the side yard five days in the week, and the little flower beds are seldom without bright blossoms, that speak for the care bestowed upon them.

After passing an intermediate house, five long years the fruitless object of our envy, we reach Number 20, where our carriage will stop. If we arrive in free time we will find the garden full of life and noise, the older girls walking arm in arm, and the younger ones playing diavolo, jumping rope, and above all, swinging in the beautiful big swing given by Miss Day, Treasurer of the Woman's Board, on her visit to us a year ago. We enter the house, meeting girls at every turn, for we live in very reduced quarters, and go upstairs, where you will be left in quiet-comparative quiet-for except in class time and study hours this is a very noisy house.

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The next morning you will probably be wakened by the first bell at halfpast six, and puzzled by frequent other bells, whose imperative commands are followed by calls and great scurrying through the halls. At half-past seven the thunder of chairs on the tiled floors of the dining rooms will announce that breakfast is commencing, the continental breakfast of rolls and coffee or milk; but you will take your morning coffee with us in another dining room, for we keep our American table apart for the sake of a

little home life.

As we leave the breakfast room we see girls very energetically engaged everywhere in their domestic work, or hurrying off to Number 14 to put their rooms in order before the first bell for classes, at a quarter-past eight; and in another half hour you will be invited to come with us to chapel exercises. For this you will need your wraps, if it is winter, for we have to cross the street, and then enter the beautiful garden of Number 5, the property of the corporation school, where all our morning work is done. At chapel you will see both schools assembled; the girls of the corporation school, from ten to a dozen, in the front row, and behind them the sixty odd girls composing all the different departments under the Woman's Board, except the little kindergarten. The fifteen or eighteen little folks of the latter have their own exercises in their room in Number 20.

After chapel class work begins in earnest, and you may spend all the morning if you like, visiting classes and becoming acquainted with both teachers and girls. The first class you see will be necessarily a Bible class, as all the girls have daily recitations in Bible study to begin the day's work. We have a graded course, beginning with catechism and simple Bible stories, leading up to advanced work. After the Bible class you may have your choice of subjects, and wander in and out of the class rooms as you wish, though I am sure you will want to save part of the time to look in at the little folks of the kindergarten. For that we will have to go back across the street to Number 20. You will find them occupying what a little later you will be told is the English dining room; but now the tables and chairs are put as much to one side as such furniture permits, and in the center of the room is a group of bright-faced little people seated in tiny chairs around a kindergarten table.

At all times you will hear continuous, and at times too energetic, practicing of the various pianos and organs, for we find the ability to play in their own church and Sunday-school services one of the most valuable acquirements possible for the girls, and we want even those whose time with us is very short to learn to play hymns correctly.

At quarter-past twelve morning classes are finished, and again there is