brutal midwives? Will her _Karma_ spare to her the life of husband and
children? In India sudden death is never far; pestilence walks in
darkness and destruction wastes at noon day. The fear of disease, the
fear of demons, the fear of death will be never far away; for these
fears there will be none to say, "Be not afraid."

So Meenachi, the bride, passes out into the unknown of life, and later
into the greater unknown of death. No one has taught her to say in the
valley of the shadow, "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." The
terrors of life are with her, but its consolations are not hers.

[Illustration: MARRIED TO THE GOD
A Little Temple Girl]


Widowhood.

Of widowhood I shall say little. Since the ancient days of _suttee_ when
the wife mounted her husband's funeral pyre volumes have been written on
the lot of the Indian widow. To-day in some cases the power of
Christianity has awakened the spirit of social reform and the rigors of
widowhood are lessened. Among the majority the old remains. In general,
the higher you rise in the social scale, the sterner the conventions and
fashions of widowhood become.

In Madras you may visit a Widow's Home, where through the wise efforts
of a large-hearted woman in the Educational Department of Government
more than a hundred Brahman girl-widows live the life of a normal
schoolgirl. No fastings, no shaven heads, no lack of pretty clothes or
jewels mark them off from the rest of womanhood. Schools and colleges