Introduction

The silence of a thousand years has been broken, and the reader of this unpretending little volume catches the first utterances of the unfamiliar voice. Throbbing with woe, they are revealed in the following pages to intelligent, educated, happy American women.

God grant that these women, whom He has blessed above all women upon the earth, may not flippantly turn away, as they are wont to do from some over-pious tale, and without reading, condemn! To begin this story of The High-caste Hindu Woman, and not to read it through attentively to the last word of the agonized appeal, is to invoke upon oneself the divine displeasure meted out to those who disregard the cry of "him that had none to help him." These lines are written with deep emotion; the blinding tears which fall upon the page are the saddest tears my eyes have ever wept.

From childhood I had been familiar with the statements concerning the condition of the native women of India. My sympathies had always been with them, and my annual offering to the treasury of missionary societies which worked among them, had never been omitted; but in September, 1883, there came to my door a little lady in a blue cotton saree, accompanied by her faithful friend, Mrs. B. F. Carpenter, of Roselle, New Jersey, and since that hour, when, speechless for very wonder, I bestowed a kiss of welcome upon the stranger's cheek in lieu of words, I have loved the women of India. The little lady was Mrs. Anandibai Joshee. Less than three months ago, the wealthy and conservative city of Poona, India, which gave her birth, was stirred as never before to honor a woman, and amid the pomp of Brahmanical funeral rites performed by orthodox Hindu priests, her funeral pile was lighted from the sacred fire, in the presence of a great throng of sorrowing Hindus. She sealed with her early death the superhuman effort to elevate her countrywomen and to minister in her own person to their physical needs.

To witness Dr. Joshee's graduation in medicine, there came to Philadelphia from England her kinswoman, Pundita Ramabai Sarasvati. The two ladies never met until they greeted each other under my roof, March 6th, 1886; but, as kindred spirits, they had corresponded for several years. Strangely enough, each left India without the knowledge of the other, and within the same month, Mrs. Joshee sailing from Calcutta and the Pundita from Bombay. The day that Mrs. Joshee left Liverpool for New York, Ramabai and her little daughter landed in England. The reception of the two ladies in the summer of 1883, one in England and the other in the United States, was most cordial; and, comforted and blessed as neither had dared to anticipate before leaving India, each settled down to work with industry and with a degree of intelligence which was a revelation to onlookers.

My own personal experience relates to her who fell to our lot in the college in Philadelphia. She tried faithfully, this little woman of eighteen, to prosecute her studies, and at the same time to keep caste-rules and cook her own food; but the anthracite coal-stove in her room was a constant vexation, and likewise a source of danger; and the solitude of the individual house-keeping was overwhelming. In her father's house, the congregate system, referred to in this book, prevailed; and, being a man of means, the family was always large. Later, when under her husband's care, he had been in the postal service, and the dwelling apartments were in the same building with the post-office; hence she had never known complete solitude. After a trial of two weeks, her health declined to such an alarming extent that I invited her to pay a short visit in my home, and she never left it again to dwell elsewhere in Philadelphia during her student residence. In the performance of college duties, going in and out, and up and down, always in her measured, quiet, dignified, patient way, she has filled every room, as well as the stairways and halls, with memories which now hallow the home, and must continue so to do throughout the years to come.

In the spring of 1884, Mrs. Joshee accepted an invitation to address an audience of ladies convened for a missionary anniversary, and she chose as her subject "Child Marriage," and surprised her great audience by defending the national custom. If there are any who still cherish the feelings of disappointment and regret engendered that April afternoon, let them turn to Ramabai's chapter on Married Life in this book, and learn how absolutely impossible it was fora high-caste Hindu wife to speak otherwise. Let them also discover, in the herculean attempt of that occasion, a clue to the influences which at length overpowered and slew this gentle, grave woman.

"I will go (to America) as a Hindu, and come back and live among my people as a Hindu." Brave, patriotic words! a resolve which was carried out to the death. Ramabai's chapter on Married Life, the married life of a Hindu woman in the year 1887, no less than in past centuries, reveals to the Western reader what it was for this refined, intellectual woman, whose faculties developed rapidly under Western opportunities, and whose scientific acquirements placed her high in rank among her peers in the college class, to accept again the position awarded her by the Code of Manu (Manu ix. 22; see page 40). That she did accept it, that "until death she was patient of hardships, self-controlled, . . . and strove to fulfill that most excellent duty which is prescribed for wives," is undoubted. She battled hand to hand with every circumstance, resolved, as a Hindu, to live and work for the uplifting of her sisters, but all in vain!

After years of exile, she found herself once more in the familiar places of her childhood, surrounded by her mother and maternal grandmother and sisters. She had returned to them too late to admit of the restoration of her appetite by the nourishing food their skillful hands knew how to prepare; but in love they watched beside her, and it was the dear mother's privilege to support the daughter in her arms when at midnight the end came quickly. This occurred February 26th, 1887, in the city of Poona, in the house in which she was born. Previous to the cremation of the body, which took place the morning following her death, her husband had a photograph taken of "mat-ter before it was transformed into vapor and ashes." The pathos of that lifeless form is indescribable. The last of several pictures, taken during the brief public career of the little reformer, it is the most eloquent of them all. The mute lips, and the face, wan and wasted and prematurely aged in the fierce battle with sorrow and pain, alike convey to her American friends this message, not to be forgotten: "I have done all that I could do." Ah! who will thus early dare to say that she has not accomplished more by her death than she might have accomplished by a long life? Herself and husband returned from a foreign land, where they had dwelt with a strange people, ought, by Hindu custom, to have been treated as outcasts, and their shadows shunned. Instead, when it was known that the distinguished young Hindu doctor had reached her early home, old and young, orthodox and non-orthodox, came to pay friendly visits and to extend a cordial welcome.

Even the reformers were astounded when they beheld the manner in which the travelers were treated by the most orthodox families. The papers from day to day chronicled the state of the invalid's health, and when at length she passed away, several of the journals of Poona printed in the vernacular, contained under symbols of mourning, eulogistic notices of her character and work. Ramabai has translated two of these for me, and from them I make extracts:

The general public interest in the person and work of Dr. Joshee is a sufficient reason for presenting in this introductory chapter the above details, which have not elsewhere been given to her American friends. Pundita Ramabai, her beloved and trusted kinswoman, still lives to perform, not her identical work, but to prosecute the general disenthrallment of Hindu women, concerning the ultimate accomplishment of which Dr. Joshee cherished invincible faith. Greatly bereaved, her fond hopes of a congenial supporter and an efficient helper in India suddenly dashed to the ground, Ramabai toils on with a heroic singleness of purpose. It is in the prosecution of this one supreme object of helping her countrywomen to a better and higher life that this little book has been written. In her contact with American philanthropists and educators, during the year of her sojourn in the United States, Ramabai has found popular ideas concerning the women of India erroneous, and it is to correct these, and also to reveal fully their needs, that the following chapters have been prepared.

She has written in the belief that if the depths of the thralldom in which the dwellers in Indian zenanas are held by cruel superstition and social customs were only fathomed, the light and love in American homes, which have so comforted her burdened heart, might flow forth in an overwhelming tide to bless all Indian women. The task of preparing The High-caste Hindu Woman has not been for her a congenial one. She is not by nature an iconoclast. She loves her nation with a pure, strong love. But her love has reached the height where it is akin to the motive of the skillful surgeon: she dares to inflict pain because she regards pain as affording the only sure means of relief. She is satisfied, moreover, that India cannot arise and take her place among the nations of the earth until she, too, has mothers; until the Hindu zenana is transformed into the Hindu home, where the united family can have "pleasant times together" (see p. 48).

The experiment of bringing the existing condition of high-caste Hindu women to the test of codes of sacred law, it is believed, was never before attempted. The reader will bear in mind, as she cons the carefully selected texts from the Code of Manu which abound throughout the volume, that these are sentences too sacred for feminine lips to utter, and that few women in India have ever heard them, much less have beheld them with their own eyes. Even Ananta Shastri, liberal as he was in his views concerning the education of women, withheld the sacred texts from his wife and daughters. The Sanskrit literature accessible to them, consisted of poems not associated with sacred rites and ceremonies. Ramabai never saw a copy of the Code of Manu until after her scholastic attainments had been publicly recognized in Calcutta.

She has exercised great care in securing correctness in her quotations, diligently comparing translations, where more than one were available, and in some cases making the translation herself from the original Sanskrit. The general statements throughout the book may be relied upon for their accuracy. Should the volume reach India, these statements will undoubtedly be assailed as untruthful and sacrilegious, and possibly there may be persons in the United States who will strive to create this impression; but Ramabai's desire to speak the truth is only equalled by her determination to let in the full blaze of day upon effete customs and perilous usages. She has withheld nothing essential that her wide experience throughout India has revealed to her. She does not print this information for the purpose of reputation or of gain, but because taught, as she believes, by the Divine Spirit, that the revelation will stir the hearts of those who read the story to deeds of rescue and relief.

There are readers who, upon the title-page of this book, will see the Pundita's name for the first time, and all such will naturally inquire, Who is she? In view of the fact, that she seeks to assume grave responsibilities before the American public this question is legitimate, and therefore, at the risk of growing tedious, I will endeavor to make answer. It is a weird beginning of a life-sketch to ask the inquirer to turn to page 37 and read of an occurrence, in the early morning, on the banks of the sacred river Godavari. The fine-looking man who came to the river-side to bathe was the learned Ananta Shastri, and the little girl of nine, whom he carried away the day following as his child-bride, was Ramabai's mother. This Brahman pundit, who "well and tenderly cared for the little girl beyond all expectation," was a native of the Mangalore district in Western India. In his boyhood, when about ten years of age, he had been married, and had brought his child-bride to his mother's house and committed the little girl to her keeping. He, however, was possessed with a desire for the acquisition of knowledge, and attracted by the fame of Ramachandra Shastri, a distinguished scholar, who dwelt in Poona, he early made his way thither, and sought his instruction. This eminent Brahman had been employed by the reigning Peshwa to visit his palace statedly, and give Sanskrit lessons to a favorite wife. The student Ananta was privileged to accompany his teacher, and, thus going in and out of the palace, he occasionally heard the lady reciting Sanskrit poems.

The boy was filled with wonder that a woman should be so learned, and as time wore on, astonishment gave place to admiration of her learning, and he resolved that he would teach his little wife just as the Shastri taught the fair Rani of the palace. His student-life ended at the age of twenty-three, and he hastened to his native village to incorporate education with his duties as a householder. But the bride had no desire to be instructed; his mother and all the elders of the family demurred, and the husband was compelled to desist. The married life went on, children were born to the young couple, and at length the wife died. The widower had not forgotten the Peshwa's palace in Poona and the Sanskrit poems, and he resolved to begin his next experiment early.

We learn from the printed page how he accepted the little bride of nine who was offered to him, and carried her to his distant home; there he delivered her to his mother, and immediately began to teach her Sanskrit. But the elders of the household objected as before; the little wife was too young to have a voice in the matter, and the husband resolved that the experiment of the girl's education should be faithfully carried out. He therefore left the valley and civilization below him, and journeyed upward with his young wife to the forest of Gungamul, on a remote plateau of the Western Ghauts, and literally in the jungle, took up his abode. Ramabai relates as a memory of her childhood her mother's recital of how the first night was spent in the sylvan solitude, without shelter of any kind. A great tiger came with the darkness, and from across a ravine, made the night hideous with its cries. The little bride wrapped herself up tight in her pasodi (cotton quilt) and lay upon the ground convulsed with terror, while the husband kept watch until daybreak, when the hungry beast disappeared. The wild animals of the jungle were all about them, and hourly terrified the lonely little girl; but the lessons went on without hindrance, and day by day the wife, Lakshmibai, grew in stature and in knowledge. A rude dwelling was constructed, and after a few years little children came to the home in the forest, one son and two daughters. The father devoted himself to the education of the son and elder daughter, and also to that of young men who, as students, sought out the now famous Brahman priest, whose dwelling-place in the mountains, at the source of one of the rivers, was regarded as sacred, and hence a place of pilgrimage for the pious. When Ramabai, the youngest child, was born, in April, 1858, the father was quite too much occupied to instruct her, and, moreover, he was growing old. Upon her mother, therefore, devolved the instruction in Sanskrit.

The resident students and the visiting pilgrims and the aged father and mother-in-law, now members of the family, as well as the children of the household, entailed many cares upon the educated Hindu mother, and the only time that could be found for the little daughter's lessons was in the morning twilight, before the toilsome day had dawned. Ramabai recalls with emotion that early instruction while held in her dear mother's arms. The little maiden, heavy with sleep, was tenderly lifted from her bed upon the earth, and wakened with many endearments and sweet mother-words; and then, while the birds about them in the forest chirped their morning songs, the lessons were repeated, no other book than the mother's lips being used. It is these lessons of the early morning, statedly renewed with each recurrent day, that constitute the fountain-head of the "sweet influences and able instruction" which, in the dedicatory page of this book, the author characterizes as "the light and guide of my life."

But this was a Hindu home, not an American home where such kindly care and wise parental love would have borne for the parents refreshing fruit in their old age. The father, under the iron rule of custom, had given his elder daughter in marriage when very young, and upon pages 62 and 63 we learn the nature of the sorrows which overtook the family; previous to this, however, the popularity of the Shastri as a teacher, and his sacred locality in the wilderness, had involved him in debt; for guests must be fed and duties enjoined by religion performed, at whatever pecuniary loss. The half of his landed property in his native village, which was to be the portion of the son by the second wife, was, with the son's consent, sold to discharge the debts, and then the family, homeless, set out upon pilgrimages. It is difficult for the Western reader, with whom the word home is inseparable from family existence, to realize that this Hindu family were thus employed seven years, Ramabai being nine years of age when they set out.

But all the while as this Marathi priest and his wife and children wandered from one sacred locality to the next, having no certain dwelling-place, the early morning lessons were continued, and Ramabai, developing rare talent, became, under the instructions of father and mother, "a prodigy of erudition." Engrossed in her studies, she was allowed to remain single until the age of sixteen, when, within a month and a half of each other, her parents died.

"From my earliest years," Ramabai states, "I always had a love of books. Though I was not formally taught Marathi, yet hearing my father and mother speak it and being in the habit of reading newspapers and books in that language, I acquired a correct knowledge of it. In this manner I acquired also the knowledge of Kanarese, Hindustani and Bengali while traveling about. My father and mother did not do with me as others were in the habit of doing with their daughters, i. e., throw me into the well of ignorance by giving me in marriage in my infancy. In this my parents were both of one mind." When death invaded the pilgrim household, the father, bowed with age and now totally blind for several years, was taken first; in six weeks the mother followed. The poverty of the family was extreme; consequently, Brahmans could not be secured to bear the remains to the burning-ghat, which was three miles distant from the scene of the mother's death. At length two Brahmans were found who took pity upon them, and with the assistance of these men, the devoted son and daughter themselves carried the precious burden to the distant place of cremation, Ramabai's low stature compelling the bearing of her share of the burden upon her head. Why do I recount this passage of nameless woe? Why? Because we American women, in our own homes, have never before looked into the face of one upon whom a ministry of sorrow so overwhelming as this has been laid, and we need, in our prosperity, to realize that God hath made of one blood all nations of men. The lovely woman who writes this book in the city of Philadelphia and the beloved mother to whom she dedicates it were in the forest of Gungamul and in the later, dusty paths of pilgrimage alike destitute of the true knowledge of God; but, in their great spiritual darkness, they ministered to and mutually loved and cherished each other with that maternal and filial affection which is the same the world over.

After the death of the parents and the elder sister, Ramabai and her brother continued to travel. They visited many countries on the great continent of India, the Punjab, Rajputana, the Central Provinces, Assam, Bengal and Madras, and, as pilgrims, were often in want and distress. They spent their time in advocating female education, i. e., that before marriage high-caste Hindu girls should be instructed in Sanskrit and in their vernacular, according to the ancient Shastras.

When, in their journeying, they at length reached Calcutta, the young Sanskrit scholar and lecturer created a sensation by her advanced views and her scholarship. She was summoned before the assembled pundits of the capital city; and as a result of their examination the distinguished title of Sarasvati was publicly conferred upon her by them. Soon after, her brother died. "His great thought during his brief illness," she writes, "was for me; what would become of me left alone in the world? When he spoke of his anxiety, I answered: 'There is no one but God to care for you and me.' 'Ah,' he answered, 'then if God cares for us, I am afraid of nothing.' And, indeed, in my loneliness, it seemed as if God was near me; I felt His presence." "After six months I mar-ried a Bengali gentleman, Bipin Bihari Medhavi, M.A., B.L., a Vakil and a graduate of the Calcutta University. But we neither of us believed either in Hinduism or Christianity, and so we were married with the civil marriage rite. . . . After nineteen months of happy married life, my dear husband died of cholera. This great grief drew me nearer to God. I felt that He was teaching me, and that if I was to come to Him, He must Himself draw me." A few months before the husband's death a little daughter was born in the happy home – a daughter greatly desired by both father and mother before her birth, and hence, she found a beautiful name awaiting her, – Manorama (Heart's Joy).

The widow Ramabai now returned to her former occupation as a lecturer. It became her especial mission to advocate the cause of Hindu women, according to what she believed to be the true rendering of the ancient Shastras, in opposition to the degraded notions of modern times. Her earnestness and enthusiasm gained her many admirers, among whom was Dr. W. W. Hunter, prominently connected with the British educational interests of India. He thought her career and the good she was doing so well worthy of admiration that he made her the subject of a lecture delivered in Edinburgh.

"When I spoke," says Dr. Hunter, "of a high-caste Indian lady being thus employed, that great English audience rose as one man and applauded the efforts which the Pundita Ramabai was making on behalf of her countrywomen." Henceforth her name was well known in England, as well as in India, to all who were interested in the social amelioration of the people of Hindustan.

With a view to improve the degraded condition of her countrywomen, she formed in Poona a society of ladies, known as the Arya Mahila Somaj, whose ob-ject was the promotion of education among native women, and the discouragement of child-marriage. She then went from city to city throughout the Bombay Presidency, establishing branch societies and arousing the people by her eloquent appeals. When the English Education Commission visited Poona in September, 1882, for the purpose of inspecting the educational institutions of that city, the leading Brahman ladies, members of the newly-formed society and others, to the number of about three hundred, assembled with their children in the Town Hall, to welcome the Commission and to show them that, although the municipality had not encouraged girls' schools, a genuine movement was being inaugurated by the best families of the Marathi country. Pundita Ramabai was the orator of the occasion.

Dr. Hunter, as President of the Education Commission, made Ramabai the prominent figure among the many noteworthy persons who were examined before him during that visit. He regarded her evidence as of so much importance that he caused it to be translated from the Marathi and separately printed. A copy of this India print is before me as I write. There are three questions, viz.:–

Here follows, in reply, a brief, but remarkably clear, narrative of her parentage, her father's views, those of her brother, also a statement in regard to her husband, and the vicissitudes of her life; all of which, she stated, had afforded her many opportunities of forming an opinion on the subject of Female Education in different provinces of India. She closes thus:–

The answers to these questions are introduced in full, as bearing valuable and ample testimony to the character, and the position before the public, of Ramabai in her own country. Upon the authority of the Times of India, it may be stated that her plea for women-physicians before the Commission, in September, 1882, (See Answer 3), is believed to have attracted the attention of her gracious Majesty, the Queen-Empress, and to have been indirectly the origin of the movement in Hindustan which, in its latest developments, has reached the noble proportions of The National Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid to the Women of India, popularly known as the "Countess of Dufferin Movement," from its distinguished president, the wife of the Viceroy of India.

Ramabai now realized that she herself needed personal train tr to enable her to prosecute with success her work among the women of India in behalf of education. Then, too, as she had in her experience become conscious of God's guidance, her spirit was possessed of that unrest which is the solemn movement of the soul Godward, seeking "the Lord if haply she (they) might feel after Him and find Him." "I felt a restless desire to go to England," she writes. "I could not have done this unless I had felt that my faith in God had become strong: it is such a great step for a Hindu woman to cross the sea; one cuts oneself always off from one's people. But the voice came to me as to Abraham. . . . It seems to me now very strange how I could have started as I did with my friend and little child throwing myself on God's protection. I went forth as Abraham, not knowing whither I went. When I reached England, the Sisters in St. Mary's Home at Wantage kindly received me. There I gradually learned to feel the truth of Christianity, and to see that it is a philosophy, teaching truths higher than I had ever known in all our systems; to see that it gives not only precepts, but a perfect example; that it does not give us precepts and an example only, but assures us of divine grace, by which we can follow that example." True to her honest nature, she acted promptly upon her convictions and embraced Christianity, and she and her little daughter were baptized in the Church of England, September 29th, 1883. Henceforth she devoted herself to educational work. The first year was spent at Wantage in the study of the English language, which hitherto had been unknown to her. Acquiring this, she entered, September, 1884, the Ladies' College at Cheltenham, where a position was assigned her as Professor of Sanskrit. Her unoccupied time was spent as a student of the college, in the study of mathematics, natural science, and English literature. Her opportunities at Cheltenham College were of the highest order, and the influence of the noble Christian women with whom she was associated, both there and at Wantage, was most refined and salutary in its character. She made rapid progress in her studies, and a possible Government educational appointment in India loomed up in the near future, when an invitation reached her to witness Mrs. Joshee's graduation in medicine in Philadelphia, March 11th, 1886.

That "holy land called America" had long held attractions for her, and these were now heightened by the presence and work of her beloved kinswoman. After some weeks of painful indecision, she decided to accept the invitation, her sole reason for allowing her studies to be interrupted thus inopportunely being her thorough conviction that it was her duty in the interests of her countrywomen to visit America at that time. In February, 1886, she again embarked upon an unknown sea, accompanied by her young daughter, then nearly five years of age. Her residence in America and her public service here have been widely chronicled in the daily and weekly journals, and are not therefore a matter of private record. In the beginning she expected to return to England after a brief vacation, and there resume her studies; but, as the genius of American institutions was revealed through personal inspection, her interest grew, and she decided to prolong her stay. In midsummer she wrote: "I am deeply impressed by and am interested in the work of Western women, who seem to have one common aim, namely, the good of their fellow-beings. It is my dream some day to tell my countrywomen in their own languages this wonderful story, in the hope that the recital may awaken in their hearts a desire to do likewise." As her contact with a public educational system which included girls as well as boys was prolonged, her old desire to benefit her countrywomen by founding schools which combined the training of the hand with that of the head revived, and forsaking plans which regarded only the higher education of the few women in government high-schools or colleges in India, she concentrated her thoughts upon native schools founded by and for native women. Early in her residence in Philadelphia she met Miss Anna Hallowell, prominently identified with the Sub-Primary School Society (free kindergartens) of the city. This distinguished lady kindly accompanied her to several of the kindergartens, and explained methods to her with care, and also the principles upon which the system was based. Ramabai's enthusiasm was aroused as she saw in Froebel's teaching wondrous possibilities for her little widows. Purchasing without delay the most approved text-books and the "gifts," she set herself to work to translate into Indian thought the games and tokens of the system, in order that she might adapt it to Hindu needs. In September, 1886, she promptly enrolled herself as a student in a kindergarten training-school, and, as her public duties have permitted, she has faithfully pursued the course of study throughout the scholastic year just ending. American school-books were a revelation to her in the beauty of their illustrations and of their letter-press and the quality of the paper upon which they are printed. In July, 1886, she set herself to work upon a series of Marathi school-books for girls, modeled after the American idea, beginning with a primer and continuing regularly up to a reader of the sixth grade. She was enthusiastic as to results, designing to illustrate with American wood-cuts, although the printing would necessarily be delayed until Bombay is reached, on account of the Marathi type required. The primer was soon finished, and much of the material for the reading books prepared, when a prudent investigation was instituted as to the cost of illustrations, and the stern fact revealed that the charming pictures were far too expensive to be dreamed of for her books.

Thus the case stands June 1st, 1887. Pundita Ramabai, the high-caste Brahman woman, the courageous daughter of the forest, educated, refined, rejoicing in the liberty of the Gospel, and yet by preference retaining a Hindu's care as regards a vegetable diet, and the peculiarities of the dress of Hindu widowhood, solemnly consecrated to the work of developing self-help among the women of India, has her school-books nearly ready for the printer, her plans for the organization of a school, such as she describes on page 114, well developed, and two teachers (American ladies, one a graduated kindergartner) secured. Tickets for herself and teachers might be taken for India at once, and as a result of the strong reaction which the untimely death of Dr. Joshee has set up, Ramabai, outcast though she is among her own people, might inaugurate, under favorable auspices, her work among the child-widows.

But the money is wanting. In 1793, when William Carey, the first English missionary to Asia, was about to set sail for India, he said to those about him, "I will go down into the deep mine, but remember that you must hold the ropes." As I close this chapter, the longing fills my soul that among the favored women of this Christian land there might be found a sufficient number to hold the ropes for Ramabai, making it possible for her to go out quickly to her God-inspired work. It must not be a fitful benefaction of a few hundred or even of a few thousand dollars, but a steady holding on to the ropes, for a period of not less than ten years. They must not be let go while she in the throes of a death-struggle with superstition and caste prejudice, and feminine unwillingness to rise, is fastened to the India end.

A decade of years ago, no sane woman would have presumed to appeal to the women and young girls of this land to engage in a project such as this of Ramabai, as I now do. But how rapidly we are moving on in these last days! We read in prophecy that "the earth shall be made to bring forth in one day," and "a nation shall be born at once;" and another sure word is written, "the people shall be willing in the day of His power." When in that great Hindu nation about to come to the birth, the women are moved to arise in their degradation, and themselves utter the feeble cry, "Help or we perish!" it cannot be otherwise than that a corresponding multitude of women must be found elsewhere, willing, in the day of God's power, to send the help.

There have long been in every community, women who are not in accord with the so-called missionary societies, and who never contribute to the enlightenment or to the material aid of Oriental women. Ramabai's boarding-school for child-widows, primarily an educational scheme, may be safely taken up by such, and while they organize, and after the manner of the women's boards of the churches, through a great network of auxiliary societies, prosecute with growing interest and zeal their child-widow school work, missionary work so-called, may be continued by the societies of every denomination, each according to its own methods, the treasuries of all being alike full.

The Pundita bears witness, in public and in private, to the good accomplished in the East by missionary lady-teachers, and it is her earnest desire not to affect unfavorably in any manner, however remote, either the treasury or the work of church societies. She seeks to reach Hindu women as Hindus, to give them liberty and latitude as regards religious convictions; she would make no condition as to reading the Bible or studying Christianity; but she designs to put within their reach in reading-books and on the shelves of the school library, side by side, the Bible and the Sacred books of the East, and for the rest, earnestly pray that God will guide them to His saving truth.

It is roughly computed that Ramabai will need about fifteen thousand dollars to fully inaugurate the work of her first school and five thousand dollars annually afterwards during the ten years for which she asks help.

So easy is it to plan, so difficult to execute! Ramabai herself offers a reasonable means by which the collection of this sum may be commenced, in the presentation of this, her only American book to the public. It has been privately printed, in order that the entire profits may accrue to her; in the hope of a possible large sale, the pages have been copyrighted and electrotyped. If, therefore, every American woman who, at any time during the last twelvemonth, has taken Ramabai by the hand, every college student who has heard the Pundita speak in college halls, every reader of this book whose heart has been stirred to compassion by the perusal of its sorrowful pages, will at once purchase a copy of the book and induce a friend to do the same, each reader being responsible for the sale of one copy, the work is done, and the large fund needed to prepay three passages to India, to purchase the illustrative material for the school-rooms, to illustrate and print the school-books, and secure the needed school-property in India, is at once assured.

Ramabai has come into my library to bid me farewell, previous to her setting out on a journey of a few days. I asked her as she arose to depart, if she had a last message for the readers of her book. "Remind them," she replied, with animated countenance and rapid speech, as she clasped my hand "that it was 'out of Nazareth' that the blessed Redeemer of mankind came; that great reforms have again and again been wrought by instrumentalities that the world despised. Tell them to help me educate the high-caste child-widows; for I solemnly believe that this hated and despised class of women, educated and enlightened, are, by God's grace, to redeem India!"

R.L.B.

1400 North 21st St., Philadelphia

June 1st, 1887