ceased working on Sunday and became a regular attendant on all our services.

We built a little chapel in his village. There were none so zealous in the work of constructing it as Pakariah. As is so often the case among the Hindus, though a barber by caste, he had another occupation. He was something of a carpenter in a rough way. So with his own hands he made the doors and windows, and finest of all, a chair; for you must know that out in the villages a chair is an article of the greatest luxury, which not even the most exalted personage affords. These he gave as his contribution to the house of God. Then the walls must be clean and white. So day after day Pakariah might be seen with brush and chunam, whitewashing the walls of the Christians' chapel. It was a brave thing to do, and was the precursor of things to come. Neighbors and friends passed by and laughed and sneered, but he had only a pleasant word or some wise saying in reply. Things took a more serious turn. The patrons of his art began to raise objection to him, on the ground that he had contaminated his caste by mixing with the Christians. One by one they dispensed with his services, and the question of a livelihood became a very real one.

When we visited his village he was always coming to our tent to hear some new word of the kingdom, and in course of conversation we raised the question of baptism. There was just one difficulty in his mind. He was ready to follow his Lord, but how would he live? He was a poor man. He had a little land, but not enough to support his wife, children and himself. Already, by mixing with the Christians and attending our services, many had refused to give him work. If, then, he was baptized and partook of the Lord's Supper with the despised outcastes, his livelihood would be utterly gone. What could he do? I must confess, as I saw the poor man wrestling with the problem, and realized just what was involved, it was no easy matter to tell him what he must do.

He was willing to leave his village and engage in any work we might give him, but we did not like the thought of his leaving his village as soon as he became a Christian. "Lord, I will follow thee," was the eager cry of the liberated spirit. "Go home to thy friends, and tell them what great things God has done for thee," was the Master's word. Take this man from his village, and the power of his testimony would be lost. Let him come out and remain there, and what great things might not God work through him! We could only point him to the commands of Christ, the plain way marked out for the believer, and tell him to cast all his burden upon him. Until midnight we talked and prayed. We could not urge him. It was not necessary. The quivering lip and tears silently coursing down the haggard face bore silent but unmistakable testimony to the fierce struggle going on within. At last we left him with God, and he went sadly away. On the morrow we administered baptism and the Lord's Supper, but Pakariah was not among the participants. He had not yet fought it out to the end.

We

At our last nelasary he came. The tuft of hair, the sure mark of heathenism, was gone. The face was radiant with a great joy. He simply said in his quiet, impressive way, while the tears came to his eyes, "I have come to be baptized." The victory had been won. Another gem of priceless worth had been placed in the crown of the king. The uplifted Christ had drawn one more soul to himself. baptized him that day, and thanked God for the first fruits of the Sudras. With prayer and praise we sent him back to his village. All fear had gone. If we but mentioned the subject of persecution, he seemed to almost take offence, as if we were casting discredit on God. While there was such boldness in him, why should we suggest fears and doubts?

We have just visited his village again, and this time it was not Pakariah the Man

gali-vardu, but Pakariah the Christian, who came greeting us with joyful salaams. How happy he was! Fearing lest we should not come to his village, he came five miles to see us. Eagerly we asked whether he had met any persecutions. Not a hand had been raised against him. Not a hair of his head had been touched. Even that most sacred privilege of the Hindu — the right of drawing water from the village well had not been denied him. Not only this: God had raised up friends for him in a most wonderful manner. One of the leading men in an adjacent village, when he heard that Pakariah had been baptized, called him to his house and gave him food and promised to continue to give him work as before. He himself has been "almost persuaded" for a long time, and he had only words of encouragement and commendation for the new convert. So wonderfully did God care for his child!

In the meantime Pakariah could do but one thing. Wherever he went he was telling of the wonderful salvation he had found. His old friends and acquaintances flocked about him in crowds to hear his message. An irresistible impulse sprang up within him to preach the word. He had no desire to spend his time in the old pursuits. To this end he must learn to read. He got hold of some books and began studying. Before he was converted he could not read a word, but borne on by this great impulse the letters and words seemed to be given him almost as the gift of tongues at Pentecost. His friends and neighbors seeing it were astonished beyond measure, and said of him as of his Master of old, "Whence has this man this wisdom, having never learned letters?" We do not know to what end this thing will grow, but we leave him joyfully in the hands of the God who has thus far so wonderfully led him out into the fullness of his light.

We praise God for our first convert from the Sudras, not because he is a caste-man, but because it is the first break in the solid

wall of Hinduism in these parts. It took us a long time to get over the hankering after Brahman converts, and it did seem that they must be a little better than our poor Malas and Madigas. But we have gotten over all that. Why, then, are we telling this story of Pakariah? First of all because we believe it to be a remarkable work of grace in a human soul, and we would render thanks to God for the victory. Second, by the conversion of this man from among the caste people we feel that we are no longer fighting on the outside of Hinduism, but in the citadel itself. We may gain our fifty thousand converts from the Malas and Madigas, and thank God for it, too, but we must not deceive ourselves by thinking that we have touched Hinduism itself. Said an educated Hindu to me the other day: "So long as your converts come from these outcastes, I shall not think that your religion has any claims upon me." Hinduism lies entrenched behind its caste. Its bulk and strength lie there. We must win the caste-man, not because of any inherent superiority in him, but because there is no real victory for the gospel in India without him. Go to any Indian village and mark how it is built. You will then have a map of Christianity in India. First is the village itself, solid and compact, fit emblem of the cohesiveness of caste. Here are the houses of the Brahmans, the Comaties and the Sudras. But we have Christians in this village. Where are they? Oh, they are not here in the village among the caste people. They are out there. Do you see that little group of thatched huts a hundred yards away? That is the palem. There the Madigas and Malas live and there are our Christians. You may have a hundred converts out there, but you have not one Christian in the village. And so we thank God for Pakariah. In this village, at least, we have one man on the inside. May he not be used of God to deliver the citadel into our hands?

E

VERY Hindu village has its flocks and herds of sheep and goats and kine, which are brought forth to pasture every morning and brought back every evening. It is the business of the shepherd caste, or "Gollavandlu" as the Telugus call them, to care for these, their own included. As the Hindus are mostly vegetarians, these animals are not raised chiefly for their flesh, but for milk and wool, and as draught animals, though they are often sold to Europeans and Mohammedans for slaughter. The shepherd will supply you with any one of three kinds of milk: cow's milk, thin and poor, goat's milk, rich and good, or buffalo's milk, still richer in butter, but not so palatable to many. The Indian buffalo is a curiosity, having no resem

blance to the noble American animal of that name. In size he is as large as an average American cow, but he resembles more a black swine in color, hair and filthiness. Though not exactly amphibious, they are forever wallowing in water if they can find it, lying sometimes for hours covered up to their ears in tanks or muddy pools. Their horns are very long and of various shapes, and when not feeding they carry their heads in a nearly horizontal position, with nose thrust forward, as if sniffing danger or seeking to gratify their curiosity. Though apparently so stupid, they can run like spiders, and they are so treacherous that it is always best to keep out of the way of their long horns.

Milk is not used fresh by natives, but is

either allowed to sour and then beaten up for drinking, or else boiled until quite thick and set away for churning. But the butter is not used as we use it, but it is melted down and strained, " clarified" they call it, for use in making curry or sweetmeats, or for ointment.

In serving Europeans the shepherd drives around the cow and her calf, and milks before your door, under your eye. But even thus he will get water into the milk if you are not very watchful. The brass chembu into which he milks is spherical, with a short neck and wide mouth. He lets you look into it to see that it is empty and clean. You look and are satisfied. Then to give you full assurance of his cleanliness he rinses it out before your eyes, dexterously tipping the vessel, so that a half pint or so of water is left in the bulge of the sphere. Then he milks into it. You feel sure you are getting pure milk, yet you wonder what makes it so blue and watery. It sometimes takes many months of residence in the country to solve this mystery.

There are five principal artisan castes among the Telugus of nearly equal social position: the carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, brassworkers and goldsmiths. These claim social equality with the Brahmans, and refuse to reverence them as religious superiors.

The carpenters do almost all their work with saw, chisel and adze. These tools are sufficient for building the roof of a house or making the frame of a cart. For finer work they add to these a small heavy plane and a hand-drill, worked with a bore, in place of auger and gimlet. Their saws

are so filed that their teeth incline towards the handle, instead of from it, so that the saw does its work when drawn instead of when pushed. All their lumber is sawn by hand, according to a method represented in the picture, though sometimes the men underneath are hidden in a pit in the ground. I have never seen or heard of a saw-mill in Southern India. Their wood

turning is done in a very primitive way. They suspend a stick, horizontally, between two sharp-pointed bearings, and give a piece of rope one or two turns around one end. The ends of this rope are then pulled alternately by an attendant sitting on one side, while the turner applies his chisel every time the stick turns towards him. In this way they manage to do some pretty fair work in the line of table and chair legs, but at a very slow rate.

They are very conservative in their methods. One of the Telugu missionaries once tried to teach his carpenters a better way of turning. He showed them how to make, with a cart-wheel, crank and belt, an arrangement for not only turning continuously but faster. When all was done an experiment was made which appeared to be highly satisfactory to the carpenters, and they took the machine home. But in a few weeks some part got slightly out of order, and instead of repairing it, as they could easily. have done, they put the lathe aside and went back to their old slow way, apparently glad of an excuse to abandon such an innovation. The writer once had a similar experience in trying to teach a carpenter to use a brace and bit for large holes. The man worked it well under my eye and acknowledged its advantages, but on going back to him after a few hours, I found him cutting the holes by pounding away at his narrow chisel, as before. The other way wasn't his váduka (custom) he said.

The masons form a very respectable section of this group of artisans. They are bricklayers, not stonecutters, and they are able also to make their own bricks and tiles. They need careful supervision, if their work is to be perfectly square and plumb. But for fine plastering, especially on floors and pillars, some of them are not to be surpassed anywhere. They understand well the tempering of mortar and how fast to let it dry and how to rub down the fine surface coat, and they will make you a

floor as smooth as glass and that will wear for years.

Of other artisan castes we may notice the potters. Here, as everywhere, they have an interesting occupation. Let us step into the yard of one in the middle of the forenoon. He has trodden out his clay and mixed it with the right proportion of sand, his wife has helped him move out into the sun the last work of yesterday, and now, with her baby swinging in a crib tied up under the veranda, she is making preparations for dinner while he goes on to new work. His wheel is like an old cartwheel poised on a pivot a foot from the ground. The upper end of the hub is well loaded with clay. Then with a long stick the wheel is set in rapid motion, and with wetted hands the potter squeezes and moulds this revolving bunch of clay into symmetrical, if not beautiful forms. He is making today the ordinary coóndas or chatties used for cooking rice and other

domestic purposes. They are cut off without a bottom. After they are hardened in the sun, but not too dry, they are beaten into shape with a wooden paddle and the bottoms entirely closed up. Cylindrical tiles are made on these wheels, and cut in halves after being burned.

The blacksmiths also are fairly skillful at their trade in everything except welding. We had a friend of this caste at Hanamaconda, who used to bring his kit and little son and do small jobs at the bungalow. His kit consisted of an anvil, a pair of bellows, his tongs, a hammer and a few small tools. The rest would be extemporized upon the ground. The anvil was a fifteen or twenty pound chunk of iron with a square, slightly rounded top. His forge was made by raising a bank of earth, through which, on a level with the ground, he thrust an iron pipe. At his left hand he placed a basket of charcoal and on his right a vessel of water. Behind the forge