Bind on Thy Sandals

At that time her husband was living in a town some ten miles distant from the caste village of her clan. She could have come to us without his knowledge, but, straightforward as her father, it never occurred to her to do so. Her loyalty to that feeble-spirited man, who mooned away his days and left her to keep the family, had never for one instant wavered. Of such fine stuff are the women of India made, trained through hard generations of a disciplined unselfishness that is surely matchless among the nations of the earth.

Then, suddenly, she knew she had to come. She could not explain this strong sense of being compelled; she only knew that so it was. “‘I had to come,”’ she said.

And we who listened wondered if the angel who found Peter long ago had shone upon her and wakened her from an almost trance of prayer, though indeed it was no trance, for body and mind were strained to utmost activity. However it was, chains fell from off her. ‘‘ Bind on thy sandals,’’ said that calm angel long ago, so unhurried, though every moment was. precious.

Calmly she made her arrangements now; and, visibly escorted by the brother who had so often thrust at her, invisibly, as we believe, by the blessed mighty angel, she passed through the various wards of her caste-bound little city; and the iron gate that led out of it opened, as iron gates do where angels are; and she, with her baby in her arms and her three little sons walking beside her while the brother she had bribed attended them, took the road that led to the town where her husband was, not knowing what would befall her there.

They were tired when they reached the town of the great Hindu temple. Go down those streets in the early morning, see the haughty Brahman faces glancing at you superciliously from behind the iron bars that guard the verandahs where they sleep on polished wooden slabs. Rising on their elbows they survey the passers-by with a look that must be experienced to be understood. It is the very essence of distilled superiority. Walk down the amazing corridors of that amazing temple, and you will need to summon all your faith to believe that the day will ever come in India, when judgment shall run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream..

To this town in her weakness, a thing of shame as her people saw her, Mimosa went now, past

ef the great temple walls, and she looked up at them. They had looked down on her boy when he rubbed ashes on his forehead. Let even the boldest look at them, and they seem to turn his most tremendous assault to a shower of snowflakes. And as Mimosa walked past them, she felt her faith assailed from all sides by those enormous buildings. I have stood on the step leading into the inner shrine of that temple. I have talked with fierce and sensual men, and to some too of the kind who bring to remembrance the young man whom Jesus, looking upon, loved. But never once have I talked to one whose being was not visibly impressed by the influence of the massive piles about him. Mimosa felt its subtle forces now, and the presence of the man beside her accentuated this sense of impotence. He had tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and no change had passed over his spirit. In the long war between good and evil, who was triumphing? So far as she could see, the devil, not Christ.