Lotus Buds

NEAR an ancient temple in Southern India is a large calm, beautiful pool, enclosed by stone walls, broken here and there by wide spaces fitted with steps leading down to the wat...

BALA is nearly four. There are so many much younger things in the nursery, that Bala feels almost grown up: four will be quite grown up; it will be nice to be four. Bala takes l...

"PAT-A-CAKE is a thing of the past, but the stage from the highest point of view is still distinctly attractive"; so decided Chellalu, and resolved to devote herself thenceforth...

I DO not know how they will strike the critical public, but the photos are so much better than we dared to expect, that we are grateful and almost satisfied. Of course, they are...

OUR nurseries are full of contrasts, but perhaps the two who are most unlike are the little Tara and Evu, aged, at the hour of writing, three years and two and a half. I am hamm...

IT may seem a quick transition from nursery to battle-field; but rightly to understand this story, it must be remembered that our nursery is set in the midst of the battle-field...

THEY come in many ways through the help of many friends. We have told before[A] how our first two babies came to us through two pastors, one in the north, the other in the south...

WE have some children who were not in Temple danger, but who could not have grown up good if we had not taken them. "If peril to the soul is of importance," wrote the pastor who...

SHE has been called "Old Dévai" ever since we knew her, twelve years ago; and she is still active in mind and body. "As I was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to g...

BUT sometimes old Dévai brings us little ones who do not come to stay. Failures, the world would call them. Twice lately this has happened, and each time unexpectedly; for the b...

OLD Dévai, with her vivid conversation about the one old devil and four younger, does not suggest a conciliatory attitude towards the people of her land. And it may be possible...

AMONG the closest of our little children's friends is one whose name I may not give, lest her work should be hindered; for in this work of saving the little ones, though we have...

AMONG the stories of comfort is one that belongs to our merry little Seela. She is bigger now than when the despairing photographer broke thirteen plates in the vain attempt to...

"AMMA! Amma!" then in baby Tamil, "Salala has come!" And one of the most enticing of the little interruptions to a steady hour's work scrambles over the raised doorstep, trippin...

We heard of her first through our good Pakium, who, during a pilgrimage round the district, paid a visit to the family of which she was the youngest member. "She lay in her crad...

"There are also the joys of sunlight, flowers such as are not in the plain, the purest of air, restful nooks, and the stars smile thence like the eyes of God."--PÈRE DIDON (_tra...

"NOW I know why God put you in Dohnavur when He wanted this work done. He hid you from the eyes of the world for the little children's sake. He knew this work could never have b...

It was on a blazing day in June, when the very air, tired of being hot, leaned heavily upon us, and we felt unequal to contest, that a cough outside my open door announced a vis...

This photograph shows the Indian equivalent of pumps and water-pipes. We have neither; so all the water required for a family of about a hundred has to be drawn from the well an...

THE event of the week, from a Tamil point of view, is the midday Sunday service; so we take care of the nurseries during that hour, and send all grown-up life to church. In the...

IN full contrast to Teddy-bear is that floppy child, the Coney. In Hart's _Animals of the Bible_, there is a picture of this baby, only the fore-paws should be raised in piteous...

THE time to see the Taraha nursery at its best is between late evening and early morning, and again about noon. It is perfectly peaceful then. Thirty mats are spread upon the fl...

"THE fruit of the lotus--a capsule--ripens below the surface of the water. When the seeds are ripe and leave the berry, a small bubble of air attached to them brings them to the...

THE Accals, without whom this work in all its various branches could not be undertaken, are a band of Indian sisters (the word Accal means older sister) who live for the service...

But Thou didst reckon, when at first Thy word our hearts and hands did crave, What it would come to at the worst To save. Perpetual knockings at Thy door, Tears sullying Thy tra...

"AND all things were done in such excellent methods, and I cannot tell how, but things in the doing of them seemed to cast a smile"--is a beautiful sentence from Bunyan's _Holy...

WHEN first, upon March 7, 1901, we heard from the lips of a little child the story of her life in a Temple house, we were startled and distressed, and penetrated with the convic...

OUR first evidence consists of abridged extracts from the Census Report for 1901. After explaining the different names by which Temple women are known in different parts of the...

THE mixture of secrecy and openness described by the Temple woman is confirmed by Hindus well acquainted with Temple affairs. "All the Temple women are married to the gods. In f...

I HAVE been looking over my note-book, in which there are some hundreds of letters, clippings from newspapers, and records of conversations bearing upon the Temple children. It...

IN speaking of these matters I have tried to keep far from that which is only sentiment, and have resolutely banished all imagination. I would that the writing could be as cold...

Recently--so recently that it would be unwise to go into detail--we were in trouble about a little girl of ten or eleven, who, though not a Temple child, was exposed to imminent...

AN hour earlier three of us had stood together by the pool at the foot of the Falls, and watched the people bathe. At the edge of the rock an old grandmother had dealt valiantly...

FOR to-morrow holds no hope for these children so far as our power to save them to-day is concerned. It will be remembered that we felt we could do more for them by working quie...

"Who would be planted chooseth not the soil Or here or there, . . . Lord even so I ask one prayer, The which if it be granted It skills not where Thou plantest me, only I would...

WITHIN the last few months a friend, a lover of books, sent me _The Trial and Death of Socrates_, translated into English by F. J. Church. Opening it for the first time, I came...