Golden Jewel begs the use of the sewing machine in the Mission bungalow.  All the days before Christmas her bare feet on the treadle keep the wheels whirring.  Morning and afternoon she is at it, for Jewel has a quiver full of little brothers and sisters, and in India no one can go to church on Christmas without a new and holiday-colored garment.  One after another they come from Jewel’s deft fingers and lie on the floor in a rainbow heap.  When Christmas Eve comes all are finished—­except her own.  On Christmas morning all the family are in church at that early service dearest to the Indian Christian, with its decorations of palm and asparagus creeper, its carols and rejoicings and new and shining raiment.  In the midst sits Jewel and her clothes to the most seem shabby, but to those who know she is the best dressed girl in the whole church, for she is wearing a new spiritual garment of unselfish service.

[Illustration:  Tamil Girls Preparing for College]

[Illustration:  The Village of the Seven Palms]

The Indian Girl’s Religion.

To the Indian schoolgirl religion is the natural atmosphere of life.  She discusses her faith with as little self-consciousness as if she were choosing the ingredients for the next day’s curry.  She knows nothing of those Western conventions that make it “good form” for us to hide all our emotions, all our depth of feeling, under the mask of not caring at all.  She has none of that inverted hypocrisy which causes us to take infinite pains to assure our world that we are vastly worse than we are.  What Lotus feels she expresses simply, naturally, be it her interest in biology, her friendship for you, or her response to the love of the All-Father.  And that response is deep and genuine.  There is a spiritual quality, an answering vibration, which one seldom finds outside the Orient.  You lead morning prayers and to pray is easy, because in those schoolgirl worshippers you feel the mystic quality of the East leaping up in response.  You teach a Bible class and the girls’ eager questions run ahead so fast that you lose your breath as you try to keep pace.

The following letter was written by a girl just after her first experience of a mountain climb with a vacation camp at the top.  “Now we are on Kylasa, enjoying our ‘mountain top experience.’  This morning Miss ——­ gave a beautiful and inspiring talk on visions.  She showed us that the climbing up Kylasa could be a parable of our journey through this world.  In places where it was steep and where we were tired, the curiosity we had to see the full vision on the top kept us courageous to go forward and not sit long in any place.  She compared this with our difficulties and dark times and this impressed me most, I think.

“When we came up it was dark and I was supposed to come in the chair, but I did not wait for it, because I was very curious to go up.  When I came to a place very dark, with bushes and trees very thick on both sides, I had to give up and wait until the others came.  When I was waiting I saw the big, almost red moon coming, stealing its way through the dark clouds little by little.  It was really glorious.  I thought of this when Miss ——­ talked to us, and it made it easier to understand her feeling about that.