next cookhouse, and so on all about us. The plague spread all over the town, and hundreds of persons were dying every week. In one family, seven or eight members died, and finally not one was left.

CLAIMING GOD'S PROMISE

When official orders came to vacate the town, we were glad that our house was apart from all the rest, for so we were allowed to remain upon our own premises. In all, we had about seventy-five persons in our compound, which included nearly eight acres. Most of these persons were native Christians. We notified all that they should pray to God for special protection, and claim the promise that "there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling."

We provided a special disinfectant bath for all, and of course saw to it that the premises were kept clean, and then relied upon divine protection. The only man in our group who was not a Christian was our cook. He said his home was out in the jungles, and apart from others, and that he would not associate with the townspeople. Whether he kept his word or not we do not

know; but one day he came to us, and said his son was ill of plague. For a moment, we were almost speechless; but finally we told him to remain at home until we gave him permission to return. He came daily as far as our gate for milk and food, which we sent to his sick boy. About the same time, we received a boy and a girl who had both been exposed to plague. But after keeping them in the jungles and in quarantine for ten days, we allowed them to join our company, and they are still (October, 1917) well and happy. Of the seventy-five souls at the mission, not one died of plague, while all about us many deaths occurred daily. For this special protection and favor of God we shall always be thankful indeed.

ANXIOUS DAYS

But this is not all that took place in our compound during those anxious days. While at the dinner table one day, we suddenly detected the smell of a dead rat in the house. We watched a large green fly as he buzzed into a hole in the wall under a bed in the corner of the bedroom; then with a pickax we dug away till we found in the bedroom

wall a large dead rat, which must have been there several days.

About that time, I was writing in the office one morning, when a dead squirrel dropped beside me on the floor, from the rafters overhead. I left the room and went to the water jar on the veranda for a drink, and there on the floor saw several more dead squirrels. We had just finished the preparations in a bedroom for an expected guest, and went in to see what more we might do to have everything in order for our friend, when the breeze brought unpleasant whiffs of a decaying rat. We looked everywhere, and at last discovered a large brown spot on the cloth that serves for a ceiling instead of plaster, in the dressing room adjoining the guest chamber. These dead rats and squirrels were disposed of as quickly as possible, and each place where they had been was properly disinfected.

HIS PROMISES NEVER FAIL

Those trying days were a test of our faith; but His promises never failed. "The word of God. cannot be broken." "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away."

The plague continues to break out yearly in India; and since the incidents related above took place, it has spread to many other lands. It seems to have spent itself in its onward progress, and is not so violent as when it first came; yet every year, we read of many deaths from this awful pes

tilence.

CHAPTER X

Rama the Scavenger

OST of the boys attending our mission school at Jalgaon were of the mochi, or shoemaker caste. Other boys in town would not associate with the shoemakers, because they worked on the skins of dead animals. A high-caste man may not touch a dead animal of any kind. Should he do so, he would be defiled. The Jews had similar laws concerning defilement, such as that recorded in Lev. 11:27: "Whoso toucheth their carcass shall be unclean until the even.'

Kasho, our schoolmaster, rang his bell at nine o'clock in the morning, when a lot of bright-faced, nearly nude little fellows filed into the whitewashed schoolroom of the mis