Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/559

Rh "amens” with the precision of a discharge of musketry. The singing, if not very melodious, was hearty and powerful, and the attention perfect. When Mr. A. announced a quotation, the words, “First Corinthians, sixth, first,” or whatever it might be, would hardly be out of his mouth before the place was found and the verse read by some one of the auditors. So marvellous was their quickness, that I supposed they had the quotations furnished them beforehand; but such was not the case. All, both men, women, and children, took notes with their iron styles upon their ollas (strips of palm-leaf) with a noise resembling the nibbling of fifty mice. They are afterwards catechized upon the instructions of the day—the men by the missionary, and the women by his wife, who is truly a help-meet to him, both in his house and in his work. Her instructions have been the means of gathering a most interesting school of girls, several of whom have become Christian wives and mothers, forming, as we trust, the nucleus of a Christian community. Female efforts and usefulness should not be unrecorded and unknown now, as they were not in the days of the apostle Paul. There are at the present day many women in India whose labours would