The rest went on talking loudly round her, calling out and stretching across just in front of her in a way that must have attracted her attention. When the missionary asked them to be quiet they assured her that their friend did not mind, and she herself turned from her prayers to beg them not to stop for her. But the missionary insisted on quiet until the prayers were over, explaining that it was not a question of respect to the lady, but of reverence to God, and, in the conversation which naturally followed, she was able to tell them some of the Bible teaching on prayer. The prayer-stone is a small slab of about an inch and a half across, made of the earth of Kerbela where Husain, the grandson of Muhammad was killed. The Kerbela earth is said to be scented with “the blood of the martyrs,” and is much used for prayer-stones and rosaries. A Muhammadan places his prayer-stone on the ground before him when he says his prayers. If anyone passes in front of a Muhammadan as he is saying his prayers it is supposed to greatly reduce their value. But if he puts the prayer-stone in front of him it acts as a church wall and cuts him off from the outside world, and nothing passing on the far side of the stone can affect his prayers. If he has no prayer-stone he sometimes draws a line on the earth instead, and this is said to be just as effectual. At certain points in the prayers the forehead must touch the ground, and when a prayer-stone is used the forehead touches the prayer-stone, and perhaps the holiness of the earth touched is supposed to increase the value of the prayers. After the regular Arabic prayers have been said any further prayers may be added in Persian, but the people seem generally to content themselves with the set prayers and to be shy of adding any of their own wording, and in any case the Arabic prayers are considered the more important. Although the Persians use their prayers like charms, repeating forms which convey to them no meaning, yet they have great faith in the efficacy of prayers as charms. One Sunday a Persian woman brought her little girl to the doctor’s house, covered with smallpox and very ill. Finding that it was service time she thought the prayers might do the child good, so she put off asking for medicine till later, and, hiding the child under her _chādar_, she sat down among the other women and children through the whole service.