Our hearts are touched by the child in its helplessness, by the suffering and sorrow of neglected little ones, by the agonies of child wives and widows, and the yearning cry for teachers and books, but how can we endure it when all that is sweetest and holiest and best in the beautiful child heart is defiled and polluted in the name of religion; when senseless repetition in an unknown tongue takes the place of the trustful words, “Our Father”; when sticks and stones, ancestral tablets, spirits and devils are worshipped by those to whom the Christ cries out in yearning love, “Suffer the little children to come unto ME”? If our hearts are touched, not to the breaking point, but to the _acting_ point, then these horrors must cease, and the children will be taught to worship aright, and Christ “shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied.” [Sidenote: The place of the child in non-Christian religions.] “The people in the country from which you have come have a religion of their own, is it not good enough for them? Why should you insult them by trying to foist your religion upon them?” These and many similar questions meet the missionary on furlough, and cause her more woe than does many a hard experience on the mission field. The best answer to such questions is to induce the questioners to study carefully what the non-Christian religions have to say regarding children, and the direct result of their systems on child life. [Sidenote: In the Koran.] A careful search in the Koran, the sacred book of the Mohammedans, is rewarded by finding several passages strictly enjoining kindness and justice to orphans, and a set of minute regulations regarding inheritance in which children, parents, husbands, and wives shall share, prefaced by these words: “God hath thus commanded you concerning your children,” and followed up later by the remark: “Ye know not whether your parents or your children be of greater use unto you.” (Sura IV.) “Children,” says Rev. S. M. Zwemer, “are scarcely mentioned in the Koran; of such is not the Kingdom of Islam.” [Sidenote: In Hindu Vedas.] “The Hindu Vedas enjoin that by a girl, or by a young woman, or by a woman advanced in years, nothing must be done, even in her own dwelling place, according to her mere pleasure; in childhood a female must be dependent on (or subject to) her father; in youth, on her husband; her lord being dead, on her sons; a woman must never seek independence.” (Manu V, 158.) [Sidenote: In Hindu Shastras.]