From the hour of consecration the little thing is treated with peculiar respect. She alone of the girls of the family is taught to read. When she becomes ten or twelve years old, her father, mother and nearest relatives take her to the great temple. They go with the priest into the inner shrine. The girl places her hand into the god’s hand, the priest repeats certain prayers and charms. He then hangs a string of cowrie shells around the girl’s neck and the poor little thing repeats after him her marriage vow, which vow is to prostitute herself to any pilgrim to the shrine who demands it.[6] The position of these religious prostitutes in Hindu society is so highly respectable that no festival or wedding is celebrated without their presence. They are asked to tie the wifely ornaments on the neck of the bride. They being married to a god can never be widowed and their touch is lucky. In elegant attire with costly jewels and perfumes, charmingly graceful, they lead their wretched lives, bring great sums into the treasury of the temple, and, as they are religiously taught, accumulate a store of blessing for themselves in a future state. John Short, M. D., Surgeon General of India, Member of Anthropological Society, London, says: “The Nautch girl is recognized and patronized by the Hindu religion.” [6] Prof. T. M. Lindsay, University of Glasgow. There was a time in this fair eastern land when women were in a position of respect similar to that among the ancient Hebrews. Husband and wife were equal in all domestic, social and religious life. “The Brahmans have themselves preserved the record of women engaging in philosophical discussions, and disconcerting their most celebrated doctors by the depths of their objections.”[7] Some of the Vedic hymns were composed by women. By degrees the condition of woman has deteriorated until by the law of their religion she is “now consigned to a degradation probably without a parallel in the history of the race.” It is true, Buddha, in the sixth century before Christ, taught that men and women were equal, but even his influence has never been strong enough to reform the Brahmanical laws about women. The Hindus have a saying: “Education is good, as milk is good, but milk given to a snake becomes venom, and education given to a woman becomes poison.” [7] J. Murray Mitchell, LL. D.