p. 12 | Review and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 48. (11/28/1907)

Earlier text: One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollar Fund

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH

By John Norton Loughborough

Things That Differ—No. 4

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH

THERE is a decided difference between the Bible doctrine of sanctification and holiness, and the teaching of those who regard it as some peculiar state of feeling, a condition of mind to which they must be wrought up. There is “peace in believing,” and “joy in the Holy Ghost,” as the result of entire surrender to the Lord.

The mistake in some cases has been that persons strive, in their own strength, for the blessing, without making that consecration to God which secures the real blessing. And Satan holds them in their unconsecrated state by giving them of his spirit, or leaving them to an excitement of their own feelings.

The difficulty with many is that they consider a peculiar state of feeling to be sanctification, instead of regarding it, as it really is, a growth attained by daily victories.

Satan would have rejoiced could he have started a fanatical movement among the Seventh-day Adventists, but in this he has been defeated because the Lord connected early with the work the gift of prophecy, and persons who had received an experience in combating false systems of holiness and sanctification. These took the position that every such theory and manifestation must be tested by the Word of the Lord, and not by some peculiar state of feeling or power one claimed to possess.

I will mention one of Satan’s attempts along this line. It occurred in the winter of 1852-53 in a new company of believers in eastern Michigan. This little company made much of their feelings, and had, through their peculiar manifestations, instruction and reproofs for one another. On the last Sabbath in May, 1853, in a meeting held at Tyrone, Mich., a vision was given to Mrs. E. G. White, correcting the erroneous views held by those who had been in that movement, and who were present at the meeting. The most of them at once confessed their mistake, while some wished to describe their peculiar exercises, saying that “when one would receive these blessings [as they called them], the sensation was as if cold water had been poured on one’s back.” They were plainly told that the Spirit of God did not operate in any such way as that.

While different ones were confessing their way out of the snare Satan had set for them, one brother arose and said he wanted to tell his experience, and then he would leave it to Elder White to say what spirit had been actuating him. He said: “When I was first converted, my heart was filled with the love of God, and a love also for my fellow men, and I had a great desire to lead souls to Christ. After a while my mind was filled with a great desire to have one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I chose the gift of healing. When any one was sick in the neighborhood, I would feel it in my arms—a peculiar sensation as if my arms were swelling. Then I knew I had the gift of healing.” He, however, did not claim that any one had ever been healed by him. Having stated his case thus far, he said, “When I got this gift, that love all left me. Now I will leave it to Elder White to tell me what spirit that was.”

Elder White replied, “It was the spirit of the devil, of course, for the first fruit of the Spirit of God is love. If that love left you when you got another spirit, that spirit that had not the love must have been the spirit of the devil.” The brother at once said, “That is so.” He renounced his error, and took his stand for the right, with the love of God again taking its abode in him.

The meeting at Tyrone closed gloriously, and thus was Satan’s effort to introduce his false holiness, feeling-chasing, and fanaticism into the young cause in Michigan completely checked.

Another case, still later, may be of interest. In the summer of 1860 the writer, with another brother, held tent-meetings in Illinois and Wisconsin. Toward the close of the summer there came to us a man who, when residing in the Eastern States, had entertained extreme views of holiness. Having now begun the observance of the Sabbath, he seemed anxious to have us all receive this holiness of which he spoke. Although he cautiously introduced it at first, I feared that Elder ——’s ideas would lead to fanaticism, for it savored so much of the theory of getting where every thought would certainly be from the Lord.

It proved in the end to be another effort of Satan to get his fanaticism among us. This time he chose the young field of Wisconsin. He found a few individuals, in one locality, who accepted fully the theory, and claimed to be where all their impressions were from the Lord. When this movement had about reached its height, Elder James White, who was holding meetings in the West, met this company and plainly exposed their deceived condition. They had been led to the point of deciding by acts of bodily affliction whether they would be able to endure in “the time of trouble.” One of them said to him, “I know I shall endure in the time of trouble,” and referred to a great bodily affliction which had been brought upon herself by following the impressions of another. She held out her hand, which was covered with poultices, it having been severely burned as the test. Elder White’s reply was, “Well, sister, if grit is all that is needful to endure in the time of trouble, I think you have grit enough, if you could endure to have your flesh burned that way without flinching.”

In “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. I, pages 228-232, 244, 311-323, 336-340, this Wisconsin movement—the cause of it, its results, etc.—is fully set forth.

This movement grew out of extreme views of getting into a condition where every thought and impression was to be recognized as from the Lord.

Now let it be distinctly understood that in speaking against these fanatical views and impressions I am not discounting the Scripture truth that the Lord is more willing to give us his Holy Spirit than we are to give good gifts to our children; nor do I for a moment doubt the instruction that “the Holy Spirit awaits our demand and reception.” I only wish to caution against the idea of following a spirit of independence and self-sufficiency.

It was said to the leader in the Wisconsin fanaticism: “Had you accepted the gifts which God has placed in the church, and committed yourself fully in regard to them; had you established yourself decidedly upon all points of present truth, and drawn in even cords with those of experience in the cause, you and yours would have been perfectly free and safe from this delusion. You would have had an anchor which would have held you.” “Breaking away from such safeguards,” he was told, “you were left to your blind judgment to figure in the most unreasonable, foolish, wild fanaticism that ever cursed Wisconsin.”

Such breaking away from restraint is just as liable now as in 1860-61 to develop a following of one’s own impressions instead of the Spirit of the Lord. May the Lord guide us as we seek to “prove the things that differ.”

Healdsburg, Cal.

The Value of Earnestness

By J. S. Washburn

J. S. WASHBURN

The writer had the privilege of being present at several meetings of the National Convention of the W. C. T. U., recently held in Nashville, Tenn. While we would probably not agree with all their methods, yet there was one thing which impressed me strongly, and that is the great earnestness and intensity with which those noble women are working in the good cause of Christian temperance. Their influence has certainly accomplished much. As a result, at least partially, of their work a strong temperance tide is flowing over the country, especially in the South. Georgia has become a prohibition State. Alabama seems just on the verge of passing a prohibitory law. There are only four cities in Tennessee which have saloons, and it is evident that that State also will soon be in the prohibition column. All through the country the temperance wave is flowing, as is evident from the reports. The cause is a good one, and those who

labor in it should be intensely in earnest; and earnestness counts.

The individual who has courage and energy to follow his convictions does something in the world. The listless, dead, formal, half-hearted service that many of us give should cause us to tremble lest the warning of those terrible words apply to us: “Because thou art . . . neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.” Let us do with our might what our hands find to do. Let us labor fast while the rays of the setting sun are shining. Let us finish the work before “the night cometh, when no man can work.” Should not we, who have other great truths besides the temperance truth, arise, and with an irresistible earnestness show those who are looking for light that we have a real message and a real work? “Awake thou that sleepest.” With patience, and yet with haste, let us do the Lord’s blessed work.

Nashville, Tenn.

“The Fulness of the Time”

The time of the Messiah’s appearance in the world, as predicted in the Old Testament, is defined by a number of concurring circumstances, that fix it to the very date of the advent of Christ. The last blessing of Jacob to his sons, when he commanded them to gather themselves together that he might tell them what should befall them in the last days, contains this prediction concerning Judah: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come.” The date fixed by this prophecy for the coming of Shiloh, or the Saviour, was not to exceed the time that the descendants of Judah were to continue a united people, that should be governed by their own laws, and that their judges were to be from among their brethren. . . . In regard to the advent of the Messiah, before the destruction of the second temple, the words of Haggai are remarkably explicit: “The desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. . . . The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.” The contrast which the prophet had just drawn between the glory of Solomon’s temple and that which had been erected in its stead, to which he declares it was, in comparison, as nothing; the excellency of the latter house excelling that of gold and silver; the expression so characteristic of the Messiah, the “Desire of all nations;” all denote that He alone is spoken of, who was the hope of Israel, and of whom all the prophets did testify, and that his presence would give to that temple a greater glory than that of the former. The Saviour was thus to appear, according to the prophecies of Old Testament, during the time of the continuance of the kingdom of Judah, and previous to the demolition of the temple, and immediately subsequent to the next prophet. But the time is rendered yet more definite. In the prophecies of Daniel, the kingdom of the Messiah is not only foretold as commencing in the time of the fourth monarchy, or Roman empire; but the express number of years, that were to precede his coming, are plainly intimated: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks.” Computation by weeks of years was common among the Jews, and every seventh was the sabbatical year; seventy weeks thus amounted to four hundred ninety years. In these words the prophet marks the very time, and uses the very name of Messiah the Prince; and so entirely is all ambiguity done away, that the destruction of the city and the sanctuary, the ceasing of the sacrifice and the oblation, and the commencement of the long-continued desolation that has ever since ensued, are all definitely marked as consequent on the cutting off of Messiah: “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblations to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”

The plainest inference may be drawn from these prophecies. All of them, while, in every respect, they presuppose the most perfect knowledge of futurity; while they were unquestionably delivered and publicly known for ages previous to the time to which they referred; while there is the testimony, from great authorities among the Jews, of their application to the time of the Messiah; and while they refer to different contingent and unconnected events, utterly undeterminable and inconceivable by all human sagacity, accord in perfect unison to a single precise period where all their different lines terminate at once—the very fulness of time when Jesus appeared. A king then reigned over the Jews in their own land; they were governed by their own laws; and the council of their nation exercised its authority and power. Before that period, the other tribes were led into captivity, from which they never returned; and the Israelites were outcasts for ages, before the Jews were dispersed among the nations. As an unbroken and unexpatriated tribe, Judah alone remained, and the last scepter in Israel had not then departed from it. Every stone of the temple was then unmoved: it was the admiration of the Romans, and might have stood for ages. The city was not then destroyed; but it was the flourishing and populous capital of their own land, which was then peopled by four million Jews. The sacrifice and oblation were then offered up in Jerusalem, the place appointed for them, and thither from all the land multitudes for that purpose still continued to resort year by year continually. But in a short space, all these concurring testimonies to the time of the advent of the Messiah passed away. About the very time when Christ, in the twelfth year of his age, first publicly appeared in the temple about his Father’s business, Archelaus the king was dethroned and banished. Coponius was appointed procurator, and the kingdom of Judea, the last remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part of the province of Syria. The scepter was smitten from the hands of the tribe of Judah; their crown fell from their heads; their glory departed; and, soon after the death of Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon another; their commonwealth itself became as complete a ruin, and was broken in pieces; and they have ever since been scattered throughout the world, a name but not a nation. Every mark that denoted the time of the coming of the Messiah in the flesh, was erased soon after the crucifixion of Christ, and could never afterward be renewed.

That the time at which the promised Messiah was to appear is clearly defined in these prophecies; that the expectation of the coming of a great king or deliverer, was then prevalent, not only among the Jews, but among all the Eastern nations, in consequence of these prophecies; that it afterward excited that people to revolt, and proved the cause of their greater destruction, the impartial and unsuspected evidence of heathen authors is combined, with the reluctant and ample testimony of the Jews themselves, to attest.

Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, and Philo agree in testifying the antiquity of the prophecies, and their acknowledged reference to that period. Even the Jews, to this day, own that the time when their Messiah ought to have appeared, according to their prophecies, is long since past, and they attribute the delay of his coming to the sinfulness of their nation. And thus, from the distinct prophecies themselves, from the testimony of profane historians, and from the concessions of the Jews, every requisite proof is afforded that Christ appeared when all the concurring circumstances of the time denoted the prophesied period of his advent.—“The Evidence of Prophecy,” by Alexander Keith, D. D., Edinburgh, William Whyte & Co., 1848, pages 19-25.

Temperance in the Home

By Augusta C. Bainbridge

AUGUSTA C. BAINBRIDGE

“Now Kitty, I do not see why you make such a fuss about the use of liquor. None of us are drunkards, or ever likely to be. Do you not think you are straining a point? That wine is a tonic, and beer is nourishing, has been acknowledged by our wisest physicians for many years.”

“Yes, Aunt Sarah, I know some physicians still use it; but there are now many large hospitals that have discarded it altogether, and the result is they lose fewer patients than before. For myself, I shall never use it; and when my husband or baby is ill, I shall employ a temperance physician.”

“My! but you are radical.”

“Why should I not be, when God’s Word is against its use? ‘The old Book stands,’ you know.”

“Yes; I believe the Bible.”

“And the Bible says, He ‘giveth FOOD to all flesh.’ Alcohol is not a food, and it is not a gift from God to man. It is the product of decay; and you know that death and decay came by sin. Then, I do not want my husband or my child to be tempted to its use, by ever hearing me say it is good for food.”

“What do you mean, then, by food?”

“Food, real food, supplies the waste of the body, builds it up, makes it grow.”

“What, for instance?”

“Wheat is one of the natural foods. It builds bone and flesh and nerve. It keeps us warm, it gives energy for work or play, and it is good for the brain.”

“Is that why you gave wheat flakes and cracked wheat to Robbie as soon as he could chew?”

“Indeed it is.”

“How do you know that cider or beer or wine would not do that?”

“Because they contain alcohol, and that is a narcotic. It contains no nitrogen, and hence does not build flesh.”

“Well, it’s mighty warming, I know.”

“Yes, it seems to be; for it brings the blood to the surface, but it really lowers the temperature of the body; for a person is colder after taking it; when, had he taken milk or some form of food, the body would have been warmer.”

“It makes you strong, anyhow.”

“It does not give strength, auntie, for there is nothing in it of that nature; but it makes some parts of the body work harder for a time; and then afterward the weakness of the body is shown in trembling, and often in utter collapse.”

“I have noticed that, and have wondered how it was.”

“If it gave strength, real strength, as bread or beans or apples do, after drinking it one would feel like going to work, just as one does after a good dinner; but the reaction comes, and one feels like lying down. Food does not have such a contradictory effect.”

“Why do writers and students use it then?”

“Because of the stimulating effect it is supposed to have. Now we know by closer observation, that it is a narcotic, and this apparent quickening of brain action is because of its effect on the more sensitive nerves of the brain, hindering them from holding the check on overactivity. This overactivity results in great loss of brain power, sometimes producing brain fag, or utter loss of thinking ability.”

“O Kitty, Kitty, what would I have given to have known this years ago!”

“But, auntie, very few people knew it. Of course all the folks who believed the Bible, knew it from God’s own Word; but so many only half believe, or just believe what suits them.”

“Yes, I know; that’s the way I do, I guess. There comes Robbie, and his father.”

“Here, Kitty, where do you suppose I found this little chap?” said Papa Whyte. “I was a little late leaving the office, but he came on by himself, and there he stood on the transfer corner, waiting for me. He must have remembered that I got off there. Hey, sonny!” and Robbie received an extra hugging.

Aunt Sarah went to her room to wipe her glasses.

“She’s begun right. She’ll never know the pain a drunkard’s mother bears, and he will not slide when he has such a wife.”

“It’s the old story of ‘reaping’ and ‘sowing.’ She sows the Word of God in her home, in temperance as well as in other things, and of course ‘it shall not return . . . void.’”

“Dinner, auntie,” called a cheery voice, “food that is all food, for all of us.”

San Francisco, Cal.

The Discipline of Change

By Eliza H. Morton

ELIZA H. MORTON

Like ships driven out in the darkness, Like vapor upon the hills, Like snowflakes dispersed by the whirlwind, Like sand carried down by the rills, Are changes that come in this earth-life,— Unstable is all below,— Like tides swirling over the pebbles With a ceaseless ebb and flow.

And what causeth growth in the lilies? 'Tis rain as well as the sun, 'Tis change that develops and strengthens The soul in work that is done; Rise eagerly then from low levels To thoughts that are nobly grand, Move swiftly to generous service, And let every power expand.

Mutations of earth and of spirit But drive us to God and rest,— To our Father, changeless forever, In love that is manifest, To trust and submit is the lesson, Though shaken by grief and pain, And beautiful, changeless, eternal, The things that to us remain.

North Deering, Maine.

Wasting Time and Opportunity

MANY busy people are shameful wasters of time and opportunity, simply because they do low things when higher ones are possible. They read a poor book when they might read a better one; they squander time with inferior companions when good ones are possible; and they waste time in half-doing things, in botching, bungling, and blundering, and then in doing things over and over because they were not done right the first time.—Marden, in Success.

At the Country Stations

In passing a railroad station at a small country place, one often notices that a large number of young girls are there for seemingly no purpose except to see the trains come in and depart. Sometimes these girls merely stand around and gaze with peculiar interest at the strangers they see in the cars, while some move apace and flirt with the trainmen, or some of the male passengers. One instinctively wonders what the mothers mean who permit their daughters to go to a public place of this kind where they can have no possible business. Frequently it looks as if they went to attract attention, for they are dressed in their best clothes, and their actions are loud and boisterous.

These girls are by no means wicked; nor do they mean harm; they are simply frivolous. The station seems to be the only spot in their sleepy little towns where there is any life or excitement; and the young people weary of monotony. But it is a thing to be discouraged, for it would cause them heartaches and intense mortification, could they hear the remarks made about their being there. These young girls should go to the station only when they are going away on the train, or accompanying a friend, and should leave as soon as possible, making themselves as inconspicuous as may be. There is no denying that many very good girls go there solely for the purpose of seeing new faces, something to relieve the eternal stagnation of farm-village life. But, dear girls, you would not be one bit more conspicuous or talked about if you all went down to the village street and sat with the loafers about the town square or post-office steps. Take care of your good name and character, girls, for that is the most precious thing you have, and no one can damage it so readily as yourself.—Woman's National Daily.

W. A. BARLOW

By W. A. Barlow

Santalia and the Santals—No. 4

W. A. BARLOW

While the religious ideas of the Santals are very crude, and without any moral significance, their character as a people is by no means without its redeeming features. For one thing, they are remarkably honest, not so much from principle as from instinct. Just as some castes or tribes in India are naturally dishonest, born thieves or robbers (in a certain tribe in the Punjab a young man is not entitled to wear a turban, a kind of head-dress, or marry a wife until he has stolen a cow), so the Santals are naturally truthful and straightforward. Of course there are many exceptions to this rule, and truthfulness is conspicuous by its presence in the unsophisticated Santal just because it is so conspicuous by its absence among his neighbors.

God has not left himself without a witness in the character of men any more than in their consciences; there is no people, however degraded, whose moral nature has not some redeeming feature. In the case of the Santals it is honesty. “Have you ever heard of the Santals?” a friend of a Santal missionary asked a native gentleman in Bombay, a thousand miles from Santalia. “Yes,” was the reply, “they are the people who speak the truth.” Among themselves a word is as good as a bond; a knot tied on a string is a receipt, and also a few blades of a certain kind of grass, called “the dhobi-grass,” has at times been given to me by the Santals and others in place of a written receipt.

They are also very brave, seldom showing signs of fear in the face of physical danger, delighting to fight wild beasts of the forest with bamboo sticks, or at best with bows and arrows. There are well-authenticated instances of Santal mothers rescuing their children from the very jaws of the tiger or the leopard. Only a few months ago we heard the noise of the Babolmohal villagers driving away a leopard from the courtyard of the chief’s oldest son. They used brooms and bows and arrows, and seemed to enjoy it.

Morality

The morality of these people certainly does not conform to the Christian standard, but in some respects it compares not unfavorably with that which prevails among races who occupy a much higher place in the scale of civilization. In every Santal village there is an official, called the jog-manghi, who acts as custodian of the morals of the young people. Any woman wronged by a man can appeal to him for justice. It is rare for a child to be born out of wedlock. A man

who has led a girl astray must either marry her himself or provide a husband for her, and this he does by settling on her a dowry sufficiently large to make it worth somebody’s while to marry her.

Bigamy is by no means unknown, nor is it regarded as irregular. Even the Christian Santal often finds it hard to understand why in this matter he should not have the same liberty that the Old Testament saints enjoyed. But few Santals can afford to maintain more than one wife. While the women enjoy considerable liberty, they are regarded as a marketable commodity, pretty much like sheep and cattle, and the market price of a woman is a great deal less than that of a cow. The Santal husband no doubt looks upon his spouse as “something better than his dog,” but it would be an exaggeration to add, “a little dearer than his horse.” It is a very poor horse that does not sell in Santalia for four or five times the price of a wife. A man, not exceptionally callous or cruel, is often much more distressed by the illness of a buffalo or a cow than by that of his wife, as in the case of death it is so much easier to replace the latter than the former.

Divorce is easy; in fact, if a man’s wife runs away from him, he is free to marry again. Here again the Christian law of marriage is a serious stumbling-block to the Santal. Deserted by his wife, he can not afford to go to the expense of a legal divorce, and in a community like his it is almost impossible for him to get any woman to work for him or his children. Generally speaking, the morality of the Santals may be said to be high from the heathen point of view, but low from the Christian. At a certain festival almost unbridled license prevails. The people are fairly kind-hearted among themselves, but their language contains no word for “friend;” the idea of friendship, apart from kinship, is unknown.

Their Language

Their language is the most remarkable possession that this people, exceptionally poor in this world’s goods, can boast of. It is a triumph of complexity, with moods and tenses all its own, a language which is only to be learned by living among the people who speak it, but which, once learned, is peculiarly expressive and convenient. It is very rich in terms for all natural objects and for all things which touch the common life of the people. There are, for instance, more than six verbs in Santali for our verb “to fall.” There is one which means to fall from a standing position, another to fall from a height, another to fall forward, another to fall backward, etc. Then there are an equal number of names for rice, etc. But to express spiritual and ethical ideas and to denote the imports of recent civilization — schools, books, paper, ink, pens, pencils, pins, church, roads (except footpaths), bridges, slate, post, magistrate, taxes, police, etc.—words have to be borrowed, mainly from Hindi or Hindustani.

Village Life

Santal village life is patriarchal in type. The village head man, or manghi, not only holds the lease of the village from the raja, or landlord (in most cases a Hindu), and collects the rent from the ryots, or cultivators, but he holds sway as chief in the social affairs of the community. He is assisted by a paranik, or advisor, two priests, and the jog-manghi. There is also the messenger whose duty it is to summon to the head man. He is to some extent under the authority of a des-manghi, who holds authority over a circle of villages, and the des-manghi, again, may be overruled by the parganite, or head chief of the district. Knotty questions in social law, however, are usually discussed by the elders in council or in presence of all the villagers who may care to attend. Of course the manghi has no criminal jurisdiction recognized beyond fines and social outlawry; but by means of these village councils, disputes about land, marriage, and inheritance are often settled, which would otherwise entail vexatious and expensive litigation.

Marriage

Infant marriage, one of the many evils of Hinduism, is practically unknown among the Santals. At the same time it is exceptional for the young people themselves to take the initiative in arranging a wedding. The young man’s parents may approach the parents of the maiden upon whom they have set their eyes, but it is more usual to transact the business by intermediaries. “Have you any diamonds to sell?” is the question, addressed by the old men who wish to negotiate a marriage, to the parents of a possible bride. “That depends upon the quality of your pearls,” is the stock answer. In Santali a double translation has usually to be made to render a conversation intelligible; we have to translate first from Santali to English, and then from the parabolic to the literal. “Have you any diamonds to sell?” means, “Is there a marriageable maiden here?” By the quality of the pearls is meant the eligibility of the young man for whom she is wanted. If they come to terms, the price to be paid for the bride is fixed—three to five rupees, or five shillings, as an average. Afterward the youth’s friends visit the girl, and as a sign of the betrothal give her a cloth. The money is then paid to the girl’s parents, and a date for the wedding is fixed. The next step is for each party to tie a knot in a string for each day that is to intervene till the marriage day. Then the parties separate; day by day a knot is untied, and when they come to the end of the string, the real knot is tied that makes the young couple one.

“To tear the leaf” is the symbol for a divorce, the leaf used being that of the sal, the sacred tree of the Santals. A widow is free to marry again, but just half the price is paid for a widow or divorced woman, on the ground that she still really belongs to her first husband, and will rejoin him in the next world.

The above is the ordinary course of true love, according to Santal ideas, but exceptions are by no means rare. It is called in Santali kiring bahu, or the “bought bride.” But there is another recognized form of marriage known as kiring jawae or the “bought husband,” which has already been referred to, and in which a husband is bought for the young woman by the man who ought to marry her, but is prohibited from doing so on account of his sept being the same as hers. There are also quite legitimate forms of marriage in which either the youth or the maiden may take the matter into his or her own hands and get married in spite of the parents who oppose the match. The youth may go through the form of forcibly seizing the maiden, with or without the consent of his own villagers, at the place where the women draw water, and mark her forehead with red paint. Or the maiden, if the young man’s parents disapprove of the match, may force an entrance into the house they occupy, and if she can manage to stay there all night and brazen out all the taunts of the youth’s mother: the opposition is withdrawn, and the regular marriage is arranged for. Of these marriages by force the former is called itut, or “paint smearing,” the latter nir bolok, or “running in.” There is still another form of marriage for a girl who may be deformed, ugly, or in other ways unattractive. No price is paid for her, but the young man serves the father-in-law for five years, then gets two bullocks, some rice, and tools, and goes his way. The bride, who is regarded as belonging to the family rather than to the husband, is brought into her husband’s home circle. The family share all they have in common

till the father’s death, when the goods are equally divided, except that the eldest son gets a bullock and a rupee more than the rest. The Santals never marry outside the tribe, but within the tribe they are exagamous, that is to say, a man always chooses a wife from a different sept from that to which he himself belongs.

Simultala, India.

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