The first view is that of the southern tower.

Outside of the wall a neat

railing encloses a garden filled with jessamine and oleander bushes, and cocoanut and other trees.

The second view shows the Parrot Porch, into which one comes from the southern tower. We have entered it through a long colonnade of stone pillars, which we face as we turn about and look southward. The Parrot Porch is so called because at the left of the view there are hung cages with parrots of many hues, and cockatoos. The pillars are monoliths, elaborately carved, representing fabulous creatures and also the five Pandava heroes of the Mahabharata epic. At the extreme right are two watchmen in stone, guarding either side of the entrance to the shrine of Minakshi. On the left of the colonnade, in the background, is the "Golden Lily Tank," a large reservoir of water that for its greenness is not attractive to foreigners, but is sacred to the Hindus, and supposed to be very efficacious for washing away sin. Only high-caste Hindus may bathe in it, or enter the shrine.

We may walk around the four sides of the "Golden Lily Tank," and as we turn into the

eastern corridor, facing northwards, we see the colonnade in the third view. The men and boys standing there are worshipers, of whom some have bathed and rubbed sacred ashes on their foreheads and arms. on the right and the last man of that row have sacred beads on their necks;

The man

which may mean that they are religious, or it may mean that they are lazy beggars making gain of godliness.

Passing through a labyrinth of cloisters, corridors and porches, we come to the northern portion of the temple, in front of the shrine of Sundarar. The fourth view presents the great group of modern statuary. The statues represent Sundarar, as Siva, in various dances, and overcoming enemies by the

tread of his toe, etc. On the extreme right is the gold-plated conventional flagstaff.

The fifth view shows the roof of the shrine of Sundarar. To the right rises the great western tower. The small tower with golden cupola, at the right center, covers Sundarar's idol in his shrine. A small rectangular tower toward the left is that of the great bell of the temple, the finest in Madura. It is a French bell, cast in Pondicherry, and is rung every night for the gods to go to bed. Sundarar and Minakshi are each represented by an immovable stone image, and also a smaller portable idol made of an amalgam of eight metals. These metallic idols are carried in procession in all the chief

festivals. In the middle distance is the unfinished tower of the English church, in which are conducted the services of the Church of England for the benefit of the few English families resident in Madura and a community of Eurasians.

The frontispiece shows well the elaborate detail of stucco work on these towers. The religious architecture of South India is all in rectangular

figures, and quite distinct from the civil architecture, which is based upon the arch.

Madura was once a walled city, with four fortified gates, one on each side, and seventy-two bastions under the protection of as many lords of the country. And the great temple in the center has always dominated the city geographically, socially and religiously. Now the gates and bastions have all disappeared, and in their place have arisen four Christian churches; so

!

that the avenues that lead from the four points of the compass bring very many under Christian influence even as they travel to their temple.

So, while the heart of India is toward India's interpretation of God as the impersonal All, surrounded by three hundred and thirty million of lesser divinities, multitudes of India's people are moving through avenues of Christian influence, and God is revealing himself as the loving Father in heaven.

PICTURES FROM MEXICO

THE STORY OF ALDAMA

BY MRS. GERTRUDE C. EATON, CHIHUAHUA

ABOUT twenty miles from the city of Chihuahua lies the little town of Aldama, noted chiefly for its great fruit gardens that supply the Chihauhau market with apricots, figs, peaches, apples, quinces and grapes.

It

is a sleepy, picturesque, little place, surrounded by mountains, and watered by great irrigating ditches that look enticingly cool during the warm months, and which supply the gardens with an abundance of life-giving water. But as yet its inhabitants know little of the Water of Life, and have not learned what it is to hunger and thirst after righteousness.

It is over twenty-four years since the first missionary to the state (who was for a long time his own colporteur) took a load of Bibles and portions of the Scriptures to this town. He found a ready sale for the attractive. looking books offered at so moderate a price, and returned home rejoicing at the thought of the harvest which the sowing of so much precious seed might yield. To his great disappointment, however, he learned soon after, that, at the mandate of the priest, on the following Sunday, a pile of Bibles was burned in front of the parish church. And to-day the last state of that parish is worse than the first, for even their church edifices are falling into ruin, and the citizens seem to be indifferent to all religion.

A few of our Protestant families have taken up their residence there in these last years, and communication now being easy by the railroad, the missionary's wife has gone repeatedly to spend a day, and hold a Bible reading with one or more of the families. Regular meetings were not established until last November, when the little company of about fifteen souls promised to meet regularly on Sunday and Tuesday afternoons. Sunday-school helps have been sent them, and at least the children of these evangelical families, who were growing up in ignorance of their own Scriptures, are being taught. It was a touching sight, after but a month of this effort, to find a family of four little boys, the eldest not more than ten years of age,