The next letter is about a difficult case in England: a young Indian, with whom Mrs. Hamilton was acquainted:—

‘Dec. 1.—I have not answered your letter about poor Q. in haste. I received it the day before yesterday. Perhaps you will not like my thoughts; but you had better know them, sweet sister....

‘It is a characteristic of the Native character to have little sense of sin. A conscience seems a thing to be created. Q. does not seem to see how grievously he has sinned, is sinning. He is clearly denying the Lord Who bought him; and that for worldly gain. Darling Laura, have you quite realised the greatness of the sin? To my view it was a mistake to ask Q. to dinner. “With such an one, no, not so much as to eat.” Until Q. deeply repents, he is not fit to sit at your table....

‘You may cite the Parable of the Prodigal Son. That is exactly what I would cite for my view of the subject. Poor Q., if a son, is the Prodigal Son, beginning to be in want, and hiring himself out,—feeding swine. If, when he was longing for even husks, he had been coaxed and asked out to dinner, would he ever have “come to himself,” would he ever have cried, “I will arise, and go to my Father?” Was it easy for him to go, in a far country, as he was? Was he not ready to sacrifice his pride, and go amongst his Father’s servants as a beggar? If Q. would have the Prodigal’s reception, he must do what the Prodigal did.

‘Perhaps my Laura will remind me of St. Paul’s injunction to the Corinthians to take back and “comfort” a gross sinner. But, remember, that man had first had some mysterious terrible punishment,—“delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,”—and he was so deeply penitent, that there was danger of his being “swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.” When Q. repents like that, let us all receive him and comfort him.’

Some may count this letter stern, viewed in the light of modern lax and easy notions. But Charlotte Tucker knew what she was about. She was living, at Batala, in the First Century of Christianity. Things would often be very differently viewed by us in England, if we could see them from the standpoint of the First instead of the Nineteenth Century.

CHAPTER XVII
A.D. 1888-1890
THE DAILY ROUND

The year 1888 closed with another sharp attack of illness, not so severe or so prolonged as that of 1885, but sufficient to cause anxiety. On the 16th of December, though ‘far from well,’ Charlotte Tucker went to church as usual; but all her ‘wraps upon wraps could not keep her from catching cold.’ On the 21st, Mr. Bateman, reaching Amritsar, was much disturbed by the arrival of a telegram from Batala, requesting Dr. H. M. Clark to go over immediately, as Miss Tucker was in high fever. There was some hesitation whether to start at once by ekka, or to wait for the early morning train; and the latter plan was decided upon. When Dr. Clark went, Mr. Bateman accompanied him; and he wrote to Mrs. Hamilton on the 23rd:—