Christian
missionaries. They are only now beginning to extend their activities to
the depressed castes of Northern India, but in Southern India important
results have already been achieved. The Bishop of Madras claims that
within the last 40 years, in the Telugu country alone, some 250,000
Panchamas have become Christians, and in Travancore another 100,000.
During the last two decades especially the philanthropic work done by
the missionaries in plague and famine time has borne a rich harvest, for
the Panchamas have naturally turned a ready ear to the spiritual
ministrations of those who stretched out their hands to help them in the
hour of extreme need. Bishop Whitehead, who has devoted himself
particularly to this question, assures me that, in Southern India at
least, the rate at which the elevation of the depressed castes can be
achieved depends mainly upon the amount of effort which the Christian
missions can put forth. If their organizations can be adequately
strengthened and extended so as to deal with the increasing numbers of
inquirers and converts, and, above all, to train native teachers, he is
convinced that we may be within measurable distance of the reclamation
of the whole Panchama population. What the effect would be from the
social as well as the religious point of view may be gathered from a
recent report of the Telugu Mission, which most lay witnesses would, I
believe readily confirm:--

If we look at the signs of moral and spiritual progress
during the last 40 years, the results of the mission work have
been most encouraging. It is quite true that naturally the
Panchamas are poor, dirty, ignorant, and, as a consequence
of many centuries of oppression, peculiarly addicted
to the more mean and servile vices. But the most hopeful
element in their case is that they are conscious of their
degradation and eager to escape from it. As a consequence,
when formed into congregations under the care of earnest
and capable teachers, they make marked progress materially,
intellectually, and morally. Their gross ignorance disappears;
they become cleaner and more decent in their persons
and homes; they give up cattle poisoning and grain stealing,
two crimes particularly associated with their class; they
abstain from the practice of infant marriage and concubinage,
to which almost all classes of Hindu society are addicted;
they lose much of the old servile spirit whi