that our faith is adding to its power over the life and character of the
native Christian community as the years and generations increase. And if
the work continues, with the present insistence and vigour, it will not
take many generations more before Christianity will have become thoroughly
indigenous, because it will have developed a type of character in that
land fully in harmony with its own genius and teaching.

It is necessary, however, in considering this question, that we remember
specially that the antecedents and the environment of the native Christian
have been entirely Hindu. His ancestral faith has coloured, and must
colour, largely his religious preceptions and conduct. Let it not be
thought that, when a man abandons Hinduism and becomes a Christian, he
thereby, once and for all, drives out of his mind all those
prepossessions, prejudices and superstitions which he has inherited from
the past. It will take a long time for him to separate himself from these
and their influence. Many of them will probably cling to him during his
whole life. It is as much as we can hope that Christian truth will take
increasing possession of his mind and gradually supplant the old and
unworthy beliefs of Hinduism.

There are moreover certain elements of truth in that old faith which we do
not care to eliminate from his mental furnishing, but which must find new
adjustment and be properly located in the new religion which he has
adopted.

It should also be remembered and made prominent in our consideration of
this subject that the people of India are an Oriental people and are the
children of the tropics and, as such, will always remain and must remain
very different from us of the Northwest. Their climatic and meteorological
conditions, their outer, physical life, their social customs and the trend
of their civilization, have always been, and will continue to be, far
removed from our own. Nothing could be more fatal to our success in our
effort for the conversion of India than the idea that we must in every
respect mold them after the pattern of Western life and habits. A large
portion of their life is the result of the conditions which I have
mentioned and must largely remain unchanged; and it would be folly for the
missionary to regard these as a part of the faith to be supplanted, and to
teach that western social customs are inseparable from Christianity and
must be accepted by the Orient with our faith. The Christian o