, a much fuller meaning to the minds of Christian
people who read them than is to be found in the vernacular expression
which they represent. Short extracts, given without the context, are
proverbially misleading, according to the individual bias of the
extractor, either favourable or the reverse.

Kindly advisers have been urging lately that missionaries should try
and discover what is good in Hinduism, and on that foundation
gradually build up the truths of Christianity. It would be just as
reasonable to expect to draw sweet water from a bitter spring. The old
teachers of Christianity in India preached it as a matter of life and
death, as indeed it is, and they made converts from amongst the
educated men. A Brahmin convert has told me that what impelled him to
carry his convictions to their proper conclusion was the belief that
if he held back he would be lost.

The apologetic way in which Christianity is sometimes preached at the
present day in India, in response to these well-meant but dangerous
promptings, may possibly lead to the disastrous result of the
incorporation of a kind of false Christ into Hinduism. Our Lord is
greatly admired by a large number of intelligent Hindus. The Bible is
often quoted by public speakers to illustrate some point in their
speech; not always, of course, with accuracy or appropriateness. Now
and then a Hindu will say that he is a Christian in heart; and that
being so, he pleads to be dispensed from the inconvenient ceremonial
of baptism, which would separate him from his own people. The laxity
of many Nonconformists, and some others, concerning baptism, gives him
some ground for making this petition.

To take a measure of Christian morality into Hinduism, to place the
Bible alongside their other sacred books, and to worship Christ along
with Krishna, would satisfy modern Hindu aspirations without entailing
much practical inconvenience.

In trying to describe everyday life in India, we shall at every turn
meet with instances of the effect that Hinduism has in warping and
marring natures which otherwise have so much which is attractive. But
the sole purpose of this book is to try and depict Hindu India as it
really is. People will only be stimulated to pray and work for the
country with the energy and fullness of purpose which the case
demands, when they have realised that the matter is vital and urgent.
People will understand how greatly Christian Indians need the prayers
of other