n some way, it might easily become a
serious danger. If people are ever to learn to run alone, they must be
given the opportunity of doing so. If some stumble in the attempt,
that is only what must be expected at first. Amongst a few failures,
there are other instances in which the experiment of leaving the
management of affairs to Indians has been all that could be wished.
Indian priests have been put in charge of wide districts which they
have shepherded with unwearied labour; and when congregations are
apparently backward in the financial support of their church, they
will nearly always rise to the occasion manfully and do all that is
required, if the management of the church funds is definitely put into
their own hands.

It is a mistake to expect to find in the government of affairs by
Indians certain characteristics which are essentially English. The
Indian Christian remains an Indian, and from some points of view it is
best that so it should be. Exactness and order and punctuality are
matters which most Englishmen think much of. Most Indians think little
of them, and few pay much attention to them. A really neat house or
field is rarely to be seen in native India. The sort of neatness and
order which an English priest thinks of importance in the church under
his care would never be found in the church of even the most
conscientious Indian priest. It usually takes a long course of
patient training before the Indian representative of the English
parish clerk learns how to lay a carpet, or to put kneelers or chairs,
straight. And though he learns his lesson at last, and then for ever
does it rightly in the prescribed way, he does not himself see any
benefit in it. And the crooked carpet and irregular row of chairs,
which would disturb the devotions of the lady workers in the mission,
would never be noticed by a single member of the Indian congregation.

I once spent a night in the village of a devout and widely-known and
highly-respected Indian priest, now gone to his rest. Evensong was
held in the open air in front of his house, because of certain insect
intruders which had taken possession of the room which, at that time,
did duty as a church. Since those days a permanent church has been
built. Goats and cattle coming home, and taking short cuts to their
quarters, were a little disconcerting to the preacher, inexperienced
in interruptions of the kind, but the regular congregation took it as
a matter of course.