d,
weighed the matter a long time before admitting us into his house. He
thought that the gulf between East and West was a priori unbridgeable;
therefore no attempt should be made to bridge it, and that the relation
between a missionary and his native associates should be sympathetic
(patronizing?), but not familiar. To go about with an Indian brother,
sharing the same plate and same lodging, seemed to him the height
of unwisdom, even to shake hands being to go beyond the bounds of
propriety; while as for an Englishman donning native clothes, he was
dimming the glamour of the British name in India, which in his eyes
was next door to undermining the British rule itself. My mind had
been made up on this subject before I had been very long in India,
and on no occasion did circumstances tend to weaken my own opinion
that the gulf is by no means unbridgeable, and that the sooner and
the more heartily we set about bridging it, the better it will be
for the promotion of the kingdom of Christ in this land.

Sympathy cannot be wholly made to order: it is largely dependent on
extraneous and adventitious circumstances, and I believe that the
adoption of native dress increases that sympathy on both sides--on
the side of the missionary, because it enables him to realize more
vividly what treatment is often meted out to our native brethren and
how they feel under it, and on the part of the Indians because the
restraint which they usually feel--at least, in country districts--in
approaching a Sahib is removed.

No doubt one reason why Indian Christians are so largely adopting
Western dress is that they receive much more courtesy, conspicuously
so when travelling on the railway. I had occasion to make some
inquiries in Batala Station office. I might have drummed my heels on
the threshold till I was tired had I not been fortunate in meeting an
Indian brother wearing English dress, who walked in without diffidence,
though when I attempted to follow him, I was met with a push and a
"Nikal jao!" (Get out!). On another occasion, travelling by the night
mail from Lahore, I was anxious to get some sleep, and I saw that
the native compartment was crowded, while in the European compartment
there was only a single English soldier. He barred my entrance with a
"Can't you see this is only for Europeans?" I humbly suggested that I
belonged to that category, but his prompt "Don't tell me any blooming
lies!" made me think it better to seek my night