time immemorial? "It might almost
be said that, from Calcutta to Lahore, 50 per cent. of the prevalent
vegetation, cultivated and wild, has been imported into India within
historic times."[51]

[Sidenote: Two similar changes in the religious thought of India.]

All that, of course, is a parable. Likewise, in the new India we are
studying, product of new modern influences direct and indirect, two
kinds of religious changes impress us. There is, first, the gradual
change coming over the whole thought of the people, a transformation
like that wrought upon the face and climate of many lands. There is,
further, the religious change, more immediately evident, in the new
Indian religious organisations of the past century, analogous to the
new, cultivated, products of the soil.

[Sidenote: Four new religious organisations.]

As change more definite and perceptible, we look first at the new Indian
religious organisations. Within the British period, four organised
religious movements attract our notice. They are: I. The new Indian
Christian Church; II. The Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j and the kindred
Pr[=a]rthan[=a] Sam[=a]jes; III. The [=A]rya Sam[=a]j; and IV. The
Theosophical Society, which in India now stands for the revival of
Hinduism.

I. To hear the native Indian Church reckoned among the products of the
British period may be surprising to some. There are indeed Christian
communities in India older than the Christianity of many districts in
Britain, and even excluding the Syrian and Roman Christians of India we
must acknowledge that the Protestant Christian community dates farther
back than the British period. Yet in a real sense the Protestant Indian
Church, and the progressive character of the whole Indian Church, belong
to the century just closed. The Moravians and one English Missionary
Society excepted, all the great Missionary Societies now at work have
come into being since 1793. In 1901 the native _Protestant_ community in
India, outcome of these Societies' labours, numbered close upon a
million souls.

[Sidenote: The Indian Church.]

[Sidenote: The Indian Church and the national consciousness.]

The Indian Christian Church is a living organisation, or congeries of
organisations, over two and a half million souls all told, and growing
rapidly. The exact figures in 1901 were 2,664,313, showing an increase
during ten years of 30.8 per cent. The figures exclude Eurasians and
Europeans; and in Anglo-Indian speech, we