has been the ambition of missionaries in
India, not so much to gather in numerous accessions from the social and
intellectual aristocracy of the land, as to create out of the Indian
Christian community, however degraded may have been its origin, an
aristocracy of character and of true culture. And in this they have
achieved remarkable success. For the native Christian community is being
most rapidly transformed in these respects. Remember, please, the
condition, previous to their embracing our faith, of those outcaste people
who now constitute three-fourths of the Christian community. They were not
only socially ostracized, and therefore wanting in all traits of manly
assertion, of independence and of self-respect. They were also in deepest
ignorance. Not five per cent, of them could either read or write. Moreover
they were under serious religious disability. Though nominal Hindus, they
had no right to enter purely Hindu temples nor to approach in worship any
strictly Hindu deity. The most sacred of Hindu religious books were denied
them, and the most cherished of Hindu rites and ceremonies they were
deemed totally unfit to observe.

All that they could claim was permission to appease the demons of their
ancestral worship. I have seen these outcastes, who, while absorbed into
Hinduism, nevertheless live constantly under its ban. They erect fine
halls and shrines in Brahmanical temples, but are not permitted to enter
them after the day of their dedication to Hindu worship. Hinduism has
never declined any pecuniary offerings from these despised ones; and yet
it has never deemed it its province or duty to impart its religious
blessings to them. It has denied to them instruction, comfort and
salvation. Is it a wonder that most of the people were almost on a level
with brutes so far as thoughts of the highest interests of the soul are
concerned? These are the people whom Christianity has delighted to rescue
from their thralldom and to build up in religious thought, ambition and
spiritual blessings.

It has applied itself to the task of raising them from their low estate.
It has erected buildings for their instruction. In most cases its
prayer-houses have been daily used as schoolhouses where the young have
been instructed; so that today this community stands distinguished among
the other communities in the land for its intelligence.

For example, the total number of Christian youth in mission schools in
South India is 62,