rescence and blots, who have
increased its size, as a tumour increases the size of the body, but are
actually its weakness and disgrace. Such were the unworthy persons of
whom I have been speaking. Very different is the general character of
the native Christians connected with the various missions in Northern
India. Some of our converts have made sacrifices, by avowing themselves
the followers of Christ, to which persons in our country are never
called. They have literally left father and mother, houses and lands,
wife and children, for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever may
have been the position of our converts, they have, as a rule, parted
with much which is highly valued by their people. Caste standing, even
when the caste is not considered high, secures many advantages, and is
greatly prized. Its loss is deemed a dire calamity, and this loss our
converts are called to endure. They join a despised and hated community,
are called vile apostates, and are charged with the most sordid motives.
I have heard the charge advanced against converts who, to my knowledge,
had left their place in native society under the power of the profound
conviction that Christ was entitled to their hearts and lives, though
the conviction required of them the most painful sacrifices, and exposed
them to the bitterest reproach. During my first years at Benares, one of
the catechists of our Mission was a Brahman, who had been baptized by
Mr. Ward of Serampore. He was stripped of the property to which he was
the heir, of which the annual rental, according to an official document,
was 5,000 rupees (L500), because he could not perform the funeral rites
of his father. His income as catechist was small, but I often heard him
charged with the lowest mercenary motives by those who knew not, and did
not wish to know, anything about his antecedents. He bore the charge
patiently, deeming it an honour to be reproached for his Master. He was
far from being a perfect character, but no cloud ever seemed to come
over his belief that Jesus was the Saviour of the world. When he was on
his death-bed I asked him if he regretted the life of comparative
poverty and of great reproach he had led because he had become a
Christian. He tried to raise himself on his pillow, and said with an
energy that startled me, "If I had a thousand lives, I would give them
for Him who died for me." In reference to him and others, the remark was
often made by our hearers, "We