amidst differences Christian
principle has asserted its uniting power, and their ordinary bearing is
that of mutual esteem and love.

It may be said, "If native Christians as a community deserve the
character you have given them, how is it that people from India speak so
much against them?" The explanation can be easily given.

[Sidenote: ALLEGED FAILURE OF CHRISTIANITY.]

There is no part of the mission-field, the South Seas, Africa, the West
Indies, China, as well as India, from which persons have not come
affirming that the so-called converts are changed in name only; that
they are no better than they were, and in many cases worse. Do we not
find analogous cases nearer home? It is often said of professors of
religion--very truly of individuals, very untruly of the class--that
they are less worthy of trust than avowedly worldly persons. Large
communities remarkable for religious zeal, like the people of Wales, are
condemned in the face of favourable evidence which seems well
authenticated. Persons have even stoutly maintained that Christianity
itself has been a failure in its moral influence on the nations. Want of
sympathy and antipathy blind the mind to facts, and lead to most
erroneous judgments. The great majority of Europeans in heathen
countries have no sympathy with missions, and have neither the knowledge
nor the spirit indispensable to the formation of a correct judgment.
They hear a loose report of converts from persons who in turn have been
told by others what they say, and the report is at once believed and
circulated. They have, perhaps, met an unworthy native bearing the
Christian name, and he is regarded as a fit representative of the entire
community.

It is a common opinion among many of our countrymen in India that
Hinduism is as good for Hindus as Christianity is for us, and they
cannot conceive why a person should leave the one for the other except
from sinister motives. When speaking on one occasion with a lady who
regularly attended church, and no doubt deemed herself an excellent
Christian, about a native gentleman of high rank, whose kindly temper
and courteous demeanour we were both praising, I said, "Would that he
were a follower of our Saviour!" She looked surprised, and said, "Do you
think so? He is, I think, a better man by remaining as he is." So strong
is this feeling with some English people, that a native who calls
himself a Christian is regarded by them as on that account a suspic