is undoubtedly far higher among us than it is
among Hindus, and this standard, protesting as it does against
wickedness, and calling us to aspire after goodness, is in itself an
incalculable benefit to a community. For many a day it has been my
settled conviction that Hindus are vastly better than, looking at their
religion, we could expect to find them, and that we on the other hand
fall far below the excellence to which our religion summons us. If
Hinduism was allowed full sway over its adherents society would go to
pieces, while we should rise to the excellence of angels if we were to
come under the full sway of the Gospel.

All have heard of the caste system of India, but only those who have
lived among the people can understand its innumerable ramifications and
its remarkable effects. Every caste, down to the lowest, is endlessly
sub-divided. There are Brahmans who would as soon eat, drink, and
intermarry with people of low caste, as with many who like themselves
boast of Brahmanical blood. In books the Sudras are described as the
fourth, the low, servile caste; but in fact a vast number in Northern
India, who are loosely reckoned Hindus, are far below the Sudras, and
thus the Sudras acquire a relatively high place. These low-caste
people, on whom the people above them look down with contempt, are in
their own fashion as tenacious of caste as their superiors, and they,
too, multiply their divisions, one class maintaining its superiority to
others. We have a large community called _Chumars_, "leather-people" as
the word means, though many of them have nothing to do with leather. One
of them once told me there were twelve divisions in their caste. We had
near us at Ranee Khet a little colony of Dhobees, washermen, whom I
visited now and then. I observed some huts were built separate from the
rest, and I asked the reason. The man to whom I was speaking, for his
class an intelligent man, expressed his surprise I did not know the
reason. He said, with an air of dignity, "These are of an inferior
order, and it is requisite their huts should be built apart."

It has been often shown that this caste system is most baleful. It
narrows the sympathies of the people, keeps them in the same groove,
fetters their minds, represses individuality, and is a bar to progress.
It would be unfair, however, to say that all its consequences are
pernicious. It so far benefits those bound by it that it restrains them
from some forms of ev