accept such invitations or not. The conclusion that
I came to was that, since it helps to some extent to bring about a
mutual understanding, it is a good thing for kindly Government
officials and their ladies to do, but that it is not the sort of
occasion when there is scope for a missionary. As a guest he is bound
to be courteous to his host, and if any practice is indulged in which
may call for rebuke, it is not easy to administer it without the
appearance of rudeness. Already some modern-minded Hindus urge that
all religions are alike, and that Christianity being suited to
Europeans and the Eastern religions to the people of the East, there
is no need to change. If the teachers of Christianity share in the
social gatherings of educated Indians with the politeness and
cordiality which such occasions demand, it may foster the impression
that unbelief and idolatry are no real barriers to mutual unity of
heart, and that one religion is as good as another.

CHAPTER XII

THE CONVERSION OF INDIA

Missions still in the experimental stage. Effect of
education on conversion. Brahmins and conversion. Caution
needed in time of famine. People applying for work; caution
again necessary. India and dissent; rival organisations,
effect on the heathen; dissenters drawing to the Church.

It is an evidence of the perplexity which attends mission work in
India that many apparently elementary principles are still undecided
questions and subjects of discussion. Things are still in the
experimental stage. Almost every conceivable form of missionary
enterprise has been attempted; but the result is that no one method in
any department stands out as being signally better than another.
Perhaps the only definite conclusion that has been arrived at is the
obvious one, that the man is of more importance than the method, and
where there has been marked progress it has always been the
personality of the worker, sanctified and energised by God's grace,
which has been the moving power.

The conversion of India has been a slower and more difficult task than
some people at one time anticipated. Possibly it has been hindered by
too much haste at the outset. India has to be gradually educated up to
Christianity. At one time it was thought that the best way to do this
was to provide an advanced secular education, and that the mind thus
elevated would be ready to grasp and accept spiritual truths. No doubt
this has be