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written without a recognition of the same. length, in our own day, we are seeing the outcome of all the labour of the century. * The seedtime is

on the brink of another census, and in two years' time speakers from this place will probably be able to tell you what the results of the decade from 1881 to 1891 have been, and how far the prediction of the late Census Commissioner, Sir W. Plowden, has been verified, who prophesied that we should find that the seed sown had multiplied still more abundantly than in the foregoing periods. However this may be, so far as our present knowledge goes, the growth of Christianity in India has been a solid fact, and sufficiently rapid to give all needful encouragement to the supporters of missions. . Converts are numbered by hundreds of thousands."

.

An important letter appeared in 1891, in the Indian religious journals, from the pen of Dr. Mukherjee, B.A., F.R.M.S., which says: "The ancient fortress of Hinduism, with its four sides-Monotheism, Pantheism, Dualism, and Polytheism-is everywhere tottering and ready to fall"; and the Hindu Tract Society (established to maintain the old religion against the advance of Christianity) cried a little later: "The missionaries have already made thousands of Christians, and are continuing to do so; they have penetrated the most out-of-the-way villages, and built churches there; if we continue to sleep as we have done in the past, not one will be found worshipping in the temples in a very short time,-nay, the temples themselves will be converted into Christian churches." And the following letter was last year addressed to The True Light (a paper published at Lahore), by Swami Ram Svonder, late Vice-President of the Benares Hindu Shastric Club:"Hinduism is now in a most critical position. Its vitality is decaying, and the community itself is now just like a man whose one leg is on one ship and the other leg is on another ship. Internal and external influences of a fearful nature and of heterogeneous sorts are now at work to disturb the equanimity of Hinduism, and a thousand years of thraldom under foreign sway have benumbed the spirit of the fallen Hindus. Under a benignant, civilised, and very powerful foreign government, in the teeth of a scientific age, under the potent and liberal influence of Western education, and, moreover, before the vigorous and constant attacks of Christianity and many of its offshoots, the better days of Hinduism have become a matter of the past. With all its faults and fallacies, I loved and liked Hinduism very much, but now I am quite sure that an educated and right-thinking native of India cannot conscientiously follow Hinduism in all its aspects in the proper sense of the term. Hypocrisy reigns supreme in the Hindu community, and priestcraft and blackmail are the only offensive and defensive weapons of the many modern Brahmin leaders of my co

past; the blade has sprung up; nay, more, the ear has appeared. The foundation has been fully laid; the walls of the temple are rising. The darkness has passed, the dawn has arrived, the full day is approaching. Then-to use the words of Ruskin, in his Newdigate Prize Poem, "Salsette and Elephanta"

"Then shall the torturing spells that midnight knew
Far in the cloven dells of Mount Meru,

Then shall the moan of phrenzied hymns, that sighed
Down the dark vale where Gunga's waters glide,
Then shall the idol chariot's thunder cease
Before the steps of them that publish peace.
Already are they heard,-how fair, how fleet,
Along the mountains flash their bounding feet!
Disease and death before their presence fly;
Truth calls, and gladdened India hears the cry,
Deserts the darkened path her fathers trod,

And seeks redemption from the Incarnate God."

As regards the Mahommedans, "there was a time when the conversion of a Mahommedan to Christianity

religionists. The introduction of any much-needed and time-honoured reformation into the Hindu community is simply an impossibility. With the many thousands of evil and barbarous customs and hypocritical practices that stare us in the face, Hinduism is doomed, and any attempt towards its revival will be merely waste of time, energy, and money on the part of its so-called reformers and leaders, many of whom are as much Hindu as a native Christian convert is. The last three census reports have distinctly proved that India, the only country in the world for Hinduism, has lost many crores of its Hindus during the course of the last twenty-two years, and if this wonderful fall of percentage in Hindu population continues to go on-and I do not see any reason why it should not witness more fall in percentage, as there is no means in the whole earth and heaven by which a non-Hindu can be a Hindu-then there will be no Hinduism after two centuries and a half. And the best reason for this fall may be attributed to the fact that Hinduism is a religion which has failed to satisfy the cravings of the soul of the educated natives of India. I am a missionary of the Hindu religion, and have been preaching to the people for a very long number of years. With all my experience about Hinduism and the feelings of the people towards it, I can safely and authoritatively state that Hinduism will not stand longer."

was looked on as a wonder.

Now they have come and are coming in in thousands." And what is very remarkable, "the learned Moslems are coming in larger numbers into the fold of Christ than the unlearned because they are better educated." Our first native Church of England clergyman, as will be seen, was a Mahommedan; and the Rev. Dr. Imadud-deen, a descendant of Persian royalty, whose family has stood high among the saints and scholars of Islamism, but who abandoned Islam for Christianity in 1866, is now a distinguished representative of the Church Missionary Society at Lahore, and has sent to the Chicago Congress an interesting account of Christian progress in the Punjaub. "Great discussions and continual strivings about things religious," he writes, "have gone on between Christians and Mahommedans. . . . IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO ENGAGE IN FURTHER CONTROVERSY. All about Mahommedanism that it was necessary to say has been said, and whatever Mahommedans could do against Christianity they have done to their utmost. WE MAY NOW SAY THE BATTLE HAS BEEN FOUGHT OUT IN INDIA, NOT ONLY BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND MAHOMMEDANISM, BUT ALSO BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND ALL THAT IS OPPOSED TO IT."

*

In my wanderings I have cultivated the company of the Poets; and in the present volume have sought to illustrate Indian scenes by quotations from AngloIndian and Native (as well as from British) bards, and I have sometimes poured forth my own soul in song as I journeyed.

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I am, of course, greatly indebted to the numerous writers I have quoted, consulted, and referred to, to whom I have much pleasure in making my acknowledgments.

I may add that these Reminiscences embody some contributions which at various times I have made to popular periodicals.

R. G. H.

LONDON,

Sept. 4th, 1893.

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