Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/160

134  agreeable when acquired, and gives scope for eloquence and pathos in speaking or in prayer. The missionary who speaks it with ease and propriety will always command a crowd of attentive hearers. There are grammars, dictionaries, and other helps now ready for the student; all that is wanting is the response to the cry for preachers in this tongue—“Lord! here am I; send me!”

A in India, at the present day, need not wait until he has fully mastered the language of the people, before commencing his labours. In almost any mission station, while engaged in study and preparation for future increased usefulness, he may, in the distribution of tracts, in schools, and in other ways, to a limited degree, make Christ known to the people. To some persons this fact has proved a snare. In their haste to enter upon immediate efforts to do good, they have neglected a proper devotion to the study of the language, the foundation of the missionary's chief work, the preaching of the gospel. A moderate amount