Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/182

154 We had yet another use for our school. The highest class was arranged near the open door for examination. Standing on the Piol (portico) outside, we questioned them in a catechism called “The Spiritual Lamp.” This, as was intended, soon attracted a crowd of listeners around the door. By question and answer the boys were made to preach the great truths of Christianity to them, until, at a favourable point, the discourse was turned from the boys to the assembled group of men, and the worth of the soul and the way of salvation declared to them. Thus, through the school, the truth finds an entrance into the minds of those who would never come near a mission church, and that not in an obtrusive way.

the close of a warm day in July, our attention was arrested by an illumination which lit up the sky at a short distance from our Royapooram residence. Flashes of brilliant flame shot up from torches and rockets, and other fireworks threw glittering globes into the