Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/194

166 Christian government, often add to the missionary's difficulties. From the arrack and toddy-shops come half or wholly drunken men, to interrupt his discourse with obscenity and abuse, so as sometimes entirely to break up his audience. Yet, even in Madras, the audiences are generally well-behaved and attentive. When it is remembered that the missionary comes as a foreigner, to tell them that their gods are no gods, and their religion a fable, that they must turn from the sinful ways of their fathers, and be saved by One in whom they do not believe, it will be no cause of wonder that the depravity of their hearts should at times rise in anger against the preacher, and lead them to acts of violence. Their violence rarely goes farther than the hurling of dirt and dust, more rarely of stones, at the bearer of these unwelcome truths.

Of late years, the organization of a regular anti-Christian society has increased the blasphemy of the Hindus in the Madras presidency. This society has published tracts filled with misrepresentation of the Scriptures and with low abuse of missionaries; it also hired men to go through the Tamil country, preaching and scattering books intended to arrest the progress