Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/236

202 a family of girls to marry is ruinous; while to have them unmarried is disgraceful and most unfortunate.

Here, it will be seen, in the Black-town of Madras alone, is a great and wide field for missionary effort. Here two hundred thousand souls, without regarding the five hundred thousand without the walls, are fully accessible to the gospel; but, as yet, it has been preached to them only to a very limited degree. True, the schools of the Scotch missionaries have been most useful, and have given a Christian education to many young men, some of whom are now labouring for the enlightenment of their countrymen; and the truth has been preached by the American missionaries and others to thousands of adults, and thousands of tracts have been given away. Yet, after all, what is done is very little when compared with the mass to be reached. On the Sabbath, not so many as two thousand of the Hindus within the walls of the Black-town of Madras hear the gospel. Where are the one hundred and ninety-eight thousand? They are living in heathenism, idolatry, and vice, scarcely illumined by a single ray of light. The Lord can make a few