Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/251

Rh We were followed on our return by a number of persons. One of these, a fine young man in government employ, had been a pupil in the American mission-school at Madras, and professed a total disbelief of Hinduism; a second had, from this young man, learned the folly of idolatry; and a third, who was the village schoolmaster, had been a scholar in the institution of the Scotch Free Church. It was cheering, at this distance from the city, to find these diverging rays of light streaming even faintly from its missions into the gross darkness of the country; and it encouraged us to go forward in the work of kindling and cherishing these little flames, trusting to God to make them, in his good time, the means of a great flashing forth of divine truth.

In the afternoon we went to the temple near by. It was of the usual form, with its gobram facing the east, but somewhat dilapidated. In front of the temple was a beautiful tank, surrounded on all sides by flights of granite steps descending to the water. In its centre stood a stone shrine, visited annually by the idol, and at the opposite side was a small temple. As we came near, a Brahminee woman, who caught sight of us, ran to her house in great haste to