Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/271

Rh fast, too, eaten from the little camp-table, with the mysterious tea-pot, knives and forks, was an affair most astonishing.

Before eight o'clock, our mats were spread upon the ground as seats for auditors, our Tamil and Telugu tracts arranged on the table, and the preaching commenced. Successive companies seated themselves upon the mats or stood around, and heard exposures of idolatry and the publication of the atonement of Christ as the only remedy for sin-sick souls. The spiritual head of the Mohammedans received a New Testament in Hindustani, for which he begged most earnestly. A very handsome and interesting Mohammedan sepoy, who was conveying government money, begged for one also. He was told that we had but two or three, and could not give them there, as we wished to reserve them. In the afternoon, he came again, and pleaded so earnestly and affectingly that we could not refuse his request. When, with apparent sincerity, he asked us how we could answer to God for not giving him a book to teach him the way to heaven, we could no longer hold out, and he bore the sacred volume away in triumph.

In the afternoon, we had a visit from the