Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/314

270 can get a hearing, almost without fail, by introducing quotations from their poets, sung in the Hindu style. Should some troublesome fellow interrupt him, the others will silence the interrupter, that they may not lose the poetry. This fact is a valuable one to the missionary. Among the Tamil classic poets, there are some who have written satires so keen and sarcasms so biting against the follies of idolatry and of Hinduism in all its shapes, that the missionary is ready furnished with the materials of war in a most telling shape. It may not be out of place to give a rude translation of an example or two, though the force of the original, lying much in the words and expressions, will not appear in a translation. Thus, on the subject of the worship of idols, one of their poets says— Which may be rendered—