Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/318

274 day. They immediately rose, and with much politeness requested me to be seated on the elevated platform, while they took their places in a semicircle on the ground before it.

It was truly a high and holy privilege, not so much a duty as a luxury, thus to sit beneath the shade of the noble tree, and for the first time to tell a group of interested hearers of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. They listened most attentively, understood what was said, and behaved with a kind simplicity that delighted me. Deceitful, dishonest, and degraded though they are, the villagers of Southern India present a most pleasing contrast to the far more corrupt inhabitants of the great cities: to mingle with them is a pleasing duty to one accustomed to labour in the great city.

One man only attempted to be troublesome, and he was immediately told by the others to hold his tongue, and not interrupt the gentleman with his impertinent questions. They appeared anxious to hear all that I had to say. Like the shastiri of the Jainas at Perumanaloor, they had a difficulty to propose about the propriety of killing any living creature. When told of the multitudes of living creatures unavoidably slain even by water-drinkers, and