Page:The leather-workers of Daryaganj.djvu/13

9 the segregation plan is by no means an entire success, tending as it so constantly does to foster a more or less exotic life, and above all to put the converts at once into a position of immediate dependence on the Mission and Mission support, and in too many cases to substitute a very living faith in it and the depth of its purse and the compassion of the stringholders for any more real and worthy reliance on the great Giver of all. How far I am guilty of treason in saying this I do not know, for nothing is so apt to attract the attention and please the sentiments of friendly visitors to Missions as the little Christian village with its church, its pastor's house, its schools, and so much that brings back all that is best and dearest to us at home. Nevertheless, I believe that though in one or two cases under exceptionally wise and careful direction such villages have thriven, yet in many cases the dangers of which I have spoken have made themselves felt, and most strongly by those who have most to do with them, and have the greatest opportunity of seeing how they affect character. Whether it was the general theory or the experience of other Missions which had had most weight with Mr Winter in forming his decision I cannot say, but, from whichever cause—probably from both—he had in the case of these poor Chamár Christians wholly abstained from anything approaching to a segregation policy and had left them entirely among their own people to be a light to them. This I may remark in passing was possible partly because of the imperfect Christianity of too many of these converts, partly from the fact that they do not mass together in one large home in the way I have above referred to as common among the higher and wealthier classes, but live for the most part each in a most diminutive house of his own, but still more because of the lowness of their caste which cannot afford to indulge in the distinctions and prejudices in which the higher Hindoo so mightily delights. In the highest classes a man will often refuse, as I have been credibly informed by my own Munshi, on religious scruples, to eat food with his brother should there have occurred anything approaching to 'incompatibility of temper' between them. In Mr Winter's position we on entering the work most heartily concurred, believing it to be in every way the highest and wisest line. But during the last two years this conviction, chiefly under the teaching of sad experience, has been considerably modifying itself in, I believe, the minds of all of us. For while we still maintain that in theory, and given sufficiently powerful material for the experiment, this plan is far the best, yet we have been forced to recognise