Page:The leather-workers of Daryaganj.djvu/15

11 (1) to observe Sunday as a day of rest,

(2) to use Christian rites exclusively at times of birth, marriage, and death,

(3) to abstain from the use of charas.

On these terms two or three men were forthcoming at once, one in especial who had already at a meeting of our little local congregation some time before subscribed to these rules preparatory to being elected chaudri or head-man (a functionary answering somewhat to a very unmistakeable churchwarden) of our district, and in the course of a month or two all the other houses were filled with men, differing a good deal so far as I could judge in the earnestness of their Christianity, but all I hope and believe, urged by at least some stimulus of pure motive. For a time things went on happily enough and we had every reason to congratulate ourselves, in a preliminary kind of way, on the success of our experiment, but it was not long before troubles begun to crop up, and these really arose necessarily from the position in which these men now found themselves placed. On the one hand they had advanced so far as to commit themselves definitely in some respects, at least, to a Christian manner of life. On the other, they had not yet made that open and final severance from their old caste which would free them from its claims and secure them from the temptation of being invited to share in its festivals and rites. The natural outcome was a continual bickering between the different families as to what was and what was not consistent with their new and more distinctly Christian attitude, each member being inclined to be very liberal in the concessions which he made to himself and the favour with which he regarded the invitations of his own old friends, but very much the reverse where his neighbour was concerned, and this quarrelling increased so much as to threaten the very life of the little community. I went to see them one day preparatory to leaving Delhi for a few days' work in the district, and things looked so bad that I left them with a sad heart, thinking it only too likely that before I returned