“I really don’t know”—receiving his uncle’s epistle, and sitting down on the steps beside Ben.
Mr. Brande had a pile of officials for his share, and soon every one was plunged in their own correspondence.
“Uncle Pel,” said his niece, looking up from a crossed and scratchy letter, “here is a long epistle from Mrs. Kerry, our rector’s wife. She is going to hold a drawing-room meeting about missions, and she wishes me to tell her,” reading aloud, “what I think of the prospect of Christianity in this dark heathen land? I know nothing about the matter; what is your opinion?”
“That is rather a tall order, a big question”—sitting erect, sticking his eye-glass in his eye and focussing his niece. “I am sure I can tell you very little. India is many years behind the age—it is populous and isolated. The old creeds, however, are gradually being sapped. I dare say in a hundred years India will be Christian, and”—dropping his glass suddenly—“Britons may be Buddhists.”
“Oh, Uncle Pelham, do talk seriously for once; you know I could not write that home. Mrs. Kerry,” again referring to her letter, “asks particularly about the Hindoos!”
“Well, you can inform her that the Hindoos are naturally a devout people, and must have a religion. Some are now theists, atheists, agnostics; some mere coarse idolaters, who even in these days have devil-worship and witch-burning—yes, within a hundred miles of a college whose students devour Max Müller, and Matthew Arnold, and the most advanced literature of the day.”
“And Mahomedans?”
“Mahomedans never change, and never will change, until, having read history and science, they see themselves from another point of view. You can assure your friend that they, too, have their missionaries, who adopt street preaching and tract distribution, and that they may be found in countless bazaars, expounding the teaching of the Prophet. They make many converts, and among them some Christians! Pray tell the lady that.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind, Uncle Pelham.”
“Among the Hindoos, whose caste is so firm, the social conditions of the lower orders is so wretched and unchangeable, that numbers become Mahomedans, where all are alike, where severe asceticism is not necessary, and there are no outcasts, but scope for the indulgence of any ambition. There is your aunt’s old ayah; she does not know what she is. She attends Hindoo and Mahomedan feasts impartially. She believes alike in Vishnu and Mahomed; she also believes in whisky schrab!”