An old Brahmin came into the verandah of the Mission bungalow, and sitting down, said very seriously, "Now tell me about your Christ." He was an army pensioner with two medals. He was seventy-five years of age, which is considered very old for an Indian. His only knowledge of Christianity had been gathered up in a vague way from the few Christians he had rubbed up against in the course of military wanderings, including a few missionaries. Yet even the amount of contact had been a help to him. Hindus sometimes are drawn towards Christianity by contact with even rather nominal Christians.
I asked the old Brahmin if he ever went to the village temple. "There is no temple," he replied rather fiercely. On my assurance that he was mistaken, he said: "Then if there is one, I have never seen it. I go to no temple. I pray to God in heaven." "The one God," he added with emphasis. Yet he had the usual red paint marks neatly inscribed on his forehead, and his Brahmin's thread, like a long skein of cotton, was worn sash-like next his skin, but just peeping out a little at the neck for the people to see. Anyone meeting him would have taken him for a most uncompromising and orthodox Hindu.[1]
[1] His portrait is to be found opposite p. 23, in Thirty-Four Years in Poona City.
After I had explained to another Brahmin the meaning of baptism, and that no one is a Christian until he is baptized, the Brahmin said: "Baptism seems very similar to our thread ceremony. Till a boy has received his thread he is not permitted to read the sacred scriptures or to take part in religious functions. He may be the son of Hindu parents, but he does not become a real Hindu until he has been invested with the thread."
I asked what then was the condition of those castes who are not entitled to wear the thread. He said that there was no ceremony of initiation for them, and so that they remained outside. I replied that, if this was so, it was very hard that the large majority of Indians should be left out in the cold. He agreed, and said that this undoubtedly was one of the weak points in their religion.
CHAPTER XVIII
RELIGIOUS PHASES IN INDIA
Hindus and Roman Catholicism. Parsees and Christianity. Their works of charity. Persian visitors. Religious controversy. Mr Hole's pictures. Hindu family quarrels. Indian repartee. Appreciation of the dignity of labour.