"The Hindus are a religious people, with strong cravings that must be satisfied. This is shown clearly by the absence of any desire on the part of my boys to shirk their religious duties," said Wenaston.
"By and bye those boys won't be content with the performance of superstitious pujah with a pantheistic leaning. They will require one God for India, not a million gods; they will demand an uplifting of suffering humanity, and they will rebel against a horrible creed of fatalism and predestination."
"What have you to offer to a man like Ananda?"
"Our own faith."
"Can he comprehend it with its spiritual teaching?"
"Ask him some day and he will tell you that in the teaching of Christ and in the following of Christ's example he has found a soul-satisfying substitute for his worn-out creed and childish rituals."
"Alderbury, you are an incorrigible iconoclast. With one blow you would annihilate the longest-lived religion of the world!"
He was on his feet in a moment, as was his way when excited, and his voice rang out into the night.
"You obsolete old professor! you bag of dry bones!" he cried, as he strode up and down the verandah. "The ancient Greeks and Romans killed their conquered enemies, I know; but modern conquerors pursue a different plan. They preserve; at the same time they subdue and bend the conquered to their will, making use of the good and pruning away the bad. We shall treat Hinduism in the modern manner; remodelling its rites and its institutions. Even that bugbear to all mission work, caste, shall be reformed. Hinduism will be transfigured in God's good time by the spirituality of Christ. It will merge into a fuller, richer Christianity than we of the less imaginative West have ever contemplated."
Eola felt the blood coursing through her veins with an emotion that was startling. Alderbury's enthusiasm, his magnificent faith, his absolute optimism and trust in the future roused her admiration, almost her envy. She felt the infection of his hope and belief; but because she was a woman, there was something behind it that detached her mind from the cause for which he battled, and centred her thoughts upon the man himself. While she listened, carried away by his words, she was conscious of his splendid personality, his strength, his confidence, his purity of heart. He was a born leader of men with a strong personal influence that was not to be denied; and the messenger occupied her mind more than the message he carried. Alderbury was unlike any one else of her acquaintance; and each time they met she became conscious of a growing attraction that she was unwilling to acknowledge even to herself.