An India correspondent, in writing to the Boston Golden Rule, says: "The most singular audience that I ever saw gathered to listen to preaching was an audience of monkeys. I had noticed that in the back yards of the houses on the opposite side of the street there was a row of trees, the branches of which stretched out over the flat roofs. Many of these branches were beginning to bend downward toward the roofs, and the faces of some old jack monkeys peered out through the foliage. Soon some of them jumped down and came forward to see what their 'big brothers' in the street were about, as they stood gazing so intently at these white men standing around. Springing upon a parapet, they seated themselves, with their hind feet hanging over in front, and gazed with fixedness at the preacher, as they saw the people in the street doing.
"The audience in the street, standing with their backs toward that row of houses, did not notice the monkeys, and so their attention was not distracted by them.
"I had noticed that many mother monkeys had brought their babies to church with them. These little babe monkeys sat upon the knees of their mothers, while her hand was placed around them in a very human fashion; but the sermon was evidently too high for these little fellows to comprehend. Glancing up, I saw one of the little monkeys cautiously reach his hand around, and catching hold of another baby monkey's tail, give it a pull. The other little monkey struck back; but each mother monkey evidently disapproved of this levity in church, and each gave her own baby a box on the ears, as though saying: 'Sit still; don't you know how to behave in church?' The little monkeys thus reprimanded turned the most solemn faces toward the preacher, and seemed to listen intently to what he was saying. They sat demurely until the preacher finished his sermon and until he had distributed Gospels and tracts among the audience.
"Our 'celestial audience,' seeing our 'terrestrial audience' dispersing, then, and not until then, left their seats, and demurely walked back and sprang upon the branches again. There were no 'monkey capers' as they went; they were as serious as a congregation leaving a church, and sat upon the branches in a meditative mood, as though thinking over what they had heard the preacher say."