dom seen in the public school, although legally entitled to admittance. The ban of social prejudice against them is so strong they are practically excluded. In all the missions of India it has been noticed from the first that the majority of converts come from the depressed classes, and perhaps this fact has operated to some extent to create a prejudice in the public mind against missionary labor. Most persons forget that in the earliest and purest age of Christianity Christians were exposed to the constant taunt that their community was composed almost exclusively of slaves and wretchedly poor people. The same peculiarity has attended the progress of pure and undefiled Christianity in all ages. The simple fact in the case is that our Saviour deliberately adapted the conditions of membership in his kingdom to the wants of the poor, knowing that the vast majority of the human race belong to this class. Hence, those who work in accordance with the Divine will, and in harmony with the only possible conditions upon which the kingdom of Christ can be made to flourish in this world, will never shrink from receiving the poor, and will never feel surprised when they see the poor coming to them in unwonted numbers.
Some six years ago it began to be noticed in our Mission in North India that a movement of some magnitude was evidently setting in among this class of people. At the close of 1888 no less than eighteen hundred baptisms were reported, while several thousand converts were waiting to receive baptism as soon as the missionaries were willing to admit them to the privilege. Much attention was excited by this new development, but no one at that time anticipated so rapid and wide an extension of the work as has since occurred. The following year a still more marked increase took place, while in the third year the number of baptisms, including children, went up to the startling number of eighteen thousand. From that time to the present hour the movement shows no sign of abatement, but on the other hand is constantly spreading more widely, and apparently gaining a firmer hold upon the people. The total number of Christians of
