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THE LAND OF THE VEDA.

all ages in the mission at this time is probably more than eighty thousand, while all the reports for three years past indicate that fifty baptisms occur every day in the year. So far as can now be seen, there is no reason to anticipate any abatement of this work whatever, but on the other hand it seems certain that it could be extended almost indefinitely, if means could be found for conserving the work.

The people are extremely ignorant, and, unless instructed according to our Saviour's directions, it is found that they do not go forward in the Christian life, but, on the contrary, are almost sure to become unsatisfactory in many ways, and either go back to heathenism or bring a reproach upon their new faith. Hence the vital question at the present time is that of providing instruction for converts. The converts themselves are so wretchedly poor that they can do nothing in the way of self-help. If teachers could be sent among them, and they gathered into groups and instructed, at the end of a very few years we would be able to send out two or three thousand more workers, and the eighty thousand converts of to-day might then become two hundred thousand in the space of two or three years. A prospect of this kind ought to arouse the whole Christian Church, and call forth an immediate effort to meet an emergency so full of promise. Strangely enough, our friends in Christian lands, with few exceptions, fail to comprehend that this is a day of God's visitation in India. It requires the most strenuous efforts on our part to secure the slender aid with which we are able to carry on the work on its present basis; but we are looking forward constantly to increased resources, and trust that the time will speedily come when our converts will number at least one hundred thousand every year.

If space permitted it would make a very interesting story to lay before the reader, the steady and indeed remarkable progress which has attended what might be called the internal development of our Mission in India. A great work of this kind touches a community or a province at many different points. While the