Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/265

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THE PEOPLE.
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people was marked by an unusual degree of politeness, and all seemed desirous that missionaries should come and settle among them. In the centre of the town is a very large and beautiful tank, with flights of stone steps reaching down each of its four sides. Here we sat beneath the shade of a banian-tree, and spoke to the people with great satisfaction. Gladly would we have tarried longer with them, but we had only an additional day to spend in Arnee. My heart was much pained for one poor creature, a man, who came to us for medical aid. His cheek was eaten out by cancer, so that we could only tell him that he must die, and bid him look to the Lord Jesus for salvation. It was most sad to look into his anxious eyes and upon his hopeless face, worn with pain, and care, and sorrow, and tell him he must die—die amid heathenism, with none to point him to the way of life. If there were a missionary to lead his hopeless, dark, besotted soul to the Saviour, we could be content. But he must die untaught! Do you wonder that missionaries never cease to cry for men to come forth and spread the gospel? What can they do but continually cry, “the harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few."