PREFACE.
THE writer of this book has aimed to act toward the reader in the relation of a guide, as though he were going over the ground again, and giving the benefit of his experience, in pointing out the objects of interest with which years and study have familiarized his own mind. The thread of the narrative runs through the work, and, so far as the subject permitted, its continuity has been preserved.
In a theme like that of India, and after the reading and note-taking of fifteen years, it is a difficult task for an author to trace every entry to its source, or adequately to discriminate between what is original and what is borrowed. Every reasonable effort, however, has been made to give proper acknowledgment wherever it was found desirable to use the ideas or language of others.
While the denominational relation of the writer is evident enough, he trusts that there will not be found on these pages a single sentence that can give offense to any member of Christ's Church, but, on the contrary, that their perusal may encourage and strengthen the faith of God's elect in that almighty Power which, even in the idolatrous and conservative East, is so manifestly subduing all things unto Himself. Here may be discerned the dawn of that day, so long foretold, when all Oriental races shall be blessed in a Redeemer who was himself Asiatic by birth and blood and the sphere of His personal ministry—whose cross was erected on that continent, and whose first ministers and members were taken from among that people. The hundreds of millions of their descendants now await this redemption, and shall yet joyously unite to crown him “Lord of all.”
The writer has not concealed his conviction that human history,
