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Chamárs in not pressing the question of immediate exclusion has prevented the results of the meeting being as clearly visible in the subsequent walk of those who declared themselves Christ's as it would otherwise have been. I mean for the present at any rate they continue in just their old connection of friendship and fellowship with the Chamárs. Nay, even in the case of those who voluntarily broke this bond, it turns out far more difficult than we had previously expected to say exactly what they have given up and how they now stand (with the exception of course of the definite abandonment by the Chaudri of his old chaudriship), and very varying indeed are the views taken even within the Mission of the extent of their surrender. Nor may we disguise the operation of the natural law of reaction following, though I am thankful to say far from equalling, action, brought home to us as it is by the certain fact that the best of these men have not wholly clung fast to the position which they, for the time at least, genuinely occupied, but have let themselves be betrayed into actions inconsistent with a stronger faith. Yet, when all is said and done, I cannot believe but that a real point, a very real point, has been made, and that we have had at any rate unmistakeable—be they in the present individuals permanent or transient—traces of the working of a Spirit not of this world, and the earnest of greater things to come.
Wherefore we ask your prayers for them and us, and all who so sorely need them.
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C.J. CLAY, M.A. & SON, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
