Page:Future of England - Peel.djvu/219

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OUR ORIENTAL FUTURE
207

by the Bishop of Madras, published at the close of 1907, and marked by plain speaking.

The Bishop begins by acknowledging that the ideas and hopes with which he came out to India twenty-five years ago were mistaken. He points out that during the last fifty years a number of strong influences "have greatly modified the attitude of the educated classes towards Christianity." First, universities have been established with a purely secular course of studies. Then, as education spread, "Indians became aware that Christianity was by no means universally accepted by all thinking men in Europe and America." Thirdly, there has been the important revival in Hinduism itself, particularly in the shape of Vedantism, the most popular form of Hindu philosophy. Finally, political aspirations have come, concentrating the Indian mind on political aims. "The facts are obvious. The educated classes of India have steadily become more critical of their English rulers, and more directly opposed to English influence." And this has reacted directly upon Christianity. For five years past "the Oxford Mission to Calcutta have hardly made six converts, and it is stated in the last report of the Cambridge Mission to Delhi that there is not a single case of baptism to show as the result of twenty-five years of college work." Finally, the Bishop writes that, "I can see no evidence of any movement towards Christianity in the higher ranks of Hindu society at present,