Cambridge Mission, Delhi,
Sept. 8, 1884.
Dear Dr Westcott,
A point has, I think, been reached in our work amongst the poor Chamár Christians of Delhi which will justify some account of our progress and present position. And at the outset let me say one word with regard to our own relation to that work. It has more than once been objected to me by friends of our Mission in this country, and such as have really understood the special aims with which our Brotherhood was formed, that this work lies altogether foreign to the scope of our true labours, and that in allowing ourselves to become entangled in it we have acted wrongly and have so far crippled ourselves, by loss of time and thought, for carrying out our original programme. It is not unlikely that a similar view may be held by some at least of our friends in England, and so it seems worth while to explain, whether by way of apology or to remove misunderstanding, what has led to the present state of affairs. And in the first place I might urge that the clause in the original statement of our Mission which defined our work to be "in addition to other Evangelistic labours" certain special undertakings, is of a scope at least sufficiently wide to include the work of which I am at present speaking, and in point of fact I do not suppose that it was ever for a moment intended, that in addressing ourselves especially to the upper classes and the more thoughtful heathen, we should wholly ignore the claim of the poorer lower and possibly less thoughtful classes who are so particularly numerous in this country, and to whom the Invitation seems so specially to address itself.
But it is not on any wording of programmes or even on any general theories of work that I would base the justification of the
