Most Europeans take no interest in missions, look on missionaries as good men engaged in a Quixotic enterprise, and know almost nothing about their work, but still they treat them with courtesy. There are, however, some of our own countrymen who take a deep interest in our work, visit our schools, occasionally attend our native services, and contribute liberally to our mission schemes. These do much to cheer our hearts and promote our success. Again and again my work would have been at a standstill but for the help given me by European Christians, and our intercourse with some has resulted in close and enduring friendship. If persons have a temperament preparing them for friendship, I cannot conceive any position more favourable to its formation and strength than that of a missionary in many of our Indian stations.
It has been already stated that missionaries have an income, which enables them to live in a way conducive to the health of themselves and families. Things which would be luxuries at home are necessaries in India, and all they can do is to alleviate the suffering caused by the climate. As missionaries are often more stationary than European officials, both military and civil, and spend much less than they do on horses, establishments, and entertainments, their houses have an air of comfort which is surprising to those who know their income, and has led to much misrepresentation on the part of those who know not and do not care to know what it is.
Not infrequently young men have gone out to India as missionaries with the firm resolve to live to a large extent in the native fashion, and to eschew what they conceive the undue indulgence of those who had preceded them, but the experience of one hot season has generally brought them to another mind. Individuals have adhered to their resolution, and the result in one case I know was insanity, in other cases utter failure of health, and in others speedy death. A band of Germans determined to live, if not in the native style, at least in the simple style of the Fatherland, as to habitation, food, and service, and with scarcely an exception the plan was soon abandoned. The only successful case I have heard of in our day has been that of Mr. Bowen, a devoted American missionary in Bombay. We have had no William Burns, in Northern India at least. I can say for myself, that so far as the mere comfort of living is concerned I should greatly prefer a humble abode and simple fare in England, to the finest house and the most sumptuous fare in the plains of Northern India. It has been maintained by some that our only hope of success lies in our becoming ascetics, and outstripping by our austerities the Hindu saints. In other words, by acting as if we accepted Hindu principles of religion we are to overthrow Hinduism, and win the people to Christ. The proposal calls for no consideration.