Condition of India

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 36.

Condition of India.

INDIA is intellectually the strongest nation of Asia. It possesses an ancient literature surpassing in variety and extent that possessed by any other nation before the adoption of printing—a literature extending to between ten and eleven thousand works. In architecture it is one of the foremost nations of the world. Its highest castes are renowned for their keenness of intellect. Probably none to whom the English language is not the mother-tongue require and use it so perfectly as educated Hindus.

The dignity of their past history and their natural force make them a more conservative people than the Japanese, and these conservative qualities guarantee that their progress will have a solidity which could not be found in a less conservative people. Yet their progress is swift as well as solid. India is rapidly cutting loose from the old and taking long strides toward something new. The educated classes are leaving the religion of their fathers, and for want of sufficient and proper Christian influence are, alas! tending to accept the infidelity of the Western world. The lower classes are beginning to long for light and are open to Christian influences.—Missionary Herald.