A TELLING TRIBUTE TO THE BIBLE.
By Missionary Helper
At the close of a lecture by Dr. Chamberlain, of the American Arcot Mission, when nearly two hundred Brahmans, farmers, artisans, officials, and students were present, a Brahman politely asked permission to address the meeting, and then said:— "I have watched the missionaries, and seen what they are. What have they come to this country for? What tempts them to leave their parents, friends, and country, and come to an unhealthy clime? Is it for gain or profit they come? Some of us country clerks in government offices, receive larger salaries than they. Is it for an easy life? See how they work, and then tell me. Look at this missionary. He came here a few years ago, leaving all and seeking only our good. He was met with cold looks and suspicious glances, and was shunned and maligned. He sought to talk with us of what, he told us, was the matter of most importance in heaven and earth; but we would not listen. He opened a dispensary, and we said, 'Let the pariahs [lowest class] take his medicines, we won't;' but in the time of our sickness and distress and fear we were glad to go to him, and he welcomed us. We complained at first if he walked through our Brahman streets; but erelong when our wives and our daughters were in sickness and anguish, we went and begged him to come, even into our inner apartments; and he came, and our wives and our daughters now smile upon us in health. Has he made any money by it? Even the cost of the medicine he has given has not been returned to him. Now what is it that makes him do all this for us?—It is his Bible. I have looked into it a good deal, at one time and another, in the different languages I chance to know; it is just the same in all languages—the Bible. "There is nothing to compare with it in all our sacred books, for goodness, and purity, and holiness, and love, and for motives of action. Where did the English people get all their intelligence, and energy, and cleverness, and power? It is their Bible that gives it to them. And now they bring it to us, and say, 'That is what raised us; take it and raise yourselves.' They do not force it upon us as did the Mohammedans their Koran; but they bring it in love, and translate it into our languages, and lay it before us, and say, 'Look at it, read it, examine it, and see if it is not good.' Of one thing I am convinced,—do what we will, oppose it as we may, it is the Christians' Bible that will, sooner or later, work the regeneration of our land." "I could not," adds Dr. Chamberlain, "but be surprised at this testimony. Some time ago I had attended, in his zenana, his second wife, a beautiful girl, through a dangerous illness, and I knew that he was very grateful; but I was not prepared to hear him, before such an audience, give such a powerful testimony to the power and excellence of the Bible."