into the world because one day he forgot to put back the stone that covers a hole in the top.  More fantastic theories about the origin and the destiny of man are to be found in India than in any other country, and those who have faith in them speak 167 different languages, as returned by the census.  Some of these languages are spoken by millions of people; others by a few thousand only; some of them have a literature of poetry and philosophy that has survived the ages, while others are unwritten and only used for communication by wild and isolated tribes in the mountains or the jungles.

Christian missionaries have been at work in India for four hundred years.  St. Francis Xavier was one of the pioneers.  Protestants have been there for a little more than a century, and since 1804 have distributed 13,000,000 of Bibles.  During the last ten years they have sold 5,000,000 copies of the Scriptures either complete or in part; for the Gospels in each of the great Indian languages, like two sparrows, can now be bought for a farthing.  In 1898, 497,000 copies were issued; in 1902, more than 600,000; and thus the work increases.  More than 140 colporteurs, or agents, mostly natives, are peddling the Bible for sale in different parts of India.  They do nothing else.  More than 400 native women are engaged in placing it in the secluded homes of the Hindus among women of the harems, and teaching them to read it.  No commercial business is conducted with greater energy, enterprise and ability than the work of the Bible Society, in this empire, and while the missionaries have enormous and perplexing difficulties to overcome, they, too, are making remarkable headway.

You frequently hear thoughtless people, who know nothing of the facts, but consider it fashionable to sneer at the missionaries, declare that Hindus never are converted.  The official census of the government of India, which is based upon inquiries made directly of the individuals themselves, by sworn agents, and is not compiled from the reports of the missionary societies, shows an increase in the number of professing Christians from 2,036,000 in 1891 to 2,664,000 in 1901, a gain of 625,000, or 30 per cent in ten years, and in some of the provinces it has been remarkable.  In the Central Provinces and United Provinces the increase in the number of persons professing Christianity, according to the census, was more than 300 per cent.  In Assam, which is in the northeastern extremity of India, and the Punjab, which occupies a similar position in the northwest, the increase was nearly 200 per cent.  In Bengal, of which Calcutta is the chief city, the gain was nearly 50 per cent; in the province of Bombay it was nearly 40 per cent, and in Madras and Burmah it was 20 per cent.

The dean of the American missionary colony is Rev. R. A. Hume, of Ahmednagar, who belongs to the third, and his daughter to the fourth, generation of missionaries in the family.  He was born in Bombay, where his father and his grandfather preached and taught for many years.  Rev. Mr. Ballantine, the grandfather of Mrs. Hume, went over from southern Indiana in 1835 and settled at Ahmednagar, where the Protestants had begun work four years previous.