the missionaries’ attempts at conversion are usually wrecked.  An authentic report in vol. xxi. of the Asiatic Journal of 1826 shows that after so many years of missionary activity in the whole of India (of which the English possessions alone amount to one hundred and fifteen million inhabitants) there are not more than three hundred living converts to be found; and at the same time it is admitted that the Christian converts are distinguished for their extreme immorality.  There are only three hundred venal and bribed souls out of so many millions.  I cannot see that it has gone better with Christianity in India since then, although the missionaries are now trying, contrary to agreement, to work on the children’s minds in schools exclusively devoted to secular English instruction, in order to smuggle in Christianity, against which, however, the Hindoos are most jealously on their guard.  For, as has been said, childhood is the time, and not manhood, to sow the seeds of belief, especially where an earlier belief has taken root.  An acquired conviction, however, that is assumed by matured converts serves, generally, as only the mask for some kind of personal interest.  And it is the feeling that this could hardly be otherwise that makes a man, who changes his religion at maturity, despised by most people everywhere; a fact which reveals that they do not regard religion as a matter of reasoned conviction but merely as a belief inoculated in early childhood, before it has been put to any test.  That they are right in looking at religion in this way is to be gathered from the fact that it is not only the blind, credulous masses, but also the clergy of every religion, who, as such, have studied its sources, arguments, dogmas and differences, who cling faithfully and zealously as a body to the religion of their fatherland; consequently it is the rarest thing in the world for a priest to change from one religion or creed to another.  For instance, we see that the Catholic clergy are absolutely convinced of the truth of all the principles of their Church, and that the Protestants are also of theirs, and that both defend the principles of their confession with like zeal.  And yet the conviction is the outcome merely of the country in which each is born:  the truth of the Catholic dogma is perfectly clear to the clergy of South Germany, the Protestant to the clergy of North Germany.  If, therefore, these convictions rest on objective reasons, these reasons must be climatic and thrive like plants, some only here, some only there.  The masses everywhere, however, accept on trust and faith the convictions of those who are locally convinced.

Demop. That doesn’t matter, for essentially it makes no difference.  For instance, Protestantism in reality is more suited to the north, Catholicism to the south.