that most Europeans hold them to be about the worst class of people in India.  I confess that I do not share this opinion altogether.  The fact probably is that, in consequence of their extreme ignorance and generally debased state, they are, in the rural districts, neither better nor worse than the classes from which they are principally drawn.  In our cantonments, however, and especially in those where European soldiery abounds, there is every probability of their being worse than the classes from which they have sprung; and I have little doubt that the low estimation in which the native Christians are held is owing to the fact that our countrymen have generally come in contact with the specimens that have been nurtured amidst the scum of our Indian towns.  Were we to believe the assertions of our English missionaries, very different conclusions would, of course, be arrived at; but unless they can show that the lowest and most ignorant classes of natives, who from their habits, and from having nothing to lose, are under great temptations, form an exception to all specimens of humanity in other quarters of the globe, I am afraid there can be little reason to doubt that the opinions I have expressed are fairly correct.  I doubt very much, in fact, from my intimate knowledge of the lower classes of natives—­and it is from these, as I said before, that our converts are mainly derived—­whether they are capable of comprehending our religion at all.  Of one thing I think we may be quite certain, and that is, that the moment the missionary’s back is turned, these people return to their devils in the event of any danger or sickness arising.  This might be arrived at deductively with perfect accuracy, and arguing solely from our knowledge of humanity under certain conditions; but I may mention that in Ceylon instances of people reverting to their devil-worship are common amongst the native Christians, and instances might, no doubt, be soon collected in India, if anyone thought it worth the trouble.  While alluding to missionary assertions, I may mention that the credulity of these gentlemen seems only to be equalled by the credulity of the British public.  If they would only extend their belief in the goodness of natives a little further, one might be tempted to sympathize with this amiable weakness.  But the peculiar part of their statements lies in the fact that their converts have got all the virtue and morality in India, while the respectable classes of the community seem, by their account, to be very badly off in these respects.  The most curious instance, however, of missionary credulity that I have met with is to be found in the evidence of Mr. Underhill, given before the Committee on Colonization (India) in 1859.  And it certainly is a surprising result of conversion to find that the wives of the converts become not only more beautiful, but also more fertile, than their heathen sisters.  Two heathen natives had been heard to testify to these facts, and it is wonderful to observe the complacent air of satisfaction with which these statements are accepted by the witness, who added that this difference evidently arises from the more chaste and regular modes of life in which they fall.[35]