In the second point to which I have called the attention of the reader I alluded to the general law of opposition, and used a common saying which exactly illustrates the probable result of violent and ill-judged attacks on caste.  In fact, so apparent is this, that the reader must have already anticipated the line that, in my opinion, the opponents of caste should follow.  What the opponents of caste should preach is, not the abolition of that institution, but toleration for the educated and advanced members of the community who, finding caste an impediment and a burden, wish to discard it.  They should admit that this institution has been, and is at the present moment, of value amongst the rural populations, but they should, at the same time, point out that times are changing, and that the peoples of the towns ask for some toleration, not because caste is necessarily a universal evil in itself, but because it is, as far as they are concerned, highly inconvenient.  This is the way—­and, if this plan does not answer, I feel sure no other will—­that the evils of caste are to be mitigated, and I urge these views accordingly on the serious attention of all enlightened Indians.

The reader will have observed that, when pointing out the advantages of caste in repelling our interpretation of Christianity, I have assumed that the adoption of Christianity necessarily involves the entire abolition of all those social distinctions that make up what we call caste.  Such have been the terms on which Christianity has been offered to the peoples of India by our English missionaries; and I, for one, do most sincerely rejoice that their hide-bound interpretation of the Protestant faith has been as promptly as it has been decidedly rejected.  But why should caste—­which, as I have shown, can be proved to have produced such favourable results as regards drinking, and as regards the morality of the sexes—­why should this institution, which in these respects can be proved to have produced better results than Christianity has over done in Great Britain—­why should this be swept away because you wish to introduce the religion of Christ?  It has been alleged to be entirely incompatible with Christianity; and were this so, there would, of course, be no more to be said.  But this I wholly deny.  It is, of course, incompatible in some respects with exalted conceptions of the most advanced Christianity; but there is no reason why Christianity should not be allowed to exist alongside of abnormal social growths, and why, in short, Christianity should not be stretched to tolerate caste, in the same way that it was allowed by the apostles to exist alongside of evils with which the institution of caste cannot, for iniquity or for general ill effects, be for one moment compared.  Christianity was not held by the apostles to be an impossibility because the professors of that faith bought and sold slaves; it was not held so by their descendants for hundreds of years; and