No wonder that those who look upon the Indian nation as an inferior race should have so often protested against my judgment of them as prejudiced and as far too favourable. I know quite well that the men and women of whom I have here spoken are exceptional beings. They would be exceptional in England also, and anywhere else. But exceptions, after all, represent possibilities, and the good work achieved by such men as Rammohun Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, and Malabâri, or by Râmabâi, shows how much of real power lies dormant in the people of India. If it is always wise in judging of people to look more to their strong than to their weak points; why should we, in trying to determine the average intellectual and moral stature of the Hindus, take account of their dwarfs rather than of their giants? Is it right, for instance, to say that all Indians are liars? It is a very hackneyed charge, but it is never forgotten, and it often crops up again when least expected. Because culprits before an Indian judge and witnesses before a jury, nay, even cooks and butlers in Anglo-Indian homes, have occasionally, or even frequently, told lies, does it follow that all Indians are liars? It is unfortunate that so many who have spent their lives as civil servants or officers in India should represent the few hundreds or the few thousands of people with whom they have been brought into contact at Calcutta, Benares, Bombay, or Madras as fair specimens of the people of India at large. It should never be forgotten that the true home of the Indians is in their villages, and that those who go to Calcutta or other great towns to take service in English families are by no means the best specimens of the Indian population. They are willing to submit for some time to the unkind treatment which they not seldom receive from men, women, and children of alien origin; but they can but seldom feel any real attachment or even respect for their employers, though here, too, there are most honourable exceptions. From the earliest times truthfulness has always been mentioned as a national characteristic of the inhabitants of India, and we are now told that all Indians are liars! We cannot open any of the ancient law-books or epic poems without coming across such sentences as “Truth is the ladder to heaven and the ship across the ocean”; “The end of all the Vedas is Truth”; “Seeking after all the virtues, I have nowhere found anything so purifying as Truth.” We appeal to the literatures of other nations as records of their true character, why not in the case of the Hindus? It is easy to say that all this is changed now, and that those who have been magistrates and judges in India ought to know best. But do these judges consider the peculiar difficulties with which the lower classes in India have to contend, being ruled by men of a different colour, of a different language, and a different religion? Would they expect or find