As time goes on he has to deal with the realities of things. Difficulties, failures, disappointments have to be faced. A reaction sets in. He thinks that the people need a firmer hand, that they have been dealt with too lightly. He no longer keeps the good side uppermost, and begins to see only the defects. He gets the mission possibly into good external order, but much of the grace and beauty of his ministry goes out in the process, and there will be no attractive force at work to draw in the heathen. The worker in India needs to pray constantly that the spirit of love and sympathy, and the yearning to help souls with which he began, may never be allowed to grow less; that he may retain his spirit of buoyancy; that he may keep hopeful and expectant; and that while firm and strong with the people who need his support, he may only love them the more when he has learnt really to understand and know them. A missionary in India of long and wide experience wrote that he had often pondered as to the reason why the Church in that land has never become a real indigenous plant. He went on to say--"Even if we were to put aside the tradition of St Thomas having preached here, we know that, at any rate from the eighth century onwards, with only a few intermissions, there has been Christian effort at work in the country." The conclusion that he came to was that "there has been too much of the individual and too little of the Holy Spirit. St Francis Xavier baptized thousands of children, and then went his way. The Church has always depended on foreign aid, and when left to itself has either died away or kept itself alive by maintaining a sort of Christian caste. The Eastern people are, to a certain extent, pliant and easily led. The somewhat masterful foreign missionary had bent the people to his will and his ways. The house has been built square and solid, and finished in appearance. But it is a building, not a plant. It has not within it the power of life and growth. There has been more building than sowing. It depends on the force of the individual, and but little room is left for the power of the Holy Spirit to make it really fruitful." CHAPTER XIV INDIAN MUSIC Women singing as they grind. Singing to the bullocks. Singing on the road. The rest-house. Soldiers singing. Palanquin bearers. Indian taste in music. Indian musical instruments. The native band. The "Europe" band. Sir G. Clarke on Indian music. Evil associations of native tunes. Indian choir-boys. One of the commonest sounds in India is that of women grinding at the mill. You not only hear the grating of the revolving stone, but since it is a hard and monotonous task, the toilers almost invariably enliven it by singing. They do so rather melodiously, and it sounds pleasant in the distance. Their songs are to a large extent made up on the spur of the moment, and form a sort of running comment on what they are doing, or on what is going on around them.