He had to read prayers to the soldiers from the drum-head by way of desk; there were no seats, and he was desired to omit the sermon: but afterwards a room was provided, and then the families of the officers and residents began to attend, though at first they were much scandalized by his preaching extempore. In fact there was a good deal in his whole tone that startled old orthodoxy; and in the opposition with which he met at times, there was some lawful and just distrust of the _onesidedness_ of his tenets, together with the ordinary hatred and dislike of darkness to light. So scrupulous was he in the Jewish force given by his party to the Fourth Commandment, that, having one Sunday conceived the plan of translating the Prayer-book into Hindostanee, he worked at it till he had reached the end of the _Te Deum_; and there, doubting whether it were a proper employment for the day, desisted until the Monday, to give himself up to prayer, singing hymns, Scripture-reading, and meditation. The immediate value of this work was for the poor native wives of the English soldiers, whom he found professing Christianity, but utterly ignorant; and to them every Sunday, after the official English service, he repeated the Liturgy in the vulgar tongue. In this holy work he was the pioneer, since Swartz's service was in Tamul. While working at his translations with his moonshee, or interpreter, a Mussulman, he had much opportunity for conversation and for study of the Mahometan arguments, so as to be very useful to himself; though he could not succeed in convincing the impracticable moonshee, who had all that self-satisfaction belonging to Mahometanism. "I told him that he ought to pray that God would teach him what the truth really is. He said he had no occasion to pray on this subject, as the word of God is express." With the Hindoos at Dinapore, he found, to his surprise, that there was apparently little disinclination to "become Feringees," as they called it, outwardly; but the difficulty lay in his insistance on Christian faith and obedience, instead of a mere external profession.