Their great idea of converting the world to Christ is no chimera: it is
Divine. Christianity will triumph. It is equal to all it has to
perform. It is not mere enthusiasm to imagine a handful of missionaries
capable of converting the millions of India. How often they are cut off
just after they have acquired the language! How often they retire with
broken-down constitutions before effecting anything! How often they drop
burning tears over their own feebleness amid the defections of those
they believed to be converts! Yes! but that small band has the decree of
God on its side. Who has not admired the band of Leonidas at the pass of
Thermopylae? Three hundred against three million. Japhet, with the decree
of God on his side, only 300 strong, contending for enlargement with
Shem and his 3,000,000. Consider what has been effected during the last
fifty years. There is no vaunting of scouts now. No Indian gentlemen
making themselves merry about the folly of thinking to convert the
natives of India; magnifying the difficulties of caste; and setting our
ministers into brown studies and speech-making in defense of missions.
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