India and the Indians

Indian Christians; their generosity to each other. Indian respect for the mother; retained through l

ucing their legitimate result, restricts their hospitable efforts, within their own dwelling, to the sometimes narrow limits of their own particular caste. Invitations to members of castes above their own would not be accepted. And if, in some case

fashion on a large scale by those who are wealthy. Such feasts, however, do not come exactly under the laws of hospitality, because they are held according to

vy one. A well-to-do Hindu in Poona city built a new three-storied house in a corner of his large compound. As he had already got a house of apparently ample dimensions, I asked him w

duration is quite usual. I asked if it was not possible to hint that it was time that the visit came to a close. But he said that to do so would be considered very rude, and a great breach of hospitality, and that it was never d

l forage about in search of free meals, and will drop in here and there just about dinner time without much thought as to whether their company is welcome or not. Even the poorest persons will cheerfully produce all that they have got in order to feed these chance comers, with whom perhaps they have only a slight acquaintance. Christians are also generous with their

boy is often wilful and disobedient and rude to his mother, but he makes up for this by his dutiful conduct when he grows to manhood. It is almost comical to find Hindus of mature years referring everything to their mother, and eve

ve taken place, the final and most bitter struggle has nearly always been when the lamentations and entreaties of the mother had to be faced, and some men have no

r sons very much as a matter of course, and that if she looks upon them with equal af

na was about to be married in Bombay, where his bride resided, 120 miles away. His mother was a curious, cross-grained old woman, not yet a Christian. As he had not much money, I sugge

ould be for ever branded as an undutiful son. She was not at all grateful for his kind consideration, and made herself very disagreeable all through the wedding-day, b

ations in family life, trivial misunderstandings between friends of long standing, or amongst Christians some little hitch with the authorities of a mission, will sometimes result in life-long separations or bitter animosity between those who, for

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