CASTE, A LIMITING FACTOR 29 



post, the steam-boat and the printing press have ceased 

 to be seven day wonders. 



There are over fifty millions of outcastes or '* untouch- 

 ables" in India. Men and women at the bottom of the 

 social scale, who do the lowest and meanest tasks, some 

 are scavengers, some will eat carrion, some are filthy and 

 disgusting in their habits. They have been kept down 

 by the higher castes. They have been denied the right 

 to education, to worship in the temples, to own or read 

 the sacred scriptures of the Hindus. They are said to be 

 bom at the bottom of a horrible pit and bom to stay 

 there. They are considered to be in their proper place, 

 and there is no way out. They are considered to be in 

 the place assigned them by the Almighty and under 

 orthodox Hinduism there is no possibility for them to 

 rise. They are degraded and debased. Kept down by 

 unmeasured centuries of oppression and tjnranny. 



The missionaries of Christ have gone among these 

 lowly, despised folk and have told them of the One who 

 came to heal the broken hearted, to deliver the captive, 

 to set at liberty them that are bruised. This message is 

 so different from amythmg else that they have ever 

 heard that it seems almost too good to be true. It is 

 hard to persuade them that there is a way out of their 

 unspeakable degradation and bondage and poverty. 

 But some of them are persuaded and are coming out. 

 They are turning their faces towards the light and fol- 

 lowing it. Over fifteen thousand a month are becoming 

 Christian and it is this Christward tide of humanity that 

 has been called the * ' Mass Movement in India. ' ' Whole 

 villages of certain low-castes are being baptized at one 

 time. If only one or two come out at one time, they are 



