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SIR ANDREW WINGATE, K.C.I.E., ON INDIA. 



for their prosperity and happiness, has sent forth a noble call 

 to co-operation and goodwill between all classes. To such a 

 message India has always generously responded. The new 

 relationships will be judged not only by their attitude towards 

 the conditions, which brought former failures, but by their 

 removal of disabilities, which burden the members of other 

 religions and of the depressed classes, by their sympathetic 

 concern for hill people and criminal tribes, and by their further- 

 ance of every legislative measure which has for its object the 

 common weal of the masses, the multitudinous agricultural 

 population. It is these interests which have made service in 

 India a delight to our District OflEicers. 



The Indian Civil Service has a grander mission in the future 

 than even the pioneer work of the past, which has built the new 

 India. If the new Ministers preserve efficiency and yet run it 

 on rubber tyres, we shall thankfully learn the lesson. Those 

 who have served in Native States will recall the ability with 

 which important questions are handled, and the patience which 

 instructs the people to understand them. A chief rules more 

 by persuasion than perhaps we have done. The Indian Civil 

 Service will soon find scope for this method, and its results are 

 abiding. It will not be the personal work of the British officer, 

 which is needed, so much as the standard and influence of his life. 

 Therefore, the Indian Civil Service of the future must be once 

 more staffed by the best men our Empire can produce. 



From this very imperfect survey of the past and present 

 conditions of India we conclude that the history of India, like 

 its geography, is not a fortuitous arrangement, but under the 

 guiding hand of a wise and loving God, has been over-ruled to 

 produce gold from the roughest ore, pure incense from the 

 wildest jungle. However dark the clouds, however probable 

 the deterioration, we shall continue to believe that there is a 

 noble future for India, and that her people will bring the riches of 

 their patient, affectionate and religious nature to the feet of Christ. 



We know that there are thousands of secret believers scattered 

 over India ; tens of thousands whose lives are more or less 

 governed by Christian ideals ; hundreds of thousands who have 

 learned something about God as the loving Father of us all. 



We know that the Scriptures, in all languages, are circulating 

 in India at the rate of over a million copies a year, each copy 

 consisting of at least one Gospel, and that there is much prayer 

 behind these Books. 



