Intimate Glimpses of Life in India : A Narrative of Observations, Educational, Social, and Religious, in the Winter of 1899-1900

About The Book : The winter of 1899-1900 was one of uncommon, though in several respects of extremely painful, interest to the observant traveller in India. The ravages of plague and famine were over extended areas more severe and destructive than even of one under British rule; and the Government was being hampered and even thwarted in its efforts to mitigate the distress of the multitudes, chiefly by their own gross and absurd superstitions. Lnlany of the people believed that the plague had been brought upon the nation through the intercession with the gods of Queen Victoria in her wrath at the defilement of her statue on the maidan or public plaza of the city of Bombay. The story of the invitation to spend the winter lecturing in India—its nature and how it came to be given —needs, then, briefly to be told. Most of this story was wholly unknown to me until after the invitation had been received and accepted; and, indeed, after I had been for some time in the country. The only inkling of any such thing in prospect came in the form of a request from Professor Maher, the celebrated teacher and writer on psychology and philosophy at the Jesuit College in Stonyhurst, England. His letter asked that he should bo provided with some favorable notices of my books to send to a friend in India who wished to know more about them with a view to a possible use of them there. As the poisonous doctrines of Spencerian agnosticism and infidelity. But this refusal was an embarrassing thing for both the College and the University. For St. Francis Xavier was a favorite college with the Parsees of Bombay ;and the Parsees, in comparison with their numbers, were much the most wealthy, well-educated, and public-spirited of the citizens of the Bombay Presidency.