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120 RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND OPINIONS OF THE HINDUS.
the same time he is sensitive and timid. Treat him rudely, harshly, intemperately, it is like touching the leaf of the mimosa; he shrinks from all contest-he adopts the course recommended by his authorities to the man in quest of true knowledge-he imitates the tortoise who retracts his limbs beneath his shell, and is then alike indifferent to the sunshine or the storm. Let the argument, then, be enforced in a spirit of benevolence - let it be a calm and conciliating appeal to the understanding of intelligent men, and, although it may fail of producing any immediate or ostensible effect, it will not in all likelihood have been wholly unprofitable. Important changes in the opinions of nations are not the work of a day. Many and repeated and long continued efforts are necessary for their consummation, and many causes of little apparent magnitude, and of no immediately observable agency, cooperate for their accomplishment. It is not the earthquake or the tempest only that rives asunder the mountain barriers of the Himalaya, and opens its steep recesses to man and to cultivation. The smallest rill that trickles from the eternal snow contributes to swell the torrents, which, bursting through the rocks, transform declivities into valleys, and precipices into paths, and finally descend a stately river to fertilize the plains of Hindustan.
