Talking of his early impression of missionary work, he wrote, “In those days Christian missionaries used to stand in a corner near a high school and so forth, pouring abuse on Hindus and their gods. I could not endure this ... I heard of a well known Hindu having been converted to Christianity. It was the talk of the town that, when he was baptized he had to eat beef and drink liquor, that he also had to change his clothes, and that thenceforth he began to go about in European clothing including a hat. These things got on my nerves. Surely, thought I, a religion that compelled one to eat beef, drink liquor, and change one’s own clothes did not deserve the name. I also heard that the new convert had already begun abusing the religion of his ancestors, their customs and their country. All these things created in me a dislike for Christianity.”(25) He then narrated meeting a Manchester Christian who told him, “Many Christians are meat-eaters and drink, no doubt; but neither meat-eating nor drinking is enjoined by Scripture. Do please read the Bible”. He did, when he discovered the New Testament and the Sermon on the Mount which went straight to his heart. “My young mind tried to unify the teaching of the Gita, the Lights of Asia and the Sermon on the Mount. That renunciation was the highest form of religion appealed to me greatly”. (26)

About missionary work he wrote a response to the Church Missionary Society of England’s appeal thus, “My fear is that though Christian friends nowadays do not say or admit that Hindu religion is untrue, they must harbour in their breasts the belief that Hinduism is an error and that Christianity as they believe it is the only true religion ... One would understand the attack on untouchability and many other errors that have crept into Hindu life. And if they would help us to get rid of the admitted abuses and purify our religion, they would do helpful constructive work which would be gratefully accepted. But so far as one can understand the present effort, it is to uproot Hinduism from the very foundation and replace it by another faith. It is like an attempt to destroy a house which though badly in want of repair appears to the dweller quite decent and habitable ... he would most decidedly resist those who sought to destroy that house ... If the Christian world entertains that opinion of the Hindu House, ‘Parliament of Religions’ and ‘International Fellowships’ are empty phrases. For both the terms presuppose equality of status, a common platform. There cannot be a common platform as between superiors and inferiors”. (27) The aim of a Fellowship of Faiths, he felt, “should be to help a Hindu to become a better Hindu, a Mussalman to become a better Mussalman, and a Christian a better Christian. The attitude of patronizing tolerance is false to the spirit of International Fellowship ... Our prayer for others must be NOT ‘God, give him the light that thou has given me’ BUT ‘give him all the light and truth he needs for his highest development.’ Pray merely that your friends become better men, whatever their form of religion”.(28)