Back in 1993, I had posted this on soc.culture.indian, thinking it to be a joke. Yet, there appears to be a recurring minor theme in 19th century literature about India that conversion to Christianity by Europeans resulted in a corruption of the natives.
Title: In the spirit of the Maharaj :-) {Jai Maharaj was a poster on s.c.i., considered by many to be a joker}
"The British census of 1881 gives the record of {criminal} convictions:
Europeans1 in 274
Eurasians1 in 509
Native Christians 1 in 799
Mahommedans1 in 856
Hindus1 in 1361
Buddhists1 in 3787
These statistics were reprinted in the leading Catholic organ
in Britain, The Tablet, with the comments:
"The last item is a magnificent tribute to the exalted purity
of Buddhism...It appears from these figures that while we effect
a very marked moral deterioration in the natives by converting
them to our creed, their natural standard of morality is so
high that however much we Christianize them, we cannot succeed
in making them altogether as bad as ourselves.""
(From an introduction to "The Light of Asia", for original reference,
see Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery, compiled and edited by
Joseph Head & S.L. Cranston, 1977, Warner Books).
