to this last Mr. Johnson says, "The visitor to North India, let us say, is struck with the sight of thronging multitudes in the great cities. He sees scores of thousands absorbed in the celebration of their religious festivals. Let a man stand on a housetop in the city of Benares and look down on eighty thousand people celebrating the Ram Lela in honour of their favourite hero and god Rama. How interested the

ENTRANCE TO MOSQUE.

multitudes are! . . Day by day he will see the sacred river alive with men and women standing up to the middle in the water worshipping and washing away their sins. He will meet crowds of pilgrims on their way to holy shrines. The temples are thronged. Hinduism fills the air. It sweeps on in its might, selfabsorbed, self-sufficient, disdaining or not noticing aught but itself."

The central station of the London Missionary Society's work in Ben

gal is situated at Bhowanipur, the largest of the four suburbs which form the southern boundary of Calcutta, "The City of Palaces." At the Mahratta ditch, which is the boundary of the city, "the stately ends, dirt and squalor begin. Dust clouds fill the air. An open drain runs alongside the foot-path, a bed of liquid typhoid. The shops in the native bazaar are sheds without windows. Piles of sweetmeats are

exposed, unprotected from dust, with swarms of wasps and fat flies buzzing about them. Bah! how strong is the smell of rancid fat! .... Grogshops, alas, are numerous. The rumseller squats aloft on the beams that support his spiritcasks, waiting, like an evil bird, for his prey."

In the midst of this human hive the cross has been planted, and "The London Missionary Society's Institution" stands out in bold relief and noble prominence, with library, lecture and classrooms having accommodation for 1,100 scholars. This educational building, with adjacent home for Christian converts, zenana home, and missionary residence, forms a complete and extensive station. Of these erections not one is more necessary or useful than the home for Christian converts. This is really a refuge to meet hard necessities, when the youthful convert is driven with threats, curses and bruises from his ancestral home-when the young man is under compulsion to forsake father and mother and houses and lands for Christ's sake and His Gospel's. Christian life in the Hindu home has been to the present, except in rare cases, an impossibility. One of the early converts gives

his own experience in the following words:

"When all resources failed, my father began to shed tears, and cried like a little child. This was the most dreadful of all the trials I had to pass through. Even now it sends a pang to my heart as I think of it after more than thirtyfour years. He passed his arms under mine, and pressed me to his breast, and weeping said, 'Come home with me and do not be a Christian. It breaks my heart to think of it. You will be the cause of my death. Come home with me or I shall die.' Oh! that was a most fearful trial, but grace was given me to endure it. Seeing his last attempt fail, he changed. His anger was awful. I see,' he said, giving vent to his indignation, 'you will not change your mind. Go, then, and be a Christian or whatever you like. But never see my face again. Do not dream of entering my house. If you come there I will kill you or kill myself. You

INDIAN WEAPONS.

are no more my son. You are dead to me.' So saying, he turned his back on me, and kept his word for full

seven years. Never for a single night was I allowed to sleep under his roof."

This man,

the Rev. Nun

do Lal Doss, found refuge in the converts' home, and laboured many years among his countrymen.

At Bhowanipur prominence was early given to education as a means to evangelization. Six Hindu youths entered the school on the day it was opened in 1837. There followed rapid growth. In five years the scholars had increased to three hundred and fifty. The present establishment was prayerfully set apart for its work on the 2nd of February, 1854. The educational work at Bhowanipur is part of a Christian movement in India which has deeply and widely influenced the peoples of that continent.

The first reason for this mode of missionary work is in the fact that India is part of the British Empire. Where we rule there we must take our language. The second reason lies in the conviction that Western education must be destructive to faith in the Shastras as a Divine revelation. While the Bible is not the only text-book used in such schools, it is a prominent one, and every effort is made to fasten its sublime and saving truths on the minds of the young men who are present in the class-rooms only that they may learn English. Mr. Johnson writes, "Sometimes, when speaking with the Book of Proverbs open before me, I have seen every eye fastened on mine, and the silence

has been profound. Then have I said within myself, Now the Word is sinking into their hearts. The Lord give it power!' I have heard a young man say of the missionary, 'I used to keep away from his Bible class. I could not bear to go. It made me miserable to hear him and yet remain a Hindu.'"

Sometimes a letter or message would reach the patient teacher from a former pupil, who had entered the school a heathen lad, and so far as was known had left it a heathen young man. Here is an extract from such a let

mind. Ancient foundations that have long stood unmoved are being shaken. Religious souls are seeking after God, and with strong cryings are beseeching Him to manifest Himself unto them. One such seeker said: "I desire to know God, and to get near to Him. There is one thing I desire: I burn for spiritual perfection." Who shall say that the truth is not finding a place of lodg ment in the Indian heart and conscience, and that by the instrumentality of education? Such testimonies are more than sufficient

passions of my mind and from the wiles and fraud of this world. A new life I have found there, and hope God will help me always in the fulfilment of my duties to Him."

These "old boys" are to be met with in all parts of the land. Some are in very important positions; others occupy more lowly places. The testimony of one, a medical student, given in answer to a question, is sufficiently clear: "I worship the one true God and Father. A few young friends and myself meet together for prayer every week." Through the influence of these schools mighty changes are being wrought in the Indian world of

answer to those who inveigh against the cost in men and money of the literary side of missionary ef

fort.

Two great hindrances stand in the way of the evangelization of India-caste and the jealous seclusion of women, specially those belonging to the more influential and wealthy section of the population. In Hinduism the barriers of caste are insurmountable. To be born a priest, a warrior or a labourer is to have the whole fate fixed. The Brahman is a divinity, and to be worshipped. The Khaist, though inferior, is of the twice-born. But "the Self-existent created the Sudra merely for the sake of the Brahman." To become a Christian is to break caste. The problem before the mis. sionary is to break down caste, and to fuse into one gracious whole the diverse and often antagonistic elements of Indian society. Hopeless as the task may seem, it has in some small measure been accomplished, and gathered about the Lord's table

the zenana women, who had been made a widow when only nine years old, and who had by a series of providences been led to the mission establishment and then to Christ, testifies of her work: "For thirty "For thirty years I have never ceased to labour for God. Christ said to the woman of Samaria, Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life.' I am joyfully offering this water to others. I thank God that He has spared me so long to labour for Him." This department of toil is being more fully occupied.

The results are becoming more and more visible. Access to the apartments of the women is more easy. The women of India are slowly emerging from the seclusion. of centuries and from the dense darkness of the night of heathenism. One of the marked results of zenana work is seen in the rapidly increasing interest taken by natives themselves in female education. The latest Government report shows two thousand girls' schools in operation, containing more than eighty thousand pupils. To-day there are young lady B.A.'s and M.A.'s in Calcutta. A number are devoting themselves to the study of medicine. At one examination a young woman carried off all the honours, standing at the head of all the candidates. At a recent convocation a young wife took the degree with her husband. When Governor-General, His Excellency Lord Dufferin presided at a college gathering when two of the dusky beauties of Hindustan came forward to receive their diplomas, and were cheered to the echo by the immense concourse of spectators.

To the south of the City of Palaces lie the great rice fields, where is carefully and patiently cultivated the grain which is almost the sole food of hundreds of millions of our fellowmen. For months in the year

the land is under water, and has the appearance of a vast lake dotted here and there with small islands which are occupied by the steadings of the farmers. As the seasons change the country becomes green with the growing and yellow with the ripening grain. In this section. is situated the village of Karapukur, the centre of a most successful mission of the London Missionary Society.

As long ago as 1825 Mr. Trawin was the means of introducing the Gospel into these communities. Preaching one day under a shed in the great market of Chitla, he was rudely interrupted by a stalwart farmer who angrily protested against the teaching. Mr. Trawin invited his opposer and his friends to a private interview. The invitation was accepted and many visits were paid to the home of the missionary. The immediate result was that these men opened their hearts to the truth, and on October 18th, 1825, Ramji Pramanik and his two friends were publicly baptized. The home of the converts was next visited, and a congregation was speedily gathered. A church was soon built, and on November 7th, 1826, was set apart for worship. This church occupied the site of, and was in part constructed from materials which had previously formed a temple of Siva. A gentleman of Calcutta has given his im pressions of this mission, received during a brief visit:

"We had heard of the South Villages, one of the mission stations of the London Missionary Society, and paid it a visit. The minister had at one time been a high-caste Brahmin, but is now an earnest preacher of the Gospel, and has jurisdiction over seven churches within a radius of thirty miles. The total congregation of the seven churches is between 1,000 and 1,500. His own numbers nearly 300, and of it we have now to write. We left Calcutta about