CHAPTER III.

"Yet there are those who hail the Sabbath day, And rest from worldly toil; whose prayers ascend At early morn to God, and thankful praise

Flows in wild numbers."

"O let the lay

Dwell on the signal victory, obtain'd

O'er the dark strength of ignorance."-LAWSON.

TE OF RELIGION IN CALCUTTA-INATTENTION TO HE DUTIES OF THE SABBATH-ANECDOTES-CHAPAINS-INDO-BRITONS-MR. KYD'S WORK-INDO

ENCE TO BE LAMENTED-ITS EVILS-NATIVE FEALE SCHOOLS-BISHOP HEBER'S MISTAKE-REV. . SCHMID'S LETTER-ANECDotes.

HE moral aspect of Calcutta is much more asing now than it was thirty or forty years ago. en the first Baptist Missionaries visited this - of palaces, they could find no Christian nds with whom they could unite in the devoal exercise of the Sanctuary; and in 1803, en they first opened a house for religious woro in Calcutta, very few persons amongst the -opean residents paid any attention to the sa

duties of the Sabbath-so much so, that it ow often asserted in Calcutta, that the only ble sign of its being the Sabbath day was, the

hoisting of the flag at Fort William, and by the same signal floating upon the ships in the river. If indeed any difference was made, it was only to commit sin the more greedily, river parties and nautches being the order of the day. Since that period the conjoined efforts of pious clergymen in the Establishment, and the missionaries of the Baptist and London Missionary Societies, have, under the Divine blessing, produced the most important change in the habits and thoughts of the European and Indo-British inhabitants. At the period above referred to, only two places of Christian worship existed in Calcutta, the Presidency and the Mission Churches, and these were very thinly attended. The Rev. Messrs. Brown and Buchanan were the first amongst the Honourable Company's chaplains to seek the good of souls; and the following extract from the memoirs of the former will prove the statement to be correct."Mr. Brown found, on his arrival in Calcutta in 1786, that a deep ignorance on religious subjects, and a careless indifference to Christian duties, were but too prevalent there: living witnesses can testify, that the Lord's day, that distinguishing badge of a Christian people, was nearly as little regarded by the British as by the natives; the most noted distinction being hardly more than the waving of the flag at head-quarters, excepting as it was the well-known signal for fresh accessions of dissipation. In short, it would hardly be believed in Calcutta now, how the Sunday was

openly neglected then. Some instances might be adduced that are absurd, others ridiculous. 'Is it Sunday?—Yes, for I see the flag is hoisted,' was rather customary breakfast-table phraseology on Lord's day mornings. A lady, on being seriously spoken to on her utter disregard of the day, maintained that she always religiously observed it, for,' said she, every Sunday morning I read over the church service to myself, while my woman is combing my hair.' Another lady being urged to attend divine service, said, she had been more than twelve years a resident of Calcutta, and twice married; but it had been out of her power in all that time to go to church, because she had never had an offer from any beau to escort her there and hand her to a pew! She was perfectly serious in urging this difficulty-and on its being removed, by an immediate offer from a gentleman who was present to usher her into the church, she accepted the engagement to go on the following Sunday. It was frequently urged, that there could be no use in keeping holy the seventh day in a heathen country, since the common people not being, as in England, Christians, the example was not needed. The domestic morning worktable was nearly as regularly surrounded on Sunday forenoons as the card-table was on Sunday evenings. One lady, who indeed professed to feel scruples respecting the use of her own needle, judged nevertheless it would be absurd to restrain that of her husband's daughter, since she was

the child of a native mother, and could be nothing better than the durzees (tailors), and she therefore ought and should do her needle-work the same as they on Sundays, equally with any other day.'

"These specimens drawn from domestic life, previous to 1794, are taken from the three classes of superior European society in Calcutta, the families of the civil and military services and the agents. And if, as is usually thought to be true, the female sex is the most noted for piety in every land, the state of the male part of the British society in India, it must be supposed, was still less favourable to the interests of the Christian religion at that period. In truth, no business any more than pleasure was discontinued on the Lord's day." This, then, was the state of religious feeling amongst the European and Indo-British inhabitants of Calcutta forty years ago. How pleasingly altered is the scene now! On a Lord's day morning four churches, the cathedral, mission, St. James's and St. Andrew's, with three large meeting houses, are crowded with serious and attentive hearers; all business is suspended, and instead of water parties and nautch dances being resorted to as a means of passing away the hours pleasantly, devotional and religious books are generally read, and the religious instruction of the rising generation attended to. The Honourable Company have of late years, in one instance, greatly aided the cause of missions and the spread of evangelical

religion; viz. by sending out as chaplains, men qualified by their personal piety for the important station to which they are appointed, formerly it was quite a different case; and even now some of the old sort of chaplains are in being, who do any thing rather than promote the cause of God and the increase of religious feeling.

The country-born, or as they are called, "The Indo-British" part of the population of Calcutta, are a very interesting and increasing people. Many of them are very opulent, and others can vie with the more highly cultivated of their European neighbours in literary attainments; notwithstanding this, there is a marked contempt shewn them by Europeans generally. If a European lady should wed with an Indo-Briton, the doors of all the higher circles would be closed against her, however rich the man of her choice might be. I knew an instance where an Indo-British youth, of high literary attainments and very opulent parents, gained the affections of a young lady in England, of highly respectable birth and connection, she became his wife and returned to India with him; but alas! she had the mortification to find herself banished from all society but that of the despised country-born families around her. This so preyed upon her mind, that, in a very short time, she fell a sacrifice to her wounded feelings. These things ought not to be; we find fault with the Hindoos because of the tenacity with which they hold their caste; yet in this particular Englishmen manifest