If you doubt the fact, make a trial. Get up to the pinnacle of this temple'-pointing to one opposite to where I stood —ʻand throw yourself down. If you survive, I will believe that your God is stronger than my gods are; if not, you must acknowledge my gods to be superior to yours.' I replied, 'It would be difficult for me to get on the top of that temple,' pointing likewise to it, for it was a very high one; ' moreover, if in jumping down I broke my neck, I should not be in a state to acknowledge the great power of your gods. You see I am alone, with nothing but my stick, and they are three three to one-and you know I do not pretend to be a god. If they turn me out, I will acknowledge their superiority, but if I conquer them, and turn them out of the temple, then you must acknowledge the superiority of our God.' He and his disciples burst into a hearty laugh, but he would not consent to my making the trial; his disciples, of whom nine were present, said, 'There would be no question as to who would obtain the victory.'"

The answers which even simple-minded converts sometimes give to learned pundits are unique. Mr. Leupolt tells us that one day a cultivator was attacked before a large crowd of people about his religion. "What do you know," the learned man asked," about Christianity? We know all about it; we have read the New Testament, and know exactly what Christianity is composed of." "True," the man replied, "you know the ingredients of Christianity; so does my cook know what my curry is composed of; but, being a Brahmin, he does not know more, for he never tastes it. I do not know exactly all its ingredients, but I know what the curry is, for I taste and eat it. So you may know the ingredients of Christianity, but more you do not know; whereas I know what Christianity is, for I have tasted it. Taste it yourself! follow Jesus Christ! and you will soon see whether Christianity is of God or of man." The pundit was silenced.

At Sigra there are both boys' and girls' schools, to the former of which adults are admitted. The Jay Narain School -an institution originally established in 1817 by the native gentleman whose name it bears,* and afterwards made over to the Church Missionary Society-has been, and continues

See Hough's "Christianity in India,” v. 317.

to be, very successful, and will soon require to be enlarged.* The girls' school has been recently established, and is doing well; and this (with a similar school at Calcutta) appears to be the nucleus of a most important movement. The unhappy lot of female children and women in India we have already described in our third chapter. From this state of wretchedness there may now be hope of redemption. The growing influence of Christianity may lead to further legislation for the protection of woman, and even to the abolition of childmarriage, the source of unnumbered evils. From these schools may arise a native Christian village,† where, as the children grow up, families may be formed, and whence a Christian community may proceed.

The life of a Missionary is a busy one. He can only preach the Gospel, viva voce, to the men, for our missionaries have no access to women of station, and the lower-class women, we fear, seldom stand to hear them. (The wives and daughters of our missionaries alone, of all the missionary force, have access to the Zenanas, though we hope a time is coming when other Christian ladies will also visit them.) But he has to contend with adversaries; to confer with inquirers; to instruct, examine, baptise, and watch over converts; to establish schools, and to train native teachers; to minister to the church in his charge; to attend (and often to prescribe for) the sick and the dying; to travel into, and preach the Gospel in, outlying districts; to write, and to translate into the vernacular, tracts and books; and to perform many other duties that cannot here be enumerated. And all, it may be added, are to be done in a trying climate, and on a humble allowance.

The Province of Benares, as well as the City, is densely populated, and is well cultivated, and beautiful. It no longer yields the sport for which it was famous of old, when lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses, and buffalo were hunted here.

This has now been done; the institution is become a College and Free School," and is affiliated to Calcutta University.

This was accomplished in 1845, when preparations were also made for building a church at Sigra, which was erected and opened in 1847. Since then another church has been built in the midst of the city of Benares. There are also now several chapels. An infant school has been added to the establishment at Sigra.

It is the glory of England that it fills the waste places with populous cities. May the time soon come when the moral wild shall be transformed into a scene as lovely as that which Nature now presents to us here, and when Hindoo and Mahommedan temples and worshippers shall all become Christian!

For a long time the headquarters of the Thugs were at Benares. We may hope that these sons of Belial are now exterminated. If they work anywhere in our dominions, we may be sure it is here, where, amid the multitude of rich visitors, they may select the most profitable victims, and where they may easily escape detection amid the innumerable pilgrims. The" HOLY CITY" is, we fear, a sink of iniquity.

CHAPTER VII.

"THE CITY OF GOD."

E are now again on the Grand Trunk Road. Its materiel is worthy of our notice. It is kunkur, a substance formed of soft white nodules, found in beds near the surface of the ground through North India, and supposed to have been formed by the percolation of the rain through the soil. "It occurs to me, however," says Mr. Pratt, "that it may have arisen from coral reefs in the sea which once covered the vast continent of Hindostan. If so, how strange the connection between the present and the past-the busy myriads in the deep seas of ancient days* preparing materials for a superb road between the British and Mogul capitals of the great kingdom which was to emerge out of the ocean they inhabited!"

A few marches brought us from the capital of Hindooism to the Mahommedan city of Allahabad, the (so-called) CITY OF GOD, originally known as PRAYAGA, in the Doab.† The present city was founded by Akbar, and was a favourite residence of that great emperor; and, from its situation at

"We know not how far these founders of islands may have been concerned in rearing a considerable portion of those continents that form the Old World."-Kirby.

"The admiration of the first Aryans may well be understood, as, advancing for the first time towards the west, they contemplated the two noble rivers, each half a mile in breadth, flowing along and uniting in the midst of this superb country. No scene like it had till then presented itself to their gaze, either in rocky Afghanistan or in the sandy Punjaub, and they might well think they had at last found here the paradise they had come in search of. One of their earliest cities, Prayaga, was erected on this white plain; it was the splendour of this city of which, several centuries after its foundation, the Chinese Hiousn Thsang, who visited it towards the year 640, gives us some glimpse."-Rousselet.

the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna,* both of which rivers are holy, has a peculiar sanctity in the eyes of the Hindoos, who still make it, as they did of old—for Allahabad is of great antiquity-a place of pilgrimage. Its fine red sandstone fort, said to have been originally Hindoo, but built or rebuilt by Akbar in 1581, and now somewhat modernised, is, however, its principal feature. Its history illustrates in a remarkable manner the vicissitudes of the East. The Emperor Alumgheer being desirous to wrest from our hands the territories we had gained in Bengal, soon after our settlement in that part of his dominions, marched an army against us, of which a part were the forces of Meer Jaffier, Nawab of Oude. This prince, deserting the Emperor's standard when near Allahabad, made the fortress his own. Meer Jaffier died in 1763, after having presented Lord Clive, who commanded the British army at the period referred to, with an estate of great value; but the fort continued in the possession of the rulers of Oude until 1765, when an army under Major Carnac was sent against the Vizier of that kingdom, who had given refuge to Cassim Ali, a prince whom circumstances had made our enemy. By this army the fort of Allahabad, among others, was captured, but was shortly after made over to the Emperor Shah Allum, from whom, however, it was withdrawn in 1773, garrisoned by our troops, and, after a short period, again presented to the Nawab of Oude. But the Nawab once more ceded it to us, and finally, in 1798; since which time it has continued in our possession, and has ever since been increasing in importance as a military post. It is necessary to keep a strict watch over the neighbouring district of Bundelkund-the Golconda of this part of Indiawhich is full of small independent States, amongst which anarchy and insurrection rage, and whose opposite shore, rising in towering cliffs crowned with pagodas or the remnants of hill forts, forms a fine background to the scene. The fort stands at the point where the Ganges and Jumna unite,

* "The GANGA-JAMUNá is a favourite pattern with Indian artists, and they love to introduce it into all sorts of manufactures. It receives its name from these two rivers. The Ganges water is described in the books as white, and that of the Jumna as blue; and when patterns of two colours in the same article meet or run side by side, it is said to be of Gangá-Jamuná pattern."-Birdwood.