Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/575

Rh hostile climate and a hostile land, twelve thousand miles away from home, he will not fail to look with wonder upon the unconquerable energy and enterprise that has wrought this magical change. Even now, at night, the cries of packs of jackals come swelling and fading, and swelling again in wild, sad cadences upon the ear at the dead of night, reminding you that Calcutta is but a strip of human habitations redeemed from the waste lands that lie just behind its stately palaces.

In addition to the missionaries of the English and Scotch societies, there is a large circle of pious persons among the English residents at Calcutta. In nothing is change more apparent than in the moral and religious tone of society in India. Forty years since, as is well known, Protestant missionaries, even Englishmen, were compelled to seek refuge under the Danish flag at Serampore. The devoted (and now famous) Ward, Carey, and Marshman were not permitted to reside within the territories of the East India Company. Our own Judsons and Newells were driven from India by their authority. Now, not only is the government willing that the preacher of the gospel should make his home among the Hindus, but he finds