Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/593

Rh success, as to the number of converts, has not been so great as in Tinnevelly, there were in Bengal, in the year 1852, some thirteen thousand native Christians, of whom six thousand are in the vicinity of Calcutta.

Serampore, on the Ganges, fifteen miles above Calcutta, is famous as the residence of the first missionary labourers in Bengal. Here the venerated Carey, and his associates Ward and Marshman, planted themselves under the protection of the Danish flag, preaching, teaching, translating, printing, and proving that there was no danger to the State in the conversion of Hindus to Christianity. They have been followed by others, and the truth is now widely made known in this great city. The same state of things which was alluded to as existing in Madras, and leading young men to be very anxious to study the English language, exists here also, and to a greater degree. English is the language of the court and of commerce; and every young man who would make any figure in society must understand English. So great is the passion for this study, that English they will get at any hazard. Hence, almost all of the missions have opened schools in which, through the medium of the English language,