Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/594

522 lads and young men are instructed in the truths of Christianity as well as in secular learning, with the avowed object of leading them to acknowledge Christ before men.

At Bhowanipur, in the school of the London Missionary Society, are six hundred youths, studying with great interest the Bible and the evidences of Christianity. In Cornwallis Square is the school of the Scotch Kirk Mission, with twelve hundred pupils; and in the school of the Free Church Mission are thirteen hundred boys and young men. These, be it understood, are the children of heathen parents, and many of them from the highest and most influential families of Calcutta.

Dr. Duff, the distinguished advocate of the educational system of missions, commenced his labours in 1830 with a class of five scholars, which, in three days, increased to one hundred and twenty, and, in a few days more, to two hundred and fifty. As his work grew, he was reinforced from Scotland; and at the time of the disruption of the Scottish Church, had some eight hundred pupils in a large and commodious edifice on Cornwallis Square. At the disruption, all the missionaries left the Established Church or Kirk, to throw in their lot with the