Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/599

Rh victions of truth and duty. Nor do those who cling to the old belief look upon these things without misgivings.

The baptism of six young men who had been students in the institution of the London Missionary Society at Bhowanipur, in the year 1851, led to a prodigious excitement among the Hindus of Calcutta. These converts were Brahmins, and one of them the son of a haldar or proprietor of the great temple at Kali-ghat—a receiver of the offerings of ten days in the year. The cry of "Hinduism in danger" was raised, and great efforts were made to induce the young men to recant. Failing in this, a grand council of Hindus, including a hundred Bhatta-charjyas, scribes learned in the Shasters and law, was assembled to devise means to arrest the progress of Christianity. But the council failed in all things, except in showing to all men that the work of the Lord had so sapped the foundations of Hinduism in Calcutta, that the most bigoted and benighted idolaters tremble lest it fall and leave them as monuments of a past age and a dead religion.

Let it not be supposed, however, that India is upon the eve of receiving Christianity. It is very difficult so to speak of missionary