Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/595

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MISSIONARY SCHOOLS.
523

Free Church of Scotland. They relinquished their buildings and their pupils to the Kirk, and going into the heart of the Hindu town, hired the house of a native gentleman, and began anew. What has been the result? The old school is larger than it was; and at the end of ten years the new school has one thousand three hundred and eighty boys, lads, and young men on its roll. Thus, even dissension and division are made to advance the cause of Christ.

My visit to this school was deeply interesting to me; and certainly no Christian man could look without interest upon such a scene. Guided by one of the missionaries connected with the institution, after passing for a long distance through the narrow and populous streets, with their swarming huts and bazaars, we passed through the gate of a courtyard leading to a large, square, two-storied building. Entering, you find it to be an oriental dwelling upon a grand scale, consisting of four galleries, each fronting upon a large, square paved court, once the residence of a Calcutta babu, now a mission schoolhouse. The exercises of the day were opened with prayer by the missionary, who stood in the middle of a long hall so that he might be heard