CHAPTER XVII - CONTINUITY OF THE WORK

Summary

Having thus founded and organized his second college, the Free Church General Assembly's Institution, Dr. Duff's next care was for the branch schools by which the educated catechists and converts were evangelizing the rural districts. Takee, the first, was the property of the Chowdery clan of Hindoo landholders. They too remained faithful to their alliance with Dr. Duff. To secure a healthier position in which European missionaries like Mr. Fyfe could live without serious risk, they removed the school from the somewhat inaccessible rice swamps to their town residence in Baranuggur, a northern suburb of Calcutta, now known for its jute factories and industrial prosperity. The Established Church claimed the new station of Ghospara for the congregation of St. Stephen's, Edinburgh, who had supported Mahendra and Kailas, the native missionaries there. But Culna, being in a different position, was retained by Dr. Duff and his colleagues as their second rural station. In succession, as the Mission grew in resources and ordained converts, Bansberia, Chinsurah, and Mahanad were added in Lower Bengal, while, long after, the south-eastern districts of the Santal country were taken possession of as a base from which to evangelize the non-Aryan and aboriginal tribes.

The story of Bansberia illustrates the enthusiasm with which, not only in Calcutta, but to the farthest confines of India, good men, in the army and the civil service, sought to mark their sympathy with the Free Church Mission.