administrative machinery which the British Government has set in motion,
or whether we analyse those deep national movements of _social_ and
_moral_ reform which are being carried on by native reformers and
patriots." All Indian current opinion is unanimous with the Parsee and
the Bengali that a great movement is in progress. The drift from the old
moorings is a constant theme of discourse. Let Sir Alfred Lyall, once
head of the United Provinces, speak for the most competent European
observers. "There may be grounds for anticipating," he says, "that a
solid universal peace and the impetus given by Europe must together
cause such rapid intellectual expansion that India will now be carried
swiftly through phases which have occupied long stages in the lifetime
of other nations."[4] In another essay, in a more positive mood, he
writes of British responsibility for "great non-Christian populations
[in India] whose religious ideas and institutions are being rapidly
transformed by English law and morality."[5] In a third passage he even
prophesies rashly: "The end of simple paganism is not far distant in
India."

Sir George Bird wood has also had a long Indian career, and no one
suspects him of pro-British bias--rather the reverse. Yet we find him
writing to the _Times_ in 1895 about one of the Indian provinces, as
follows: "The new Bengali language and literature," he says, "are the
direct products of our Law Courts, particularly the High Court at
Calcutta, of Mission schools and newspaper presses and Education
Departments, the agents which are everywhere, not in Bengal only, giving
if not absolute unity yet community in diversity to the peoples of
British India." The modern literature of Bengal, he goes on to say, is
Christian in its teaching; if not the Christianity of creed and dogma,
yet of the mind of Christ.