themselves upon a new coral reef or a bare volcano-born island. Into
India itself, it is declared, the cocoa-nut tree has thus come over-sea,
nor is yet found growing freely much farther than seventy miles from the
shore. One of the chief interests of the subject before us is that the
seeds of the new ideas in India during the past century are so clearly
water-borne. They are the outcome of British influence, direct or
indirect.

Here are true test and evidence of the character of British influence
and effort, if we can distil from modern India some of the new ideas
prevailing, particularly in the new middle class. Where shall we find
evidence reliable of what British influence has been? Government
Reports, largely statistical, of "The Moral and Material Progress of
India," are so far serviceable, but only as _crude_ material from which
the answer is to be distilled. Members of the Indian Civil Service, and
others belonging to the British Government of India, may volunteer as
expert witnesses regarding British influence, but they are interested
parties; they really stand with others at the bar. The testimony of the
missionary is not infrequently heard, less exactly informed, perhaps,
than the Civil Servant's, but more sympathetic, and affording better
testimony where personal acquaintance with the life of the people is
needed. But of him too, like the Civil Servant, there is some suspicion
that in one sphere he holds a brief. This, indeed, may be said in favour
of the missionary's testimony, that while the Anglo-Indian identifies
the missionary's standpoint with that of the native, the native
identifies him with the Anglo-Indian, so that probably enough he
occupies the mean of impartiality and truth. The British merchant in
India may also offer as evidence, and indeed is "on the spot," and
apparently qualified by reason of his independence. But the interest of
his class is professedly limited to India's material progress; and of