The recompensed for their trouble and toil. time approaches when there will be neither rich nor poor; when all men shall consume the fruits of the earth, and equally enjoy the gifts of God; but thou wilt not be forgotten in their hymns-O, good Goddess of Poverty! 66 They will remember that thou wert their fruitful mother, their robust nurse, and their church militant. They will pour balm upon your wounds, and they will make the rejuvenated and embalmed earth a bed where thou canst at last repose-O, good Goddess of Poverty! "Until the day of the Lord, torrents and forests, mountains and valleys, heaths swarming with little flowers and little birds, paths which have no masters, and sanded with gold -let pass the good goddess, the Goddess of Poverty !" Now Harris was poor, and poverty inspired in him activity and energy. He had to procure his livelihood, and he actively searched for an appointment; but being rejected everywhere, he stayed at home, and engaged himself in writing occasional petitions, letters, and bills, that he might procure his pittance of a rupee or two. Of course, in such an engagement, he could not POVERTY AT WORK ON HARRIS. 53 find occupation for more than a few hours, and these, too, not regular hours, nor every day; so that between the time he wrote one petition or letter and the second was forthcoming, he had leisure, which he could not spend in listlessness. He was naturally inclined to occupy every minute; and the nature of his avocation was itself an incentive to this inclination. He had to do extra work; he must, therefore, attract people, by some show or other, and persuade them to believe he was competent to do his task. He therefore sat just in public view, book in hand, poring over its contents-not affectedly, like the majority of our Native youths, who are so apt to show themselves more than they really are, but in right earnest, comprehending and digesting every word that glittered on the page. Were he to sit listless or playing, without any attention to his books, he should put his reputation at stake among the common people, who are so apt to measure learning by its pomp, and not its modest course. Even in our own island we see men, engaged in writing petitions or letters, placing on their tables some dusty volumesuseful, worthless, or pernicious-just for the look of the thing; and it is precisely the number and the size of these volumes that attract customers, and not the facility or competency with which their business is executed. And this view of learning and ability is so common and deeprooted amongst our illiterate as well as halfeducated countrymen, that whenever they desire to know the progress of any scholar, the question invariably turns upon the number of books he has read or learnt! We can well remember the time when, in our younger days, we were accosted with the senseless question -"How many books have you read?"—by every stiff-necked, old-fashioned gossip, who desired to know anything of our progress; and when we answered that we had read only five (for that was the number of volumes in M'Culloch's series, once taught at the Elphinstone School), we were jeered at, and thought of lightly, because the number was so small and insignificant, whatever else we might say as to the true dignity of learning not yet lowered to the mere number of lessons and books read in the dull school-room. Thus, it was the necessity of his own position, which he had betaken himself to for want of an opening in life, that gave him the early company of books, which, aided by an innate trait in his temper, as we shall pre AN EDUCATIONAL TEST. 55 sently see, did not fail to make him the man he in after-life was. Though most poor and miserable himself, he early learnt to be generous, and ready to recognise others' wants and miseries from his own: he grudged not writing a letter or two, without any remuneration, for the utterly helpless and the destitute. Of how many has it been sung, and with what force, in one sense, can it be sung of Harris himself Though mean thy rank, yet in thy humble cell Came willing guests to poor Philemon's grove. So low a station--such a liberal mind" ? But the pressing need of his poverty, without being actuated by certain wholesome principles or stirrings from within, could not have sufficed to make Harris what he subsequently became. He possessed within himself a spirit of independence and self-reliance to an unusual degree. His purpose being once firmly fixed, nothing could change it subsequently; and in the possession of this bold virtue, he stood prominently apart from the mass of his countrymen, "old" or "young." It is needless to enter into an analysis of the character of the former class, as it is fast dying out, and has already been represented in the numerous exhibitions of Hindoo character which missionaries and other writers have given us. Every possible hole has been picked in the coats of men who, having nothing in common with their historians, have received at their hands no consideration or favour. It is not necessary here to reproduce these misrepresentations. For our part, we would rather undertake to show up the worthies of past times as specimens of a class of men now rapidly dying away, than repaint the oft-painted picture of ignorance, prejudice, and shrivelled heart, that prevailed, and yet linger among the mass of that community, which, a few years hence, will be numbered with the things that were. It is only with the latter class--" Young India”—that we have any concern, and that too for their good. That our young countrymen have within so short a space of time made such rapid progress in general enlightenment and knowledge, with the aid of Western literature and lore, is in itself rather a wonder, which cannot but challenge the admiration of every unprejudiced Englishman. With scarcely any of the advantages |