How far this hideous collection of symbols is itself worshipped is the problem of all imagery and symbolic art. A priest of Kali, who had himself received a religious education in one of our missionary colleges, told me that in the hour of prayer he found that the image helped him to concentrate his thoughts upon that idea of universal force. He admitted that some unlearned worshippers obscurely connect a supernatural power with the actual image as it stands; and the great desire of many to draw near, and even to touch the representation of the god, seems to prove it, as one may see in all temples and churches where symbolism prevails. It is rather strange that Indians, with their beautiful sense of colour and design, should content themselves with unusually hideous gods; for, grand as the figure of Buddha in contemplation is, it stands alone in its beauty, and now no longer appears in Hindu forms of worship. Yet the adoration of the Mother Kali, even at the bloodstained Kalighat, does not appear to be more horrible or debasing than the service of other gods. In divine worship, devotion has never corresponded to external beauty; and as to the blood sacrifice, that custom has been too universal, and is still too recent even in the highest forms of religion, to excite horror or disgust, except in the tourists who go to enjoy the spectacle. It seemed to me that the Kali worship did not suggest the violence of bloodshed, still less the common lust that visitors are told to associate with it, but rather a certain heat or fervency that pervades and sometimes obscures the Bengali mind, taking the form in some of exaltation, in others of oratory, and now and then of fluid speech. All know this crowded Kalighat. But turn northward again; pass the Lieutenant-Governor’s beautiful Residency at Belvedere; pass the racecourse and polo-grounds, the old Fort where the Commander-in-Chief has his headquarters, and the Strand where steamers smoke on the river and the English drive slowly up and down in the evening; pass the white Government House where the Viceroy lives in winter, and the dull streets of English shops where they sell things that are not quite good enough for England or quite bad enough for the Colonies; enter the squalid chaos of the Indian city, so ordinary and colourless compared to Bombay or Madras; pass through mile after mile of crowded bazaars, and teeming slums, and factories jumbled up with temples;—till at last the buildings begin, as it were, to shake themselves loose, green reappears, and when you come upon the river on your left, it looks almost clean and holy; palms and other trees grow on the banks, and there is a sense of escape in the air. There you will find another temple of Kali, spacious, silent, and a home of peace.