natomy, as the
translator of Bunyan's Pilgrim, Goldsmith's History of England, and
Mill's History of India.

Literature cannot be said to exist for the people till the newspaper
appears. Bengal was the first non-Christian country into which the
press had ever been introduced. Above all forms of truth and faith
Christianity seeks free discussion; in place of that the missionaries
lived under a shackled press law tempered by the higher instincts of
rulers like Wellesley, Hastings, and Bentinck, till Macaulay and
Metcalfe gained for it liberty. When Dr. Marshman in 1818 proposed the
publication of a Bengali periodical, Dr. Carey, impressed by a quarter
of a century's intolerance, consented only on the condition that it
should be a monthly magazine, and should avoid political discussion.
Accordingly the Dig-darshan appeared, anticipating in its contents and
style the later Penny and Saturday Magazines, and continued for three
years. Its immediate success led to the issue from the Serampore press
on the 31st May 1818, of "the first newspaper ever printed in any
Oriental language"--the Samachar Darpan, or News Mirror.

It was a critical hour when the first proof of the first number was
laid before the assembled brotherhood at the weekly meeting on Friday
evening. Dr. Carey, fearing for his spiritual work, but eager for this
new avenue to the minds of the people who were being taught to read,
and had little save their own mythology, consented to its publication
when Dr. Marshman promised to send a copy, with an analysis of its
contents in English, to the Government, and to stop the enterprise if
it should be officially disapproved. Lord Hastings was fighting the
Pindarees, and nothing was said by his Council. On his return he
declared that "the effect of such a paper must be extensively and
importantly useful." He allowed it to circulate by post at one-fourth
the then heavy rate. The natives welcomed their first newspaper.
Although it avoided religious controversy, in a few weeks an opposition
journal was issued by a native, who sought to defend Hindooism under
the title of the Destroyer of Darkness. To the Darpan the educated
natives looked as the means of bringing the oppression of their own
countrymen to the knowledge of the public and the authorities.
Government found it most useful for contradicting silly rumours and
promoting contentment if not loyalty. The paper gave a new development
to the Bengali languag