adopted a nearly true theory of the unity and personality of God; he had abandoned the doctrines of transmigration and final absorption of the soul; he had professed his belief in a day of judgment; he had accepted the Christian miracles, and had even declared Jesus Christ to be the Founder of truth and true religion,' and had admitted that the Son of God was empowered by God to forgive sins; but he never entirely delivered himself from his old prepossessions, and the alleged purity of his monotheism was ever liable to be adulterated with pantheistic ideas. In the eyes of the law he always remained a Brahman. He never abandoned the Brahmanical thread, and had too lively a sense of the value of money to risk the forfeiture of his property and the consequent diminution of his usefulness and influence, by formally giving up his caste. In fact, though far in advance of his age as a thinker, he laid no claim to perfection or to perfect disinterestedness of motive as a man.

Unfortunately for the interests of India, Rammohun Roy's career was cut short prematurely. In 1830 the ex-Emperor of Delhi, having long felt himself ill-treated by the Indian Government, deputed Rammohun Roy to lay a representation of his grievances before the Court of Great Britain, at the same time conferring on him the title of Rājā. The Rājā's great wish had always been to visit England and interchange ideas with the Western thinkers. He also wished to oppose in person a threatened appeal against the law for the abolition of Suttee (Sati), the passing of which had been just effected through his exertions, and which only required the royal assent. He was aware, too, that the granting of a new charter to the East India Company was about to be discussed in Parliament, and he felt the importance of

friends. Murder, theft, or perjury, though brought home to the party by a judicial sentence, so far from inducing loss of caste, is visited with no peculiar mark of infamy.'

watching the proceedings on behalf of the natives of India, and for the furtherance of their interests.

No better time for carrying these objects into execution seemed possible than the period which followed the opening of his new Church. He therefore sailed for Liverpool in November, 1830, and arrived there on the 8th of April, 1831, being the first native of rank and influence who had ventured to break through the inveterate prejudices of centuries by crossing the black water.' In England his enlightened views, courteous manners, and dignified bearing attracted much attention. During his residence in London he took great interest in the exciting political conflicts then raging, and the passing of the Reform Bill caused him unmixed satisfaction. He was presented to the King, and was present at the coronation. The evidence he gave on Indian affairs before a Committee of the House of Commons was of course highly valuable, and ought to be reprinted. In one of his replies to the questions addressed to him we find him asserting that the only course of policy likely to insure the attachment of the intelligent part of the native community to English rule was 'the making them eligible to gradual promotion, according to their respective abilities and merits, to situations of trust and respectability in the State.' Unhappily Rammohun Roy had not sufficient physical strength to contend with the severity of a European climate. After visiting Paris and other parts of France in 1833, he began to show symptoms of declining health. He had been invited to visit Bristol, and to take up his residence at the house of Miss Castle-a ward of Dr. Carpenter in the vicinity of that city. He arrived there early in September, 1833, and shortly afterwards was taken ill with fever. Every attention was lavished on him, and the best medical skill called in; but all in vain.

His death took place at Bristol

He died a Hindu in respect of

on September 27th, 1833. external observances; his Brahman servant performed the

usual rites required by his master's caste, and his Brahmanical thread was found coiled round his person when his spirit passed away. In all his Anti-Brahmanism he continued a

Brahman to the end.

Even after his death it was thought advisable to keep up the fiction of a due maintenance of caste. His body was not interred in a Christian burial-ground, but in the shrubbery at Stapleton Grove, and without a religious service of any kind. It was not till about ten years afterwards that Dwārkanāth Tagore, on the occasion of his visiting England in 1843, had the coffin removed to Arno's Vale Cemetery, and a suitable monument erected over the remains of one of the greatest men that India has ever produced. Yet his grave is rarely now visited, even by Indians, and few care to make themselves acquainted with the particulars of his last days. For India is not alive to the magnitude of the debt she owes to her greatest modern Reformer. Nor have his merits yet received adequate recognition at the hands of European writers. Nor indeed has it been possible within the compass of the present summary to give even a brief description of all the services rendered by Rammohun Roy to his country as a social as well as religious Reformer, of his labours for the elevation of women and for the education of the people generally, of his invaluable suggestions made from time to time for the carrying out of Lord William Bentinck's political reforms, and of his efforts for the improvement of the Bengali language, and the formation of a native literature. Assuredly the memory of such a man is a precious possession to be cherished not by India alone, but by the whole human race.

CHAPTER XX.

Modern Hindu Theism. Rammohun Roy's successors.

IT was not to be expected that the void caused by the death of so great a patriot as Rammohun Roy could be filled up immediately. The Church he had founded in Calcutta languished for a time, notwithstanding that his friend Dwārkanath Tagore and his learned coadjutor Ramachandra Vidyābāgish made efforts to maintain its vitality, the latter acting very regularly as minister of the Samāj. At length, after the interval of a few years, a not unworthy successor to Rammohun Roy was found in Dwārkanāth's son, Debendra-nath Tagore.

This remarkable man, who was born in 1818, and is now, therefore, sixty-five years of age, received a good English education at the old Hindu College1, and was the first to give real organization to Rammohun Roy's Theistic Church. But he imitated his great predecessor in doing as little violence as possible to the creed and practice of his forefathers. He aimed at being a purifier rather than a destroyer. He had the advantage and disadvantage of a rich and liberal father. The luxury in which he passed his youth was for some time a drawback rather than an aid. It was not till he was twenty years of age that he began to be conscious of spiritual aspirations. Utterly dissatisfied with the religious condition of his own people, and with the ideas of God presented by Brahmanical teaching, he

1 Under the teaching of a man to whom Bengal is perhaps as much indebted as to David Hare.

set himself to discover a purer system. It was highly creditable to his earnestness and sincerity that he took time for consideration before joining Rammohun Roy's Brahma-Sabha, or, as it came to be called, Brahma-Samāj (Brāhmo-Somāj).

In 1839, he established a society of his own, called the 'Truth-investigating' or 'Truth-teaching Society' (Tattvabodhini Sabha), the object of which, according to its founder, was to sustain and carry on the labours of Rājā Rāmmohun Roy, and to assist in restoring the monotheistic system of divine worship inculcated in the original Hindū scriptures.

This Society lasted for twenty years, and was not finally merged in the Brāhma-Samāj till 1859. It met every week for discussion at Debendra-nath's house, and had also monthly meetings for worship and prayer, and the exposition of the Upanishad portion of the Veda. It had its organ in a monthly periodical, called the Tattva-bodhini patrikā. This journal was started in August, 1843, and was well edited by Akhay Kumar Datta, an earnest member of the theistic party. Its first aim seems to have been the dissemination of Vedāntic doctrine, though its editor had no belief in the infallibility of the Veda, and was himself in favour of the widest catholicity1. He afterwards converted Debendra-nāth to his own views.

It was not till 1841 that Debendra-nāth, without giving up occasional meetings at his own house, formally joined the church founded by Rammohun Roy. He soon saw that if Indian Theists were to maintain their ground in India, they needed organization, and that if the Samaj was to exist as a permanent church, it wanted a properly appointed president, a regularly ordained minister, a settled form of worship, and a fixed standard of faith and practice. He himself undertook the task of preparing what is sometimes called the Brahma covenant, consisting of seven solemn declarations,

1 The Tattva-bodhinī patrikā is still in existence and is now known as the organ of the Adi Brähma-Samāj.