Page:A History of the Brahmo Samaj.djvu/103

 CHAPTER II ADI BRAHMO SAMAJ The body of worshippers who used to assemble week after week in the church consecrated by Ram Mohun Roy, originally known as the Brahma Sabha, was latterly called the Calcutta Brahmo Samaj. This name it retained till the year 1866, the year of the first schism, after which it was changed, in 1868, into the Adi or Original Brahmo Samaj, to indicate its precedence in point of time to the younger branches. It is a name by which it is now generally known, and in order to save the reader the unnecessary trouble of bearing in mind now defunct names, I shall call it by that name from the earliest period of its history.

The two prominent figures that meet our eyes as struggling to keep up the infant Church during the period of depression that followed the death of Ram Mohun Roy in 1833, were Dwarakanath Tagore and Pandit Ram Chandra Vidyabagish. Of these two, Dwarakanath Tagore was a man of the world, a man of vast social influence, and one who was associated with almost all the public movements of the day. The calls on his time and attention were varied and numerous ; consequently it was but a small portion ot either, that he could