Page:A History of the Brahmo Samaj.djvu/8

 PREFACE I commenced writing this book during my residence in England in the year 1888, at the urgent request of the late Miss S. D. Collet, the well-known historian of the Brahmo Samaj. Under some peculiar circumstances, which need not be related here, she insisted upon my taking up this work and placed all her records at my disposal. After having gone through the first portion of the work I had to leave that country. Upon my return home I laid it aside, owing to my numerous engagements in other ways, only resuming it from time to time, till there came a consideration which influenced me almost to give it up altogether. I was deterred by the thought that having been one of those who had a leading hand in the organisation of a schismatic Brahmo movement, I was not the proper person to write a history of the Brahmo Samaj, and that it should be left to outside observers. I remained in this state of hesitancy for years, when there came another impulse from another direction. The dying request of my esteemed friend, Mr. A. M. Bose, conveyed in the words- "please do not fail to record