Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/149

 India ; and everywhere the people came together to lament the loss of a friend, who had laboured for them, who had suffered for them, and who had shown them the way of national salvation. The Leader of Allahabad, in its issue of 31st August last, published a most interest- ing note of reminiscences (reproduced Appendix V) by Mr. Zorawar Singh Nigam, a Municipal Commis- sioner of Etawah, in which he revives memories showing " what Mr. Hume's name means in the city and district." Though half a century has elapsed the people have not forgotten his good works, and on the news of his death the shops in the Etawah Bazar were closed as a mark of respect. At the Hume Memorial Meeting the Collector, Mr. H. R. Neville, presided, and spoke feelingly of the progress and prosperity of the district under his ad- ministration.

When we look back upon Mr. Hume's career, and his noble scheme for the harmonious evolution of East and West, we are reminded of the culture hero of Greece — Prometheus, the spirit of progress, " he who thinks for- wards " ; withstood in all ages, and among all races, by Epimetheus, " he who thinks backwards," the prototype of blind authority, which learns nothing, and forgets nothing. Prometheus brought the sacred fire from heaven, to endow men of clay with spiritual life ; and taught them the arts and sciences, bringing upon him- self the vengeance of the ruling powers : he suffered for the people, but triumphed in the end, when Hercules slew the vultures that preyed upon his vitals, and unloosed his bonds. In every nation the same struggle goes on between progress and autocracy, between enlightenment and obscurantism ; and it is well for India that her destiny is linked with England ; and not with Russia, where the spirit of the people is crushed by a dull and deadly bureaucratic despotism. In England, the ancient home