Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/1011

 VII. ] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 965 or entreaty. Suggestions on which we should stake our lives, and which we should be apt to thrust in the face of friend and foe, he offers in their due connection, and with a moderation most likely to ensure them a hearing.” However trivial or puerile were the charges made against him, he listened to every point urged by his opponents with great attention, and in his anxious solicitude to bring conviction of the truth home to the party, he gave a sensible reply to their foolish abuses and revilings prompted by ani- mosity, with a surprising quietness of temper. I quote a passage from his Bengali writing. _ * “The first argument in support of idolatry, is that the Supreme Being is beyond all power of human comprehension and cannot be expressed by words; hence the necessity of worshipping a Deity endowed with form and other attributes, as Master of the universe. The plain answer to this is:—If a person in his early childhood, before he has had any knowledge of his father, is kid- napped, or by other causes separated from home, would it be proper for him, when growing into manhood, to call some object before him his father? Rather should he not, when observing a রূপ গুণবিশিঞ্টকে ক্রগতের কর্ত। জানিয়া উপাসনা না করিলে নিব্বাহ হইতে পারে নাই অতএব রূপগুণ বিশিষ্টের উপাসনা আবশ্যক হয়। ইহার সামান্ত উত্তর এই। যে কোন ব্যক্তি বাল্যকালে শত্রগ্রস্ত এবং দেশান্তর হইয়।৷ আপনার পিতার নিরূপণ কিছু জানে নাই এ নিমিত্ত সে ব্যক্তি যুবা হইলে পরে যে কোন Extracts from his Bengali prose.
 * প্রথমত : এই যাহাকে ব্রহ্ম জগতৎকর্তা কহ তিহৌ বাক্য মনের অগোচর সুতর]ং তাহার উপাসনা অসম্ভব হয় এই নিমিত্ত কোন-