Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/1033

 VII. ] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 987 Raja Rama Mohana was born in Bengal when all the brightness had faded from the illuminated pages of our history, when the glorious had grown ignominous in many places, when faith and devotion “sweet religion had been reduced to superstition, become a mere rhapsody of words,” and_ the scarcely audible beatings of the heart indicated the loss of all social vitality. He led us from superstition to faith, from darkness to light ; and though he may seem to have found nothing good in the Hindu religion of his own day,—not even in the self- sacrificing devotion of true hearts which, though few, still weilded the greatest influence in the coun- try, yet we must remember that, generally speak- ing, it was not the season for extolling a deterior- ated virtue, for admiring the atrocious slaughter of women—too heinous an offence to be condoned by idle panegyric. The movements in various fields of enlightenment started by the Raja have borne ample fruit. The educated com- munity have followed his lead in the general awakening of the intellect observed thorough- out the country after his advent. The Raja was a great admirer of the English people and, with a sincere heart, approached them with prayers to aid him in his beneficient attempt at reform, and he found a ready response and sympathetic hearing from the rulers of the land. Though a scholar of world-wide renown and a perfect master of the most important classical and many modern lan- guages, he did not despise his mother tongue. He wrote master-pieces in Bengali. ‘It is a remark- able fact that the address he presented to Lord William Bentinck was in Bengali, a circumstance The fruit of the Raja’s labours.