Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/991

 VII,] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 945 he was moved by the reciter.’* He materially contributed to the fund collected for affording them relief. For women the sympathy of his heart was ever in readiness ; and one, who reads his arguments in _ favour of the abolition of Suttee, cannot but be struck with the great humanity with which he ad- vocated the cause, as also with the high reverence in which he held Indian women. When a pro- Suttee champion declared woman-kind as weak, frail and irreligious, his honest indignation burst forth in a glorious speech in which the sufferings, the devotion and the firmness of Hindu Women are so vividly represented, that no poet could do it in better language or in more effective form. He suffered all kinds of persecution, intolerance and abuses from his opponents who even tried to way- lay and belabour him, but reading his answers to the charges made against him by orthodx Hindus, Good for and even by the clergy, one is struck with his gentle evil. and persuasive eloquence, his kindly words indicat- ing a sweet and unruffled temperament. These are found in sharp contrast to the foul and wanton abuse of his antagonists. He himself says in some of his answers that as a child frets, when the well- meaning doctor gives him medicine, but the doctor heeds it not, even so does he treat those who without understanding his good intentions are crying down his works. He was never weary of arguing in favour of what he considered to be the truth. Such an untiring champion of truth is scarcely to be met with now. Mr. Arnot writes of him, page 225. 119
 * Miss Carpenter’s “Last Days of Raja Rama Mohana Ray,”