Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/157

116 at his command, his first impulse was to relieve his parent's troubles. In his childhood he had heard from his father the tales of his early distress. When a student in Calcutta, he had witnessed, with his own eyes, the pains and sufferings of his father. He had seen him remove and cleanse his sons' soil with his own hands. How could then a man of Vidyasagar's character act otherwise than what he did? What else did he do? Quite regardless of his own inconvenience, he defrayed the maintenance of distant relations and some other persons wholly unconnected with him, and divided with them equally the domestic works of his household. Was this not greatness of heart? How many men of means are there now, who would consent to act like Vidyasagar under similar circumstances?

We have already seen, that while a scholar in the Sanskrit College he showed his kindness of heart by giving food and clothing to the needy, and by succouring the poor and distrest, out of his paltry scholarship funds. He was now earning 50 rupees a month, out of which he gave 20 rupees to his father, and reserved the rest for his establisment expenditure in Calcutta. He defrayed the expenses most economically, and what he could thus save out of the 30 rupees, he spent gladly in feeding the hungry and in succouring the distrest. In 1843, Gangadhar Tarkavagis, one of the professors of the Sanskrit College, had an attack of Cholera.