Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/29

VIII made it more elegant and elastic than the style of the Elizabethian Age.

A still loftier endeavour occupied Vidyasagar about this time. With a courage which has seldom been excelled in the history of social reforms, he, a Brahman of Brahmans, and a Pundit of Pundits, proclaimed in 1855 that the perpetual widowhood of Hindu women, who had lost their husbands, was not sanctioned by the Sastras; and that the marriage of Hindu widows was permitted. The storm of indignation which this pronouncement evoked was unparalleled in the history of the nineteenth century. The discussion was taken up by every town and every village in Bengal. Iswar Chandra Gupta, the veteran Bengali poet, and Dasarathi, the greatest of Bengali bards, hurled their satire on the young reformer. Villagers sang of the great Pundit's revolutionary opinions in their village gatherings and festivities. The weavers of Santipur wove songs about the remarriage of widows in the borders of sarees worn by the women of Bengal. Men and women in every home in Bengal spoke of the great social revolution contemplated. And the venerable Raja Radha Kanta Deb himself petitioned Government against the reform.

Amidst this outburst of indignation, the earnest reformer stood unmoved and unappalled. He issued a second work, replying to the arguments