Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/32

Rh hundreds of helpless orphans owed him their education. His name became a household word in Bengal; the rich and the poor loved him alike; those who opposed him respected him as much as his colleagues. The richest Zemindars of the land delighted to honour the venerable Pundit who lived a simple life, whose courage was indomitable, whose charity was inexhaustible. Sir Cecil Beadon, then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, often consulted the retired educationist, and rejoiced in his company and conversation. And twenty years after his retirement, the Government of India honoured itself by bestowing a decoration of the Order of the Indian Empire on the greatest Indian then living.

I met the venerable Pundit sometimes, and corresponded with him often, during the last twenty years of his life, 1871 to 1891. He still spoke with animation of his earlier work, of his struggles, his successes, and his failures. He spoke of men with whom he had worked, and the list included all the true workers of the generation,—Prasanna Kumar Tagore and Ram Gopal Ghose, Harish Chandra Mukerji and Kristo Das Pal, Madanmohan Tarkalankar and Madhusudan Datta, Digambar Mitra and Rajendralal Mitra, and others of equal eminence. The history of our national work in the nineteenth century, is full of encouragement and hope; and that history connects itself