Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/398

Rh has already been told that he had established a free English School, a night school, a girl-school, and a charitable dispensary at his native village, Birsingha. He had provided for board and lodging of upwards of 60 school boys, sons of Brahmans and Pandits, who were residents of the neighbouring villages. He was always eager to help and succour the distrest. Whenever anybody was in danger and in need of help, and sought for Vidyasagar's assistance, he would run at all risks to rescue the man, without at all considering whether he belonged to the high, middle, or low station of life, or whether he was a friend or foe. Besides the establishment of the charitable institutions in his own village, he had contributed largely to the opening of schools and other useful institutions in the different villages of the neighbourhood. He had secured employments to many young men of the locality. In short, he had endeared himself to all classes of people. Most of his neighbours were under deep obligations to him. How could then they be so ungrateful and impudent as to boycot him from Society and refuse to eat in his house for the only offence that he was the father of the Widow Marriage agitation and had associated himself with those who had formed such alliance? He had given no member of his family in such marriage. Many Pandits, other Brahmans, and lower class people, numbering in all nearly three thousand, feasted in his house for two days;