Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/55

18 passing, that kindness of heart, which figured so conspicuously in Vidyasagar's character, and endeared him to all classes of people, and which caused his name to be lovingly cherished in memory by everybody, was due mostly to his ever-kind and bounteous mother. George Herbert used to say:–"One good mother is worth a hundred school masters." The truth of this saying has been verified in all such great men, as Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and others.

Formerly in India, the science of astronomy, palmistry, and fortune-telling, generally known by the name of astrology, like all other sciences, had risen to perfection. Even at the time of Vidyasagar's birth, there were many astrologers, palmisters and fortune-tellers, who could by the help of their occult science, foretell the future of a new-born child. Before Vidyasagar's birth, Bhavananda Bhattacharya, a great astrologer of the time, had predicted that Bhagavati Devi (Vidyasagar's mother) would give birth to a child, who would be a bodily incarnation of humanity, and that after the birth of the baby, she would recover her former sanity. This prediction of Bhavananda Bhattacharya was fulfilled to the letter. It was for this, or some similar, reason that Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar was a great admirer and advocate of this occult science.