Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/124

 India as its ruler. His keen preception, sedate judgment, and firm resolution have immortalised him in history. With a strong hand he put down the cruel and barbarous custom of the self-immolation of Hindu widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, and rid the country of those murderous fiends in human shape, the Thugs. He was no less zealous in the cause of education. The Calcutta Medical College owed its birth to him; and it seemed that he had come to India with the firm resolution of giving it a place among countries noted for intellectual and moral progress. Rammohan Roy felt a new stimulus for work at this time of general excitement. He openly and courageously attacked Puranic Hinduism; neither did he hesitate to use his rationalistic weapons against Christianity. He wrote his “Precepts of Jesus,” “Appeals to the Christian Public,” and The Brahmanical Magazine, and thereby brought upon himself the displeasure of the Serampur missionaries. On their refusal thenceforth to publish his works, he managed to get a press of his own, and named it the “Unitarian Press.” He also inaugurated a Unitarian prayer meeting, which was held in the upper storey of the house whence the Harkaru, an English journal of the time, was published.

The question of Sati had first attracted the attention of Government at the beginning of Lord Amherst’s administration. It had from that time to the year 1828 been a “burning” question; and the opinions of those considered as authorities on the subject were collected. A good deal of correspondence on the subject had taken place between the Indian Government and the Court of Directors. Eminent men like Messrs Courtney Smith, Alexander Ross, and H. Rattray, men whose opinions then carried great weight, had advised the Governor-General at once to put down this form of cold-blooded murder committed