Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/128

 with Babu Tarachand Chakravartti as their secretary. The service was held every Saturday evening, and conducted in a way to show that Rammohan Roy’s “Brahmism” was Hinduism in a more refined form, and something quite different from the religion of modern Brahmos. The Vedas and Upanishadas were honoured as revelations of the Divine will, and read with as much reverence as the Bible receives from Christians. But still the new form of religious thought was very much hated by almost all the Hindus of the old school; and Bengal became the scene of a continual warfare between these and the party under Rammohan Roy’s leadership.

The general excitement attending the conflict between the old and the new school soon got within the academic portals of the Hindu College. There many young minds, under Mr Derozio’s instruction, acquired the inspiration requisite for a successful conflict with whatever might interfere with the cause of reformation. Mr Derozio’s connection with the Hindu College lasted only for three years; but in that short period he implanted such noble principles in the minds of his pupils as stood them in good stead all through life. Many of them in after years filled distinguished positions in the world, and stood unrivalled in their many qualifications. We here give an account of one of these, as recited in the story of one of the members of the “Prayer Society” in Bombay, the well-known Mahadevan Paramananda: “In my youth I met in the city of Bombay an ascetic with an assumed name, which I do not now remember, who was well educated in English. In a short time I got acquainted with him. He did not long remain with us, but left for Kathiawar. Shortly after this there appeared in one of the leading journals in Bombay a series of articles in English on the misgovernment of Kathiawar. They were so well written