Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/187

 calmly as far as he himself was concerned, but his heart bled for his weak partner in life, who, in addition to these discomforts, had often to smart under the taunts of her ignorant neighbours.

The news that Ramtanu had rejected the sacred thread soon reached Krishnagar, and many a bigot would have been pleased to kindle the torch to burn him had he been present on the spot. In his absence, however, his old father had to suffer for him. Taunts, abuse, and threats were used to wean his heart from his son, but all was in vain. The pious old man did not lose his equanimity. He did not resent the ill-treatment he received from his neighbours, nor was he at all influenced against his son. The mental anguish he had to suffer he bore in silence. But his son was in his sight a heretic; and this thought caused him so much shame that he could hardly hold up his head in public. Nor did the son remain indifferent to the sufferings of the father. Though absent from his side he tried to comfort him as much as possible in the circumstances. In Ramtanu there was a conflict at the time between the desire to act up to his convictions and the wish to please his father, which almost rent his heart; and he was in after years often seen to weep like a child when speaking of the incidents of this terrible trial.

The reader may be curious to know under what impulse Mr Lahiri finally broke with Hinduism by renouncing the sacerdotal badge, and we can do no better than relate the two incidents which, happening one after the other, and acting conjointly, made him take so bold and decisive a step.

Once when he was performing his mother’s Shradh in Krishnagar, in the style of a genuine Brahman, a boy, pointing at him with a finger of scorn, said, so as to be heard by him, “Ha! You say you do not believe in