Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/48

 amassed a fortune if he had only compromised a little his strict principles, and availed himself of the questionable means which Government servants of his position then had of enriching themselves. In those days the influence of the amlas was very great; and in most cases the judges and the magistrates saw with the eyes, and spoke through the mouths, of their head clerks or Sheristadars, thus giving them frequent opportunities for taking bribes. Sriprasad might have, if he had liked, used such opportunities to his advantage; but to swerve even an inch from the honest path was against his noble nature. Through his whole career he evinced that sense of justice, that integrity of purpose, and that horror of sin, which had made his ancestors conspicuous, and for which the present representatives of his family are still noted.

We have hitherto dwelt on the merits of the descendants of only Kasikant, the second son of Ramgovinda Lahiri. Let us now say something of his other sons. The eldest, Krishnakanta, married in Mymensing and settled there. His branch is yet to be found in that place; while those that are descendants of the third and the fifth sons, Gaurikanta and Shambhukanta, are known as the Lahiris of Doulia and Baganbatti, villages adjacent to Krishnagar. They are so called to distinguish them from Kasikant’s descendants in the city, the Lahiris of Kadamtolla. And in many of them was reflected the noble and pious character of Ramgovinda. Not finding it necessary to bring them all before the reader, we pass them over, save one in whom the religious temperament, so characteristic of the Lahiris, found a new presentment. His name was Dwarkanath Lahiri; and here is a brief account of his life: He was the grandson of Shambhu Chandra; and was born in 1827 at Baganbatti. Having lost his father at a very early age, he passed his boyhood