Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/50

 in the next world, and to sin, and salvation from it. At length, coming in contact with an official superior, an Englishman and a disciple of Christ, he was led to inquire into the claims of Christianity. His candid inquiry was followed by conviction, and Dwarkanath accepted Christ as his Saviour by baptism. This step poisoned his cup of domestic bliss; and great was the persecution he had to receive from the hands of his mother, his love and respect for her adding to its bitterness. It was the time of sore trial indeed. There was a hard contest within him between the heart and conscience, in which the latter however came off victorious. His younger daughter thus speaks of his sufferings at the time:

“My grandmother, under the groundless belief, that should the Christian Scriptures, or works on theology, be destroyed or placed beyond the reach of her son, his faith in Christianity would be shaken, burnt them wholesale. Innumerable were the occasions on which she would disturb father in his devotions. She would hide the Bible, and try mischievous tricks of the kind, so that her son might not worship the object of her hatred. There hardly passed a day without father’s smarting under the cruel treatment of his mother. Till the last day of her life, she was in the habit of saying, ‘Can I bear the thought that this jewel of a son is a traitor to his own religion?’ But father was too tough for even this. He did not for a moment waver in his duty; his faith was not disturbed in the least; and he was never found disrespectful to his mother. He never lost the placidity of his countenance; nor did he lose his patience in the midst of his sufferings. Filial reverence like this is very rare. The mother seemed to be wanting in common-sense, but yet all the son’s earnings were placed at her disposal. Self-denial in the service of Christ,