Page:The Autobiography of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore.djvu/63

 back in alarm. Then, again, there were other differences between the two. My father, as I have said, was intensely national in his religious ideal, whereas Keshab's outlook was more cosmopolitan. While not exactly denationalised, he was better fitted by his training and education to assimilate the ideas and civilisation of the West. Indeed, his whole Character was moulded by Western culture and Christian influences. He drew much of his spiritual store from the New Testament, and habitually spoke of Jesus Christ in a manner which made his missionary friends cling to the hope of his conversion to their faith. In Jesus Christ, Europe and Asia, a lecture delivered in April 1865, Keshab says: "I cherish the profoundest reverence for the character of Jesus, and the lofty ideal of moral truth which he taught and lived. In Christ we see not only the exaltedness of humanity, but also the grandeur of which Asiatic nature is susceptible. To us Asiatics, therefore, Christ is doubly interesting, and his religion is entitled to our peculiar regard. And thus in Christ, Europe and Asia, the East and the West, may learn to find harmony and unity."These utterances, though of a date subsequent to the separation, are sufficient to show his attitude towards Christianity, in marked contrast to my father's. A struggle between two such temperaments and such opposite ideals was bound to end in disruption, and matters soon came to a crisis.

The immediate cause of the rupture is generally