Page:The Autobiography of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore.djvu/65

 In February 1865 Keshab finally withdrew from the parent church; in the following year he sent a parting address to my father, and established the "Brâhma-Samaj of India." On the secession of Keshab's party, my father gave his own church the name of "Adi Brâhma-Samaj."

With this important phase in the history of the Samaj the Autobiography does not deal. It would no doubt have been of great interest had it extended to the close of the period culminating in the schism just described, fully disclosing the causes that led to it, and laying bare the inner workings of my father's mind at the time of the occurrence. But though my father left it incomplete, the letters that passed between the two leaders at the time, and those that were exchanged at the subsequent attempts to heal up the differences between the two churches, throw a flood of light on the controversy. And these, I think, fully bear out my view of the situation as expressed above. My father's work has throughout been constructive and not destructive. He was a builder-up, not a puller-down. He was, I repeat, not in favour of any revolutionary measures of reform which might have the effect of permanently alienating the general body of his countrymen from the Brâhma-Samaj, and thus operate as a bar to the diffusion and acceptance of pure monotheism in the country. The substitution of theistic worship for