Page:The Autobiography of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore.djvu/71

DEVENDRANATH TAGORE 23 it to say that a considerable body of his followers strongly disapproved of the step he had thought fit to take, and that this marriage was the occasion of a further schism in the Samaj. On Thursday, the 22nd March 1878, a large meeting of the members of the Brâhma-Samaj of India was called at the Brâhma Mandir, in which it was agreed that Babu Keshab Chandra Sen, the minister of the Mandir, by countenancing the premature marriage of his daughter, and by allowing idolatrous rites to be observed in connection with that marriage, had violated the principles accepted by himself and the Brâhma-Samaj of India. It was therefore resolved that &quot;he was not fit to continue in the office of minister.&quot; The outcome of the opposition was the formation of a third branch, known as the Sâdhâran Brâhma-Samaj. This section of the Samaj counts among its members such distinguished men as Ananda Mohan Bose, K. G. Gupta, Pandit Shiva Nath Shastri, Dr. P. K. Ray, Sasipada Banerjee, and others.

The name &quot;Sadharan&quot; Samaj is significant, as showing that it claims to have advanced from a church government of a theocratic type to a church government on democratic principles. The last stage of Keshab's theological development is that represented by the formulation of the New Dispensation. In 1881, Keshab proclaimed this Dispensation, which, besides a number of rites and ceremonies adopted from our own and other systems