Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/386

 ship of the Deity's creative power or force, Saiktaism had in course of time been defiled into a very repulsive creed notorious for unnameable indecency and immorality. Wine and woman were the poison and pestilence of the day. In the name of all that is noble and virtuous in human nature, acts of an extremely vicious and degrading character were committed in clear day-light. The roseate hues of early Saktaism had faded into darkness. Religion had been drawn through" mire and slime and at last gibbeted on the scaffold of the most nefarious acts. Was there no hope to dawn upon Bengal? Were unborn generations doomed to be swept away into the vortex of Tantric charms, nocturnal revels and Bacchanalian orgies? The learned man of the day to whom the few saints in Sodom looked up for help and guidance was himself in sad need of life and light. Stricken by a morbid pride of his erudition, he deemed it the aim and ambition of life to discomfit a learned foe and to successfully thread his way through the