Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/420

 perceptible, he prevailed upon the Government to inaugurate a silent, beneficial revolution in Hindu Society by passing the famous Widow-marriage Act; which, though not very popular as yet, will nonetheless exercise a very healthy influence on the India-to-be. From theory to practice has ever been a sure and natural transition with all greatmen; and Vidyasagar was preeminently great. The first widow- marriage among the higher classes in Modern India — itself the happy harbinger of several others — took place in the historic Sukea Street in the ever-memorable 1865. Nor was his reforming zeal, like Solomon's wisdom, meant only for others. His only son was married to a virgin-widow, in the face of stout domestic opposition; and as a strong protest against those solemn farces, those sad parodies of sacred wedding, the infant marriages of India, he had his own daughters married only when of full age. His efforts to root out the upas-tree of Kulinism and polygamy should have likewise succeeded but