Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/177

Rh years before, it still needed considerable courage to break through the strong opposition of relatives and friends among whom the prejudice against crossing the sea was still deeply ingrained. But Keshub's voyage to Ceylon was only the prelude to the longer voyage to England which he was already contemplating and which was to take form ten years hence.

Still further convinced that it was to the press that he must look even more than to his personal exertions and his personal eloquence, if he would successfully advance the cause of education and religion, Keshub determined to start a periodical of his own. In August 1861 with the help of his friends, among whom Man Mohun Ghose was one of the leading spirits, he brought out the first number of the Indian Mirror as a fortnightly journal. There was at that time only one English newspaper in Calcutta conducted by an Indian Editor, and it is an interesting fact that both these papers, the Hindu Patriot and the Indian Mirror are still in existence to-day. Although the latter paper afterwards passed out of Keshub's control he owned various other newspapers at different times, many of which commanded a wide circulation. In all of them he attempted to make fair consideration and conciliation, the prevailing notes, and though they ardently supported the schemes which he had at heart he was careful to avoid the adoption of a violently partisan attitude, opening his columns freely to all