Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/193

Rh His all-absorbing desire to benefit his fellow-countrymen, and his constant efforts to make his new faith unsectarian and such that it might include the whole brotherhood of man, won universal admiration and respect. In an age of self seeking, he set a striking example of unselfishness. He voluntarily gave up all to follow the way of life that seemed to him to lead to the highest and the best. Worldly rewards he never sought and worldly honours he refused. His way of life, it is true, though an ideal to which every Faith might well strive to attain, was an ideal which men in the nineteenth century found it hard to follow. It needed the enthusiasm and devotion of the earlier ages when the world was young and life less complex. It was in direct contrast to the growing worldliness and the keen competitive spirit of the day against which it was a protest. The whole tendency of the time was in the opposite direction. The decay of the old faiths had coincided with the great renaissance of thought and education and but for the little company of enthusiasts whom that renaissance produced, it might have ended in a cataclysm of irreligion. How great was the influence of Keshub Chandra Sen and how effectual were his efforts towards checking the prevailing tendency towards unbelief and immortality must not be judged merely by the numerical strength of the Samaj that he founded. His influence went for deeper and his noble