Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/35

Rh he was keenly alive to the good work that the missionaries were doing among his fellow-countrymen, and he gave his fullest sympathy and support to any society or any scheme that cordially cooperated in the great work of educating and raising the status of the Hindu community. With this object, in spite of his theological differences with it, he warmly supported the Presbyterian Church in its work in Calcutta and to him in some measure may be attributed the coming of Alexander Duff to India. The Church of Scotland Chaplain in Calcutta wrote home:—"Encouraged by the approbation of Ram Mohan I presented to the General Assembly of 1824 the petition and memorial which first directed the attention of the Church of Scotland to British India as a field for missionary exertions, on the plan that it is now so successfully following out, and to which this eminently gifted scholar, himself a Brahmin of high caste, had specially annexed his sanction."

On his arrival Alexander Duff at once met with the ready assistance of Ram Mohan who secured for him his first school house and his first scholars. On the opening day he himself was present to smooth away any difficulties that might arise and to endeavour to give the enterprise a favourable start. When the orthodox objected to his connection with a Presbyterian school, where the scriptures were read, Ram Mohan replied "Christians have