Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/41

Rh had been intending to visit England and convinced of the sincerity and fidelity of his following after the founding of the Brahma Sabha in 1830 he felt that at last the time had come. He was anxious not only to meet with the greatest and most advanced thinkers of the day, but above all to lay the case for progress on behalf of his fellow countrymen before the British people and the British Government. To break through centuries of tradition and brave the journey to England in those days needed no little courage. A letter of introduction given by a friend of his to the celebrated Jeremy Bentham gives an illuminating picture of the man and of the undertaking.

"If I were beside you and could explain matters fully," runs the letter, "you would comprehend the greatness of the undertaking—his going on board ship to a foreign and distant land, a thing hitherto not to be named among Hindus and least of all among Brahmans. His grand object besides the natural one of satisfying his own laudable spirit of enquiry has been to set a laudable example to his countrymen: and every one of the slow and gradual moves that he has made preparatory to his actually quitting India has been marked by the same discretion of judgment. He waited patiently until he had by perseverance and exertion acquired a little but respectable party of disciples. He talked of going to England from year to year since 1823, to familiarize the