“14. Theoretically, there is no distinction of caste among the Brahmas. They
declare that we are all the children of GOD, and, therefore, must consider
ourselves as brothers and sisters.”
Briefly speaking, the religious system herein set forth may be described as
Christianity without CHRIST; and yet it was unwilling to acknowledge its
obligations to Christianity. Its apostles sought to persuade themselves and others
that they derived everything from the Vedas and nothing from the Bible; and
when they were compelled to abandon the Vedas, they fell back upon Nature as
a Divine Revelation. But, as an Anglo-Indian authority contends, it is certain that
but for the new life which at this time flowed in with the tide of Western
thought, and the study of a literature “saturated at every pore” with Christian
sentiment and the high Gospel morality; and but for the strong and ceaseless
opposition maintained by Christianity in the person of its missionaries against
the Atheism, which was the first, though a short-lived result of the sudden
intellectual quickening the young men of Calcutta experienced when Western
science was substituted for Oriental myths, neither would the study of the Vedas
have been revived, nor would the great lessons of nature have appeared so
intelligible as they then became.[25]
We have seen that Brahmanism made one advance under Rammohun Roy; it
was led still further forward by Debendronath Tagore; and then he too suddenly
halted, as his predecessor had done. The leadership next devolved upon a man of
higher courage, not less fitted to lead a great movement by his enthusiasm than
by his ability, Babu Keshub Chunda Sen. Keshub was determined that the
challenge should be thrown down to orthodox Hinduism: and persuaded
Debendronath Tagore, when his daughter was married, to celebrate the occasion
without the usual idolatrous ceremony. After this, he purified of their idolatrous
element the rites observed at birth and death. Still, Debendronath Tagore
supported him; but, at last, when an attempt was made to eliminate not only what
was purely idolatrous, but also everything offensive to enlightened feeling and a
purer taste, Debendronath and the conservative party opposed, and a schism was
the result.
“The time had arrived,” says the writer already quoted, “when Brahmism, if it
was a power and not mere talk, must do battle with the system of caste
distinctions. The first step in this direction taken by Keshub Chunda Sen, was
the celebration of a marriage between persons belonging to different castes. That
was an innovation such as might well startle the venerable pundits of Nuddea