472 Professor Max Miiller on Rdmmohni Boy. [Feb. 1, 



dwelt not only on the truth and excellence of the Christian religion, 

 but spoke of the honour and repute that he would acquire as the first 

 apostle of Christ in India, Eammohun Roy felt so oftended at the 

 suspicion that he could be moved by such motives that he never 

 called on the Bishop again. In all his discussions with missionaries 

 and others, Eammohun Koy took his stand on the Veda as the word 

 of God, divinely inspired, and, therefore, infallible. It was on that 

 foundation that he established the new Church which has since 

 become famous under the name of Brahma-Samaj, the Church of the 

 believers in Brahman, the Supreme Spirit. 



After he had built and endowed a house of prayer at Calcutta 

 in 1830, he proceeded on his journey to England, being sent as 

 Envoy by the Emperor of Delhi, and wishing himself to see what a 

 Christian country really was. He was received with great distinction 

 everywhere, and all who saw him spoke of him with the highest 

 admiration. He also went to Paris, where he was received by 

 Louis Philippe. After his return to England he went to pay a visit 

 to Dr. Carpenter and other friends at Bristol, and there he died 

 suddenly in September, 1833. 



The lecture closed with an estimate of Eammohun Eoy's character. 

 The Eajah was represented as an unselfish, honest, and bold man. 

 Easy as it might seem to us to give up idolatry, it was a bold thing for 

 a boy of sixteen to say, " I will not worship what my father worships ; 

 I will not pray as my mother prays. I will look out for a new God 

 and new prayers, if haply I may find them." In after life he incurred 

 the risk of the loss of his ancestral property, he was insulted, and 

 even his life was threatened in the streets of Calcutta. In all these 

 struggles he had nothing to support him but the Veda and the voice 

 of his conscience, and a man who could fight so good a fight as he 

 did, deserves to be ranked among the great benefactors of the 

 hmnan race. In conclusion the lecturer alluded to the latter growth 

 of the Brahma-Samaj, and more particularly to that momentous crisis 

 when the Veda was deprived of its divine right, and the Brahma- 

 Samaj, under Debendranath Tagore, became a Church without a Bible. 

 It was shown that this important change was brought about by the 

 influence of European scholarship on the minds of the prominent 

 members of the Brahma-Samaj. The mere fact of the Veda being 

 printed and published in Europe, and thus being rendered accessible 

 to every student, was sufficient to convince every unprejudiced mind 

 that it was a venerable, but not a sacred, a human, but not a divine, 

 book. To Eammohun Eoy the Veda was true, because it was divine ; 

 to Debendranath Tagore it was divine, because it was true. It will 

 have to be proved by the future history of the Brahma-Samaj whether 

 eternal truth requires always a miraculous halo, or whether she can 

 rule human hearts, unadorned by priestly hands, clad only in her 

 own simplicity, beauty, and majesty. 



