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96 LIFE OF BABU SHYAMA CHURN SI REAR ed with distinction, under the Newab Nazims of Moorshedabad. His great-grand-father Babu Roma4 kant Sirkar migrated from Krishnaghur and settled at Mamjoani. While Shyama Churn was only five years old, his father came to Calcutta as Dewan of one Mr. Charles Reid, a Eurasian Zemindar of Purneah and there died of carbuncle. His father was a man of great liberality, and like every pious Hindu of those days, spent almost every thing he had earned in charity and religious performances, and left very little for the support of his poor widow and his only son Shyama Churn. On his death-bed, some friends enquired of him, "what would become of your son ?" and he replied like a pious Hindu : "What! Is there no God ? The same God who has provided for me would watch over and bless my son. " And the forebodings of the father were fulfilled to the very letter. Almighty God blessed Shyama Churn . with an iron constitution, indomitable courage, great patience, and presence of mind, and above all an un- ? conquerable will to struggle with the bitterest cir- cumstances in life ; and he succeeded, by exercise of these manly virtues, to become one of the most dis- tinguished men of Bengal, What little competence the father left to the family, was lost through success- ive robberies committed in their house. In those days of the unsettled period of British administration, secu- rity of life and property was unknown to the rural po- pulation of Bengal. Under these adverse circumstances, it is no wonder that the poor little boy Shyama Churn and his mother led a very miserable existence.* CHAPTER II. HIS EDUCATION His education, as a matter of course, was neglected, for in those days schools for education were not to