DEVENDRANATH TAGORE 25
brighter and more hopeful view of the separation, as will appear from the following passage:
If we call the separation of the Brâhma-Samaj of India from the old Adi Brâhma-Samaj, and again the separation of the Sadharan Samaj from the Brâhma-Samaj of India, a schism, we seem to condemn by the very word we use. But to my mind these three societies seem like three branches of the one vigorous tree, the tree that was planted by Rammohan Roy. In different ways they all serve the same purpose; they are all doing, I believe, unmixed good, in helping to realise the dream of a new religion for India it may be for the whole world a religion free from many corruptions of the past, call them idolatry, or caste, or verbal inspiration, or priestcraft; and firmly founded on a belief in the One God, the same in the Vedas, the same in the Old,
the same in the New Testament, the same in the Koran, the same also in the hearts of those who have no longer Vedas or Upanishads or any sacred Books whatever between themselves and their God. The stream is small as yet, but it is a living stream. It may vanish for a time, it may change its name and follow new paths of which as yet we have no idea. But if there is ever to be a new religion in India, it will, I believe, owe its very life-blood to the large heart of Rammohan Roy and his worthy disciples, Devendranath Tagore and Keshab Chandra Sen. [1]
After Keshab's separation, my father practically retired from active work in the Samaj. He had trained up ministers to conduct the service of his own Adi Samaj, and appointed a committee for the management of its affairs. He continued, however, to keep a close supervision over the affairs of the
- ↑ Biographical Essays (1884), p. 83.
