Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/28

Ram Mohan carried out his campaign with characteristic thoroughness. Having suffered so severely from persecution himself, he was utterly opposed to coercion in any form. He would avoid, if possible, even compelling people to do what was right, if by any means they could be brought to do what was right by persuasion and a greater diffusion of knowledge. He therefore first endeavoured by every means in his power to bring home to this fellow-countrymen the real hideousness of the practice. His pen seemed never to flag and treatises, letters and articles, written many of them in the vernacular and in the simplest possible language so that they might reach the humblest, were disseminated far and wide. In them he was careful to maintain an attitude of orthodox Hinduism. He insisted on the fact that Sati, though sanctioned by the shastras, was not enjoined by them as a compulsory religious duty. He pointed out how the practice had largely grown up owing to the avaricious desire of the relatives to avoid the cost of supporting the widow and how it was too often regarded not as a religious act but as a choice entertainment that appealed to the lowest human instincts. One of his treatises was in the form of a dialogue between an advocate and an opponent of Sati. The opponent maintains that though there may be some sanction in the sacred writings for the practice, yet that Manu, the greatest of all law