In the meantime in other provinces rival Sam[=a]jas had been formed, and by 1850 there were several of these broad-minded Congregations, all trammelled by their environment, but doing their best to be liberal.

We pause here in the compilation of the data recorded in this paragraph to assert, independently of Professor Williams, who has given us the historical facts, but would doubtless not wish to have imputed to himself the following judgment which we are led to pass, that the next step of the Sam[=a]j; placed it upon the only ground where the objects of this church can be attained, and that in the subsequent reform of this reform, which we shall have to record below, a backward step has been taken.  For Debendran[=a]th changed the essential character of the Sam[=a]j from pantheistic theism to pure deism.  The inner circle of the society had a narrower declaration of faith, but in his Br[=a]hma Dharma, published about 1850, Debendran[=a]th formulated four articles of faith, to subscribe to which admitted any one into the Sam[=a]j.  These articles read as follows:  (t) Brahma (neuter) alone existed in the beginning before the universe; naught else existed; It [He] created all the universe. (2) It [He] is eternal, intelligent, infinite, blissful, self-governed (independent), without parts, just one (neuter) without a second, all-pervading, the ruler (masculine noun) of all, refuge of all, omniscient, omnipotent, immovable, perfect, without parallel (all these adjectives are neuter). (3) By worship of this One alone can bliss be obtained in the next world and in this. (4) The worship of this (neuter) One consists in love toward this (One) and in performing works pleasant (to this One).

This deism denies an incarnate God, scriptural authority, and the good of rites and penance; but it teaches the efficacy of prayer and repentance, and the belief in God as a personal Creator and Heavenly Father.[110] Intellectual—­anything but emotional—­it failed to satisfy many worshippers.  And as a church it was conservative in regard to social reforms.

In 1858 Keshub Chunder Sen, a Vishnuite by family, then but twenty, joined the Sam[=a]j, and being clever, young, eloquent, and cultivated, he, after the manner of the Hindus, undertook to reform the church he had just entered, first of all by urging the abolition of caste-restrictions.  Debendran[=a]th was liberal enough to be willing to dispense with his own thread (the caste-mark), but too wisely conservative to demand of his co-religionists so complete a break with tradition and social condition.  For the sacred thread to the Hindu is the sign of social respectability.  Without it, he is out of society.  It binds him to all that is dearest to him.  The leader of the older Sam[=a]j; never gave up caste; the younger members in doing so mix religion with social etiquette, and so hinder the advance they aim at.  Sen urged this and other reforms, all repugnant to the society in which he lived, changes in the rite at the worship