of ancestors, alterations in the established ritual at birth-ceremonies and funerals, abolition of polyandry and of child-marriages, and, worst of all, granting permission to marry to those of different castes.  His zeal was directed especially against caste-restrictions and child-marriages.  Naturally he failed to persuade the old Sam[=a]j to join him in these revolutionary views, to insist on which, however sensible they seem, cannot be regarded otherwise than as indiscreet from the point of view of one who considers men and passions.  For the Sam[=a]j, in the face of tremendous obstacles, had just secured a foot-hold in India.  Sen’s headlong reforms would have smashed to pieces the whole congregation, and left India more deeply prejudiced than ever against free thought.  Sen failed to reform the old church, so in 1865 he, with some ardent young enthusiasts, reformed themselves into a new church, ceremoniously organized in 1866 as the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j; of India, in distinction from the Calcutta Sam[=a]j, or [=A]di Sam[=a]j.  A futile effort was made to get all the other local congregations to join the new Sam[=a]j, the last, of course, to be the first and head of the organization.

The new Sam[=a]j renounced caste-restrictions and Brahmanism altogether, but it was tainted with the hysterical bhakti fervor which Sen inherited from his childhood’s religion, and which (if one may credit Williams’ words) “brought the latest development of Indian Theism into closer harmony with Christian ideas.”  The chief leader of this Sam[=a]j besides Sen was his cousin Prot[=a]p Chunder Mozoomdar, official secretary of the society.  Its literary organ is the Indian Mirror.

The reform of this reform of course followed before long.  The new Sam[=a]j was accused of making religion too much a matter of emotion and excitement.  Religious fervor, bhakti, had led to “rapturous singing of hymns in the streets”; and to the establishment of a kind of love-feasts (’Brahma-feasts’ they were called) of prayer and rejoicing; and, on the other hand, to undue asceticism and self-mortification.[111] Sen himself was revered too much.  One of the most brilliant, eloquent, and fascinating of men, he was adored by his followers—­as a god!  He denied that he had accepted divine honors, but there is no doubt, as Williams insists, that his Vishnuite tendency led him to believe himself peculiarly the recipient of divine favors.  It was charged against him that he asserted that all he did was at God’s command, and that he believed himself perennially inspired.[112] If one add to this that he was not only divinely inspired, but that he had the complete control of his society, it would appear to be easy to foresee where the next reformer might strike.  For Sen “was not only bishop, priest, and deacon all in one,” says Williams, “he was a Pope, from whose decision there was no appeal.”  But it was not this that caused the rupture.  In 1877 this reformer,