“who had denounced early marriages as the curse of India,” yielded to natural social ambition and engaged his own young daughter to a Koch (R[=a]jbanshi) prince, who in turn was a mere boy.  The Sam[=a]j protested with all its might, but the marriage was performed the next year, withal to the accompaniment of idolatrous rites.[113] After this Sen became somewhat theatrical.  In 1879 he recognized (in a proclamation) God’s Motherhood—­the old dogma of the female divine.  In 1880 he announced, in fervid language, that Christianity was the only true religion:  “It is Christ who rules British India, and not the British Government.  England has sent out a tremendous moral force in the life and character of that mighty prophet to conquer and hold this vast empire.  None but Jesus, none but Jesus, none but Jesus, ever deserved this bright, this precious diadem, India, and Jesus shall have it....  Christ is a true Yogi.”  He accepts Christ, but not as God, only as inspired saint (as says Williams).  More recently, Sen proposed an amalgamation of Hinduism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity as the true religion.

Meanwhile the Sam[=a]j was rent by discord.  Sen’s opponents, the new reformers, were unable, however, to oust the brilliant leader from the presidency.  Consequently they established a new church, intended to be a General Congregation, the fourth development (1878) of the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j.  And so the fight has gone on ever since.  At the present day there are more than a hundred deistic churches, in which the devotional exercises consist in part of readings from the Vedas, Bible, Kur[=a]n, and Avesta.  The [=A]rya Sam[=a]j is one of the most important of the later churches, some of which endeavor to obtain undefiled religion by uniting into one faith what seems best in all; others, by returning to the Vedas and clearing them of what they think to be later corruptions of those originally pure scriptures.  Of the latter sort is the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j.  Its leader, Day[=a]nanda, claims that the Vedas are a true revelation.  The last reformer of which we have knowledge is a bright young high-caste Hindu of upper India, who is about to found a ‘world-religion,’ for which task he is now making preliminary studies.  He has visited this country, and recently told us that, if he had time, he could easily convert America.  But his first duty lies, of course, in the reformation of India’s reformations, especially of the Sam[=a]jas!

The difficulty with which all these reformers and re-reformers have to contend is pitifully clear.  Their broad ideas have no fitting environment.  Their leaders and thinkers may continue to preach deism, and among their equals they will be heard and understood.  They are, however, not content with this.  They must form churches.  But a church implies in every case an unnatural and therefore dangerous growth, caused by the union either of inferior minds (attracted by eloquence, but unable to think) with those that