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    a short tin ^ e tjtie only survivor . From this ^ period , iie appe ^ s to hfaye Gon cetved his plans of reform ; he thoxight it expedient to quit Bordouan , where he had resided but little , and removed to Mourshedabad ; he there published ,

    in Persian , with an Arabic preface , a work , entitled Against the Idolatry of all Reli g ions . No one undertook to refute this book ; but the host of enemies which it raised up against the author , among the Mahometans and Hindoos , obliged him to retire to Calcuttain the year 1814 . This step points out the limit of British influence in

    India j for though all the places hitherto inhabited by him were equally under the authority of the English government , they were not equally influenced by English manners . At Calcutta , Rammohun Roy applied himself more seriously to the study of the English

    tongue , both by reading and conversation . He learnt a little Latin of an English schoolmaster , named Pritchard ; and a German , of the name of Makay , a man of a p hilosophic turn of mind , instructed him in the mathematics .

    He purchased a garden , with a house constructed in the European mode , in the Circular-Road , at the eastern extremity of the town . , < Rammohun Roy found means to recommend his religious opinions to a

    dozen of his countrymen , all distinguished for their rank and opulence ; and with their aid he has founded a sect , which may comprise a thousand disciples . To conciliate the Europeans , he has not only given the appellation Unitarian to this sect , but likewise

    declares , that his morality is no other than that of the gospel . The members of the sect unite every Sunday at the dwelling of Rammohun Roy , where t&ey eat , drink , and sing hymns in

    Sanscrit and Bengalee to the honour of the only true God . Rammohun Roy is the most respectable individual amongst them ; the only one , perhaps , who is really so : the rest are little

    known , witfi * the exception of one named , Kamo , a man of great wealth , and excessively fond of spirituous liquors . We may easily imagine , that the Hindoos , from their attachment to the Vedas , earnestly set themselves JSgai £ &t innovation : Rammohun Roy ihfos been attacked ip various ways ; but ! % ^ fS % ^ » W * % J » ttess > 1 m know-* wg& joined to the affluence he enjoya ,

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    have prevented his losing catt ^ ; species x > £ excommunication * tbat nis countrymen would gladly have subjected him to ; which would be a dl'fcad ful punishment , since it would deprive him of the society even of his wife and Ms only son . To the causes enume rated for his exemption from this punishment , we should add "the

    entertainment he gives daily ( actuated by prudence , equal to his ardour for reform ) to a certain number of Brahmins , who are thereby led to take a personal interest in the defence of him ; for if they had once eaten at his table , they would be all involved in the

    excommunication deserved by him . This proves how impotent , under certain circumstances , those institutions become which are not founded on nature and reason : and how their contrivances

    may be turned against themselves . If this be true respecting the Hindoo system , which of all the ancient institutions has preserved most of its primitive harshness , how . much more is it

    applicable to all the others I Whatever be the abstract merit of Rammohun Roy , there is , probably , throughout India no Brahmin who is less a Brahnain and less a Hindoo them he ; and thousands of dupes who have suffered the loss of their caste hare

    been less offenders against the peculi arities of their religion than he . Rammohun Roy , considering that youth is the period most adapted to the reception of novelties , either good or bad , has established a school at his

    own expense , where fifty children are taught Sanscrit , English and Geography . How slender soever these attempts at reform may appear , they will , probably , more or less rapidly attain - their object $ faded as they are by European influence , and , above nil , by the art of printing . It is against the * division of his countrymen into

    castes that Rammohun Boy ' s correcting hand is turned , fund in that the strength of his judgment is evinced . The distinction of castes may be regarded as the cement of the polytheism and the other errors prevalent in India : let that distinction disappear , and all the Hindoo superstitions will crumble beneath the touch of human reason . It

    is the division into castes , carried to a fri g htful excess , which consolidates the Hindoo system ,. by incorporating it with the daily habits of domestic life

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    2 Some Account of the Life ewd HfPritin # s of Rammnhnn Roy .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1820, page 2, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2484/page/2/