he boycott is being discountenanced in the
same quarters, though Mr. Banerjee, presumably to "save his face,"
professes to have agreed only to a suspension pending the revision of
Partition. But his paper, the _Bengalee_, is almost the only one that
pretends to regard the Partition as still an open question. It has been
eclipsed by far graver issues, of which the further development cannot
yet be foreseen.

The return to more sober counsels seems to be confined unhappily to the
older generation, and the older generation, even if we include in it the
middle-aged, must before long pass away. What we have to reckon with,
especially in Bengal, is the revolt of the younger generation, and this
revolt draws its inspiration from religious and philosophical sources
which no measures merely political, either of repression or of
conciliation, can reach. It often represents a perversion of the finest
qualities, as, apparently, in the case of Birendranath Gupta, who
murdered Shams-ul-Alam in the Calcutta High Court last January. An
English missionary who knew him well assured me that in his large
experience of Indian youths he had never met one of more exemplary
character or higher ideals, nor one who seemed more incapable of
committing such a crime. The oaths and vows administered on initiation
to secret societies are not directed only to political ends. They impose
on the initiates in the most explicit terms a life of self-denial, and
sometimes celibacy; and though these vows do not always avail against
some of the worst forms of sensuality, it would be foolish and wrong to
generalize from unworthy exceptions. In its moral aspects the revolt of
young Bengal represents very frequently a healthy reaction against sloth
and self-indulgence and the premature exhaustion of manhood which is
such a common feature in a society that has for centuries been taught to
disregard physiological laws in the enforcement of child marriage. To
this extent it is a revolt, though in the name of Hinduism, against
some of the worst results of the Hindu social system, and that it has
spread so largely amongst the Brahmans of Bengal shows that it has
affected even the rigidity of Brahmanism. Thus, whereas we have seen in
Kolhapur the Brahmans of the Deccan assert that in this "age of
darkness" there can be no Kshatriyas, their fellow-caste-men in Bengal
are quite willing to invest Kayasthas with the sacred thread, on the
ground that they are really of Ksh