nt gradually
developed a doctrine of inspiration, when the utterances of the
leaders themselves were regarded as inspired and became the voice of
God to the members. Thus, within a few years, Brahmo Somaj moved
almost in a circle, in its search for a stable anchorage to its faith;
and it returned to a point dangerously near to the Hindu position
which it had left a few years before.

The rapid movement above indicated was chiefly owing to an ardent
youth, who rallied to the support of Debendra Nath, and who gradually
took the reins into his own hands. This young man was Keshub Chunder
Sen; and he soon became the leading figure, certainly the most
striking, in the whole theistic movement of India. He acquired growing
influence over Debendra Nath, became the controlling spirit, and
continued until his death to be the central figure of Theism in India.

Chunder Sen was a great enthusiast, full of intellectual resource,
and, withal, a man of deep spirituality. He was an Oriental of the
Orientals; his mind was of a thoroughly mystic type, and, like the
devout Hindu, he loved the rigours of asceticism, and, in not a few
instances, yielded to the fascinations of the methods of the Yogi.

He was a restless soul. Hinduism had so much that was repulsive to
him; and he felt that polytheism and idolatry had so crushed out of
his people all the beauty of a living faith that he longed to hasten
communication of his message of truth and of life the new and glorious
day of Theism for India. His pace was so much faster than that of
Debendra Nath that it took but a few years to make their separation a
necessity. This took place in 1865. Thereupon, the old society became
known as the "_Athi Somaj_,"--"The Original Somaj,"--while Sen and his
party formed a new organization, which was pretentiously known as "The
Brahmo Somaj of India." This happened in 1866.

The old society settled down into inactivity, lost much of its spirit
of reform, and has never since accomplished much in the realm of
theistic advance.

The new Somaj, however, soon acquired prominence and became the life
and embodiment of the Indian theistic movement.

But Chunder Sen had his serious dangers; and those lay in the very
excess of his virtues.

Hurried on by his intense nature, exalted to power by his brilliant
intellectual qualities, and yearning with a passion for the release of
his beloved India from the religious and spiritual thraldom which he
witnessed al