Publisher's Synopsis
P. C. Mozoomdar was the best-known representative of the Brahmo Somaj, that is, the best-known in America, which he has visited several times, and where he has published now three books. But in India we believe he belongs to one of the smaller of the four fragments into which the Somaj, never large, has become split up, and has a very insignificant following. The Brahmos for the lust thirty years have attracted considerable attention, due, not to their numbers, which have always been small, But to the ability of a few leaders and the uncertainty as to whereunto the movement might grow. But their most prominent man, Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen, sorely disappointed the expectations of his friends, and it is now abundantly clear that the movement has no future. The membership of the Somajes, or assemblies, is composed of Bengalis who have been educated in the English government schools, have thus lost faith in orthodox Hinduism with its manifest absurdities and revolting abominations, but for various reasons is unwilling to enroll themselves in the Christian Churches. The alternative, so generally embraced by the similar class in Japan, of becoming outright infidels, docs not suit these young men of India; for, like the mass of their countrymen, they are strongly religious, and some kind of a religion they must have. So they have invented one less humbling to their pride of intellect and pride of race than the Christianity brought to them by foreigners-an eclecticism, combining, as they claim, the best features of all faiths and on terms of perfect fellowship with all.
