From these transient and occasional glimpses of the Rajah, however, no just estimate of his character or sentiments could be formed. Conclusions, indeed, but very inaccurate ones, have been drawn from his presence at particular places of religious worship, from hasty opinions expressed by him upon political topics, from answers given to leading questions not well understood, and from remarks extorted by systematic and persevering inquisitions, which his natural temperament and the forms of politeness in the East (where there are modes of conveying a civil negative by an affirmative) prevented him from checking. He was, indeed, by no means deficient in the firmness requisite to deal with an adversary who defied him to the arena of argument, in which his great resources of memory and observation, his vigor and quickness of mind, his logical acuteness, with no small share of wit, commonly brought him off victorious. He was less willing, while in England, to discuss religious topics than most others. The reason is apparent. His creed was an unpopular one, and a frank declaration of his sentiments on particular points would have shocked Trinitarians. He observed, too, with pain, the fierceness of sectarian zeal in this country, of which, of course, he had had but little experience in India. "One of the first sentiments he expressed to me, on his arrival in the metropolis," says Mr. Aspland,* was his astonishment to find such bigotry amongst the majority of Christians towards the Unitarians." In the autumn of last year he visited France, where he was received with the highest consideration. Literary, as well as political men, strove to testify their respect for their extraordinary guest. He was introduced to Louis Philippe, with whom he had the honor of dining more than once, and our brahmin spoke in warm terms of the king's condescension and kindness. In January last, he returned from France, to the hospitable mansion of Messrs. John and Joseph Hare, in Bedford-square (the brothers of Mr. Hare of Calcutta, the intimate friend of Rammohun, and a warm auxiliary in his benevolent designs for ameliorating the moral condition of the Hindus), where he had resided almost since his first arrival in England. He returned, however, in ill health. He had suffered from bilious attacks, to which he was constitutionally subject, and which were aggravated by the climate of Europe, producing a slight affection of the lungs. Mr. Arnot says, that, after his return from Paris, "both mind and body seemed losing their tone and vigor." In this state, he went to Bristol, in the early part of September, to spend a few weeks with Miss Castles, at Stapleton-grove, intending to proceed from thence into Devonshire, there to pass the winter. On the 18th September, about ten days after his arrival at Bristol, he was taken ill, not, it was at first supposed, seriously. Next * Sermon on the death of Rammohun Roy, p. 24. day, however, Mr. Estlin, a friend, having called to see him, found the symptoms were those of fever. Medicine relieved him, but his tongue continued dry and glazed, and his frequent pulse and incessant restlessness indicated serious derangement. On the 21st he was attended by Dr. Prichard, and on the 23d by Dr. Carrick. The head seemed a seat of the disease, though the patient complained chiefly of the stomach. "His indisposition," says Dr. Carpenter, "experienced but a temporary check from the remedies; severe spasms, with paralysis of the left arm and leg, came on during the 26th, and he fell into a state of stupor in the afternoon of that day, from which he never revived; but breathed his last at twenty-five minutes after two, A. M., on the 27th of September. His son, Rajah Ram Roy, and two Hindu servants, with several attached friends who had watched over him from the first day of his illness, were with him when he expired. Mr. Hare, under whose roof the rajah had for two years lived, was also with him during the greater part of his illness; and Mr. Hare's niece, who was well acquainted with his habits, and possessed his full confidence and strong regard, attended upon him day and night, with a degree of earnest and affectionate solicitude, well deserving the epithet of filial. He repeatedly acknowledged, during his illness, his sense of the kindness of all around him, and in strong language expressed the confidence he felt in his medical advisers. He conversed very little during his illness, but was observed to be often engaged in prayer. He told his son and those around him that he should not recover." On an examination of the body, the brain was found to be inflamed, containing some fluid, and covered with a kind of purulent effusion; its membrane also adhered to the skull, the result, probably, of previously existing disease; the thoracic and abdominal viscera were healthy. The case appeared to be one of fever, producing great prostration of the vital powers, and accompanied by inflammation of the brain. Such was the rapid termination of a life, from the continuance of which so much benefit had been prognosticated to England and to India, in their mutual relations. Rammohun Roy has left in India a wife, from whom he has been separated (on what account we know not) for some years, and two sons. The son who accompanied him to Europe is said to be an adopted child. A short time before his death, he had brought his negotiations with the British Government, on behalf of the king of Delhi, to a successful close, by a compromise with the Ministers of the Crown, which will add £30,000 a-year to the stipend of the Mogul, and, of course, make a proportionate reduction in the Indian revenue. The deceased ambassador had a contingent interest in this large addition to the ample allowance of the Mogul pageant, and his heirs, it is said, will gain from it a perpetual income of £3,000 or £4,000 a year. He intended to return to India next year, vid Turkey, Russia, and Persia. The person of Rammohun Roy was, as we have already observed, a very fine one. He was nearly six feet high; his limbs were robust and well-proportioned, though latterly, either through age or increase of bulk, he appeared rather unwieldy and inactive. His face was beautiful; the features large and manly, the forehead lofty and expanded, the eyes dark and animated, the nose finely curved and of due proportion, the lips full, and the general expression of the countenance that of intelligence and benignity.* **** * [In one of the paragraphs which we have omitted it is said; "The writings of Rammohun Roy were generally, to some extent, the composition of others." "As he was exceedingly ambitious of literary fame, he took care, both in Europe and India, to obtain the best assistance he could get, both European and native. His works, therefore, do not afford an absolute criterion of his talents, though these were without doubt very considerable." This charge is fully confuted by Dr. Carpenter in his pamphlet, pp. 129-134. It was at one time circulated in this country; and we have seen autograph letters, written in consequence of it by the different gentlemen in Calcutta, who had been named as his coadjutors, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Adam, and others, decisively, and some of them indignantly, disavowing the having afforded him any such assistance as is implied in the sentences above quoted. — Among the matter which we have omitted by the second writer of the article in "The Asiatic Journal," the following passage deserves preservation.] As he advanced in age, he became more strongly impressed with the importance of religion to the welfare of society, and the pernicious effects of skepticism. In his younger years, his mind had been deeply struck with the evils of believing too much, and against that he directed all his energies: but, in his latter days, he began to feel that there was as much, if not greater, danger in the tendency to believe too little. He often deplored the existence of a party which had sprung up in Calcutta, composed principally of imprudent young men, some of them possessing talent, who had avowed themselves skeptics in the widest *The best portrait of him extant is a full-sized one by Briggs. It is a good picture as well as an admirable likeness; but the deceased always felt an unaccountable aversion to it. Perhaps it did not flatter him sufficiently in respect to complexion, a point on which he was very sensitive. There is also a miniature by Newton, and a bust by Clarke. Dr. Carpenter states that a cast for a bust was taken a few hours after his death. sense of the term. He described it as partly composed of EastIndians, partly of the Hindu youth, who, from education, had learnt to reject their own faith without substituting any other. These he thought more debased than the most bigoted Hindu, and their principles the bane of all morality. This strong aversion to infidelity was by no means diminished during his visit to England and France; on the contrary, the more he mingled with society in Europe, the more strongly he became persuaded that religious belief is the only sure groundwork of virtue. "If I were to settle with my family in Europe," he used to say, "I would never introduce them to any but religious persons, and from amongst them only would I select my friends amongst them I find such kindness and friendship, that I feel as if surrounded by my own kindred.” [The writer, however, from whom we have last quoted, says: "But to show that he himself was a Unitarian, or a Christian, in any particular form, would require a distinct species of evidence, which his works do not furnish: they assuredly do not contain any declaration to that effect; and viewing him in his true character, that of a religious utilitarian, his support of any particular system cannot be construed into a profession of faith." What is implied, perhaps, here and in some other expressions of the same writer, is affirmed more broadly and offensively in the article in "The Court Journal." "It is quite ridiculous," it is said, "to witness the avidity with which the Unitarians and Trinitarians in England contend for the honor of this highly gifted man, having renounced the idolatry of his countrymen for their sect. The fact is, Rammohun Roy was a Lutheran with the churchman, a Unitarian with Dr. Carpenter, a follower of Moses and the Prophets with the Jews, a pure Hindoo, or rather Budhist with a few of his countrymen, and a good Mussulman with the disciples of Mahomet. He had no faith in creeds, and having renounced the adoration of a million of Deities in Hindooism, because contrary to reason, he was not likely to be a believer in the Trinity, the doctrines of which are inscrutable to mortal ken. His deism was at times what some might term pure; latterly he became lost in ideas of the future, the transmigration of the soul was predominating, and rested on eternity." 'shadows, clouds, and darkness,' All this we believe to be incorrect. The question, whether Rammohun Roy were a Christian in the proper sense of the words, we do regard as one of much interest; and we rejoice that it may be considered as settled by the evidence which Dr. Carpenter adduces in his pamphlet. To have found that he was not a Christian would not have surprised us, nor detracted from the estimate which we had formed of his worth. Even with his high intellectual powers and admirable virtues, he had been exposed to such unfavorable influences of different kinds, adapted to prevent him from estimating the evidences of Christianity as they are estimated by an enlightened Christian, that it seemed scarcely possible that he should have felt their force. It is, therefore, with a new view of his mental and moral superiority, and with increased confidence, if possible, in the strength of the evidences of our religion, that we learn that he was a Christian. Dr. Carpenter says in his Discourse, "I am in the recollection of several residents in this city or its neighbourhood, of the first respectability for character and intellectual attainments, and of various religious persuasions, when I say, that less than a week before his last illness began, he expressed his belief in the divine origin of our Lord's instructions, in his miracles, and in his resurrection from the dead. On this great fact, indeed, he declared that his own expectation of a resurrection rested. 'If I did not believe in the resurrection of Christ,' were his emphatic words, 'I should not believe in my own.'" On this passage the following very interesting note is given in the Appendix. We need hardly say that the name of Foster, the author of the Essays, is as well known and as highly respected in this country as in his own.] "After I had decided to print the foregoing Discourse, I wrote the following Note to the Rev. John Foster, whose religious sentiments, I was well aware, would, in the estimation of many, give a superior sanction to his testimony; and whose uprightness of mind, in connexion with his well-known acuteness of discernment and the profoundly reflective character of his understanding, would, I well knew, secure that testimony a ready reception in the judgment of all who know how to appreciate him and his writings. TO THE REV. JOHN FOSTER, STAPLETON. Great George Street, 12th Oct. 1833. 'DEAR SIR, - You cannot have forgotten the remarkable conversation at Stapleton Grove, on the 11th ult. principally between Dr. Jerrard and the Rajah, on the subject of the extent and reasons of the Christian belief of the latter. May I solicit your opinion as to the correctness of the following position, that the Rajah's declarations at that time authorize the conviction that he believed in the divine authority of Christ, though he rested this belief on internal evidence; and that he believed in the resurrection of Christ. 'May I further ask, if any thing that passed elsewhere in your hearing threw any doubt into your mind whether he believed in the divine authority of Christ? 'If you deem the position correct, and answer the inquiry in the negative, may I, to that extent, speak of you as among others at the conversation to which I refer ? VOL. III. - NO. II. 'I am, &c. LANT CARPENTER.' |