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The new Sams=alj renounced caste-restrictions and Brahmanism altogether, but it was tainted with the hysterical bhakti fervor which Sen inherited from his childhood's religion, and which (if one may credit Williams' words) "brought the latest development of Indian Theism into closer harmony with Christian ideas." The chief leader of this Sam[=a]j besides Sen was his cousin Prot[=a]p Chunder Mozoomdar, official secretary of the society. Its literary organ is the Indian Mirror.
The reform of this reform of course followed before long. The new Sams=a]j was accused of making religion too much a matter of emotion and excitement. Religious fervor, bhakti, had led to "rapturous singing of hymns in the streets"; and to the establishment of a kind of love-feasts ('Brahma-feasts' they were called) of prayer and rejoicing; and, on the other hand, to undue asceticism and self-mortification.[111] Sen himself was revered too much. One of the most brilliant, eloquent, and fascinating of men, he was adored by his followers—as a god! He denied that he had accepted divine honors, but there is no doubt, as Williams insists, that his Vishnuite tendency led him to believe himself peculiarly the recipient of divine favors. It was charged against him that he asserted that all he did was at God's command, and that he believed himself perennially inspired.[112] If one add to this that he was not only divinely inspired, but that he had the complete control of his society, it would appear to be easy to foresee where the next reformer might strike. For Sen "was not only bishop, priest, and deacon all in one," says Williams, "he was a Pope, from whose decision there was no appeal." But it was not this that caused the rupture. In 1877 this reformer, "who had denounced early marriages as the curse of India," yielded to natural social ambition and engaged his own young daughter to a Koch (R[=a]jbanshi) prince, who in turn was a mere boy. The Sam[=a]j protested with all its might, but the marriage was performed the next year, withal to the accompaniment of idolatrous rites.[113] After this Sen became somewhat theatrical. In 1879 he recognized in a proclamation) God's Motherhood—the old dogma of the female divine. In 1880 he announced, in fervid language, that Christianity was the only true religion: "It is Christ who rules British India, and not the British Government. England has sent out a tremendous moral force in the life and character of that mighty prophet to conquer and hold this vast empire. None but Jesus, none but Jesus, none
