Though no formal act of schism had yet taken place, the year 1865 dawned upon a church practically divided into two hostile camps, the conservatives and the progressives. The first was a party of elderly men who had joined the Samaj since its first revival in 1843, and who in point of practice conformed to the rules of the old Hindu society. They had a peculiar attachment to the old time-honoured institutions of Hinduism, and were loth to do anything that would lead to a violent disruption of the same. They were very much in dread lest they should be excommunicated by their caste-fellows and scrupulously avoided everything that could lead to such an unwelcome result, They regarded with disfavour, and viewed with dismay, the new principles of action enunciated by the Sangat Sabha, many of which they considered as positively revolutionary and dangerous. They did not at all like the elevation of the young fire-brand Keshub to the pulpit; his sermons they had been secretly despising and his services they had been tolerating only out of respect for the venerable Devendra Nath, who almost doated upon his young colleague. They had been daily murmuring that the Tattwabodhini Patrika, having fallen into the hands of the hot-headed youngsters, had become a vehicle for their unripe thoughts and revolutionary principles. Consequently they were
