A Case of Discovery

A Case of Discovery It is a true saying that the present can be fully grasped and appreciated only by a due reference to the past. In order, therefore, to set before you clearly the reasons that have induced me to accept Islam in preference to the other great religions of the world, it is necessary that I should give you a short sketch of the various phases of doubt and faith through which I have passed from my boyhood upwards to the present day. Having early lost faith in that strange and heterogeneous medley of animism, fetishism, polytheism and pantheism, known as popular Hinduism, I have been in search of a truer faith from my very boyhood. Naturally enough, I soon came in contact with the Brahmo Somaj and Christianity, then engaged in an apparently bitter conflict for obtaining mastery over the minds of the young Bengal. The star of Babu Keshab Chandra Sen was in the ascendant, and I still recollect the thrill of fervour and enthusiasm with which I used to pour over some of his eloquent sermons and discourses. The Brahmo Somaj introduced me to some of the great Unitarians of England and of America, notably to Theodore Parker of Boston, whom I began to regard as a prophet and an apostle of God. I became so exceedingly fond of his works that it was my habit in those days always to carry a volume or two of Theodore Parker’s books with me wherever I happened to go, and to quietly read them over as others do the Bible or the Quran. In this state of mind, I shipped myself off to Europe for the sake of my education. Arrived in Scotland, I soon got into the society of some good Christian men and women of an orthodox type, who began to take great interest in me,