THE NEW DISPENSATION
The contrast between the Old and the New is well exemplified in the contrasting lives of Rammohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore, and Keshab Chandra Sen. As an Indian writer says: 'The sweep of the New Dispensation is broader than the Brahmo Samaj. The whole religious world is in the grasp of a great purpose which, in its fresh unfolding of the new age, we call the New Dispensation. The New Dispensation is not a local phenomenon; it is not confined to Calcutta or to India; our Brotherhood is but one body whose thought it functions to-day; it is not topographical, it is operative in all the world-religions.' [Footnote: Cp. Auguste Sabatier on the Religion of the Spirit, and Mozoomdar's work on the same subject.]
'No full account has yet been given to the New Brotherhood's work and experiences during that period. Men of various ranks came, drawn together by the magnetic personality of the man they loved, knowing he loved them all with a larger love; his leadership was one of love, and they caught the contagion of his conviction…. And so, if I were to write at length, I could cite one illustration after another of transformed lives—lives charged with a new spirit shown in the work achieved, the sufferings borne, the persecutions accepted, deep spiritual gladness experienced in the midst of pain, the fellowship with God realized day after day' (Benoyendra Nath Sen, The Spirit of the New Dispensation). The test of a religion is its capacity for producing noble men and women.