“As idolatry is intimately interwoven with our social fabric, conservative Brahmos, though discarding it in other respects, find it very difficult to do so on the occasion of such very important domestic ceremonies as marriage, +shradh+ (ancestral sacrifices), and +upanayana+ (spiritual apprenticing); but they should consider that Brahmoism is not so imperative on any other point as on the renunciation of idolatry. It can allow conservatism in other respects, but not on the point of idolatry. It can consider a man a Brahmo if he be conservative in other respects than idolatry; but it can never consider an idolater to be a Brahmo. The conservative Brahmo can do one thing, that is, observe the old ritual, leaving out only the idolatrous portion of it, if he do not choose to follow the positive Brahmo ritual laid down in the ‘Anushthána Paddhati.’ Liberty should be given by the progressive Brahmo to the conservative Brahmo in judging of the idolatrous character of the portions of the old ritual rejected by him. If a progressive Brahmo requires a conservative one to reject those portions which the former considers to be idolatrous, but the latter does not, he denies liberty of conscience to a fellow-Brahmo. “The Adi Brahmo-Samaj is the national Hindu Theistic Church, whose principles of church reformation we have been describing above. Its demeanor towards the old religion of the country is friendly, but corrective and reformative. It is this circumstance which preëminently distinguishes it from the Brahmo-Samaj of India, whose attitude to that religion is antagonistic and offensive. The mission of the Adi Samaj is to fulfill the old religion, and not to destroy it. The attitude of the Adi Samaj to the old religion is friendly, but it is not at the same time opposed to progress. It is a mistake to call it a conservative church. It is rather a conservative-progressive church, or, more correctly, simply a church or religious body, leaving matters of social reformation to the judgments of individual members or bodies of such members. It contains both progressive and conservative members. As the ultra-progressive Brahmos, who wanted to eliminate the conservative element from it, were obliged to secede from it, so if a high conservative party arise in its bosom which would attempt to do violence to the progressive element and convert the church into a partly conservative one, that party also would be obliged to secede from it. Only men who can be tolerant of each others opinions, and can respect each others earnest convictions, progressive and conservative, can remain its members.” The strong national feeling of the Indian reformers finds expression in the following passage from “Brahmic Questions,” p. 9:--