Finally, by omitting all mention of numerous modern Vaishnava sects, we come to the modern Theistic sects. The Brahmo Samāj of Bengal was founded by the celebrated Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1774-1833) who died and was buried at Clifton. His teachings were continued and developed by his successors Maharshi Devendranāth Tagore (the father of the poet Rabindranāth Tagore), Keshav Chandra Sen, and Pratāp Chandra Majumdār. All of these were men of much piety, eloquence, and learning. Sir Alfred Lyall says that "Brahmoism, as propagated by its latest expounders, seems to be unitarianism of a European type, and as far as one can understand its argument, appears to have no logical stability or _locus standi_ between revelation and pure rationalism; it propounds either too much or too little to its hearers." It has, however, been an effectual bar to the spread of Christianity among the educated classes in Bengal. It enables them to remain in touch with Hinduism, from which an adoption of any European creed would effectually divide them. Its services of praise and prayer, with a sermon or discourse, are held on Sundays, and in form resemble those of the Christian free churches. Its creed consists in a belief in the Unity of God, the brotherhood of man, and direct communion with God without the intervention of any mediator. It may fairly be claimed for it that it has satisfied the religious needs of men most of whom lead exemplary and in some cases saintly lives, without compelling them to join what is regarded as a foreign and uncongenial religion. But for Ram Mohan Roy, educated Bengal might well have furnished the nucleus of a Christian Church of India, since, before his time, many distinguished and able converts were made. I need only mention the late Rev. K. M. Bannerjee. The Brahmo Samāj is divided into three sections. The Ādi Samāj, as its name indicates, is the original church. It is the most conservative of the three, and takes its inspiration wholly from the Hindu scriptures, and especially from the Upanishads. The Navavidhān Samāj, founded by Keshav Chandra Sen, "the Church of the New Dispensation," is much more eclectic and has borrowed what it considers acceptable, not only from the holy books of Hinduism, but from Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. The Sādhāran (or "general") Brāhmo Samāj is the most advanced of the three Churches. It rejects caste and the seclusion of women, allows inter-caste marriages, and is seemingly as far from orthodox Hinduism as from orthodox Christianity. It has even allowed one of its lady members to be married to an Englishman by Brāhmo rites. If it can hardly be called Hindu in ritual or in belief, it is Hindu in what is probably regarded as the more important sense of being a purely Indian sect and not a direct product of European missionary zeal.