o differentiate between the precise
tendencies of these two sections, whose feuds seem to be waning. In both
are to be found not a few progressive and enlightened Aryas who,
whatever their political activities may be, have undoubtedly applied
themselves with no small success to the carrying out of that part of
Dayanand's gospel which was directed to the reforming of Hinduism. Their
influence has been constantly exerted to check, the marriages between
mere boys and almost infant girls which have done so much physical as
well as moral mischief to Hindu society, and also to improve the
wretched lot of Hindu widows whose widowhood with all that it entails of
menial degradation often begins before they have ever really been wives.
To this end the Aryas have not hesitated to encourage female education,
and the Girls' Orphanage at Jalandhar, where there is also a widows'
home, has shown what excellent social results can be achieved in that
direction. Again in the treatment of the "untouchable" low-castes, the
Arya Samaj may claim to have been the first native body to break new
ground and to attempt something akin to the work of social reclamation
of which Christianity and, in a lesser degree, Islam had hitherto had
the monopoly. Schools and especially industrial classes have been
established in various districts which cannot fail to raise the _status_
of the younger generation and gradually to emancipate the lower castes
from the bondage in which they have been hitherto held. These and many
other new departures conceived in the same liberal spirit at first
provoked the vehement hostility of the orthodox Hindus, who at one time
stopped all social intercourse with the Arya reformers. But whereas in
other parts of India the idea of social reform came to be associated
with that of Western ascendency and therefore weakened and gave way
before the rising tide of reaction against that ascendency, it has been
associated in the Punjab with the cry of "Arya for the Aryans," and the
political activities of the Arya Samaj, or at least of a number of its
most prominent members who have figured conspicuously in the
anti-British agitation of the last few years, have secured for it from
Hindu orthodoxy a measure of tolerance and even of good will which its
social activities would certainly not otherwise have received. That the
Arya Samaj, which shows the impress of Western influence in so much of
its social work, should at the same time have as