Page:The Autobiography of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore.djvu/47

Rh forty-six years, spent in obeying the divine command to "make known to the world the truth which he had gained." He was now forty-one years of age, mature in spirit as in body, filled with an abundant life, capable as never before of holding a steady balance between the worlds of spirit and of sense. The double life of action and contemplation, of supernal love and of human work, towards which that God Who is both active and at rest had led through joy and pain the growing soul, was possible to him at last. We know from the witness of others the courage and industry with which that self-giving life was led : a life, rooted in the Infinite yet manifesting itself in a universal charity towards all finite things, which obtained for Devendranath even in his lifetime the title of "great saint" His aim was the aim of all the true mystics, to "be to the Eternal Goodness what his own hand is to a man" an instrument wherewith the Supreme Artist could do His creative work. His achievement might have been expressed in the beautiful words which Walt Whitman has placed on the lips of the aged Columbus that perfect type of heroic love in action, whose every enterprise was filled with God

Thou knowest my years entire, my life, My long and crowded life of active work, not adoration merely ; Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth, Thou knowest my manhood s solemn and visionary meditations, Thou Knowest how before I commenced I devoted all to come to Thee,