Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 1.djvu/12

iv editorial shortcomings? And may the ever-generous Master pardon, too, the presumption behind an enterprise kept clean out of his knowledge even!

The writings and discourses now brought out or by no means among the best or the most recent in stock. Their selection as well as classification has had to be somewhat haphazard through diverse exigencies. However, the years (as noted) of composition or delivery, stretching across the wide span from 1885 on to 1919, will serve to mark the varying degrees of merit. For they indicate the several stages of development alike of mind and art in a soul peculiarly alive and alert and constantly enriched and mellowed by study, thought, meditation and communion—all in a perpetual atmosphere of noble well- doing ‘twice blest.’

No adequately complete survey of the "Message and Ministrations" can be aimed at before the present volume is followed up with its intended successors. They must embody the golden stores yet in the barn and those still to be garnered, including the