Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 1.djvu/434

384 human activities. As Carlyle has said, we weave all around us so many cobweb-theories. We believe those cobwebs to be mighty fences! But a great man comes. He realises that these are webs. And he passes on without any effort; and they themselves disappear 1 As Dr. Martineau has it, the supremacy of the moral law is such that it is binding upon a lonely individual living in the wilderness as solemnly as upon a man in society. Life is a sacred trust. Every hour and minute must be employed. Laziness is not merely repugnant, but also something impossible and inconceivable, to him who has some divine spirit in him. There are people to whom duty is but a secondary thing. But duty merges into spontaneity with him to whom life is a sacred trust. And when it has done so, the next thing is that life is then measured not by years but by thoughts and deeds. Such a person crowds into one hour all the fervour and intensity, the inspiring zeal and the slow and hard-earned acquisitions, of any ordinary mas. Unto such a man, day and night cease to come in their