Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 1.djvu/52

 grateful acknowledgment; and this may sympathetically be viewed as a humble tribute that deep gratitude pays to unstinted generosity. It may, possibly, also afford an opportunity to see whether the bread of truth that Bengal has cast from time to time on the waters of life in the south has been vouchsafed any return. Apart, however, from these considerations, the sense of the unfitness of the person for the position is too oppressively heavy to sustain but for the trust that the counsels and the conduct of the Theistic Conference are in the charge of the Supreme One, whose unerring guidance is ever accorded to all confiding souls. Whosoever may physically fill this seat — whether wisely and worthily as at Benares or merely mechanically as now — after all, the Lord God is the true President — the guiding Genius and sustaining Strength — of this Conference. In a gathering convened and conducted by His grace every heart is an oracle of His voice, and every soul a shekinah of His spirit. At His holy call have come, with expectant hearts and pilgrim steps, scores of those that