Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 1.djvu/70

 potency, of God ; it was a faith that esteemed the world as a reflection, the soul as a vision, and history as a panoramic presentation of the nature and the purpose of the Deity. With Rammohan Roy the man, this faith— this sublime, invigorative theism — was a passion, a power and a joy that made of him a hero and a prophet. To Rammohan Roy the nation-builder, this vital, fertile faith — a faith lofty as the love of God and ample as the wants of man — furnished alike the enduring basis and the cementing strength, the ample range and the towering greatness, of a united and vigorous nation. The deep, perennial source of this quickening faith he found welling up, in increasing volume and purity, from the heart of humanity. Religion he held to be a natural, irresistible instinct in mankind ; it came out with the irrepressible Bj>ontaneity of a craving, an appetite that knew no satis- faction till it realised itself in a felt contact with what was believed to be the Supreme. This, the key-note of his religious message, he struck in what was perhaps his maiden