Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/122

 sion for a maid" — that is the ideal the poet commends unto you all ; and when you have acquired that, it is no longer a struggle, no longer an effort, no longer even a desire, to be able to keep yourself pure. Why, then you will naturally and necessarily be pure. Have you not known instances where a man comes into, and settles down with, a family, till by and by he becomes a member of the family and has a recognised place in the household and he says with a smile, "Cut off from you, where can I go even inspite of occasional differences and superficial disturbances?" So, too, whatever the passing agitations on the surface, the human heart attached to the settled object of its love says, "Where can this heart go? It cannot go. It is fixed there."

Every life is a life of slow but steady and sustained endeavour : as in our starting story, first, the thread ; then, the string ; then, the rope ; then, the cord. You build up your life little by little. It is not by means of comprehensive, abstract princi-