Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/138

 to a well-ordered life. The evil with us all lies in thinking that the ordinary relations are commonplace. But the father and the mother, the uncle and the aunt, the brother and the sister, the husband and the wife—all these relations have a profound significance. Can you really believe that we are all drawn together and knit together only that we may feel a passing physical or domestic pleasure? No. Revering a mother, honouring a father, cherishing a sister, loving a wife—I should think that these are altogether priceless privileges granted unto us by a benevolent God.

Remember, therefore, that this is a pledge not merely of purity and temperance but also of faithfulness and devotion; this is a pledge not of so many lines or of so many days; it is really a pledge of solemn vow*s for so many months, so many years, so many generations, aye, so many centuries; this is a pledge not on the paper on which it is printed; but it is a pledge of the heart on