Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/201

 that shineth upon every heart is our sole guide. Shut against it, man is open to no other benignant influence. God's mercy alone availeth!

In pleading for the prime recognition of individual conscience and experience, a Theist is often charged with arrogating to himself that infallibility which he denies to all else. But the truth lies just at the opposite pole. By his very act of advancing a personal right to Heaven's direct guidance, a Theist is obliged to admit an identical claim for every human being. Nothing is a more effective deterrent to that self-sufficiency which rejoices in its own ignorance or forces its crotchets upon the world than the consciousness that the same Parent of light who sends forth a ray into his soul is every second illumining the hearts of His countless creatures; and that where others see and walk, he yet feels and crawls. Nothing is half so well calculated to humble pride, defeat ambition, rebuke egotism and put self-exaltation out of countenance than the belief that