Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/203

 monies of praise and prayer. It is only when the nectar of truth is imbibed into the blood and the sinews of the soul that religion shapes itself into holy lives and happy homes, free commonwealths and model societies.

Toleration is the watchword of the times. But toleration presupposes the right to free action as prompted by individual mind and heart. Except on the postulate that every man is at liberty to follow his lights, that the law enacted in each heart—the voice heard in each bosom—is the supreme authority for that man, toleration would not only be meaningless but also amount to a deplorable negligence of an imperative duty that man owes to his brethren.

The study of comparative religion is in these days warmly advocated on all hands. But unless the human soul is acknowledged to be endowed with certain fundamental spiritual intuitions which constitute the data for measuring the relative excellence of the diverse claimants