Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/21

 than that, the positive self-abasement of the devout genius of the author, — the continuance of the editorial task, amidst its besetting difficulties, has naturally been sustained by no small degree of pious exhilaration. That joy, that enthusiasm, now is crowned with the confident hope that, at every point and even on a surface view, enough will be found, in this fit successor to the Jubilee Volume, to arrest attention and engage interest, to afford delight and provide edification.

The strong impulse to merge the purveying editor in the commending reviewer through something like a close survey of the rich content of the work or even a critical estimation of the distinctive excellences of its several parts, must needs be resisted at this yet early stage in the execution of the entire plan. As in the case of the Indian Theistic Conference Presidential Address in the prior volume, the 'place of honour' is assigned here to the 'monumental' disquisition of 1901 upon the 'first principles' of social