Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/32

 it, then, impart to the 'chosen vessel' of Grace a grateful, soothing assurance of the Pilgrim's Progress attained through those fruitful years to which one more is happily added today. And well may our profit-laden hearts also carry to the altar of the All-giver the incense of devout thankfulness for this 'guide, philosopher and friend'—"a living and aspiring soul," as Dr. James H. Cousins, the poet-friend of India, called him the other day while acknowledging the first volume; "an earnest and genuine worker" "whose work is one of pure love and self-sacrifice" and "about whose genuine devotion to the cause there can be only one opinion," as the illustrious Ranade, "that 'born prince' among the educated sons of India" (p. 62), described him, among other elect ones, in the Annual Address at the Indian Social Conference of 1898; and "my future hope for the Brahma Samaj in Southern India", as the late Mr. Manna va Butchayya Pantulu, the 'architect' of the Madras Samaj, characterised him even