Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/451

 energy—in the capacity for sustained application to divers duties—his strength was "as the strength of ten'. He "scorned delights and lived laborious days", though the "spur" to those exertions was something sublimer than the motive which the poet specifies. Again, the advantages of birth, position and fortune could have potently helped him to eminence, even with a less conspicuous endowment of mental and moral worth. A well-known countryman of his, also an educationist, is reported to have observed that, possessing a fraction of Dr. Miller's independent means, he himself would not have troubled to come out to India. Yet all this fund of facilities and opportunities he placed at the feet of his Master to be employed all for His glory. The task set to him—rather, the task gradually unfolded to him—was manifestly of gigantic proportions. Let us try to realise the nature of the work to which he was called, the conditions under which he had to labour, the aims which he had to keep in view,