Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/453

 who can estimate, in its full measure? He landed on her shores, when hardly twenty-five years old, with an extraordinary reserve of physical and mental vigour; he bade her a reluctant farewell, as a worn-out, half-blind old man verging on the Biblical terminus of threescore and ten. With him "the ideal life was the life of service"; and for full forty-five years he spent himself out in the service of India. The labours of that prolonged period, so rich in piety and zeal, he replenished with money contributions to the tune of some lakhs of rupees. He looked upon himself as the 'steward' of his Lord; and the closing account rendered of that stewardship is a princely bequest to the College and the Country which he loved so warmly and toiled for so selflessly. He sought no 'wages' save the 'wages of Virtue'—"the wages of going on and not to die." With the retrospect of half-a-century before his mind, he owned, "I feel thankful to have had the work of my life assigned, to me among you;" and again, "your welfare