Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/72

 of those forces that bear a nation onward to improvement, the private life of one that would mould the thoughts, guide the energies and thus shape the destinies of a nation is a public concern. Let it be once conceded that there is good ground for the many moral restraints which a wise government imposes on its public servants; and it will be idle to contend that those who would prescribe the career of a nation need not rise to the standard of those who should manage its passing concerns, or that the integrity enforced about "barbaric pearl and gold" may be safely relaxed concerning what is the most precious jewel of woman and the dearest possession of man. Both may be private as single incidents; but both are public as examples or precedents. In both, the weakness of the few becomes the excuse of the many. In both, the purpose of life is vitiated and the ideal of life is lowered. As Milton very truly points out, it implies a certain lack of manly greatness — a weak mind that "aims not beyond a higher