Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/74

 high objects of life, that one who surrenders comfort and position and accepts loss and reproach for a humble or neglected cause, is placed by his professed supporters under the same vinculum with the skilled workman ever available to the party that "pays." Unless discipleship deteriorate into what Carlyle stigmatises as 'spanielship,' it cannot be true that he who may be the sorriest or the most indifferent of mortals and he who fears the Lord and walks in the light of His wisdom are alike fitted to marshal the energies and forecast the future of a nation. The former is "a soldier of fortune" whose cleverness any one may buy; the latter, "a guide, philosopher and friend" entitled to our profoundest respect and, on that very account, bound to satisfy our highest expectations in social virtues. He is a Representative Man' whom wisdom and gratitude alike would decline to measure with the mercenary standard of a paid pilot; and to demand this personal purity in one thus exalted is but a fresh instance