Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 3.djvu/447

 time in the age, so to speak, preached the old yet ever new gospel of a full life as opposed to, as distinguished from, a life of angular development. He it was who first showed, alike in theory and in practice, how life, in addition to being contemplative, could also be amplified and intensified—in short, be lived to completeness. Unlike the Rajah’s life, Vidyasagar’s was, it is true, not marked by a ‘catholic wholeness’ of capacities and interests; nevertheless, it lacked not the essence of that spirit. The mantle of the Rajah, at any rate in the ministry of social reform, surely fell on Vidyasagar. He was truly an Elisha coming after the Elijah of this age. A man of lofty intellect and a noble, sympathetic heart, he devoted the richest of powers to the noblest of social services. He was not merely a great man but a hero and a sage with an extraordinary degree of selfless and practical generosity—at once the glory of India and the ‘cynosure’ of other climes. A true prophet like Vidyasagar cannot but ultimately be honoured even in his own land. The nearness