Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 3.djvu/81

36 India’s cultural power, their sisters in distinction represent India’s cultural glory, 'a light to young or old’. A hallowed sentiment of this land demands that the mother shall be venerated as the first—the earliest and dearest—object of worshipful esteem. To you who are the expression of ‘the mother’, I accord, not only the respect due to grace, but also the reverence due to sanctity. In you and the other members of the sisterhood is vested the true greatness of the nation. May you achieve your heaven-appointed mission!

To Graduates of the Year in all the Faculties I would, in conclusion, address one word with all the solemnity of the farewell moment. It is not a word new to you; nor is it a word you will be suffered to forget. It is a word associated in the human mind with mingled feelings of awe, sadness and thankfulness—even the regnant word, Duty. The longer one lives and strives to be true to the purer promptings of one’s nature, the more vividly is brought home to one ’s con-