Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 3.djvu/86

 II

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE :

ITS MAIK SOURCES.

( 1891 )

Even as the corruption of the best is evpr the worst — the most baleful — in consequences, it is sad to reflect that man’s injury to brother-man, in the name of religion, has been more unrelenting in spirit and more anguishing in result than the severest woes which brute nature, red in tooth and claw”, •could inflict on him.

And this intolerance is chiefly begotten by a misconception of the real mission of Truth and of the right nature of man’s allegiance to Truth. To the hindranse of progress and the consequent misery of man, the false idea has prevailed far and wide that it is his un- questioning, because qnthinking, obedience — and not his willing, because intelligent, allegiance — that man owes to Truth. Man has been viewed from a purely physical