Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/120

 when India was great and glorious, accorded to them." Finally, with reluctance, he touched on two moral shortcomings, sadly prevalent: no adequate conception of the sanctity of the spoken word; and jealousy among fellow-workers—feelings which prevent effectual combination in the national cause. I would ask the attention of Indian friends to the full text of what Mr. Hume said on this occasion with regard to these shortcomings. The faults referred to are not of a heinous order; but, with fatherly anxiety, he spoke strongly regarding them, because he believed that such defects seriously barred the progress of those whom he regarded as his children.



But while thus strenuous in his admonition with regard to defects which he specially deprecated, he did not lose sight of the general conditions essential to national progress in India, among a people with customs and traditions originating from an ancient civilization, though modified by foreign aggressions, and by the influences of modern thought. His attitude was judicial; and he recognized that any specific social reform was only one portion of the great work which sought the regeneration of India on all lines, spiritual, social, political, and economic. With the foresight of the experienced organizer he pointed out that success could only be achieved if all reformers—however diverse their specific objects—worked in combination, with a due sense of proportion, and a reasonable regard for existing conditions. These views are set forth in a letter which was published in the Indian Spectator of the 1st of February 1885. It is entitled "A letter to Mr. Behramji M. Malabari on the subject of his notes upon Infant Marriages and Enforced Widowhood, and 106