Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/147

 past greatness and glory, has the highest need of it. So it happens that when any such nation awakens to its budding life out of a temporary decadence, its prophets always appeal to the gay vegetation, the gayer flowers and fruits which once adorned and beautified the very place on which the hand of time has had its effect. They point to the wonderful purposes of the Higher Power and in accents of ecstacy speak of the opening spring and its promise. This leads to the dawn of the consciousness that we have the power to realise ourselves and find self-expression incessantly in eternity and that what was in life yesterday can be reproduced to-day and what we achieve to-day may yet be achieved by another generation near or far in the future. This wonderful aspect of life it is that appeals to mankind in heroworship and it was left to Mr. Tilak to grasp the situation instinctively and introduce into Maharashtra the cult of hero-worship in the form of Sivaji celebration. What other name in history can appeal to the Maharatta more strongly than the name of Sivaji that great founder of the Maharatta Empire and greater embodiment of Maharatta genius? What more effective