Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/22

 What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul! Return good for evil. Hatred ceases not by hatred but by love. How often has humanity in its long story listened to such exhortations! And yet how few are the souls to whom they have ever carried the waters of life! To all men, surely, come glimpses of the highest. At the moment they touch our being with ecstasy and fade even before they are recognised. Not so with the great Ones of earth, the elect of God. They live their lives as ever before the altar. A divine inebriation is upon them and they can know no rest till they have drained the immortal cup to the dregs. The steeps they sight they needs must climb: and far down in the valley there kneels before them an adoring host of mortals.

The spontaneous and heartfelt reverence which Mr. Gandhi's name inspires to-day is a token that in him also India has recognised one such born priest of the ideal. The Sermon on the Mount may appear to many as gloriously impractical, but to Mr. Gandhi at least nothing is or ought to be more practical. To turn the left cheek when the right is beaten; to bless those that curse; to suffer for