Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/346

 it was a noble sentiment. It was a sentiment that had to be cherished as a religious sentiment. It was a sentiment that bound people together; it was a sentiment that bound creatures to the Creator. That was the sentiment for which he asked them, advised them, if necessary, to die. Their action would be reflected throughout the British Dominions, through the length and breadth of India, and they were now upon their trial. There was no better and no fear for a man who believed in God. No matter what might be said, he would always repeat that it was a struggle for religious liberty. By religion they did not mean formal religion, or customary religion, but that religion which underlay all religions, which brought them face to face with their Maker. If they ceased to be men; if, on taking a deliberate vow, they broke that vow in order that they might remain in the Transvaal without physical inconvenience, they undoubtedly forsook their God. To repeat again the words of the Jew of Nazareth, those who would follow God had to leave the world, and he had called upon his countrymen, in that particular instance, to leave the world and cling to God, as a child would cling to the mother's breast.

Their natural deaths they could die far outside the Transvaal, wherever there was a piece of earth given them, but if they would die a noble death, a man's death, there was only one course open to them.