Page:Report on the Memorial Meeting for Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/14



“In my country, we feel that we lost one of our own. Personally, for me, when I learned this news, I lost a great hope. All my life, my great hope was that I would meet this man, and at this moment that hope is completely gone.”

JOHN HAYNES HOLMES, Minister, Community Church, New York:

“Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: The death of Gandhi a week ago yesterday was accompanied in my heart by a two-fold reaction, each side of which was very definite and ran very deep. First of all, there was the sense of shock and grief. I trust that I shall never feel again the depth of emotion and agony that swept over my heart when the news came from New Delhi.

“On the other hand, there was the infinite comfort that seemed to come to me at the outpouring of anguish and of adoration and reverence that flooded not merely India, but all the world. I realized that at last mankind had discovered Gandhi and in his loss, knew how irreparable was that loss to humankind.

“It is this homage of mankind of which I want to speak for a moment this afternoon, for I have only a moment at my disposal. Where did it come from? What did it mean? What did it signify from the standpoint of Gandhi's relation to the great body of humankind upon the earth today?

“Well, first of all, it involved very definitely, it seems to me, a recognition of Gandhi’s greatness as a man and as a public leader. The measure of his greatness is to be seen in the fact that now that he is gone, he is absolutely irreplaceable Not among all of the 400,000,000 of India is there to be found a single man to take his place. Run around the circle of the whole world, and where can you find a single personality to match with his? Course through the ages that have gone by, and where can you find a parallel to his career?