Page:Report on the Memorial Meeting for Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/19



CHARLES MALIK, (Lebanon) Chairman of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations:

“Mr. Chairman, the passing of Mahatma Gandhi is a great loss to every man in the world who has a part in the betterment of mankind. Nor it was Gandhi, more than any man of our age, who Intended by his life and doc¬ trines to become a man by whose teachings the world should rise to the highest levels for which it is designed by its creator.

“We in the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, who pursue ideas of cooperation between the nations in respect to the raising of standards of living, and also of cultural attainment among the peoples of the world — we particularly feel very deeply the loss of that great leader.

“If any man would understand what we are trying to do in that council in the economic and social and cultural fields throughout the world, it certainly would be the great soul who has passed from amongst us, and to my mind the deepest thing that I learned from the life of this great man is his stand on truth and spirit; for to Gandhi there was such a thing as truth and there was such a thing as spirit and the two are made for one another.

“This was not an abstract and external truth such as the scientists seek alone. It is also a living, spiritual, dynamic realization of life itself at its highest, and this truth which we are seeking is not hidden away from us, but we can attain it in this life by effort and sincerity and purity of heart, and I would ask, my friends, that so long as the continent of Asia produced such seers and sages as Gandhi who can take their stand first and foremost on the ultimateness of truth and on the possibility of human spirit — so long as the continent of Asia produced such men, is Asia and is the rest of the world yet without hope?”