Page:Report on the Memorial Meeting for Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/26

 from this place and tried to spread throughout the world not merely lip service to the ideals for which he lived and died, hut to put them into application to avoid the horrible and devastating war which seems to be so swiftly rushing upon the world.”

LIN YUTANG, Chinese Philosopher and Author; Honorary President, India League of America:

“Since Mahatma Gandhi’s death, I have tried in my mind to place him. In the perspective of modern history, where does he belong? Suppose we take the ten greatest men of modern times—or seven, or five, or three greatest. What would happen?

“Some years ago, there was an American magazine article on the big ten of the world, and Gandhi of course was one of them. I find that Gandhi does not belong to what the world called the big three, and I find myself drifting to the conclusion Inevitably that he is the big one, and I say so without fear of contradiction, because without any doubt, of the great world leaders of the 20th century, living or dead—he was the one who lived closest to God.

“If President Wilson were living today, I would call them the big two, but since President Wilson is dead, there was only one left, and he just died.

“Gandhi belongs to another category, the category of faith, and since the modern world is not in the habit of producing saints, he is the solitary example. I think we must think of Gandhi in a different light. We should rather think of him in connection with mankind, with men like Einstein or women like Madame Curie, and yet he is in a class by himself. He is not like Einstein or Madame Curie. He towers above us, in a class all by himself.

“He was even different from Tolstoy because in him and in him alone the spiritual level and religious level met and merged and became one, and that is nothing short of a miracle. For remember, he was not only a