Page:Report on the Memorial Meeting for Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/7

 plunged in unspeakable grief. As we who are here on business connected with both parts of that country look back upon the life of the man who is no more, the thought that overwhelms and oppresses us is that we would not be able to look upon his face again in our lives.

“What is it that he stood for in life? He stood for peace, for truth, for non-violence and a life of sacrifice. Many of the speakers who have preceded me have brought attention to some of these aspects, but I desire today, this afternoon, to refer only to one or two of them.

“I would stress particularly the fact that his was a life of sacrifice; in the leveling of human dignity amongst all classes of the human race, the philosophy that finds most favor in the West is the philosophy of what I might call plenty. That is to say that the highest aim of human endeavor should be to lift human beings from material poverty to material plenty. Gandhi stood for a gospel which tried to achieve the same end of leveling human dignity by teaching that if we want to make all human beings feel equal in human dignity, much more has to be done by those who have been born to a life of plenty and riches, much more has to be done by them by way of sacrifice, and try to lead a life which sacrifices all the luxuries and comforts that their riches and plenty give them, and try to live down to the life of the man who has been born to poverty and yet who can rise to the highest human dignity by spiritual evolution. That, I think, was the root doctrine at the base of his life.

“There is another fact of his life to which I would like to call your attention this afternoon, and that is that no man is entitled to go forth and preach to the world if he is not prepared to translate into his own life all that he preaches.

“I remember going to him only two hours before I took off for