Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/968



MR. S. E. STOKES

At last we have found a MAN, honest, fearless, and fired with true patriotism—a man whom the common people trust and one who is able to fire them with the flame of his own idealism. If we sacrifice him to our petty doubts and fears, the time will come when we shall deeply and vainly regret it, for such leaders are not granted to a nation every day.

There is no question as to whether Mahatmaji is worthy to lead India; it remains to be seen if India is worthy of its great leader, and will loyally support him in his great act of faith.

VINCENT ANDERSON

All India is at the feet of Mohandas Karamohand Gandhi. Preaching a political creed that is new to the Hindu and renewing Vedic ideals of asceticism and sacrifice in his own life, this man has within a brief span of months united Hindu and Muhammadan in a common bond of fraternity that has not existed in India since the days of Gautama. A small, slim, dark, composed man with a tremendous personal magnetism, a man with the untiring energy of Roosevell, the human sympathy of Debs and the philosophy of Tolstoy, Gandhi has developed into a force so potent that the English dare not imprison him. (Nation, New York).

SIR VALENTINE CHIROD

Of his earnestness and sincerity no one who listens to him can entertain much doubt, nor of his childlike simplicity if he can persuade himself that all those behind and beside him are inspired by his own idealism.

With a perfect command of accurate and lucid English, and in a voice as persuasive as his whole manner is gentleness itself, he explains, more in pity than in anger, that India has at last recovered her own soul through the fiery ordeal which Hindus and Mahomedans had alike undergone in the Punjab and the perfect act of faith which the “Khilafat” meant for all Mahomedans.

Not, however, by violence, but by her unique “soul force,” would she attain to “Swaraj,” and, purged of the degrading influnces of British rule and Western civilisation, return to the ancient ways of Vedic wisdom, and to the peace which was hers before alien domination divided and exploited her people.— Times.

Ms. C.F. ANDREWS

In Mahatma Gandhi we have a volcanic personality, a moral genius of the first order, who has revealed to us all the hidden power of a living freedom from within, who has taught us to depend not on any external resources but on ourselves. My whole heart goes out to his appeal and I have a great hope that, along this path, independence will be reached at last,