Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/981

 APPREOIATIONS 4r3` They suffered extreme torture rather than inflict suffering on their persecutors. We tn the Transvaal are being called upon to deny God, in that we are required to deny our manhood, go back upon our oath, and accept an insult to our nation. Shall we, in the present crisis, do less than our forefathers ? " HIS DEEP SPIRITUALITY Hts simplicity is extreme. He is a devoted follower of Tolstoy and Ruskin in their appeal for simpler life, and himself lives the life of an ascetic, eating the simplest fruits of the earth, sleeping often on a piece of sacking on the bare earth in the open air, and he cares nothing for personal appearance. He has reduced himself to a condition of voluntary poverty, and he has entirely abandoned the practice of law believing that he cannot consistently obtain his livelihood from a profession that derives its sanction from physical force He acknowledges no binding ties of kin or custom, but only of the obligation of his own conscience. Ram Krishna tested his freedom from caste-prejudice by sweeping out a partah’s hut with his own hair, Mohandas Gandhi has tested his by tending the wounds of a Babu savage with his own hands. With him the spirit of religion is everything, the world and its opinion nothing. He does not know how to distinguish Hindu from Mahomedan, Christian from infldel. To him all alike are brothers, fragments of the Divine, fellow-spirits struggling for expression. All he has, he gives. With him selbsurrender and absolute sacrifice are demands of his very nature. Hts deep spiri- tuality influences all around, so that no man dares to commit evil in his presence. He lives in the happiness of his friends, but he does not hesitate to create a condition of spiritual unrest in, them when he conceives it his duty to point out the right and condemn the wrong. He cannot condone falsehood, but he reproves and rebukes lovingly. Indeed, love is his only weapon against evil He sees God in every living thing, and therefore loves all mankind and the whole animal world. He is strictly vegetarian, not because of orthodoxy, but because he cannot cause the death of any creature and because he believes that life is of God. In faith he is probably nearer in touch with pure Jainism or Buddhism than any other creed, though no formal creed can really hold him, To him all is God, and from that reality he deduces his whole line of con- duct. Perhaps, in this generation, India has not produced such a noble man-·—saint, patriot, statesman in one. He ltves for God and for India. Hts one desire is to see unity amongst his fellow- oountrymen. His every endeavour in South Africa was directed to showing the possibility of Indian national unity and the lines upon which the national edifice should be constructed. Hts win- ning manners, Pleasant smile and refreshing candour and originality of thought and action mark him out as a leader of men. But those who know him best recognise in him the religious, teacher, the indicator of God, the inspiring example of " a pure,