Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/984

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The strange trial proceeded and as I listened to the immortal words that flowed with prophetic fervour from the lips of my beloved master, my thoughts sped across the centuries to different land and different age when a similar drama was enacted and another divine and gentle teacher was crucified, for spreading a kindred gospel with a kindred courage. I realised now that the lowly Jesus of Nazareth cradled in a manner furnished the only true parallel in history to this sweet invincible apostle of Indian liberty who loved humanity with surpassing compassion and to use his own beautiful phrase, "approached the poor with the mind of the poor."

The most epic event of modern times ended quickly.

The pent-up emotion of the people burst in a storm of sorrow as a long slow procession moved towards him in a mournful pilgrimage of farewell, clinging to the hands that had toiled so incessantly, bowing over the feet that had journeyed so continuously in the service of his country.

In the midst of all this poignant scene of many-voiced and myriad-hearted grief he stood, untroubled, in all his transcendent implicity, the embodied symbol of the Indian Nation—its living sacrifice and sacrament in one.

They might take him to the utmost ends of the earth but his destination remains unchanged in the hearts of his people who are both the heirs and the stewards of his matchless dreams and his matchless deeds. — (Contributed to the "Bombay Chronicle" soon after Mr. Gandhi’s trial.)

BABU DWIJENDRANATH TAGORE

Let critics of Mahatma Gandhi then look to history before they condemn him for trying to bring this much-belauded Modern Civilsation down to the common starting point of all great civilisations. We are at dawn of a New Era, and Mahatma Gandhi is the one leader who shows to us the right path. He at least is watering the roots, while all others who try to keep alive the Civilisation of the Western naions are like foolish gardeners who lavish water on the withering leaves of a dying tree and never think of watering its roots. — (Young India.)

THE CHALLENGE (LONDON)

Here is a man of whom all those who know him testify that he is singularly Christ-like, one who has based his whole position upon the ultimate supremacy of moral over physical force, one of whom the worst that can he said is that he is a visionary whose dreams could not, in the present state of human society, be realised. Unpractical—"My Kingdom is not of this world," an agitator—"He stirreth up the people"; better arrested—"It is expedient that one man should die for the people." We have read, with growing conviction of the parallelism,