more amazing than the others, may serve to show to what depths the divine words have penetrated into the spirit of the nation.

As is well known, the Sikhs have always been looked upon as one of the most warlike races in India. Large numbers of them served in the army during the war. Last year grave dissensions arose among them. To our Western eyes the cause seems insignificant. As the result of a religious effervescence, one of the Sikh sects, the Akalis, wished to purify the sanctuaries. The latter had fallen into the hands of guardians of ill repute who refused to be put out. For legal reasons the Government took up their defense. And in August, 1922, began the daily martyrdom of Guru-KaBagh, a santuary in Gurdwara. The Akalis adopted the doctrine of nonresistance. A thousand of them settled near the sanctuary, while four thousand took up abode in the Golden Temple at Amritsar, ten miles away. Every day one hundred from among the four thousand, most of them men of military age, many of whom served in the war, left the Golden Temple, after taking the vow of remaining true to the principles of non-violence in thought as well as action, and of reaching Guru-Ka-Bagh or being brought back unconscious. Among the group of the thousand volunteers twentyfive made the same vow every day. Not far from the sanctuary the British constables waited at the bridge with iron-tipped rods to stop the manifestation. And every day a gruesome scene took place. With a wreath of small white flowers around their black turbans, the Akalis arrived silently before the constables, and at a distance of about a yard they stopped and be

gan to pray silently, motionlessly. The constables, in order to drive them away, prodded them with the irontipped rods, jabbing harder and harder till blood began to flow and the Sikhs fell unconscious. Those who could get to their feet would begin to pray again, until they were beaten into unconsciousness like the others. An eye-witness writes that he did not hear a single cry, nor did he see a defiant glance. Near by a crowd of spectators, their faces tense with anguish, prayed silently. "I could not help thinking," Andrews says, "of the shadow of the cross." The English described the scene in their papers and expressed amazement. It all seemed incomprehensible to the British, although they had to admit that the absurd sacrifice proved that the idea of non-coöperation and non-violence was gaining ground and that the people of the Punjab had been won over to the doctrine. Andrews, whose generous spirit and pure idealism enabled him to penetrate the soul of India, says that here he saw, like Goethe at Valmy, "the dawn of a new era." era." "A new heroism, steeled by suffering, has risen, a war of the spirit."

It would seem as if the people of India have lived up to the mahatma's spirit more faithfully than those whose mission it was to guide them. I have already spoken of the opposition to Gandhi at the session of the congress committee at Delhi twenty days before the master was arrested. This opposition still manifested itself when the committee met again, at Lucknow, June 7, 1922. The program of patient waiting and silent reconstruction advocated by Gandhi was bitterly criticized, and a motion was made to proclaim civil disobedience. A com

mission was appointed to inquire into conditions and determine whether the country might be called ripe for civil disobedience. The commission traveled all over India, and in the autumn sent in a discouraging report. Not only was civil disobedience called impractical for the present, but half the members went to such extremes of conservatism as to suggest that Gandhi's methods of non-coöperation be abandoned and a new swaraj, or homerule, party be formed within the government councils. Gandhi's doctrine was, in other words, attacked by those who believed in violence, as well as by those who believed in prudence.

India, however, did not accept the commission's report. In its annual meeting at the end of December, 1922, the National Indian Congress energetically proclaimed its allegiance to the persecuted master and his doctrine of non-coöperation. By 1740 votes to 890 it rejected all participation in government councils. As for those who believed in violence, they were few and far between, and had little influence. The session closed with a unanimous resolution, urging that the political strike ordered by Gandhi be kept up. A resolution boycottA resolution boycotting English materials, however, was turned down in order not to antagonize European workmen. But the Mussulman conference of the califate, as usual more audacious than the congress, voted for the boycott by a large majority.

Here we must stop the record of the Gandhist movement. Despite a few inevitable backslides due to the absence of the master and his best disciples, imprisoned like himself, especially the Ali brothers, the move

ment has successfully passed through the trials of the first unguided year. And the English press, at the close of the session of the congress of 1922 at Gaya, expresses surprise and disappointment at the progress of the movement.

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And what will now come? Will England, wiser for past experiences, know how to mold the aspirations of the people of India? And will this people remain true to its ideal? Nations have short memories, and I should have but slight faith in India's power to remain true to the mahatma's teaching if his doctrines were not an expression of the deepest and most ancient longings of the race. For if there is such a thing as genius, great by its own strength whether or not it corresponds to the ideals of its surroundings, there can be no genius of action, no leader, who does not incarnate the instincts of his race, satisfy the need of the hour, and requite the yearning of the world.

Mahatma Gandhi does all this. His principle of ahimsa (non-violence) has been inscribed in the spirit of India for more than two thousand years. Mahavira, Buddha, and the cult of Vishnu have made it the substance of millions of souls. Gandhi has merely transfused heroic blood into it. He called upon the great shadows, the forces of the past, plunged in mortal lethargy, and at the sound of his voice they came to life. In him they found themselves. Gandhi is more than a word; he is an example. He incarnates the spirit of his people. Blessed the man who is a people, his people, entombed, and then resuscitated in him! But such resur

rections are never haphazard. If the spirit of India now surges forth from temples and forests, it is because it holds the message for which the world is sighing.

This message carries the boundaries of India.

far beyond India alone India alone could formulate it, but it consecrates the nation's greatness as much as its sacrifice. It may become its cross.

For it would seem as if a people must be sacrificed in order to give new life to the world. The Jews were sacrificed to their Messiah, whom they had borne for centuries in their thoughts, and whom they did not recognize when He finally flowered on the blood-stained cross. More fortunate, India has recognized her messiah, and joyously the people march to the sacrifice which is to set them free.

But, like the early Christians, they do not all understand the real meaning of their liberation. For a long time the Christians awaited the fulfilment of the adveniat regnum tuum. In India there are many who do not see beyond swaraj, or home rule. Incidentally, I imagine that this political goal will soon be reached. Europe, bled by wars and revolutions, impoverished and exhausted, despoiled of her prestige in the eyes of Asia, which she formerly oppressed, cannot long resist on Asiatic soil the aspirations of the awakened peoples of Islam, India, China, and Japan. But this would mean little, no matter how rich and new might be the harmonies which a few more nations would bring to the human symphony; this would mean little, if the surging spirit of Asia did not become the vehicle for a new ideal of life and of death, and, what is more, of action for all humanity, and

if it did not bring a new viaticum to prostrate Europe.

The world is swept by the wind of violence. This storm which ravages the harvest of our civilization did not break out from a clear sky. Centuries of brutal national pride, whetted by the idolatrous ideology of the French Revolution, spread by the empty mockery of democracies, and crowned by a century of inhuman industrialism, rapacious plutocracy, and a materialistic system of economics where the soul perishes, stifled to death, were bound to culminate in these dark struggles where the treasures of the West succumbed. It is not enough to say all this was inevitable. There is a diŋ in it. Each people kills the other in the name of the same principles, which all hide the same covetousness and Cainish instincts. All, be they nationalists, fascists, Bolshevists, members of the oppressed classes, members of the oppressing classes, claim that they have the right to use force, while refusing this right to others. Half a century ago might dominated right. To-day things are far worse. Might is right. Might has devoured right.

In the old crumbling world, no refuge, no hope, no great light. The church gives innocuous advice, virtuous and dosed, carefully worded so as not to antagonize the mighty. Besides, the church never sets the example even when giving advice. Weak pacifists bray languishingly, and one feels that they hesitate and fumble, talk about a faith they no longer believe in. Who will prove this faith? And how, in an unbelieving world? Faith is proved by action.

This is the great message to the world, or, as Gandhi puts it, India's message self-sacrifice.

And Tagore has repeated the same inspired words, for on this proud principle Tagore and Gandhi agree.

"Our object," Gandhi has said, "is friendship with the whole world. Non-violence has come to men, and it will remain. It is the annunciation of

peace on earth.”

The peace of the world is far off. We have no illusions. We have seen, abundantly, during the course of half a century, the hypocrisy, the cowardice, and the cruelty of mankind. But this does not prevent us from loving mankind. For even among the worst there is a nescio quid Dei. We know the material ties that weigh on twentieth-century Europe, the crushing determinism of economic conditions which hem it in; we know that centuries of passions and systematized error have built a crust about our souls which the light cannot pierce. But we also know what miracles the spirit can work.

Historians, we have seen its glory brighten skies even darker than our own. We, who live but a day, have caught in India the sound of the tambour of Çiva, "the Master Dancer who veils his devouring eye and guards his steps to save the world from plunging into the abyss."

The Realpolitiker of violence, whether revolutionary or reactionary, ridicule our faith, and reveal thereby their ignorance of deep reality. Let them jeer! I have this faith. I know it is scorned and persecuted in Europe, and that in my own land we are but a

handful are we even a handful?who believe in it. And even if I were the only one to believe in it, what would it matter! The true characteristic of faith is not to deny the hostility of the world, but to recognize it and to believe in spite of it! Faith is a battle. And our non-violence is the most desperate battle. The way to peace is not through weakness. We do not fight violence so much as weakness. weakness. Nothing is worth while unless it is strong, neither good nor evil. Absolute evil is better than emasculated goodness. Moaning pacifism is the death-knell of peace; it is cowardice and lack of faith. Let those who do not believe, or who fear, withdraw! The way to peace leads through self-sacrifice.

This is Gandhi's message. The only thing lacking is the cross. Every one knows that had it not been for the Jews, Rome would not have given it to Christ. The British Empire is no better than ancient Rome. The impetus has been given. The soul of Oriental peoples has been moved in its deepest fibers, and its vibrations are felt the whole world over.

The great religious apparitions of the Orient are ruled by a rhythm. One thing is certain, either Gandhi's spirit will triumph, or it will manifest itself again, as were manifested, centuries before, the Messiah and Buddha, till there finally is manifested, in a mortal half-god, the perfect incarnation of the principle of life which will lead a new humanity on to a new path.