some claim upon your
attention. I have endeavoured to study the Bible. I consider it as part
of my scriptures. The spirit of the Sermon on the Mount competes almost
on equal terms with the Bhagavad Gita for the domination of my heart. I
yield to no Christian in the strength of devotion with which I sing
"Lead kindly light" and several other inspired hymns of a similar
nature. I have come under the influence of noted Christian missionaries
belonging to different denominations. And enjoy to this day the
privilege of friendship with some of them. You will perhaps, therefore,
allow that I have offered the above suggestion not as a biased Hindu,
but as a humble and impartial student of religion with great leanings
towards Christianity. May it not be that "Go ye unto all the world"
message has been somewhat narrowly interpreted and the spirit of it
missed? It will not be denied, I speak from experience, that many of the
conversions are only so-called. In some cases the appeal has gone not to
the heart but to the stomach. And in every case a conversion leaves a
sore behind it which, I venture to think, is avoidable. Quoting again
from experience, a new birth, a change of heart, is perfectly possible
in every one of the great faiths. I know I am now treading upon thin
ice. But I do not apologise in closing this part of my subject, for
saying that the frightful outrage that is just going on in Europe,
perhaps shows that the message of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Peace,
had been little understood in Europe, and that light upon it may have to
be thrown from the East.

I have sought your help in religious matters, which it is yours to give
in a special sense. But I make bold to seek it even in political
matters. I do not believe that religion has nothing to do with politics.
The latter divorced from religion is like a corpse only fit to be
buried. As a matter of fact, in your own silent manner, you influence
politics not a little. And I feel that, if the attempt to separate
politics from religion had not been made as it is even now made, they
would not have degenerated as they often appear to have done. No one
considers that the political life of the country is in a happy state.
Following out the Swadeshi spirit, I observe the indigenous institutions
and the village panchayats hold me. India is really a republican
country, and it is because it is that, that it has survived every shock
hitherto delivered. Princes and potentates, w