Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 969

948
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
self-contemplation by the same being illustrated in the pratibimbas of the Jinas. The weakness-conquering
stone, from which they can begin to build themselves up....... That man in some sense or other, worships heroes; that we all of us reverence and must ever reverence Great Men: this is, to me, the living rock amid all rushings-down whatsoever."
The italics are ours, and they speak for themselves. Even to-day men and women assemble in thousands in Trafalgar Square in London to do honour to a statue of stone that stands there! They illuminate the whole neighbourhood; they place garlands of flower on the object of their adoration! Is it idolatry they practise? Are they idolators? No, no, such a thing is simply impossible; no one can accuse the English of idolatry! It is not worshipping the block of stone; they ask nothing from it; they offer it no food, nor do they pray to it. If you look more closely into their "Statue-worship," you will find it to be the adoration of a something of which the figure in stone is a symbol. It is not the statue of Nelson they assemble to worship, but the spirit of the brave man, the fearless sailor who made England what she is to-day, -the acknowledged Queen of the Seas. The English are a nation of sailors: take away their sea-power, and they are gone. But for the glorious achievements of the British navy, England would have been overrun by Germany to-day. The English know it, and pour forth, spontaneously, almost unconsciously, the warmest devotion of their free hearts on the one being who saved them from utter ruin in the past, But if Nelson himself was able to save England from destruction only once, his inspiration has been her salvation not once, nor twice, but repeatedly. The great sailor is now dead; he may no longer command the fleet of England in the hour of danger; he may win no more laurels for himself or victories for his country; but his spirit and influence survive. For there is not a sailor lad in the whole of the United Kingdom who does not brighten up at the mention of Nelson's name, who does not reverently recognize him as a model of greatness for himself, who does not draw powerful inspiration from his life. The nation that placed the statue of this great man in a conspicuous part of the capital of their country knew that they were not merely erecting a statue to the memory of a dead man, but laying the foundation-stone of their own greatness for generations to come.