________________ From My Experiments with Truth 165 reading it. I had also obtained other books on Islam to make a deeper study of that religion. I communicated with Christian friends in England. One of them introduced me to Edward Maitland, with whom I opened correspondence. He sent me 'The Perfect Way', a book he had written in collaboration with Anna Kingsford. The book was a repudiation of the current Christian belief. He also sent me another book, 'The New Interpretation of the Bible'. I liked both. They seemed to support Hinduism. Tolstoy's "The Kingdom ofGod Is Within You" overwhelmed me. It left a lasting impression on me. The independent thinking, profound morality, and the truthfulness of this book paled all the books given to me by Mr. Coates into insignificance. My correspondence with Edward Maitland was quite prolonged, and that with Raichandbhai continued until his death. My reverence for Hinduism was rising and I was beginning to understand its mysticism. Gandhiji returned to South Africa for the second time in 1897. He had taken a vow of celibacy at that time. The extract below is from his autobiography (Part III, Chapter 7 - 8). We now reach the stage in this story when I began seriously to think of taking the vow of celibacy. I had been wedded to a monogamous ideal ever since my marriage, faithfulness to my wife being part of the love of truth. But it was in South Africa that I came to realise the importance of observing celibacy even with respect to my wife. I cannot say with certainty which circumstance or which book it was that set my thoughts in that direction, but I