Book Title: Gandhi Before Gandhi
Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

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Page 23
________________ GANDHI BEFORE GANDHIA Rev T.E Slater on 3rd day Criticises Hinduism as Answering to Rev. Joseph Cook, Virchand following: Gandhi narrates a beautiful story as following: 66 but the day never comes. The Vedas present" a shifting play of lights and shadows; some For, on examining them, we note a remarkable fact. While they show that the spiritual needs and aspiration of humanity are the same - the same travail of the soul as it bears the burden of existence- and contain many beautiful prayers of mercy and help but we fail to find a single text that purports to be a divine answer to prayer, an explicit promise of divine forgiveness, an expression of experienced peace and delegate in God, as the result of no assured pardon and reconciliation, there is no realization of ideas; The Bible alone is the book of Divine Promise."" Hindu's Criticism by Rev. Joseph Cook on fourth day: 66 say chiseled on the marble plate above the tomb of the great Emperor Akabar in the land of Ganges, the hundred names of God. Let us beware how we lightly assert that we are glad as those names are of one God. I turn to every faith on earth except Christianity and I find every such religion is Torso there is no religion under heaven or amongst men, that effectively provides for the peace of soul by its harmonization with this environment--there is no religion under heaven or amongst men, that effectively provides the soul this, joyful deliverance from the love of the sin and guilt of it -----unless a man be born of water, that is, delivered from the guilt of sin and of the spirit, that is delivered from love of sin, it is an impossibility, in the very nature of the things, for him to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven?" 22 Once upon a time in a great city an elephant was brought with a circus. The people had never seen an elephant before. There were seven blind men in the city who longed to know what kind of an animal it was, so they went together to the place where the elephant was kept. One of them placed his hand on the ears, another on the legs, a third on the tail of the elephant and so on. When they were asked by the people what kind of an animal the elephant was. One of the blind man said, "Oh, to be sure, it was like a big winnowing fan." Other blind men said, "No, my dear sir, you are wrong. The elephant is like a big, round post." The third, "You are quiet mistaken; it is like a tapering stick." The rest of them gave also their different opinions. The proprietor of the circus stepped forward and said; "My friends, you are all mistaken. You have not examined the elephant from all sides. Had you done so, you would not have taken one sided views." Brothers and sisters, I entrust you to hear the moral of this story and learn to examine the various religious systems from all standpoints. 0

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