________________
316
morality, and conscious of doing scant justice to each matter, and also conscious of the purpose to be just and true, I must now close this lecture by expressing, as I may, my conception of the future that awaits us in this world, wbere the thought and the conduct of men make and mar their future. To me the outgrowth of religions, civilizations and Governments, are the expressions of human progress and development from one motherhood of law, of nature, of man. We of India do not arrogate to ourselves superiority and authority, noting as we do along the ages, the rise, decline and fall, of empires and civilizations, to lecture you for your faults or to condemn you for your failures. No. We in the old home of the great mother of the nations, the civilizations, the philosophies and the religions of the wide world, would extend to you the mothers' blessing, the home greeting, and express, not the hope only, but the firm belief, that when you shall have compassed all seas and all lands, and all methods, and have exhausted all resources and discoveries in literature, in art, in the sciences, and in the worship of God, you will by degrees, by slow, perhaps painful but sure progress, turn your faces and direct your steps toward the old home, the old mother, and your brothers and sisters in India, the blessed. There you will find the old hospitality, the old sweet life, and the dear old mother unchanged in her devotion and in her love, capable
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
