A Prophet In His Own Country

mind in dealing with all such matters is evident. Not only must the statesman be a philosopher, but he should also have in his composition not a little of the mystic. We do not use the word mystic in the specialized sense, in which it is too often employed today. The true mystic is one who sees all phenomena without bias, prejudice, self-interest, or obfuscation. In thinking of kingdoms, he thinks of spiritual kingdoms; and here again we must use the word spiritual in its oldest and widest sense. In such kingdoms faith is more than frontiers, language and literature more than markets. Ireland has been systematically depopulated; every engine of oppression has been set in motion against her; but she has never been conquered and never can be conquered, because the Anglo-Saxon can never get her point of view. In the same way India has overcome every one of her invaders in turn, though she has never been able to resist even the least of them successfully by arms. The English in India have become, within two generations, more Indian than the Indians themselves, in many important respects, particularly in that of caste. In the case of South Africa it is once again evident how far more vital than material considerations are the spiritual. The Boers, driven from one settlement to another by the most barefaced treachery and tyranny, and finally conquered in their last stronghold by invading armies outnumbering them twenty to one, were yet able to reconquer their country for themselves, without a drop of bloodshed, within a decade of the fall of Pretoria.