Chapter (অধ্যায়): THE SOCIAL CONFERENCE ADDRESS PAGE-307Page: 307 of 516
monk is head and shoulders above any householder in the land, on the principle, "It is better to have loved and lost."
Compared to the coward that never made the attempt, he is a hero.
If the searchlight of scrutiny were turned on the inner workings of our social reform conclave, angels would have to take note of the percentage of backsliders as between the monk and the householder; and the recording angel is in our own heart.
But then, what about this marvellous experience of standing alone, discarding all help, breasting the storms of life, of working without any sense of recompense, without any sense of putrid duty? Working a whole life, joyful, free-not goaded on to work like slaves by false human love or ambition?
This the monk alone can have. What about religion? Has it to remain or vanish? If it remains, it requires its experts, its soldiers. The monk is the religious expert, having made religion his one metier of life. He is the soldier of God. What religion dies so long as it has a band of devoted monks?
Why are Protestant England and America shaking before the onrush of the Catholic monk?
Vive Ranade and the Social Reformers!-but, O India! Anglicised India! Do not forget, child, that there are in this society problems that neither you nor your Western Guru can yet grasp the meaning of-much less solve!