Page:MKGandhi patriot.djvu/168

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IN SOUTH AFRICA
153

and of throwing him a ward of cheer. But they failed. His face was "steadfastly set to go to Jerusalem," and he saw nothing but that.

I wonder what he saw in that long march. Not the immediate Jerusalem, I imagine—the place of crucifixion. I know of no vision more terrible than that. The Fort, with its cells and its hateful associations. Those long files of prisoners. The white-clad, brutal native warders, swaggering along with their naked assegais. The lash for the obdurate, and the criminal taint for all. A city whose secrets may not be told; from whose dens children emerge criminals, and criminals indefinitely worse than when they entered.

No, not that; it is another Jerusalem which he faces steadfastly. It is such a city as all inspired men see, and to build whose walls they still "endure the cross, despising shame." A holy City, already come down from God out of Heaven, forming, unrecognised, unseen by worldly souls, amid the squalor of to-day, wherever God's children are. A new Jerusalem, whose beautiful gates are ever open to all nations; where no "colour-bar" is permitted to challenge the Indian, and no racial prejudice to daunt the Chinese; into whose walls even an Asiatic