ABSTRACT
It is strange to observe how often the doctrine of one’s own Church is illuminated by someone from outside—someone from another form of faith. This has been my own experience; and the one who has helped me to clarify my thoughts about the doctrine of the Church to which I belong—the Church of England—is Mahātmā Gāndhi. I think I should rather say he has helped me to see Christianity more clearly, which is a broader view than that of any particular Church or branch of Christianity. By his writing, by his political actions and life, and by his personal attitude to life he has witnessed for the Faith—the Faith in God, and as one reads and re-reads the New Testament one is conscious how very near he was to the teaching of our Lord, Jesus Christ. One always knew that Gāndhi would take what we call the Christian attitude in any difficult situation, and this made him such a true guide to us Church people. It has always been a puzzle to me since childhood how any one sect, any one form of Faith can be so certain that in its present state it contains the whole Truth, for one has found so often that other people’s forms of religion can be like a signpost along the road we are travelling. This Gāndhi has clarified for me.
