"I have taken up journalism." writes the Mahatma Gandhi in YOUNG INDIA, "Not for its sake, but merely as an aid to what I have conceived to be my mission in life. My mission is to teach by example and precept under severe restraint ...the use of the matchless weapon of Satyagraha (soul-force), which is a direct corollary of non-violence and truth. I am anxious, indeed I am impatient, to demonstrate that there is no remedy for the many ills of life ...save that of non-violence. It is a solvent —strong enough to melt the stoniest heart. To be true to my faith, therefore, I may not write in anger or malice. The reader can have no idea of the restraint I have to exercise from week to week ....in the choice of topics and my vocabulary. It is a training for me. It enables me to peep into myself and make discoveries of my weakness. Often my vanity dictates a smart expression ...or my anger a harsh adjective. It is a terrible ordeal, but a fine exercise ....to remove these weeds. The reader sees the page of YOUNG INDIA fairly well dressed-up and sometimes (with Romain Rolland), he is inclined to say 'what a fine old man this must be.' Well let the world understand ....that the fineness is carefully and prayerfully cultivated. And if it has proved acceptable to some (whose opinion I cherish), let the reader understand that when that fineness has become perfectly natural, i.e., when I have become incapable of evil and when nothing harsh or haughty occupies, be it momentarily, my thought-world, then and not till then, my non-violence will move all the hearts of all the world. I have placed before me and the reader no impossible ideal or ordeal. It is man's prerogative and birth-right. We have lost the paradise ....only to regain it. If it takes time, then it is but a speck in the complete time-circle."