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The Bengal delegates felt shocked and humiliated at the insulting. treatment meted out to me. In less than an hour they held a meet- ing and recorded a vote of confidence in me. Nor were the all- India delegates idle. A meeting was held, and after a prolonged deliberation a constitution was drawn up, and its first article came to be subsequently known as the Creed of the Congress. It laid down that self-government within the Empire was the goal of the Congress; and that it was to be attained by purely constitutional means. It was obligatory upon every one to sign this creed before he could become a member of the Congress. For a long time those who had seceded from the Congress declined to sign it; but later on better counsels prevailed, and all wings of the Indian Nationalist party were reunited at the Lucknow Congress in 1916, when also an entente between Hindus and Mohamedans was established, and a scheme of constitutional reform was formulated and accepted at a joint Conference of Hindu and Mohamedan leaders, over which I presided.