The subjects presented were divided into two categories. The first comprised speculative and abstract topics; the nature of God, the nature of man, the importance of religion, revelation, the Divine Incarnation, immortality, and so forth. Such subjects were discussed from the second to the tenth day. Then, the metaphysical doctrines of the various faiths having been made clear, the remaining seven days of the Parliament were devoted to papers bearing upon the second category of subjects, namely, the relation of religion to practical social problems, such as family life, the arts and sciences, the love of mankind, morals, Christian missionary methods, and so on.

A paper by Manilal N. Dvivedi gave a technical exposition of Hinduism and Indian philosophy. Dharmapala of the Maha-Bodhi Society in Calcutta defined Buddhism in all its aspects. Confucianism, Shintoism, Japanese Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Judaism, and many other religious doctrines were expounded and reexpounded. And, as students of Swamiji's life well know, he not only explained the teachings of his faith in his paper on Hinduism, but made them come alive as eternal truths pertinent to all people everywhere.

No doubt some members of the audience had come expecting to hear strange and weird beliefs regarding idolatry, blood sacrifice, and polytheism, for the popular conception, fed by missionary propaganda, was that the Oriental lands were rife with dark and unholy practices. As the Chicago Evening Journal of September 14 editorialized: "Very few people in this country have any knowledge of the religions of the Orient. . . . The common impression is that the natives of India, China, and Japan belong to semi-civilized races and worship idols. That is enough. The religious classification is simple, and the race classification is highly gratifying to our own sense of superiority." But by the time the first half of the Parliament was over that sense of superiority had been deeply undermined and many hitherto fast embedded misconceptions regarding Eastern religions had been uprooted. Not only Swamiji's paper on Hinduism, but other papers as well served to clarify hazy popular notions concerning, among other things, idolatry.

The book contains many pictures of idols such as one mostly finds in missionary literature. There they are intended to excite the horror and pity of the Christian reader. Here the attitude to idolatrous religions is avowedly sympathetic rather than critical; but one can scarcely escape a twinge of the old feeling at a sight of the fantastic objects of worship. Nevertheless, the popular Protestant notion of idolatry was emphatically repudiated by those who spoke in the name of image worshippers?_x000d_ In substantiation of this, the article quotes briefly from the papers of Dvivedi and J. J. Modi, a Parsi of Bombay, and then goes on to quote at length from Swamiji's "noble address." Among other photographs that illustrate this article is one of Swamiji in profile.

A stanza of a poem which appeared in the Open Court of October 12 reflects the latter reaction. The poem was entitled "Aunt Hannah on the Parliament of Religions," which accounts for its dialect:_x000d_ Then I heered th' han'some Hindu monk, drest up in orange dress,_x000d_ Who sed that all humanity was part of God-no less,_x000d_ An' he said we was not sinners, so I comfort took once more, While th' Parl'ment of Religions roared with approving roar.

During the first ten days of the Parliament the full range of Christian conviction was also expounded. Although the principles of universal toleration for which, ideally, the Parliament stood were earnestly and well expressed by some of the Christian delegates, the notion that a universal religion meant nothing other than a universal acceptance of Christianity not only insinuated itself into the proceedings, but was sounded forth in unabashed oratory. An example or two may indicate something of the general trend.

On the afternoon of the third day of the Parliament, a Reverend Frank Bristol read a paper by the Reverend Thomas Ebenezer Slater, of the London Missionary Society, Evangelist to educated Hindus, entitled "Concession to Native Ideas,. having Special Reference to Hinduism." It may be worth noting here that the Reverend Mr. Slater had written a book called Studies of the Upanishads, in which he had stated: "The Vedanta, the highest conclusion of Indian thought, is based on a mistaken and pessimistic view of life; on a formulated dogma unsupported by any evidence and untaught in the hymns of the Rig-Veda: the whole an elaborate and subtle process of false reasoning."

In his paper at the Parliament the Reverend T. E. Slater conceded to native ideas the fact that they were based on a search of the human spirit for the Divine. "The Vedas," he wrote, "present `a shifting play of lights and shadows; sometimes the light seems to grow brighter, but the day never comes.' For, on examining them we note a remarkable fact. While they show that the spiritual needs and aspirations of humanity are the same . . . we fail to find a single text that purports to be a Divine answer to prayer, an explicit promise of Divine forgiveness, an expression of experienced peace and delight in God, as the result of assured pardon and reconciliation. There is no realization of ideas. The Bible alone is the Book of Divine Promise-the revelations of the `exceeding riches of God's grace' . . . for this reason it is unique. And so on.

On the fourth day, the Reverend Joseph Cook from Boston, a doughty man with fuzzy sideburns, gave a talk on "Strategic Certainties of Comparative Religion." The Reverend Mr. Cook was a popular and well known lecturer who belonged to no particular denomination-"the servant," as he said, "of no clique or clan." He had delivered talks throughout the world, and his "Boston Monday Lectures" had been widely published. It can be said that he represented the far right of Christian evangelism and was proud of it. But he was something of an embarrassment to the Parliament authorities. The Open Court, a weekly journal, later editorialized:_x000d_ It was a humiliating fact to the liberal and tolerant Christian to find that the first discordant note sounded at the Parliament of Religions-the first manifestation of bigotry and ill will was made, not by a Pagan, Mahommedan, or Jew, but by a Christian. All were courteous, tolerant, and charitable in utterance and demeanor till the Rev. Joseph Cook, of Boston, took the platform.

Mr. Cook's performance was bigotry undisguised and on the rampage. According to a report of his talk in the Chicago Tribune, the Reverend made the "platform tremble with the weight of three hundred pounds of orthodoxy," and the speaker's desk to "totter as the sturdy New England fist smote it," and as he "thundered and tramped to and fro upon the stage pouring out a torrent of denunciations with face red with the vehemence of his utterances. Those utterances consisted of one theme repeated over and over obsessively. It was in brief this: "It is clear that we cannot escape from conscience and God and our record of sin. It is a certainty and a strategic certainty that, except Christianity, there is no religion under heaven or among men that effectively provides for the peace of the soul by its harmonization with itself, its God, and its record of sin. The Reverend Mr. Cook concluded his talk with a poem that he wanted to have engraved on his tombstone._x000d_ Space does not permit quoting the entire poem here, but perhaps two stanzas will suffice:_x000d_ _x000d_ Endless sin means endless woe. _x000d_ Into endless sin I go,_x000d_ If my soul, from reason rent, _x000d_ Takes from sin its final bent._x000d_ _x000d_ Balance lost, but not regained, _x000d_ Final bent is soon attained. _x000d_ Fate is choice in fullest flower. _x000d_ Man is flexile-for an hour!

The Rev. Mr. Cook's obsession with sin and lurking damnation was representative of what in that day was given out as religion by a large part of the Christian clergy. It is important to understand this, for one cannot otherwise appreciate, on the one hand, the shock with which some sections of the audience must have heard Swamiji's ringing words, "Ye divinities on earth sinners? It is a sin to call a man so. It is a standing libel on human nature, and, on the other hand, the enthusiastic approval of other sections.

This approving roar seriously alarmed many a Christian missionary. Later an attempt was made to set matters straight. _x000d_ "The Swami by his denial of sin," the missionaries explained, "shows that he knows nothing of true religion, and that he is a teacher of deadly error. Woe! woe! to those who follow a blind guide to their own destruction.

Although many of the doctrines of Eastern religions that had been expounded during the first week of the Parliament by such men as Dvivedi and Dharmapala were hair raising in the light of the orthodox, evangelical Christianity of 1893, they had for the most part been delivered in a dry and pedantic form not apt to ignite the soul, and were therefore not alarming to the Christian ministry. But the enthusiastic reception which Swamiji was given from the very beginning was a matter of serious concern, and it was perhaps this that prompted several of the Christian delegates to attack Hinduism openly on September 19 the day that Swamiji was scheduled to read his paper.

But while Swamiji's address before the Parliament may have taken everyone by storm and, on deeper levels, set lifelong quests and currents of thought in motion, the missionary minded Christians and those amazed that so astute a thinker as Vivekananda should yet adhere to heathenish religions continued to claim, with even greater insistence it would seem, that theirs was the superior religion, in fact, the only religion. Up until the very last day of the Parliament, the Hall of Columbus rang with such pronouncements as: "Christianity is absolutely superior in its motive power, its purifying influence and its uplifting inspiration from any and all other religions with which it comes. in competition. The greasy bull of Madura and Tanjore has little in common with the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world, or "The attitude . . . of Christianity towards religions other than itself is an attitude of universal, absolute, eternal, unappeasable hostility; while toward all men everywhere, the adherents of false religions by no means excepted, its attitude is an attitude of grace, mercy, peace, for whosoever will. That is, for whosoever will become a Christian.

It must be said, however, lest the reader get too one sided a view of the scene which confronted Swamiji, that there were speakers at the Parliament who were truly liberal and who were possessed of that blessed trait that seems to go with true liberality, namely, humor. Many of these were laymen. Prince Serge Wolkonsky, for instance, who informally represented Russia, and Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson of Cambridge both spoke for a religion as broad and all-inclusive as the skies, and both later became friends of Swamiji. Lyman Abott, Alfred W. Momerie, Merwin-Marie Snell, and the Reverend H. R. Haweis were others who represented the liberal trend and who welcomed Swamiji.

No ruthless hand shall justly destroy any form of deity while yet it arrests the reverent mind and heart of man. There is only one being in the world who may legitimately destroy an idol, and that being is the one who has worshipped it. He alone can tell when it has ceased to be of service. And assuredly the Great Spirit who works through all forms and who makes all things his ministers, can make the rudest image a medium through which he will approach his child. . . . And the great religious teachers and founders of the world . . . have lived and taught and suffered and died and risen again, that they might bring us to themselves? No; but that they might bring us to God. `God Consciousness,' to borrow a noble word from Calcutta, has been the goal of them all.

Although the Parliament was not intended to be a debate, it was inevitable that a current of controversy should flow through the entire proceedings, sometimes coursing beneath the surface, sometimes rising into open view. The question under consideration was not only whether or not Christianity was superior to other religions, but whether or not it was to replace other religions through missionary endeavor, and if so, how. It was a debate closely watched by a large part of the Christian world. Officially, only one session -the afternoon of the twelfth day-was devoted to a discussion of this all important issue, but actually from first to last it colored the proceedings; it was there by implication, if not by overt expression, in most of the Christian talks; it cropped up in the papers of the foreign delegates; and it appeared irrepressibly in unscheduled discussions.

The Christian missions were, on the one hand, scathingly criticized by the representatives from China, Japan, and India, and, on the other hand, passionately defended by the missionaries themselves. The foreign delegates contended that the failure of Christian missions was due to the fact that the missionaries were intolerant, selfish, ignorant, and bigoted, and also to the fact that the countries they represented were anything but Christ like in their imperialistic policies. Moreover, while maintaining respect toward Christianity, the non Christian delegates made bold to state in no uncertain terms that Christian conversion was not necessary to salvation.

. A third talk, given by Kinza Riuge M. Hirai, a Buddhist layman of Japan, attributed the failure of Christian missions in his country not to the missionaries themselves, nor to the fact that Japan was already possessed of a satisfactory religion, but to the immoralities of Christian nations in their treatment of the Japanese people. This was an essentially political speech, and it brought down the house. The Chicago Herald of September 14, 1893, as quoted by Barrows, reported:_x000d_ _x000d_ Loud applause followed many of his [Hirai's] declara¬tions, and a thousand cries of "shame" were heard when he pointed to the wrongs which his countrymen had suffered through the practices of false Christianity. When he had finished, Dr. Barrows grasped his hand, and the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones threw his arm around his neck, while the audience cheered vociferously and waved hats and handkerchiefs in the excess of enthusiasm.

Shortly the Hindus entered the field. Nagarkar, the Brahmo Samajist, cried on the seventh day for less soul saving and more education. "Little, how little, do you ever dream that your money is expended in spreading abroad nothing but Christian dogmatism and Christian bigotry, Christian pride and Christian exclusiveness. I entreat you to spend at least one-tenth of all this vast fortune on sending out to our country, unsectarian, broad learned missionaries that will spend all their efforts and energies in educating our women, our men, and our masses. The force of this plea, however, was lost in a talk devoted to a rhapsodic tribute to the moral and civilizing influence of British rule in India-an account which must have caused Swamiji no little anguish -and to the reform movement of the Brahmo Samaj.

At the close of the evening of the tenth day, the audience was treated to an unexpected and electrifying talk from its favorite. The session had, it so happened, consisted of only two relatively short papers, one entitled "The Restoration of Sinful Man through Christ" and the other, "Religion in Peking." At the conclusion of the latter, its author had solemnly informed the audience that inasmuch as the Chinese people spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year worshiping their ancestors by burning paper money and incense, they could perfectly well afford to support Christianity. It was after the reading of this paper, which contained a number of similar observations, that Swamiji agreed to address the audience. Short bursts from his magnificent rebuke (for such it was) were later published in Barrows's World's Parliament and subsequently in the Complete Works under the title "Religion not the Crying Need of India."

But these combined fragments did not add up to a quarter of the whole. The Christian Herald of October 11, gave a few additional quotations; but it was the Chicago Inter Ocean of September 21 that printed what appears to have been the full address, taken down on the spot. This eminently satisfactory report was unearthed in Chicago after three-quarters of a century by Swami Yogeshananda, who has kindly made his discovery available to us. It read as follows:

Suami Vivekananda_x000d_ _x000d_ At the close of the reading of Mr. Headland's paper on "Religion in Peking" Dr. Momerie announced that the other speakers bulletined for the evening had failed to appear. It was but 9 o'clock, and the main auditorium and galleries were well filled. There was an outburst of ap-plause as they caught sight of the Hindoo monk, Vivekananda, sitting in his orange robe and scarlet turban upon the platform._x000d_ This popular Hindoo responded to the generous ap¬plause by saying that he did not come to speak to-night. He took occasion, however, to criticise many of the state¬ments made in the paper by Mr. Headland. Referring to the poverty which prevails in China, he said that the missionaries would do better to work in appeasing hunger than in endeavoring to persuade the Chinese to renounce their faith of centuries and embrace Christianity at [as] the price of food. And then the Hindu stepped back on the platform and whispered to Bishop Keane, of the Catholic church, a moment._x000d_ He then resumed his address by saying that Bishop Keane had told him that Americans would not be offended at honest criticism. He said he had heard of all the terrible things and horrible conditions which prevail in China but he had not heard that any asylums had been erected by Christians for remedying all these difficulties. He said:_x000d_ Christian brethren of America, you are so fond of send¬ing out missionaries to save the souls of heathens. I ask you what have you done and are doing to save their bodies from starvation? (Applause). In India, there are 300,000,000 men and women living on an average of a little more than 50 cents a month. I have seen them living for years upon wild flowers. Whenever there was a little famine hun¬dreds of thousands died of starvation. Christian mission¬aries come and offer life but only on condition that the Hindoos become Christians, abandoning the faith of their fathers and forefathers. Is it right? There are hundreds of asylums, but if the Mohammedans or the Hindoos go there they would be kicked out. There are thousands of asylums erected by Hindoos where anybody would be received. There are hundreds of churches that have been erected with the assistance of the Hindoos, but no Hindoo temples for which a Christian has given a penny.

What the East Needs_x000d_ _x000d_ Brethren of America, the crying evil [need]of the East is not religion. We have more than religion enough; what they want is bread, but they are given a stone. (Applause). It is an insult to a suffering man dying of hunger to preach to him metaphysics. Therefore, if you wish to illustrate the meaning of "brotherhood" treat the Hindoo more kindly, even though he be a Hindoo and is faithful to his religion. Send missionaries to them to teach them how better to earn a better piece of bread and not to teach them metaphysical nonsense. (Great applause).

And then the monk said he was in ill health today and wished to be excused. But there were thunders of applause and cries of "Go on" and Mr. Vivekananda continued.

The paper just read says something about the miserable and ignorant priest. The same may be said of India. I am one of those monks who have been described as beggarly. That is the pride of my life. (Applause). I am proud in that sense to be Christ-like. I eat what I have today and think not of tomorrow. "Behold the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin: ' The Hindoo carries that out literally. Many gentlemen present in Chicago sitting on this platform can testify that for the last twelve years I never knew whence my next meal was coming. I am proud to be a beggar for the sake of the Lord. The idea in the east is to preach or teach anything for the sake of money is low and vulgar, but to teach the name of the Lord for pay is such a degradation as would cause the priest to lose caste and be spat upon. There is one suggestion in the paper that is true: If the priests of China and India were organized there is an enormous amount of potential energy which could be used for re¬generation of society and humanity. I endeavored to organize it in India, but failed for lack of money. It may be I shall get the help I want in America._x000d_  But we know it is very hard For a heathen to get any help from "Christian people". (Great applause). I have heard so much of this land of freedom, of liberty and freedom of thought that I am not discouraged. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

And then the popular visitor bowed gracefully and sought to retire with a graceful smile, but the audience cried to him to proceed. Mr. Vivekananda, fairly bubbling with an expression of good nature, then explained the Hindoo theory of [re]incarnation.

At the close of the address Dr. Momerie [a delegate From England] said that he now understood why the newspapers had well called this parliament an approach to the millennium. "It is the greatest event in the religious history of mankind," he said, "it has come from the great heart of the American people, and I congratulate Americans upon it (for their enthusiastic response to criticism]. It makes me wish I were an American myself."

And then the English divine was greeted with an out¬burst of applause which approached an ovation, and one of the most enthusiastic meetings of the parliament adjourned.

The Catholics received Swamiji's criticism with sympathy. In the section of Barrows's history entitled "Introduction to the Parliament Papers" it is reported that ". . . on the eleventh day, Bishop Keane said: `I endorse the denunciation that was hurled forth last night against the system of pretended charity that offered Food to the hungry Hindus at the cost of their conscience and faith. It is a shame and a disgrace to those who call themselves Christians.' . . . Bishop Keane, who read Mr. Donnelly's review of the history of Catholic charity, said that in India their system was one of absolute indifference to the religious faith of the needy, and in addition to endorsing the denunciation by Mr. Vivekananda of Christian charity any way limited to converts, he pronounced justifiable, from the Hindu point of view, `the denunciation of the Christian system of atonement that came also from the heart of the Hindu monk.’ He declared that we do not hear half enough of such criticism, and that if by these criticisms Vivekananda can only stir us and sting us into better teachings and better doings in the great work of Christ in the world, he For one would only be grateful to our friend the Hindu monk.

Turning to the actual report of Bishop John J. Keane's reading of Mr. Donnelly's paper, we find a further parenthetical observation: ". . . My heart was glad when I listened last night and heard our good friend, the Hindu, confess that for years he did not know where he was going to get his next meal. That was the way with these poor Franciscan monks. They were reduced to poverty in order that they might better consecrate themselves to the service of God everywhere.

This may be a reference to the talk, "Religion Not the Crying Need of India." One suspects, however, that the full texts of Swamiji's extemporaneous utterances at the Parliament have not been recorded and that he said more and spoke on more occasions than we know. One indication of this comes from the pen of the Reverend H. R. Haweis, one of the more or less unofficial Anglican delegates who was later to become an ardent friend and admirer of Swamiji's in London. In his book Travel and Talk, Mr. Haweis wrote of the Parliament and of some of Swamiji's utterances, the vigor of which was clearly still fresh in his mind. His quotation of Swamiji's words is identical (with the exception of the words which I have enclosed in brackets) to a report that appeared in the London Woman's Herald of October 26, 1893, but one does not find this brief but scathing talk of Swamiji's in any known official record of the Parliament:*_x000d_ Vivekananda, the popular Hindu monk, whose physiognomy bore the most striking resemblance to the classic face of the Buddha, denounced our commercial prosperity, our bloody wars, and our religious inconsistency, declaring that at such a price the `mild Hindu' would have none of our vaunted civilisation. The recurrent and rhetorical use of the phrase `mild Hindu' produced a very singular impression upon the audience, as the furious monk waved his arms and almost foamed at the mouth. `You come ' he cried, `with the Bible in one hand and the conqueror's sword in the other you, with your religion of yesterday, to us who were taught thousands of years ago [by our Richis] precepts as noble and lives as holy as your Christ's. You trample on us and treat us like the dust beneath your feet. [You destroy precious life in animals. You are carnivores.] You degrade our people with drink. You insult our women. You scorn our religion-in many points like yours, only better, because more humane. And then you wonder why Christianity makes such slow progress in India. I tell you it is because you are not like your Christ, whom we could honour and reverence. Do you think if you came to our doors like Him, meek and lowly, with a message of love, living and working and suffering for others, as He did, we should turn a deaf ear: Oh, no! We should receive Him and listen to Him, as we have done our own inspired [Richis,] teachers: I consider that Vivekananda's personality was one of the most impressive, and his speech one of the most eloquent speeches which dignified the great congress.

* While it is gratifying, to say the least, to discover snatches from Swamiji’s extempore talks at the Parliament that were not recorded in the official histories, it should be noted that sometimes words are attributed to him that he did not say. For instance, in the Historians’ History of the World (as quoted in the Life, p.314) it is said that “a noted Hindu” paused in the midst of his discourse at the Parliament of Religions and asked how many in the audience had read the sacred books of the Hindus. Only three or four hands were raised, whereupon “the Hindu raised himself to his full height, and in a voice every accent of which must have smitten the audience as a reburke, pronounced these simple words, ‘And yet you dare to judge us!’ “ It has been assumed in the Life that the “noted Hindu” was Swamiji. But according to the New York Daily Tribune of September 17, 1893, it was the Buddhist hewavitarne Dharmapala who flung out the challenge and gave the rebuke._x000d_ Again, one finds in the Forum for November 1893 (p.393) the following passage ascribed to Vivekananda: “I humbly beg to differ from those who see in monotheism, in the recognition of a personal God apart from nature, the acme of intellectual development…. The ultimate satisfaction of human reason and emotion lies in the realization of that universal essence which is the All…. This idea of the formless All … is the central idea of the Veda, nay, the root idea of the Hindu religion in general.” Actually, these words were uttered by Manilal N. Dvivedi on the second day of the Parliament during his talk on Hinduism. (Barrows, p.318)

The afternoon of the twelfth day of the Parliament was officially devoted to the "Criticism and Discussion of Missionary Methods." "On this day," Barrows tells us, "the crowds in the Hall of Columbus were, if possible, more dense than on any previous day." It is conceivable that these crowds ex¬pected to witness a row. If so, they were destined to disappoint¬ment, for there was no row. Dharmapala and Narasimhacharya represented the Eastern religions; Rev. G. T. Candlin and Rev. R. E. Hume, the Christian. (Swamiji was not present, being that afternoon at the Scientific Section.) Each gave a short but cogent talk.

Narasimhacharya, who followed, did not attribute the failure of Christianity to the selfishness and intolerance of the missionaries, but rather to their interference with native custom. It was, of course, not to be admitted by the Christians that Christian missionary work had by any means failed in foreign lands. Mr. Hume informed Narasimhacharya that "it is predicted that in a generation all the positions of influence and of responsibility will be in the hands of the Christian community in India, and went on to add that missionaries sometimes do make mistakes and are grateful for correction. This same minister, as will be seen in a following chapter, attempted some months later without success to engage Swamiji in public controversy.

The session was short, and it was over without mishap. But the tension that had accumulated throughout the Parliament finally broke down the control of the Reverend George T. Pentecost of London, who on the following Sunday evening {September 24), when Swamiji was quite probably present, interspersed throughout his paper many glaring violations of the Parliament's watchword: "Tolerance and Fraternity: ' For a report of this incident I quote from Barrows:_x000d_ The argument of (Pentecost's paper, "The Invincible Gospel,"] was the ultimate triumph of Christianity as assured by its essential superiority to all other religions. Certain impromptu remarks interjected between the lines of the paper drew forth a reply on the following day (from Virchand A. Gandhi, the Jainist delegate]. He (Pentecost] was reported by the press as saying: "Some of the Brahmans of India have been here and have dared to make an attack upon Christianity. They take the slums of New York and Chicago and ask us why we do not cure ourselves. They take what is outside the pale of Christianity and judge Christianity by it " Proceeding then to attack the religious systems of India on the point of morality, he alleged that among the followers of Brahmanism there were thousands of temples in which there were hundreds of priestesses who were known as immoral and profligate. They were prostitutes because they were priestesses, and priestesses because they were prostitutes.

We have recently been treated to the sight of what was called the Parliament of Religions. I do not believe that those who projected the scheme were animated by any feeling of antagonism to Christianity. I impugn no one's motive. . . . I doubt, however, that if the prime movers of that Parliament had wanted to spread agnosticism they could have made a better move. It was a masterpiece. Through the rose colored haze of that atmosphere one seems to discern about the heads of the Jewish rabbi, the Indian priest, the Greek patriarch, and the learned advocates of Shintoism, Brahmanism, and Romanism, a banner bearing this inscription, "To the Unknown God.

Yet despite the fear of those who saw such a banner looming ominously through the haze and who came close thereby to justifying the fear of others who had predicted a scene of discord rather than of harmony, the total impression one receives through reading the accounts of the Parliament is one of Festivity. It was as though, no matter what some of Her children might have thought, the Divine Mother had arranged this party and was present through it all. It is difficult to put one's finger on the source of this impression. It is not to be found in the high-8own protestations of harmony, nor is it in the handkerchief waving. Perhaps it is simply in the fact that regardless of what was said about God most of the delegates spoke of Him in earnestness, and in the further fact that each was allowed to say what he would. Certainly at the close of the Parliament the elation was marked.

VIVEKANANDA_x000d_ _x000d_ The lecture of this celebrated Hindoo at the Opera House, Saturday night, was very interesting. By comparative philology, he sought to establish the long admitted relationship between the Aryan races and their descendants in the new world. He mildly defended the caste system of India which keeps three-fourths of the people in utter and humiliating subjection, and boasted that the India of today was the same India that had watched for centuries the meteoric nations of the world flash across the horizon and sink into oblivion. In common with the people, he loves the past. He lives not for self, but for God. In his country a premium is placed on beggars and tramps, though not so distinguished in his lecture. When the meal is prepared, they wait for some man to come along who is first served, then the animals, the servants, the man of the house and lastly the woman of the household. Boys are taken at 10 years of age and are kept by professors for a period of ten to twenty years, educated and sent forth to resume their former occupations or to engage in a life of endless wandering, preaching, and praying, taking along only that which is given them to eat and wear, but never touching money. Vivekananda is of the latter class. Men approaching old age withdraw from the world, and after a period of study and prayer, when they feel themselves sanctified, they also go forward spreading the gospel. He observed that leisure was necessary for intellectual development and scored Americans for not educating the Indians whom Columbus found in a state of savagery. In this he exhibited a lack of knowledge of conditions. His talk was lamentably short and much was left unsaid of seeming greater importance than much that was said.

It is possible that Swamiji spoke at other sessions on the topic of missionaries, for the Outlook, October 7, 1893, in giving an impressionistic picture of the Parliament, adds this highlight:_x000d_ _x000d_ . . . The subject of Christian work in India calls Vivekananda, in his brilliant priestly orange, to his feet. He criticises the work of Christian missions. It is evident that he has not tried to understand Christianity, but neither, as he claims, have its priests made any effort to understand his religion, with its ingrained faiths and race prejudices of thousands of years' standing. They have simply come, in his view, to throw scorn on his most sacred beliefs, and to undermine the morals and spirituality of the people he has been sent to teach.