Mission Work in India._x000d_ _x000d_ To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:_x000d_ _x000d_ Kananda claimed in his lecture, Sunday evening, to be perfectly well posted in regard to mission work in India. How comes it then, that he is ignorant of the fact that all missionaries try to speak to the people among whom they work in their own vernacular?

Many missionaries do not learn the Sanskrit because it is a dead language, spoken nowhere, hence they spend their time on the spoken languages. It would please me to show you books in one vernacular, the work of American missionaries, notably a dictionary, by a man whose memory is revered, not only in Detroit, but, also, by many as learned Brahmans as Kananda himself.

This dictionary is the only one in the language it represents, and is constantly used by natives learning English and by the English learning the native language.

May I ask Kananda why it is that the low caste people in India, are so changed after coming in contact with the missionaries? Why are they better educated; why are they superior; why are they different from their own class who are still under the rule of the Brahman? It would also be a gratification to one who has lived years in India, and who knows a little about the country, and, also, show natural history, to learn what those creatures are that are seen by the hundreds (by all travelers), sunning themselves on the sand churs, in every large river in India, if they are not crocodiles?* Can it be possible that the god Krishna, that wonderful incarnation of the pure and immaculate Vishnu, with his sixteen wives, and 16,000 concubines, and all the progeny he murdered, are disporting themselves under this guise, and is that the real reason why the creatures are bullet-proof?_x000d_ *Very probably those creatures were fisheating gavials (or gharials), which inhabited the Ganges and other rivers of northern India. The gavial is related to and resembles the crocodile but is neither people – not infanteating._x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ * Very probably those creatures were fisheating gavials (or gharials), which inhabited the Ganges and other rivers of northern India. The gavial is related to and resembles the crocodile but is neither people – not infanteating._x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ * Very probably those creatures were fisheating gavials (or gharials), which inhabited the Ganges and other rivers of northern India. The gavial is related to and resembles the crocodile but is neither people – not infanteating.

Will Kananda tell us where he finds his definition of the word Swami? The Sanskrit dictionary, at the public library, says it means lord-master, owner-husband; but never a word about brother.

One thing more. Will the learned Babu tell us all he knows about the rites and ceremonies necessary for him to perform, before he can appear before his own people as a real Hindoo Brahman? It will gratify many, and prove instructive to hear from his own lips all about these ceremonies and their spiritual significance._x000d_ ONE OF THE MISSIONARIES.

No one answered this letter through the Free Press columns, but an article by our friend O. P. Deldoc, who never hesitated to speak his mind, appeared in the Detroit Critic on March 18 and expressed, no doubt, the opinion of many.

KNEW NOT KIPLING_x000d_ Kananda Never Heard of Him till He Came Here._x000d_ Hardly Agrees with Some of the _x000d_ Stories Rudyard Has Told._x000d_ The Monk Explains that It is Not _x000d_ Proper to Talk of the Profession _x000d_ of Lalun in India-The Oriental_x000d_ Custom a Terrible Thing, Kananda Admits._x000d_ _x000d_ "Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world. Lilith was her very great-grandmamma, and that was before the days of Eve, as everyone knows. In the west people say rude things about Lalun's profession and write lectures about it, and distribute the lectures to young per¬sons in order that morality may be preserved. In the east, where the profession is hereditary, descending from mother to daughter, nobody writes lectures or takes any notice."_x000d_ RUDYARD KIPLING._x000d_ _x000d_ The story of which the sentences that precede this one are a paragraph, was written in India. They were written by Rudyard Kipling, from whom most of us have learned all that we definitely know about India, with the exception of the fact that India raises wheat enough to be a great competitor of our own farmers, that men work there for two cents a day and that women throw their babies into the Ganges, which is the sacred river of the country._x000d_ But Vive Kananda, since he came to this country, has exploded the story about the women of India feeding their babies to the alligators, and now he says that he never heard of Rudyard Kipling until he came to America and that it is not proper in India to talk of such a profession as that of Lalun, out of which Mr. Kipling has made one of his most delightful and instructive tales._x000d_ "In India," said Kananda yesterday, "we do not discuss such things. No one ever speaks of those unfortunate women. When a woman is discovered to be unchaste in India she is hurled out from her caste. No one thereafter can touch or speak to her. If she went into the house they would take up and clean the carpets and wash the walls she breathed against. No one can have anything to do with such a person. There are no women who are not virtuous in Indian society. It is not at all as it is in this country. Here there are bad women living side by side with virtuous women in your society. One can not know who is bad and who is good in America. But in India once a woman slips she is an outcast forever, she and her children, sons and daughters. It is terrible, I admit, but it keeps society pure."_x000d_ "How about the men?" was asked. "Does the same rule hold in regard to them? Are they outcast when they are proven to be unchaste?"_x000d_ "Oh, no. It is quite different with them. It would be so, perhaps, if they could be found out. But the men move about. They can go from place to place. It is not possible to discover them. The women are shut up in the house. They are certainly discovered if they do anything wrong. And when they are discovered they are thrown out. Nothing can save them. Sometimes it is very hard when a father has to give up his daughter or a husband his wife. But if they do not give them up they will be banished with them, too. It is very different in this country. Women cannot go about there and make associations as they do, here. It is very terrible, but it makes society pure.

Our Great Sin._x000d_ "I think that unchastity is the one great sin of your country. It must be so, there is so much luxury here. A poor girl would sell herself for a new bonnet. It must be so where there is so much luxury."_x000d_ Mr. Kipling says this about Lalun and her profession: "Lalun's real husband, for even ladies of Lalun's profession have husbands in the east, was a great, big jujube tree. Her mama, who had married a fig, spent ten thousand rupees on Lalun's wedding, which was blessed by forty-seven clergymen of mama's church, and distributed 5,000 rupees in charity to the poor. And that was a custom of the land."_x000d_ In India when a woman is unfaithful to her husband she loses her caste, but none of her civil or religious rights. She can still own property and the temples are still open to her._x000d_ "Yes," said Kananda, "a bad woman is not allowed to marry. She can not marry any one without their being an outcast like herself, so she marries a tree, or some¬times a sword. It is the custom. Sometimes these women grow very rich and become very charitable, but they can never regain their caste. In the interior towns, where they still adhere to the old customs she cannot ride in a carriage, no matter how wealthy she may be; the best that she is allowed is a pair of bullocks. And then in India she has to wear a dress of her own, so that she can be distinguished. You can see these people going by, but no one ever speaks to them. The greatest number of these women is in the cities. A good many of them are Jews, too, but they all have different quarters of the cities, you know. They all live apart. It is a singular thing that, bad as they are, wretched as some of these women are; they will not admit a christian lover. They will not eat with them or touch them-the `omnivorous barbarians,' as they call them. _x000d_ They call them that because they eat everything. Do you know what that disease, the unspeakable disease, is called in India? It is called `Bad Faringan,' which means `the christian disease.' It was the christians that brought it into India: '_x000d_ "Has there been any attempt in India to solve this ques¬tion? Is it a public question the way it is in America?" _x000d_ "No, there has been very little done in India. There is a great field for women missionaries if they would convert prostitutes of India. They do nothing in India-very little. There is one sect, the Veshnava [Vaishnava], who try to reclaim these women. This is a religious sect. I think about 90 per cent of all prostitutes belong to this sect. This sect does not believe in caste and they go everywhere without reference to caste. There are certain temples, as the temple of Jagatnot [Jagannath], where there is no caste. Everybody who goes into that town takes off his caste while he is there because that is holy ground and everything is supposed to be pure there. When he goes outside he resumes it again, for caste is a mere worldly thing. You know some of the castes are so particular that they will not cat any food unless it is prepared by them-selves. They will not touch any one outside of their caste. But in this city they all live together. This is the only sect in India that makes proselytes. It makes everybody a mem¬ber of its church. It goes into the Himalayas and converts the wild men. You perhaps did not know that there were wild men in India. Yes, there are. They dwell at the foot of the Himalayas."_x000d_ "Is there any ceremony by which a woman is declared unchaste, a civil process?" Kananda was asked._x000d_ "No, it is not a civil process. It is just custom. Sometimes there is a formal ceremony and sometimes there is not. They simply make pariahs of them. When any woman is suspected sometimes they get together and give her a sort of trial, and if it is decided that she is guilty then a note is sent around to all the other members of the caste and she is banished._x000d_ "Mind you," he exclaimed, "I do not mean to say that this is a solution of the question. The custom is terribly rigid. But you have no solution of the question, either. It is a terrible thing. It is a great wrong of the western world."

Again in Detroit the Swami mercilessly asked, "Where is your Christianity? Where is there a place for Jesus the Christ in this selfish struggle, in this constant tendency to destroy? True, if He were here today, He would not find a stone whereon to lay His head."_x000d_ It is no wonder that utterances like these aroused bitter opposition from Christian propagandists. They tried to injure his reputation by abusing and vilifying him. They even went to the length, the Swami said, of tempting him with young women, promising them recompense if they succeeded. They desisted when they found him as simple and pure as a child. It seems almost incredible that they should have gone so far in the name of religion. Sometimes notes and letters that declared that he was not what he represented himself to be, and that contained all kinds of calumnies against him, were sent to persons who had invited him to their homes. Occasionally this malice had the desired effect, and the Swami would find the doors of his hosts-to-be closed to him! But in most instances, the error would be discovered after a time, and those who had rebuffed him would call and apologize and become greater friends than ever.

{To the Maharaja of Khetri}_x000d_ . . . "It is not the building that makes the home, but it is the wife that makes it," says a Sanskrit poet, and how true it is! The roof that affords you shelter from heat and cold and rain is not to be judged by the pillars that support it--the finest Corinthian columns though they be--but by the real spirit-pillar who is the centre, the real support of the home--the woman. Judged by that standard, the American home will not suffer in comparison with any home in the world._x000d_ I have heard many stories about the American home: of liberty running into licence, of unwomanly women smashing under their feet all the peace and happiness of home-life in their mad liberty-dance, and much nonsense of that type. And now after a year's experience of American homes, of American women, how utterly false and erroneous that sort of judgment appears! American women! A hundred lives would not be sufficient to pay my deep debt of gratitude to you! I have not words enough to express my gratitude to you. "The Oriental hyperbole" alone expresses the depth of Oriental gratitude--"If the Indian Ocean were an inkstand, the highest mountain of the Himalaya the pen, the earth the scroll and time itself the writer" still it will not express my gratitude to you!_x000d_ _x000d_ Last year I came to this country in summer, a wandering preacher of a far distant country, without name, fame, wealth, or learning to recommend me -- friendless, helpless, almost in a state of destitution -- and American women befriended me, gave me shelter and food, took me to their homes and treated me as their own son, their own brother. They stood my friends even when their own priests were trying to persuade them to give up the "dangerous heathen" -- even when day after day their best friends had told them not to stand by this "unknown foreigner, may be, of dangerous character". But they are better judges of character and soul -- for it is the pure mirror that catches the reflection._x000d_ And how many beautiful homes I have seen, how many mothers whose purity of character, whose unselfish love for their children are beyond expression, how many daughters and pure maidens, "pure as the icicle on Diana's temple", and withal with much culture, education, and spirituality in the highest sense! Is America then full of only wingless angels in the shape of women? There is good and bad everywhere, true -- but a nation is not to be judged by its weaklings called the wicked, good, the noble, and the pure who indicate the national life-current to be flowing clear and vigorous._x000d_ _x000d_ Do you judge of an apple tree and the taste of its fruits by the unripe, undeveloped, worm-eaten ones that strew the ground, large even though their number be sometimes? l If there is one ripe developed fruit, that one would indicate the powers, the possibility and the purpose of the apple tree and not hundreds that could not grow._x000d_ _x000d_ And then the modern American women -- I admire their broad and liberal minds. I have seen many liberal and broad-minded men too in this country, some even in the narrowest churches, but here is the difference -- there is danger with the men to become broad at the cost of religion, at the cost of spirituality -- women broaden out in sympathy to everything that is good everywhere, without losing a bit of their own religion. They intuitively know that it is a question of positivity and not negativity a question of addition and not subtraction. They are every day becoming aware of the fact that it is alternative and positive, and therefore soul-building forces of nature, is what destroys the negative and destructive elements in the world._x000d_ _x000d_ What a wonderful achievement was that World's Fair at Chicago! And that wonderful Parliament of Religions where voices from every corner of the earth expressed their religious ideas! I was also allowed to present my own ideas through the kindness of Dr. Barrows and Mr. Bonney. Mr. Bonney is such a wonderful man! Think of that mind that planned and carried out with great success that gigantic undertaking, and he, no clergyman, a lawyer, presiding over the dignitaries of all the churches -- the sweet, the learned, patient Mr. Bonney with all his soul speaking through his bright eyes…_x000d_ _x000d_ Yours etc., _x000d_ VIVEKANANDA

Mr. Palmer's "old boys' club" consisted of some of the most influential citizens of Detroit, one of whom was host on the evening of March 15 at one of the many dinners given for Swamiji. The following items which tell of this event appeared in the Detroit Journal of March 16 and the Free Press of March 17, respectively:

DINNER TO KANANDA_x000d_ ___________x000d_ Pleasant Function of E. W. Cottrell Last Evening._x000d_ Eber W. Cottrell gave a very elaborate dinner last evening at his residence, 155 Lafayette-ave., Vive Ka¬nanda being the guest of honor. The other guests who shared the delightful affair were Ex-Senator T. W. Palmer, M. S. Smith, W. Livingstone, jr., F. E. Driggs, Capt. Gardener, of Fort Wayne, Michael Brennan, G. W. Cottrell and George C. Robinson._x000d_ ___________

KANANDA LECTURES AGAIN MONDAY_x000d_ _x000d_ Eber W. Cottrell entertained Kananda at his residence, 155 Lafayette avenue, last night. A charming dinner was given and the distinguished Hindoo was the center of attraction. Among others who were present were Hon. T. W. Palmer, M. S. Smith, W. Livingstone, Jr., F. E. Driggs, Michael Brennan, George Robinson and Capt. Gardener, of Fort Wayne. Kananda is extremely happy in this kind of gathering. He is quick to reply to all questions, and his conversation is interesting and instructive. One of the guests commenting upon the event remarked that the eastern brother displayed a subtlety which is characteristic of the educated Hindoos. On Monday night Kananda will lecture at the Auditorium, taking for his subject "Brahmanism." [His subject was "Buddhism."]

It was largely (if not entirely) through Mr. Palmer's influence that Swamiji was able to break free from the clutches of the Slayton Lyceum Lecture Bureau, which had been defrauding him of most of the money he was trying so hard to earn For his country. Our first knowledge of his dissatisfaction with the lecture bureau comes from a postscript to his letter of February 14 to Mrs. Hale. "I have received a letter from Slayton in reply to that in which I wrote to him that I could not stay," he wrote. "He gives me hopes. What is your advice. I enclose the letter in another envelope."

We do not know what Mrs. Hale advised, but as the days went on, it became more and more evident that Mr. Slayton, head of the lecture bureau, had been cheating him right and left and beguiling him with false promises. Swamiji apparently discussed the matter with his astute and experienced Detroit friends, and on February 20 he again wrote in this connection to Mrs. Hale:

. . I am thoroughly disgusted with this Slayton business and am trying hard to break loose. I have lost at least 5000$ by joining this man. . . . Now the man [men?] who got up the lectures have got at least a thousand $. So in every place. And this is what he is doing. His will be done. I am going home. Seeing the liking the American people have for me I could have by this time got a pretty large sum. But Jimmy [Irving] Mills and Slayton was [were] sent by the Lord to stand in the way. His ways are inscrutable.

However this is a secret. President Palmer has gone to Chicago to try to get me loose from this liar of a Slayton. Pray that he may succeed. Several judges here have seen my contract-& they say it is a shameful fraud and can be broken any moment but I am a monk-no self defence -therefore, I had better throw up the whole thing and go to India.

Mr. Palmer was able to free Swamiji from his three-year contract with the lecture bureau, which, rascally though it was, had served a purpose through its wide-flung circuit *_x000d_ _x000d_ *According to Sister Christine, who related the story during a conversation with Swami Ashokananda, Swamiji’s Freedom from slayton cost him almost all the money he had so far saved for India. But according to some of the letters of this period that have recently come to light, this does not seem to have been the case. Moreover, since the contract was fraudulent, Mr. Palmer would, one thinks, have managed to free Swamiji from it without difficulty.

Now, back in Detroit, Swamiji made arrangements with a lecture manager named Holden. But while Mr. Holden may have been honest, he was not competent. "I got only 127 dollars by my last lecture," Swamiji wrote to the Hale sisters on March 15, referring to his two-and-a-half hour lecture of March 11 that had packed the Detroit Opera House. "[It] was not properly managed, the cost of the hall being I50 dollars. I have given up Holden. Here is another fellow cropped up; let me see if he does better.

Whether or not the other fellow did better we do not know, but in any case, it had by now become eminently clear to Swamiji that he would not be able to earn a substantial amount of money for his Indian work by lecturing for a few months or a year in America. Simultaneously, the "work fever," as he called it, subsided, one of its immediate causes gone, and the third week of March saw him rebel against the whole machinery of lecture-touring.

AS THE WAVE FOLLOWS WAVE_x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ So Soul Follows Soul, according to Kananda._x000d_ _x000d_ Vive Kananda lectured to an audience of about t5o [according to the Journal, 500) at the Auditorium last night upon "Buddhism, the Religion of the Light of Asia."_x000d_ Honorable Don M. Dickinson introduced him to the audience._x000d_ "Who shall say that this system of religion is divine and that doomed?" asked Mr. Dickinson in his introductory remarks. "Who shall draw the mystic line?"_x000d_ He also said that at one time the followers of Buddha were the unwilling allies of the christian religion. Ka¬nanda appeared in a robe of orange yellow with a sash like cord about the waist, and a turban draped out of some eastern cloth of silken texture, the flowing end of which was brought in front over one shoulder.

Vive Kananda reviewed at length the early religions of India. He told of the great slaughter of animals on the altar of sacrifice; of Buddha's birth and life; of his puzzling questions to himself over the causes of creation and the reasons for existence; of the earnest struggle of Buddha to find the solution of creation and life; of the final result._x000d_ Buddha, he said, stood head and shoulders above all other men. He was one, he said, [of] whom his friends or enemies could never say that he drew a breath or ate a crumb of bread but for the good of all.

"He never preached transmigration of the soul," said Kananda, "except he believed one soul was to its successor like the wave of the ocean that grew and died away, leaving naught to the succeeding wave but its force. He never preached that there was a God, nor did he deny there was a God._x000d_ " `Why should we be good?' his disciples asked of him. " _x000d_ `Because,' he said, `you inherited good. Let you in your turn leave some heritage of good to your successors. Let us all help the onward march of accumulated goodness, for goodness' sake.'_x000d_ "He was the first prophet. He never abused any one or arrogated anything to himself. He believed in our working out our own salvation in religion._x000d_ " `I can't tell (help) you,' he said, on his death bed, `nor any one. Depend not on any one. Work out your own religion [salvation].'

"He protested against the inequality of man and man, or of man and beast. All life was equal, he preached. He was the first man to uphold the doctrine of prohibition in liquors. `Be good and do good,' he said. `If there is a God you have him by being good. If there is no God, being good is good. He is to be blamed for all he suffers. He is to be praised for all his good:

"He was the first who brought the missionaries into existence. He came as a savior to the downtrodden millions of India. They could not understand his philosophy, but they saw the man and his teachings and they followed him."

In conclusion Kananda said that Buddhism was the foundation of the christian religion; that the catholic church came from Buddhism.

The cyclonic Hindu has come and is a guest with Mr. Palmer. Mr. Palmer has become a Hindu and is going to India; only he insists that two reforms should be carried out: firstly that the Car of Jaggernath [Jagannath] should be drawn by Percherons raised in Mr. Palmer's Loghouse Farm, and secondly that the Jersey cow be admitted into the pantheon of Hindu sacred cows._x000d_ What assurance the Swami could give Mr. Palmer in the matter we do not know. But soon his host was to be sad.

In this lively metropolis, where opinions both conservative and liberal were strongly held and emphatically expressed, he became the centre of a swirl of heated controversy. Ever since his triumph at the Parliament of Religions, where the sublimity and breadth of his thought had clearly given the lie to the prevalent misrepresentations of India, resentment toward him had been smouldering among the more orthodox and narrow members of the Christian clergy. From time to time, in the wake of his tour through the Midwest, that resentment had flared up in whispered slander and acrimonious sermons. But in Detroit, as though it could contain itself no longer, the opposition exploded in full and unrestrained force. Ministers of the Gospel openly and vehemently denounced the Swami and "his false doctrines" from their pulpits. The Detroit newspapers flamed with letters to the editors, bitterly attacking him on the one hand, fervently supporting him on the other.

The Swami made no effort to defend himself or to pacify his detractors. On the contrary, he had no patience with small¬mindedness or fanaticism. He had great reverence for Christ and his teachings. When a distinguished clergyman wondered how he could understand the Christ Ideal so well, he replied, "Why, Jesus was an Oriental! It is therefore natural that we Orientals should understand Him truely and readily." But he pointed out the faults and defects of Christian civilization in unmistakable terms and occasionally was sternly critical, condemning with remarkable penetration the aggressive and destructive characteristics of Western civilization. "I am a rather plain-spoken man," he once said, "but I mean well. I want to tell you the truth. I am not here to flatter you; it is not my business. If I wanted to do that I would have opened a fashionable church in Fifth Avenue in New York. You are my children. I want to show you the way out of self to God by pointing out to you your errors, your defects, and your vanities. Therefore you do not hear me praising your current Christianity or your ideals of civilization, or the peculiar forms of character and life that are developed by Western ethical standards."

One thing I would tell you, and I do not mean any unkind criticism, You train and educate and clothe and pay men to do what?-to come over to my country and curse and abuse all my forefathers, my religion and my everything. They walk near a temple and say, "You idolators, you will go to hell!". . . But the Hindu is mild; he smiles and passes on saying, "Let the fools talk." That is the attitude. And then you who train men to abuse and criticize, if I just touch you with the least bit of criticism, with the kindest of purpose, you shrink and cry, "Do not touch us; we are Americans, we criticize, curse and _x000d_ # _x000d_ abuse all the heathens of the world, but do not touch us, we are sensitive plants." You may do whatever you please, but we are content to live as we do; and in one thing we are better off--we never teach our children to swallow such horrible stuff: "Where [Though] every prospect pleases, and [only] man is vile". And whenever your ministers criticize us let them remember this: if alt India stands up and takes all the mud that is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and throws it up against the Western countries, it will not be doing an infinitesimal part of that which you are doing to us. And what for? Did we ever send one missionary to convert anybody in the West? We say to you, "You are welcome to your religion, but allow us to have ours!" You call yours an aggressive religion. You are aggressive, but how many have you converted? Every sixth man in the world is a Chinese subject, a Buddhist; then there are Japan, Tibet, and Russia, and Siberia, and Burma, and Siam; and it may not be palatable, but this Christian morality, the Catholic Church, and many other things are derived from them. Well, and how was this done? Without the shedding of one drop of blood ! With all your brag and boasting, where has your Christianity succeeded without the sword? Show me one place in the whole world. One, I say, throughout the history of the Christian religion-one; I do not want two. I know how your fore¬fathers were converted. They had to be converted or killed, that was all. . . . "We are the only one." And why? "Because we can kill others." The Arabs said that; they bragged. And where is the Arab now? He is the Bedouin. The Romans used to say that, and where are they now? And we have been sitting there on our blocks of stone. '`Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God!" Such things tumble down; they are built upon sand; they cannot remain long._x000d_ Everything that has selfishness for its basis, competition for its right hand and enjoyment as its goal, must die sooner or later. If you want to live, go back to Christ. Go back to Him who had nowhere to lay His head. . . . Yours is a religion preached in the name of luxury. What an irony of fate! Reverse this if you want to live; reverse this it is all hypocrisy that I have heard in this country. If this nation is going to live, let it go back to Him. You cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time. All this prosperity, all this from Christ? Christ would have denied all such heresies. . . . If you can join these two, this wonderful prosperity with that ideal of Christ, it is well; but if you cannot, better go back to Him and give up these vain pursuits. _x000d_ # _x000d_ Better be ready to live in rags with Christ than to live in palaces without Him.

But notwithstanding the Swami's weariness and disgust for lecturing, the Divine will did not seem to concur just then with his ideas and provide for "a just division of labour"; he had rather to continue lecturing and scattering his ideas himself in wider regions. His desire, rising in his mind like a prophecy, perhaps, to teach "a select, a very select-few" was to be carried out later, but not until he had fully completed the first part of his mission-the wide spreading of his message. Whatever the personal predilections that he might occasionally give expression to, and whatever remonstrances he might make against the course of events, he always acted under direct guidance, even when it went counter to his declared intentions. On many occasions, particularly in his letters, he mentioned this fact.

A study of the Swami's post-Parliament life in America as a preacher, especially during and after his Detroit days of battle, reveals in him a unique fusion of manliness and resignation to the Divine will. He has been called a "militant mystic"; but his powerful manliness looked militant only to the casual observer: it was seldom divorced from gentleness. Those who could not see beyond the militant side of him, did not know that in all his activities he sought and received divine guidance. In his many letters written from America one finds evidence enough of his habitual communion with the Lord-a communion in no way incompatible with awareness of his identity with the Supreme Spirit.

Swamiji arrived in Detroit in the evening on an unscheduled visit from Chicago. Met at station by Helen and Olive Bagley with a carriage. [9 to 19]. Stayed a week at Palmer's - president of world's fair commission and ex- US senator. Then returned to Mrs. Bagley

When in March the Swami came to Detroit for the second time, he at first stayed for nearly a week with the Honourable Thomas W. Palmer, President of the World's Fair Commission, and formerly United States Senator and Minister of his country to Spain. While the Swami was his guest Mr. Palmer gave a dinner to a group of his friends, each more than sixty years of age, which he called his "old boys' club". "I am pulling on well with old Palmer", the Swami wrote to a friend; and indeed Mr. Palmer, "a spirituous gentleman but very good," made his guest "laugh the whole day" by his conviviality.

The first lecture Swamiji gave on his return to Detroit was a direct reply to his antagonists. Not only had local orthodox clergymen attacked him vigorously, but the missionaries and missionary students, who considered their convention an antiOdote to his lectures, had surely left nothing unsaid in the effort to counteract his influence. No doubt Swamiji's friends had relayed to him the criticisms made in his absence, and had implored him to return to give answer.

An announcement in thc Detroit Journal of March 9, 1894, corroborates this sup¬position._x000d_ KANANDA AGAIN_x000d_ The Hindu Will Speak at the Detroit Opera House. _x000d_ Vive Kananda, the Hindu monk, will return to Detroit to-night from Chicago, and will be the guest either of Mrs. John J. Bagley or Hon. T. W. Palmer. Next Sunday evening Kananda will lecture at the Detroit opera house on "Christian Missions in India," his subject suggested by the convention of student volunteers held here last week.

Falsehood and hypocrisy always aroused the warrior in Swamiji, and one is reminded in this connection of a letter he wrote the following year in which he said: "The more I have been opposed, the more my energy has come out always."1 It must have been obvious to him that his opponents in Detroit were in need of a finishing blow, and thus he returned, not to defend himself but to defend the truth; not in anger but in valor. "Christian Missions in India," delivered on Sunday, March 11, was his answer.

It should be noted here (although we shall deal with this topic fully in the following chapter) that for many months after the Parliament of Religions the Swami had no united support or recognition from India. An unaccredited delegate to the Parliament, long unrecognized officially by his own country, he stood alone against all opposition and criticism. He was indeed himself the proof of his rightness, but his ostensible position at this time as a religious teacher without credentials gave great advantage to those who would harm him and cast doubt upon his standing in India and upon his honour. Yet amid all these difficulties and distractions the Swami kept his equanimity, trusting the Lord and consoling himself with the thought that the highest-minded Christians-clergymen and distinguished laymen alike-were his avowed admirers. Many espoused his cause and were even his followers. Above all, he knew that if it was the will of God that his message should be broadcast, nothing on earth could stand against him. His was the spirit of the Rishis (sages) of old. Inwardly he remained always the meditative sannyasi, the spiritual genius, the man who had been a wandering monk, the child of the Mother of the Universe, awaiting her commands and guidance. To his many friends who answered his critics and urged him to do likewise, he replied, "Why should I attack in return? It is not the monk's place to defend himself. Besides, Truth will have its way, believe me; Truth shall stand." Sometimes his only reply, when he was told of some baseless assertions newly made against him, would be a prayer.

But while the Swami refused to reply to the malicious charges made against himself, he gave battle over his Motherland, vindicating her in his own terms, in his own way. Unperturbed by critics, he continued in his Detroit lectures to present the religious and social customs of India in their true light and to shower upon his listeners the grand spiritual truths of Hinduism. Through his lectures and talks the generality of Americans were able to see the depth and beauty of Hindu religion and culture for the first time. "I am the one man who dared defend his country," he was to write on May 6, 1895, to an Indian disciple, "and I have given them such ideas as they never expected from a Hindu." Indeed, the Swami was himself a revelation. His powerful and radiant personality was refuta¬tion enough of the "benighted-heathen" myth that had become ingrained in nineteenth-century American thinking. Single¬-handed, he was able to dispel that national fallacy, for through him worked a power that nothing could withstand. "The power behind me", he was to write later in his letter of July 9, 1897, when speaking of his mission, "is not Vivekananda but He the Lord."

People who had listened for years with increasing dissatisfaction to numerous preachers of modern cults, came to hear him and had their souls animated and their spiritual hopes fulfilled. His utterances were authoritative, his realization genuine; he spoke of what he had felt and had himself seen. Those who had knocked long at the gates of wisdom found him opening those gates for them. Those who had him as their guest or came in intimate contact with him, spoke of him as a kaleidoscopic genius, enriching his surroundings with his many-sided greatness; they said that his was a soul of unutterable beauty and grandeur, that he transcended their previous notions of greatness or of saintship.

On this second visit to Detroit Swamiji had evidently come directly from Chicago, for he wrote almost immediately to Mrs. Hale, letting her know that he had reached his destination without mishap. His letter, dated March 10, 1894, is among those recently made available to us and read in part:_x000d_ Reached Detroit safely yesterday evening. The two younger [Bagley] daughters were waiting for me with a carriage. So everything was all right. I hope the lecture will be a success as one of the girls said the tickets are selling like hot cakes. Here I found a letter from Mr. Palmer waiting me with a request that I shall come over to his house and be his guest._x000d_ Could not go last night-he will come in the course of the day to take me over. As I am going over to Mr. Palmer I have not opened the awfully packed bag. The very idea of repacking seems to me to be hopeless. So I could not shave this morning. However I hope to shave during the course of the day. I am thinking of going over to Boston & New York just now as the Michigan cities I can come and take over in summer but the fashionable of New York & Boston will fly off. Lord will show the way._x000d_ Mrs. Bagley & all the family are heartily glad at my return and people are again coming in to see me.3

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Detroit,_x000d_ 10 March 1894._x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ Reached Detroit safely yesterday evening. The two younger daughters were waiting for me with a carriage. So everything was all right. I hope the lecture will be a success, as one of the girls said the tickets are selling like hot cakes. Here I found a letter from Mr. Palmer awaiting me with a request that I should come over to his house and be his guest._x000d_ Could not go last night. He will come in the course of the day to take me over. As I am going over to Mr. Palmer's, I have not opened the awfully packed bag. The very idea of repacking seems to me to be hopeless. So I could not shave this morning. However, I hope to shave during the course of the day. I am thinking of going over to Boston and New York just now, as the Michigan cities I can come and take over in summer; but the fashionables of New York and Boston will fly off. Lord will show the way._x000d_ Mrs. Bagley and all the family are heartily glad at my return and people are again coming in to see me._x000d_ The photographer here has sent me some of the pictures he made. They are positively villainous Mrs. Bagley does not like them at all. The real fact is that between the two photos my face has become so fat and heavy what can the poor photographers do?_x000d_ Kindly send over four copies of photographs. Not yet made any arrangement with Holden. Everything promises to be very nice. "Ssenator Ppalmer" is a very nice gentleman and very kind to me. He has got a French chef__Lord bless his stomach! I am trying to starve and the whole world is against me!! He used to give the best dinners in all Washington! Hopeless! I am re¬signed!_x000d_ I will write more from Mr. Palmer's house._x000d_ If the Himalayas become the inkpot, the ocean ink, if the heavenly eternal Devadaroo becomes the pen, and if the sky itself becomes paper, still I would not be able to write a drop of the debt of gratitude I owe to you and yours. Kindly convey my love to the four full notes and the four half notes of the Hale gamut. _x000d_ May the blessings of the Lord be upon you and yours ever and ever._x000d_ Ever yours in grateful affection,_x000d_ Vivekananda.

The Honorable Thomas Witherell Palmer, who had invited Swamiji to be his guest, was one of Detroit's wealthy business¬men who felt it their patriotic responsibility to enter politics. Palmer put his talents to the service not only of Detroit but of the federal government. After holding various local offices, he was elected to the United States Senate in 1883. Far ahead of his times, he worked for women's suffrage some forty years before that movement became triumphant. Even more farsightedly, he strove to establish governmental control of the octopus like railroads, and originated the slogan "Equal rights to all, special privileges to none." At the end of his term in the Senate he was appointed Minister to Spain, and shortly after he resigned that post was chosen Chief Commissioner of the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. It was no doubt during the Parliament of Religions that this warmhearted, sanguine champion of the people first recognized in Swamiji a kindred spirit.

Swamiji's move to Mr. Palmer's large frame house, which stood some twenty-four blocks north of Mrs. Bagley's, on the site of what is now the Detroit Institute of Arts, would not have saved him from the horrendous dinners of the era; on the contrary, it was, in this respect, like walking into the lion's den.

"S-Senator P-Palmer" is a very nice gentleman and very kind to me [he wrote to Mrs. Hale in his letter of March 10]. He has got a French chef-Lord bless his stomach! I am trying to starve & the whole world is against me! ! He used to give the best dinners of all Washington! Hopeless! I am resigned!

. . . Never before had Detroit been favored with a convention so large in point of numbers, and at the same time of so wide scope and far reaching significance. As a missionary convention it was not only the largest and most important ever held in Detroit, but the greatest ever held on this continent, and one of the greatest distinctly missionary gatherings that has ever convened in the world. . . . The registration lists showed a total of 1,187 accredited delegates present, representing 294 separate institutions of learning, and 38 different denominations. Besides these, some 50 secretaries or representatives of missionary societies; over 50 returned missionaries; representatives of the Y.M.C.A. and other organizaions, swelled the grand total of registered members of the convention to I,357………

Meetings took place in the Central Church, which overflowed with missionaries and spectators until, after the first day, additional meetings were held in other churches to accommodate the crowd. "The local committee," says the Michigan Christian Advocate "were taxed to their wits' end to find entertainment, for so many, but the Christian people of Detroit arose to the occasion and all were comfortably taken care of."

It was indeed a grand sight, and one calculated to quicken the pulse and stir the blood of any person interested in the great missionary movements for the world's evangelization, to look into the faces of those 1,200 earnest young men and women, all turning toward the foreign mission field for their life work. These young people represented about 300 institutions of learning, including every such institution of any importance in the United States and Canada. They were in an important sense the picked men and women of these institutions. Seldom does one see such a body of young people. A high intellectual average, intense earnestness of purpose, and a deep consecration to God and his work were marked characteristics. It was manifest that they were here, not on a mere holiday outing, but on serious business to gain inspiration and learn how to best prepare to take their place in the work of winning this world for Christ.

It was a formidable gathering. And whether or not the delegates mustered in such large numbers as an answer to the Parliament of Religions, they considered that their convention in Detroit was an answer to Swamiji. The Christian Advocate editorialized:_x000d_ _x000d_ What a splendid antidote the convention was for Vive Kananda and his lectures! Came just in the nick of time. The glamour produced by his suave sophistries vanished like mist before the stalwart faith and living experience of men who have met and coped with heathenism on its own ground. Vale Kananda!_x000d_ Vale Kananda, indeed! The fact was that, although the convention may have sought to counteract Swamiji's influence, it was itself not uninfluenced by him. A new note, commented upon by the missionaries themselves, sounded throughout the proceedings. Far less emphasis than had been customary at such meetings was laid upon the external aspect of Christian missionary endeavor in foreign lands and far more upon the inner spirit.

To quote again from the Christian Advocate of March 10:_x000d_ _x000d_ The watchwords of the movement were set forth in large printed letters stretched along the galleries: "Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations"; "Let us advance upon our knees." . . ._x000d_ _x000d_ Among the features that marked the convention, there was none more prominent, or that more profoundly im¬pressed all in attendance, than the intensely spiritual tone that pervaded it. This stood out above everything else. Education, culture, methods, finance, and all the other secularities, were remanded to their rightful and sub¬ordinate places, and from first to last, by every speaker with scarce an exception, the thought was kept uppermost that the indwelling Christ and the baptism and fullness of the Holy Ghost constitute the one essential fitness, the prime necessity, the only source of power and guarantee of success. . . . From first to last, the clarion call was for Spirit-filled men and women. A Methodist could almost imagine himself in a holiness convention throughout the whole meeting. This emphasis laid upon the spiritual side in this great missionary movement is full of significance and fraught with momentous promise. A movement that thus honors the Holy Ghost cannot but succeed. . . .

Even from the missionaries in India the message came that the spiritual side of things was in order. "That was a stirring cablegram read by Chairman Mott at the farewell meeting, from Wilder and White in Calcutta," commented the Christian Advocate: " `India needs now 1,000 Spirit-filled volunteers.' "

CHRISTIAN ECCENTRICITIES_x000d_ _x000d_ Very likely they don't do these things any better in India; but it must be confessed that it is a little awkward to have that Hindoo tarn up again in Detroit the same week that three policemen had to be on duty at a christian church for the purpose of keeping order among its members, seated in hostile array and ready for an outbreak on opposite sides of the room. Then, the policemen, at the request of one of this flock, went round with him to the house of his shepherd to pay him a month's salary, but evidently afraid to do so without having witnesses to his act. Perhaps he wanted the protection of the strong arm of the law lest his minister should assault him and take away the money and then refuse to give him an acknowledgment of the payment. The Lutheran minister did refuse to give him a receipt that evening because, as he put it, these dissatisfied parishioners had long withheld his pay and it would be no great hardship to make them wait for the receipt overnight at least.

There are thousands of peaceful congregations, millions of christians in and out of the church, that trust each other respectfully; confide in each other's honor; pay their debts and need no policemen to regulate the conduct of their religious affairs. But at the same time, suppose this casual Hindoo should mistake the exception for the rule, and hold christianity responsible for all its failures. What a nuisance he might make of himself!

The Detroit Free Press report of this lecture has been reprinted with some variations, in volume eight of the Complete Works, under the title "Christianity in India." The headlines and first two paragraphs, which have been omitted in volume eight, read as follows:_x000d_ _x000d_ NOT EASY TO CONVERT_x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ The People of India Take the Bait _x000d_ But not the Hook._x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ Missionaries are not in Sympathy with the People._x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ Do not Speak the Language or _x000d_ Understand the Natives.

Vive Kananda spoke to a crowded audience at the Detroit Opera House last night. He was given an extremely cordial reception and delivered his most eloquent address here. He spoke for two hours and a half._x000d_ Hon. T. W. Palmer, in introducing the distinguished visitor, referred to the old tale of the shield that was copper on one side and silver on the other and the contest which ensued. If we look on both sides of a question there would be less dispute. It is possible for all men to agree. The matter of foreign missions has been dear to the religious heart. Vive Kananda, from the Christian standpoint, said Mr. Palmer, was a pagan. It would be pleasant to hear from a gentleman who spoke about the copper side of the shield._x000d_ Vive Kananda was received with great applause. . . .

I do not know much about missionaries in Japan and China, but I am well posted about India. The people of this country look upon India as a vast waste, with many jungles and a few civilised Englishmen. India is half as large as the United States, and there are three hundred million people. Many stories are related, and I have become tired of denying these. The first invaders of India, the Aryans, did not try to exterminate the population of India as the Christians did when they went into a new land, but the endeavour was made to elevate persons of brutish habits. The Spaniards came to Ceylon with Christianity. The Spaniards thought that their God commanded them to kill and murder and to tear down heathen temples. The Buddhists had a tooth a foot long, which belonged to their Prophet, and the Spaniards threw it into the sea, killed a few thousand persons, and converted a few scores. The Portuguese came to Western India. The Hindus have a belief in the Trinity and had a temple dedicated to their sacred belief. The invaders looked at the temple and said it was a creation of the devil; and so they brought their cannon to bear upon the wonderful structure and destroyed a portion of it. But the invaders were driven out of the country by the enraged population. The early missionaries tried to get hold of the land, and in their effort to secure a foothold by force, they killed many people and converted a number. Some of them became Christians to save their lives. Ninety-nine percent of the Christians converted by the Portuguese sword were compelled to be so, and they said, "We do not believe in Christianity, but we are forced to call ourselves Christians." But Catholic Christianity soon relapsed.

The East India Company got possession of a part of India with the idea of making hay while the sun shone. They kept the missionaries away. The Hindus were the first to welcome the missionaries, not the Englishmen, who were engaged in trade. I have great admiration for some of the first missionaries of the later period, who were true servants of Jesus and did not vilify the people or spread vile falsehoods about them. They were gentle, kindly men. When Englishmen became masters of India, the missionary enterprise began to become stagnant, a condition which characterises the missionary efforts in India today. Dr. Long, an early missionary, stood by the people. He translated a Hindu drama describing the evils perpetuated in India by indigo-planters, and what was the result? He was placed in jail by the English. Such missionaries were of benefit to the country, but they have passed away. The Suez Canal opened up a number of evils.

Now goes the missionary, a married man, who is hampered because he is married. The missionary knows nothing about the people, he cannot speak the language, so he invariably settles in the little white colony. He is forced to do this because he is married. Were he not married, he could go among the people and sleep on the ground if necessary. So he goes to India to seek company for his wife and children. He stays among the English-speaking people. The great heart of India is today absolutely untouched by missionary effort. Most of the missionaries are incompetent. I have not met a single missionary who understands Sanskrit. How can a man absolutely ignorant of the people and their traditions, get into sympathy with them? I do not mean any offense, but Christians send men as missionaries, who are not persons of ability. It is sad to see money spent to make converts when no real results of a satisfactory nature are reached.

Those who are converted, are the few who make a sort of living by hanging round the missionaries. The converts who are not kept in service in India, cease to be converts. That is about the entire matter in a nutshell. As to the way of converting, it is absolutely absurd. The money the missionaries bring is accepted. The colleges founded by missionaries are all right, so far as the education is concerned. But with religion it is different. The Hindu is acute; he takes the bait but avoids the hook! It is wonderful how tolerant the people are. A missionary once said, "That is the worst of the whole business. People who are self-complacent can never be converted."

As regards the lady missionaries, they go into certain houses, get four shillings a month, teach them something of the Bible, and show them how to knit. The girls of India will never be converted. Atheism and skepticism at home is what is pushing the missionary into other lands.

When I came into this country I was surprised to meet so many liberal men and women. But after the Parliament of Religions a great Presbyterian paper came out and gave me the benefit of a seething article. This the editor called enthusiasm. The missionaries do not and cannot throw off nationality--they are not broad enough--and so they accomplish nothing in the way of converting, although they may have a nice sociable time among themselves. India requires help from Christ, but not from the antichrist; these men are not Christlike. They do not act like Christ; they are married and come over and settle down comfortably and make a fair livelihood. Christ and his disciples would accomplish much good in India, just as many of the Hindu saints do; but these men are not of that sacred character. The Hindus would welcome the Christ of the Christians gladly, because his life was holy and beautiful; but they cannot and will not receive the narrow utterances of the ignorant, hypocritical or self-deceiving men.

Men are different. If they were not, the mentality of the world would be degraded. If there were not different religions, no religion would survive. The Christian requires his religion; the Hindu needs his own creed. All religions have struggled against one another for years. Those which were founded on a book, still stand. Why could not the Christians convert the Jews? Why could they not make the Persians Christians? Why could they not convert Mohammedans? Why cannot any impression be made upon China or Japan? Buddhism, the first missionary religion, numbers double the number of converts of any other religion, and they did not use the sword. The Mohammedans used the greatest violence. They number the least of the three great missionary religions. The Mohammedans have had their day. Every day you read of Christian nations acquiring land by bloodshed. What missionaries preach against this? Why should the most blood-thirsty nation exalt an alleged religion which is not the religion of Christ? The Jews and the Arabs were the fathers of Christianity, and how they have been persecuted by the Christians! The Christians have been weighed in the balance in India and have been found wanting. I do not mean to be unkind, but I want to show the Christians how they look in others' eyes. The missionaries who preach the burning pit are regarded with horror. The Mohammedans rolled wave after wave over India waving the sword, and today where are they?

The furthest that all religions can see is the existence of a spiritual entity. So no religion can teach beyond that point. In every religion there is the essential truth and the non-essential casket in which this jewel lies. Believing in the Jewish book or in the Hindu book is non-essential. Circumstances change; the receptacle is different; but the central truth remains. The essentials being the same, the educated people of every community retain the essentials. If you ask a Christian what his essentials are, he should reply, "The teachings of Lord Jesus." Much of the rest is nonsense. But the nonsensical part is right; it forms the receptacle. The shell of the oyster is not attractive, but the pearl is within it. The Hindu will never attack the life of Jesus; he reverences the Sermon on the Mount. But how many Christians know or have heard of the teachings of the Hindu holy men? They remain in a fool's paradise. Before a small fraction of the world was converted, Christianity was divided into many creeds. That is the law of nature. Why take a single instrument from the great religious orchestra of the earth? Let the grand symphony go on. Be pure. Give up superstition and see the wonderful harmony of nature. Superstition gets the better of religion. All the religions are good, since the essentials are the same. Each man should have the perfect exercise of his individuality, but these individualities form a perfect whole. This marvelous condition is already in existence. Each creed has something to add to the wonderful structure.

I pity the Hindu who does not see the beauty in Jesus Christ's character. I pity the Christian who does not reverence the Hindu Christ. The more a man sees of himself, the less he sees of his neighbors. Those that go about converting, who are very busy saving the souls of others, in many instances forget their own souls. I was asked by a lady why the women of India were not more elevated. It is in a great degree owing to the barbarous invaders through different ages; it is partly due to the people in India themselves. But our women are any day better than the ladies of this country who devotees of novels and balls. Where is the spirituality one would expect in a country which is so boastful of its civilisation? I have not found it. "Here" and "hereafter" are words to frighten children. It is all "here". To live and move in God--even here, even in this body! All self should go out; all superstition should be banished. Such men live in India. Where are such in this country? Your preachers speak against "dreamers". The people of this country would be better off if there were more "dreamers". If a man here followed literally the instruction of his Lord, he would be called a fanatic. There is a good deal of difference between dreaming and the brag of the nineteenth century. The bees look for the flowers. Open the lotus! The whole world is full of God and not of sin. Let us help each other. Let us love each other. A beautiful prayer of the Buddhist is: I bow down to all the saints; I bow down to all the prophets; I bow down to all the holy men and women all over the world!

An open letter welcoming Swamiji was published in the Detroit Critic of March 11 . It was written by O. P. Deldoc, the same who had earlier written letters to the Free Press in Swamiji's defense and who had a flair all his own for the English language. O. P. Deldoc was evidently a pen name, for it cannot be found in the Detroit registers for 1894. But whoever he may have been, his pen was prolific and vigorous and, to judge from the Fact that the Critic published his letters and articles, he was known in literary and intellectual circles. In any case, Deldoc's outlook upon the current state of civilization in the United States was by no means singular, but represented the liberal thought of the day. His welcoming letter, which gives a picture of the unrest of the age, indicates that the voices which cheered Swamiji were every bit as loud and angry as those which decried him. Feelings ran high in Detroit.

The letter, too long to present here in all its verbosity, began as follows:_x000d_ _x000d_ "HYPOCRITS"_x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ The Christian Religion _x000d_ Has Very Many of Them_x000d_ Who Hide Their Heads behind Its Convenient Cloak._x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ Hail Vive Kananda, the Hindoo._x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ A Nervy Writer Discusses the Abuse of Kananda _x000d_ With a Very Bitter Pen._x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ Some Truths Which are Very Hard to Swallow._x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ An Open Letter to Vive Kananda._x000d_ _x000d_ Dear Swami:_x000d_ _x000d_ I rejoice to see that you are in the missionary field again in this part of our immoral vineyard. Truly "the harvest is great, and the laborers are few." We need more laborers in the harvest._x000d_ "There's a cry to Macedonia, come and help us, The light of the Gospel bring; oh! Come."

True, we have had the great Chapman revival here, but the sheaves that were garnered would not fill one stall of the barn where his services were held. Missionary Stead has just shaken the dust of the most noted and wickedest city on earth from his brogans, and by this time is half seas over, and Chicago is unconverted. The Baptist brethren have failed to make cold water converts out of Detroit's ardent Spiritualists. The missionary convention brought forth a small army of raw recruits for service, but they were too green to make palatable roast missionary of, though they thought themselves capable of "roasting the heathen." Soon we are to have the Christian Endeavor Society, to endeavor to see what they can do, but alas! All their endeavors are directed to foreign shores. They want to send more missionaries to convert more heathen, and they want to raise more money to purchase more tracts, plug hats, and suspenders for "those poor men benighted, where only man is vile." In their eagerness to to go abroad, they forget that both man and woman are vile in their own country, and require much missionary work right at home. I rejoice to see that you are in the field. We need you, . . . And we find by more than eighteen hundred years of past experience that we cannot depend upon our own missionaries. . . .

You don't begin to know how vile the heathen are here , even though they dwell in the light of the nineteenth century. . . . We want some missionaries from India and China, and we want them bad, or rather, we want them good, ours are bad enough. . . . Your religion for thousands of years has been one of mercy and love. Of humility and truth. Of science, logic and law. Ours is one of bigotry, persecution, war, blood and hatred. One of fable and fallacy. Of fraud and hypocrisy. "Prove it"; why certainly. . . .

Deldoc then proceeded to catalogue most colorfully the iniquities of American civilization. "In the first place," he says, "we worship idols. The idols are in silver and gold. . . . Other idolaters worship at the shrine of Venus and Bacchus.... Murder, bloodshed, riot, anarchy, cruelty to animals; yes, and cruelty to wife and children, whom they treat as slaves.... Patriotism wades knee deep in human blood. Blood is the fundamental basis of our religion." He goes on to enumerate and castigate many a practice of nineteenth-century America: Child murder, so common as to be unnoticed. Female slavery and child slavery. "Sweathouses," suicides; caste in society, state and church. Bribery and corruption in politics, press and pulpit. "We hang, burn and torture criminals. We suffer mob law and violence to rule over us. We build prisons and mad houses, and keep them full to overflowing. . . . We have opium eaters in our most fashionable circles." Highway robbery, polygamy, prostitution alarmingly prevail. Vile dens of infamy are rented by pewholders. "Our clergymen are not all saints; they too frequently `fall from grace,' but when they lose caste here, they can be utilized in foreign missionary service. Our females are in such abject slavery that they have to organize Women's Rights societies to petition legislature to redress their wrongs. . . . As a result of all this moral depravity, we have starvation, beggary, and crime. Strikes and labor riots are common everyday occurrences among the lower caste…." Deldoc, having left American civilization little cause to raise its head, concludes his letter with a finishing blow:

Besides, we find the clerical cloak, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. One minister recently said, when asked what he thought you would do with the money gained from your lectures, that "you would probably stick to it." How well he knew the inner mysteries of missionary work; but it was unwise to give the snap away. Their whole attention now seems to center in India, instead of among the cannibals, possibly for the reason that your people don't eat flesh, and they are safer among the mild mannered natives of India.

These, dear Swami, are a few briefly noted facts, sus¬ceptible of ocular demonstration, which even in your short sojourn amongst us you must have noticed. Our watchmen on the walls of Zion have reviled you, figuratively speaking, have kicked you behind your back, and are "bearing false witness" against their neighbor in your own and other lands. . . . Where shall we look for help in this our time of need? We hopefully turn with anxious eyes to the Orient, or to the "wise men of the east," where the Star of Bethlehem arose, and where God's bright sunlight ever dawns. If you have a purer religion than we, and surely you can have none practically worse, I beseech you come over and help us._x000d_ _x000d_ Yours, for human brotherhood, _x000d_ O. P. DELDOC.

Detroit_x000d_ 12th March, 1894_x000d_ Dear Sisters {the Hale sisters},_x000d_ I am now living with Mr. Palmer. He is a very nice gentleman. He gave a dinner the night before last to a group of his old friends, each more than 60 years of age, which he calls his "old boys' club". I spoke at an opera house for two hours and a half. People were very much pleased. I am going to Boston and New York. I will get here sufficient to cover my expenses there. I have forgotten the addresses of both Flagg and Prof. Wright. I am not going to lecture in Michigan, Mr. Holden tried to persuade me this morning to lecture in Michigan but I am quite bent upon seeing a little of Boston and New York. To tell you the truth, the more I am getting popularity and facility in speaking, the more I am getting fed up. My last address was the best I ever delivered. Mr. Palmer was in ecstasies and the audience remained almost spellbound, so much so that it was after the lecture that I found I had spoken so long. A speaker always feels the uneasiness or inattention of the audience. Lord save me from such nonsense, I am fed up. I would take rest in Boston or New York if the Lord permits. My love to you all. May you ever be happy!_x000d_ Your affectionate brother,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Kananda Again In Our Midst._x000d_ _x000d_ To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:_x000d_ _x000d_ "That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, and yet to stand."_x000d_ Is it reasonable to suppose for an instant that among 360,000,000 of Vishnu's followers, clever volunteers were not offered or selections made according to the eastern standard of wiliness or craftiness for representatives to the "World's Congress of Religious Bodies?"

"We wrestle against spiritual darkness in high places:' Be not deceived. You will not (though this being your purpose appears questionable) be able to convert Kananda. Such is my sincere belief, but he may do incalculable mischief. "Judge of the trees by their fruits." Compare the Fruits of Christianity with those of Brahminism. On the one hand, enlightenment, progressiveness, joy, comforts and good will towards men; not absolute but comparative. On the other hand, darkness, dreariness, misery, and for good will towards men, good will towards dogs, cats and cobras; not absolute, but comparative.

That any intelligent person can for a moment give greater credence to the statements of a Hindoo (educated or not) than to the numerous counter statements of our own educated men and women, travelers, missionaries or what not, surpasses strangeness. And yet many are ready to argue that the stories we hear of infanticide, widow immolation, and other conditions of misery among the Hindoos, are greatly exaggerated. In this connection please bear in mind that many of the stories we hear only claim to relate to periods prior to England's control of India's affairs; and we all know or should know, of their improvement since.

For my part my fears have been aroused recently so as to have produced a well-grounded belief that some of these stories are rather minimized than exaggerated at this time. . . . Within a week a man told me that when he was an officer of a vessel some years ago, at the mouth of the Hoogley river, about thirty miles below Calcutta, he was obliged to have his mooring lines cleared of the floating bodies of dead infants. For those unfamiliar with the facts, it is necessary to state that the mouth of the Hoogley river swarmed with crocodiles then, 1854, much as our own Mississippi did with alligators twenty-five years ago, when the writer saw at one glance of the eye say twenty alligators when there was a chance of their getting anything to eat, in the moat at Port Jackson, half of them large enough to swallow an infant. Whether the river outside the moat was as thick with them or not, he is unable to say, but one scarcely ever rode along this part of the Mississippi on warm days without seeing one or more of them roll off the logs into the river. The number of infanticides in Calcutta and along the river above and below can only be approximated by persons for themselves from these data; taking into consideration the time necessary for a body to rise to the surface and float thirty miles more or less, and the uncertainty of its even reaching the mouth and there becoming stranded on a vessel's mooring lines, in order that eight infant's bodies should thus have become stranded in the seven weeks time that the vessel was there.

One of the missionaries in our city last week, being interrogated on the subject of shocking infanticide in India now by another lady, answered thus: "Why, of course it is true, how could it be otherwise? Don't you know that the words virtue and morality have no meaning with the Hindoos, they are as much worse than the Chinese and Japanese as you can imagine." For those who may not appreciate this comparison, we must speak plainly. In Japan, when a man takes a fancy to a flower girl or tea girl he can negotiate with her parents for her services as a concubine about as we might negotiate for the services of a young girl as a domestic. The inquirer then said, "But Kananda denies all this," to which the missionary replied by smiling, shrugging her shoulders and saying, with as much doubt in her looks as possible, "Perhaps he doesn't know."

Horror of horrors! Wholesale infanticide, cobras, crocodiles and wilful falsehood? Does the witches' cauldron in Macbeth equal this? One hardly knows though, whether to find greater fault with the educated heathen for deliberately falsifying, or with the missionary for failing to state plainly that such was her belief.

"False in one thing, false in all." Therefore, unless you have confirmatory evidence from other sources, please take all Kananda's statements cum grano salis (with salt); and For the love of heaven, let us have the plain truth._x000d_ OCCIDENTAL.

KANANDA, THE PAGAN_x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ Attacked Christian Missions in Last Night's Lecture._x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ And His Words were Warmly Applauded by the _x000d_ Audience._x000d_ ____________x000d_ _x000d_ Christian Nations Kill and Murder, He Said, and Import Disease into Foreign Countries, then Add Insult to_x000d_ Injury by Preaching of a Crucified Christ.

Swami Vive Kananda lectured to a very large audi¬ence at the Detroit Opera House last night on "Christian Missions in India." One could believe that the lecture was intended as an answer to the many statements of mis¬sionaries which have been aimed at Kananda during the past two weeks in this city.

Kananda was introduced by Honorable Thomas W. Palmer last night, who recited a fable by way of preface. "Two knights of honor once met on the field," he said, "and seeing a shield hanging on a tree they halted. One said: `What a very fine silver shield.' The other replied that it was not silver but copper. Each disputed the other's statement until at last they got off their horses, tied them to the tree, and drawing their swords fought for several hours. After they were both well spent by the loss of blood they staggered against each other and Fell on the opposite sides from where they had been fighting. Then one glanced up at the pendant shield and said: `You were right, my friend. The shield is copper.' The other looked up and said: `It is I who was mistaken. The shield is silver.' If they had looked at both sides of the shield in the first place it would have saved the loss of much blood. I think that if we looked at both sides of every question there would be less argument and fighting._x000d_ "We have with us tonight a gentleman who, from the christian standpoint is, I suppose, a pagan. But he belongs to a religion which was old long before ours was thought of by men. I am sure that it will be pleasant to hear from the copper side of the shield. We have looked at it only From the silver side. Ladies and Gentle¬men, Swami Vive Kananda."

Kananda, who had remained seated on the stage during Mr. Palmer's remarks, stepped to the front, clad in the orange robe and unique turban of the Brahman priest, bowed in acknowledgement of the welcoming applause, and launched at once into his subject.

What India Is._x000d_ _x000d_ "I do not know about the efforts of christian missionaries in China and Japan except through reading the books and literature on the subject, but I can speak about the efforts of christianizing India. But before I go into this I want to place before you an idea of what India is."

Then he explained in detail how the 300,000,000 inhabitants of India are divided into castes, between which there can be no affiliation, how the natives of the south cannot understand the language of the ones of the north, and vice versa. He told how the lower caste lived on the flesh of dead animals, and never bathed their bodies, and how impossible it would be for the higher class to mingle with them, although they were granted the protection of the same laws.

He referred to the first appearance of the christians in an attempt to evangelize the followers of Buddah. They were Spaniards, he said, and they discovered a temple near Ceylon, in which was presented a tooth of Buddah as a sacred relic.

"The Spaniard christians thought that their God com¬manded them to go and fight and kill and murder " ,_x000d_ he said, "and so they seized the tooth of Buddah and destroyed it. By the way, it was not a tooth of Buddah at all, but a relic manufactured by the priests-it was a foot long. (Laughter) Every religion has its miracles; you needn't laugh because the tooth was a foot long. Well, after the Spaniards took away the tooth they converted a few hundred and killed a Few thousands; and there Spain stops in the history of missionary efforts among the Buddhists."

The Portugese christians, he said, discovered the great temple at Bombay, built in the form of a body with three heads, in representation of the trinity as the Hindoo believes in a trinity._x000d_ "The Portugese saw it and couldn't explain it," said Kananda, with a sarcastic ring in his voice, "and so they concluded that it was of the devil, and gathered their forces and knocked off the three heads of the temple. The devil is such a handy man. I am sorry to see him so fast disappearing."

Then Kananda outlined the various stages of christian evangelization in India, and paid very high tribute to two or three missionaries, who, he said, had been great excep¬tions to the rule, and lived among the people to uplift and minister to their needs.

Antagonize Native Interests._x000d_ _x000d_ The Hindoo priest told how as soon as the land came into possession of the English people every village had its white colony, which huddled itself together and withdrew From a11 association with the natives. Then when the missionaries reached the country, he said, they would naturally go at once among the English people, who sym¬pathized with them and with whom they could converse. The missionaries know nothing of the native language, he says, and so they cannot dwell with the people. Most of them are married and for the sake of getting their wives into the English society they identify themselves with all their interests, and in doing so directly antagonize the interests of the natives, and make it impossible to get in touch with them.

"We sometimes have famines in India," he said. "And so the young missionaries will hang about the fag end of a famine and give a starving native 5 shillings, and there you have him, a ready-made christian; take him. That was probably a baptist missionary, and so when a me-thodist missionary comes along he gives the same native 5 shillings, and his name is again registered as a convert. The only band of converts around each missionary is composed of those dependent upon him for a living. They have to be christians or starve. And they are dwindling as the money supply decreases. I am glad if you want to make christians in India by giving work and bread to the poor. God speed you to do that. There is one benefit that must be credited to the missionary movement. It makes educa¬tion cheap. The missionaries bring some money with them from the people who send them, and the Indian govern¬ment appropriates some, so that there are some very good colleges and schools available to the natives through mis¬sionaries. But I will be frank with you. There are no con¬versions from the schools to the christian religion. The Hindoo boy is very clever. He takes the bait, but never gets the hook."

The speaker said that the lady missionary goes into certain houses, gets four shillings a month, reads the Bible, while the native girls give indifferent attention, and teaches them to knit while they pay very keen attention. The girls, like the boys, he said are always alert to learn practical things, but they will give little heed to the christian religion, although they will espouse it if necessary to get the other advantages.

Most Missionaries Incompetent._x000d_ _x000d_ "The most of the men whom you send us as missionaries are incompetent," he said. "I have never known of a single man who has studied Sanscrit before going to India as a missionary and yet all our books and Literature are printed in it: '

He suggested as an explanation of the visits of the missionaries that "perhaps the atheism and scepticism at home is pushing the missionaries out a11 over the world." When in India he said he had thought the sole business of christianity [was] to send all people to the fires of hell, but since coming to America he has found that there are a great many liberal men. He referred to the parliament of religions, and told how a certain editor of a presbyterian paper had written an article at the close of the parliament entitled "The Lying Hindoo," in which he had scored him very severely.

In the article the editor said that "while in the parlia¬ment he was here as our guest, but now that it is over we ought to make an enthusiastic attack against him and his false doctrines."

In referring to the medical missionaries in India Ka¬nanda said: "India requires health, but it must be health for people. And how can you help our people if you do not get in touch with them? When you come to us as mis¬sionaries you ought to throw over all idea of nationality. Jesus didn't go about among the English officials attending champagne suppers. He didn't care to have his wife get into high European society. If your missionary does not follow Christ what right has he to call himself a christian? We want missionaries of Christ. Let such come to India by the hundreds and thousands. Bring Christ's life to us and let it permeate the very core of society. Let Him be preached in every village and corner of India. But don't have your missionaries choose their profession as a means of livelihood. Let them have the call of Christ. Let them feel within that they were born for that work.

"As far as converting India to christianity is concerned, there is no hope. If it were possible it ought not to be done. It would be dangerous; it would mark the destruction of all religions. If the whole universe should come to have the same temperament, physical or mental, destruction would immediately result. Why couldn't you convert the Jew? Why couldn't you make the Persians christians? Why is it that to every African who becomes a christian too be¬come followers of Mohammed? Why can't you make an impression on India and China, and Japan? Because one¬ness of mental temperament all over the world would be death. Nature is too wise to allow such things.

Filled the World with Bloodshed._x000d_ _x000d_ "The christian nations have filled the world with blood¬shed and tyranny. It is their day now. You kill and murder and bring drunkenness and disease in our country, and then add insult to injury by preaching Christ and Him crucified. What christian voice goes through the land protesting against such horrors? I have never heard any. You drink the idea in your mothers' milk that you are angels and we are devils. It is not enough that there be sunlight; you must have the eyes to see it. It is not only necessary that there be goodness in people; you must have the appreciation of goodness within yourselves in order to distinguish it. This is in every heart until it has been murdered by superstition and hideous blasphemy."

Then Kananda drew a very beautiful simile to illustrate that the essential truths of all religions are [the] same, and all else is but incidental and unimportant environment. He told how the savage man might find a few jewels, and prizing them, tie them with a rude thong and string them about his neck. As he became slightly civilized he would perhaps exchange the thong for a string. Becoming still more enlightened he would fasten his jewels with a silken cord; and when possessed of a high civilization he would make an elaborate gold setting for his treasures. But throughout all the changes in settings the jewels-the essentials-would remain the same.

"If the Hindoo wishes to criticize the christian religion he talks of the fables and miracles, and all the nonsense of the Bible, but he does not say one word in disparagement of the sermon on the mount, or of the beautiful life of Jesus. And so when the christian criticizes the Hindoo religion he talks about the dogmas and the temples, but he says nothing [should say nothing] against the morality and philosophy of the Hindoo. Help the Jew and let him help you. Help the Hindoo and let him help you. I deny that any human being has the faculty of seeing good at all who cannot see it in all places. There is the same beauty in the character of Christ and the character of Buddah. It is not an assimilation that we want, but adjustment and harmony. I ask the preachers to give up, first, the idea of nationality; and second, the idea of sects. God's children have no sects.

"Much has been said about the ladies of India, and of their faults and condition. There are faults; God help us to make them right. We are thankful for your criticism of our women. But while you are speaking of them I will say that I should be glad to see a dozen spiritual women in America. Nice dress, wealth, brilliant society, operas, novels-. Even intellectuality is not all that there is for a man or woman. There should be also spirituality, but that side is entirely absent from christian countries. They live in India."

Vive Kananda's large audience listened very respectfully to his remarks last night, and once or twice applauded heartily.

But although most of the Evening News article will be familiar, I believe it should be reproduced here in its entirety, for it is indicative of the reaction to Swamiji's repudiation of Christian missionary work in India:_x000d_ _x000d_ A POINTER FOR THE MISSIONARIES_x000d_ Most people will be inclined to think that Swami Vive Kananda did better last night in his opera house lecture than he did in any of his former lectures in this city. The merit of the Brahman's utterances last night lay in their clearness. He drew a very sharp line of distinction between christianity and christianity, and told his audience plainly wherein he himself is a christian in one sense and not a christian in another sense. He also drew a sharp line between Hindooism and Hindooism, carrying the implication that he desired to be classed as a Brahman only in its better sense. Swami Vive Kananda stands superior to all criticism when he says:_x000d_ "We want missionaries of Christ. Let such come to India by the hundreds and thousands. Bring Christ's life to us, and let it permeate the very core of society. Let Him be preached in every village and corner of India."

When a man is as sound as that on the main question, all else that he may say must refer to the subordinate details. The best christian thought and hope of all the centuries have wholly to do with what Kananda says he wants to see in India-Christ's life "permeating every corner of society." Here is the highest "testimony," as our religionists are pleased to call it, of the essential truth and power of the real gospel of the Nazarene. The failure of christian missions in foreign lands is not to be referred to the divine person who stands behind the missionaries, for the pagans themselves are quite willing to concede the glory of that life, but to the missionary failure to illustrate that life in their methods and customs. There is infinite humiliation in this spectacle of a pagan priest reading lessons of conduct and of life to the men who have assumed the spiritual supervision of Greenland's icy mountains and India's coral strand, but the sense of humiliation is the sine qua non of most reforms of this world. Having said what he did of the glorious life of the author of the christian faith, Kananda has the right to lecture the way he has the men who profess to represent that life among the nations abroad.

"If your missionary does not represent Christ what right has he to call himself a christian? Let Christ be preached in every village of India, but don't have your missionaries choose their profession as a means of livelihood. Let them have the call of Christ. Let them feel from within that they were born for that work." And after all, how like the Nazarene that sounds! "Provide neither silver nor gold nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves; for the workman is worthy of his meat." Those who had become at all familiar with the religious literature of India before the advent of Kananda are best prepared to understand the utter abhorrence of the orientals of our western commercial spirit-or what Kananda calls the shopkeeper's spirit-in all that we do, even in our very religion.

Here is a pointer for the missionaries which they cannot afford to ignore. They who would convert the eastern world of paganism must live up to what they preach in contempt for the kingdoms of this world and all the glory of them.

The following is a report of a lecture at Detroit, United States, America, with the editorial comments of the Boston Evening Transcript, 5th April, 1894:_x000d_ _x000d_ Swami Vivekananda has been in Detroit recently and made a profound impression there. All classes flocked to hear him, and professional men in particular were greatly interested in his logic and his soundness of thought. The opera-house alone was large enough for his audience. He speaks English extremely well, and he is as handsome as he is good. The Detroit newspapers have devoted much space to the reports of his lectures. An editorial in the Detroit Evening News says: Most people will be inclined to think that Swami Vivekananda did better last night in his opera-house lecture than he did in any of his former lectures in this city. The merit of the Hindu's utterances last night lay in their clearness. He drew a very sharp line of distinction between Christianity and Christianity, and told his audience plainly wherein he himself is a Christian in one sense and not a Christian in another sense. He also drew a sharp line between Hinduism and Hinduism, carrying the implication that he desired to be classed as a Hindu only in its better sense. Swami Vivekananda stands superior to all criticism when he says, "We want missionaries of Christ. Let such come to India by the hundreds and thousands. Bring Christ's life to us and let it permeate the very core of society. Let him be preached in every village and corner of India."_x000d_ When a man is as sound as that on the main question, all else that he may say must refer to the subordinate details. There is infinite humiliation in this spectacle of a pagan priest reading lessons of conduct and of life to the men who have assumed the spiritual supervision of Greenland's icy mountains and India's coral strand; but the sense of humiliation is the sine qua non of most reforms in this world. Having said what he did of the glorious life of the author of the Christian faith, Vivekananda has the right to lecture the way he has the men who profess to represent that life among the nations abroad. And after all, how like the Nazarene that sounds: "Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves; for the workman is worthy of his meat." Those who have become at all familiar with the religious literature of India before the advent of Vivekananda are best prepared to understand the utter abhorrence of the Orientals of our Western commerical spirit--or what Vivekananda calls, "the shopkeeper's spirit"--in all that we do even in our very religion._x000d_ Here is a point for the missionaries which they cannot afford to ignore. They who would convert the Eastern world of paganism must live up to what they preach, in contempt for the kingdoms of this world and all the glory of them._x000d_ Brother Vivekananda considers India the most moral nation in the world. Though in bondage, its spirituality still endures. Here are extracts from the notices of some of his recent Detroit addresses: At this point the lecturer struck the great moral keynote of his discourse stating that with his people it was the belief that all non-self is good and all self is bad. This point was emphasised throughout the evening and might be termed the text of the address. "To build a home is selfish, argues the Hindu, so he builds it for the worship of God and for the entertainment of guests. To cook food is selfish, so he cooks it for the poor; he will serve himself last if any hungry stranger applies; and this feeling extends throughout the length and breadth of the land. Any man can ask for food and shelter and any house will be opened to him._x000d_ "The caste system has nothing to do with religion. A man's occupation is hereditary--a carpenter is born a carpenter; a goldsmith, a goldsmith; a workman, a workman; and a priest, a priest._x000d_ "Two gifts are especially appreciated, the gift of learning and the gift of life. But the gift of learning takes precedence. One may save a man's life, and that is excellent; one may impart to another knowledge, and that is better. To instruct for money is an evil, and to do this would bring opprobrium upon the head of the man who barters learning for gold as though it were an article of trade. The Government makes gifts from time to time to the instructors, and the moral effect is better than it would be if the conditions were the same as exist in certain alleged civilised countries." The speaker had asked throughout the length and breadth of the land what was the definition of "civilisation", and he had asked the question in many countries. Sometimes the reply has been, "What we are, that is civilisation." He begged to differ in the definition of the word. A nation may conquer the waves, control the elements, develop the utilitarian problems of life seemingly to the utmost limits, and yet not realise that in the individual, the highest type of civilisation is found in him who has learned to conquer self. This condition is found more in India than in any other country on earth, for there the material conditions are subservient to the spiritual, and the individual looks to the soul manifestations in everything that has life, studying nature to this end. Hence that gentle dispositon to endure with indomitable patience the flings of what appears unkind fortune, the while there is a full consciousness of a spiritual strength and knowledge greater than that possessed by any other people. Therefore the existence of a country and people from which flows anunending stream that attracts the attention of thinkers far and near to approach and throw from their shoulders an oppressive earthly burden._x000d_ This lecture was prefaced with the statement that the speaker had been asked many questions. A number of these he preferred to answer privately, but three he had selected for reasons, which would appear, to answer from the pulpit. They were: "Do the people of India throw their children into the jaws of the crocodiles?" "Do they kill themselves beneath the wheels of Jagannatha?" "Do they burn widows with their husbands?" The first question the lecturer treated in the same vein as an American abroad would in answering inquiries about Indians running round in the streets of New York and similar myths which are even today entertained by many persons on the Continent. The statement was too ludicrous to give a serious response to it. When asked by certain well-meaning but ignorant people why they gave only female children to the crocodiles, he could only ironically reply that probably it was because they were softer and more tender and could be more easily masticated by the inhabitants of the river in that benighted country. Regarding the Jagannatha legend, the lecturer explained the old practice of the Car-festival in the sacred city, and remarked that possibly a few pilgrims in their zeal to grasp the rope and participate in the drawing of the Car slipped and fell and were so destroyed. Some such mishaps had been exaggerated into the distorted versions from which the good people of other countries shrank with horror. Vivekananda denied that people burned widows. It was true, however, that widows had burned themsleves. In the few cases where this had happened, they had been urged not to do so by holy men, who were always opposed to suicide. Where the devoted widows insisted, stating that they desired to accompany their husbands in the transformation that had taken place,they were obliged to submit themselves to the fiery test. That is, they thrust their hands within the flames, and if they permitted them to be consumed, no further opposition was placed in the way of the fulfilment of their desires. But India is not the only country where women, who have loved, have followed immediately the beloved one to the realms of immortality; suicides in such cases have occurred in every land. It is an uncommon bit of fanaticism in any country--as unusual in India as elsewhere. "No," the speaker repeated, "the people do not burn women in India; nor have they ever burned witches."_x000d_ This latter touch is decidedly acute by way of reflection. No analysis of the philosophy of the Hindu monk need be attempted here, except to say that it is based in general on the struggle of the soul to individually attain Infinity. One learned Hindu opened the Lowell Institute Course this year. What Mr. Mozoomdar began, might worthily be ended by Brother Vivekananda. This new visitor has by far the most interesting personality, although in the Hindu philosophy, of course, personality is not to be taken into consideration. At the Parliament of Religions they used to keep Vivekananda until the end of the programme to make people stay until the end of the session. On a warm day, when a prosy speaker talked too long and people began going home by hundreds, the Chairman would get up and announce that Swami Vivekananda would make a short address just before the benediction. Then he would have the peaceable hundreds perfectly in tether. The four thousand fanning people in the Hall of Columbus would sit smiling and expectant, waiting for an hour or two of other men's speeches, to listen to Vivekananda for fifteen minutes. The Chairman knew the old rule of keeping the best until the last.

CHANCE FOR KANANDA_x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ Another Christian Pastor Touches up His Religion._x000d_ _x000d_ A leading catholic clergyman of Detroit, who gives the origin of Buddhism as it is found in the encyclopedias, says the to commandments of Buddha were taken from Hebrewism, which spread into India in the reign of Alexander the Great. These 10 commandments are the same as those which Moses found up in the mountain. Here's a chance for Kananda.

Detroit_x000d_ 15th March, 1894_x000d_ Dear Babies {the Hale sisters},_x000d_ I am pulling on well with old Palmer. He is a very jolly, good old man. I got only 127 dollars by my last lecture. I am going to speak again in Detroit on Monday. Your mother asked me to write to a lady in Lynn. I have never seen her. Is it etiquette to write without any introduction? Please post me a little letter about this lady. Where is Lynn? The funniest thing said about me here was in one of the papers which said, "The cyclonic Hindu has come and is a guest with Mr. Palmer. Mr. Palmer has become a Hindu and is going to India; only he insists that two reforms should be carried out: firstly that the Car of Jagannath should be drawn by Percherons raised in Mr. Palmer's Loghouse Farm, and secondly that the Jersey cow be admitted into the pantheon of Hindu sacred cows." Mr. Palmer is passionately fond of both Percheron horse and Jersey cow and has a great stock of both in his Loghouse Farm._x000d_ The first lecture was not properly managed, the cost of the hall being 150 dollars. I have given up Holden. Here is another fellow cropped up; let me see if he does better. Mr. Palmer makes me laugh the whole day. Tomorrow there is going to be another dinner party. So far all is well; but I do not know--I have become very sad in my heart since I am here--do not know why._x000d_ I am wearied of lecturing and all that nonsense. This mixing with hundreds of varieties of the human animal has disturbed me. I will tell you what is to my taste; I cannot write, and I cannot speak, but I can think deeply, and when I am heated, can speak fire. It should be, however, to a select, a very select few. Let them, if they will, carry and scatter my ideas broadcast not I. This is only a just division of labour. The same man never succeeded both in thinking and in scattering his thoughts. A man should be free to think, especially spiritual thoughts._x000d_ Just because this assertion of independence, this proving that man is not a machine , is the essence of all religious thought, it is impossible to think it in the routine mechanical way. It is this tendency to bring everything down to the level of a machine that has given the West its wonderful prosperity. And it is this which has driven away all religion from its doors. Even the little that is left, the West has reduced to a systematic drill._x000d_ I am really not "cyclonic" at all. Far from it. What I want is not here, nor can I longer bear this "cyclonic" atmosphere. This is the way to perfection, to strive to be perfect, and to strive to make perfect a few men and women. My idea of doing good is this: to evolve out a few giants, and not to strew pearls before swine, and so lose time, health, and energy._x000d_ Just now I got a letter from Flagg. He cannot help me in lecturing. He says, "First go to Boston." Well, I do not care for lecturing any more. It is too disgusting, this attempt to bring me to suit anybody's or any audience's fads. However, I shall come back to Chicago for a day or two at least before I go out of this country. Lord bless you all._x000d_ Ever gratefully your brother,_x000d_ Vivekananda

And again, on March 15, he wrote to the Hale sisters:_x000d_ I am pulling on well with Old Palmer. He is a very jolly, good old man. . . . The funniest thing said about me here was in one of the papers which said, "The cyclonic Hindu has come and is a guest with Mr. Palmer. Mr. Palmer has become a Hindu and is going to India; only he insists that two reforms should be carried out: firstly that the Car of Jaggernath should be drawn by Percherons raised in Mr. Palmer's Loghouse Farm, and secondly that the Jersey cow be admitted into the pantheon of Hindu sacred cows." Mr. Palmer is passionately fond of both Percheron horse and Jersey cow and has a great stock of both in his Loghouse Farm. . . . (He) makes me laugh the whole day. Tomorrow there is going to be another dinner party.

Two letters written during this week (which, it so happened, followed his climactic, tide-turning lecture of Sunday, March 11) vividly reflect his mood. The first was that of March 15 to the Hale sisters; the second was written the Following day to Mrs. Hale. In both, he who could exert almost cosmic power wrote with childlike candor, as a brother and a son.

After telling the "Babies" that the Detroit papers had called him "the cyclonic Hindu," he continued in this letter of March 15:_x000d_ I am really not "cyclonic" at all. Far from it. What I want is not here, nor can I longer bear this "cyclonic" atmosphere. This is the way to perfection, to be perfect, and to make perfect a few men and women. My idea of doing good is this: to evolve out a few giants, and not to strew pearls to the swines and thus lose time breath and energy. . . ._x000d_  . . . I do not care for lecturing any more. It is too disgusting, this attempt to bring me to suit anybody's or any audience's fads. However, I shall come back to Chicago for a day or two at least before I go out of this country. Lord bless you all.

But rant as the missionaries would, it was too late. Swamiji had cast a doubt upon all their "eye witness" reports, and few who had heard him were willing to listen to the old cry. A letter printed in the Journal of March 15, in answer to Rev. Dr. Thackwell, gives an idea of how things were faring.

Foreign Missions._x000d_ _x000d_ Editor Journal.-- It seems that Kananda, the Hindoo preacher, has stirred up the antagonism of many Christian ministers. At the home of Mrs. Shelden last Wednesday, the ladies of the Foreign missionary society met and listened to an address by Mr. Thackwell, a missionary from India. He contradicted Kananda's statement that it was the Hindoos who abolished the custom of burning widows in India. Who would be most likely to know best? One who has been there as a missionary, or one who was born on the banks of the Ganges, traveled all over the country and lived there all his life; a man of learning, who could have no object in making a false statement? We have been told again and again, that the overthrow of that custom was one of the blessed effects of Christian mis¬sionary work. But here comes a native missionary from India, who tells us it was the Brahmins who put a stop to the horrid custom.

We have also been taught from our early youth that Hindu mothers throw their children to crocodiles in the river Ganges. But now a man who was born on the banks of that river tells us that there was never a crocodile in the Ganges. It is possible that the Rev. Thackwell's statement that Hindu mothers strangle their own babies has no more foundation in truth. Mr. Thackwell says it was the English government that abolished the custom of burning widows in India. But we all know how ready Christian England is to credit herself with any good done, or evil overthrown in her provinces. If England put a stop to that wicked custom, it must have been because she could make no money out of it. She sends out shiploads of liquor with agents to distribute and sell it. She could gain more dollars by making widows through the liquor traffic. India did not want her liquor any more than the Chinese wanted her opium, but she Forced the opium trade on China at the mouth of the cannon, and her liquor trade through distributing agents in India. England is a field greatly in need of missionary work and the foreign missionary society ought not to pass it by.

It costs on an average twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars a head for every heathen convert made. This is very expensive and we do not wonder that every available means are resorted to for the purpose of raising money. Collections of pennies from Sabbath school children, and missionary collections in churches, after listening to a sermon in which the sad condition of the poor heathens who strangle their babes and feed the crocodiles with their children are pictured and the sympathies of the audience are aroused. Dr. Gordon, a member of a church in Boston and an officer of the Foreign missionary society, tells us how they manage to raise money. They pray every day for a month and then take up a $20,000 collection. He boasts that by this means they get from poor servant girls $50, and from one poor old lady living in a tenement house, who only had a thousand dollars to live on all the rest of her days, they managed to get $800--see the Journal of March 6. Now if there is a spot on God's green earth where missionary work is most needed, it must be Dr. Gordon's church in Boston.

The means employed to obtain this money might be prayer, sympathy, hypnotism or the muzzle of a revolver. In a moral point of view it is equally wrong and no more justified than highway robbery. It is at home where true Christian missionary work is most needed, not only in the slums of our cities, but among the 400 in Boston, Chicago and New York; not only among our heathen Indians, who have been robbed and destroyed by American Christians, but many of the professed Christian churches of this land need to be taught the first principles of a true Christianity, justice, righteousness and brotherly love._x000d_ J. STEELE.

So far all is well; but I do not know-I have become very sad in my heart since I am here do not know why._x000d_ I am wearied of lecturing and all that nonsense. This mixing with hundreds of varieties of the human animal has disturbed me. I will tell you what is to my taste; I cannot write, and I cannot speak, but I can think deep, and when I am heated, can speak fire. It should be, however, to a select, a very select few. Let them, if they will, carry and scatter my ideas broadcast not I. This is only a just division of labour. The same man never succeeded both in thinking and in scattering his ideas. A man should be free to think, especially spiritual thoughts._x000d_ Just because this assertion of independence, this proving that mars it not a machine, is the essence of all religious thought, it is impossible to think it in the routine mechanical way. It is this tendency to bring everything down to the level of a machine that has given the West its wonderful prosperity. And it is this which has driven away all religion from its doors. Even the little that is left, the West has reduced to a systematic drill._x000d_ I am really not "cyclonic" at all. Far from it. What I want is not here, nor can I longer bear this cyclonic atmosphere. This is the way to perfection, to strive to be perfect, and to strive to make perfect a few men and women. My idea of doing goal is this: to evolve out a few giants, and not strew pearls before swine and so lose time, health and energy._x000d_ . . . Well, I do not care for lecturing any more. It is too disgusting, this attempt to bring me to suit anybody's or any audience's fads. . . .

Relinquishing, for the time being at any rate, the idea of gathering money in the West for his Indian work, Swamiji attempted to return the donations of his Detroit friends (such as Mr. Freer). "[I] told them," he was to write to Mrs. Hale in April, "that there being almost no chance of my succeeding in my enterprise I have no right to keep your money-but they refused and told me to throw that into the waters if I liked._x000d_ But funds for India or not, Swamiji let the tide of his mission carry him as it would. His letter to Mrs. Hale of March 16 reveals the serene, untroubled mood in which he followed its current:_x000d_ I am going to lecture here [Detroit] on Monday [he wrote] and in two places near the town [Bay City and Saginaw, Michigan] on Tuesday & Wednesday [March 20 and 21]. I do not remember the lady you refer me to and she is in Lyn. What is Lyn, where on the globe is its position I do not know. I want to go to Boston what good would it do to me by stopping at Lynn? Kindly give me a more particular idea. Nor could I read the name of the lady.* However I am in no way very anxious. I am taking life very easy in my natural way. I have no particular wish to go anywhere Boston or no Boston. I am just in a nice come what may mood. Something should turn up bad or good. I have enough now, to pay my passage back and a little sightseeing to boot. As to my plans of work I am fully convinced that at the rate it is progressing I must have to come four or five times back to put it in any shape._x000d_ As to informing others and doing good that way-I have failed to persuade myself that I have really anything to convey to the world. So I am very happy just now and quite at my ease. With almost nobody in this vast house and a cigar between my lips, I am dreaming just now and philosophising upon that work fever which was upon me. It is all nonsense. I am nothing, the world is nothing, the Lord alone is the only worker. We are simply tools in His hands. . . _x000d_ * This lady, it turned out, was Mrs. Francis W. Breed of Lynn, Massachusetts, a town near Boston. She was a member of the Salem Thought and Work Club, and Swamiji had no doubt met her at the house of Mrs. Kate Tannatt Woods. (See Chapter One.)

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Detroit_x000d_ 16 March 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ Since my last, there has been nothing of interest here. Except that Mr. Palmer is a very hearty, jolly, good old man and very rich. He has been uniformly kind to me. Tomorrow I go back to Mrs. Bagley's because I am afraid she is rather uneasy at my long stay here. I am shrewd enough to know that in every country in general, and America in particular, "she" is the real operator at the nose string._x000d_ I am going to lecture here on Monday and in two places near the town on Tuesday and Wednesday. I do not remember the lady you refer me to, and she is in Lynn; what is Lynn, where on the globe its position is__I do not know. I want to go to Boston. What good would it do me by stopping at Lynn? Kindly give me a more particular idea. Nor could I read the name of the lady at whose house you say I met the lady. How¬ever, I am in no way very anxious. I am taking life very easy in my natural way. I have no particular wish to go anywhere, Boston or no Boston. I am just in a nice come what may mood. Something should turn up, bad or good. I have enough now to pay my passage back and a little sight seeing to boot. As to my plans of work, I am fully convinced that at the rate it is progressing I will have to come back four or five times to put it in any shape._x000d_ As to informing others and doing good that way, I have failed to persuade myself that I have really anything to convey to the world. So I am very happy just now and quite at my ease. With almost nobody in this vast house and a cigar between my lips, I am dreaming just now and philosophising upon that work fever which was upon me. It is all nonsense. I am nothing, the world is nothing, the Lord alone is the only worker. We are simply tools in His hands etc., etc., etc. Have you got the Alaska information? If so, kindly send it to me c/o Mrs. Bagley._x000d_ Are you coming to the East this summer? With eternal gratitude and love,_x000d_ Your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda.

Swamiji stayed with Mr. Palmer for a festive and strenuous week,"* toward the end of which Mrs. Bagley understandably became restive. In his letter of March 16 to Mrs. Hale he wrote:_x000d_ Since my last there has been nothing of interest here. Except that Mr. Palmer is a very hearty jolly good old man and very rich. He has been uniformly kind to me. Tomorrow I go back to Mrs Bagley because I am afraid she is rather uneasy at my long stay here. I am shrewd enough to know that in every country in general and America in particular "she" is the real operator at the nose string._x000d_ * In his known letters Swamiji never mentioned Mrs. Thomas W. Palmer, who did exist and was, in her own right, well connected in Detroit. It is probable that she was away at the time, for otherwise she surely would have played a prominent part as hostess to her illstrious guest, in which case Swamiji would have mentioned her in his letters to Mrs. Hale.

The Following evening, Friday, March 16, Mr. Palmer gave yet another dinner party in honor of Swamiji. According to the Free Press of March 18, the guests were "Mr. Don M. Dickinson, Mr. W. A. Moore, Mr. W. V. Moore, Mr. E. W. Meddaugh, Mr. Zach Rice, Dr. Johnson, Mr. A. G. Boynton, and Mr. Asdikion, the distinguished Armenian."_x000d_ Many of the names mentioned in the above reports are also mentioned in histories of Detroit. These were men who ardently and dutifully engaged in politics and who supported numerous measures intended to promote the public welfare. They were, in a sense, merchant-princes in an age in which politics had a place for merchants and princes. They were good and solid men, and Swamiji talking to them at their elaborate, many coursed dinners was as much at home as he was at Mrs. Bagley's feminine "afternoons."

"Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world. Lilith was her very great-grandmamma, and that was before the days of Eve, as everyone knows. In the West people say rude things about Lalun's profession and write lectures about it, and distribute the lectures to young persons in order that morality may be preserved. In the East, where the profession is hereditary, descending from mother to daughter, nobody writes lectures or takes any notice."--RUDYARD KIPLING._x000d_ The story of which the sentences that precede this one are a paragraph, was written in India. They were written by Rudyard Kipling, from whom most of us have learned all that we definitely know about India, with the exception of the fact that India raises wheat enough to be a great competitor of our own farmers, that men work there for two cents a day and that women throw their babies into the Ganga, which is the sacred river of the country._x000d_ But Vive Kananda, since he came to this country, has exploded the story about the women of India feeding their babies to the alligators, and now he says that he never heard of Rudyard Kipling until he came to America, and that it is not proper in India to talk of such a profession as that of Lalun, out of which Mr. Kipling has made one of his most delightful and instructive tales._x000d_ "In India," said Kananda yesterday, "we do not discuss such things. No one ever speaks of those unfortunate women. When a woman is discovered to be unchaste in India, she is hurled out from her caste. No one thereafter can touch or speak to her. If she went into the house, they would take up and clean the carpets and wash the walls she breathed against. No one can _x000d_ have anything to do with such a person. There are no women who are not virtuous in Indian society. It is not at all as it is in this country. Here there are bad women living side by side with virtuous women in your society. One cannot know who is bad and who is good in America. But in India once a woman slips, she is an outcast for ever--she and her children, sons and daughters. It is terrible, I admit, but it keeps society pure."_x000d_ "How about the men?" was asked. "Does the same rule hold in regard to them? Are they outcast when they are proven to be unchaste?"_x000d_ "Oh, no. It is quite different with them. It would be so, perhaps, if they could be found out. But the men move about. They can go from place to place. It is not possible to discover them. The women are shut up in the house. They are certainly discovered if they do anything wrong. And when they are discovered, they are thrown out. Nothing can save them. Sometimes it is very hard when a father has to give up his daughter or a husband his wife. But if they do not give them up, they will be banished with them too. It is very different in this country. Women cannot go about there and make associations as they do here. It is very terrible, but it makes society pure._x000d_ "I think that unchastity is the one great sin of your country. It must be so, there is so much luxury here. A poor girl would sell herself for a new bonnet. It must be so where there is so much luxury."_x000d_ Mr. Kipling says this about Lalun and her profession:_x000d_ "Lalun's real husband, for even ladies of Lalun's profession have husbands in the East, was a great, big jujube tree. Her mama, who had married a fig, spent ten thousand rupees on Lalun's wedding, which was blessed by forty-seven clergymen of mama's church, and distributed 5,000 rupees in charity to the poor. And that was a custom of the land."_x000d_ In India when a woman is unfaithful to her husband she loses her caste, but none of her civil or religious rights. She can still own property and the temples are still open to her._x000d_ 'Yes," said Kananda, "a bad woman is not allowed to marry. She cannot marry any one without their being an outcast like herself, so she marries a tree, or sometimes a sword. It is the custom. Sometimes these women grow very rich and become very charitable, but they can never regain their caste. In the interior towns, where they still adhere to the old customs, she cannot ride in a carriage, no matter how wealthy she may be; the best that she is allowed is a pair of bullocks. And then in India she has to wear a dress of her own, so that she can be distinguished. You can see these people going by, but no one ever speaks to them. The greatest number of these women is in the cities. A good many of them are Jews too, but they all have different quarters of the cities, you know. They all live apart. It is a singular thing that, bad as they are, wretched as some of these women are, they will not admit a Christian lover. They will not eat with them or touch them--the `omnivorous barbarians', as they call them. They call them that because they eat everything. Do you know what that disease, the unspeakable disease, is called in India? It is called `Bad Faringan', which means `the Christian disease'. It was the Christian that brought it into India._x000d_ "Has there been any attempt in India to solve this question? Is it a public question the way it is in America?"_x000d_ "No, there has been very little done in India. There is a great field for women missionaries if they would convert prostitutes in India. They do nothing in India--very little. There is one sect, the Veshnava [Vaishnava], who try to reclaim these women. This is a religious sect. I think about 90 per cent [?] of all prostitutes belong to this sect. This sect does not believe in caste and they go everywhere without reference to caste. There are certain temples, as the temple of Jagatnot [Jagannath], where there is no caste. Everybody who goes into that town takes off his caste while he is there, because that is holy ground and everything is supposed to be pure there. When he goes outside, he resumes it again, for caste is a mere worldly thing. You know some of the castes are so particular that they will not eat any food unless it is prepared by themselves. They will not touch any one outside their caste. But in the city they all live together. This is the only sect in India that makes proselytes. It makes everybody a member of its church. It goes into the Himalayas and converts the wild men. You perhaps did not know that there were wild men in India. Yes, there are. They dwell at the foot of the Himalayas."_x000d_ "Is there any ceremony by which a woman is declared unchaste, a civil process?" Kananda was asked._x000d_ "No, it is not a civil process. It is just custom. Sometimes there is a formal ceremony and sometimes there is not. They simply make pariahs out of them. When any woman is suspected sometimes they get together and give her a sort of trial, and if it is decided that she is guilty, then a note is sent around to all the other members of the caste, and she is banished.G_x000d_ "Mind you," he exclaimed, "I do not mean to say that this is a solution of the question. The custom is terribly rigid. But you have no solution of the question, either. It is a terrible thing. It is a great wrong of the Western world."

Detroit,_x000d_ 17th March, 1894_x000d_ Dear Sister {Harriet McKindley},_x000d_ Got your package yesterday. Sorry that you send those stockings--I could have got some myself here. Glad that it shows your love. After all, the satchel has become more than a thoroughly stuffed sausage. I do not know how to carry it along._x000d_ I have returned today to Mrs. Bagley's as she was sorry that I would remain so long with Mr. Palmer. Of course in Palmer's house there was real "good time". He is a real jovial heartwhole fellow, and likes "good time" a little too much and his "hot Scotch". But he is right along innocent and childlike in his simplicity._x000d_ He was very sorry that I came away, but I could not help. Here is a beautiful young girl. I saw her twice, I do not remember her name. So brainy, so beautiful, so spiritual, so unworldly! Lord bless her! She came this morning with Mrs. McDuvel and talked so beautifully and deep and spiritually--that I was quite astounded. She knows everything about the Yogis and is herself much advanced in practice!!_x000d_ "Thy ways are beyond searching out." Lord bless her--so innocent, holy, and pure! This is the grandest recompense in my terribly toilsome, miserable life--the finding of holy happy faces like you from time to time. The great Buddhist prayer is, "I bow down to all holy men on earth". I feel the real meaning of this prayer whenever I see a face upon which the finger of the Lord has written in unmistakable letters "mine". May you all be happy, blessed, good and pure as you are for ever and ever. May your feet never touch the mud and dirt of this terrible world. May you live and pass away like flowers as you are born--is the constant prayer of your brother.

On March 17 the Swami wrote to Harriet McKindley of Chicago: "I have returned today to Mrs. Bagley's as she was sorry that I would remain so long with Mr. Palmer. Of course in Palmer's house there was real `good time'. He is a real jovial heartwhole fellow, and likes `good time' a little too much and his `hot Scotch'. But he is right along innocent and childlike in his simplicity. He was very sorry that I came away, but I could not help. . . ."

In a letter from Detroit to one of the Hale sisters he tells of one such bright spot.* Since he rarely wrote to India regarding the details of his American experiences, good or bad, this passage is, I believe, especially valuable, giving as it does so intimate and rare a glimpse into his itinerant life:

Here is a beautiful young girl I saw her twice I do not remember her name. So Brainy so beautiful so spiritual so unworldly. Lord bless her-She came this morning with Mrs. M'cDuvel and talked so beautifully and deep and spiritually-that I was astounded. She knows everything about the yogis and is herself much advanced in Practice!

"Thy ways are beyond searching out" Lord bless her so innocent, holy and pure. This is the grandest recompense in my terribly toilsome, miserable life-the finding of holy happy faces like you from time to time. The great Buddhist prayer is "I bow down to all holy men on earth" I feel the real meaning of this prayer whenever I see a face upon which the finger of the Lord has written in unmistakable letters "mine." May you all be happy blessed good and pure as you are for ever and ever. May your feet never touch the mud and dirt of this terrible world. May you live and pass away like flowers as you are born is the constant prayer of your brother.

* The full text of this letter, which was dated March 17, 1894, first appeared in the first and second editions of this volume (chapter five). The original letter has been preserved in an envelope addressed to Miss Harriet McKindley, the eldest of the Hale sisters (or cousins), which may or may not be its original cover. To judge from the tone and contents of the letter itself, it seems to have been written to Isabelle Mc-Kindley, to whom Swamiji felt more close than he did to Harriet. However, at the present time we lack sufficient evidence to say conclusively that the letter and its envelope have somehow become mismatched. We can only say that to whomever Swamiji addressed the letter, it was clearly meant to be shated by both the McKindley sisters and their cousins as well.

One suspects that Swamiji was also surfeited with "good time." _x000d_ I have returned to Mrs. Bagley's [he wrote to the Hale sisters on March 17] as she was sorry that I would remain so long with Mr. Palmer. Of course in Palmer's house there was real "good time." He is a real jovial heart whole fellow, and likes "good time" a little too much and his "hot Scotch." But he is right along innocent and childlike in his simplicity. He was very sorry that I come away, but I could not help._x000d_ (It should perhaps be noted here that in his later years Mr. Palmer became, for better or worse, an ardent advocate of Prohibition.)

Detroit_x000d_ 18th March, 1894_x000d_ Dear Sister Mary {Hale},_x000d_ My heartfelt thanks for your kindly sending me the letter from Calcutta. It was from my brethren at Calcutta, and it is written on the occasion of a private invitation to celebrate the birthday of my Master about whom you have heard so much from me--so I send it over to you. The letter says that Mazoomdar has gone back to Calcutta and is preaching that Vivekananda is committing every sin under the sun in America. . . . This is your America's wonderful spiritual man ! It is not their fault; until one is really spiritual, that is, until one has got a real insight into the nature of one's own soul and has got a glimpse of the world of the soul, one cannot distinguish chaff from seed, tall talk from depth, and so on. I am sorry for poor Mazoomdar that he should stoop so low! Lord bless the old boy!_x000d_ The address inside the letter is in English and is my old, old name as written by a companion of my childhood who has also taken orders. It is a very poetic name. That written in the letter is an abbreviation, the full name being Narendra meaning the "Chief of men" ("nara" means "man", and "indra" stands for "ruler", "chief")--very ludicrous, isn't it? But such are the names in our country; we cannot help, but I am glad I have given that up._x000d_ I am all right. Hoping it is same with you._x000d_ I remain your brother,_x000d_ Vivekananda

THE LESSON OF TOLERATION_x000d_ _x000d_ "Every real thought on any real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other," wrote Dr. Holmes many years ago, and when the sufferer gets his breath he begins the "back-talk"; but it is not at all likely that the pulpits of Detroit will resound today with anything like the vigorous whacks which fell upon them after Kananda's first visit. The provocation, if such it can be called, which he gave a week ago in his lecture of two hours and a half, was greater than on the occasion of his former appearance, and this last address was professedly and openly in response to statements which had been made while the missionary convention was in session here, and it is reckoned the ablest of all his discourses in Detroit; nevertheless the chances are a good many to one that the clergymen here¬abouts will not with one accord this time stand up and reply in any very vehement manner. It is more than probable that the placid Hindu has taught us a lesson and that the fruit of all his work here will be a broadening of our sympathies and some enlargement of our ability to comprehend views upon important subjects that are quite out of the beaten path in which our thoughts and opinions have been accustomed to travel.

From hearing what an intelligent Hindu like Kananda has to say of the religion of his country it is no more necessary to adopt that religion than it is to worship Zeus and Apollo as a result of studying the theology of the Greeks. Kananda is not a Buddhist, but if an educated priest of Buddhism should come along and be willing to tell us mote than we knew before of the faith that has the largest following of any in the world, it would surely not be beneath the dignity of a scholar of the nineteenth century to listen patiently to what he had to say. The Mohammedans at one time led the world in learning and scientific attainments. If an Arabian disciple of Mohammed, fit to instruct in his religion, should crave audience of our people, it might be very safe and profitable to listen to him. The old Shinto religion of Japan has held the belief of myriads of men with intellects pretty nearly as acute as ours; would it be likely to damage our spiritual perceptions to hear a Shinto priest explain it?

We seem to be in some danger of taking a one-sided view of our own position and that of persons from whom we differ. There appears to be no question of politeness or propriety when we go to the people of Asia in their own stand and beg to assure them that they have been following a vain shadow for several thousand years and that if they do not accept our new religion in place of their old religion they will find themselves booked for something decidedly uncomfortable in the next world; but we do not recognize the right of every person to preach his own religion quite so clearly when it is the man from Asia who comes to us.

There is no finer test of intellectual strength than the willingness to receive and consider the well-digested thoughts of all the people under the sun. The horizon of religious toleration stretches further and further away every year. Twelve months from now it is not at all likely that Kananda's coming to Detroit and talking to people who might choose to hear him would shake the churches from center to circumference or agitate the clergymen at all. It is not easy to see any sufficient reason why it should have done so at any time. While not many persons are greatly concerned about the Hindu's theology, there are members who feel thankful for the fresh encouragement that has been given to the spirit of toleration.

The writer of the above article was probably the same who two weeks earlier, had raised his eyebrows at the pulpit -pounding that had followed Swamiji's first week in Detroit. He still did not seem to grasp the fact that the very nature of orthodox Christianity, which deemed itself to be the one saving religion and all else the work of the devil, prevented its preachers and followers from "tolerating" Swamiji.

CHIMERICAL RELIGION_x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ A Brainy Writer Discusses One of the Great _x000d_ Questions of the Present Day_x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ Was there No Love, No Joy, No Hope and No Religion _x000d_ Before Christ Came to Us?_x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ Were All Noble Souls before His Time Doomed _x000d_ to Perdition?_x000d_ _x000d_ It is nearly 1900 years since the religion of Christ was taught in all its primitive grandeur and purity. A religion of forbearance, meekness, charity and love, yet its fundamental principles of truth and righteousness were old and widely known and practiced before Christ was born. There were patriarchs, prophets, saints and martyrs; men who "walked with God"; law givers and high priests; good, wise and holy men, whose bones had crumbled to dust ages before the Star of Bethlehem arose. . . ._x000d_ Was there no love, no hope, no joy, no religion then? . . . Were all the noble souls abiding before Christ doomed to perdition? . . ._x000d_ The question is not whether christianity is true, but are we true to Christianity as professed Christians?_x000d_ I claim that the vast majority of so called Christians are not true, but false to the precepts and practices of their Lord and Master. They are only chimerical christians, who roar with the lion's head, disguise their body in the form of a goat, and a scapegoat at that, and then wiggle the tail of a venomous dragon. They are continually belching forth flames of fire (hell fire) upon all who differ from their favorite dogmas, creeds and sects, vide Dr. Briggs, .the "heretic," and Kananda, the "pagan." Some of their pet and petrified, dogmas are comprised in this quarto of beautiful specimens, "The fall of man in Eden"; "The sin of unbelief"; "An atonement by proxy," and "The eternal punishment of the damned." If they encounter an individual with manhood, moral courage and wisdom . . . , they proceed at once to damn him._x000d_ These mongrel specimens love to sing "This world is all a fleeting show," and so it is, a veritable Wonderland menagerie, filled with curious, incongruous monstrosities and deformities, such as Baptist barnacles, petrified Presbyterians, and Methodist mummies. . . ._x000d_ Mind, I do not speak of those broad hearted, liberal, thinking, reasoning, truthful christians, of whom thank God there are many. I am speaking of the vaster body of chimerical christians. "By their works ye shall know them." Intolerance, bigotry, superstition, envy, malice and false hood are their prominent features. . . . They evade the truth, and are false even unto themselves. . . They delight to prate of missionary work among the heathen, thanking God "they are not as other men are." The pagan, so called, could teach them more of the fundamental truth of religion chan they ever dreamed of in their philosophy. Better far to be like the heathen worshipping even a false god, than to be false to the God they pretend to worship. . . . ._x000d_ There is but one religion, one philosophy, one God over all. Religion is love; not love of self, but love of God and all His creatures. Religion: People preach for it, write for it, fight for it, die for it, do everything but live for it. . . ._x000d_ A religious Hindoo comes to us and talks of love, asking for bread and they give him a stone. He tells them he gladly accepts their Christ with His religion which is old to them as the "rock of ages" upon the eternal hills, but they will accept neither his word, his philosophy or his religion. . . . They claim christianity has caused all advancement, all civilization. Whence came all the glory, all the grandeur and all the wisdom existing before the Nazarene Reformer was born among men and became one of the Sons of God? . . . It is as falsely ridiculous to claim such chimerical christianity has been the cause of civilization as it would be to say that it was due to plug hats and suspenders. . . ._x000d_ All nations and all eras have had their reformers and their saviours, and there are more to Follow, until even the despised Jew may yet have his long looked for Messiah. . . ._x000d_ Since the advent of the Brahmin Monk, over-zealous and bigoted preachers have tried to defame him and denounce his pure philosophy. They have pointed out the ungodly condition of India; they have claimed her women were slaves, her law corrupt and vile. A sapient lawyer has quoted whole volumes of the laws of India with sneering sarcasm [see Chapter Six]; as well might he have quoted the ancient Mosaic Code, or the blue laws of Connecticut or pointed out our own laws with regard to licentiousness, women and prohibition. India never had drunkards until christian lands carried them liquor._x000d_ As well point out our barbarous treatment of the western Indian, our old slave laws or the records of vice and crime as found in the slums of our modern civilization. . . ._x000d_ Truth is mighty and must prevail. This world or any other of God's unlimited universe does not stand upon a turtle, nor is it supported upon any Hercules. Its corner stones are light, liberty, love and law, and it is the chimerical christians who would knock away these four corner stones of the universe. . . ._x000d_ Another intolerant bigot, occupying a Detroit pulpit, recently cast a slur on the world's parliament of religion, by warning his brethren to have no affiliation therewith. . . ._x000d_ Let the Star of Bethlehem be the true Christian's polar star; let it arise and shine with all its ancient glory, as beheld by the wise men of the east; let its splendid light banish the mists of error and the darkness that befogs men's brains. Let it light up the dark and narrow aisles, not alone in pagan but in Christian lands, until the monster Chimera, the false deformity of Christianity, shall hide its hideous head forevermore.

Deldoc is to be thanked for his articulate dissertations, for rarely do we find so explicit a description of the religious bigotry existing in the United States during the 1890s. It was, moreover, a description which would tend to make Christian ministers less inclined to cast stones across the sea.

Vive Kananda lectured to an audience of about 150 [according to the Journal, 500] at the Auditorium last night upon "Buddhism, the Religion of the Light of Asia." Honourable Don M. Dickinson introduced him to the audience._x000d_ "Who shall say that this system of religion is divine and that doomed?" asked Mr. Dickinson in his introductory remarks. "Who shall draw the mystic line?"_x000d_ Vive Kananda reviewed at length the early religions of India. He told of the great slaughter of animals on the altar of sacrifice; of Buddha's birth and life; of his puzzling questions to himself over the causes of creation and the reasons for existence; of the earnest struggle of Buddha to find the solution of creation and life; of the final result._x000d_ _x000d_ Buddha, he said, stood head and shoulders above all other men. He was one, he said, [of] whom his friends or enemies could never say that he drew a breath or ate a crumb of bread but for the good of all._x000d_ "He never preached transmigration of the soul," said Kananda, "except he believed one soul was to its successor like the wave of the ocean that grew and died away, leaving naught to the succeeding wave but its force. He never preached that there was a God, nor did he deny there was a God._x000d_ "'Why should we be good?' his disciples asked of him._x000d_ "'Because', he said, 'you inherited good. Let you in your turn leave some heritage of good to your successors. Let us all help the onward march of accumulated goodness, for goodness' sake.'_x000d_ "He was the first prophet. He never abused any one or arrogated anything to himself. He believed in our working out our own salvation in religion._x000d_ "'I can't tell you,' he said, on his deathbed, 'nor any one. Depend not on any one. Work out your own religion [salvation].'_x000d_ "He protested against the inequality of man and man, or of man and beast. All life was equal, he preached. He was the first man to uphold the doctrine of prohibition in liquors. 'Be good and do good', he said. 'If there is a God, you have Him by being good. If there is no God, being good is good. He is to be blamed for all he suffers. He is to be praised for all his good.'_x000d_ "He was the first who brought the missionaries into existence. He came as a saviour to the downtrodden millions of India. They could not understand his philosophy, but they saw the man and his teachings, and they followed him."_x000d_ In conclusion Kananda said that Buddhism was the foundation of the Christian religion; that the catholic church came from Buddhism.

Salutation to Bhagavan Ramakrishna!_x000d_ _x000d_ C/o GEORGE W. HALE, Esq., _x000d_ 541 DEARBORN AVENUE, CHICAGO,_x000d_ 19th March, 1894_x000d_ _x000d_ MY DEAR SHASHI (RAMAKRISHNANANDA), _x000d_ _x000d_ I have not written to you since coming to this country. But Haridas Bhai's letter gives me all the news. It is excellent that G.C.Ghosh and all of you have treated him with due consideration._x000d_ I have no wants in this country, but mendicancy has no vogue here, and I have to labour, that is, lecture in places. It is as cold here as it is hot. The summer is not a bit less hot than in Calcutta. And how to describe the cold in winter! The whole country is covered with snow, three or four feet deep, nay, six or seven feet at places! In the southern parts there is no snow. Snow, however, is a thing of little consideration here. For it shows when the mercury stands at 32` F. In Calcutta it scarcely comes down to 60`, and it rarely approaches zero in England. But here, your mercury sinks to minus 4o or 5o. In Canada, in the north, mercury becomes condensed, when they have to use the alcohol thermometer. When it is too cold, that is, when the mercury stands even below 20`F, it does not snow. I used to think that it must be an exceedingly cold day on which the snow falls. But it is not so, it snows on comparatively warm days. Extreme cold produces a sort of intoxication. No carriages would run; only the sledge, which is without wheels, slides on the ground! Everything is frozen stiff-even an elephant can walk on rivers and canals and lakes. The massive Falls of Niagara, of such tremendous velocity are frozen to marble! But I am doing nicely. I was a little afraid at first, but necessity makes me travel by rail to the borders of Canada one day, and the next day finds me lecturing to south U.S.A.! The carriages are kept quite warm, like your own room, by means of steam pipes, and all around are masses of snow, spotlessly white. Oh, the beauty of it!_x000d_ _x000d_ I was mortally afraid that my nose and ears would fall off, but to this day they are all right. I have to go out, however, dressed in a heap of warm clothing surmounted by a fur-coat, with boots encased in a woollen jacket, and so on. No sooner do you breathe out than the breath freezes among the beard and moustache! Notwithstanding all this, the fun of it is that they won't drink water indoors without putting a lump of ice into it. This is because it is warm indoors. Every room and the staircase are kept warm by steam pipes. They are first and foremost in art and appliances, foremost in enjoyment and luxury, foremost in making money, and foremost in spending it. The daily wages of coolie are six rupees, as also are those of a servant; you cannot hire a cab for less than three rupees, nor get a cigar for less than four annas. A decent pair of shoes cost twenty-four rupees, and a suit, five hundred rupees. As they earn, so they spend. A lecture fetches from two hundred up to three thousand rupees. I have got up to five hundred. Of course now I am in the very heyday of fortune. They like me, and thousands of people come to hear me speak._x000d_ _x000d_ As it pleased the Lord, I met here Mr. Mazoomdar. He was very cordial at first, but when the whole Chicago population began to flock to me in overwhelming numbers, they grew the canker in his mind! … The priests tried their utmost to snub me. But the Guru (Teacher) is with me, what could anybody do? And the whole American nation loves and respects me, pays my expenses, and reveres me as a Guru … It was not in the power of your priests to do anything against me. Moreover, they are a nation of scholars. Here it would no longer do to say, "We marry our widows", "We do not worship idols", and things of that sort. What they want is philosophy, learning; and empty talk will_x000d_ no more do._x000d_ _x000d_ Dharmapala is a fine boy. He has not much of learning but is very gentle. He had a good deal of popularity in this country._x000d_ _x000d_ Brother, I have been bought to my senses. . . . _x000d_ (Sanskrit)--We do not know what sort of people they are who for nothing hinder the welfare of others" (Bhartrihari). Brother, we can get rid of everything, but not of that cursed jealousy……That is a national sin with us, speaking ill of others, and burning at heart at the greatness of others. Mine alone is the greatness, none else should rise to it!_x000d_ _x000d_ Nowhere in the world are women like those of this country. How pure, independent, self-relaying, and kind-hearted! It is the women who are the life and soul of this country. All learning and culture are centred in them. The saying, "(Sanskrit) who is the Goddess of Fortune Herself in the families of the meritorious" (Chandi) -- holds good in this country, while that other (Sanskrit) -- The Goddess of ill luck in the homes of the sinful" (ibid.) applies to ours. Just think on this. Great God! I am struck dumb with wonderment at seeing the women of America. (Sanskrit) etc. Thou art the Goddess of Fortune, Thou art the supreme Goddess, Thou art Modesty" (ibid.), (Sanskrit) -- The Goddess who resides in all beings as Power." (ibid.) -- all this holds good here. There are thousands of women here whose minds are as pure and white as the snow of this country. And look at our girls, becoming mothers below their teens! Good Lord! I now see it all. Brother, (Sanskrit) -- The gods are pleased where the women are held in esteem" -- says the old Manu. We are horrible sinners, and our degradation is due to our calling women "despicable worms", "gateways to hell", and so forth. Goodness gracious! There is all the difference between heaven and hell!! "(Sanskrit) -- He adjudges gifts according to the merits of the case" (Isha, 8). Is the Lord to be hoodwinked by idle talk? The Lord has said, "(Sanskrit) -- Thou art the woman. Thou art the man. Thou art the boy and the girl as well" (Shvetashvatara Upa.) And we on our part are crying. "(Sanskrit) --Be off, thou outcast!" (Sanskrit) etc. -- Who has made the bewitching women?" My brother, what experience I have had I;n the South, of the upper classes torturing the lower! What Bacchanalian orgies within the temples! Is it a religion that fails to remove the misery of the poor and turn men into gods! Do you think our religion is worth the name? Ours is only Don't_x000d_ touchism, only "Touch me not". "Touch me not," Good heavens! A_x000d_ country, the big leaders of which have for the last two thousand years been only discussing whether to take food with the right hand or the left, whether to take water from the right-hand side or from the left, …. If such a country does not go to run, what other will? (Sanskrit) -- Time keeps wide awake when all else sleeps. Time is invincible indeed!" He knows lit, who is there to throw dust in His eyes, my friends?_x000d_ _x000d_ A country where millions of people live on flowers of the Mohua plant, and a million or two of Sadhus and a hundred million or so of Brahmins suck the blood out of these poor people, without even_x000d_ the least effect for their amelioration -- is that a country or hell? Is that a religion, or the devil's dance? My brother, here is one thing for you to understand fully -- I have travelled all over India, and seen this country too -- can there be an effect without cause? Can there be punishment without sin?_x000d_ _x000d_ (Sanskrit)_x000d_ _x000d_ "Amidst all the scriptures and Puranas, know this statement of Vyasa to be true, that doing good to others conduces to merit, and doing harm to them leads to sin." _x000d_ _x000d_ Isn't it true?_x000d_ _x000d_ My brother, in view of all this, specially of the poverty and ignorance, I had no sleep. At Cape Comerin sitting in Mother Kumari's temple, sitting on the last bit of India rock -- I hit upon a plan: We are so many Sannyasins wandering about, and teaching the people metaphysics -- it is all madness. Did not our Gurudeva use to say, "An empty stomach is no good for religion"? That those poor people are leading the life of brutes is simply due to ignorance. We have for all ages been sucking their blood and trampling them underfoot._x000d_ Good to others, go from village to village, disseminating education and seeking in various ways to better the condition of all down to the Chandala, through oral teaching, and by means of maps, cameras, globes, and such other accessories--can't that bring forth good in time? All these plans I cannot write out in this short letter. The long and the short of it is -- if the mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain. The poor are too poor to come to schools and Pathashalas, and they will gain nothing by reading poetry and all that sort of thing. We, as a nation, have lost our individuality, and that is the cause of all mischief in India. We have to give back to the nation its lost individuality and raise the masses. The Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christians, all have trampled them underfoot. Again the force to raise them must come from underfoot. Again to force to raise them must come from inside, that is, from the orthodox Hindus. In every country the evils exist not with, but against, religion. Religion _x000d_ therefore is not to blame, but men._x000d_ _x000d_ To effect this, the first thing we need is men, and the next is funds. Through the grace of our Guru I was sure to get from ten to fifteen men in every town. I next travelled in search of funds, but do you think the people of India were going to spend money! …Selfishness personified -- are they to spend anything? Therefore I have come to America, to earn money myself, and then return to my country and devote the rest of my days to the realization of this one aim of my life._x000d_ _x000d_ As our country is poor in social virtues, so this country is lacking in spirituality. I give them spirituality, and they give me money. I do not know how long I shall take to realize my end. … These people are not hypocrites, and jealousy is altogether absent in them. I depend on no one in Hinduism. I shall try to earn the wherewithal myself to the best of my might and carry out my plans, or die in the attempt. "(Sanskrit) -- when death is certain, it is best to sacrifice oneself for a good cause."_x000d_ You may perhaps think what Utopian nonsense all this is! You little know what is in me. If any of you help me in my plans, all right, or Gurudeva will show me the way out. … We cannot give up jealousy and rally together. That is our national sin! It is not to be met with in this country, and this is what has made them so great._x000d_ _x000d_ Nowhere in the world have I come across such "frogs-in-the-well" as we are. Let anything new come from some foreign country, and America will be the first to accept it. But we? -- oh, there are none like us in the world, we men of Aryan blood !! Where that heredity really expresses itself, I do not see. … Yet they are descendants of the Aryans? _x000d_ Ever Yours_x000d_ VIVEKANANDA

In every religion we find one type of self-devotion particularly developed. The type of working without a motive is most highly developed in Buddhism. Do not mistake Buddhism and Brahminism. In this country you are very apt to do so. Buddhism is one of our sects. It was founded by a great man called Gautama, who became disgusted at the eternal metaphysical discussions of his day, and the cumbrous rituals, and more especially with the caste system. Some people say that we are born to a certain state, and therefore we are superior to others who are not thus born. He was also against the tremendous priestcraft. He preached a religion in which there was no moive power, and was perfectly agnostic about metaphysics or theories about God. He was often asked if there was a God, and he answered, he did not know. When asked about right conduct, he would reply, "Do good and be good." There came five Brahmins, who asked him to settle their discussion. One said, "Sir, my book says that God is such and such, and that this is the way to come to God." Another said, "That is wrong, for my book says such and such, and this is the way to come to God"; and so the others. He listened calmly to all of them, and then asked them one by one, "Does any one of your books say that God becomes angry, that He ever injures anyone, that He is impure?" "No, Sir, they all teach that God is pure and good." "Then, my friends, why do you not become pure and good first, that you may know what God is?"_x000d_ Of course I do not endorse all his philosophy. I want a good deal of metaphysics, for myself. I entirely differ in many respects, but, because I differ, is that any reason why I should not see the beauty of the man? He was the only man who was bereft of all motive power. There were other great men who all said they were the Incarnations of God Himself, and that those who would believe in them would go to heaven. But what did Buddha say with his dying breath? "None can help you; help yourself; work out your own salvation." He said about himself, "Buddha is the name of infinite knowledge, infinite as the sky; I, Gautama, have reached that state; you will all reach that too if you struggle for it." Bereft of all motive power, he did not want to go to heaven, did not want money; he gave up his throne and everything else and went about begging his bread through the streets of India, preaching for the good of men and animals with a heart as wide as the ocean._x000d_ He was the only man who was ever ready to give up his life for animals to stop a sacrifice. He once said to a king, "If the sacrifice of a lamb helps you to go to heaven, sacrificing a man will help you better; so sacrifice me." The king was astonished. And yet this man was without any motive power. He stands as the perfection of the active type, and the very height to which he attained shows that through the power of work we can also attain to the highest spirituality._x000d_ To many the path becomes easier if they believe in God. But the life of Buddha shows that even a man who does not believe in God, has no metaphysics, belongs to no sect, and does not go to any church, or temple, and is a confessed materialist, even he can attain to the highest. We have no right to judge him. I wish I had one infinitesimal part of Buddha's heart. Buddha may or may not have believed in God; that does not matter to me. He reached the same state of perfection to which others come by Bhakti--love of God--Yoga, or Jnana. Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through the disinterested performance of action.