SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

IN THE WEST

NEW DISCOVERIES

==============

VOLUME 1

HIS PROPHETIC MISSION

Part One

MARIE LOUISE BURKE

Advaita Ashrama
[Publication Department]
1
5 Delhi Entally Road,
Calcutta 700 014
#

2
 Published by
SWAMI MUMUKSHANANDA
PRESIDENT, ADVAITA ASHRAMA
MAYAVATI, PITHORAGARH, HIMALAYAS

® Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati, India

Fourth Edition, June 1992

2m3C
Originally published in 1958 as
Swami Vivekananda in America: New Discoveries
® Vedanta Society of Northern California

All rights in this book are reserved. No part of

this book may be reproduced in any manner what-
soever (except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews) without
written permission from the publisher.

3
 To

My revered teacher, Swami Ashokananda,

without whose constant encouragement,
inspiration, guidance, and care this series of
books would never have come into being.
#

4
 CONTENTS

Publisher‘s Note to the Third Edition

Author‘s Note to the Fourth Edition

Author‘s Note to the Third Edition

Author‘s Note to the Second Edition

Author‘s Note to the First Edition

Prologue 1

One Before the Parliament 16

Two The Parliament of Religions 66

Three In and around Chicago 146

Four The Midwestern Tour 188

Five In a Southern City 239

Six The Climax at Detroit 287

Seven The Christian Onslaught 383

Eight Return of the Warrior 408

Appendix A 483
5
Appendix B 489

6
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE
TO THE THIRD EDITION

Marie Louise Burke, whose earlier well-received and

highly appreciated books Swami Vivekananda in America:
New Discoveries and Swami Vivekananda, His Second Visit
to the West: New Discoveries, published by us for the first
time in 1958 and 1973, respectively, has now written a third
book dealing with the period of Swami Vivekananda's life
during 1895 and 1896. We are now publishing these three
books, the first two of which have been thoroughly revised
and enlarged with much fresh material hitherto unpublished.
The three books are being published under the overall title
Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries and are
subtitled His Prophetic Mission, Part One and Part Two; The
World Teacher, Part One and Part Two; and A New Gospel,
Part One and Part Two-each book being divided into two
volumes. The volumes have been marked 1 to 6.

The present series has involved, as in the case of the

author's earlier books, a great deal of painstaking research
work with a view to providing correct information as far as
possible. Fresh material discovered called for rewriting
several portions while fitting them into the existing text of the
previous editions, details of which are provided in the
"Author's Note" to this edition.

The author has mentioned at the end of her "Note" to the

first edition that the copyright for this new series has been
transferred to Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati, for the sake of
legal convenience. The copyright for the previous editions
7
was held by the Vedanta Society of Northern California, San
Francisco. We take this opportunity to express our profound
sense of gratitude both to the author and to the Vedanta
Society of Northern California, San Francisco, for this helpful
gesture on their part.
#

8
 It is our fervent hope that this new series will be received
as eagerly and enthusiastically as the earlier New Discoveries
by the admirers, students, and followers of Swami
Vivekananda.

PUBLISHER.
Advaita Ashrama
Mayavati, Pithoragarh, Himalayas
5 January 1983
#

9
 AUTHOR'S NOTE

TO THE FOURTH EDITION

There will very probably be no end to the discovery of new

material regarding Swami Vivekananda's visits to the West,
and, indeed, since the last edition of volumes one and two of
Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries, heretofore
unknown newspaper articles connected with three of the
cities Swamiji is known to have visited have been unearthed.
For these valuable discoveries we are indebted to the intrepid
researchers Ray and Wanda Ellis, who have been following
Swamiji's footsteps throughout eastern and midwestern
America, combining research and pilgrimage. The most
interesting portions of this material have been included in the
appendices of the present edition. Aside from these additions
to His Prophetic Mission, only minor changes, consisting of
corrections of one kind or another, have been made.
I sincerely hope that this book (while it can never be de-
finitive) is at least error-free. I hope, too, that it will inspire
other researchers to track Swamiji high and low, finding new
accounts of him, new glimpses of him, new evidences of the
impact his presence had upon the people of America-an
impact the transforming waves from which have yet, I feel
sure, to reach their tidal peak.

San Francisco, California

May 10, 1992
10
#

11
 AUTHOR'S NOTE

TO THE THIRD EDITION

Through the years that have passed since the publication of

the first and second editions of this book under the title
Swami Vivekananda in America: New Discoveries a
considerable amount of pertinent new material has been
gathered in one way or another: some sought by the author,
some unearthed through the labor of others, and some offered
by interested friends. While a portion of this new matter has
been fitted into the existing text without creating a
disturbance, most of it has called for a rearrangement, if not a
thorough rewriting, of many sections. This edition, therefore,
has turned out to be a revision as well as an enlargement of
the earlier ones. The additional material has also, of course,
increased the bulk of an already bulky book, making it
desirable to split the whole into two manageable volumes.
It would be a pointless, if not an impossible, task to list all
the added material and bits of new information that are scat-
tered through these two volumes, but by way of
acknowledging the debt this edition owes to a number of
generous people, I should like to draw attention to some of
the most important changes in each chapter. First, however,
let me mention a source of immensely interesting and
valuable material that I have made use of throughout the
book. This is the collection of Swami Vivekananda's letters
made available by the late Mrs. Boshi Sen. The letters of this
collection (henceforth referred to as the Sen Collection) that
are pertinent to the years here dealt with ( 1893 and1894)
12
were for the most part written by Swamiji to Mrs. George W.
Hale, whom he looked upon as "mother." Through these
letters we learn many details of his nonpublic life and see
him not as the "cyclonic" monk but as the loving and beloved
son, utterly simple in his approach,

13
utterly approachable. Our debt to Mrs. Sen for making these
and many other of Swamiji's letters accessible to the reading
public is great indeed.
Let me now briefly note, chapter by chapter, some of the
other new material and information that has entered this
edition. In chapter one ("Before the Parliament") I have made
use of passages from an early copy of Swamiji's letter of
August 20, 1893, which yields more information regarding
his first weeks in the United States than does this same letter
as presently published in The Complete Works of Swami
Vivekananda. The early copy from which I have quoted is
from Mrs. Ole Bull's collection and was made available to me
in the 1960s by Sylvia Bull Curtis and the late Mortimer B.
Smith, to both of whom I am much indebted for this and
other valuable material used in this book. In the first chapter I
have also taken advantage of some research regarding
Swamiji's visit in Salem, Massachusetts, undertaken by David
Proper of the Essex Institute and published in the Essex
Institute Historical Collections of January 1967. In addition,
Elizabeth Copeland and Elva L. Nelson have both been very
kind in offering for inclusion their detailed knowledge of,
respectively, Breezy Meadows and Annisquam,
Massachusetts.
Chapter two contains more newspaper material relative to
the Parliament of Religions. Much of this was collected by
Jacob Fisher in the 1930s and made available to me by
Advaita Ashrama; some was gathered in 1976 by Swami
Yogeshananda, who kindly sent me his findings, and some in
the 1960s by James N. Adams, then of the Illinois State
Historical Library. Also in this chapter, as well as in others, I
have freely gleaned material from a carton of pertinent
14
 magazine articles compiled and Xeroxed by Eric D. Murphy,
who very generously made his large and unique collection
accessible to me for use in the preparation of this edition.
Chapter three ("In and Around Chicago") has been reduced
rather than expanded, for those portions relating to Emma
Calve and John D. Rockefeller, being of uncertain date, have
#

15
 been transferred to an appendix. As for chapter four ("The
Midwestern Tour"), I am indebted to Michael D. Smith to his
valuable discovery that Swamiji lectured in Minneapoli:
Minnesota, more often than we had previously known. This
information sheds light on at least a day or two of the six-
week period during which Swamiji disappears from our sight
in the Midwest.
Chapter five ("In a Southern City") has been augmented b
material from the Sen Collection as well as by some
additional newspaper material. Chapters six, seven, and eight-
the chapters dealing with Swamiji's dramatic visits to Detroit
are little changed, though in some respects chapter six is
more detailed, and the thesis set forth at the close of chapter
eight has been somewhat expanded by way of clarification.
We arrive now at what has become in this edition volume
two. In chapter nine ("The Eastern Tour-I"), with which
volume two opens, Swamiji's itinerary of April 1894 has been
straightened out with the help of his letters from the Sen
Collection. There is also in this chapter more information
regarding his visit to Lawrence, Massachusetts, details of
which we owe to Elizabeth Copeland. Some corrections in
dates have been made in chapter ten ("Trials and Triumph"),
and in this respect, a in many others, the monumental
collection Swami Vivekananda in Indian Newspapers,
compiled and edited by Sankari Prasad Basu and Sunil Bihari
Ghosh, has been extremely helpful.
Chapter eleven of the first and second editions has beer
divided here into two chapters-"Summer, 1894" and "The
Eastern Tour-II." This split was necessitated by an abundance
of new material regarding Swamiji's stay at Greenacre and by
(in what is now chapter twelve) additional Baltimore and
16
Cambridge material. Except for the addition of a valiant and
important defense by Dr. Lewis G. Janes of Swamiji's
position anent Hindu widows, chapter thirteen ("The Last
Battle") has remained substantially the same. As for what is
now chapter fourteen ("Dawn of the World Mission") some
parts of this closing chapter have been rewritten and
#

17
lengthened, but that section which relates to Swamiji's work
in New York in the first part of 1895 has been omitted. (Ex-
panded with additional information, it has become the first
chapter in a subsequent volume-volume three of this series.)
The epilogue has also been omitted from this edition in order
to be included (in part) in volume four.
Apart from the above-mentioned omissions, no material
that appeared in the second edition has been deleted from the
book. Although many of the letters that were first presented
in the earlier editions have now been published in the
Complete Works, they have been kept here intact. The same is
true of News newspaper reports, barring a few redundant
subheadings which have been discarded. I should also
mention that when quoting 1 Swami Vivekananda's published
letters, I have occasionally made use of his original letters or
the earliest available copies of them. When such passages
differ from those of the Complete Works, I have cited my
source in the References. These references are themselves an
innovation, as are the bibliography, the appendices, the notes
(at the close of almost every chapter), and the index.
This, then, is a very general resume of what has taken
place in the book since the publication of its second edition. It
is my earnest hope that these changes add up to an
improvement and that this enlarged and revised edition will
be an acceptable offering to Swamiji and his devotees.
In the foregoing I have expressed my indebtedness to a
number of people for their generous contributions to this
narrative of Swamiji's life in America. In closing I would like
to emphasize my gratitude to them and to say also that this
edition would scarcely exist in its present form were it not for
the help of my co-workers, namely, Kathleen Davis, who not
18
only typed the entire manuscript but painstakingly and tire-
lessly copy-edited it, revised the glossary, and prepared the
index; Mary M. Muirhead, who gave much needed assistance
in typing the references; and the late Edith B. Soule, who,
despite illness and failing eyesight, patiently read the manu-
#

19
script as it proceeded and cheered me on with unfailing love
and encouragement.
Finally, I owe a large debt of gratitude to Swami Anany-
ananda, President of Advaita Ashrama, who carefully read
the typescript of this third edition, gave it the benefit of his
valuable suggestions, and kindly accepted it for publication.

San Francisco, 1983

#

20
 AUTHOR'S NOTE

TO THE SECOND EDITION

The preparation of this edition for the press has provided

me with an opportunity to make a number of small changes in
the text, called for by "new discoveries" that have been made
since the first writing. A complete list of such changes would
be tedious to the reader; it should be said, however, that
wherever he finds a discrepancy in datum between this
edition and the first, he should rest assured that the new
reading constitutes an emendation based upon new findings,
rather than an arbitrary change.
For the convenience of the student of Swami
Vivekananda's life the most important of these new findings
can be noted here. For instance, we now know with
reasonable certainty that the Swami arrived in Vancouver on
July 25, 1893, and in Chicago on July 30 (Prologue). We
know, also, that his first letter from America to his brother
monks was written in January of 1894, not in March (chapter
one) ; that Mrs. Ole Bull spent some three weeks at
Greenacre during the Swami's stay there (chapter nine) ; that
he first learned of the Madras Meeting in the early part of
July, 1894, and not at the end of August (chapter ten); that the
so-called "Barbar Lectures" were delivered in New York at
the home of a Mrs. A. L. Barber, under the auspices of Mrs.
Bull (chapter thirteen) ; that the lodging house where the
Swami lived during his stay in New York in 1895 was much
21
nearer to Sixth avenue than to Fifth-a significant shift in
location. The reader will also find some additional
information about the George Hale family in chapter five and
a deletion from chapter thirteen of the "rhymed cor-
respondence" between the Swami and Mary Hale (which is
published in full in The Complete Works of Swami
Vivekananda), together with the deletion of a letter written by
Mrs. Hale to
#

22
 the Swami, the date of which is, I now believe, open to
question.
This edition has also provided an opportunity for making
minor alterations here and there in language and for
correcting various, and I trust all, inaccuracies that perversely
found their way into the first edition. Some of these errors
were detected by myself; some by others who have been kind
enough to point them out to me and to whom I extend my
thanks.

San Francisco, 1966

#

23
 AUTHOR'S NOTE
TO THE FIRST EDITION

When in the spring of 1950 I started looking through old

newspapers in the New York, Brooklyn, and Boston Public
Libraries for articles about Swami Vivekananda, I had no
idea that my search would lead to the writing of a book about
the Swami's life in America. I was living at the time in New
York City, and a fellow member of the Vedanta Society of
Northern California had suggested that I hunt for and have
photostated whatever articles I might find about the Swami.
This seemed not only a useful but an absorbing occupation. It
was, moreover, a rewarding one, for from time to time I came
upon news reports not mentioned in the biographies of
Swami Vivekananda and perhaps not previously known. Such
discoveries seemed an end in themselves; I did not look or
see beyond them.
A year later, when I was still living in New York and still
turning the yellowed pages of newspapers, a member of the
Vedanta Society of Northern California had by chance
learned that when Swami Vivekananda had visited Salem,
Massachusetts, in the days before the Parliament of Religions
he had left behind his trunk, his cane, and his shawl at the
home of a Mrs. Woods. As I have told in chapter one of this
book, I forthwith went to Salem and in the Essex Institute
found that the Swami had not only visited the town but had
lectured there more than once. The newspaper reports of
those lectures constituted what may be called a "find," for
they pertained to a period of the Swami's life in America
which had heretofore been obscure. On making this
discovery, two things became dear to me: one, that there was
24
no doubt a great deal of material regarding the Swami in
various libraries throughout the United States; and two, that
such material should be searched for and, when found, made
available to his devotees.
#

25
 Thenceforth I set to work in earnest. New material began
to pour in. Some came as a result of my efforts to unearth it,
some came totally unsought, and all served to throw new
light upon the Swami's life from August, 1893, to the close
of 1894 a period of which we have had little detailed
knowledge and with which this book is primarily concerned.
Truly speaking, this book cannot be called a biography;
rather, it is, as it is intended to be, primarily a source book of
the period it covers. First, my purpose in writing it was to
present every scrap of new material that I had found or that,
in one way or another, had been made available to me. A
biographer necessarily selects his material, using it to
highlight or to illustrate various aspects of his subject. I have
made no such selection, for in sharing this new material with
the Swami's devotees I did not feel that I should take the
responsibility of withholding any part of it. As a
consequence, I have included news articles that. are
sometimes repetitious and sometimes of seeming
insignificance. I believe, however, that the serious student of
Swami Vivekananda will not find this lack of discrimination
a Fault, for to him everything regarding the Swami is of
interest and of value. The second reason this book cannot be
called a biography is that, with the exception of the first
section of chapter thirteen, in which I have made free use of
known material, I have avoided the inclusion of facts about
and contemporaneous evaluations of Swami Vivekananda
which are already known. My narrative, therefore, is not
complete or exhaustive, as a biography should be. I have, for
instance, given only slight attention to the fact that

26
throughout this period the Swami was organizing and guiding
his Indian work through a voluminous correspondence.
But although I have endeavored to restrict myself to the
presentation of new discoveries, I must admit that in order to
present them in their true light and significance I have placed
them against the background of the Swami's life and thought,
as well as against that of the times to which they pertain.
When necessary, I have referred to some known facts and
have, to
#

27
 that extent, drawn upon published biographies, letters, and
memoirs. I have also, in chapter two, made free use of the
published histories of the Parliament of Religions-particularly
History of the Parliament of Religions, edited by Walter R.
Houghton, and The World's Parliament of Religions by John
H. Barrows -for without as detailed a picture as possible of
this important episode in the Swami's life in America, the
significance of the material in the subsequent chapters would
be obscure.

There are two more reasons for my having overstepped the

bounds of a source book or a mere compilation of newspaper
reports and other material. First, in some instances the
available newspaper reports are not self-explanatory and,
taken at their face value, put Swami Vivekananda in a
somewhat false light. This is particularly true of the reports
which relate to the controversies the Swami was forced to
engage in while in America. I was faced with the choice
either of suppressing this material and thereby suppressing
important and revealing incidents in the Swami's life, or of
presenting it in conjunction with certain facts and
explanations by the light of which it could be properly
understood and evaluated. The second course way, I felt,
owed to Swami Vivekananda, and in choosing it I have of
necessity devoted several pages to explanatory passages (in,
for instance, chapter eight, section four and chapter twelve,
section four).
Second, in making a study of Swami Vivekananda's life
and thought in America, I found that certain theories
regarding his American mission which had been held by his
biographers and devotees were not supported by fact. New
28
interpretations, based on new findings and also on a
reexamination of the Swami's published letters and other
writings, seemed to be in order. I have, therefore, devoted
four sections (chapter eight, section five; chapter thirteen,
sections two, three, and four) to a detailed analysis of the
Swami's mission in the West.'*
In endeavor to present the material against its
*
In the third edition, chap. 13, sec. 4, and dnap. 14, sec. 1, 2,
and 3 correspond, respectively to chap.12 sec.4 and chap.13,
secs.2, 3, and 4 of the first edition.
#

29
 In my endeavor to present the new material against its
historical background, I have included a candid picture of
Swami Vivekananda's antagonists, the Christian missionaries.
of the 1890s. It is perhaps unfortunate that I have had to re-
count the disagreeable controversies of a past decade. But
since this book was written in an effort to present as many
facts about the Swami's life in America as I was able to
discover, I could not with good conscience omit or suppress
relevant history. It may also be said that the Swami's attitude
toward and conclusions regarding the activities of Christian
missionaries in India can still prove helpful in solving a
problem that remains, to say the least, troublesome. In fact, I
believe that Swami Vivekananda's approach not only to this
particular problem but to India's many other difficulties is
still pertinent today and will continue to be pertinent for years
to come. From what I have learned of current Indian thought,
it appears that a number of modern Hindus consider the
Swami's views outmoded and no longer applicable to
changed conditions and ideologies. But from what I have
learned of Swami Vivekananda himself, it appears obvious
that his counsel is still of vital relevance and that, if I may be
permitted to say so, the Indian people will neglect his
teachings at their peril.

30
In reproducing articles from American newspapers, I have
given them exactly as they were in the original. Except for
details of format and obvious typographical errors, which I do
not think need be perpetuated, wrong spellings of proper
names and faulty punctuation and grammar have been left
uncorrected. The misinformation of the American press
regarding things Indian has also been allowed to stand; for
the original material gives glimpses not only of Swami
Vivekananda but of the cultural climate which he
encountered. In those cases, however, where journalistic
errors make the material unintelligible I have given, when
possible, bracketed suggestions as to what may have been
intended by the reporter and, when this has not been possible,
bracketed question marks to indicate the present author's
bewilderment. Although excerpts from some of the
newspaper reports have been quoted in the Life of
#

31
 Swami Vivekananda or in his Complete Works, the full text
of every article has been included, except where otherwise
indicated.
In quoting Swami Vivekananda's newly discovered letters,
poems, and notes, I have nowhere taken the liberty of editing
them, but have reproduced them in their entirety and have
retained the original punctuations, spellings of proper names,
and sometimes hastily written sentences. While in some cases
minor editing would not have been amiss, I believe that in at
least one book his letters and other writings should be re-
produced as he wrote them without omissions or changes.
The reader will no doubt observe that quotations taken from
his letters vary at times from the published versions. These
discrepancies, I assure him, are not due to my editing but to
the fact that wherever possible I have quoted directly from
the transcriptions of the Swami's original, unedited letters.
Where the original has been in Bengali; I have sought and
received the help of a translator, who has given me a literal
translation of several passages in which literalness was, I felt,
of prime importance.
It should perhaps be mentioned that although this book is
published in India by the Advaita Ashrama, whose policy is
to follow English spellings, the American style of spelling
has been used throughout, for not only is the author an
American, but by far the greater part of the quotations
included in the book have been gathered from American
sources. The original spellings have, of course, been let stand
in materia4 taken from non-American sources.
Throughout the course of this book I have expressed my
debt and my gratitude to those who have contributed their
recollections of Swami Vivekananda and who have made
32
available to me material to which I would otherwise have had
no access. I would like, however, to express here my
indebtedness and gratitude to the research workers in the
libraries of many of those cities which Swami Vivekananda
visited during his lecture tour, who in all instances have given
me their courteous and indispensable assistance. My heartfelt
thanks go particularly
#

33
 to my friend, the late John A. Gault of the New York Public
Library, for the many photostats he contributed at his own
expense and for his time, interest, and help. My thanks are
also due to Mr. F. Kretzschmar of the Information Service,
Inc. of Detroit for the articles his bureau unearthed for me in
the Detroit newspapers. I am also indebted to all those who
have generously supplied the photographs for this book, and I
have acknowledged this debt in the List of Illustrations.
Finally, to those members of the Vedanta Society of
Northern California who have helped me in various ways in
the preparation of this book-such as typing, reading,
correcting the manuscript, and preparing the glossary-and
who have given me their unfailing encouragement and their
indispensable advice, my undying gratitude.
In giving these thanks and making these
acknowledgments, I do so not alone on my own behalf but on
that of the Vedanta Society of Northern California, to which I
have given the full rights to this book, including the rights of
translation * I should add, however, that although the
Vedanta Society of Northern California has accepted this
book, the opinions expressed within its pages are mine and do
not necessarily represent or reflect those of the Society.
In conclusion I would like to say that both the Vedanta
Society of Northern California and I are indebted to the
Advaita Ashrama for its offer to publish the present volume.

San Francisco, 1957

34
*
For the sake of legal convenience, the copy right was
transferred in 1979 to Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati.

35
 PROLOGUE

Swami Vivekananda was born in Calcutta on January 12,

1863. His family of the Kayastha (Kshatriya) caste was a
wealthy and aristocratic one, long known for its charity,
learning, and spirit of independence. The Swami's father,
Vishwanath Datta, was an attorney in the High Court of
Calcutta, a position which, together with his inherited
fortune, made it possible for his family to live in luxury and
for him to give help to all who asked-worthy and unworthy
alike. The Swami's mother, Bhuvaneshwari Datta, was of an
equally generous nature. She cheerfully managed the large
household, composed not only of her five children but of her
husband's relatives, and somehow in the midst of her duties
found time for the study of the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata, from both of which she could recite long
passages, and both of which she taught to her children.
Indeed, Narendra Nath Datta, as Swami Vivekananda was
known in his youth, was blessed with noble parents, even as
they were blessed with a son who was to be the spiritual
prophet of the new age.

Narendra as a child was, to say the least, difficult to

manage. Impelled by a brilliant and energetic mind, he had a
capacity for action and mischief that knew no limit. At times
he would become uncontrollably restless, as though Lord
Shiva, the Great God, the Absolute, to whom confinement
was an outrage, dwelt in his small body. It is said that his
36
mother's only remedy for his turbulent outbursts was to pour
a pitcher of cold water over his dark head, repeating loudly
the name of Shiva. At once Naren would grow calm and
thoughtful, the clouds would disperse, and soon his ordinarily
joyful disposition would come to the fore. After such crises,
Bhuvaneshwari Datta would sigh: "I prayed to Shiva for a
son,
#

37
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 2

and He has sent me one of His demons!"

But tempestuous though he was, Naren from early

childhood had a predilection for meditation. He would play at
it, sitting in yoga posture, and often play-acting would pass
into deep self forgetfulness. He had also an innate fondness
for the wandering monks who came to the house for alms and
to the despair of his parents would regularly give them
anything he could lay his hands on. The device of locking
Naren in his room whenever monks approached was of little
avail, for from his window gifts of all sorts, bauble or
heirloom, would come showering down to the feet of the
sadhus.

As a boy Naren was the favorite of old and young alike

and a leader among his companions, who were willing
accomplices in the elaborate games and pranks he endlessly
invented. But as he grew older his unlimited energy began to
turn more and more from wild and furious play to the pursuit
by day of intellectual activity and by night of serious
meditation, both of which came to him naturally.
In 1877, when Naren was fourteen, his father found it
necessary to move the family for a period of two years to
Raipur in what is now Madhya Pradesh. Here Naren had time
to spend tong hours with his father, whose Western
scholarship and open mindedness had led him, along with
38
other Hindus, into a distrust of his own cultural heritage and
had bred within him an agnosticism typical of the age. There
being no school in Raipur, Vishwanath gave careful attention
to his son, training his keen intellect and directing him to the
study of European culture and knowledge, which in that day
was considered to e the very acme of learning.

When Narendra returned with his Family to Calcutta

in1879, he entered the Presidency College and, later, the
General Assembly's Institution, founded by the Scottish
General Missionary Board. Never content with the offered
curriculum, he read independently an untold number of
books. His powers of reading and of retention were little
short of miraculous. Able w consume and digest a weighty
tome in a short time, he
#

39
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 3

never again forgot a detail of it, and as a result there were

many branches of Western learning, as well as of Eastern, in
which he became well versed. Indeed, he acquired during his
college life a thorough knowledge of Western philosophy,
history, art, literature, and a more than general knowledge of
science and medicine.

Naren's concern, however, was not with accumulating a

fund of knowledge, but, rather, with discovering ultimate
truth. A more shallow mind would have remained content
with, or been frustrated by, the agnosticism to which
Western philosophy and science pointed, but his thirst for a
direct knowledge of reality was deep-seated and not to be put
off by the well-acknowledged fact that it could not be
acquired through the intellect or the senses. On the one hand,
his spirit rebelled against the degrading philosophy of "I can't
know," and on the other hand, it was impossible for him to
accept on mere faith a doctrine that logic or his own
experience could not verify.

During this period Narendra became a member of the

Brahmo Samaj, a society which was at the time the spearhead
of a reform movement among the Hindus. Its position was
both modern and orthodox. While it advocated many social
reforms and protested the old tenets of orthodox Hinduism,
such as polytheism, image worship, the doctrine of Divine
Incarnation, and the need of a guru or spiritual teacher, it
40
decided at the same time modern atheism and taught a belief
in and worship of a monotheistic God, a formless God with
attributes. In the doctrines of the Brahmo Samaj and also in
one of its leaders, Keshab Chandra Sen, young Bengal saw
hope for a modernized Hinduism. With characteristic energy
and enthusiasm, Naren identified himself with a branch of the
Samaj led by Siva Nath Sastri and Vijay Krishna Goswami
and heartily concurred in its attempts to sweep away the
incrustations of the ages. He accepted the doctrine of a form-
less God with attributes, but unlike many other Brahmos,
desired to see Him, as it were, face to face; to him religion
was
#

41
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 4

of as little use as intellectual learning if it did not bring him

into direct contact with the very heart of reality.
Naren was now eighteen, well built, of startling attractive-
ness, strong and independent intellect, and sparkling wit. He
was an accomplished singer and a fascinating conversation-
alist whose moods could vary from the profound to the play-
ful. Always guided by a highly developed moral sense, he
observed the utmost purity in his life-an effortless, innate
purity that was never dampening. Indeed, wherever Naren
went he was the center of interest and gaiety and was loved
and respected by all. It would have been a simple matter for
him to reach the heights of worldly power and fame. Yet so
restless was his spirit for an intimate knowledge of God that
had he thought it necessary to renounce the world to attain it,
he would gladly have done so. But how to know God? Was it
possible to know Him? "Sir," he asked Devendra Nath
Tagore, who was looked upon as one of the best spiritual
teachers of the time, "have you seen God?" Instead of
answering, Devendra Nath blessed him and said: "My boy,
you have the yogi's eyes: 'a Again and again Naren asked the
question, putting it to the leaders of various religious sects in
Calcutta, to pundits, to preachers who spoke of God, of
salvation, of holiness. The answer, given truthfully, for the
young questioner was so sincere, was always, in effect, no.

It was during this period of restless search for God that

Naren, in November of 1881, first met Sri Ramakrishna in the
42
house of one of the latter's devotees, Surendra Nath Mitra.
'The Master, at once attracted to the young man, whose eyes
seemed not on this world, and deeply moved by his singing,
invited him to visit Dakshineswar.

The story of Swami Vivekananda's life cannot be complete

without the story of the life of Sri Ramakrishna, for the two
lives formed, as it were, one whole; yet, in this short account,

43
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 5

only a little can be told about the Master. Sri Ramakrishna,

born in 1836, is today held by millions to have been an Incar-
nation of God who harmonized within himself all the spiritual
thought and experience of the world's past. Living quietly on
the bank of the Ganga at the Kali temple in Dakshineswar, Sri
Ramakrishna remained in a continuous state of God:
consciousness, sometimes losing himself utterly in the
Absolute Brahman, sometimes, in a slightly lower state,
communing with the Personal God in one or another of His,
or Her, infinite forms, sometimes, again, perceiving this
world of multiplicity shot through and through with the
unifying substance of Divinity. His power was that which
only the Incarnations of God possess-the power of bestowing,
by a touch or a glance, the vision of God and of removing by
a wish the accumulated burden of karma from the souls of
those who approach them. This power of forgiveness and of
granting salvation, to speak in Christian terms, was part and
parcel of Sri Ramakrishna's nature. Childlike in the utter
purity of his heart, he eagerly gave God-vision to pundit and
illiterate peasant alike, granting his tremendous and liberating
grace to all who came to him and were ready to receive it. To
those who were not ready-for the sudden inflowing of God's
grace can shatter a small or flawed vessel-he gave the power
of self preparation and the assurance that it would in good
time lead to spiritual fruition. The teachings of Sri
Ramakrishna, who combined in himself a vast intellect and
an unbounded compassion, who was, in fact, cosmic in mind
44
and heart, were unique both in their all-inclusiveness and in
their insistence upon the ability of man to know God directly
and in this life.

The first part of Sri Ramakrishna's life was spent in under-

going extreme austerities and engaging in a multiplicity of
spiritual practices. There was no religious path which he did
not quickly follow to its promised destination and none which
he found invalid. Thus he became a living verification of the
fact-new to the world-that all religions, if practiced earnestly,
lead to the Godhead. He became also an unerring guide,
#

45
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 6

for he was intimately acquainted with the landmarks and

pitfalls of each spiritual road, and knowing at a glance the
heart and mind of everyone who came to him, he was able to
mold and propel the life of each along the line best suited to
his nature.

The last years of Sri Ramakrishna's life, from the latter part
of 1879 to August of 1886, were spent in giving intensive
training to a group of close disciples, who were later to
become men of extraordinary spirituality and purity, apostles
fit to transmit the teachings and power of their Master to the
world.

It was around the end of 1881 that Narendra, in company

with friends, first visited Dakshineswar and again met the
Master. It was a momentous meeting and one that dumb-
founded the young seeker of truth, for Sri Ramakrishna, in-
stantly recognizing Naren's inherent spiritual greatness, spoke
to him in ecstatic, reverential terms. Taking him aside, he
poured forth his welcome: "Ah! you have come so late! How
unkind of you to keep me waiting so long! My ears are
almost seared listening to the cheap talk of worldly people.
Oh, how I have been yearning. to unburden my mind to one
who would understand my inmost feelings!" Telling of the
incident at a later time, Naren said: "And so he went on
raving and weeping. The next moment he stood before me
46
with folded palms and showing me the regard due to a god,
said, `I know, Lord, you are that ancient Rishi Narayana in
the form of Nara (Man]; you have again incarnated yourself
in order to remove the distress of mankind.' 3

Speechless, Naren regarded Sri Ramakrishna as stark mad.

Yet after the Master had extorted from him a promise to
return in a few days and had led him back to the group of
devotees, there remained no trace of madness in his behavior.
He spoke and acted normally; indeed, he radiated a sense of
profound peace and spiritual joy. It was then that Naren asked
his usual question: "Sir, have you seen God?" The answer
was given at once: "Yes, I see Him just as I see you
#

47
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 7

here, only in a much intenser sense. God can be realized; one

can see and talk to Him as I am doing with you."4 Naren,
deeply impressed, felt that these extraordinary words came
from the depths of an inner experience. They were not the
words of a madman, nor were they the words of a mere
preacher; they were words that rang true and could not be
doubted. He saw, moreover, that the holy man's life of utter
renunciation was in perfect consonance with his teachings,
that he was truly a great saint to be revered. Yet how to
reconcile this with the strange and extravagant greeting he
had received? In a state of bafflement and confusion, Naren
returned to Calcutta.

He could not erase from his mind, however, the feeling of

blessedness that had come over him as he had sat near the
Master. Yet, busy with one thing and another, he did not
return to Dakshineswar for nearly a month. During his second
visit he had an even stranger experience. After greeting him
in his room and bidding him sit beside him, Sri Ramakrishna
drew near him in an ecstatic mood and placed his right foot
on his body. At this touch Naren saw, with eyes open, the
walls, the room, the temple garden, the whole world, and
even himself disappearing into a void. He felt that he was
facing death and cried in consternation, "What are you doing
to me? I have my parents!" The Master laughed and touched

48
Naren's chest, restoring him to his normal mood. "All right,
let it rest now," he said. "Everything will come in time."5

Schooled in Western learning and by nature averse to the

mysterious, Naren was convinced that Sri Ramakrishna had
exerted a hypnotic influence over him. Yet the question re-
mained how a madman could hypnotize so strong a mind as
his own. Deeply perplexed, yet deeply attracted, he soon re-
turned for a third visit, determined to hold his ground. But
this time he fared no better. By a mere touch the Master
caused him to lose all outward consciousness. Referring to
this incident, Sri Ramakrishna later said: "I put several
questions to him while he was in that state. I asked him about
his ante-
#

49
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 8

cedents and where he lived, his mission in this world and the
duration of his mortal life. He dived deep into himself and
gave fitting answers to my questions. They only confirmed
what I had seen and inferred about him. Those things shall be
a secret, but I came to know that he was a sage who had
attained perfection, a past master in meditation, and that the
day he knew who he really was, he would give up the body,
by an act of will, through yoga."6

From first to last, Sri Ramakrishna could not praise Naren

highly enough. He had not been speaking rhetorically when
he had called him "Lord-the incarnation of Narayana: ' His
feeling for his young disciple bordered on reverence, so
deeply aware was he of Naren's godlike nature. Again and
again he spoke of him in ecstatic terms: "Behold! Here is
Naren. See! See! Oh, what power of insight he has! It is like
the shoreless sea of radiance! The Mother, Mahamaya
Herself, cannot approach within ten feet of him!"7 At another
time he said: "He has eighteen extraordinary powers, one or
two of which are sufficient to make a man famous in the
world."8 Again, "He is a blazing, roaring fire consuming all
impurities to ashes."9

Through all this, Naren remained dubious, thinking the

Master to be blinded by the intensity of his love. His intellect,
moreover, and the religious training he had received in the
Brahmo Samaj forbade him to accept Sri Ramakrishna's doc-
50
trines-the doctrine, for instance, of monism, which claimed
that all was really Brahman, or God. From the point of view
of the Brahmo Samaj this was blasphemy. Sri Ramakrishna's
belief in the living existence of innumerable forms of God
and in their manifestation in images was equally
blasphemous, if not downright superstitious. Even the
Master's visions and superconscious experiences were looked
upon by Naren with the eye of the skeptic-not the shallow
skeptic who disbelieves merely because he does not
understand, but one who insists that truth be known with his
whole being before he will accept it as valid. Naren could
never abrogate his reason for the sake of finding comfort in
an easy faith. Thus for more than four
#

51
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 9

years he fought his Master, torn between the obvious

genuineness of Sri Ramakrishna's sainthood and his own
refusal to accept as true anything that his experience did not
verify.

Throughout those years Naren visited Dakshineswar often,

drawn by his love for his guru. Those days spent at the feet of
the Master in company with other disciples were golden ones.
Sri Ramakrishna trained his boys with a light though unerr-
ingly sure touch. In times of laughter and play, in serious dis-
cussion, in moods of spiritual ecstasy, even in the everyday
routine of eating and sleeping, he transformed life into a festi-
val. The common place became extraordinary, and the
slightest happening, a spiritual lesson. In so brief a sketch as
this, little justice can be done to Narendra's discipleship at
Dakshineswar, and to the reader who is unfamiliar with the
story one can only recommend that he turn to the biographies
of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, particularly to
Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master by Swami Saradananda
and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by M, for in those books
he will find a new and luminous dimension to this world-
indeed he will find a new world altogether.

Gradually Narendra's doubts disappeared. Engaging in

arduous spiritual exercises under the careful eye of his guru,
he proved by his own experience the truth of many of Sri
Ramakrishna's claims. At the same time his intellect
52
expanded into what might be called, for lack of a better word,
"superintellect," in the light of which many contradictions
that had plagued him were resolved and many apparent
fallacies were seen as higher truths.

But before Narendra surrendered completely to Sri Rama-

krishna he was to undergo a bitter experience. In the early
part of 1884 he passed his Bachelor of Arts examinations.
Shortly thereafter, while he was spending the evening at the
home of a friend, news came of the sudden death of his father
from a heart attack. The shock was a severe one, for Naren
had been deeply devoted to his father. But the full extent of
the loss did not become apparent until several days later,
when it
#

53
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 10

was discovered that Vishwanath Datta, who had always

freely given of his wealth to all who asked, had left his family
not only penniless but burdened with debt.

The following months were a nightmare. Naren, whose life

had always been one of physical comfort, now found himself
without funds and the sole support of his mother, two elder
sisters, two younger brothers, and sundry relatives. Creditors
knocked at the door; there was seldom enough to eat; clothes
became threadbare, and, on top of all, a branch of the family
claimed part of the old mansion-the best part-as rightfully
theirs. The claim was unfounded, but the case was brought to
the law courts, where it dragged on and on. Although it was
finally decided in favor of Naren's family, it created in its
course much unpleasantness, publicity, and suspense.

In the meantime Naren sought everywhere for work. "Even

before the period of mourning was over," he later told, "I had
to knock about in search of a job. Starving and barefooted, I
wandered from office to office under the scorching noonday
sun with an application in hand, . . . everywhere the door was
slammed in my face."10 Those who had previously toadied to
members of Vishwanath's family now scorned them, As for
Narendra's true friends, few knew the state to which he had
been reduced, for out of self respect he said nothing. At first
his faith in God's mercy remained firm, but soon in the face
of the misery of his own family, which made vivid to him the

54
sufferings of helpless millions of his countrymen, his faith
turned to doubt.

One evening toward the end of the summer, after the rains
had begun, Naren was returning home from a day of fruitless
job-hunting. Weak with hunger and unable to take a step
farther, he sank down by the roadside. Perhaps he slept for a
time; perhaps he only lapsed into a semiconscious state, but
suddenly a change began to take place within him. Deep
below the surface of his mind he felt that the veils of uncer-
tainty and confusion were being removed one after the other.
Theological problems, which were always more to him than
#

55
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 11

mere intellectual puzzles, became automatically solved, and

the meaning of the ways of God with man was clearly
revealed. He knew also, with a sure knowledge that sprang
from the depths of his being, that he must renounce the
world.

Sri Ramakrishna, however, aware of all that had taken

place within his disciple, asked him not to take up the life of a
wandering monk for as long as he himself might live. It was
not to be long. But during the year that remained of the life of
the Master, Naren, after having provided for his family with
the help of a fellow disciple, underwent innumerable spiritual
practices. He quickly attained height after height of spiritual
experience and reached at last the final goal of all spiritual
endeavor: the complete identification of the individual soul
with the Absolute Brahman. But he was not destined to
remain immersed in that state.

"Now then," the Master said to him after his attainment of

monistic experience, "the Mother has shown you everything.
Just as a treasure is locked up in a box, so will this realization
you have just had be locked up, and the key shall remain with
me. You have work to do. When you will have finished my
work, the treasure-box will be unlocked again."11

In the last few days of Sri Ramakrishna's life he entrusted

the care and training of his other monastic disciples-them-
selves all young men of profound spirituality-to Naren's
56
hands and imparted to him his final instructions. Then, aware
that he was to enter into Maha samadhi-the last merging into
the Absolute from which there is no return to the physical
body-and that his days of teaching were over, he transmitted
to this greatest of his apostles all the spiritual powers that he
had acquired through years of austerity and experience. On
August 16, 1886, Sri Ramakrishna passed away.

The grief of the young disciples, together with the pressure

their families exerted upon them to return to their homes and
#

57
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 12

live a "normal" life, might have disbanded them, had it not

been for Naren's burning enthusiasm and determination to
hold them together. Before long, one of Sri Ramakrishna's
householder devotees arranged to support the boys in a place
of their own choosing. They chose a dilapidated and
reputedly haunted two-story house in Baranagore, midway
between Calcutta and Dakshineswar. The young apostles,
informally initiated by Sri Ramakrishna into sannyasa, now
took formal vows in the presence of one another, and the
Ramakrishna Order came into being. The story of Baranagore
is the story of fifteen or so young men of total renunciation
caught up in a fervor of spiritual longing. In dire poverty but
caring nothing for sleep, food, or proper clothing, the boys,
led by Naren, spent hour upon hour in meditation, worship,
study, and devotional singing. The spirit of Sri Ramakrishna
flowed in them as a constant and sustaining power, and
through Naren they seemed again to hear his words and
receive his guidance and inspiration.

The traditional ideal of monasticism in India is that of the

wandering monk who lives homeless and in complete
reliance upon God. The monks of the Baranagore Math were
torn between a desire for this life of utter freedom and a
desire to hold together as the sons of Sri Ramakrishna. Now
and then, one or another would leave the monastery for a
month or two. Even Naren, restless for complete
independence, made several solitary pilgrimages, only to
58
return, drawn back by his sense of responsibility to his
brothers. But in 1888 he decided to break away from
Baranagore, not only that his own strength and fearlessness
might grow, but that his brothers might also learn to stand
alone.

The story of the next four years is that of Naren's solitary

wanderings throughout India. Several chapters of the Life of
Swami Vivekananda by His Eastern and Western Disciples
are devoted to his experiences during that time; but even so,
the story is somewhat disconnected and incomplete, for the
Swami rarely spoke in any detail either of his inward spiritual
experiences or
#

59
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 10

of his outward trials and triumphs. Suffice it to say that,

sometimes living in complete isolation and want, sometimes
sharing the meals of humble villagers, sometimes being
entertained by rajas and pundits, he strode over the length and
breadth of his country, plumbing the life of the people to its
depths. At the end of Four years he was able to say to his
brother monk, Swami Turiyananda, whom he met at Mount
Abu, "I am still unable to understand anything of your so-
called religion. But my heart has expanded very much, and I
have learnt to feel. Believe me, I Feel intensely indeed." And
so saying, his voice choked with tears and he fell silent. 12

At the southernmost tip of India, Cape Comorin, the

Swami's pilgrimage throughout his motherland culminated in
a long and deep meditation, during the course of which,
according to one of his brother monks to whom he confided
the story, he had a profound and revealing spiritual
experience. The actual content of this experience we do not
know, but the Swami himself has told of the thoughts that
moved through his mind as he sat on a large rock he had
swum to from shore. He saw, as it were, the whole of India-
her past, present, and future, her centuries of greatness and
also her centuries of degradation. He saw that it was not
religion that was the cause of India's downfall but, on the
contrary, the fact that her true religion, the very life and
breath of her individuality, was scarcely to be found, and he
knew that her only hope was a renascence of the lost spiritual
60
culture of the ancient rishis. His mind encompassing both the
roots and the ramifications of India's problem, and his heart
suffering for his country's downtrodden, poverty stricken
masses, he "hit," as he later wrote, "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 under
foot.
#

61
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 10

... Suppose some disinterested sannyasins, bent on doing

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
other accessories-can't that bring forth good in time? All
these plans I cannot write out in this short letter. The long
and 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 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 Christian, all have
trampled them under foot. Again the 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 therefore is not to blame, but
men.

To effect this, the first thing we need is men, and the

next is funds.13

This was, of course, a revolutionary idea of the function of

a sannyasin in India and was to bring about the new type of

62
monasticism that has since been established by the Rama-
krishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission.

As far as is known, it was in the early part of 1892 that the

Swami first heard of the Parliament of Religions, which was
to be held in Chicago the following year. His Friends and
followers urged him to attend it and to represent Hinduism,
offering to raise money for his fare and expenses. The Swami
himself felt a deep urge to go to America, not so much to
represent Hinduism as to obtain financial help and thus put
his plan into operation. His final decision to undertake the
trip, however, was not made until April of 1893 when, having
prayed for guidance, he received, as he later told "a Divine
Command: ' Thus assured
#

63
 Volume 1 PROLOGUE
page 10

that the proposed journey was sanctioned by God, Swami

Vivekananda, of whom Sri Ramakrishna had once said: "The
time will come when he will shake the world to its
foundations through the strength of his intellectual and
spiritual powers," left behind all that was dear and familiar to
him and, on May 31, 1893, set sail from Bombay for
America. After stopping in China and Japan, he crossed the
Pacific on the SS. Empress of India, which left Yokohama on
July 14.
#

64
 CHAPTER ONE

BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT

After a "quiet and uneventful" voyage, the Empress of

India, one of the three new 6,000-ton "Empresses" of the
Canadian Pacific line, docked at Vancouver on Tuesday, July
25, at seven o'clock in the evening. 1 The Canadian Pacific
Railway's daily "Atlantic Express" had left hours earlier for
points east, and thus Swamiji, together with his fellow
eastbound travelers, had, perforce, to spend the night in
Vancouver, then a ramshackle frontier town, newly, but not
well, built on the ashes of a fire that had swept it out of
existence in 1886. There was nothing to detain Swamiji there
for more than one night, and he most probably boarded the
train the following morning. He then traveled second class
through the wonderfully scenic country of southwest Canada,
where, as he later wrote, snow lay on even the lower
mountains. At Winnipeg, which he reached on Friday night,
he transferred to another train that carried him down to the
United States and through the lake splashed hills and farms of
Minnesota to St. Paul. From St. Paul, a third train would
carry him some four hundred miles farther east to Chicago,
65
where, if all went according to schedule, he arrived on
Sunday, July 30, around eleven o'clock at night.

The story of the six weeks between Swamiji's arrival in

Chicago and the opening of the Parliament of Religions on
September 11 has been told in the Life of Swami Vivekananda
by His Eastern and Western Disciples (hereafter called the
Life), where it has been largely derived, it would appear, from
the first two known letters that he wrote from America to
India. The earlier, and more pertinent, of these was written
from "Breezy Meadows," Massachusetts, on August 20, and
the next
#

66
 Volume 1 BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT
page 17

from Chicago on November 2. Both were addressed to his

Madras disciples through one of their number, Alasinga Peru-
mal. But these letters, even taken together, do not give the
full picture of Swamiji's pre-Parliament days in America, and
thus the story which has been based upon them is necessarily
incomplete. Happily, however, additional material pertaining
to this pre-Parliament period has come to light, and it is with
this material that the present chapter is primarily concerned.
But before presenting it, a brief summary of what has
heretofore been known, together with two or three
interspersed bits of new information, will be helpful, for the
new material will be better understood if seen against the
background of the old.
(It should be mentioned that two of these bits of
information have been taken from early versions of the
above-mentioned letters. The versions primarily consulted are
handwritten copies, evidently made before the originals were
first published, that is, before February of 1905, when the
letter of August 20, 1893, was printed in part in the
Brahmavadin magazine. These copies, made on stationery
bearing the letterhead "Mysore Government," were found
among the papers of Mrs. Ole Bull; but who made them is not
known--certainly not Mrs. Bull herself, for the handwriting is
unquestionably not hers. In any case, they seem to be faithful
transcriptions, and inasmuch as they are less abridged than
any published versions, I have relied upon them as the best
sources of information.)
67
 From the Life we have known that Swamiji arrived in
America with a minimum of luggage (even which minimum
was to him, as he wrote from Yokohama, "an awful bothera-
tion"), little money, and no pre arrangements at all. Young,
unheard and unheard of, absorbed in God, and as innocent
and incapable of worldly ways as a child, he had stepped
from the serene and open roads of India, where the sannyasin
could sleep beneath a tree or beg his food from door to door,
into the midst of the crowded and bewildering hurly-burly of
Chicago, where the huge World's Columbian Exposition had
been underway for three months and turmoil and confusion
were at
#

68
 Volume 1 BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT
page 18

fever pitch. The shock of this drastic change of scene and

atmosphere was surely great, but greater still was the shock
of learning that the authorities of the Parliament of Religions
required all delegates to produce credentials. Swamiji had no
credentials. Moreover, he was, he Found, too late to register
as a delegate even if he had had credentials. Thus his hope of
speaking before the Parliament vanished almost at once.
There remained no chance of his gaining a hearing in
America until the late fall, for not until then would people
return to the cities and the lecture season begin. But the cost
of living in America, and particularly in Chicago, was to
Swamiji unexpectedly exorbitant. In the first edition of the
Life it is told that, being a total stranger, he wisely stayed, for
a time at least, at a first class hotel.2 Since a room in a first-
class Chicago hotel was then three dollars and upwards a day,
he soon found that his daily expenses came, on the average,
to a pound (five dollars), at which rate his small purse could
by no means carry him through a freezing American winter,
for which he was entirely unprepared. Added to all this was
the financial panic that had hit the country that spring: many
banks had closed, many businesses had failed, widespread
unemployment was setting in, and, despite the glad industrial
tidings announced by the Exposition, American generosity
was at a low ebb. Indeed, it seemed for a time that mere
survival in this country where a sannyasin, as such, counted
for nothing, was out of the question and that the trip had been
in vain.
69
 It is true that Swamiji was not altogether friendless. With
him was a Mr. C. Lalubhai, who had been a fellow passenger
on the Empress of India; further, through a letter of
introduction from a Madras friend (Varada Rao) he shortly
became acquainted with a Director of the Fair and his wife.
Unfortunately, Swamiji does not reveal the name of this
couple;" we learn, however, that they belonged as he wrote,
"to the highest, Chicago society,"3 and from this we can infer
that they were not poor, for while a sizable fortune may not
have been the only prerequisite for position in Chicago
society, it was in
#

70
those days an indispensable one. We learn also that the head
of the family and others suggested to Swamiji that he
represent India at the Parliament.4 Yet despite this suggestion,
which indicates that his gifts were indeed appreciated, no one
at this time seems to have invited him to be a house guest,
nor, For one reason or another, was anyone able to offer him
the financial help which would have made it possible for him
to remain in Chicago until the opening of the Parliament, then
some five weeks away. "They were so very kind to me,"
Swamiji wrote to India, appreciative of any goodness. "But
here they want to make much of foreigners, [just] for a fun
and no farther. When it comes to their pocket they all almost
step back, and this is such a bad year here, commercial
failures everywhere. So I took my departure from Chicago
forthwith and came to Boston."5

During the twelve days or so that Swamiji spent in

Chicago, he visited the Fair almost every day, for it was a
huge and spectacular exhibition of the modern wonders of
steam and electricity, and, as he wrote, "one must take at least
ten days to go through it "6 He himself was a wonder to his
fellow spectators, some of whom pushed him and pulled at
his turban. Indeed, Swamiji's first welcome to America was
less than open: armed; while his rich acquaintances made
much of him only "for a fun," the man in the street stared and
poked at him as at some object of curious and dubious nature.
Thus it was in something like despair that he left Chicago for
Boston, where, as he had been told, the cost of living was
lower.

71
 "Mysterious," write his biographers, "are the ways of the
Lord!" 7 for it was on the train to Boston that he met an "old
lady" who invited him to live at her farm, Breezy Meadows,
in Massachusett. It was through this providential woman that
Swamiji was to meet, among others, Professor John Henry
Wright of Harvard University. From the Life we know that
Professor Wright was at once appreciative of Swamiji's
genius and persuaded him of the importance of attending the
Parliament of Religions. Nor did the good professor stop
there; he gave him all the necessary assistance; he introduced
him by
#

72
letter to the proper authorities as a superbly well-qualified
delegate, one "who is more learned than all our learned pro-
fessors put together" and who, as he said, was like the sun,
with no need of credentials in order to shine;8 he bought his
train ticket back to Chicago, gave him some money, and saw
to it that his housing would be arranged for. In short, Pro-
fessor Wright acted as a sort of deus ex machina, without
whose timely intervention Swamiji might never have
attended the Parliament at all.

In Boston, however, Swamiji had no outward way of

knowing that a preordained plan was unfolding. His money
was fast disappearing, the weather, even in August, seemed to
him like winter, and his clothes were not only inadequate
against the early autumn chill but could incite violence in the
streets. The story of one such occasion he told long
afterward: "I landed [in Boston] once, [he said] a stranger in a
strange land. My coat was like this red one and I wore my
turban. I was proceeding up a street in the busy part of the
town when I became aware that I was followed by a great
number of men and boys. I hastened my pace and they did
too. Then something struck my shoulder and I began to run,
dashing around a corner, and up a dark passage, just before
the mob in full pursuit swept past-and I was safe!"9

The outlook in those days was bleak indeed, but Swamiji

was not to be defeated. "All those rosy ideas we had before
starting have melted," he wrote in his letter of August 20,
"and I have now to fight against impossibilities. A hundred
times I had a mind to go out of the country and go back to
India. But I am determined, and I have a call from Above; I
73
see no way, but His eyes see.* And I must stick to my guns,
life or death."10

It was very probably after writing this letter that Swamiji

cabled from Boston to Alasinga, in what he later referred to
as "a moment's weakness,"11requesting him to send the
money that would make his stay in America humanly
possible. This cable, incidentally, drew forth two responses a
world apart in feeling. One of these Swamiji later disclosed in
his lecture "My
#

74
Plan of Campaign," which he delivered in Madras in
February of 1897. "The money was small," he said, "and it
was all spent before even the Parliament of Religions began.
Winter came. I had only thin summer clothes. One day my
hands froze. I did not know what to do in that cold, dreary
climate, for, if I went to beg in the streets, the result would be
my being sent to goal. There was I with the last few dollars in
my pocket. I sent a wire to my friends here in Madras. This
came to be known to the Theosophists, and I possess a letter
written by one of the Theosophists. `Now the devil is going to
die; God bless us all: . . . I will show you that letter if you
want; I have it in my possession."12 This message, fortunately
enough, could not have become known to Swamiji until some
time later. In the meanwhile another person in Madras who
came to know of his cable was his friend Manmathanath
Bhattacharya. In Swami Vivekananda-A Forgotten Chapter of
His Life by Beni Shanker Sharma, it is said that Mr.
Bhattacharya wired on August 30 to the Maharaja of Khetri,
informing him of Swamiji's difficulties. The Maharaja,
always eager to help Swamiji, at once sent five hundred
rupees (150 dollars) to Boston via Thomas Cook and Son.13
Simultaneously, as one learns from the previously mentioned
handwritten copy of Swamiji's letter of November 2, 1893,
Alasinga raised three hundred rupees (ninety dollars), which
sum he, too, wired to America. As it turned out, neither of
these amounts reached Swamiji until after September 7, by
which time he had found his own way and was no longer in
need.

The little more we have known of Swamiji's life in Massa-

chusetts has come solely from his letter of August 20. We
75
have known, for. instance, that during his stay at Breezy
Meadows his hostess showed him oft as "a curio from India,"
that he was gaped at for his "quaint dress," that he was on this
account advised to buy "long coats black coloured," that he
was to speak at "a big ladies' club . . . which is helping
Ramabai," and that he visited and was deeply impressed by a
women's reformatory.14 From the earliest published versions
of this letter
#

76
we learn also that he was to lecture before "a large society of
ladies in Salem." To these facts more now can be added,
particularly in regard to the period between August 20 and
September 8, which until now has been virtually a blank.

Wherever Swamiji went he made news, and in my attempt

to fill in the gaps in his life's story I assumed that New
England was no exception to this rule and that the papers of
those towns which he visited in the pre-Parliament days
would contain some mention of him. The nearest town to the
farm Breezy Meadows is Metcalf, some twenty-five miles
west of Boston, but upon making inquiries I found that
Metcalf was too small to possess a newspaper. The town next
in size is Holliston, still not large enough to support a paper
of its own, and the next large is Framingham, a full-sized
town, complete with newspaper office. It was to
Framingham, therefore, that I went. In the 1890s the
Framingham Tribune, which covered the noteworthy events
of the surrounding country, was a weekly, coming out on
Fridays. There being but few papers to look through, it was
not difficult to find the following item which, small as it was
and in spite of its quaintness, or perhaps because of it, had the
impact of reality:

Friday, August 25, 1893

Holliston: Miss Kate Sanborn, who has recently re-

turned from the west, last week entertained the Indian
Rajah, Swami Vivekananda. Behind a pair of horses fur-
nished by liveryman F. W. Phipps, Miss Sanborn and the

77
 Rajah drove through town on Friday [August 18] en route
for Hunnewell's.

What a sight that must have been! And who could help
mistaking the young monk for a rajah as, in robe and turban,
he was regally driven through the quiet New England village
behind a pair of trotting horses, the mistress of Breezy
Meadows at his side? Swamiji's hostess, Miss Kate Sanborn,
whose name
#

78
we learn for the first time from this news item, was no doubt
taking her "curio from India" on a sightseeing trip to Hun-
newell's, a large and beautiful estate, the park like grounds of
which were open to the public for strolling. The drive to
Hunnewell's would itself have been a lovely one along a
country road, past old houses surrounded by wide, elm-
shaded lawns, past old churches, stone horse troughs,
mellowed villages, and woodsy fields. While this particular
outing may not have been social, there was much else that
was, for Miss Sanborn delighted in showing off her "Rajah,"
and, as Swamiji wrote resignedly, "all this must be borne."15
Indeed, it seemed ordained: Miss Sanborn, amiable,
prominent, and gregarious, was precisely the person to act as
hostess to Swamiji in those early days, for she not only
introduced him to Professor Wright and other men and
women of influence, but was instrumental in providing him
with a well-rounded preview of the American scene.

Further research regarding Miss Sanborn revealed that,

aside from being an enthusiastic hostess, she was a lecturer
and an author, taking for her topics all the numerous facets of
her active life-people, incidents, places. Although Swamiji re-
ferred to her as "an old lady," she was, by American
standards, not old when he first knew her. She was fifty-four
and very energetic. She was possessed of a lively humor and
a warm sympathy for her fellowman, was keenly observant
and widely known for her repartee. Even in her
correspondence her wit was irrepressible, it being her practice
to include in her letters short and apt verses scribbled on
cards. One of these, sent to a group of young women, advises:
"Though you're bright/And though you're pretty/They'll not
79
love you/If you're witty." A more serious side of her nature is
revealed by another card which reads: "Down with the fallacy
enshrined in Senator Ingalls' sonnet on the one opportunity.
She comes, not alone in the gospel of the `second
opportunity,' but she is with you every day and hour waiting
for recognition."

Originally from New Hampshire, Kate Sanborn had bought

one of the old abandoned farms of Massachusetts and had
pro-
#

80
ceeded to restore it into Breezy Meadows. Two of her books
are devoted to life on the "farm," and it is from these that one
learns of the scene that greeted Swamiji. She writes lovingly
of the pines and silver birches, the huge elms growing near
the house, the natural pond of waterlilies, and the two brooks
where forget-me-nots grew along the shaded banks. The
house itself was a rambling farmhouse with a vine growing
over half the roof. There is a photograph of it in one of her
books: a friendly, comfortable house. There is also a picture
of Kate Sanborn herself (older than when Swamiji knew her)
standing in her front doorway, offering a welcome to one and
all. Inside, the house was roomy and warmed by a fireplace,
whose chimney, curiously, rose beside the central staircase.
More curiously still, on each floor, there was an opening in
the housing of the chimney, within which, on either side, was
a seat, reached by a tiny stairs-a hidden place to meditate on a
cold autumn morning or evening when a fire roared in the
fireplace, as was often the case when Swamiji was there.
Today Breezy Meadows has changed; part of the property is
occupied by a seminary for Xaverian Fathers, and another
part is at present being used as a summer day-camp for poor
children of Boston. On this latter part, the house where
Swamiji made his first home in America still stands, much
altered now by fire and the passage of time.

In his letter of August 20 Swamiji mentions, as has been

noted, that he is to speak before a women's club that was
helping Ramabai, a Hindu woman who had been converted to
Christianity. In 1887-1889 Ramabai had been active in
81
forming clubs in America for the purpose of raising funds for
Indian child widows, whose plight she had graphically mis-
represented. Unfortunately, no report has been found in the
Boston papers of Swamiji's talk before the Boston Ramabai
Circle; nor does the 1893 Annual Report of that club mention
#

82
it. But in the light of subsequent developments to be
discussed in a later chapter, we can be reasonably sure that
Swamiji gave the women of the Boston Ramabai Circle a true
picture of India and of child widows and that it was a picture
they did not relish.

The first direct mention of Swamiji in the Boston papers is

tucked away in the "Personal" column of the Evening
Transcript of August 23, 1893:
Swami Virckananda of India, a Brahmin monk who is
on his way to the parliament of religions to be held at
Chicago in September, is the guest of Miss Kate Sanborn
at her "abandoned farm" in Metcalf, Mass. Last evening
he addressed the inmates of the Sherborn Reformatory for
Women upon the manners, customs and mode of living in
his country.

The original Women's Reformatory at Sherborn, a small

town near Breezy Meadows, still stands-a forbidding
structure of red brick. But grim though its exterior may have
been, the Reformatory itself made a highly favorable
impression upon Swamiji. "It is the grandest thing I have seen
in America," he wrote to Alasinga in his letter of August 20,
and went on to compare heartbrokenly the benevolent and
rehabilitating treatment of the inmates with the wretched
conditions of "the poor, the low, the sinner in India [who]
have no friends, no help, (who] cannot rise, try however they
may."16 Perhaps when Swamiji spoke before the inmates of
the Sherborn Reformatory, they thought that he was the
grandest thing they had seen in America. At any rate, it is safe
to assume that their response was more sympathetic than that
83
of the Ramabai Circle. One cannot know, but the young
Hindu monk, in his red robe and yellow turban, must have
been like a sunburst in that dismal prison, and the effect in
some cases may have been profound and truly transforming.

The next mention of Swamiji in the Boston papers is found

#

84
in the "Personal" column of the Evening Transcript of Friday,
August 25. It reads in full:

The Swami Vere Kananda of India, the Brahmin monk

who was in this country for the purpose of attending the
parliament of religions at Chicago next month, arrived in
Boston yesterday, in company with Mr. F. B. Sanborn of
Concord.
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was a cousin of Kate Sanborn,
and it was no doubt he to whom Swamiji referred when, in
his letter of August 20, he wrote: "A cousin of my lady friend
who is coming to-day to see me writes to her, `a real Hindu
devotee is an interesting study but I am too old to be cheated
by the esoteric Buddhists!' "" But if Franklin Sanborn had his
doubts as to whether his cousin's guest was a real Hindu de-
votee or an "esoteric Buddhist," by which he meant an ex-
ponent of Theosophy, those doubts were soon dispelled.
There is no question that after meeting Swamiji Mr. Sanborn
thought highly of him. Indeed the two must have delighted in
each other's company, for Sanborn was at heart an idealist
and one of those few-remaining New Englanders whose
thought had been molded by the Transcendentalist
movement. At the age of fourteen he had discovered
Transcendentalism at the tag end of its life and, enchanted,
had later become a close friend of Emerson, Thoreau, and
Bronson Alcott, whose biographies, among others, he was to
write-an undertaking that led to his being called "the Plutarch
of the Transcendentalist movement " Apart from being an
author, he was extremely active in organizing and promoting
works of benevolence. He served as secretary of the
Massachusetts Board of Charities-the first of its kind in
85
America-and helped in founding many other charitable
institutions. He also was among the founders of the Concord
Summer School of Philosophy. After meeting Swamiji, Mr.
Sanborn invited him to speak at an august convention of the
American Social Science Association in Saratoga
#

86
Springs, New York, the most fashionable resort town of the
era and a favorite rendezvous for conventions.

But before going to Saratoga Springs, Swamiji passed a

busy week and a half in Massachusetts. While he was
spending Thursday, August 24, with Mr. Sanborn in Boston,
Professor John Henry Wright, eager to meet the phenomenal
Hindu monk, of whom he had no doubt heard a great deal
from the Sanborns, was on his way from Annisquam, a
popular and picturesque little seaside resort village on Cape
Ann some forty miles northeast of Boston, where the Wright
family was spending the summer. Through some
misadventure, this meeting did not take place. Yet perhaps
this was no misadventure at all; for, not to be deprived of
meeting Swamiji, Professor Wright invited him to spend the
weekend at Annisquam, and it was during those days that the
professor formed the opinion of his guest that was to have
such far-reaching consequences. It should be noted here that
when Professor Wright recommended Swamiji to the
Parliament authorities as being "more learned than all our
learned professors put together," he knew whereof he spoke.
Although his fields were primarily philology, classical
archaeology, and Greek history, his range of teaching was by
no means confined to these subjects; for his knowledge, as is
noted in the Dictionary of American Biography, was
"encyclopedic: ' A formidable scholar, he was well qualified
to appreciate Swamiji's own encyclopedic learning, and his
opinion in this respect was one that carried weight. Swamiji
and Professor Wright had long conversations at Annisquam,
and the professor was no doubt astounded by the young
Hindu monk who proved to be a saint and savant combined.
87
Nor was he the only one to be amazed during that Annisquam
weekend. A letter written by Mrs. Wright to her mother tells
of the occasion:

Annisquam,Mass.
August 29,
1893

My dear Mother:
We have been having a queer time. Kate Sanborn had
#

88
a Hindoo monk in tow as I believe I mentioned in my last
letter. John went down to meet him in Boston and
missing him, invited him up here. He came Friday! In a
long saffron robe that caused universal amazement. He
was a most gorgeous vision. He had a superb carriage of
the head, was very handsome in an oriental way, about
thirty years old in time, ages in civilization. He stayed
until Monday and was one of the most interesting people
I have yet come across. We talked all day all night and
began again with interest the next morning. The town was
in a fume to see him; the boarders at Miss Lane's in wild
excitement. They were in and out of the Lodge (the
Wright's cottage] constantly and little Mrs. Merrill's eyes
were blazing and her cheeks red with excitement. Chiefly
we talked religion. It was a kind of revival, I have not felt
so wrought up for a long time myself! Then on Sunday
John had him invited to speak in the church and they took
up a collection for a Heathen college to be carried on
strictly heathen principles-whereupon I retired to my
corner and laughed until I cried.

He is an educated gentleman, knows as much as any-

body. Has been a monk since he was eighteen. Their
vows are very much our vows, or rather the vows of a
Christian monk. Only Poverty with them means poverty.
They have no monastery, no property, they cannot even
beg; but they sit and wait until alms are given them. Then
they sit and teach people. For days they talk and dispute.
He is wonderfully clever and clear in putting his
arguments and laying his trains (of thought) to a
conclusion. You can't trip him up, nor get ahead of him.
89
 I have a lot of notes I made as stuff for a possible story
-at any rate as something very interesting for future
reference. We may see hundreds of Hindoo monks in our
lives-and we may not.18

Aside from its importance in opening Swamiji's way to the

#

90
Parliament of Religions, this weekend lastingly enriched the
Wright family-as well it might have, for none fortunate
enough to have Swamiji as a guest soon forgot him. The
memory of this and later meetings became a part of the
Wright family tradition, and Mr. John K. Wright, the younger
son of Professor and Mrs. Wright and erstwhile Director of
the American Geographical Society, today still speaks in the
family idiom of "our Swami," though he was but a child of
two when Swamiji first came to Annisquam.

Through Mr. Wright's kindness a few of his mother's

letters, including the one quoted above, and other papers have
been made available to us, and in a small diary that had
belonged to her one can make out under the date Friday,
August 25, 1893, the now faded, almost illegible words:
"Rain-Swami Vivekananda came. Went down to
Wambaugh's in the evening, his talk mainly political. Very
warm: ' This "Very warm" might as well refer to Swamiji's
talk as to the weather, for, as we learn from the story that
Mrs. Wright did indeed compose from her notes, his
discourse that evening was a heated, impassioned one. In
regard to the manuscript of this story, which has been found
among her papers, Mr. Wright tells us that "sometime in or
after 1897, she prepared the account from the original notes,
which have disappeared. She either typed it herself or had it
typed by a stenographer and then thoroughly revised it in
ink."19

When we first received a copy of this manuscript, it

seemed both familiar and new, and on comparing it with
material in the Life, we found, to be sure, that some portions
91
of it had already been published. In the Life readers will find
an article which is said to have come from a newspaper and
which is a very much abridged version of the same story. 20
Mr. Wright was not aware that his mother had contributed her
article to a newspaper, and it is not known where or when it
first appeared; but inasmuch as we are now in possession of
the complete manuscript, this is of little importance. The
unpublished portions comprise a good half of the original
article and are,
#

92
I believe, of absorbing interest, for they give an intimate
picture of Swamiji from the pen of one who well understood
that her subject was no ordinary person. But perhaps it is a
picture that might also prove shocking. Mrs. Wright has
caught Swamiji in one of his bursts of fire, hard for some to
reconcile with his calm, ah-compassionate, all-loving nature.
Fire and compassion, however, are not disparate-indeed they
often are as inseparable as the two sides of one coin,
Swamiji's heart, one never can forget, was full of unhappiness
for the suffering of his motherland, and correspondingly his
mind was full of anger against all that contributed to her
degradation. In the early days he ascribed a great deal of that
degradation to the imperialism of the British, and it was only
natural that he would lash out against a people who had
ruthlessly crushed those whom he loved. It is well known that
when Swamiji later met the English people on their home
ground he became an ardent admirer of their many noble
characteristics; nonetheless he never changed his opinion of
British imperialism nor, for that matter, of any oppression of
one people by another. He was a thorough student of world
history, and whenever in the story of man's life he found
injustice and inhumanity he never hesitated to point them out
in no uncertain terms.

However, here are the unpublished portions of Mrs.

Wright's article, For the sake of clarity and continuity I have
retained certain portions which have already been quoted in
the Life, and, for the same reason, I have omitted a word or
phrase here and there and made a few minor corrections.

93
 According to Mrs. Wright's story, the Annisquam villagers
and the boarders at Miss Lane's first caught sight of Swamiji
as, in company with Professor Wright, he crossed the lawn
between the boardinghouse and the professor's cottage. So
astonishing a sight did Swamiji present in this quiet little
New England village that speculation set in at once as to who
this majestic and colorful figure might be. From where had he
come? What was his nationality? And so forth. The article
continues as follows:
#

94
 . . . Finally they decided that he was a Brahmin, and the
theory was rudely shattered when that night, at supper, they
saw him partake, wonderingly, but evidently with relish, of
hash.
It was something that needed explanation and they
unanimously repaired to the cottage after supper, to hear this
strange new being discourse. . . . [Actually, as one learns
from the above entry in Mrs. Wright's more accurate diary, it
was not to the Wright's tiny cottage that the party repaired
after supper, but to that of Professor Eugene Wambaugh of
the Harvard Law School, who, with his family, was
summering at Annisquam. It was there that Swamiji
enthralled and startled the little gathering.]

"It was the other day," he said, in his musical voice, "only
just the other day-not more than four hundred years ago."
And then followed tales of cruelty and oppression, of a
patient race and a suffering people, and of a judgment to
come! "Ah, the English," he said, "only just a little while ago
they were savages, . . . the vermin crawled on the ladies'
bodices, . . . and they scented themselves to disguise the
abominable odor of their persons. . . . Most hor-r-ible! Even
now, they are barely emerging from barbarism."

"Nonsense," said one of his scandalized hearers, "that was

at least five hundred years ago."

"And did I not say `a little while ago'? What are a few
hundred years when you look at the antiquity of the human
95
soul?" Then with a turn of tone, quite reasonable and gentle,
"They are quite savage," he said. "The frightful cold, the want
and privation of their northern climate ", going on more
quickly and warmly, "has made them wild. They only think to
kill. . . . Where is their religion? They take the name of that
Holy One, they claim to love their fellowmen, they civilize-
by Christianity!-No! It is their hunger that has civilized them,
not their God. The love
#

96
of man is on their lips, in their hearts there is nothing but evil
and every violence. `I love you my brother, I love you!' . . .
and all the while they cut his throat! Their hands are red with
blood." . . . Then, going on more slowly, his beautiful voice
deepening till it sounded like a bell, "But the judgment of
God will fall upon them. `Vengeance is mine; I will repay,
saith the Lord,' and destruction is coming. What are your
Christians? Not one third of the world. Look at those
Chinese, millions of them. They are the vengeance of God
that will light upon you. There will be another invasion of the
Huns," adding, with a little chuckle, "they will sweep over
Europe, they will not leave one stone standing upon another.
Men, women, children, all will go and the dark ages will
come again." His voice was indescribably sad and pitiful;
then suddenly and flippantly, dropping the seer, "Me; I don't
care! The world will rise up better from it, but it is coming.
The vengeance of God, it is coming soon."
"Soon?" they all asked.
"It will not be a thousand years until it is done: '

They drew a breath of relief. It did not seem imminent.

"And God will have vengeance," he went on. "You may not
see it in religion, you may not see it in politics, but you must
see it in history, and as it has been, it will come to pass. If
you grind down the people, you will suffer. We in India are
suffering the vengeance of God. Look upon these things.
They ground down those poor people for their own wealth,
they heard not the voice of distress, they ate from gold and
silver when the people cried for bread, and the
Mohammedans came upon them slaughtering and killing:
slaughtering and killing they overran them. India has been
97
conquered again and again for years, and last and worst of all
came the Englishman. You look about India, what has the
Hindoo left? Wonderful temples, everywhere. What has the
Mohammedan left? Beautiful palaces. What has the
Englishman left? Nothing
#

98
but mounds of broken brandy bottles! And God has had no
mercy upon my people because they had no mercy. By their
cruelty they degraded the populace, and when they needed
them the common people had no strength to give for their aid.
If man cannot believe in the Vengeance of God, he certainly
cannot deny the Vengeance of History. And it will come
upon the English; they have their heels on our necks, they
have sucked the last drop of our blood for their own
pleasures, they have carried away with them millions of our
money, while our people have starved by villages and
provinces. And now the Chinaman is the vengeance that will
fall upon them; if the Chinese rose today and swept the
English into the sea, as they well deserve, it would be no
more than justice."

And then, having said his say, the Swami was silent. A
babble of thin-voiced chatter rose about him, to which he
listened, apparently unheeding. Occasionally he cast his eye
up to the roof and repeated softly, "Shiva! Shiva!" and the
little company, shaken and disturbed by the current of
powerful feelings and vindictive passion which seemed to be
flowing like molten lava beneath the silent surface of this
strange being, broke up, perturbed.

He stayed days (actually, a long weekend). . . . All through,

his discourses abounded in picturesque illustrations and
beautiful legends. . . .

One beautiful story he told was of a man whose wife

reproached him with his troubles, reviled him because of the
success of others, and recounted to him all his failures. "Is
99
this what your God has done for you," she said to him, "after
you have served Him so many years?" Then the man
answered, "Am I a trader in religion? Look at that mountain.
What does it do for me, or what have I done for it? And yet I
love it because I am so made that I love the beautiful. Thus I
love God." . . . There was another story he told of a king who
offered a gift to a Rishi. The Rishi refused, but the king
insisted and begged that
#

100
he would come with him. When they came to the palace he
heard the king praying, and the king begged for wealth, for
power, for length of days from God. The Rishi listened,
wondering, until at last he picked up his mat and started
away. Then the king opened his eyes from his prayers and
saw him. "Why are you going?" he said. "You have not asked
for your gift." "I," said the Rishi, "ask from a beggar?"
When someone suggested to him that Christianity was a
saving power, he opened his great dark eyes upon him and
said, "If Christianity is a saving power in itself, why has it not
saved the Ethiopians, the Abyssinians?" He also arraigned
our own crimes, the horror of women on the stage, the
frightful immorality in our streets, our drunkenness, our
thieving, our political degeneracy, the murdering in our West,
the lynching in our South, and we, remembering his own
Thugs, were still too delicate to mention them. . . .

Often on Swami's lips was the phrase, "They would not

dare to do this to a monk." . . . At times he even expressed a
great longing that the English government would take him
and shoot him. "It would be the first nail in their coffin," he
would say, with a little gleam of his white teeth, "and my
death would run through the land like wild fire." . . .

His great heroine was the dreadful Ranee [the Rani of

Jhansi] of the Indian mutiny, who led her troops in person.
Most of the old mutineers, he said, had become monks in
order to hide themselves, and this accounted very well for the
dangerous quality of the monks' opinions. There was one man
of them who had lost four sons and could speak of them with
composure, but whenever he mentioned the Ranee he would
101
weep, with tears streaming down his face. "That woman was
a goddess," he said, "a devi. When overcome, she fell on her
sword and died like a man." It was strange to hear the other
side of the
#

102
Indian mutiny, when you would never believe that there was
another side to it, and to be assured that a Hindoo could not
possibly kill a woman. It was probably the Mohammedans
that killed the women at Delhi and Cawnpore. These old
mutineers would say to him, "Kill a woman! You know we
could not do that"; and so the Mohammedan was made
responsible.

In quoting from the Upanishads his voice was most mu-

sical. He would quote a verse in Sanskrit, with intonations,
and then translate it into beautiful English, of which he had a
wonderful command. And in his mystical religion he seemed
perfectly and unquestionably happy. . . . 21

It is interesting to compare the prophetic utterances

Swamiji made in Annisquam with those reported by Sister
Christine in her "Reminiscences": "Sometimes he was in a
prophetic mood, as on the day when he startled us by saying:
`The next great upheaval which is to bring about a new epoch
will come from Russia or China.' "22 And according to
tradition, at another time Swamiji made a statement to the
effect that if and when the British should leave India there
would be a great danger of India's being conquered by the
Chinese. Again, in an unpublished letter written on July 16,
1896, from London by John P. Fox, a young disciple, one
reads: "[Swamiji] talked much about [Russia] which he said
the other evening he expects to lead the world next."23 I
mention these statements of Swamiji's just in passing, for in
view of the fact that at the end of the nineteenth century
neither Russia nor China was in a position to become a

103
dominating world power, they attest to his foresight and
were, at the time, startling indeed.

On Saturday, Swamiji continued to hold the Wrights, and

whoever may have come to their cottage, spellbound. As Mrs.
Wright wrote to her mother, "It was a kind of revival." In her
diary she noted: "Swami talked all morning all afternoon."
We can know that the talk was of religion, for the entry
#

104
under Sunday, August 27, reads: "Same thing. Swami talked
religion." Yet he also played with the Wright children,
delighting, perhaps, as much in this as in long and absorbing
conversations. "He was wonderfully unspoiled and simple,"
Mrs. Wright commented in her typed story, "claiming
nothing for himself, playing with the children, twirling a stick
between his fingers with laughing skill and glee at their
inability to equal him."

The Wrights had three children: Elizabeth, or as she was

more often called, Bessie, who was thirteen; Austin, who had
just turned ten; and John, the baby, who was two. According
to the family memories, it was Austin in whom Swamiji was
the most interested, talking with him at some length and later,
when he visited the Wrights at Cambridge, buying for him a
red heart-shaped box of candy, and on one occasion giving
him a copy of The Light of Asia by Edwin Arnold, inscribed
"Presented to Austin Wright with love and blessings of
Vivekananda." Austin, on his part, was filled with wonder by
Swamiji. It was probably at Cambridge in the early part of
1894 that, coming down to breakfast one morning, he found a
screen set up in the living room, over which were draped long
pieces of colored cloth. Swamiji had arrived late at night and
had been put up on a couch, with the screen for privacy."` To
the little boy the sight was unexpected and those bright
lengths of turban-silk in a familiar living room seemed to him
strange and romantic and as redolent of far-off places as
Swamiji himself. This incident was to remain so long
impressed on his mind that the story came down to his
daughter, who told me of it.

105
 An unusual child, Austin Tappan Wright was to become an
unusual man, of whom it was said in tribute after his untimely
death in 1931 : "There seem to have been no rough angles in
his character, no bitterness in him."24 Charming, simple, and
direct, he was recognized during his lifetime as "an extra-
ordinary person of deep sympathy, wide intellectual interests
and keen critical mind: ''25 "He was a kind of Renaissance
man," it was also said of him, "akin to Leonardo in the diver-
#

106
sity of his interests, . . . a man with a profound feeling for life
in all the factual, poetic, realistic and imaginative wonder of
it."26

As an adult, Austin Wright lived, in a sense, two lives,

both of them richly: one in the United States as a brilliant
lawyer and beloved professor of law, and the other as
chronicler of Islandia, an imaginary country which he knew
perhaps better, and certainly admired more, than his native
America. It was perhaps around the time Swamiji visited
Annisquam that Austin began inventing Islandia. Other
children, it is true, sometimes invent imaginary worlds, but
Austin's was no passing thing; it developed as he grew into a
full-blown country with a language, traditions, a religion, and
a history of its own. Nor did the creator of this Utopia stop
there; from time to time he worked quietly, and solely for his
own pleasure, on an Islandian novel, which in its finished
form ran to twenty-three hundred finely written pages. In
1942, eleven years after his death, the novel, Islandia, was
published in much abridged (though not short) form, and the
country itself became for hundreds of readers almost as real
and absorbing a world as it had been for its creator.

One cannot attribute the origin of Islandia to Austin

Wright's meeting with Swamiji: the penchant for creating
imaginary utopian countries was a family trait. Later, John K.
Wright, excluded now and then from his elder brother's
world, invented a country of his own called Cravay, and even
Professor John Henry Wright, from whom the trait seems to
have stemmed, had a world of his own devising, the maps
and charts of which were found among his papers after his
107
death. But while Austin's instinct toward the utopian seems to
have been more or less hereditary, his meeting with Swamiji
may have seemed as one of the catalysts that brought Islandia
into being. In any case, as the country developed, its details
were necessarily woven from his own experience, and here
and there one can find in the novel unmistakable echoes of
his early encounter with the vital and kindly Hindu.
Islandians, for instance, were an ancient agricultural people
with an inner
#

108
life of their own, and among them was a racial type whose
members were "big, with massive heads, black hair, black
eyebrows, dark eyes, and ruddy skins."27 The novel's bene-
volent and noble hero, who was of this type and who,
incidentally, parted his hair in the middle, had "magnificently
arched eyebrows," "a strong chin slightly cleft," "a mature
mouth," "even white teeth," and a clear, strong, and deep
voice, which "without being loud filled the room"; and, what
is more, he sang to himself "his own odd melodies in an
undertone or roar like the sea."28 It would be hard to find as
accurate a description of Swamiji as this. Then, in the annals
of Islandian history one finds a young, heroic queen who, in
the fourteenth century, led her troops in person against the
enemy. Had not young Austin been listening entranced to
Swamiji's tale of the Rani of Jhansi?

Almost all references to Islandian religion have been

omitted from the published version of the novel, but Austin
Wright's daughter Sylvia (Mrs. Paul J. Mitarchi) has told me
that it was a religion "quite without dogma, the Islandian
church being called a House of Quiet, where people go to sit
quietly and meditate or, occasionally, to talk or listen to
another person talk. The Islandian God is called Om, though
he is never worshipped as a God in the Christian sense." 29 In
Islandia one finds a hymn to Om, a specimen of Islandian
literature, which reads in part:

Om
Cannot be seen with eyes
Nor heard with ears
Nor felt with the hand.
109
Om is great because Om
Is what man cannot understand. . . .

The goodness and evil of men

Is of their own making.
They are the rulers of the kingdom of right and wrong.
In that kingdom Om does not rule.
#

110
 Does Om bid you do evil?
Does Om bid you do good?
Evil and Good are alike to Om!
Go not to Om for guidance in petty matters.
But it is well for men to sit in the halls of Om
And, so sitting, to be lost in his darkness
Or so sitting, to be dazzled by his brightness.
And to know that Om is.30
As will be seen later, Swamiji quoted From the Upanishads
to the Wright children and in. a special note to Austin told
him, in words that an imaginative child could well
understand, of God's immanence. It is possible, of course,
that the inhabitants of Islandia derived their religion from
another source, but I myself would hazard the guess that
whether they knew it or not, Swamiji's influence had touched
Islandian shores and from there had moved inward and taken
permanent root.

But to return to the weekend with the charming Wrights,

one learns from Mrs. Wright's diary that on Saturday evening
the children gave a play at (one gathers) the Hyatts'. The
Hyatts were Professor Alpheus Hyatt, the famous zoologist,
and his family, and there cannot be much doubt that after the
performance the conversation proceeded at a lively pace. The
"revival" in the Wright household continued in full force on
Sunday also, when Swamiji "talked religion" during the
morning and afternoon. That evening he gave his first lecture
in an American church, after which the collection was taken
that caused Mrs. Wright such fits of laughter. It is small
wonder that she laughed: this was undoubtedly the first
111
collection "for a Heathen college to be carried on strictly
heathen principles" ever to be solemnly contributed to by a
New England congregation; and no one but Swamiji could
have brought such a marvel to pass.

Although this memorable and, as it turned out, history -

making weekend caused such a stir in Annisquam, the Glou-
cester Daily Times, which covered the Annisquam news, ran
on
#

112
August 28 the following item, typical of New England's
verbal economy:

Annisquam.
Mr. Sivanei Yivcksnanda, a Hindoo monk, gave a
fine
lecture in the church last evening on the customs and
life in India.

And on August 29 the Cape Ann Breeze commented:

In the evening the church was open and a little of the
Orient came to our doors in the person of a gentleman
from Cathay, a Hindoo monk, the first one, I understand,
who ever crossed the ocean to America. He is a guest of
Professor Wright at Miss Lane's boarding house and has a
musical Indian name, whose intricacies of speaking and
pronunciation I have not yet mastered. He spoke in fairly
good English, of the manners and customs in his far away
land, and his dusky face, picturesque dress, distinctive
phraseology, and pleasantly told story was a charming
innovation in our matter-of fact Western civilization.31

But while this is all the local newspapers had to say about
Swamiji's lecture at the Annisquam Universalist Church,
there are even today people to whom its main burden is still
fresh and to whom Swamiji is still vivid. One woman, a
summer resident of the village, writes to me in regard to
Swamiji's weekend in Annisquam: "I consider it a great
privilege to have known him. He was a striking looking man
in appearance and dress. He wore a turban around his head
and a long orange robe of heavy woolen cloth with a wide
113
purple sash. He had a charming voice. He began his lecture in
the Annisquam village church by saying that the Hindus were
taught to have great respect for other people's religions."

The weather, as Mrs. Wright noted in her diary, had been

warm all weekend and, for the most part, clear. But on
Monday, August 28, when Swamiji left, it began to rain, and
on Tuesday
#

114
night a storm of cyclonic proportions swept over northeastern
Massachusetts. While no damage to speak of was done in
New England, this was not a storm to be taken lightly;
branches and wires were blown down, ships off the coast
were tossed about, and persons found it difficult to stand
upright. According to reports, this "miniature hurricane"
originated in the West Indies, from where, no miniature, it
had rapidly and determinedly headed north, raising a mighty
commotion en route. This seems, after all, the least the
elements could do by way of appropriate comment. The
"cyclonic monk," as Swamiji later came to be called, had
delivered his first American lecture and was on his way.

It was to Salem, some fifteen miles southwest, where he

was scheduled to speak before the Thought and Work Club
that Swamiji now traveled. The only information we have
hitherto had of this lecture engagement is a bare reference in
his Breezy Meadows letter. But his stay in Salem was more
extended and active than this brief mention indicates, and we
have been fortunate enough to find out more about it.

In the spring of 1950, an advertisement in a magazine

devoted to antiques was brought to the notice of a student of
Vedanta. The advertisement, placed by a Mrs. Prince Woods,
offered for sale a trunk and a walking stick which had
belonged to Swami Vivekananda. Naturally enough, these
articles were sent for, and a request was made for further
information regarding them. A correspondence ensued

115
between the Vedanta student and Mrs. Woods, in the course
of which the following facts came to light.

In August, 1893, Swamiji had been invited by Mrs. Kate

Tannatt Woods, whom he had evidently met at Miss
Sanborn's, to stay in her home at 166 North Street, Salem. He
remained there a week, during which time he lectured in the
small but famous town, was criticized by the clergy, and
became beloved
#

116
by Mrs. Woods, some nine years a widow, and her son,
Prince, a young medical student. At the end of his visit,
Swamiji, intending to return, left behind his staff, his trunk,
and other luggage. Of his return Mrs. Prince Woods (the wife
of Mrs. Woods's son) writes: "He spent two weeks at the
Woods homestead at one time [actually it was one week] and
came back from Chicago for another week [?] and to say
`Farewell'. I did not know the family then, but he came with
some friends in a carriage and a fine pair of horses just after I
met my husband-to-be and was invited there. I just saw him
as he said `Goodbye.' "32 On leaving this second time, Mrs.
Prince Woods tells in another letter, "he gave his staff, his
most precious possession, to Dr. Woods who was at that time
a young medical student and the only child of Mrs. Woods.
To her he gave his trunk and his blanket, saying to them,
`Only my most precious possessions should I give to my
friends who have made me at home in this great country.' "
Mrs. Prince Woods adds, "This was a most gracious gesture
after he had been feted all over the country,"33 and from this
one may gather that Swamiji's second visit to the Woods
homestead occurred not immediately after the Parliament of
Religions, but quite some time thereafter. The staff, trunk,
and blanket were cherished by the Woods family as
mementos of a great soul and a great friend. Dr. Woods, his
wife tells us, refused to sell them, "the British Museum
offering $200.00 for it [the trunk] early in 1900. . . ."34 Thus,
happily, all three in 1950 were still available. The blanket
was actually a large, coarsely woven, dark orange shawl, the
kind sometimes worn by wandering monks in India; and the
trunk a small steamer trunk, which undoubtedly had
accompanied Swamiji halfway around the world.
117
 From the letters of her daughter-in-law we learn that Mrs.
Kate Tannatt Woods, who was fifty-eight when Swamiji was
her guest, was, like Miss Kate Sanborn, an energetic lecturer
and author. "[She] died July 10, 1910 . . . then 75 years of
age, but very youthful in manner and looks, having lecture
#

118
engagements all over the country. She went to Los Angeles
and all over the West Coast not long before she passed on." 35
During her lifetime she wrote "many books," among which
were Hester Hepworth, a story of the witchcraft delusion, A
Fair Maid of Marblehead, Hidden years, and so on. She also
wrote and illustrated poetry. Some of her books were for
children, toward whom she no doubt felt a special interest, for
during Swamiji's visit she arranged for him to speak in her
garden to a group of local children and young people. *
This children's afternoon was by no means due to an
underestimation of Swamiji's worth. The Woods family, as
did all who came into contact with him, reverenced him. ". . .
I never saw the Swami," Mrs. Kate Tannatt Woods's
daughter-in-law writes (although, as seen above, she had once
caught a glimpse of him), "but have felt that I knew him from
the many things I have heard of him in the Woods family. My
husband . . . spoke of him as . . . of a real Christian
gentleman. I have heard that he and Mahatma Gandhi were
more Christlike than any the world has known."36
Those who had known Swamiji never tired of discussing
him and pondering over the new and awakening ideas which
he brought into their lives. Two years later Ella Wheeler
Wilcox, the celebrated journalist and poet, who was a friend
of Mrs. Woods, writes to her of Swamiji in words which were
no doubt similar to those often spoken between them.
Fortunately, these letters were among those which Mrs.
Woods's daughter-in-law had preserved, and although they
relate to a time later than the one dealt with in the present
chapter, I will include them here not only as giving a new
glimpse of Swamiji but also as shedding some light on his
hostess to whom they were addressed.
119
 May [1895]
Dear Mrs. Woods:

Vivekananda is [at] 55 W. 33rd street.

I know it is Consecration to give out - I was born
know-
#

120
 ing that truth, but I think it is a great blot on the
Consecration when we tell of it-and I am always ashamed
after I have told of my own good deeds. Vivekananda
says he meets many people who can not be led to talk of
any subject that they do not drag in their own charitable
acts, how they gave away a dime-or helped some one in
need. . . .37
May [1895]
I was listening to Vivekananda this morning an hour.
How honored by fate you must feel to have been allowed
to be of service to this Great Soul. I believe him to be the
re-incarnation of some great Spirit-perhaps Buddha -
perhaps Christ. He is so simple-so sincere, so pure, so
unselfish. To have listened to him all winter is the
greatest privilege life has ever offered me. It would be
surprising to me that people could misunderstand or
malign such a soul if I did not know how Buddha and
Christ were persecuted and lied about by small inferiors.
His discourse this morning was most uplifting-his mere
presence is that. His absolute sinking of self is what I
like. I am so tired of people who place the capital `I'
before truth-and God. `To do good For good's sake-with
no expectation or desire of reward, and never to speak of
what we have done-but to keep on working for the love
of doing God's work'-is Vivekananda's grand philosophy
of life. He always makes me feel ashamed that I have
ever thought for one moment I was burdened or that I
ever spoke of any good act of my own. . . 38
Welcome as was the information regarding Swamiji in
Salem, it was incomplete, and in order to add to it, a visit to
that city was called for. North Street, Salem, wide and
121
shaded, is lined with old frame houses, most of which were
standing in 1893. As I walked along looking for 166, which
Mrs. Woods had
#

122
called "Maple Rest," I felt that this street, unlike those of
larger cities, presented the same aspect as it had to Swamiji -
more worn now, it is true, but substantially the same, quiet
and comfortably settled into itself. Soon I came to 166, where
Swamiji had stayed. It was a small two-and-a-half story
house with a run-down garden at the side and back. Indeed,
one could hardly call it a garden; it was a yard with weeds
growing in it. But when Swamiji had spoken there, it most
likely had been well kept. The house itself, flush with the
sidewalk and devoid of the gingerbread of a later period, was
in good repair, newly painted and probably but little different
in appearance from what it had been when Swamiji left his
trunk behind. The name on the front door, however, was not
Woods. The Woods family, I learned, had moved away years
before, and the present occupant had never heard of a Hindu
monk in Salem.
(That was in 1951. A few years later the house again
changed hands, coming into the possession of a Mr. and Mrs.
Warren Baughn. From Mrs. Baughn I have learned that the
house, built with hand wrought nails and wooden dowels and
protected from the raids of American Indians by inside blinds
and shutters, must be at least two hundred years old. It has
eleven rooms, three of them in the attic, and originally each
had an open fireplace of its own. Mrs. Baughn has provided
us with a photograph of this quaint old house in which
Swamiji lived, and it is here reproduced.)
From 166 North Street I found my way to the Essex
Institute, where the old Salem newspapers are filed away and
where I looked for, found, and copied the following articles
from the Salem Evening News of August 24, 1893, and the
Salem Evening News and the Daily Gazette of August 29. It
123
would appear either that the same reporter served both papers
or that the evening paper lifted copy bodily from that of the
morning. In any case, the three articles are given here
respectively, along with their original headlines. Salem
journalism in 1893 had its own charm:
#

124
 Evening News, August 24, 1893

A MONK FROM INDIA

________

He Will Visit Salem, Monday August 28

and Make an Address

On Monday next a learned monk from India will speak to

the members of the Thought and Work Club, telling
something of his land, its religion and customs. Club mem-
bers will meet the rajah at Wesley chapel on North street
promptly at four o'clock. Gentlemen and ladies who are not
members can obtain tickets through some members of the
club. The rajah will wear his native costume.

Evening News, August.29, 1893

A MONK FROM INDIA

__________

Salem Audience Interested in His Remarks

___________

He has no Faith in Missionaries .

___________

Explains the Bad Condition of Women

in His Land
125
 In spite of the warm weather of yesterday afternoon, a
goodly number of members of the Thought and Work club,
with guests, gathered in Wesley chapel to meet Swani Vive
Kanonda, a Hindoo monk, now travelling in this country and
to listen to an informal address from that gentleman,
principally upon the religion of the Hindoos as taught by
their Vedar or sacred books. He also spoke of caste, as simply
a social division and in no way dependent upon their religion.
The poverty of the majority of the masses was strongly
dwelt upon. India with an area much smaller than the United
States, contains twenty three hundred millions [sic] of people,
and of these, three hundred millions [sic] earn wages,
averaging less than fifty cents per month. In
#

126
some instances the people in whole districts of the country
subsist for months and even years, wholly upon flowers,
produced by a certain tree which when boiled are edible.
In other districts the men eat rice only, the women and
children must satisfy their hunger with the water in which the
rice is cooked. A failure of the rice crop means famine. Half
the people

LIVE UPON ONE MEAL A DAY

the other half know not whence the next meal will come.
According to Swani Vive Kyonda, the need of the people of
India is not more religion, or a better one, but as he expresses
it, "practicality," and it is with the hope of interesting the
American people in this great need of the suffering, starving
millions that he has come to this country.
He spoke at some length of the condition of his people and
their religion. In course of his speech he was frequently and
closely questioned by Dr. F. A. Gardner and Rev. S. F. Nobbs
of the Central Baptist Church. He said the missionaries had
fine theories there and started in with good ideas, but had
done nothing for the industrial condition of the people. He
said Americans, instead of sending out missionaries to train
them in religion, would better send some one out to give them
industrial education.
Asked whether it was not a fact that Christians assisted the
people of India in times of distress, and whether they did not
assist in a practical way by training schools, the speaker
replied that they did it sometimes, but really it was not to
their credit for the law did not allow them to attempt to
influence people at such times.
127
 He explained the

BAD CONDITION OF WOMAN

in India on the ground that Hindoo men had such respect for
woman that it was thought best not to allow her out.
#

128
The Hindoo women were held in such high esteem that they
were kept in seclusion. He explained the old custom of
women being burned on the death of their husbands, on the
ground that they loved them so that they could not live
without the husband. They were one in marriage and must be
one in death.
He was asked about the worship of idols and the throwing
themselves in front of the juggernaut car, and said one must
not blame the Hindoo people for the car business, for it was
the act of fanatics and mostly of lepers.
This afternoon Vive Kanonda will speak on the children of
India to any children or young people who may be pleased to
listen to him at 166 North street, Mrs. Woods kindly offering
her garden for that purpose. In person he is a fine looking
man, dark but comely, dressed in a long robe of a yellowish
red color confined at the waist with a cord, and wearing on
his head a yellow turban. Being a monk he has no caste, and
may eat and drink with anyone.
The matter omitted in the following article consists of a
word-for-word repetition of sentences in the above.

Daily Gazette, August 29, 1893

RAJAH SWANI VIVI KANAUDA

__________

Has but Little Faith in the Missionaries

Husbands of India Never Lie, Never Persecute
His Purpose Here to Organize Monks
for Industrial Purposes

129
 Rajah Swani Vivi Rananda of India was the guest of
the Thought and Work Club of Salem yesterday
afternoon in the Wesley church.
A large number of ladies and gentlemen were present
and shook hands, American fashion, with the
distinguished
#

130
 monk. He wore an orange colored gown, with red sash,
yellow turban, with the end hanging down on one side,
which he used for a handkerchief, and congress shoes. . . .
Speaking at some length of the relations of men and
women, he said the husbands of India never lied and
never persecuted, and named several other sins they
never committed. . . .

AS FOR THE WORSHIP OF IDOLS

he said he had asked Christians what they thought of

when they prayed, and some said they thought of the church
others of G-O-D. Now his people thought of the images. For
the poor people idols were necessary. He said that in ancient
times, when their religion first began, women were
distinguished for spiritual genius and great strength of mind.
In spite of this, as he seemed to acknowledge, the women of
the present day had degenerated. They thought of nothing but
eating and drinking, gossip and scandal.
The speaker explained his mission in his country to be to
organize monks for industrial purposes, that they might give
the people the benefit of this industrial education and thus to
elevate them and improve their condition.
Mrs. Kate Tannatt Woods had been one of the founders of
the Thought and Work Club in 1891 and was its president for
its first eight years. The first literary and cultural women's
group in Salem, the club counted among its members and
friends many women of outstanding ability as well as social
prominence, some of whom took a leading part in the cultural
activities of the day. According to Mr. David R. Proper (see
note for page 43), the club's executive committee had met at
131
Mrs. Wood's home on Thursday, August 24, when Swamiji
was still a guest at Breezy Meadows, to plan a special
meeting to hear him speak. "It was decided to have post cards
sent to
#

132
the members, announcements read from the local church
pulpits on Sunday and twenty-five cents admission charged to
non-members attending the meeting."39 Among the guests
who came to hear Swamiji were Mrs. Francis W. Breed of the
North Shore Club in Lynn, Massachusetts, whom he was to
know better later on, and Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, a
noted leader of women's groups, who would entertain him in
California in 1900.
The local clergy also came. Nor was the Reverend S. F.
Nobbs of the Central Baptist Church, who "frequently and
closely questioned" Swamiji, the only one among them who
came in no friendly spirit. This we learn from the letters of
Mrs. Prince Woods, who writes: "All the ministers were
present and none of them appreciated what he said. Several
were most critical."40 And again: "I . . . remember that my
mother-in law . . . many times spoke of the outspoken,
narrow attitude of most of the ministers in Salem who openly
criticised him in the Pulpit. She had arranged au open
meeting in one of the churches and most of the ministers
openly accosted him in the most acrimonious manner while
he remained gentle in speech and manner." 41 This was, as far
as can be known, Swamiji's first encounter with hostile
Christian ministers, and while their acrimony left him
unperturbed he was no doubt surprised by it. Presumably no
collection was taken that day for a heathen college. (It was,
incidentally, on the evening of the day following this Lecture
that the previously mentioned storm struck Salem with a
crash.)
Swamiji spent the following week-August 29 to September
4-at Mrs. Woods's home. On the breezy, prestorm afternoon
of Tuesday, August 29, he spoke in the garden to the
133
children, and on the evening of the following Sunday,
September 3, he lectured at the East Church, whose minister
was apparently one of the few in Salem who were
sympathetic. The Salem Evening News of September 1
reported on the first of these events, the Daily Gazette of
September 5 on the second. Both reports follow respectively:
#

134
 TO SPEAK AGAIN
____________

SWAMI VIVA KANANDA, The India Monk,

at East Church Sunday Evening

The learned Monk from India who is spending a few

days in this city, will speak in the East Church Sunday
evening at 7-30. Swami (Rev.) Viva Kananda preached in
the Episcopal church [actually the Universalist Church] at
Annisquam last Sunday evening, by invitation of the
pastor and Professor Wright of Harvard, who has shown
him great kindness.
On Monday night he leaves for Saratoga, where he will
address the Social Science association. Later on he will
speak before the Congress in Chicago. Like all men who
are educated in the higher Universities of India, Viva
Kananda speaks English easily and correctly. His simple
talk to the children on Tuesday last concerning the
games, schools, customs and manners of children in India
was valuable and most interesting. His kind heart was
touched by the statement of a little miss that her teacher
had "licked her so hard that she almost broke her finger."
"We have no corporal punishment in our schools," he
said, "none at all." As Viva Kananda, like all monks,
must travel over his land preaching the religion of truth,
chastity and the brotherhood of man, no great good could
pass unnoticed, or terrible wrong escape his eyes. He is

135
extremely generous to all persons of other faiths, and has
only kind words for those who differ from him.
____________

SOME SUNDAY SERVICES

_____________
Several Ministers Return to September Pulpits
Rajah Rananda at the East Church

Rajah Swani Vivi Rananda of India spoke at the East

church Sunday evening, on the religion of India and the
#

136
 poor of his native land. A good audience assembled, but
it was not so large as the importance of the subject or the
interesting speaker deserved. The monk was dressed in
his native costume, and spoke about forty minutes. The
great need of India today, which is not the India of fifty
years ago, is, he said, missionaries to educate the people
industrially and socially and not religiously. The Hindoos
have all the religion they want, and the Hindoo religion is
the most ancient in the world. The monk is a very
pleasant speaker and held the close attention of his
audience.
What a difference of feeling there is in these pre-
Parliament of Religions lectures from those that came
after! In Swamiji's letters and lectures one can trace his
change of attitude through the months in his approach to
the American public. He came with the purpose of getting
help for India, of telling the American people of his
country's real needs and real genius, but he stayed only to
give, pouring himself out for the sake of Americans, for
not only did he soon find that he could expect little real,
immediate help for his Indian work, but he could not see
hunger in any form, spiritual or physical, without
satisfying it.

On August 30 Swamiji wrote to Professor Wright in

regard
to the invitation he had received from Mr. Franklin B.
Sanborn to lecture before the American Social Science
Association at Saratoga Springs. The following letters were
137
found among Dr. Wright's papers and, together with others
written by Swamiji to the professor, have been made
available to us by his son, Mr. John K. Wright:

Salem
30th Aug '93

Dear Adhyapakji (honorable professor)

I am going off from here today. I hope you have

received some reply from Chicago. I have received an
#

138
 invitation with full directions from Mr. Sanborn. So I am
going to Saratoga on Monday. My respects to your wife.
And my love to Austin and all the children. You are a
real Mahatma (a great soul) and Mrs. Wright is nonpareil.
Yours aflly42
Vivekananda

Swamiji evidently did not yet know the decision of the

officials of the Parliament of Religions to whom Professor
Wright had written. But by September 2, the arrangements
were well under way:

Saturday Salem [Sept. 2, 1893]

Dear Adhyapakji

I hasten to tender my heartfelt gratitude to you For

your letters of introduction. I have received a letter from
Mr Theles of Chicago giving me the names of some of
the delegates and other things about the Congress.
Your professor of Sanscrit in his note to Miss Sanborn
mistakes me for Purushottama Joshi and states that there
is a Sanskrit library in Boston the like of which can
scarcely be met with in India. I would be so happy to see
it.
Mr Sanborn has written to me to come over to
Saratoga on Monday and I am going accordingly. I would
stop there at a boarding house called Sanatorium. If any
news come from Chicago in the mean while I hope you
will kindly send it over to the Sanatorium Saratoga.

139
 You and your noble wife and sweet children have
made an impression on my brain which is simply
indelible and I thought myself so much near to heaven
when living with you. May He the giver of all gifts
shower on your head His choicest blessings.
Here are a few lines written as an attempt at poetry.
Hoping your love will pardon this infliction.
Ever your friend43
Vivekananda
#

140
 The poem which Swamiji "inflicted" upon Professor
Wright was very likely the first poem he had written in the
English language, and while it is by no means his best, it
contains, I believe, some of his most poignant lines. To judge
from the original, he dashed it off on letter paper in the flush
of inspiration and, making only minor corrections here and
there, sent it on to his friend. Now published in The Complete
Works of Swami Vivekananda (hereafter called the Complete
Works), it need be reproduced only in part here:

O'r Hill and dale and mountain range

In temple church and mosque
In Vedas Bible Al Koran
I had searched for thee in vain

Like a child in the wildest forest lost

I have cried and cried alone
Where art thou gone my God my love
the echo answered gone . . .

Years then passed in bitter cry

each moment seemed an age
till one day midst my cries and groans
Some one seemed calling me . . .

Again Again it seemed to speak

the voice divine to me
In rapture all my soul was hushed
Entranced enthralled in bliss
141
A flash illumined all my soul
the heart of my heart opened wide
O joy O bliss what do I find
My love my love you are here
And you are here my love my all

And I was searching thee

From all eternity you were there
Enthroned in majesty . . .
#

142
 From that day forth where ere I roam
I feel him standing by
O'er hill and dale high mount and vale
Far Far away and nigh . . .

Thou wert my God with prophets old

All creeds do come from thee
The Vedas Bible and Koran bold
Sing thee in harmony

"Thou art" "Thou art" the Soul of souls

in the rushing stream of life
"Om tat Sat om" Thou art my God
my love I am thine I am thine.44
*
Tat Sat means that only real existence. [Swamiji's
note]

Swamiji left for Saratoga Springs on Monday night to

speak before the convention of the American Social Science
Association. Mr. Sanborn was at this time secretary of the
Association, which counted among its members eminent and
cultured men from all professions, and he no doubt felt that
he was offering them a rare treat in the person of Swamiji.
Indeed, the fact that he invited a young, unknown Hindu
monk to speak before so august an assembly is ample
evidence that, like Professor Wright, he highly valued
Swamiji's intellectual genius. But although Swamiji spoke
three times before the convention and twice at a private home
143
he characteristically never mentioned in his letters this honor
paid to him during his first weeks in America. This omission
was probably due to the fact that since the honor had been
paid not to Hinduism or to India but to himself he felt it was
not worth mentioning.
The sessions of the American Social Science Association,
held in the Court of Appeals Room of the Town Hall, were of
course wholly secular. Chosen at random from various re-
ports in the Daily Saratogian, some of the titles were: "Com-
pulsory Arbitration," "American Colleges and Their Work,"
#

144
 "The Educational Value of the Woman's Paper," "The
Education of Epileptics," "Turkey and Civilization," "The
Relative Values of the Factors that Produce Wealth," "The
Status of Silver," "Recent Progress in Medicine and Surgery,"
and so on. But Swamiji was prepared to speak on a variety of
subjects, and in keeping with the tone of the convention he
chose for his talks: "The Mohammedan Rule in India"
(evening of September 5) and "The Use of Silver in India"
(morning of September 6). (The silver standard was, at this
time, a burning question in American politics.) The title of his
third talk, given on the evening of September 6, is now
unfortunately unknown, and, more unfortunately, the text of
none of his talks was reported upon. Nevertheless, the
newspaper articles which carried accounts of his appearances
at the convention and at "Dr. Hamilton's" are here
reproduced in part. The first two excerpts are taken from the
Daily Saratogian of September 6, 1893 ; the third, from the
same paper of September 7:

THEIR SCIENCE IS SOCIAL

__________
A Brainy Gathering Elects Its Officers
__________

Able Papers Read at Yesterday's Session-The

Education of Epileptics - To Establish Social
Science Professorships - The Program for Today
is Important.

145
 The second session of the American Social Science as-
sociation opened in the Court of Appeals room, Town
Hall, yesterday morning. . . .

EVENING SESSION

The evening session opened at 8 o'clock, every seat in

the room being occupied. The first business on the pro-
gram was the election of officers. . .
A paper was read by Hon. Oscar S. Strauss of New
York on "Turkey and Civilization," in which he most
#

146
emphatically denied the general reports that Turkey was
an uncivilized country.
The platform was next occupied by Vive Kananda, a
Monk of Madras, Hindoostan, who preached throughout
India. He is interested in social science and is an
intelligent and interesting speaker. He spoke on
Mohammedan rule in India.
The program for today embraces some very interesting
topics, especially the paper on "Bimetallism," by Col.
Jacob Greene of Hartford. Vive Kananda will again
speak, this time on the Use of Silver in India.
__________

LOCAL GOSSIP

Swami Vive Kananda, an educated Hindoo who lately

arrived in this country from India, is in attendance on the
social science convention this week and has spoken twice
to crowded parlors at Dr. Hamilton's on the manners
customs and beliefs of the people of that wonderful
country. He is an entertaining speaker, a highly educated
man and his lectures, covering a wide range of topics,
were very interesting. He is a striking figure in his
oriental costume, and the public are invited to see and
hear him at the Institute tonight at seven o'clock sharp.
The lecture closes at 7:30.
__________

MONEY WAS THE SUBJECT

Of the Able Paper at the Social Scientists' Session

147
 What President Andrews Said About the Monetary
Experiment in India - Other Interesting Papers -
The Program for Today.
The second day's session of the American Social
Science association opened auspiciously yesterday
morning there being a large gathering.
The addresses and papers all pertained to finance
which, especially at this time, proved very interesting. . . .
Col.
#

148
 Jacob L. Greene of Hartford read a paper on "Bimetal-
lism," treating the subject in a very exhaustive manner. A
paper by Dr. Charles B. Spahr of New York followed on
the status of silver which was attentively listened to. A
paper by President E. Benjamin Andrews of Brown
University on "The Monetary experiment in India," was a
masterpiece for thought and intellectual ability. . . .
At the conclusion of the reading Vive Kananda, the
Hindoo monk addressed the audience in an intelligent and
interesting manner, taking for his subject the use of silver
in India.
Within three weeks Swamiji had, as far as we now know,
given eleven lectures and talks. He had, moreover, come into
contact with a cross section of American life: he had spoken
to the Ramabai Circle; he had met members of the clergy,
both friendly and hostile; he had talked to the inmates of a
prison, to American club women and even to children; and he
had met and gained the respect of some of the leading
thinkers and educators of the country. He could not have had
a better preparation for all that was to come.
In the Saratogian there ran an advertisement headed "Half
Rate to the World's Fair," which recommended "the excellent
Chicago train service on the Delaware and Hudson Railroad. .
. . $26.00 round trip: ' If Swamiji took advantage of this
bargain, he would have arrived in Chicago at the handsome
red brick Dearborn Street Station on the corner of Dearborn
and Polk streets on the evening of either Friday, September 8,
or Saturday, September 9. When he had left the city less than
a month earlier, the situation had on its surface seemed
hopeless. Now he returned as an accepted delegate to the
grand Parliament of Religions, assured of a cordial welcome
149
by the authorities and filled with joy at this clear
manifestation of divine protection and guidance. There was
only one hitch: he did not know where to go from the station;
he had lost the address of whatever place he was sup
#

150
posed to present himself. What happened next is well known
to everyone familiar with Swamiji's biography, for the story
was told in the first edition of the Life and has since been
often repeated. Yet it is possible that by the time it was
recorded in the Life, twenty years after its occurrence, some
of its details may have gone awry; indeed, they do not all
stand up under close examination. But however that may be,
Swamiji himself had often told the story, and thus we can be
certain of the main facts.
Alone in a large and still strange American city, he could
not, for one reason or another, make anyone understand
where he wanted to go-indeed, he himself did not know. In
this predicament, he did the thing most natural to him-he
followed the instincts of the sannyasin-one whose heart sang
"the sky thy roof; the grass thy bed; and food, what chance
may bring . . ." The equivalent of sky and grass in a Chicago
depot and freightyard would have been an empty boxcar
(called in India a "goods-wagon")-a traditional American
shelter for the homeless and penniless wanderer. Thus in all
probability, it was in a boxcar that Swamiji spent the night. In
the Life it has been recorded, through what one cannot but
think was a misunderstanding, that he slept that night in "a
huge empty box."45 This box has become legendary; even in
stories of Swamiji's life written for children one finds
drawings of it with him curled up most uncomfortably and
implausibly inside. There is, I believe, no way to get rid of
this box; engraved now on the minds of innumerable
children, it is with us for all time. But the present writer-
along with many others who know the general state of things
in an American freightyard-is inclined to think that Swamiji
very sensibly spent the night in a ready-to-hand and roomy
151
boxcar. But box or boxcar, the next morning he set out,
sannyasin like, to beg his food from door to door.
Dark-skinned, unshaven, wearing what must have been by
now a very rumpled orange robe and a strange-looking
turban, Swamiji was a matter for alarm. Housewives turned
away;
#

152
servants slammed doors in his face; some verbally insulted
him. He walked on. He walked for at least two and a half
miles, and at length, weary and hungry, he sat down on the
west side of Dearborn Street (on the curbstone perhaps) and
resigned himself to God's will. In a few moments, the front
door of the house opposite opened, and out came a dignified,
well-dressed woman, who, it happened, was Mrs. George W.
Hale.* Mrs. Hale was not one to Fear a stranger; rather, she
was ready to offer help. She was, moreover, evidently
perceptive enough to recognize in the oddly dressed young
man sitting quietly across the street the look of holiness and
princeliness combined. She went up to him and ventured,
"Sir, are you a delegate to the Parliament of Religions?"
Learning that he was, she at once took him into her house,
gave him breakfast, saw to it that his every need was attended
to, and no doubt sent for his luggage from the station. Later
she took him to the offices of the Parliament, where he was
awaited. Thus was Swamiji not only cared for, he was led to
the Hale family at the very beginning of his American work-a
family that was to become more dear to him than any other he
would know in the West.
Through a news report in the Chicago Record of
September 11, we next find him seated (probably on Sunday,
September 10) in the parlor of Dr. John H. Barrows, the
primary organizer of the Parliament. This report, which
contains the first known mention of Swamiji as an accepted
delegate, read in part:
Four leaders of religious thought were sitting in Dr.
Barrow's [sic] parlor-the Jain, George Condin [Candlin],
the missionary who has passed sixteen years in China,
Swami Vivekananda, the learned Brahman Hindoo, and
153
Dr. John H. Barrows, the Chicago Presbyterian. These
four talked as if they were brothers of one faith.
The Hindoo is of smooth countenance. His rather
fleshy face is bright and intelligent. He wears an orange
turban and a robe of the same color. His English is very
good. "I
#

154
 have no home," said he. "I travel about from one college
to another in India, lecturing to the students. Before start-
ing for America I had been for some time in Madras.
Since arriving in this country I have been treated with
utmost courtesy and kindness. It is very gratifying to us
to be recognized in this Parliament, which may have such
an important bearing on the religious history of the world.
We expect to learn much and take back some great truths
to our 15,000,000 faithful Brahmins:'
It was with the humility of true greatness that Swamiji ex-
pected to learn much from the Parliament and from the re-
presentatives of religions other than his own, and he was
indeed to learn a great deal-but not all of it in accordance
with his hopes.
#

155
 NOTES FOR CHAPTER ONE

Page Symbol Note

18 * In connection with Swamiji‘s meeting with
these Chicago people, it is written in the Life
(in all editions): ―Thus was begun a friendship
which lasted as long as the Swami lived. All
the members of the family learnt to love him
dearly, to appreciate his brilliant gifts, and to
admire the purity and simplicity of his
character, to which they often bore willing and
loving testimony.‖ Those sentences first
appeared in 1908 in footnote to Miss Ellen
Waldo‘s ―Introductory Narrative‖ to Inspired
Talks. The foot note reads: ―Later a Brahmin of
Madras wrote to a gentleman in Chicago about
the Swami and this gentleman took the young
Hindu into his own family. Thus was begun a
friendship…‖ and so on, as in the Life. It
would seem clear from the context of Miss
Waldo‘s narrative that this footnote refers to a
later period than that of Swamiji‘s first stay in
Chicago. It also seems clear that the author of
the footnote has confused the Hale family,
whom Swamiji did indeed meet later and who
did indeed love him dearly, with the people to
whom his Madras friend introduced him.
Otherwise, we are faced with the strange
phenomenon of a family who ―often bore
willing and loving testimony‖ to Swamiji‘s
156
 character, but whose name the authors of the
Life did not know. (Had they known, would
they not have told?)

157
Page Symbol Note
18 cont. The chances are that Swamiji never became
intimately associated with the people to whom
Varada Rao introduced him. But who were
they? Our only clue is that the man was a
Director of the Fair. Checking through the
Official Director of the World‘s Columbian
Exposition (1893), in which the names of all
the Directors and other Officers are given, one
finds no one familiar in the context of
Swamiji'‘ life in America other than Mrs. Potter
Palmer and Mr. Thomas W. Palmer of Detroit.
Thus, to date, the mystery remains unsolved.

20 * Swamiji spoke always literally when he

mentioned the guidance of his Master. But
rarely did he speak of it in detail; only years
after the event would he sometimes tell of a
vision or a direct command. In a letter of
March 16, 1899, Sister Nivedita relayed to
Miss MacLeod one such disclosure. ―I forgot to
tell you,‖ she wrote, ―that [Swamiji] said
Ramakrishna always said ‗Lok na pok‘: ‗Men
are mere worms‘ – and when he was in
Chicago he had a vision. He was lying on the
floor ‗half dead‘ for anxiety and privation
apparently, and Sri Ramakrishna came into the
room and touched him and said, ‗Hut! Get up
man! Lok na pok!‘ ‖

158
 + The urgency of Swamiji‘s cable to Alasinga
was clear. It read: ―Starving. All money spent.
Send money to return at least.‖ (Swami
Deshikatmananda, ―Uncrowned king of
Madras‖ Alasinga Perumal,‖ Prabuddha
Bharata, April 1990, p.185)

159
Page Symbol Note
36 * According to some accounts, Swamiji slept as
Professor Wright‘s guest at Miss Lane‘s
boarding house. Inasmuch as the Wright‘s
small cottage, the Lodge, consisted of only one
room downstairs and one room and a bathroom
upstairs, this would seem probable, We are
indebted to Miss Elva Nelson for a description
and photograph of the Lodge, a boxlike New
England cottage with a peaked roof. Inside it
was unfinished. (see ―Footnotes on Swami
Vivekananda in Annisquam,‖ Prabuddha
Bharata, June 1979.)

43 * More detailed information about Mrs. Kate

Tannatt Woods has been given by David R.
Proper in his article ―Swami Vivekananda in
Essex County‖ in the Essex Institute Historica
Collections for January 1967. Mr. Proper‘s
paragraphs in regard to Mrs. Woods read as
follows: ―Kate Tannett [Tannatt] Woods, born
at Peekskill, N.Y. in 1838, came East with her
family while quite young. She was at one time
a teacher in Sale schools before marrying
George H. Woods, of Salem. A lawyer and
member of Gen. Sheridan‘s staff during the
Civil War, Mr. Woods was the son of Ephraim
and Mary A. Woods of Salem, where he was
born in 1831. The Woods family had occupied
the North Street property for many years, and it
was here Mrs. Woods returned after the death
160
 of her husband at Decatur, I11., in 1884
(Biographical Clippings, scrapbooks, Essex
Institute, 31:149). This was her home until the
turn of the century when she moved to North
Falmouth, Massachusetts, where she died in
1910
#

161
Page Symbol Note

43 cont. (Who Was Who, 1897-1942).―Among

her many activities, Mrs. Kate Tannett Woods
was an active editor, author, poet and widely
traveled social leader. She contributed to
Harper‘s Bazaar, helped edit the Ladies Home
Journal, and wrote for the Boston Evening
Transcript, Boston Globe, Boston Herald and
other newspapers. One of the original
organizers of the General Federation of
Women‘s Clubs, she was the founder of the
Massachusetts State Federation of Women‘s
Clubs and a vice president of the women‘s
National Press Association, as well as leading
in other groups dedicated to the rights and
privileges of women. She was author of verse
and books for children, as well as a contributor
of articles to may publications.‖

60 * The site of the Hale house is today occupied

by a high-rise apartment building. Across the
street, where Swamiji sat, stands Saint
Chrysostom‘s Episcopal Church, which was
built and dedicated in 1894. In September of
1893, the property now occupied by the church
was for the most part vacant. (What was once
the 500 block of Dearborn Avenue is now
designated to the 1400 block of North Dear
born Street.)

162
#

163
 CHAPTER TWO

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS

The primary purpose of the World's Columbian Exposition

of 1893 was to bring together the fruits of man's material
progress. Everything imaginable was on exhibit-not only the
achievements of Western civilization but, the better to show
these off, life-size models of the more backward cultures of
the world. The Fair, however, would not have been complete
without a representation of the world's thought. Neely's
History of the Parliament of Religions tells us that "the idea
of a series of congresses for the consideration of the greatest
themes in which mankind is interested, and so comprehensive
as to include representatives from all parts of the earth
originated with Charles Carroll Bonney in the summer of
1889."1 Mr. Bonney was a well-known lawyer of that time
and the author of many important constitutional and
economic reforms. His voice carrying weight, his idea was
given wide publicity and met with general approval. A
committee was formed, and on October 30, 1890, the World's
Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposition was
organized with Mr. Bonney as its president. For the next two
and one-half years elaborate and complex plans were made,
involving an untold number of letters to and from all corners
of the earth. The congresses, which finally met between May
15 and October 28, 1893, were twenty in all and embraced
such things as woman's progress, the public press, medicine
and surgery, temperance, commerce and finance, music,
164
government and law reform, economic science, Sunday rest,
and-"since faith in a Divine Power . . . has been like the sun,
a light-giving and fructifying potency in man's intellectual
and moral development"2-religion. "So numerous," says
#

165
Houghton, "were these congresses and so extensive the pro-
ceedings that their programmes bound in one volume
constitute an interesting book of 160 pages."3 (Italics mine.)
Of these congresses, the Parliament of Religions was by
far the most famed and widely heralded. "No one gathering
ever assembled," wrote the Reverend John. Henry Barrows in
The World's Parliament of Religions, "was awaited with such
universal interest "4 The Parliament was indeed a unique
phenomenon in the history of religions. It is true that
throughout the history of India meetings of different religions
had taken place; it is also true that before 1893 there had been
from time to time ecumenical conventions of Christians and
also of Mohammedans. But it can be correctly said that never
before had the representatives of the world's great religions
been brought together in one place, where they might without
fear tell of their respective beliefs to thousands of people. It
was an unparalleled meeting, and when first proposed in that
day of intolerance and materialism it seemed to many
impossible of human achievement. To even a casual observer
it might almost appear that some superhuman force was
propelling it forward, and one is not surprised to learn that
Swamiji, before embarking for America, had said to Swami
Turiyananda, "The Parliament of Religions is being
organized for this", (pointing to himself). "My mind tells me
so. You will see it verified at no distant date."5
That, however, was a motive for organizing the Parliament
which had never entered the minds of those who were most
instrumental in bringing the religions of the world together.
Whatever the divine motives may have been, the human
motives lying behind the organization were mixed. Swamiji
later wrote in a letter: "The Parliament of Religions was
166
organized with the intention of proving the superiority of the
Christian religion. 6 And again, during the course of an
interview, he said, "The Parliament of Religions, as it seems
to me, was intended for a `heathen show' before the world‖ 7 It
has sometimes been thought that Swamiji may have been
#

167
unfair in this judgment of the Congress which introduced him
to the Western world, but a reading of the accounts of both
the preparations and the proceedings leaves one without a
doubt that the Parliament was permeated with Christian
prejudice. That Christianity would gloriously and
unequivocally prove its superiority was a foregone
conclusion in the minds of many of its promoters.
On the other hand, there were some connected with the
Parliament who, having no religious commitments---no reli-
gious axe to grind--conceived of it in broader and more
realistic terms. To them it was an unprecedented opportunity
for promoting understanding and good will among all seekers
of truth. One of these was President Bonney, of whom
Swamiji wrote: "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, learned, patient Mr. Bonney with all his
soul speaking through his bright eyes . . ."8 Bonney himself
described his dream of what the Parliament might
accomplish: "I became acquainted with the great religious
systems of the world in my youth, and have enjoyed an
intimate association with leaders of many churches during my
maturer years. I was thus led to believe that if the great
religious faiths could be brought into relations of friendly
intercourse, many points of sympathy and union would be
found, and the coming unity of mankind in the love of God
and the service of man be greatly facilitated and advanced." 9
But although it was Bonney's inspiration that lay behind the
Parliament, it was actually not he but the Reverend John
Henry Barrows, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of

168
Chicago, who was Chairman of the General Committee and
responsible for carrying out the elaborate preparations.
The work of the Committee was voluminous. More than
10,000 letters and 40,000 documents were sent out, and
answers from all parts of the globe were received by the
bushel. Barrows writes pridefully: "For thirty months nearly
all the railroads
#

169
and steamship lines of the world were unconsciously working
for the Parliament of Religions. The post-office clerks at
Chicago handled great bundles of letters which had
previously passed through the brown fingers of the postal
clerks in Madras, Bombay and Tokyo."10 Advisory
Councilors were selected from all parts of the world, their
number finally reaching 3,000. Among the Councilors chosen
from India were G. S. Iyer, editor of the Madras Hindu, B. B.
Nagarkar of Bombay, and P. C. Mazumdar of Calcutta, the
last two of whom represented the Brahmo Samaj at the
Parliament. The Committee was also in communication with
H. Dharmapala, the General Secretary of the Maha-Bodhi
Society in Calcutta, who later became the delegate for the
Southern Buddhists of Ceylon, and Muni Atmaramji, High
Priest of the Jain community of Bombay.
This abundance of correspondence was not all: articles,
lectures, sermons, and editorials were written, which either
extravagantly praised or bitterly condemned the attempt to
bring together all the religions of the world. It was through
articles in the Hindu by its editor, G. S. Iyer, that the plans of
the Parliament were made generally known in India, and it is
probably through this channel that Swamiji, not being
affiliated with any sect or organization, came to learn of what
was afoot in America.
The task of assembling this unprecedented gathering had
its delicate as well as its cumbersome aspects. The initial
action of the Committee, which was appointed in the spring
of 1891 and was formed largely of zealous Protestant
ministers, was to advise religious leaders of the proposed
objectives of the Parliament, which were in brief: "1. To
bring together in conference, For the first time in history, the
170
leading representatives of the great Historic Religions of the
world. 2. To show to men, in the most impressive way, what
and how many important truths the various Religions hold
and teach in common. . . . 4. To set forth, by those most
competent to speak, what are deemed the important
distinctive truths held and taught by
#

171
each Religion, and by the various chief branches of Chris-
tendom. . . . 7. To inquire what light each Religion has
afforded, or may afford, to the other Religions of the world. .
. . 9. To discover, from competent men, what light Religion
has to throw on the great problems of the present age,
especially the important questions connected with
Temperance, Labor, Education, Wealth and Poverty. 10. To
bring the nations of the earth into a more friendly Fellowship,
in the hope of securing permanent international peace."11
At first the responses that flowed in were mostly favorable
and enthusiastic. To be sure, a missionary of the Presbyterian
Board in India expressed some "misgivings through fear lest
the faith we loved and the Saviour we preached might seem
to us to be dishonored."12 But further acquaintance with the
plans served to remove these misgivings and to bring about
his hearty approval.
In what this further acquaintance consisted may be
gathered from a quotation in Barrows's book. "The Christian
conviction back of this Parliament," he writes approvingly,
"was well expressed by Pere Hyacinth in the Contemporary
for July, 1892: `It is not true that all religions are equally
good; but neither is it true that all religions except one are no
good at all. The Christianity of the future, more just than that
of the past, will assign to each its place in that work of
evangelical preparation which the elder doctors of the church
discern in heathenism itself and which is not yet completed.'
"13
But this assurance was not enough to remove all
misgivings, and as the plans became more widely known,
dissent was soon loud and strong. Many Christian journals in
America came out in decided opposition, largely on the same
172
grounds that had given pause to the Presbyterian missionary,
but also out of fear that the Parliament would only aggravate
discord. The worst blow of all, however, was struck by the
powerful Archbishop of Canterbury, who after due
consideration finally wrote in a letter to the Committee: ". . .
The difficulties which I myself feel are not questions of
distance and convenience, but
#

173
rest on the fact that the Christian religion is the one religion. I
do not understand how that religion can be regarded as a
member of a Parliament of Religions without assuming the
equality of the other intended members and the parity of their
position and claims."14
Echoes were heard. For example, a letter from a minister in
Hong Kong: ". . . If misled yourself, at least do not mislead
others nor jeopardize, I pray you, the precious life of your
soul by playing fast and loose with the truth and coquetting
with false religions. . . . You are unconsciously planning
treason against Christ."15
Although the stand of the Archbishop and others like it
were criticized by many, the opposition to them was for the
most part based on the conviction that, after all, Christianity
had nothing to fear. "In my judgment," wrote one bishop in
America, "no Christian believer should hesitate one moment
to make the presentation of the Religion of Jesus Christ grand
and impressive, so that it may make itself felt powerfully in
the comparison of religions. . . . Who can tell but that the
great Head of the Church may, in his providence, make use of
the immense gathering to usher in the triumph of his truth,
when at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow?"16
"One result," wrote another bishop, "will be to show that
the Christian faith was never more widely or more
intelligently believed in, or Jesus Christ more adoringly
followed. Civilization, which is making the whole world one,
is preparing the way for the reunion of all the World's
religions in their true center Jesus Christ."17
Dozens of similar letters flowed in, approving of the
Congress for evangelical reasons. Barrows, apparently
without the slightest consciousness that these letters were
174
hardly in the spirit of the proposed objectives, added his own
voice to them. He found it part of his work, in replying to the
criticisms of the Parliament, to write articles and give many
public addresses explaining the Christian and Scriptural
grounds on which its defense, as he says, "securely rested,"
namely, that Saint Paul
#

175
"was careful to find common ground for himself and his
Greek auditors in Athens, before he preached to them Jesus
and the resurrection." "We believe," Barrows went on to say,
"that Christianity is to supplant all other religions, because it
contains all the truth there is in them and much besides,
revealing a redeeming God." Patronage was taken to be
enlightened brotherly love. "Though light has no fellowship
with darkness, light does have fellowship with twilight. God
has not left himself without witness, and those who have the
full light of the Cross should bear brotherly hearts towards all
who grope in a dimmer illumination."18
Generally speaking, this was as liberal as the Christian
ministry could get. There were of course letters and articles
which expressed the thought of more open minds. But in
Barrows's history, these are in the minority and almost all
came from the pens of laymen. Representative is the
following from Count Goblet d'Alviella of Brussels: "The
significance of such an attempt cannot be too much insisted
upon. In opposition to sectarian points of view which identify
Religion with the doctrines of one or another particular form
of worship, it implies, 1. That religious sentiment possesses
general form and even a sphere of action independent of any
particular theology; 2. That men belonging to churches the
most diverse can and should come to an understanding with
each other in order to realize this program common to all
religions. "19
But views such as this, though they represented a fair
portion of public opinion, missed the main point as far as the
General Committee was concerned. "The Parliament was
conceived and carried on," Barrows says, "in the spirit of
Milton's faith that `though all the winds of doctrine were let
176
loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do
injuriously to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood
grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worst in a free and
open encounter?' "20 Truth, in this instance, was, of course,
Christianity; falsehood, every other faith.
While this sort of thing had the effect of allaying the fears
#

177
of the more bigoted section of the Christian Church (though
not those of the Archbishop of Canterbury), it also had the
effect of repelling the leaders of other religions. It became
necessary for Barrows hastily to assure certain alarmed
foreign delegates that "the spirit of kindness and fraternity
would prevail in the Parliament "21
The General Committee had many a ticklish problem on its
hands, and there were some beyond its control. At the last
moment, for instance, in the summer of 1893, the Baptists
and the Christian Endeavor Society withdrew all connections
with the World's Fair, the reason being that after long-drawn-
out debates the managers of the Fair had decided that its
doors were to remain open on Sundays-a decision which was
obviously the work of Satan. "For other reasons the Congress
of the Anglican Churches . . . was given up."22 Russia refused
to send a representative, as did Turkey.
But at length all plans were in order, and on August 11,
1893, the General Committee sent out a request for Universal
Prayer "to the advance of spiritual enlightenment, to the pro-
motion of peace and good will among nations and races, and
to the deepening and widening of the sense of universal
human brotherhood."23
It must be said here that despite the obvious and strong
prejudices of a large portion of the Christian ministry, and
despite the rampant materialism of the age, thousands of men
and women trustingly looked to the Parliament for the ful-
fillment of the first and broader objectives laid down by the
Committee. An editorial that appeared in the Chicago
Evening Post on the day of the opening expressed the
expectations of many:

178
 We look for great results from this great gathering; and
not at once; not, perhaps in near future. But in the
wisdom of that Providence which men of all creeds
profess to worship, and whose movements are slow but
sure, the energy here concentrated will be felt upon all
the world,
#

179
 and its effect will be for the unification and uplifting of
mankind.24
There was without question a, sincere and open-
minded search in America for spiritual truth and an
eagerness to welcome it wherever it might be found. But
while this need existed, a truly liberal attitude could not,
in those days, obtain acceptance among the clergy or the
public as a whole. Ironically, however, the Parliament,
which could be convened only through a spirit of
Christian evangelism, became in spite of itself an
instrument for the destruction of bigotry.

The Parliament of Religions opened on the morning of

September 11, 1893, at the Art Institute of Chicago, which is
not to be confused with the "Art Palace"-a temporary though
grandiose structure in the Fair Grounds. The Art Institute was
a permanent, newly constructed building on Chicago's
Michigan Avenue, not yet ready to house the art exhibits for
which it was intended. Except that its thirty-odd halls ac-
commodated at various times all the congresses, the building
proper had no real connection with the Fair, nor did it dis-
appear with time as did most of the Exposition buildings;
rather, it stands today, a large gray limestone structure in the
style of the Italian Renaissance, serving as one of the world's
finest museums of art. In 1893 the building had by no means
attained its present size; only the first unit, so to speak, had
been completed-and this not fully. Its central dome was un-
180
finished, as was its grand staircase; and the elegant bronze
lions that today guard its entrance did not make their appear-
ance until the following year. For the purpose of the World's
Congresses, two large halls, each of which could
accommodate some 3,000 people with standing room for at
least a thousand more, had been temporarily constructed
between the wings of the building-the Hall of Columbus on
the north, and the
#

181
Hall of Washington, to which an extra gallery had been
added, on the south.* It was in the former that the delegates
of the Parliament gathered on that memorable morning.
At ten o'clock, ten solemn strokes of the New Liberty Bell,
on which was inscribed, "A new commandment I give unto
you, that ye love one another," proclaimed the opening of the
Congress-each stroke representing one of the ten chief reli-
gions, listed by President Bonney as Theism (that is, the
doctrine of the Brahmo Samaj), Judaism, Mohammedanism,
Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shintoism,
Zoroastrianism, Catholicism, the Greek Church, and
Protestantism. It is not likely that any of the delegates heard
those ten strokes of the bell, for this particular object was one
of the curiosities of the Fair and was located at a considerable
distance from the Parliament. Nor did the bell serve to
summon the spectators. A multitude of people had long since
besieged the big oak doors of the Institute; 25 four thousand
had crowded onto the floor and into the gallery of the Hall of
Columbus and were waiting in expectant silence for the
delegates to appear. The hush was like that of a church. It is
said that this "mass of people was so wonderfully quiet that
the flutter of wings was heard when a tiny bird flew through
an open window and over the vacant platform."26
This platform was approximately fifty feet long, running
less than the full width of the auditorium, and about ten feet
deep. Empty of delegates, it must have presented a somewhat
dreary and hodgepodge appearance. Against the back wall,
upon which hung what appear to have been a Japanese and a
Hebrew scroll, giant marble statues of Cicero and
Demosthenes stood some twenty-five feet apart and brooded
over the scene. On Demosthenes' left a comparatively small
182
and sprightly bronze maiden held a nest of fledglings, one of
which she was letting fly from her upraised right hand. But
the most extraordinary object was a thronelike chair, made, it
is said, of iron, its high back intricately wrought. This chair
was centered between the statues and, on this opening day,
was reserved
#

183
for Cardinal Gibbons, the highest prelate of the Catholic
Church in America. On either side of the throne, about thirty
spindle-backed chairs stood three rows deep and awaited the
delegates, the officials of the Parliament, and invited guests.
A speaker's rostrum completed the scene.
Not on the opening day, but later, a sign was hung on the
front of the rostrum, which read: "No Admittance Except to
Authorized Representatives of the Chicago Daily Press." This
admonition referred to the pit directly below, in which
reporters and official stenographers sat at small tables and
recorded the daily proceedings, and was made necessary by
the early comers of the audience who frequently appropriated
the chairs at the press tables to make another first row, as
well as by the curious and, at times, reverent crowds who
pressed forward at the close of a session to reach the
platform. Indeed, one of the women members of the press (of
whom there were but one or two) later told of how crowds
used to rush forward to touch the hem of Swamiji's robe and
of how deeply she was impressed by his supreme and
unbroken humility in the face of such adulation.
But to return to the vacant platform of the opening day:. it
had a makeshift air about it, as though someone had un-
successfully attempted to convey the spirit of universality. It
presented a conglomeration of unrelated things and was cer-
tainly not what one would call either harmonious or pre-
possessing. However, as the Reverend Barrows explained in
another connection: "It would have been unworthy of the
moral dignity, the serious purpose of the occasion, if there
had been any attempt at mere pageantry: ‖27

184
 Pageantry there was enough without a studied attempt at it.
In another part of the building, President Bonney's office was
turned into a reception room,

where Chinese in their mandarin robes and pigtails,

Japanese in picturesque garb of chaste colors and vari-
colored head-dresses, Indians in their gaudy gowns of
red,
#

185
 orange, and green; Germans, Russians, and Scandina-
vians, natives of Britain, and her dependencies, and half a
dozen interpreters mingled and mixed in a medley of
universal brotherhood. The fair sex were there too, and
they were not neglected. But sisterhood in such a
gathering was superfluous. The air was full of
brotherhood, and it was of the generic kind, such as fits
both sexes.28
At the appointed hour of ten, this dazzling group started
out. Heading the long procession came President Bonney and
Cardinal Gibbons, arm in arm, the Cardinal resplendent in his
crimson robes, the President somber and dignified in his
morning coat. Following these two were the President and
Vice-President of the Board of Lady Managers of the Exposi-
tion, Mrs. Potter Palmer and Mrs. Charles H. Henrotin, in
sweeping silk dresses with puffed sleeves and bustles. The
procession slowly and majestically entered the back of the
auditorium, the crowd making way for it. Then beneath the
flags of many nations and amid wave upon wave of cheers it
marched down the center aisle and ascended the platform.
"The sight," says Houghton, "was most remarkable. There
were strange robes, turbans and tunics, crosses and crescents,
flowing hair and tonsured heads."29 Cardinal Gibbons sat in
the center of the group on the iron throne. On his right were
the five Buddhist priests of China in their long white robes,
and on his left, the black-garbed patriarchs of the old Greek
Church, "wearing strangely formed hats, somber cassocks of
black, and leaning on ivory sticks carved with figures
representing ancient rites."30 The First Secretary of the
Chinese Legation in Washington, who had been deputed by
the Emperor of China to present the doctrine of Confucius,
186
wore the robes of a mandarin. His pictures show him sitting
bolt upright, squarely facing the audience with immense
dignity and looking somewhat like a huge Chinese doll with a
round and moonlike face. To quote again from Houghton:
"The high priest of the state religion of Japan was arrayed in
flowing robes, presenting
#

187
the colors of the rainbow. Buddhist monks were attired in
garments of white and yellow; . . . the Greek Archbishop of
Zante, from whose high head-gear there fell to the waist a
black veil, was brilliant in purple robe and black cassock, and
glittering as to his breast in chains of gold. Dharmapala
[whose slight, lithe person was swathed in pure white, while
his black hair fell in curls upon his shoulders] was recognized
in his woolen garments; and in black clothes hardly to be
distinguished from European dress, was Mazoomdar, author
of the `Oriental Christ.' "31 The closing sentence of an
eyewitness account by the Reverend Mr. Wente (from which
the above bracketed words regarding Hewivitarne
Dharmapala are taken) is worth quoting here to complete the
picture: "The ebon-hued but bright faces of Bishop Arnett, of
the African Methodist Church, and of a young African prince,
were relieved by the handsome costumes of the ladies of the
company, while forming a somber background to all was the
dark raiment of the Protestant delegates and invited guests:
''32
In the midst of this impressive array sat Swamiji, conspi-
cuous, according to all accounts, for his "orange turban and
robe," or, as better put by the Reverend Mr. Wente, for his
"gorgeous red apparel, his bronze face surmounted with a
turban of yellow."33
This, then, was the scene on the platform. Facing it was the
vast audience of men and women, filling every seat of the
floor and gallery and comprising representative intellects of
the day, both clerical and secular. "Such a scene," writes
Houghton, "was never witnessed before in the world's
history."34 Swamiji later wrote, "My heart was fluttering and
my tongue nearly dried up."35 And it is little wonder, for he
188
had suddenly found himself surrounded on all sides by
solemn and august personages in full regalia, who
represented the religious thought of the whole world.
Although, as was told in the preceding chapter, he had spoken
to small gatherings in America, never before had he seen, let
alone addressed, such a crowd as this.
Suddenly the great organ in the gallery burst forth with the
#

189
strains of the "Doxology," and the entire assembly arose to
sing: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow; Praise him,
all creatures here below; Praise him above, ye heavenly hosts;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost." There were more verses,
and one can be sure that the hall resounded. At the end of the
hymn a deep silence was sustained by the uplifted hand of
the Cardinal. Then into this impressive hush he began the
words of the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father which art in heaven .
. . and every voice in the hall joined with his. "The supreme
moment of the nineteenth century," says Houghton, "was
reached: '36
The Parliament of Religions had begun. Seventeen days of
continual speech-making, morning, afternoon, and evening,
followed. Each session was attended by an audience that, big
to start with, grew in volume as time went on until by the
fourth day the crowd became so great that it overflowed into
the neighboring Hall of Washington, where the entire
program was repeated word for word. On the fifth day,
however, the Scientific Section of the Parliament was
opened, and thenceforth the spectators were divided between
the Parliament proper and this adjunct, the purpose of which
was to collect and examine impartially the data of all
religions and, in the words of its idealistic president, the
Honorable Merwin-Marie Snell, to prepare thereby the way
"for the complete annihilation of vital religious differences
and the placing of the facts and principles of religions upon
an absolutely inexpugnable basis."37
One fortunate thing about the Parliament, which may be
noted here, was that it was held in the early autumn, when the
days were no longer stifling hot. With the exception of that
overcrowded fourth day, when the temperature rose to 95°,
190
and of a morning toward the end of the Parliament when it
fell to 39°, the days, as far as temperature went, were mild. It
was windy, however, and sometimes it rained. Indeed, such a
storm blew one evening that rain was driven into the
building, forcing many to protect themselves with umbrellas,
and pounded on the roof with such a roar that often the
speakers'
#

191
voices were drowned out. The pounding of rain was not the
only thing that often drowned out the speakers' voices; while
the Art Institute was nicely situated in a small park on the
shore of Lake Michigan, it also stood adjacent to the main
station of the Central Illinois Railroad. "The orators of the
congresses," it was said, "battled in the halls of Washington
and Columbus for six months in vain against the noise of
[the trains]: 38 But this must have been something of an
exaggeration, for we know that the audience from the first
day to the last heard at least some of the rhetoric of the
Parliament.
The first day was devoted to speeches of welcome from
the officials and responses by the delegates. There were seven
of the former, delivered in high oratory and consuming a
large part of the morning session, which was concluded with
eight short speeches of response. To some of the latter the
audience was wildly demonstrative. The first delegate to
speak was the Archbishop of Zante, representative of the
Greek Church, who expressed the sentiment that "all men
have a common Creator and consequently a common Father
in God," and concluded with, "I raise up my hands and I bless
with heartfelt love the great country and the happy, glorious
people of the United States."39 "This is indeed glorious!"
cried President Bonney, and the audience burst into
prolonged cheering.40 Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, the
representative of the Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta, who had
been in America ten years before and was known to many,
was also loudly cheered. But the expressions of welcome
given to Pung Kwang Yu "were surpassed in the case of no
other speaker on the platform," says Barrows. "Men and
women rose to their feet in the audience, and there was wild
192
waving of hats and handkerchiefs: '41 This not because the
audience was in sympathy with Confucianism, but because,
as President Bonney had said in his introductory remarks,
"We have not treated China very well in this country."42
To judge from a quotation from the St. Louis Observer of
September 21, 1893, which is reproduced in Barrows's book
Dharmapala, the Buddhist From Ceylon-whom Swamiji later
#

193
spoke of as "a nice boy"-somewhat startled the public. "With
his black, curly locks thrown back from his broad brow, his
keen, clear eye fixed upon the audience, his long brown
finger emphasizing the utterances of his vibrant voice, he
looked the very image of a propagandist, and one trembled to
know that such a figure stood at the head of the movement to
consolidate all the disciples of Buddha and to spread `the
light of Asia' throughout the civilized world."43
Through all this Swamiji remained seated, meditative and
prayerful, letting his turn to speak go by time and again. It
was not until the afternoon session, after four other delegates
had read their prepared papers, that, urged by the kindly and
scholarly French pastor G. Bonet Maury, who was seated
next to him,* Swamiji, inwardly bowing down to Devi
Sarasvati (the Goddess of Knowledge), arose to address the
Congress and, through it, the world. The electric effect on the
audience of the first words Swamiji spoke is well known.
Both Barrows and Houghton comment on the fact that "when
Mr. Vivekananda addressed the audience as `Sisters and
Brothers of America,' there arose a peal of applause that
lasted for several minutes."44 And Swamiji himself tells us
that, "a deafening applause of two minutes followed: '45
Another reference to this incident comes from Mrs. S. K.
Blodgett, who much later became Swamiji's hostess in Los
Angeles. "I was at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in
1893," she related. "When that young man got up and said,
`Sisters and Brothers of America,' seven [?] thousand people
rose to their feet as a tribute to something they knew not
what. When it was over I saw scores of women walking over
the benches to get near him, and I said to myself, `Well, my
lad, if you can resist that onslaught you are indeed a God!"' 46
194
(It is told in the Life that the night following the opening day
of the Parliament Swamiji, a guest at the time in a luxurious
home, wept from the depths of his heart over the poverty and
suffering of the Indian masses. This was his reaction to the
fame and power that were suddenly his.)
#

195
 As has been seen, however, the crowds had not sat glum
and silent until he spoke : they had cheered a few others
vociferously. As far as spiritual perceptiveness was
concerned, this audience was an average one, its spiritual
yearnings moving invisibly, even to itself, beneath layers of
material tradition. This was not India, where greatness has
but one meaning-spiritual greatness-and where, when it is
seen, it is understood. The audience of the Parliament, as a
whole, could not have known, .as Mrs. Blodgett says,
precisely why it cheered for Swamiji at his very first words.
In other cases there had been obvious reasons: political or
religious sympathy, previous knowledge of the speaker, or
atonement for national sin. In Swamiji's case there was
nothing like this, nor could the applause have been inspired
by his words alone, for sentiments of universal brotherhood
had been given voice throughout the whole morning and half
the afternoon. Was it not, rather, inspired by something
unspoken that came through Swamiji's words? Bearing in
mind that this was the first time he had addressed the great
American public and that he himself was strongly moved by
the occasion, one cannot but think that the deepest powers of
his nature were fully active as he stood there on the platform
and that the knowledge of his spiritual identity with that huge
crowd of men and women was paramount in his mind and
vibrant in his voice, communicating itself irresistibly to those
who saw and heard him. In short, it would not seem to be
going beyond the realm of fact to say that the spontaneous
and prolonged standing ovation that met Swamiji's first
words of greeting sprang from a source as deep as did those
words themselves and that the rapport that was immediately
196
created between himself and his audience betokened the real
significance of his visit to the West. This at least would seem
to have been the case, though few at the time may have been
aware of what force had so deeply stirred them.
The text of Swamiji's opening address as given in the
Complete Works is taken from Barrows's History of the
World's Parliament of Religions.47 But when one compares
this text with that
#

197
which appeared in the various Chicago newspapers the
following day, one finds the former lacking in a few respects.
None of the available papers, it is true, published the
complete text; but at least Four of them printed different parts
of it.48 Combining these, we can, I believe, arrive at what the
auditors may have actually heard from the lips of the
arrestingly handsome Hindu monk, whose first five simple
words had electrified them. After the applause had died
down, he went on:

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in

response to the grand words of welcome given to us by
you. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of
monks the world has ever seen, of which Gautama was
only a member. I thank you in the name of the Mother of
religions, of which Buddhism and Jainism are but
branches; and I thank you, finally, in the name of the
millions and millions of Hindoo people of all castes and
sects. My thanks also to some of the speakers on the
platform who have told you that these different men from
far-off nations will bear to the different lands the idea of
toleration which they may see here. My thanks to them
for this idea.
I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the
world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We
believe not only in universal tolerance but we accept all
religions to be true. I am proud to tell you that I belong to
a religion in whose sacred language, the Sanskrit, the
word exclusion is untranslatable. (Applause) I am proud
to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted
and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the
198
earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our
bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, a remnant of
which came to southern India and took refuge with us in
the very years in which their holy temple was shattered to
pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the
religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the
remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation.
#

199
 I will quote to you, brothers, a few lines from a hymn
which every Hindoo child repeats every day. I feel that
the very spirit of this hymn, which I remember to have
repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day
repeated by millions and millions of men in India, has at
last come to be realized. "As the different streams, having
their sources in different places, all mingle their water in
the sea; O Lord, so the different paths which men take
through different tendencies, various though they appear,
crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."
The present convention, which is one of the most
august assemblies ever held, is in itself an indication, a
declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine
preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through
whatsoever form I reach him, all are struggling through
paths that in the end always lead to Me." Sectarianism,
bigotry and its horrible descendant fanaticism, have
possessed long this beautiful earth. It has filled the earth
with violence, drenched it often and often with human
gore, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations into
despair. But its time has come, and I fervently believe
that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of the
representatives of the different religions of the earth, in
this parliament assembled, is the death-knell to all
fanaticism (applause), that it is the death-knell to all
persecution with the sword or the pen, and to all
uncharitable feelings between brethren wending their way
to the same goal, but through different ways.

200
 The applause that had punctuated Swamiji's talk thundered
out at its close. The people had recognized their hero and had
taken him to their hearts; thenceforth he was the star of the
Parliament.
Four talks followed Swamiji's address before the opening
day came to a close, making, throughout the morning and
afternoon sessions, twenty four talks in all. And now that the
#

201
foreign delegates and the American people had greeted one
another, the serious business of the Parliament could begin.

There are several contemporaneous descriptions and ap-

preciations of Swamiji quoted in the Life from various
journals and periodicals such as the Boston Evening
Transcript, the Rutherford American, the Interior Chicago,
and the Critic. Also one of the finest appraisals comes, as
readers of the Life will remember, from the Honorable Mr.
Merwin-Marie Snell, president of the Scientific Section, who
was to write of Swamiji as "beyond question the most
popular and influential man in the Parliament, . . . [who] on
all occasions . . . was received with greater enthusiasm than
any other speaker, Christian or `Pagan.' "49 A few more word
pictures of him can be given here, perhaps the most
interesting of which comes from the pen of Harriet Monroe,
who was later to found Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, through
which she introduced many of America's now famous poets.
Miss Monroe attended the World's Fair and years later in her
autobiography, A Poet’s Life, recorded her impressions of the
Parliament and of Swamiji:

The Congress of Religions was a triumph for all con-

cerned, especially for its generalissimo, the Reverend
John H. Barrows, of Chicago's First Presbyterian Church,
who had been preparing it for two years. When he
brought down his gavel upon the "world's first parliament
of religions" a wave of breathless silence swept over the
audience-it seemed a great moment in human history,
202
prophetic of the promised new era of tolerance and peace.
On the stage with him, at his left, was a black-coated
array of bishops and ministers representing the various
familiar Protestant sects and the Russian Orthodox and
Roman Catholic Churches; at his right a brilliant group of
#

203
 strangely costumed dignitaries from afar-a Confucian
from China, a Jain from India, a theosophist from Allaha-
bad, a white-robed Shinto priest and four Buddhists from
Japan, and a monk of the orange robe from Bombay.
It was the last of these, Swami Vivekananda, the
magnificent, who stole the whole show and captured the
town. Others of the foreign groups spoke well-the Greek,
the Russian, the Armenian, Mazoomdar of Calcutta,
Dharmapala of Ceylon-leaning, some of these upon in-
terpreters. Shibata, the Shintu, bowed his wired white
headdress to the ground, spread his delicate hands in
suave gestures, and uttered gravely with serene politeness
his incomprehensible words. But the handsome monk in
the orange robe gave us in perfect English a masterpiece.
His personality, dominant, magnetic; his voice, rich as a
bronze bell; the controlled fervor of his feeling; the
beauty of his message to the Western world he was facing
for the first time-these combined to give us a rare and
perfect moment of supreme emotion. It was human
eloquence at its highest pitch. 50

While it is gratifying to read descriptions from the pen of a

poet, poets themselves are often beset with poetic melancholy
at the evanescence of perfection. In this case it was a
melancholy not justified. Miss Monroe goes on to muse:

One cannot repeat a perfect moment-the futility of

trying to has been almost a superstition with me. Thus I
made no effort to hear Vivekananda speak again, during
that autumn and winter when he was making converts by

204
 the score to his hope of uniting East and West in a world
religion above the tumult of controversy. 51

Another picture of Swamiji on the opening day comes

from the Chicago Times of September 12. Although the
Times employed the stratagem of attributing Swamiji's
immense popu-
#

205
larity to the effect his handsome and colorful appearance had
upon the ladies (a ploy that was to become threadbare with
use), the reporter nonetheless described him well:

The face and dress which attracted the most notice,

especially from the ladies, was that of Swami
Vivekananda, a young man exceptionally handsome and
with features that would command attention anywhere.
His dress was bright orange, and he wore a long coat and
regulation turban of that color. Vivekananda is a Brahmin
monk, and Prof. Wright of Harvard is quoted as saying
that he is one of the best educated men in the world.

Still another description of Swamiji comes from the

Chicago Advocate, a journal that was also not entirely
favorable to him. Although the following paragraph from the
issue of September 28 refers to the second week of the
Parliament, the picture it paints is no doubt applicable to the
opening day as well:

In certain respects the most fascinating personality was

the Brahmin monk, Suami Vivakananda with his flowing
orange robe, saffron turban, smooth-shaven, shapely,
handsome face, large, dark subtle penetrating eye, and
with the air of one being inly-pleased with the conscious-
ness of being easily master of his situation. His
knowledge of English is as though it were his mother
tongue.

The correspondent of the Boston Evening Transcript found

a way to meet the delegates of the Parliament behind the
206
scenes, and it is to him that we owe a more intimate
description of Swamiji. His article, as published in the
Transcript on September 30, 1893, is given here in full:

Chicago, Sept. 23.

There is a room at the left of the entrance to the Art

Palace marked "No. I-keep out." To this the speakers
#

207
at the Congress of Religions all repair sooner or later,
either to talk with one another or with President Bonney,
whose private office is in one corner of the apartment.
The folding doors are jealously guarded from the general
public, usually standing far enough apart to allow
peeping in. Only delegates are supposed to penetrate the
sacred precincts, but it is not impossible to obtain an
"open sesame," and thus to enjoy a brief opportunity of
closer relations with the distinguished guests than the
platform in the Hall of Columbus affords.
The most striking figure one meets in this anteroom is
Swami Vivekananda, the Brahmin monk. He is a large,
well-built man, with the superb carriage of the Hin-
dustanis, his face clean shaven, squarely moulded regular
features, white teeth, and with well-chiselled lips that are
usually parted in a benevolent smile while he is
conversing. His finely poised head is crowned with either
a lemon colored or a red turban, and his cassock (not the
technical name for this garment), belted in at the waist
and falling below the knees, alternates in a bright orange
and rich crimson. He speaks excellent English and replied
readily to any questions asked in sincerity.
Along with his simplicity of manner there is a touch of
personal reserve when speaking to ladies, which suggests
his chosen vocation. When questioned about the laws of
his order, he has said, "I can do as I please, I am in-
dependent. Sometimes I live in the Himalaya Mountains,
and sometimes in the streets of cities. I never know where
I will get my next meal, I never keep money with me. I
come here by subscription." Then looking round at one or
two of his fellow-countrymen who chanced to be stand-
208
ing near he added, "They will take care of me," giving the
inference that his board bill in Chicago is attended to by
others. When asked if he was wearing his usual monk's
costume, he said, "This is a good dress; when I am home
I am in rags, and I. go barefooted. Do I believe in caste?
#

209
Caste is a social custom; religion has nothing to do with
it; all castes will associate with me."
It is quite apparent, however, from the deportment, the
general appearance of Mr. Vivekananda that he was born
among high castes-years of voluntary poverty and home-
less wanderings have not robbed him of his birthright of
gentleman; even his family name is unknown; he took
that of Vivekananda in embracing a religious career, and
"Swami" is merely the title of reverend accorded to him.
He cannot be far along in the thirties, and looks as if
made for this life and its fruition, as well as for
meditation on the life beyond. One cannot help
wondering what could have been the turning point with
him.
, "Why should I marry," was his abrupt response to a
comment on all he had renounced in becoming a monk,
"when I see in every woman only the divine Mother?
Why do I make all these sacrifices? To emancipate
myself from earthly ties and attachments so that there
will be no re-birth for me. When I die I want to become at
once absorbed in the divine, one with God. I would be a
Buddha."
Vivekananda does not mean by this that he is a Bud-
dhist. No name or sect can label him. He is an outcome of
the higher Brahminism, a product of the Hindu spirit,
which is vast, dreamy, self extinguishing, a Sanyasi or
holy man.
He has some pamphlets that he distributes, relating to
his master, Paramhansa Ramakrishna, a Hindu devotee,
who so impressed his hearers and pupils that many of
210
them became ascetics after his death. Mozoomdar also
looked upon this saint as his master, but Mozoomdar
works for holiness in the world, in it but not of it, as Jesus
taught.
Vivekananda's address before the parliament was
broad as the heavens above us, embracing the best in all
religions, as the ultimate universal religion-charity to all
mankind,
#

211
 good works for the love of God, not for fear of
punishment or hope of reward. He is a great favorite at
the parliament, from the grandeur of his sentiments and
his appearance as well. If he merely crosses the platform
he is applauded, and this marked approval of thousands
he accepts in a childlike spirit of gratification, without a
trace of conceit. It must be a strange experience too for
this humble young Brahmin monk, this sudden transition
from poverty and self effacement to affluence and
aggrandizement. When asked if he knew anything of
those brothers in the Himalayas so firmly believed in by
the Theosophists, he answered with the simple statement,
"I have never met one of them," as much as to imply,
"There may be such persons, but though I am at home in
the Himalayas, I have yet to come across them."

Aside from being able to give word pictures of Swamiji,

we are fortunate enough to have recently discovered one of
the first likenesses of him in America-an unposed snapshot,
taken, it can be reasonably assumed, in the room marked "No.
I keep out:‖ Perhaps it is not so clear as one would like his
pictures to be, but it nonetheless belongs in his history and is
here reproduced.
In a letter dated November 2, 1893, Swamiji asked his
Madras disciple Alasinga Perumal for information regarding
a Madras boy called Narasimhacharya, who "has cropped up
in our midst " "He has been loafing about the city for the last
three years," he wrote. "Loafing or no loafing, I like him, but
please write to me all about him, if you know, anything. He
knows you. He came in the year of the Paris Exhibition
[1889] to Europe."
212
 This "boy called Narasimhacharya" is without question the
same Narasimhacharya who is pictured peering intently over
Swamiji's shoulder in the photograph mentioned above and
who was described in the Boston Evening Transcript as
"often seen in the ante-room, leaning with graceful abandon
on the
#

213
table in the center of the room, his bright boyish face lighting
up as he freely airs his opinions upon the Indian civilisation
and ours." He was a "loafer" to be sure-" `an itinerant Hindu,'
as he laughingly styles himself,"-but a loafer of undoubted
charm and a good deal of wit and spirit. In answer to
Swamiji's request for information regarding him, Alasinga
wrote a long biographical letter which told that Narasimha-
charya was a prodigal son on whose account his mother had
shed many tears. The letter followed Swamiji about from
place to place in his later lecture tour and did not catch up
with him until long after Narasimhacharya had been lost sight
of. In the meantime, Narasimha, moving about the United
States, found himself stranded for a time in Nashville,
Tennessee. In February of 1894 he wrote to Swamiji on hotel
notepaper:

I have come here, & without being able to get out am

stopping and I would be very much obliged if you would
kindly send me $50, so that I can fix the whole thing &
come over to Chicago from which place, I shall go back
home. Please do so at once as I am in trouble. 52

Fifty dollars in those days was no trifling amount. On

February 14, Swamiji forwarded the above note from Detroit
(where he was then staying) to Mrs. Hale, with the question
"What do you advise Mother?" written on its back. Mrs. Hale
evidently advised that the money be sent to Narasimha, but
that was not the end of it. Three months or so later Swamiji
wrote to Alasinga, "[Narasimha] wrote to me for help in the
last stage, and I will try to help him as much as is in my
power. Meanwhile you tell his people to send money as soon
214
as they can for him to go over. . . . He is in sore distress. Of
course I will see that he does not starve."53 But it can come as
no surprise to those who know Swamiji's nature that during
the rushed days of the Parliament and for long afterward he
tried to take care of a charming wastrel who somehow, one
cannot imagine how, had become a delegate to the dignified
Parlia-
#

215
ment of Religions, at which he represented "the Sri
Vaishnava Sect and the Visishtadwaiti [sic] Philosophy."
Another description of Swamiji comes from Sister Deva-
mata's "Memories of India and Indians," where one reads of
the Swedenborgian minister who was among those deeply
impressed by him. Telling of her first knowledge of one
whose lectures and classes were later to transform her life,
Devamata wrote;

My mother, sister and I had spent the month of June at

the Great Fair of 1893 in Chicago, and we were planning
to return for the Congress of Religions in the autumn on
our way to Japan and the Orient. A death in the family
brought our journey to a halt in a little town in Ohio.
Soon after our arrival the Swedenborgian minister, as a
courtesy to strangers, invited us to dine with him. We
went. The minister himself met us at the door, his face
aglow with enthusiasm. He had just returned from the
Congress of Religions and he could talk of nothing else.
He described at length the various sessions of the Con-
gress, dwelling with emphasis on this delegate or that.
"But," he continued, "there was one speaker who stood
out above all others, because of his learning, his
eloquence and his impressive personality. No other could
compare with him except two or three Roman Catholic
prelates, and they had sent their best men: ' He paused,
leaving his brilliant figure without name or nationality.
"Who was he?" I asked eagerly. The minister replied
quietly; "A Hindu-Swami Vivekananda."54

216
 It can be noted here in passing that Swamiji came to be
generally known, among other things, as a "Brahmin monk."
This was no doubt due to expediency on the part of the news-
paper reporters, to whom, as to most Americans in that age,
"a Brahmin" was synonymous with "a high caste Hindu who
was a religious teacher." It was a careless but forgivable error
#

217
and one which Swamiji could not have corrected. The term
"Kshatriya," the caste to which he belonged, would not only
have conveyed nothing to the public, but would have been a
bete noire to the press. "Brahmin" was bad enough. As a
matter of fact, Swamiji acquired a sizable assortment of
epithets during his stay in America, being known variously as
the "Indian Rajah," "The High Priest of Brahma," "The
Buddhist Priest ", "Theosophist," and so on. Anything that
conveyed the idea to the public that he was noble, religious,
and Indian sufficed for a headline. Later, however, Swamiji's
enemies made capital out of these casual and typically
American errors, imputing to him a deliberate
misrepresentation of his status.

A picture of Swamiji at the Parliament would not be com-

plete without some knowledge of his activities outside the
plenary sessions, which by no means occupied his entire
time. These days were strenuous for the delegates. Papers
were read not only at the Parliament proper, but at side
meetings. It is known, for instance, that Swamiji spoke at
least four times at the erudite Scientific Section, which, as has
been said, was opened on the fifth day. * It is a great
misfortune that these talks are missing from all known reports
of the Parliament; their dates and tides, however, are given by
Barrows; On the morning of Friday, September 22, Swamiji
addressed the Section and conducted a "Conference on
Orthodox Hinduism and the Vedanta Philosophy"; that
afternoon he and Mr. Merwin-Marie Snell conducted a
"Conference on the Modern Religions of India"; the
following day, Swamiji again addressed the Section and then
conducted a "Conference on the subject of the Rinzai Zen of
218
Japanese Buddhism"; on Monday afternoon, September 25,
he spoke on "The Essence of the Hindu Religion."55
It was the purpose of the Scientific Section to study and
compare the religions of the world from a technical point of
view, and here Swamiji must have spoken of India's religion
in philosophical and historical detail, as he seldom did
elsewhere
#

219
during this period. At the more popular sessions of the Parlia-
ment, and also later during his tour through the United States,
he deliberately couched his message in language as simple
and untechnical as possible, for his intention was to reach the
people with words and ideas meaningful to all. He was a
World Teacher, not a pedant. But when the occasion called
for a scholarly presentation of Hinduism, as it did at the
Scientific Section, where sharp-minded philosophers,
theologians, and scholars came to learn and perhaps to
challenge, he very likely gave as much rein to his vast
learning as was necessary, both in his talks and in the lengthy
and animated discussions that followed. In any event, it is
clear from the following report from the Chicago Inter Ocean
of September 23 that his replies to the questions with which
he was deluged were, to say the least, adequate:

In the Scientific Section yesterday morning Swami

Vivekananda spoke on "Orthodox Hinduism." Hall 3 was
crowded to overflowing and hundreds of questions were
asked by auditors and answered by the great Sannyasi
with wonderful skill and lucidity. At the close of the
session he was thronged with eager questioners who
begged him to give a semi-public lecture somewhere on
the subject of his religion. He said that he already had the
project under consideration.

An additional description of this same session of the

Scientific Section appeared in a paper called the Messenger.
(The following quotation from this paper, the date and origin
of which I have not been able to trace, appears in B. S.

220
Sharma's Swami Vivekananda-A Forgotten Chapter of His
Life.)
Another session held on Friday morning [September
22] was devoted to orthodox Hinduism. Swami
Vivekananda, a Brahmin Sanyasi or monk, spoke of the
teachings of his religion and answered questions put by
the audience.
#

221
 Hundreds of questions were asked by men and women
of various creeds, Catholics, Protestants, Clergymen,
Theosophists, nationalists, etc. The hall was crowded and
immense enthusiasm prevailed; and yet between this
heterogeneous audience and this pagan teacher there was
no disagreeable friction whatever.56

On page 200 of volume eight of the Complete Works is a

report of a lecture entitled "The Love of God," which
Swamiji delivered on Sunday, September 24, at the Third
Unitarian Church, and which may have been the semipublic
lecture he had been requested to give. This lecture was the
first he delivered from a Unitarian pulpit and marked the
beginning of a hospitality on the part of Unitarian ministers
that was to stand the American public in good stead,
Unitarian pulpits being almost the only ones in America open
to a Hindu monk particularly to a Hindu monk as forthright
as Swamiji. The above-mentioned report, taken from the
Chicago Herald of September 25, has not been reproduced
in full in the Complete Works, and as the omitted portion
gives an insight into the stance that was necessary for the
Unitarian minister of the Midwest to take in connection with
Swamiji, that portion is given here:

The pastor, Rev. Mr. Blake, said that he was glad to

invite Mr. Vivekenanda into his pulpit and to introduce
him, believing still in the faith of his fathers. Rev. Mr.
Blake said he would turn his hand neither one way or the
other to make such a man a Christian. He would do all he
could to make such a man think for himself along the
222
 lines of the exalted spiritual conceptions which he had
acquired.

But to return to the busy days of the Parliament: apart from

the extraplenary sessions, the hospitality which the leading
citizens of Chicago offered the delegates allowed them little
#

223
 rest. Enormous receptions were held after the close of some
of the afternoon and evening sessions, and smaller parties
were given throughout the two weeks.
Along with the other foreign delegates, Swamiji was
officially introduced to American society on the evening of
the opening day of the Parliament at a huge reception held by
the Reverend Mr. Barrows at the home of Mr. and Mrs. A. C.
Bartlett-a great stone mansion, the rooms of which had been
decorated with many hundreds of flags. On the second
evening an even larger reception was given by President
Bonney for all the delegates in the decorated upper floor and
halls of the Art Institute, where thousands milled about to the
strains of a mandolin orchestra. On the following Thursday,
the fourth evening, Mrs. Potter Palmer, president of the Lady
Managers of the Fair and the unquestioned queen of
Chicago's social and cultural life, whom Swamiji later spoke
of as having been very kind to him in America, entertained
the members of the Parliament at the Woman's Building in
the Exposition grounds. Here electric launches (an innovation
in those days) were provided to carry the foreign delegates-
probably Swamiji among them-through the Fair's lagoons,
that they might witness "the beautiful illuminations in the
Court of Honor." Edison's newly perfected light bulbs,
glowing magically and reflected in the dark waters, were no
doubt a sight to behold. Indeed they called forth rhapsodies of
prose: "After dark any night a walk about the court-of honor
is like walking through the nebulae of aurora borealis. Light,
light, light in every conceivable gradation or vagary of color.
Search-lights leaping through mists of liquid white, soft rose
and violet, pale gold and deep sky blue, green that seems

224
alive and growing and streaks of red like fountain sprays of
blood. . . ."57
(It may be noted here in passing that the delegates, as such,
also saw the Fair Grounds in the daytime. On the morning of
September 20 many of them took off from the Parliament "in
advance of the religious demonstrations [that] afternoon
when a representative of each faith in the world, beginning
with the
#

225
most ancient [Hinduism?], will sound the new liberty belt in
the name of peace, unity, liberty and religion, at the same
time repeating a silent prayer to their respective divinities,
asking for a blessing of the bell.")58
The receptions went on. On the evening of Friday, Sep-
tember 15, Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer entertained, among
others, the foreign delegates at their huge castlelike mansion
at 100 Lake Shore Drive, and the following afternoon, "the
handsome home of Mr. and Mrs. E. W. Blatchford at No. 375
LaSalle Avenue was . . . the scene of another of those cosmo-
politan gatherings which shall make the social history of the
last week memorable for many years to come."59 It was a gala
affair, at which everyone of any importance seems to have
been present and to have received an enthusiastic welcome.
But the "delegates moat sought were those in the quaint,
picturesque costumes of the Orient.... Those reverend
gentlemen from the far-off East were always surrounded by
anxious listeners, and the hours of receiving were all too
short. . . : '60
At Mrs. Palmer's reception at the Woman's Building on the
evening of September 14, Swamiji is said to have given a
brief talk on the condition of women in India. "It was Mrs.
Palmer's earnest wish," writes Barrows, "to secure authorita-
tive statements with regard to the condition of women in
other lands, and appropriate addresses in response to her
desires were made by the Archbishop of Zante, Hon. Pung
Kwang Yu, Mr. Dharmapala, Mr. Mazoomdar, and Mr.
Vivekananda: '61 These talks evidently pleased Mrs. Pahner
very much indeed, for on the afternoon of Friday, September
22, a repeat performance, so to speak, was held in Hall 7 of
the Art Institute. According to reports in the Chicago
226
Tribune, the Chicago Inter Ocean and several other Chicago
newspapers, Hall 7 was crowded to discomfort that afternoon,
and all of the "bright-robed delegates,"62 who occupied the
platform with Mrs. Potter Palmer and Mrs. Charles Henrotin,
made it very clear that the condition of women in the East
was not at all
#

227
what Westerners had been led to believe. Swamiji, for one,
said in part:

. . . The idea of perfect womanhood is perfect indepen-

dence. The central idea of the life of a modern Hindu lady
is her chastity. The wife is the centre of a circle, the fixity
of which depends upon her chastity. . . . The Hindu
women are very spiritual and very religious, perhaps
more so than any other women in the world. If we can
preserve these beautiful characteristics and at the same
time develop the intellects of our women, the Hindu
woman of the Future will be the ideal woman of the
world!63

This had been a crowded day for Swamiji. He had spoken

both morning and afternoon at the Scientific Section, where
many questions had been asked him, and had then somehow
managed to be present at Mrs. Palmer's special session on
women. The following day, September 24, was equally
crowded. In addition to speaking again at least once, and
possibly twice, at the Scientific Section, he spoke at an after-
noon session of the Universal Religious Unity Congress. It is
true that his talk before this congress, as quoted in the
Chicago papers (and in volume eight of the Complete Works),
seems to have been brief, yet one cannot but remember that
hie appearance at such sessions involved not only speaking,
but sitting and listening-at times endlessly. Nor was the
brevity of Swamiji's talk before the Religious Unity Congress
any measure of the force behind it or of its impact. The few
sentences that have come down to us constitute a treatise on
comparative ethics that must have shattered the more
228
complacent among his Christian brothers. Yet he spoke
quietly:

. . . Much has been said for [the brotherhood of man]

as being a natural condition, since we are all children of
one God. Now, there are sects that do not admit of the
existence of God-that 9s, a Personal God. Unless we wish
#

229
 to leave those sects out in the cold-and in that case our
brotherhood will not be universal we must have our plat-
form broad enough to embrace all mankind. It has been
said here that we should do good to our fellowmen,
because every bad or mean deed reacts on the doer. This
appears to me to savour of the shopkeeper-ourselves first,
our brothers afterwards, I think we should love our
brother whether we believe in the universal fatherhood of
God or not, because every religion and every creed
recognises man as divine, and you should do him no
harm that you might not injure that which is divine in
him.64

Thus it was the "heathen" who pointed out to his Christian

brethren the universal basis for religious unity among men -
not vice versa.
The grand receptions, the smaller dinners and suppers that
must have been given for the delegates, the auxiliary
sessions, and outside talks were like frills on the main Fabric
of the Parliament, but very likely these extras were in
themselves enough to open Chicago to Swamiji, for through
them there could have been few Chicagoans whom he did not
meet and charm. Indeed he was said to be "one of the most
popular of guests in Chicago drawing-rooms."65 Years later
Prince Woltonsky, a free-lance delegate from Russia,
commented to Albert Spalding, the famous violinist, on
Swamiji's popularity. In Spalding's autobiography, Rise to
Follow, one finds the following passage:

Wolkonsky was a delightful conversationalist. I found

that he knew my country, having represented Russia in
230
the Congress of Religions at the Chicago World's Fair of
18gg. I asked him whether by any chance he had met
Swami Vivekananda there, Oh, yes, he had, and For some
time afterward the two had maintained an active cor-
respondence. But how was it that I came to speak of him?
I was, after all, much too young to have remembered. . . .
#

231
 I explained that my family had been acquainted with
the Swami and had often talked about him.
"He made a-what do you call it?-sensational `hit' in
your country," said Wolkonsky, "especially with the
Chicago ladies. Ah, those Chicago ladies! They seemed
to take life-and incidentally themselves-very seriously."66

The Chicago ladies were, as were the women throughout

America, asserting themselves in a new-found independence.
Indeed, the Exposition's Board of Lady Managers, which was
made up of representatives from every state, was considered
quite an innovation and was no less a cause of general
wonder than the array of new inventions presented by the
Fair. Never before had women been appointed to an
executive position, and they were determined to prove
themselves worthy of this honor. Perhaps it was precisely
because the women of the 1890s took life and themselves so
seriously that they took Swamiji seriously, instinctively
finding in him a symbol of the freedom and dignity which
they knew to be their birthright and which they were
inexorably winning for themselves. From the very start,
Swamiji's Christian opponents attributed his tremendous
popularity among the American women to the brilliant color
of his robe and turban. The fact was, however, that women
had taken over the cultural life of the nation. While the men
attended to mating money hand over fist, the women saw to it
that the country did not thereby become brutalized. Although
American women still had no economic freedom or political
voice, their position was, on the whole and for that age, an
exalted one. "Nowhere were they more honored and
232
protected, nowhere given wider scope for the employment of
their talents and virtues," Henry Steele Commanger wrote of
the late nineteenth-century American woman. "In all matters
of church and school, women took the lead. . . . Women not
only controlled education and religion but largely dictated the
standards of literature and art and clothed culture so
ostentatiously in feminine garb that the term itself came to
have connotations
#

233
of effeminacy."67 Swamiji could not say enough in his letters
to India of these American "goddesses: ' "Nowhere in the
world are women like those of this country," he wrote. "How
pure, independent, self relying and kind-hearted! It is the
women who are the life and soul of this country. All learning
and culture are centered in them. . . . I am struck dumb with
wonder at seeing the women of America. . . ."68
Although the women, generally speaking, may have given
more expression than the men to their admiration of Swamiji
-for women were intent upon expressing themselves-men and
women alike were drawn to him as to a magnet. The
descriptions we have of Swamiji at the Parliament of
Religions show him as colorful and dynamic, dominating the
scene with the force of his personality and the utter purity of
his message. He was glowing with the vigor of his youth,
ready to face the entire world and to sacrifice his life for "the
poor, the ignorant, the oppressed" of his motherland. And
there was yet another reason for his phenomenal popularity.
Never before had the people of America seen one in whom
spiritual truths had been fully realized. Though Swamiji's
towering spiritual eminence was not consciously recognized
by the hundreds who, as he later reminisced, "jostled with
one another in the streets of Chicago to have a sight of this
Vivekananda," who flocked to hear him speak, who waited
interminable hours for even a few words, and who applauded
him when he simply crossed the platform, the people through
some inner knowledge seemed unerringly to recognize him
for what he was and, from start to finish, instinctively to
sense that his very presence conferred a blessing. "Darshan"
was unheard of in America, but here at the Parliament was a

234
spontaneous and unconscious manifestation of the attraction
of the human soul to the spiritually great.
But let us turn now to the Parliament itself as it progressed
through its seventeen days.
#

235
 4

For the most part each day was divided into three sessions
lasting from two and a half to three hours each. At the
opening of each morning session the presiding chairman-
there was a different one for each session-"invited the
assembly, rising, to invoke, in silence, the blessing of God on
the day's proceedings; then, while the assembly remained
standing, (a chosen member of the Parliament) led in `the
Universal Prayer,' `Our Father which art in Heaven.' "69 Talks
by the delegates were limited to half an hour apiece, but this
ruling was at times relaxed, for the crowd had its favorites
and would brook no interference with them. The greatest
favorite, of course, was Swamiji; and it is well known how
the attraction of the crowd for him, embarrassing as it may
have been to some of the defenders of Christianity, was used
to good advantage. From the Boston Evening Transcript we
know, for instance, that "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."70 In a letter to India
Swamiji himself remarked upon this trick of saving the best
until the last,71 and recently we have come across other
accounts of the stratagem. One of these is given by Virchand
Gandhi, the Jain delegate, in the January 1895 issue of the
Arena, an American periodical now defunct but once widely
read, which described itself as "A Monthly Review of Social
Advance":

236
 . . . at the Parliament of Religions . . . it was a fact that
at least a third and sometimes two-thirds of the great
audience of Columbus Hall would make a rush for the
exits when a fine orator from India had closed his speech.
It was even a very noticeable fact that, long before the
close of the Parliament, some of my countrymen, made
popular by the Parliament, were used as a drawing card to
hold the great audiences, and in this way thousands
#

237
 were compelled to sit and listen to long, dry, prosy papers
by Christians. They showed plainly that they were not
interested, but there they sat enduring with much mur-
muring, expecting the next speaker might be one of the
popular Orientals whose name was usually first on the
bulletin board....
The allusion no doubt included Swamiji, and the following
account from the . Northampton Daily Herald of April 11,
1894, leaves no question regarding the matter:

. . . At the Parliament of Religions Vivekananda was

not allowed to speak until the close of the programme,
the purpose being to make the people stay until the end of
the session. On a warm day when some prosy professor
talked too long, and people would leave the hall by
hundreds, it only needed the announcement that Vivek-
ananda would give a short address before the benediction
was pronounced to hold the vast audience intact, and
thousands would wait for hours to hear a fifteen minutes
talk from this remarkable man.

Even the assurance of Swamiji's appearance on the

platform could rescue a dull session. As early as the evening
of the third day, for instance, a session of three papers by
orthodox Christian ministers was saved by the device of
making Swamiji the chairman?72 Whether or not he spoke a
few words that evening is not recorded, but one can be almost
certain that the audience remained seated in hopes that he
would. Again, on the fifth day at the end of a long afternoon
session, during which three learned papers had been read,
"Swami Vivekananda, a royal looking Hindoo gorgeous in
238
his golden turban, and who has come to be known as the
`Prince of gentlemen in the orange garb,' was called upon" (as
the audience may well have been promised he would be). 73
Swamiji amiably responded with a fable that brought forth
laughter and applause. In brief, there
#

239
was a fat, pompous, self satisfied little frog, who thought the
well in which he lived comprised the universe: nothing could
possibly be bigger, and no one could persuade him to the
contrary. "And that," said Swamiji, "has been the difficulty
all along."

I am a Hindu [he continued]. I am sitting in my own

little well and thinking that the whole world is my well.
The Christian sits in his little well and thinks the whole
world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little well
and thinks the whole world that.74

Officially the Parliament was not intended to be a contro-

versy but, rather, a symposium of all the faiths of the world.
The subjects presented were divided into two categories. The
first comprised speculative and abstract topics; the nature of
God, the nature of man, the importance of religion,
revelation, the Divine Incarnation, immortality, and so forth.
Such subjects were discussed from the second to the tenth
day. Then, the metaphysical doctrines of the various faiths
having been made clear, the remaining seven days of the
Parliament were devoted to papers bearing upon the second
category of subjects, namely, the relation of religion to
practical social problems, such as family life, the arts and
sciences, the love of mankind, morals, Christian missionary
methods, and so on.
During the first ten days of the Parliament every religion
had its say. A paper by Manilal N. Dvivedi gave a technical
exposition of Hinduism and Indian philosophy. Dharmapala
of the Maha-Bodhi Society in Calcutta defined Buddhism in
all its aspects. Confucianism, Shintoism, Japanese Buddhism,
240
Mohammedanism, Judaism, and many other religious
doctrines were expounded and reexpounded. And, as students
of Swamiji's life well know, he not only explained the
teachings of his faith in his paper on Hinduism, but made
them come alive as eternal truths pertinent to all people
everywhere.
No doubt some members of the audience had come expect-
#

241
ing to hear strange and weird beliefs regarding idolatry, blood
sacrifice, and polytheism, for the popular conception, fed by
missionary propaganda, was that the Oriental lands were rife
with dark and unholy practices. As the Chicago Evening
Journal of September 14 editorialized: "Very few people in
this country have any knowledge of the religions of the
Orient. . . . The common impression is that the natives of
India, China, and Japan belong to semi-civilized races and
worship idols. That is enough. The religious classification is
simple, and the race classification is highly gratifying to our
own sense of superiority." But by the time the first half of the
Parliament was over that sense of superiority had been deeply
undermined and many hitherto fast-embedded
misconceptions regarding Eastern religions had been
uprooted. Not only Swamiji's paper on Hinduism, but other
papers as well served to clarify hazy popular notions
concerning, among other things, idolatry. In an article on
Barrows's book, The World's Parliament of Religions, the
Review of Reviews for March 1894 reflected the change of
attitude that was brought about on at least this one point:

The book contains many pictures of idols such as one

mostly finds in missionary literature. There they are in-
tended to excite the horror and pity of the Christian
reader. Here the attitude to idolatrous religions is
avowedly sympathetic rather than critical; but one can
scarcely escape a twinge of the old feeling at a sight of
the fantastic objects of worship. Nevertheless, the popular
Protestant notion of idolatry was emphatically repudiated
by those who spoke in the name of image-worshippers?75

242
 In substantiation of this, the article quotes briefly from the
papers of Dvivedi and J. J. Modi, a Parsi of Bombay, and
then goes on to quote at length from Swamiji's "noble
address." Among other photographs that illustrate this article
is one of Swamiji in profile.
The change in the popular attitude toward Eastern religions
#

243
was also reflected in other contemporary journals and period-
icals. The Christian Herald of October 11 noted:

From the Parliament of Religions which has just closed

its sessions in Chicago two significant and important re-
sults have come. First we have learned from the addresses
delivered by representatives of many religions, especially
those of Asia, that the leaders of these faiths have
generally the same aim as that of the Christian preacher.
They are seeking in their way to eradicate sin and vice, to
ennoble and purify the lives of men and to encourage
kindness, charity and helpfulness. Thus, so far as
morality is concerned, they are allies rather than
opponents of Christianity.

The thing that strikes us with something of a shock today is

that this was news. The Outlook of October 7 made an even
more profound discovery:

The relations of the ethnic religions to Christianity are,

in every phase of these meetings at Chicago, forced more
and more into prominence, as the strong personalities of
the men who represent Brahmanism, Buddhism, Con-
fucianism, Shintoism, press themselves upon the listening
thousands; their seriousness, devoutness, and spirituality,
as they sit side by side with Greek, Anglican, German,
and American Churchmen, precludes the thought that
their religions are ancient shades which will fall or melt
into mist as the triumphant light of Christianity shines
through them. The representatives of the Hindu cults, in
particular, are no men of straw, and through their eyes
244
Christians have looked, many perhaps for the first time,
into the depths of religions which for thousands of years
have not only occupied the minds of philosophers, but
have formed the ethical codes and directed the Godward
aspirations of millions and millions of human beings.
#

245
 During the first ten days of the Parliament the full range of
Christian conviction was also expounded. Although the prin-
ciples of universal toleration for which, ideally, the
Parliament stood were earnestly and well expressed by some
of the Christian delegates, the notion that a universal religion
meant nothing other than a universal acceptance of
Christianity not only insinuated itself into the proceedings,
but was sounded forth in unabashed oratory. An example or
two may indicate something of the general trend.
On the afternoon of the third day of the Parliament, a
Reverend Frank Bristol read a paper by the Reverend Thomas
Ebenezer Slater, of the London Missionary Society,
Evangelist to educated Hindus, entitled "Concession to
Native Ideas,. having Special Reference to Hinduism." It may
be worth noting here that the Reverend Mr. Slater had written
a book called Studies of the Upanishads, in which he had
stated: "The Vedanta, the highest conclusion of Indian
thought, is based on a mistaken and pessimistic view of life;
on a formulated dogma unsupported by any evidence and
untaught in the hymns of the Rig-Veda: the whole an
elaborate and subtle process of false reasoning." In his paper
at the Parliament the Reverend T. E. Slater conceded to
native ideas the fact that they were based on a search of the
human spirit for the Divine. "The Vedas," he wrote, "present
`a shifting play of lights and shadows; sometimes the light
seems to grow brighter, but the day never comes.' For, on
examining them we note a remarkable fact. While they show
that the spiritual needs and aspirations of humanity are the
same . . . we fail to find a single text that purports to be a
Divine answer to prayer, an explicit promise of Divine
246
forgiveness, an expression of experienced peace and delight
in God, as the result of assured pardon and reconciliation.
There is no realization of ideas. The Bible alone is the Book
of Divine Promise-the revelations of the `exceeding riches of
God's grace' . . . for this reason it is unique."76 And so on.
On the fourth day, the Reverend Joseph Cook from Boston,
#

247
a doughty man with fuzzy sideburns, gave a talk on "Strategic
Certainties of Comparative Religion." The Reverend Mr.
Cook was a popular and well-known lecturer who belonged
to no particular denomination-"the servant," as he said, "of no
clique or clan." He had delivered talks throughout the world,
and his "Boston Monday Lectures" had been widely pub-
lished. It can be said that he represented the far right of
Christian evangelism and was proud of it. But he was some-
thing of an embarrassment to the Parliament authorities. The
Open Court, a weekly journal, later editorialized:

It was a humiliating fact to the liberal and tolerant

Christian to find that the first discordant note sounded at
the Parliament of Religions-the first manifestation of
bigotry and ill-will-was made, not by a Pagan,
Mahommedan, or Jew, but by a Christian. All were
courteous, tolerant, and charitable in utterance and
demeanor till the Rev. Joseph Cook, of Boston, took the
platform.77

Mr. Cook's performance was bigotry undisguised and on

the rampage. According to a report of his talk in the Chicago
Tribune, the Reverend made the "platform tremble with the
weight of three hundred pounds of orthodoxy," and the
speaker's desk to "totter as the sturdy New England fist smote
it," and as he "thundered and tramped to and fro upon the
stage pouring out a torrent of denunciations with face red
with the vehemence of his utterances."78 Those utterances
consisted of one theme repeated over and over obsessively. It
was in brief this: "It is clear that we cannot escape from
conscience and God and our record of sin. It is a certainty and
248
a strategic certainty that, except Christianity, there is no
religion under heaven or among men that effectively provides
for the peace of the soul by its harmonization with itself, its
God, and its record of sin."79 The Reverend Mr. Cook
concluded his talk with a poem that he wanted to have
engraved on his tombstone.
#

249
Space does not permit quoting the entire poem here, but per-
haps two stanzas will suffice:

Endless sin means endless woe.

Into endless sin I go,
If my soul, from reason rent,
Takes from sin its final bent.

Balance lost, but not regained,

Final bent is soon attained.
Fate is choice in fullest flower.
Man is flexile-for an hour!80

The Rev. Mr. Cook's obsession with sin and lurking

damnation was representative of what in that day was given
out as religion by a large part of the Christian clergy. It is
important to understand this, for one cannot otherwise
appreciate, on the one hand, the shock with which some
sections of the audience must have heard Swamiji's ringing
words, "Ye divinities on earth-sinners? It is a sin to call a
man so. It is a standing libel on human nature,"81 and, on the
other hand, the enthusiastic approval of other sections. A
stanza of a poem which appeared in the Open Court of
October 12 reflects the latter reaction. The poem was entitled
"Aunt Hannah on the Parliament of Religions," which
accounts for its dialect:

250
 Then I heered th' han'some Hindu monk, drest up in
orange dress,
Who sed that all humanity was part of God-no less,
An' he said we was not sinners, so I comfort took once
more, While th' Parl'ment of Religions roared with
approving roar.
This approving roar seriously alarmed many a Christian
missionary. Later an attempt was made to set matters straight.
#

251
"The Swami by his denial of sin," the missionaries explained,
"shows that he knows nothing of true religion, and that he is a
teacher of deadly error. Woe! woe! to those who follow a
blind guide to their own destruction."82
Although many of the doctrines of Eastern religions that
had been expounded during the first week of the Parliament
by such men as Dvivedi and Dharmapala were hair-raising in
the light of the orthodox, evangelical Christianity of 1893,
they had for the most part been delivered in a dry and
pedantic form not apt to ignite the soul, and were therefore
not alarming to the Christian ministry. But the enthusiastic
reception which Swamiji was given from the very beginning
was a matter of serious concern, and it was perhaps this that
prompted several of the Christian delegates to attack
Hinduism openly on September 19-the day that Swamiji was
scheduled to read his paper.
On this day, Houghton tells us, "The Hall of Columbus . . .
could not accommodate all who endeavored to gain admit-
tance." And from the Chicago Inter Ocean of September 20
one learns that
Great crowds of people, the most of whom were
women, pressed around the doors leading to the hall of
Columbus, an hour before the time stated for opening the
afternoon session, for it had been announced that Swami
Vivekananda, the popular Hindu Monk, who looks so
much like McCullough's Othello, was to speak. Ladies,
ladies everywhere filled the great auditorium.

Men were, of course, also present among those crowds:

ministers, priests, and laymen. There was, no doubt,
electricity in the air, and before long it began to crackle,
252
eventually calling forth one of Swamiji's short but flaming
rebukes.
The Dubuque (Iowa) Times of September 29, 1893,
gleefully reviewed this ninth day of the Parliament as though
a tournament were under consideration:
#

253
 GOD AND MATTER
__________

Brethren All, Yet They Indulged

in Sharp Words.
__________
Rev. Joe Cook Criticised the Hindoos, and the Hindoos
Attacked Christianity. . . .

WORLD'S FAIR, Sept. 28: (Special.)-The parliament

of religions reached a point where sharp acerbities
develop. The thin veil of courtesy was maintained, of
course, but behind it was ill feeling. Rev. Joseph Cook
criticised the Hindoos sharply and was more sharply
criticised in turn. He said that to speak of a universe that
was not created is almost unpardonable nonsense, and the
Asiatics retorted that a universe which had a beginning is
a self evident absurdity. Bishop J. P. Newman, firing at
long range from the banks of the Ohio, declared that the
orientals have insulted all the Christians of the United
States by their misrepresentations of the missionaries, and
the orientals, with their provokingly calm and super-
cilious smile, replied that this was simply the bishop's
ignorance.

Buddhist Philosophy

254
 In response to the question direct, three learned Bud-
dhists gave us in remarkably plain and beautiful language
their bedrock belief about God, man and matter.

There follows a summary of Dharmapala's paper of "The

World's Debt to Buddha," the reading of which Dharmapala
had prefaced, we learn from another source, by singing a
Singhalese song of benediction. The article then continues:

His [Dharmapala's] peroration was as pretty a thing as

a Chicago audience ever heard. Demosthenes never
exceeded it.
#

255
 Cantankerous Remarks.

Swami Vivekananda, the Hindoo monk, was not so

fortunate. He was out of humor, or soon became so,
apparently. He wore an orange robe and a pale yellow
turban and dashed at once into a savage attack on Chris-
tian nations in these words: "We who have come from the
east have sat here day after day and have been told in a
patronizing way that we ought to accept Christianity
because Christian nations are the most prosperous. We
look about us and we see England the most prosperous
Christian nation in the world, with her foot on the neck of
250,000,000 Asiatics. We look back into history and see
that the prosperity of Christian Europe began with Spain.
Spain's prosperity began with the invasion of Mexico.
Christianity wins its prosperity by cutting the throats of
its fellow men. At such a price the Hindoo will not have
prosperity."
And so they went on, each succeeding speaker getting
more cantankerous, as it were.

Swamiji's "cantankerous remarks" were by way of preface

to his central and official statement to the Parliament-his
paper on Hinduism, which had been scheduled to come last
on the afternoon's program and for which the audience had
waited with fortitude.

They gave no outward sign of impatience through the

delivery of three classic essays which separated them
from Vivekananda's eloquence [the Inter Ocean
256
 commented], but it was evident from the applause which
greeted the Oriental about 5 o'clock, as in his orange garb
he arose to speak, that had he spoken first instead of last
some of the great audience might not have been present at
the close of the session.

It was when the applause died down that Swamiji dashed

#

257
into what the Dubuque Times chose to call his "savage attack
on Christian nations: ' The Chicago Tribune of September 20,
which touched on his preliminary remarks in two articles,
gave quite a different picture. There Swamiji is seen as
neither "savage" nor "cantankerous." Indeed, "heroic" would
be a more appropriate word. The first article read in part as
follows:

In the afternoon Swami Vivekananda, a Hindoo monk,

was the orator, who, with his quick eloquence and
graceful manner, caught the sympathy of the audience as
Dr. Haweis had in the morning. He spoke of the
patronizing way in which he and his fellow-Orientals had
been treated by some of the speakers at the parliament. . .
.

The Tribune's second mention of Swamiji's rebuke of the

outspoken intolerance that had marked the afternoon read in
part:

Dr. Noble then presented Swami Vivekananda, the

Hindoo monk, who was applauded loudly as he stepped
forward to the center of the platform. He wore an orange
robe, bound with a scarlet sash, and a pale yellow turban.
The customary smile was on his handsome face and his
eyes shone with animation. Said he: [The quotation here
reads identically with that in the Dubuque Times and then
continues:] I have sat here today and I have heard the
height of intolerance. I have heard the creed of the
Moslem applauded, when today the Moslem sword is
carrying destruction into India. Blood and the sword are
258
 not for the Hindu, whose religion is based on the law of
love.
(When the applause had ceased Mr. Vivekananda went
[on] to read his paper. . . .)

Swamiji's now famous paper on Hinduism, which was offi-

cially entitled "Hinduism as a Religion," has been published
in volume one of the Complete Works and is well known to
#

259
students of Swami Vivekananda's teachings. Perhaps Sister
Nivedita best summed up the importance of this address
when she wrote in her introduction to the Complete Works,
"It may be said that when be began to speak, it was of `the
religious ideas of the Hindus,' but when he ended, Hinduism
had been created." Indeed, in this stunning talk Swamiji gave
coherence and unity to the bewildering number of sects and
beliefs that through untold ages have gathered and flowered
under the name of Hinduism. He revealed the lofty
philosophy and aspiration, the great religious goal and drive,
the central beliefs common to each widely divergent sect. He
made it all not only clear but supremely inspiring, a living
religion springing eternally from the very soul of humanity
itself.

The Hindu religion [he said in summary] does not

consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain
doctrine or dogma, but in realising-not in believing, but
in being and becoming.
Thus the whole object of their system is by constant
struggle to become perfect, to become divine, to reach
God and see God; this reaching God, seeing God, becom-
ing perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect con-
stitutes the religion of the Hindus. . . .
. . . Man is to become divine by realising the divine:
Idols or temples or churches or books are only the sup-
ports, the helps, of his spiritual childhood; but on and on
he must progress.
. . . To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to
truth, but from truth to truth, from lower truth to higher
truth. . . . And every soul is a young eagle soaring higher
260
 and higher, gathering more and more strength, till it
reaches the glorious sun83

Throughout, Swamiji drew parallels between the beliefs of

Hinduism and the basic theories of modern science, which
"seem like echoes" of "the high spiritual flights of the
Vedanta
#

261
philosophy." He pointed out that the ideal of Hinduism in its
catholicity and universality, its capacity to embrace all
creeds, was, if perfectly realized, the only possible idea( for a
universal religion-a religion which will be the sum total of
a11 creeds "and still have infinite space for development " He
wove into his talk both the clear rationality and the intense
and pure devotion of the Hindu; he touched upon the various
religious paths that wind or leap to the ultimate goal, and he
defined that goal in its highest reaches. Indeed, in this first
statement of the Hindu religion that Swamiji made to the
American public lay the seeds of all his subsequent teachings.
That which he was later to develop and formulate in terms
adapted to Western understanding and culture was all there;
and perhaps in that moment not only was Hinduism created,
but a new religion for the world was given its first
enunciation in the West-a religion fulfilling the past, lighting
up the future. Swamiji's concluding words-though he meant
them as an accolade to the ideal of universality that lay
behind the Parliament-could well apply to his Master's
message and his own:

The star arose in the East; it travelled steadily towards

the West, sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent,
till it made a circuit of the world; and now it is again
rising on the very horizon of the East, the borders of the
Pacific,* a thousandfold more effulgent than it ever was
before.84

Something of the effect of Swamiji's paper on Hinduism

can be gathered from the following undated, unidentified

262
newspaper article, which clearly referred to this particular
address:

One [of] the most interesting personages to the multi-

tude, is Professor Swami Vivekanunda, a Hindu theo-
logian of great learning. Professor Vivekanunda, who is
of pleasing appearance, and young to be so well filled
#

263
with ,the ancient lore of India, made an address which
captured the Congress, so to speak. There were bishops
and ministers of nearly every Christian church present,
and they were all taken by storm. The eloquence of the
man with, intellect beaming from his , yellow face, his
splendid English in describing the beauties of his time
honoured faith, all conspired to make a deep impression
on the audience. From the day the wonderful Professor
delivered his speech, which was followed by other ad-
dresses, he was followed by a crowd wherever he went.
In going in and coming out of the building, he was daily
beset by hundreds of women who almost fought with
each other for a chance to get near him, and shake his
hand. It may safely be set down that there were women of
every denomination among his worshippers. Some of
them were votaries of fashion who did not care what
became of their fine toilets in the struggle, while others
were the "mothers in Israel" of the various churches of
Chicago and elsewhere. The Professor seemed surprised
at this homage, but he received it graciously enough until
it became tiresome from repetition, and then he made his
entries and exits at times when there were no crowds of
women in the vestibule and corridors. Other strangers
from the far East, in picturesque garb, and with a
Midways plaisance [the amusement section at the Fair]
flavor about them, were also much sought after, but in a
less degree: This talk in the sessions of the Congress was
a revelation to many people, even of education and much
reading. That men so well endowed with brains, astute
thinkers, should adhere to those heathenish religions, was
a surprise to many people, more thoughtful than the
264
 women who made a lion of Professor Vivekanunda. It
was from the Christian theologians on the platform,
however, that the women took their cue. 85

Certainly it was not only the women of the audience who

#

265
were deeply responsive to Swamiji's thought and presence.
Among the many men who long. remembered his paper on
Hinduism and were profoundly moved by it was a young
student who went on to become a well-known and influential
philosopher. In his "Recollections of Swami Vivekananda"
William Ernest Hocking wrote in his later years:

. . . We all carry about with us unsolved problems of

adjustment to this many-angled world-without formulat-
ing questions, we are living quests, unless by some rare
chance our philosophy of life is entirely settled. And to
meet some person may resolve a quest wholly without his
knowledge; it may be simply mode of being that brings
the release.
This was in some measure the story of my first
encounter with Swami Vivekananda, though I was only
one of an immense audience. . . . I was a casual visitor at
the Fair, just turning twenty, interested in a dozen
exhibits on the Midway. . . . But aside from all this, I had
a quietly rankling problem of my own.
I had been reading Herbert Spencer, all I could get of
his works. . . . I was convinced by him; . . . but it was
somehow a vital injury to think of man as of the animals.-
birth, growth, mating, death-and nothing more-finis. I had
had my religion-Methodism-an experience of conversion
with a strange enlightenment which gave me three days
of what felt like a new vision of things, strangely lifted
up; Spencer had explained that all away as an emotional
flurry-the world must be faced with a steady objective
eye. The Christian cosmology was fancy.

266
 But still, Christianity was not the only religion. There
were to be speakers from other traditions. They might
have some insight that would relieve the tension. I would
go for an hour and listen. I didn't know the program. It
happened to be Vivekananda's period.
. . . He spoke not as arguing from a tradition, or from a
#

267
 book, but as from an experience and certitude of his
own. I do not recall the steps of his address. But there
was a passage toward the end, in which I can still hear the
ring of his voice, and feel the silence of the crowd-almost
as if shocked. The audience was well-mixed, but could be
taken as one in assuming that there had been a "Fall of
man" resulting in a state of "original sin," such that "All
men have sinned and come short of the glory of . " But
what is the speaker saying? I hear his emphatic rebuke:

"Call men sinners??

It is a SIN to call men sinners!"
. . . Through the silence I felt something like a gasp
running through the hall as the audience waited for the
affirmation which must follow this blow. * What his
following words were, I cannot recall with the same
verbal clarity: they carried the message that in all men
there is that divine essence, undivided and eternal: reality
is One, and that One, which is Brahman, constitutes the
central being of each one of us.
For me, this doctrine was a startling departure from
anything which my scientific psychology could then rec-
ognize. One must live with these ideas and consider how
one's inner experience could entertain them. But what I
could feel and understand was that this man was speaking
from what he knew, not from what he had been told. He
was well aware of the books; but he was more
immediately aware of his own experience and his own
status in the world; and what he said would have to be
taken into account in any final world-view. I began to
realize that Spencer could not be allowed the last word.
268
And furthermore, that this religious experience of mine,
which Spencer would dismiss as a psychological flurry,
was very akin to the grounds of Vivekananda's own
certitude.86
#

269
 5

But while Swamiji's address before the Parliament may

have taken everyone by storm and, on deeper levels, set
lifelong quests and currents of thought in motion, the
missionary-minded Christians and those amazed that so
astute a thinker as Vivekananda should yet adhere to
heathenish religions continued to claim, with even greater
insistence it would seem, that theirs was the superior religion,
in fact, the only religion. Up until the very last day of the
Parliament, the Hall of Columbus rang with such
pronouncements as: "Christianity is absolutely superior in its
motive power, its purifying influence and its uplifting
inspiration from any and all other religions with which it
comes. in competition. The greasy bull of Madura and
Tanjore has little in common with the Lamb of God who
taketh away the sins of the world,"87 or "The attitude . . . of
Christianity towards religions other than itself is an attitude
of universal, absolute, eternal, unappeasable hostility; while
toward all men everywhere, the adherents of false religions
by no means excepted, its attitude is an attitude of grace,
mercy, peace, for whosoever will."88 That is, for whosoever
will become a Christian.
It is tempting to go on quoting similar statements made
during a parliament the avowed purpose of which was to
bring together the representatives of the great religions of the
world for mutual enlightenment and understanding. But
perhaps by now the general trend has been made clear. For
the most part it was the Protestant Christians who shouted
270
from the platform. As for the Catholics, they handled the
subversive influences of the Parliament in their own way.
"Before the Parliament was half over," an observer of the
proceedings writes, "when its trend was properly cognised,
there appeared placards in conspicuous places in the Art
Palace stating that `questions regarding Catholic faith would
be answered in room six.' "89 Thus any Catholic whose mind
had been unsettled by the
#

271
papers of Pagan, Protestant, or Agnostic could be
straightened out even before he left the building.
It must be said, however, lest the reader get too one-sided a
view of the scene which confronted Swamiji, that there were
speakers at the Parliament who were truly liberal and who
were possessed of that blessed trait that seems to go with true
liberality, namely, humor. Many of these were laymen. Prince
Serge Wolkonsky, for instance, who informally represented
Russia, and Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson of Cam-
bridge both spoke for a religion as broad and all-inclusive as
the skies, and both later became friends of Swamiji. Lyman
Abott, Alfred W. Momerie, Merwin-Marie Snell, and the
Reverend H. R. Haweis were others who represented the
liberal trend and who welcomed Swamiji. But the talk most
remarkable for its broad views came from the Reverend E. L.
Rexford of Boston, who in the course of a long paper on "The
Religious Intent" said:
No ruthless hand shall justly destroy any form of deity
while yet it arrests the reverent mind and heart of man.
There is only one being in the world who may
legitimately destroy an idol, and that being is the one who
has worshipped it. He alone can tell when it has ceased to
be of service. And assuredly the Great Spirit who works
through all forms and who makes all things his ministers,
can make the rudest image a medium through which he
will approach his child. . . . And the great religious
teachers and founders of the world . . . have lived and
taught and suffered and died and risen again, that they
might bring us to themselves? No; but that they might
bring us to God. `God-Consciousness,' to borrow a noble
word from Calcutta, has been the goal of them all90
272
 But such papers, indicative of a broad and liberal outlook,
were rare. To the Christian clergy as a whole it never
occurred that evangelism was presumption or that the
occupation of
#

273
soul-saving in foreign lands might be, to say the very least,
superfluous.
Although the Parliament was not intended to be a debate, it
was inevitable that a current of controversy should flow
through the entire proceedings, sometimes coursing beneath
the surface, sometimes rising into open view. The question
under consideration was not only whether or not Christianity
was superior to other religions, but whether or not it was to
replace other religions through missionary endeavor, and if
so, how. It was a debate closely watched by a large part of the
Christian world. Officially, only one session-the afternoon of
the twelfth day-was devoted to a discussion of this all
important issue, but actually from first to last it colored the
proceedings; it was there by implication, if not by overt ex-
pression, in most of the Christian talks; it cropped up in the
papers of the foreign delegates; and it appeared irrepressibly
in unscheduled discussions.
The Christian missions were, on the one hand, scathingly
criticized by the representatives from China, Japan, and India,
and, on the other hand, passionately defended by the mis-
sionaries themselves. The foreign delegates contended that
the failure of Christian missions was due to the fact that the
missionaries were intolerant, selfish, ignorant, and bigoted,
and also to the fact that the countries they represented were
anything but Christ-like in their imperialistic policies.
Moreover, while maintaining respect toward Christianity, the
non Christian delegates made bold to state in no uncertain
terms that Christian conversion was not necessary to
salvation. The Christian speakers replied to the effect that (1)
Christian missions were not a failure; (2) while some
individual missionaries might make mistakes, missionaries
274
were, on the whole, worthy followers of Christ; (3)
Christianity was the only religion that gave assurance of
salvation.
Although Swamiji found it necessary to deliver a few well-
aimed blows as the extent and virulence of Christian bigotry
became more and more pronounced, it was on the whole the
#

275
other foreign delegates who in prepared talks dwelt upon
missionary activity in discomforting detail. In the course of
expounding the doctrines of their respective religions during
the first days of the Parliament, the Confucian Pung Kwang
Yu and the Japanese Buddhist Horin Toki found little that
was good in the intrusion of Christian missions into China
and Japan. The missionaries, they said, were uneducated,
arrogant, and totally unnecessary. Such denunciations were
delivered with impeccable and devastating politeness. A third
talk, given by Kinza Riuge M. Hirai, a Buddhist layman of
Japan, attributed the failure of Christian missions in his
country not to the missionaries themselves, nor to the fact
that Japan was already possessed of a satisfactory religion,
but to the immoralities of Christian nations in their treatment
of the Japanese people. This was an essentially political
speech, and it brought down the house. The Chicago Herald
of September 14, 1893, as quoted by Barrows, reported:

Loud applause followed many of his [Hirai's] declara-

tions, and a thousand cries of "shame" were heard when
he pointed to the wrongs which his countrymen had
suffered through the practices of false Christianity. When
he had finished, Dr. Barrows grasped his hand, and the
Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones threw his arm around his neck,
while the audience cheered vociferously and waved hats
and handkerchiefs in the excess of enthusiasm. 91

Shortly the Hindus entered the field. Nagarkar, the Brahmo

Samajist, cried on the seventh day for less soul-saving and
more education. "Little, how little, do you ever dream that
your money is expended in spreading abroad nothing but
276
Christian dogmatism and Christian bigotry, Christian pride
and Christian exclusiveness. I entreat you to spend at least
one-tenth of all this vast fortune on sending out to our
country, unsectarian, broad-learned missionaries that will
spend all their efforts and energies in educating our women,
our men,
#

277
and our masses."92 The force of this plea, however, was lost
in a talk devoted to a rhapsodic tribute to the moral and civi-
lizing influence of British rule in India-an account which
must have caused Swamiji no little anguish-and to the reform
movement of the Brahmo Samaj.
At the close of the evening of the tenth day, the audience
was treated to an unexpected and electrifying talk from its
favorite. The session had, it so happened, consisted of only
two relatively short papers, one entitled "The Restoration of
Sinful Man through Christ" and the other, "Religion in
Peking." At the conclusion of the latter, its author had
solemnly informed the audience that inasmuch as the Chinese
people spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year
worshiping their ancestors by burning paper money and
incense, they could perfectly well afford to support
Christianity. It was after the reading of this paper, which
contained a number of similar observations, that Swamiji
agreed to address the audience. Short bursts from his
magnificent rebuke (for such it was) were later published in
Barrows's World's Parliament and subsequently in the Com-
plete Works under the title "Religion not the Crying Need of
India." But these combined fragments did not add up to a
quarter of the whole. The Christian Herald of October 11,
gave a few additional quotations; but it was the Chicago Inter
Ocean of September 21 that printed what appears to have
been the full address, taken down on the spot. This eminently
satisfactory report was unearthed in Chicago after three-
quarters of a century by Swami Yogeshananda, who has
kindly made his discovery available to us. It read as follows:

Suami Vivekananda
278
 At the close of the reading of Mr. Headland's paper on
"Religion in Peking" Dr. Momerie announced that the
other speakers bulletined for the evening had failed to
appear. It was but 9 o'clock, and the main auditorium and
galleries were well filled. There was an outburst of ap-
plause as they caught sight of the Hindoo monk, Vivek-
#

279
ananda, sitting in his orange robe and scarlet turban upon
the platform.
This popular Hindoo responded to the generous ap-
plause by saying that he did not come to speak to-night.
He took occasion, however, to criticise many of the state-
ments made in the paper by Mr. Headland. Referring to
the poverty which prevails in China, he said that the
missionaries would do better to work in appeasing hunger
than in endeavoring to persuade the Chinese to renounce
their faith of centuries and embrace Christianity at [as]
the price of food. And then the Hindu stepped back on the
platform and whispered to Bishop Keane, of the Catholic
church, a moment.
He then resumed his address by saying that Bishop
Keane had told him that Americans would not be
offended at honest criticism. He said he had heard of all
the terrible things and horrible conditions which prevail
in China but he had not heard that any asylums had been
erected by Christians for remedying all these difficulties.
He said:
Christian brethren of America, you are so fond of
sending out missionaries to save the souls of heathens. I
ask you what have you done and are doing to save their
bodies from starvation? (Applause). In India, there are
300,000,000 men and women living on an average of a
little more than 50 cents a month. I have seen them living
for years upon wild flowers. Whenever there was a little
famine hundreds of thousands died of starvation.
Christian missionaries come and offer life but only on
condition that the Hindoos become Christians,
abandoning the faith of their fathers and forefathers. Is it
280
right? There are hundreds of asylums, but if the
Mohammedans or the Hindoos go there they would be
kicked out. There are thousands of asylums erected by
Hindoos where anybody would be received. There are
hundreds of churches that have been erected with the
assistance of the Hindoos, but no Hindoo temples for
which a Christian has given a penny.
#

281
 What the East Needs

Brethren of America, the crying evil [need]of the East

is not religion. We have more than religion enough; what
they want is bread, but they are given a stone.
(Applause). It is an insult to a suffering man dying of
hunger to preach to him metaphysics. Therefore, if you
wish to illustrate the meaning of "brotherhood" treat the
Hindoo more kindly, even though he be a Hindoo and is
faithful to his religion. Send missionaries to them to teach
them how better to earn a better piece of bread and not to
teach them metaphysical nonsense. (Great applause).
And then the monk said he was in ill health today and
wished to be excused. But there were thunders of
applause and cries of "Go on" and Mr. Vivekananda
continued.
The paper just read says something about the miserable
and ignorant priest. The same may be said of India. I am
one of those monks who have been described as beggarly.
That is the pride of my life. (Applause). I am proud in
that sense to be Christ-like. I eat what I have today and
think not of tomorrow. "Behold the lilies of the field; they
toil not, neither do they spin: ' The Hindoo carries that
out literally. Many gentlemen present in Chicago sitting
on this platform can testify that for the last twelve years I
never knew whence my next meal was coming. I am
proud to be a beggar for the sake of the Lord. The idea in
the east is to preach or teach anything for the sake of
money is low and vulgar, but to teach the name of the
282
Lord for pay is such a degradation as would cause the
priest to lose caste and be spat upon. There is one
suggestion in the paper that is true: If the priests of China
and India were organized there is an enormous amount of
potential energy which could be used for regeneration of
society and humanity. I endeavored to organize it in
India, but failed for lack of money. It may be I shall get
the help I want in America.
#

283
 But we know it is very hard For a heathen to get any
help from "Christian people". (Great applause). I have
heard so much of this land of freedom, of liberty and
freedom of thought that I am not discouraged. I thank
you, ladies and gentlemen.
And then the popular visitor bowed gracefully and
sought to retire with a graceful smile, but the audience
cried to him to proceed. Mr. Vivekananda, fairly
bubbling with an expression of good nature, then
explained the Hindoo theory of [re]incarnation. At the
close of the address Dr. Momerie [a delegate From
England] said that he now understood why the
newspapers had well called this parliament an approach
to the millennium. "It is the greatest event in the religious
history of mankind," he said, "it has come from the great
heart of the American people, and I congratulate
Americans upon it (for their enthusiastic response to
criticism]. It makes me wish I were an American myself."
And then the English divine was greeted with an out-
burst of applause which approached an ovation, and one
of the most enthusiastic meetings of the parliament
adjourned.

The Catholics received Swamiji's criticism with sympathy.

In the section of Barrows's history entitled "Introduction to
the Parliament Papers" it is reported that ". . . on the eleventh
day, Bishop Keane said: `I endorse the denunciation that was
hurled forth last night against the system of pretended charity
that offered Food to the hungry Hindus at the cost of their
conscience and faith. It is a shame and a disgrace to those
284
who call themselves Christians.' . . . Bishop Keane, who read
Mr. Donnelly's review of the history of Catholic charity, said
that in India their system was one of absolute indifference to
the religious faith of the needy, and in addition to endorsing
the denunciation by Mr. Vivekananda of Christian charity
any way limited to converts, he pronounced justifiable, from
the
#

285
Hindu point of view, `the denunciation of the Christian
system of atonement that came also from the heart of the
Hindu monk.‘ He declared that we do not hear half enough of
such criticism, and that if by these criticisms Vivekananda
can only stir us and sting us into better teachings and better
doings in the great work of Christ in the world, he For one
would only be grateful to our friend the Hindu monk."93
Turning to the actual report of Bishop John J. Keane's
reading of Mr. Donnelly's paper, we find a further paren-
thetical observation: ". . . My heart was glad when I listened
last night and heard our good friend, the Hindu, confess that
for years he did not know where he was going to get his next
meal. That was the way with these poor Franciscan monks.
They were reduced to poverty in order that they might better
consecrate themselves to the service of God everywhere."94
It is possible that Swamiji spoke at other sessions on the
topic of missionaries, for the Outlook, October 7, 1893, in
giving an impressionistic picture of the Parliament, adds this
highlight:

. . . The subject of Christian work in India calls Vivek-

ananda, in his brilliant priestly orange, to his feet. He
criticises the work of Christian missions. It is evident that
he has not tried to understand Christianity, but neither, as
he claims, have its priests made any effort to understand
his religion, with its ingrained faiths and race-prejudices
of thousands of years' standing. They have simply come,
in his view, to throw scorn on his most sacred beliefs, and
to undermine the morals and spirituality of the people he
has been sent to teach.

286
 This may be a reference to the talk, "Religion Not the
Crying Need of India." One suspects, however, that the full
texts of Swamiji's extemporaneous utterances at the
Parliament have not been recorded and that he said more and
spoke on more occasions than we know. One indication of
this comes from
#

287
the pen of the Reverend H. R. Haweis, one of the more or less
unofficial Anglican delegates who was later to become an
ardent friend and admirer of Swamiji's in London. In his book
Travel and Talk, Mr. Haweis wrote of the Parliament and of
some of Swamiji's utterances, the vigor of which was clearly
still fresh in his mind. His quotation of Swamiji's words is
identical (with the exception of the words which I have en-
closed in brackets) to a report that appeared in the London
Woman's Herald of October 26, 1893, but one does not find
this brief but scathing talk of Swamiji's in any known official
record of the Parliament:*

Vivekananda, the popular Hindu monk, whose phy-

siognomy bore the most striking resemblance to the
classic face of the Buddha, denounced our commercial
prosperity, our bloody wars, and our religious
inconsistency, declaring that at such a price the `mild
Hindu' would have none of our vaunted civilisation. The
recurrent and rhetorical use of the phrase `mild Hindu'
produced a very singular impression upon the audience,
as the furious monk waved his arms and almost foamed at
the mouth. `You come ' he cried, `with the Bible in one
hand and the conqueror's sword in the other-you, with
your religion of yesterday, to us who were taught
thousands of years ago [by our Richis] precepts as noble
and lives as holy as your Christ's. You trample on us and
treat us like the dust beneath your feet. [You destroy
precious life in animals. You are carnivores.] You
degrade our people with drink. You insult our women.
You scorn our religion-in many points like yours, only
better, because more humane. And then you wonder why
288
Christianity makes such slow progress in India. I tell you
it is because you are not like your Christ, whom we could
honour and reverence. Do you think if you came to our
doors like Him, meek and lowly, with a message of love,
living and working and suffering for others, as He did, we
should turn a deaf ear: Oh, no! We
#

289
 should receive Him and listen to Him, as we have done
our own inspired [Richis,] teachers: I consider that
Vivekananda's personality was one of the most
impressive, and his speech one of the most eloquent
speeches which dignified the great congress. 95

The afternoon of the twelfth day of the Parliament was

officially devoted to the "Criticism and Discussion of Mis-
sionary Methods." "On this day," Barrows tells us, "the
crowds in the Hall of Columbus were, if possible, more dense
than on any previous day." It is conceivable that these crowds
expected to witness a row. If so, they were destined to
disappointment, for there was no row. Dharmapala and
Narasimhacharya represented the Eastern religions; Rev. G.
T. Candlin and Rev. R. E. Hume, the Christian. (Swamiji was
not present, being that afternoon at the Scientific Section.)
Each gave a short but cogent talk. Dharmapala, who opened
the discussion, did not spare the missionaries; whereupon, in
reply, Mr. Candlin, an American missionary to China, who
for some reason always dressed during the Parliament in
Chinese costume, objected with indignation to Dharmapala's
"personal remarks." Narasimhacharya, who followed, did not
attribute the failure of Christianity to the selfishness and
intolerance of the missionaries, but rather to their interference
with native custom. It was, of course, not to be admitted by
the Christians that Christian missionary work had by any
means failed in foreign lands. Mr. Hume informed
Narasimhacharya that "it is predicted that in a generation all
the positions of influence and of responsibility will be in the
hands of the Christian community in India,"96 and went on to
add that missionaries sometimes do make mistakes and are
290
grateful for correction. This same minister, as will be seen in
a following chapter, attempted some months later without
success to engage Swamiji in public controversy.
The session was short, and it was over without mishap. But
the tension that had accumulated throughout the Parliament
#

291
finally broke down the control of the Reverend George T.
Pentecost of London, who on the following Sunday evening
{September 24), when Swamiji was quite probably present,
interspersed throughout his paper many glaring violations of
the Parliament's watchword: "Tolerance and Fraternity: ' For
a report of this incident I quote from Barrows:

The argument of (Pentecost's paper, "The Invincible

Gospel,"] was the ultimate triumph of Christianity as
assured by its essential superiority to all other religions.
Certain impromptu remarks interjected between the lines
of the paper drew forth a reply on the following day
(from Virchand A. Gandhi, the Jainist delegate]. He
(Pentecost] was reported by the press as saying: "Some of
the Brahmans of India have been here and have dared to
make an attack upon Christianity. They take the slums of
New York and Chicago and ask us why we do not cure
ourselves. They take what is outside the pale of
Christianity and judge Christianity by it " Proceeding
then to attack the religious systems of India on the point
of morality, he alleged that among the followers of
Brahmanism there were thousands of temples in which
there were hundreds of priestesses who were known as
immoral and profligate. They were prostitutes because
they were priestesses, and priestesses because they were
prostitutes.97

It is true that Mr. Pentecost represented the extreme of

bigotry and not the spirit of the Parliament; but he
represented also that large number of his kind, both in

292
America add in India, who were later to do their utmost to
destroy Swamiji.
Aside from his talks at the Scientific Section and at other
auxiliary sessions, and aside from his brief, extemporaneous,
and history-making remarks, Swamiji gave four talks during
the course of the Parliament: his opening and closing ad-
dresses, his paper on Hinduism, and his short talk on Bud-
dhism.* He had been invited to give this last on the evening
of
#

293
September 26, at the end (again) of a long session devoted to
Buddhist papers, both Japanese and Indian, some of which
were read by interpreters and almost all of which were ex-
ceedingly dry. The Chicago Inter Ocean of September 27
gives perhaps the best account that can be found in the
newspapers of the day of Swamiji's part in this Buddhist
evening:

Long before the hour for the opening of the evening

session the capacity of the great hall was taxed to the
utmost. The subject of the evening, "The Defense of
Buddhism," was frequently applauded. Dharmapala, the
Buddhist of Ceylon, Vivekananda, and other Hindoo
monks were heartily cheered as they took their seats upon
the platform. Dr. Alfred W. Momerie, of London, filled
the chair. . . .
At the conclusion of his paper Mr. Dharmapala asked
Mr. Vivekananda, the Brahman monk, to criticise Bud-
dhism. He said that Vivekananda being a priest in a
different faith, his criticism would not be partial to the
Buddhist. Vivekananda is always received with applause
in the parliament and as he stepped forward at the side of
Dr. Momerie, the chairman, he was received with
generous enthusiasm. The Hindoo monk made a masterly
plea for truth in whatever faith it might be found. . . . He
had nothing but kind words for Buddhism, and as he gave
evidence of his culture in the history which underlies the
different Oriental faiths, he closed with that sentiment
which has characterized the utterance of all the priests
from the Orient and the Occident [?]-a plea for tolerance,
and the recognition of essential truth, wherever it may be
294
found. The scholarly language in which he clothed his
appeal for a fair hearing and a calm consideration of the
qualities which have kept alive the faith to which his
life's work is devoted, struck a responsive chord in the
audience, and he retired amid a thunder of applause.
#

295
 Perhaps that applause was inspired as well by the breadth
of the idea Swamiji expressed at the close of his talk-an idea
he was to return to often during his visit in America. "Ad-
dressing the picturesque group of Buddhists on the platform,
he said," the report continues,

We cannot live without you, nor you without us. Then

believe what separation has shown to us, that you cannot
stand without the brain and philosophy of the Brahman,
nor we without your heart. This separation between the
Buddhist and the Brahman is the cause of the downfall of
India. That is why India is populated by three hundred
millions of beggars, and that is why India has been the
slave of conquerors for the last one thousand years. Let
us, then, join the wonderful intellect of the Brahmans
with the heart, the noble soul, the wonderful humanizing
power of the great Master.98

On the evening of September 27, after seventeen days of

long, sometimes tiresome, sometimes stirring sessions, the
Parliament of Religions came to a close. Every shade of
religious thought had been expressed, from the most light-
filled to the most clouded, and it was not lost upon the
audience that the heights of spiritual expression came from
the least expected quarters. Indeed, many a Christian felt the
whole affair had been disastrous. In a sermon preached on
296
November 12, 1893, a Reverend Dr. Morgan Dix of New
York gave voice to this view:

We have recently been treated to the sight of what was

called the Parliament of Religions. I do not believe that
those who projected the scheme were animated by any
feeling of antagonism to Christianity. I impugn no one's
motive. . . . I doubt, however, that if the prime movers of
#

297
 that Parliament had wanted to spread agnosticism they
could have made a better move. It was a masterpiece.
Through the rose-colored haze of that atmosphere one
seems to discern about the heads of the Jewish rabbi, the
Indian priest, the Greek patriarch, and the learned advo-
cates of Shintoism, Brahmanism, and Romanism, a
banner bearing this inscription, "To the Unknown God."99

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

More than seven thousand persons were crowded into

the Halls of Washington and Columbus [Barrows writes].
For more than an hour before the time announced, the
eager crowds swept up against the doors of the Art
Palace. The throng extended from the doorways to
Michigan avenue and thence For half a block in either
direction. . . . An eye-witness reports: ". . . The last and
298
closing scene of the great Parliament of Religions is one
that will live forever in the memory of those who were so
fortunate as to be spectators. The great Hall of Columbus
was illuminated by a myriad of lights. Every inch of
room was used by the greatest crowd that ever sat within
its walls. On
#

299
 the stage, beneath the folds of the flags of all nations,
were the representatives of all religions. The dull, black
and somber raiment of the West only intensified the
radiantly contrasted garbs of the Oriental priests." Twice
during the evening flashlight photographs were taken of
the historic group on the platform. 100

(In passing it should be noted that in Barrows's history

there are three published photographs of "the historic group
on the platform:' These were taken on the morning of Sep-
tember 14, the morning of September 21, and the evening of
September 27. In the second of these, which has been repro-
duced in the second edition of the Life, Swamiji has been
tentatively identified in the front row of the delegates; I am
sorry to say that a comparison with an enlarged and annotated
copy of the same picture shows that this is not Swamiji but
that "loafer" Narasimhacharya. In the photograph taken on
September 27, however, it is probable, though not at present
certain, that Swamiji does indeed appear, seated with regal
unconcern in the second row of delegates. This scene of the
Parliament on the evening of the closing day has been
included in the present volume, in addition to a closeup of the
platform, showing, among others, Swamiji and Dharmapala.)
The immediate results of the Parliament were mixed. Per-
haps it is correct to say that the bigots, several of whom at
once took to frenzied sermon-giving, became more bigoted,
for their backs had been pressed to the wall, and that the
liberal-minded became more liberal, for they were now
confirmed in their views, and that this latter outcome was
undoubtedly the more important and enduring. It is
undeniable, moreover, that the American people had not been
300
merely intellectually impressed by the nobility and wisdom
of Eastern doctrines which hitherto, in the words of Dr.
Alfred Momerie, "they had been taught to regard with
contempt," but had been touched by and had responded to the
tremendous power of living spirituality that Swamiji
embodied. Something far more important
#

301
and more far-reaching had taken place than an intellectual
appreciation of Eastern religions. It was as though the soul of
America had long asked for spiritual sustenance and had now
been answered.
This is not to say, as has sometimes been implied, that
Swamiji was recognized by all for what he was-the spiritual
leader of the age. Some attributed greater spirituality, for
instance, to Mazumdar, whose talk on the Brahmo Samaj un-
accountably inspired the multitude to rise to its feet and sing
the hymn "Nearer, my God, to Thee."101 The Advocate of
September 28, 1893, after stating that Swamiji's knowledge
of English is as though it were his mother tongue, went on to
say:

. . . This is equally true of Mazoomdar, who however is

a man of far greater spirituality and profounder religious
conviction. The chief representative of the Brahmo
Samaj, he is careful to say that he did not get his religion
from the missionaries, but that it is an evolution out of
Hinduism, now laying hold of all that is true in that as in
all other forms of religion, but culminating in the ac-
ceptance of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior
of the world.

It is not too surprising that the Advocate gave first place to

Mazumdar. In the same article the observation was made that
since "most of the representatives of the religions of India
and Japan were accomplished English scholars, . . . it was
inevitable . . . that their expositions of Brahminism, of
Shintoism, should take colouring from the truths they had
learned directly or indirectly of Christ."
302
 It is interesting in this connection to take note of Barrows's
remarks in regard to Swamiji's final address. In the course of
his talk Swamiji had said: "The Christian is not to become a
Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a
Christian. But each must assimilate the others and yet pre-
#

303
serve its individuality and grow according to its own law of
growth." This was, of course, not at all the looked-for lesson
of the Parliament. Certainly the Christian was not to become
a Hindu or a Buddhist; with Swamiji most would have cried,
"God forbid!" But the halls had resounded with the
conviction that the Hindus and Buddhists were to become
Christians. Barrows tells us: "Swami Vivekananda was
always heard with interest by the Parliament, but very little
approval was shown to some of the sentiments expressed in
his closing address.‖
There were other interpretations of the public reaction. A
description of the closing scene is quoted here from the Critic
of October 7, 1893, with the omission of the text of Swamiji s
address:

. The scene was one not to be easily forgotten. Before

an audience which filled every corner of the great hall,
the delegates from distant lands paid tribute to the purity
of Christian ideals. They bore witness to the spirit of
charity which animated the speakers of the congress, and
a kind of exhilaration possessed them, as of something
large and fine accomplished. With the black-coated Oc-
cidentals were seated thus the dark-skinned men from the
East, quiet, attentive and dignified.
A young African prince, whose black face showed
what is best in the Ethiopian type, arose in his dark-
richlyembroidered robes, to express a conviction that the
Parliament had promoted a feeling for the brotherhood of
man
" which can unite all races. "The very atmosphere, he
said, "seems pregnant with an indefinable, inexpressible
304
thing-something too solemn for utterance: ' And it was
this background to the joyousness that appealed to the
imagination and gave the occasion its peculiar
impressiveness. . . .
But the most impressive figures of the Parliament were
the Buddhist priest, H. Dharmapala of Ceylon, and the
Hindoo monk, Suami Vivekananda. "If theology and
#

305
dogma stand in your way in search of truth," said the
former incisively, "put them aside. Learn to think without
prejudice, to love all beings for love's sake, to express
your convictions fearlessly, to lead a life of purity, and
the sunlight of truth will illuminate you." But eloquent as
were many of the brief speeches of this meeting, whose
triumphant enthusiasm rightly culminated in the superb
rendering by the Apollo Club of the Hallelujah chorus, no
one expressed so well the spirit of the parliament, its
limitations and its finest influence, as did the Hindoo
monk. I copy his address in full, but I can only suggest
its effect upon the audience, for he is an orator by divine
right, and his strong intelligent face in its picturesque
setting of yellow and orange was hardly less interesting
than these earnest words and the rich, rhythmical utter-
ance he gave them. [After quoting the greater part of
Swamiji's Final Address, the article continues:]
Perhaps the most tangible result of the congress was
the feeling it aroused in regard to foreign missions. The
impertinence of sending half educated theological
students to instruct the wise and erudite Orientals was
never brought home to an English-speaking audience
more forcibly. It is only in the spirit of tolerance and
sympathy that we are at liberty to touch their faith, and
the exhorters who possess these qualities are rare. It is
necessary to realize that we have quite as much to learn
from the Buddhists as they from us, and that only through
harmony can the highest influence be exerted.

LUCY MONROE.

306
 Other organs of public opinion attest to Swamiji's
popularity and influence. Many quotations from these are
already known to the readers of the Life, but one more can
here be added from the Chicago Inter Ocean of September 1,
1894, which almost a year following the Parliament recalled
Swamiji's appearance before the American public:
#

307
 VIVEKANANDA AND THE HINDOOS

There was no delegate to the Parliament of Religions

who attracted more courteous attention in Chicago by his
winning ways, his ability, and his fearless discussion of
all questions relating to his religion than Swami Vivek-
ananda, who represented the Hindoos of South India.
This distinguished Hindoo was enthusiastic in his
admiration of the greatness of the Western World and its
material development, eager in his efforts to learn of
those things that might be beneficial to his people, earnest
in his desire to recognize the religions of all people as
related to each other, and all sincere efforts in behalf of
virtue and holiness, but at the same time he defended the
Hindoo religion and philosophy with an eloquence and
power that not only won admiration for himself but
consideration for his own teachings.

To some members of the great Parliament audience

Swamiji stood as the victorious opponent of all that was
stereotyped, dull, and unthinking in Christian churches.
Among these was Sir Hiram Maxim, one of the brilliant
engineers and inventors of his day, who, in 1893, had not yet
left his native America to become a British subject. Twenty
years later, in a foreword to his anti-missionary treatise, Li
Hung Chang's Scrap-Book, Sir Hiram recalled the Parliament
of Religions and the figure who was still vivid in his mind as
its hero. He wrote:
308
 A few years ago there was a Congress of Religions at
Chicago. Many said that such a thing would be
impossible. How could any understanding be arrived at
where each particular party was absolutely right and all
the others were completely in the wrong? Still the
Congress saved the American people more than a million
dollars a year, not to mention many lives abroad. And this
was all brought about by one brave and honest man.
When it was an-
#

309
nounced in Calcutta that there was to be a Congress of
religions at Chicago, some of the rich merchants took the
Americans at their word, and sent them a Brahmin monk,
Viva Kananda, from the oldest monastery in the world.
This monk was of commanding presence and vast
learning, speaking English like a Webster. The American
Protestants, who vastly outnumbered all others, imagined
that they would have an easy task, and commenced
proceedings with the greatest confidence, and with the air
of "Just see me wipe you out " However, what they had
to say was the old commonplace twaddle that had been
mouthed over and over again in every little hamlet from
Nova Scotia to California. It interested no one, and no
one noticed it.

When, however, Viva Kananda spoke, they saw that

they had a Napoleon to deal with. His first speech was no
less than a revelation. Every word was eagerly taken
down by the reporters, and telegraphed all over the
country, where it appeared in thousands of papers. Viva
Kananda became the lion of the day. He soon had an
immense following. No hall could hold the people who
flocked to hear him lecture. They had been sending silly
girls and half educated simpletons of men, and millions
of dollars, to Asia for years to convert the poor benighted
heathen and save his alleged soul; and here was a
specimen of the unsaved who knew more of philosophy
and religion than all the parsons and missionaries in the
whole country. Religion was presented in an agreeable
light for the first time to them. There was more in it than
they had ever dreamed; argument was impossible. He
310
played with the parsons as a cat plays with a mouse. They
were in a state of consternation. What could they do?
What did they do? What they always do-they denounced
him as an agent of the devil. But the deed was done; he
had sown the seed, and the Americans commenced to
think. They said to themselves: "Shall we waste our
money in sending mis-
#

311
 sionaries who know nothing of religion, as compared
with this man, to teach such men as he? No!" And the
missionary income fell off more than a million dollars a
year in consequence.l02

Inevitable and, to Sir Hiram, eminently satisfactory as this

result was, Swamiji had of course not sought it. He had not
come to the Parliament to engage in battle with the Christian
missionaries. He had not asked that they leave India but had
asked that they stop defaming her. He had asked for justice
and for an end to intolerance and bigotry.

To a request of the New York World of October 1, 1893,

for "a sentiment of expression regarding the significance of
the great meeting" from each representative, Swamiji replied
with a quotation from the Gita and one from Vyasa:

"I am He that am in every religion-like the thread that

passes through a string of pear. " "Holy, perfect and pure
men are seen in all creeds, therefore they all lead to the
same truth-for how can nectar be the outcome of poison?"

Swamiji's closing words of his final address at the

Parliament were perhaps an even more explicit expression in
modern terms "regarding the significance of the great
meeting" :

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to

the world it is this: It has proved to the world that
holiness, purity, and charity are not the exclusive
possessions of any church in the world, and that every
312
system has produced men and women of the most exalted
character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams
of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the
destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of
my heart and point out to him that upon the banner of
every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance:
"Help and not
#

313
 Fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony
and Peace and not Dissension"103
This, certainly, was the lesson taught by the Parliament.
Though some may have been loath to acknowledge it at the
time, it was a lesson that had struck deep and that would not
be forgotten. The back of bigotry, although not broken, had
received its first hard blow.
#

314
 NOTES FOR CHAPTER TWO

Page Symbol Note

75 * In reply to an inquiry, Miss Margot Schutt of
the Art Institute of Chicago writes: ―As for as
we can tell, the two halls or audience rooms
located between the wings of the Art Institute
building at the time of the Columbian
Exposition, are still part of the museum. The
north Hall of Columbus presumably
corresponds to what is now Fullerton Hall (a
lecture hall seating 473); the south Hall of
Washington, to what is now the Burnham and
Ryerson Libraries. Fullerton Hall and the
libraries are directly on either side of the main
hall.‖ (See floor plans reproduced in this book.)

75 + Catholicism, the Greek Church, and

Protestantism count, of course, as one
religion—Christianity. It should also be noted
that Taoism was not represented, except
through a brief essay read at the Scientific
Section; Whereas Jainism, though not listed by
Bonney, was represented at the plenary session
by Virchand A. Gandhi.

81 * This information comes from a letter written by

Swami Siddheswarananda to Miss Josephine
MacLeod, dated June 11, 1946. The relevant
passage reads: ―For a long time I have been in
contact with a man of science (Paul-Bennet
315
 Maury)... The other day the old mother of Paul
Bennet-Maury came to see me. She is about 80
years old and she told me that her father-in-
law, a Protestant Pastor, was one of

316
Page Symbol Note

81 cont. The delegates to the Chicago Parliament of

Religions and a very close friend of Swamiji.
In the dais of the Parliament Pastor Bennet-
Maury [G. Bonet Maury] had his place next to
Swamiji and she told me how she had heard
from him that when Swamiji was each time
giving his place to another to speak, it was
Bennet-Maury, the pastor, that encouraged
Swamiji to get up and speak in spite of the
hesitation that Swamiji had. And as the old
lady told me the story she got up from her seat
and with trembling emotion told me of what
she had heard of the tremendous impression
produced by Swamiji when he addressed the
audience as ‗Sisters and Brothers of America.‘
―

93 * According to the Life (1965 edition, p.310), in

addition to Swamiji‘s four known talks before
the Scientific Section, ―four other addresses in
these conferences were given by the Swami.‖
The source of this information is not known to
the present writer.

115. * In all the early reports of Swamiji paper on

Hinduism (which he had evidently written in
longhand and given to the press) the word
―Pacific‖ was transcribed as ―Tasifu,‖ which
317
 the reporters may have thought was some far
away inland sea of Oriental mystery and
romance. The plain fact of the matter was that
Swamiji‘s Ps looked like Ts; and his ―Pacific‖
like ―Tasifu.‖ By some unknown process,
―Tasifu‖ became ―Sanpo‖ (a Tibetan name for
the Brahmaputra River) in the Complete
Works; thus the ―horizon of the East‖ receded
ever farther. But, characteristically, Swamiji
used
#

318
Page Symbol Note

115 cont. words understandable to everyone in his

talks before the Parliament; indeed, never when
speaking to the public (or, as far as we known,
in private) was he esoteric or obscure.
―Pacific,‖ clear, simple, and sensible, was
surely what he wrote in his paper and what he
said.

118 * ―Aunt Hannah‖ had heard the audience roar

―with approving roar‖; but whether the
response was approving roar or stunned
silence, the fact remains: a thunderbolt had
struck.

128 * While it is gratifying, to say the least, to

discover snatches from Swamiji‘s extempore
talks at the Parliament that were not recorded in
the official histories, it should be noted that
sometimes words are attributed to him that he
did not say. For instance, in the Historians‘
History of the World (as quoted in the Life,
p.314) it is said that ―a noted Hindu‖ paused in
the midst of his discourse at the Parliament of
Religions and asked how many in the audience
had read the sacred books of the Hindus. Only
three or four hands were raised, whereupon
―the Hindu raised himself to his full height, and
in a voice every accent of which must have
smitten the audience as a reburke, pronounced
319
 these simple words, ‗And yet you dare to judge
us!‘ ― It has been assumed in the Life that the
―noted Hindu‖ was Swamiji. But according to
the New York Daily Tribune of September 17,
1893, it was the Buddhist hewavitarne
Dharmapala who flung out the challenge and
gave the rebuke.

Again, one finds in the Forum for November

1893 (p.393) the following passage ascribed to
#

320
Page Symbol Note

128 cont. Vivekananda: ―I humbly beg to differ

from those who see in monotheism, in the
recognition of a personal God apart from
nature, the acme of intellectual development....
The ultimate satisfaction of human reason and
emotion lies in the realization of that universal
essence which is the All.... This idea of the
formless All ... is the central idea of the Veda,
nay, the root idea of the Hindu religion in
general.‖ Actually, these words were uttered by
Manilal N. Dvivedi on the second day of the
Parliament during his talk on Hinduism.
(Barrows, p.318)

130 * All four of these talks can be found in volume

one of the Complete Works.
#

321
 CHAPTER THREE

IN AND AROUND CHICAGO

Among the many gaps in the biographies of Swami Vivek-

ananda is one which appears after the Parliament of Religions
and extends over the period comprising the last part of 1893
and almost the whole of 1894. This gap, to be sure, is not
total. We know, for instance, that Swamiji toured through the
Middle West and East, lecturing in many cities, for a time in
connection with a lecture bureau and later independently, and
also we catch distant and disconnected glimpses of him as he
went from place to place. But when we consider the
hundreds of conversations he must have held during this
period, the scores of lectures and the many private interviews
he must have given, to say nothing of the innumerable
spiritual experiences he must have had, we cannot help
feeling dissatisfied with the meagerness of our present
knowledge. This current chapter, however, and those to
follow throw a little more light upon Swamiji's post-
Parliament activities.
One thing that has been obscure is the length of time he
remained in Chicago before commencing his lecture tour.
Supported by one or W o contemporary reports, we can now
hazard the guess that he made his home there For at least two
months, during which time he took short trips to nearby
towns. In connection with this period we are fortunate enough
to have two heretofore unpublished letters that he wrote to
322
Professor Wright. These are, I believe, among the most
valuable of his letters, for they not only supply facts
regarding his activities but convey something of his luminous
state of mind during the early days of his American mission.
The first letter was written from Chicago on October 2:
#

323
Dear Adhyapakji-

I do not know what you are thinking of my long

silence. In the first place I dropped in on the Congress in
the eleventh hour. And quite unprepared and that kept me
very very busy for some time. Secondly I was speaking
almost every day in the Congress and had no time to
write and last and greatest of all-my kind friend I owe so
much to you that it would have been an insult to your
Ahetuka (unselfish) friendship to have written you
business like letters in a hurry. The Congress is now over.
Dear brother I was so so afraid to stand before that
great assembly of fine speakers and thinkers from all over
the world and speak but the Lord gave me strength and I
almost every day heroically (?) faced the platform and the
audience. If I have done well He gave me the strength for
it if I have miserably failed-I knew that before hand for I
am hopelessly ignorant. Your friend prof. Bradley was
very kind to me and he always cheered me on And oh!
everybody is so kind here to me who am nothing that it is
beyond my power of expression. Glory unto Him in the
highest in whose sight the poor ignorant monk from India
is the same as the learned divines of this mighty land.
And how the Lord is helping me every day of my life
brother-I sometimes wish for a life of million million
ages to serve Him through the world dressed in rags and
fed by charity.
Oh how I wished that you were here to see some of
our sweet ones from India-the tender hearted Buddhist
324
Dhammapala the orator Mazoomdar and realize that in
that far off and poor India there are hearts that beat in
sympathy to yours, born and brought up in this mighty -
and great country.
My eternal respects to your holy wife and to your
sweet children my eternal love and blessings.
Col Higginson a very broad man told me that your
daughter had written to his daughter about me and he
#

325
was very sympathetic to me. I am going to Evanston
tomorrow and hope to see prof. Bradley there.
May He make us all more and more pure and holy so
that we may live a perfect spiritual life even before
throwing off this earthly body.
Vivekananda

(The letter continues on a separate sheet of paper:)

I am now going to be reconciled to my life here. All

my life I have been taking every circumstance as coming
from him and calmly adapt myself to it. At first in
America I was almost out of my water I was afraid I
would have to give up the accustomed way of being
guided by the Lord and cater for myself-and what a
horrid piece of mischief and ingratitude was that. I now
clearly see that He who was guiding me on the snow tops
of the Himalayas and the burning plaines [sic] of India is
here to help me and guide me. Glory unto Him in the
highest. So I have calmly fallen in my old ways. Some
body or other gives me a shelter and food some body or
other comes to ask me to speak about Him and I know He
sends them and mine is to obey. And then He is
supplying my necessities and His will be done.
"He who rests [in] Me and gives up all other self
assertion and struggles I carry to him whatever he needs"
Gita.
So it is in Asia So in Europe So in America for is He
not here also? And if He does not I only would take for
granted that He wants that I should lay aside this three
minutes body of clay-and hope to lay it down gladly--
326
 We may or may not meet brother. He knows. You are
great learned and Holy. I dare not preach to you or your
wife-but to your children-I quote these passages from the
Vedas-
"The four Vedas, Sciences, languages, philosophy and
#

327
all other learnings are only ornamental the real learning--
the true Knowledge is that which enables us to reach him
who is unchangeable in His love"
"How real, how tangible, how visible is He through
whom the skin touches the eyes see and the world gets its
reality"

"Hearing Him nothing remains to be heard

Seeing Him nothing remains to be seen
Attaining Him nothing remains to be attained"

"He is the eye of our eyes the ear of our ears the
Soul of our Souls."

He is nearer to you my dears than even your father and

mother-you are innocent and pure as flowers-remain so
and He will reveal Himself unto you. Dear Austin when
you are playing there is another playmate playing with
you who loves you more than anybody else and oh He is
so full of fun. He is always playing-sometimes with great
big balls which we call the sun and earth and sometimes
with little children like you and laughing and playing
with you.
How funny it would be to see him and play with Him
my dear think of it.
Dear Adhyapakji, I am moving about just now-only
when I come to Chicago-I always go to see Mr. and Mrs.
Lyons [Lyon] one of the noblest couples I have seen here.
If you would be kind enough to write to me kindly
address it to the care of Mr. John B. Lyons 262 Michigan
Ave Chicago.
328
 "He who gets hold of the One in this world of many
The one constant existence in a world of flitting shadows
the One life in a world of Death-He alone crosses this sea
of misery and struggle. None else none else" Vedas
"He who is the Brahman of the Vedantins Ishwara of
the Naiyayikas, Purusha of the Sankhyas, cause of the
Mimamsakas Law of the Buddhists absolute zero of the
Atheists and love infinite unto those that love, may [He]
#

329
 take us all under His merciful protection"

Udayanacharya

(a great philosopher of the Nyaya or Dualistic school

and this is the Benediction pronounced at the very begin-
ning of his wonderful book "Kusumanjali a handful of
flowers" in which He attempts to establish the existence
of a personal creator and moral ruler of infinite love
independently of revelation.) '
Your ever grateful friend1
Vivekananda

Until recently, where Swamiji stayed during the sessions of

the Parliament of Religions has been a mystery. Suddenly,
however, floods of light have been thrown on the subject.
Thanks to Cornelia Conger, a granddaughter of the Mr. and
Mrs. John B. Lyon whom Swamiji mentions in the above
letter, we learn that it was they who were his hosts during this
period. Cornelia Conger was only six years old in 1893, but
her memories of Swamiji are vivid, and her "Memoirs of
Swami Vivekananda," which first appeared in. the
Prabuddha Bharata of May 1956, give an invaluable picture
of him at this important time in his life. It is to Swami
Shankarananda, then President of the Ramakrishna Math and
the Ramakrishna Mission in India, that we owe Miss
Conger's article, for, having considered her memories
"childish and trivial," she had been reluctant to give them
written form. "But the Swami said something," Miss Conger
writes, "infinitely kind and gracious which I shall never
forget: That every great man is like a jewel with many facets.
330
That each facet is important as it reflects a different aspect of
his character." "So here," she continues, "is my very tiny
`facet' offered in memory of someone I have loved for all
these sixty-two years." Years later, when Miss Conger had
just turned eighty-four, she gave an informal talk to the
members of the Chicago Vedanta Center, during which she
again recollected all she could of Swamiji. "It is a memory,"
she said at the close, "that I've never
#

331
forgotten. His was a most extraordinary, magnetic
personality, and his picture in my mind is just as clear [as
though it were yesterday]. I've never known anybody like
him." During the course of her talk, Miss Conger related
substantially the same memories as she had earlier written for
Swami Shankarananda, but here and there a new detail
emerged, which is inserted in brackets in the following
quotation from her written "Memoirs" :

Before the Congress (or Parliament) of Religions met

in Chicago at the time of the Columbian Exposition in
1893, members of various churches volunteered to ask
into their homes as guests delegates to it. My
grandmother, Mrs. John B. Lyon, was one of these,
requesting, if possible, that a delegate who was broad-
minded be sent to us as my grandfather was much
interested in philosophy but heartily disliked bigots! Our
home was 262, Michigan Avenue, a pleasant somewhat
old-fashioned frame house, painted a [soft olive green. It
had a porch on its side, and in summer we had red and
white striped awnings and window boxes with red
geraniums and white petunias. Big trees lined the street;
there was a little back yard, and we had a kennel for our
dogs and a little stable. It was all very nice and cosy. Its
location was under the middle of what is today (1971) the
Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue. The house] was full of
guests all that summer [of 1893] as my grandparents were
naturally hospitable and this World's Fair was a very
exciting and fascinating affair. So all our out-of town
relatives and friends were eager to come to Chicago to
see it. When word came that our delegate was to arrive on
332
a certain evening, the house was so crowded that my
grandmother had to send her elder son to a friend's house
to have his room for our guest. We had been given no
idea who he would be nor even what religion he was
representing. A message came that a member of our
Church-the First Presbyterian
#

333
[of which the Rev. John Henry Barrows was minister] -
would bring him after midnight. Everyone went to bed
except my grandmother who waited up to receive them.
When she answered the doorbell, there stood Swami
Vivekananda in a long yellow robe, a red sash, and a red
turban-a very startling sight to her because she had
probably never seen an East Indian before. She welcomed
him warmly and showed him to his room. When she went
to bed she was somewhat troubled. Some of our guests
were Southerners, as we had many friends in the South,
because we owned a sugar plantation on the Bayou Teche
in Louisiana. Southerners have a strong dislike for as-
sociating with anyone but whites because they stupidly
think of all people who are darker as on a mental and
social plane of their former Negro slaves. My
grandmother herself had no color prejudice and she was
sufficiently intelligent anyway to know that Indians are of
the same Caucasian inheritance as we are.
When my grandfather woke up, she told him of the
problem and said he must decide whether it would be
uncomfortable for Swami and for our Southern friends to
be together. If so, she said he could put Swami up as our
guest at the new Auditorium Hotel near us. My
grandfather was dressed about half an hour before break-
fast and went into the library to read his morning paper.
There he found Swami and, before breakfast was served,
he came to my grandmother and said, "I don't care a bit,
Emily, if all our guests leave! This Indian is the most
brilliant and interesting man who has ever been in our
home and he shall stay as long as he wishes." That began
a warm friendship between them which was later
334
summed up-much to my grandfather's embarrassment!-by
having Swami calmly remark to a group of my grand-
father's friends one day at the Chicago Club: "I believe
Mr. Lyon is the most Christ-like man I ever met!"
[Well, everybody loved him. He had a keen sense of
#

335
humor and was very easy for all of us to get on with; my
whole family was devoted to him. He and my grandfather
got on very well. My grandfather wasn't what you'd call a
religious person, but, as my grandmother said, he was
deeply interested in philosophy. He and Swami would
have long, long talks. Swami] seemed to feel especially
dose to my grandmother, who reminded him of his own
mother. She was short and very erect, with quiet dignity
and assurance, excellent common sense, and a dry humor
that he enjoyed. My mother, who was a pretty and
charming young widow, and I-who was only six years
old lived with them. My grandmother and my mother at-
tended most of the meetings of the Congress of Religions
and heard Swamiji speak there and later at lectures he
gave. I know he helped my sad young mother who
missed her young husband so much. Mother read and
studied Swamiji's books later and tried to follow his
teachings.
My memories are simply of him as a guest in our home
-of a great personality who is still vivid to me! His
brilliant eyes, his charming voice with the lilt of a slight
well-bred Irish brogue, his warm smile! He told me en-
chanting stories of India, of monkeys and peacocks, and
flights of bright green parrots, of banyan trees and masses
of flowers, and markets piled with all colors of fruits and
vegetables. To me they sounded like fairy stories, but
now that I have driven over many hundreds of miles of
Indian roads, I realize that he was simply describing
scenes from the memories of his own boyhood. I used to
rush up to him when he came into the house and cry,
"Tell me another story, Swami," and climb into his lap.
336
Perhaps, so far from home and in so strange a country, he
found comfort in the love and enthusiasm of a child. He
was always wonderful to me! Yet-because a child is
sensitive -I can remember times when I would run into
his room and suddenly know he did not want to be
disturbed when he was in meditation. He asked me many
questions
#

337
about what I learned in school and made me show him
my school-books and pointed out India to me on the map-
it was pink, I recall-and told me about his country. He
seemed sad that little Indian girls did not have, in general,
the chance to have as good an education as we American
children. . . . My grandmother was president of the
Women's Hospital in Chicago and he visited it with lively
interest and asked for all the figures in infant mortality,
etc. (He spoke not only to patients and doctors and
nurses, but to the cooks and laundresses. He asked a
thousand questions--everything about the hospital, and
was so interested in it.]
I was fascinated by his turban which struck me as a
very funny kind of a hat, especially as it had to be wound
up afresh every time he put it on! I persuaded him to let
me see him wrap it back and forth around his head.
As our American food is less highly seasoned than
Indian, my grandmother was afraid he might find it flat.
(He told my grandmother that Ramakrishna had told him
before he came to the West that he should] conform to all
the customs and [eat] the food of his hosts, so he ate as
we did. [When my grandmother asked him if there was
anything special he wanted or couldn't have, he just said,
"No, I'll take whatever you have."] My grandmother used
to make a little ceremony of making salad dressing at the
table and one of the condiments she used was Tabasco
Sauce, put up by some friends of hers, the McIlhennys, in
Louisiana. She handed him the bottle and said, "You
might like a drop or two of this on your meat, Swami."
He sprinkled it on with such a lavish hand that we all
gasped and said, "But you can't do that! It's terribly hot!"
338
He laughed and ate it with such enjoyment that a special
bottle of the sauce was always put at his place after that.
My mother took him to hear his first Symphony Con-
cert on a Friday afternoon. He listened with great atten-
#

339
tion but with his head a bit on one side and a slightly
quizzical expression. "Did you enjoy it?" mother asked at
the end. "Yes, it was very beautiful," he replied, but
mother felt it was said with some reservation. "What are
you thinking?" she asked. "I am puzzled by two things,"
he answered. "First, I do not understand why the program
says that this same program will be repeated on Saturday
evening. You see in India, one type of music is played at
dawn. The music for noontime is very different, and that
for the evening is also of a special character. So I should
think that what sounds suitable to your ears in the early
afternoon would not sound harmonious to you at night.
The other thing that seems strange to me is the lack of
overtones in the music and the greater intervals between
the notes. To my ears it has holes in it like that good
Swiss cheese you give me!"
When he began to give lectures, people offered him
money for the work he hoped to do in India. He had no
purse. So he used to tie it up in a handkerchief and bring
it back-like a proud little boy!-pour it into my grand-
mother's lap to keep for him. She made him learn the
different coins and to stack them up neatly and to count
them. She made him write down the amount each time,
and she deposited in her bank for him. He was
overwhelmed by the generosity of his audience who
seemed so happy to give to help people they had never
seen so far away!
Once he said to my grandmother that he had had the
greatest temptation of his life in America. She liked to
tease him a bit and said, "Who is she, Swami?" He burst
out laughing and said "Oh, it is not a lady, it is Organiza-
340
tion!" He explained how the followers of Ramakrishna
had all gone out alone and when they reached a village,
would just quietly sit under a tree and wait for those in
trouble to come to consult them. But in the States he saw
how much could be accomplished by organizing work.
Yet he was doubtful about just what type of organ-
#

341
ization would be acceptable to the Indian character and
he gave a great deal of thought and study how to adapt
what seemed good to him in our Western World to the
best advantage of his own people. . . . I spoke earlier of
his delightful slight Irish brogue. . . . My grandfather
[once said to him, "You know, when I hear you speaking
from the next room, I'd say I had a very cultivated Irish
gentleman staying with me because of your accent."
Swami was perfectly amazed. He said, "Nobody ever said
that before!" Then he thought it over and said, "You
know, my favorite professor in India was] an Irish gentle-
man, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. [I went to all
his lectures and saw him a great deal. So probably, not
being used to speaking English then, I unconsciously
copied his accent "]
After Swami left us, my mother was eager to do some
studying along the lines of Oriental philosophy, as she
realized she had not enough background to understand his
teachings as fully as she wished. A Mrs. Peake held some
classes in Chicago that following winter. and, in the
course of them, mother discovered much to her surprise
that if she held a letter torn up into fine bits between her
hands, she received a brief but vivid impression of the
writer, both physically and mentally. When Swamiji
returned to Chicago a year or so later to give lectures,
mother asked him about this strange gift and he said he
had it also, and that when he was young he used to have
fun doing it to show off, but Ramakrishna had rapped his
knuckles and said, "Don't use this great gift except for the
good of mankind! Hands that receive these impressions

342
can also bring relief from pain. Use this gift to bring
healing!"
On this second visit, he only stayed with us for a short
time. He knew he could teach better if he lived in his own
regime of food and of many hours for meditation. It also
left him free to receive many who came to him For help.
#

343
So my grandmother helped him find a simple but com-
fortable little flat, but I do not recall that I ever saw it.
Swamiji was such a dynamic and attractive personality
that many women were quite swept away by him and
made every effort by flattery to gain his interest. He was
still young and, in spite of his great spirituality and his
brilliance of mind, seemed to be very unworldly. This
used to trouble my grandmother who feared he might be
put in a false or uncomfortable position and she tried to
caution him a little. Her concern touched and amused him
and he patted her hand and said, "Dear Mrs. Lyon, you
dear American mother of mine, don't be afraid for me! It
is true I often sleep under a banyan tree with a bowl of
rice given me by a kindly peasant, but it is equally true
that I also am sometimes the guest in the palace of a great
Maharajah and a slave girl is appointed to wave a
peacock feather fan over me all night long! I am used to
temptation and you need not fear for me!"
. . . I asked my mother's sister, Katharine (Mrs. Robert
W. Hamil) what she could add to my scattered memories.
She was a bride and had her own home. So she was not at
her mother's and father's so very much. She recalled
Swamiji much as I did, but never heard him lecture.
However, she and her husband were "young intellectuals"
and had a group of young professors from our university,
young newspaper men, etc. around them. One Sunday
evening she was telling them how remarkable Swamiji
was and they said that modern scientists and
psychologists could "show up" his religious beliefs in no
time! She said, "If I can persuade him to come here next
344
Sunday evening, will you all come back and meet him?"
They agreed and Swamiji met them all at an informal
supper party. My aunt does not recall just what subjects
were brought up, but that the entire evening was a lively
and interesting debate on all sorts of ideas. Aunt
Katharine said that Swamiji's great knowledge of the
Bible and the Koran
#

345
 as well as the various Oriental religions, his grasp of
science and of psychology were astounding. Before the
evening was over the "doubting Thomases" threw up
their hands and admitted that Swamiji had held his own
on every point and they parted from him with warmest
admiration and affection.2
The intellectual friends of Miss Conger's aunt might well
throw up their hands. Around this time Swamiji was
associating with some of the greatest scientists of the world,
who had gathered in Chicago for the International Electrical
Congress. According to the Life, "immediately following his
appearance at the Parliament," he was the guest of honor at a
vegetarian dinner given by Professor and Mrs. Elisha Gray at
their home in Highland Park, a suburb on Lake Michigan, just
north of Chicago. Among the guests invited to meet him were
(as recounted by the Life)3 the famous scientists Lord Kelvin
(formerly William Thomson), Professor von Helmholtz, and
Ariton Hopitallia.*
It was no doubt also around this time that Swamiji met and
conversed with the famous agnostic Robert Green Ingersoll,
who had been outraging good Christians for many years with
his attacks on the credibility of the Bible and the dogmatic
aspects of Christianity. Finding the myths and dogmas of
Christianity at variance with scientific thought, he repudiated
religion altogether. But scandalous as his doctrines were to
nineteenth century ears, his lectures were highly popular.
"Mr. Ingersoll gets five to six hundred dollars a lecture
Swamiji wrote to Alasinga on November 2, 1893. "He is the
most celebrated lecturer in this country." 4 Swamiji and In-
gersoll, each in his own way, cared for truth alone. Whatever
Ingersoll's views about religion may have been, they were
346
honest, and for that in itself Swamiji would have admired
him. "It is better to be an outspoken atheist," he was to say
later on, "than a hypocrite."5 Later in London Swamiji spoke
of a conversation he had had with Ingersoll:
#

347
 In America there was a great agnostic, a very noble man,
a very good man, and a very fine speaker. He lectured on
religion, which he said was of no use; why bother our
heads about other worlds? He employed this simile: we
have an orange here, and we want to squeeze all the juice
out of it. I met him once and said, "I agree with you
entirely. I have some fruit, and I too want to squeeze out
the juice. Our difference lies in the choice of the fruit.
You want an orange, and I prefer a mango. You think it is
enough to live here and eat and drink and have a little
scientific knowledge. . . . I want to understand the heart
of things, the very kernel itself. Your study is the
manifestation of life, mine is the life itself . . . I must
know the heart of this life, its very essence, what it is, not
only how it works and what are its manifestations. I want
the why of everything, I leave the how to children."6

Mr. Ingersoll would have perceived that this approach

would, like his own, quickly undermine the dogmatic
supports of religion. He must have recognized that Swamiji
was as revolutionary as he was himself "Fifty years ago," he
said to him on one occasion, "you would have been hanged in
this country if you had come to preach. You would have been
burnt alive or you would have been stoned out of the
villages."7
Even in 1893 Swamiji was not welcome in orthodox
Christian circles, but he went everywhere else in complete
freedom, observing, learning, asking "a thousand questions,"
as well as spreading his own influence. In September of
348
1894, the Chicago Inter Ocean ran an article on him which
included the following sentence:

. . . Vivekananda lingered in Chicago for several

months after the great Parliament of Religions closed,
studying many questions relating to schools and the
material advancement of civilization in order to carry
back to his own people as convincing arguments
regarding America
#

349
 as he brought to this country concerning the morality and
spirituality of his own people.

While "lingering in Chicago" Swamiji could have seen and

studied a great deal. Indeed there was perhaps no better place
for him to take his first close look at Americans and
American institutions than this city still in the exuberance of
its youth. Everything about Chicago was new, venturesome,
and expanding with enormous activity. Although many of its
districts were still undeveloped and sparsely settled, its
population had grown in less than sixty years from one
hundred and fifty to over a million, and its industries, its
institutions, and its ambitions had grown as fast. If Chicago
lacked mellowness, as it surely did, if it was not so polished
and knowledgeable as the older cities of the East Coast, it
made up for its want of tradition and sophistication by its
immense vitality. With the crush of horse-drawn traffic
rattling over the congested streets of its business district, the
crowding of tugs and barges on its sludgy river, its grain
elevators, stockyards, and factories, its Board of Trade and
network of great railways, with its university and its new Art
Institute, not to speak of its great World's Fair, which
remained open and in full glory until October 31, Chicago
offered Swamiji a picture of late nineteenth-century America
such as did not exist in so pure and unrelieved a form
elsewhere. The city even contained slums that in
wretchedness were second to none in the country and a
settlement house that was to become world famous.
One of the schools that Swamiji visited was the Cook
County Normal School, whose principal was the well-known
Col. Francis Wayland Parker. Even before the influence of
350
John Dewey had been felt in America, Colonel Parker had in-
troduced progressive educational principles in Boston and in
1883 had brought them to Chicago. Although it is not certain
that the following description of Swamiji's visit to Colonel
Parker's school belongs to the present period, it is not likely
that in "studying many questions relating to schools" he
would
#

351
have overlooked the most progressive school in the city. And
thus a child's glimpse of his visit can as well be quoted here
as elsewhere. The story, taken from an article by Henrietta
Holmes Earl, first appeared in Prabuddha Bharata of
September 1933. Mrs. Earl wrote:

I think of Vivekananda always as "Vivekananda the

Vivid." And perhaps that is so because for a few brief
moments I looked into his eyes. It happened when I, a
small child, was a pupil in the school of which Col.
Francis W. Parker was the head. Several of our schools
are named after him, and his influence on education and
thought was so great that he may be classed as a prophet
of education. His work was known in far countries, and
children came to his school from many lands with their
parents who returned to their foreign homes to teach his
methods. Among this group of foreign students was a
Hindu family, the son being in my class. Each morning
the entire school assembled for Chapel and often a brief
talk by some distinguished visitor was heard. On one of
these occasions we were all fascinated by the spectacle of
our tall Col. Parker ushering in another stately man who
was dressed in flowing robes and turban. We sang, and
Col. Parker read a prayer. Then the Swami spoke to us. I
was too little to remember what he said, but I do re-
member how quiet the big room was, and how brilliant
his eyes and vibrant his voice. When his talk was over he
too said a prayer, and then he and Col. Parker walked
down together from the platform through the assembly
hall. The Hindu boy next to me sat in an aisle seat, and,
as the Swami passed him, bent and kissed his robe. I was
352
so surprised at such a thing that I whispered to the boy,
"Why did you do that? Who is he?" "The man is Swami
Vivekananda, a great saint from my country," he said.
"But," said I, "there are no saints any more." "Not here in
your country," he replied, "but we still have them in
India."8
#

353
 During the two months or so that Swamiji remained in
Chicago he not only absorbed all kinds of information regard-
ing the workings of Western civilization but lectured in the
city and in nearby towns. The Chicago correspondent of the
Critic, Lucy Monroe, whose article of October 7 was quoted
in the last chapter, again wrote about him on November 11.
Lucy Monroe was a sister of Harriet Monroe, the poetess,
whose vivid description of Swamiji has been earlier quoted.
Unlike Harriet, Lucy Monroe went to hear Swamiji more than
once, not merely because of her duty as a reporter but, to
judge from her articles, because of her personal appreciation
of him. A small portion of the following report may be
familiar to the reader, for, by way of illustrating the fact that
he was proving to America that Hindus "are not savages,"
Swamiji himself quoted from it in a letter to India. 9 The full
report reads as follows:

THE CHICAGO LETTER

. . . It was an outgrowth of the Parliament of Religions,

which opened our eyes to the fact that the philosophy of
the ancient creeds contains much beauty for the moderns.
When we had once clearly perceived this, our interest in
their exponents quickened, and with characteristic eager-
ness we set out in pursuit of knowledge. The most
available means of obtaining it, after the close of the
Parliament, was through the addresses and lectures of
Suami Vivekananda, who is still in this city. His original
purpose in coming to this country was to interest
354
Americans in the starting of new industries among the
Hindoos, but he has abandoned this for the present,
because he finds that, as "the Americans are the most
charitable people in the world," every man with a purpose
comes here for assistance in carrying it out. When asked
about the relative condition of the poor here and in India,
he replied that our poor would be princes there, and that
he had been taken through the worst quarter of the city
only to find it, from
#

355
the standpoint of his knowledge, comfortable and even
pleasant.
A Brahmin of the Brahmins, Vivekananda gave up his
rank to join the brotherhood of monks, where all pride of
caste is voluntarily relinquished. And yet he bears the
mark of race upon his person. His culture, his eloquence,
and his fascinating personality have given us a new idea
of Hindoo civilization. He is an interesting figure, his
fine, intelligent, mobile face in its setting of yellows, and
his deep, musical voice prepossessing one at once in his
favor. So it is not strange that he has been taken up by the
literary clubs, has preached and lectured in churches,
until the life of Buddha and the doctrines of his faith have
grown familiar to us. He speaks without notes, presenting
his facts and his conclusions with the greatest art, the
most convincing sincerity; and rising at times to a rich,
inspiring eloquence. As learned and cultivated,
apparently, as the most accomplished Jesuit, he has also
something Jesuitical in the character of his mind; but
though the little sarcasms thrown into his discourses are
as keen as a rapier, they are so delicate as to be lost on
many of his hearers. Nevertheless his courtesy is
unfailing, for these thrusts are never pointed so directly at
our customs as to be rude. At present he contents himself
with enlightening us in regard to his religion and the
words of its philosophers. He looks forward to the time
when we shall pass beyond idolatry-now necessary in his
opinion to the ignorant classes; beyond worship, even, to
a knowledge of the presence of God in nature, of the
divinity and responsibility of man. "Work out your own

356
 salvation," he says with the dying Buddha; "I cannot help
you. No man can help you. Help yourself."

The statement that Swamiji had abandoned his purpose of

interesting Americans in the starting of new industries among
#

357
the Hindus is clarified by his second hitherto unpublished
letter to Professor Wright:

c/of J. Lyons 262 Michigan av.

Chicago
26 October '93

Dear Adhyapakji .

You would be glad to know that I am doing well here

and that almost everybody has been very kind to me,
except of course the very orthodox. Many of the men
brought together here from far off lands have got projects
and ideas and missions to carry out and America is the
only place where there is a chance of success for every-
thing. But I thought better and have given up speaking
about my project entirely-because I am sure now-the
heathen draws more than his project. So I want to go to
work earnestly for my own project only keeping the
project in the background and working like any other
lecturer.
He who has brought me hither and has not left me yet
will not leave me ever I am sure. You will be glad to
know that I am doing well and expect to do very well in
the way of getting money. Of course I am too green in the
business but would soon learn my trade. I am very
popular in Chicago. So I want to stay here a little more
and get money.
Tomorrow I am going to lecture on Buddhism at the
ladies' fortnightly club-which is the most influential in
this city. How to thank you my kind friend or Him who
358
brought you to me-for now I think the success of my
project probable and it is you who have made it so.
May blessings and happiness attend every step of your
progress in this world.
My love and blessings to your children
Yours affly ever10
Vivekananda
#

359
 Although Swamiji remained in Chicago for so long a time,
speaking before literary clubs and in churches, the only
definite information we have at present regarding his lectures
in the city comes from his letter quoted above, in which he
says: "Tomorrow [October 27] I am going to lecture on
Buddhism at the ladies' fortnightly club-which is the most
influential in this city." This club, founded twenty years
earlier and known then and now as the Fortnightly of
Chicago, was, as Swamiji said, the most influential in the city
and was also one of the most exclusive. Its membership of
some one hundred and fifty women was drawn from the
upper and professional classes and included, naturally,
Swamiji's friend Mrs. Potter Palmer. The club's object, as
stated in its early bylaws, was "intellectual and social
culture." Unhappily for our purpose, the Fortnightly has
traditionally avoided publicity, and thus one fails to find even
a resume of Swamiji's lecture in the Chicago newspapers.
Two weeks earlier, however, a small news item appeared in
the Tribune to the effect that the fortnightly Club had held its
first meeting and lecture of the season at the Hotel Richelieu
(on South Michigan Avenue;. Swamiji's lecture; which is re-
corded in the Fortnightly yearbook for 1893 as the "History
of Buddhism," was no doubt also delivered at the Richelieu,
one of the city's most elegant hotels, long since demolished.
This is all we know to date of Swamiji's lecture engagements
during his stay in Chicago.
As for his lectures in neighboring towns, we have been
able to gather a few reports from the contemporary
newspapers. In his letter of October 2, Swamiji wrote that he
360
was to visit Evanston, a town just north of Chicago, where
Professor Wright's friend Dr. Bradley lived. The Evanston
lecture engagement was made almost immediately after the
Parliament in conjunction with Dr. Carl von Bergen, a fellow
delegate from Sweden. Dr. von Bergen, to judge from a
photograph published in Neely's History of the Parliament of
Religions, was a rather formidable, beetle-browed man,
baldheaded and bewhiskered. According to the records, he
spoke only once at the Parliament,
#

361
giving on the opening day a short talk in which he made it
clear that the broad and tolerant outlook of the Christian
church in Sweden long antedated that of the Parliament of
Religions. The conception that all religions have a measure of
good in them was not new to him. We have reason to believe
that von Bergen was one of those delegates who later
developed a friendship with Swamiji, for we find that he
attended a small and intimate luncheon in his company many
months after the Parliament. (See chapter four.)

The first information regarding the Evanston lectures was

discovered in the Chicago Evening Journal of September 29,
1893, in the form of a preliminary announcement:

ALTRUISM OF CHRISTIANITY
__________

It Will Be Contrasted with Hindoo Ethics

in Lectures at Evanston

Suami Vivekananda, a representative from India to the

recent World's Parliament of Religions, and Dr. Carl Von
Bergen, a representative from Scandinavia, will give
three lectures in Evanston beginning to-morrow evening.
The other lectures will be given on Tuesday and
Thursday evenings of next week in the Congregational
Church. The subjects for Saturday evenings are "Altruism
362
in Christianity; illustrated by the life of Catherine of
Siena, the herald of pure Christianity in the middle ages,"
by Dr. Von Bergen; "Hindu Altruism," by Suami
Vivekananda. Tuesday evening, "Monism," Suami
Vivekananda; "Lord Shaftesbury, the most earnest
philanthropist of our age," Dr. Von Bergen. On this
evening John W. Hutchinson will sing a number of the
old time songs which have made him so famous.
Thursday evening, "Huldine Beamish: the founder of the
Edelweiss," Dr. Von Bergen. "Reincarnation," Suami
Vivekananda.
#

363
 The first announcements in the Evanston papers of this
lecture course appeared in the Press and the Index,
September 23, four days before the close of the
Parliament. The announcement in the Press read as
follows:

NEWS NOTES

SUAMI VIVEKANANDA is the brilliant Hindu monk

at the Parliament of religions. He has been the center of
attraction on all occasions, not only by his "Baltimore
Oriole" dress, but by his beaming countenance, his per-
fect unconsciousness [sic] and his marvelous eloquence
in expounding Hindu philosophy. This brilliant orator has
been engaged to give a course of three lectures in
Evanston beginning Saturday, Sept. 30.

The announcement in the Index was much the same as that

above, and I will not burden the reader with it here, except to
say that the Index referred to Swamiji himself-not his dress-as
"the Baltimore Oriole." Notices in both papers appeared also
on September 30, giving the additional information that
admission to one lecture was fifty cents, and to the course of
three, one dollar.
Since both Evanston papers were weeklies, it was not until
Swamiji and Dr. von Bergen had completed their lectures that
the Press and the Index each ran a report on the series. The
report in the Index of October 7, which is the more
comprehensive, reads as follows (I have omitted those
passages which relate only to Dr. Carl von Bergen) :

364
 RELIGIOUS LECTURES

At the Congregational Church, during the past week,

there have been given a course of lectures which in nature
much resembled the Religious Parliament which has just
been completed. The lecturers were Dr. Carl von Bergen,
of Sweden, and Suami Vivekananda, the Hindu monk. . .
.
Swami Vivekananda is a representative from India to the
Parliament of Religions. He has attracted a great deal of
attention on account of his unique attire in Mandarin
colors, by his magnetic presence and by his brilliant
oratory and wonderful exposition of Hindu philosophy.
His stay in Chicago has been a continual ovation. The
course of lectures was arranged to cover three evenings.
[The lectures of Saturday and Tuesday evenings are listed
without comment; then the article continues:] On Thurs-
day evening Oct. 5, Dr. von Bergen spoke on "Huldine
Beamish, the Founder of the King's Daughters of
Sweden," and "Reincarnation" was the subject treated by
the Hindu monk. The latter was very interesting; the
views being those that are not often heard in this part of
the world. The doctrine of reincarnation of the soul, while
comparatively new and little understood in this country,
is well-known in the east, being the foundation of nearly
all the religions of those people. Those who do not use it
as dogma, do not say anything against it. The main point
to be decided in regard to the doctrine is, as to whether
we have had a past. We know that we have a present and
feel sure of a future. Yet how can there be a present with-
out a past? Modern science has proved that matter exists
365
and continues to exist. Creation is merely a change in
appearance. We are not sprung out of nothing. Some
regard God as the common cause of everything and judge
this a sufficient reason for existence. But in everything
we must consider the phenomena; whence and from what
matter springs. The same arguments that prove there is a
future prove that there is a past. It is necessary that there
should be causes other than God's will. Heredity is not
able to give sufficient cause. Some say that we are not
conscious of a former existence. Many cases have been
found where there are distinct reminiscences of a past.
And here lies the germ of the theory. Because the Hindu
is kind to dumb animals many believe that we believe in
#

366
 the reincarnation of souls in lower orders. They are not
able to conceive of kindness to dumb animals being other
than the result of superstition. An ancient Hindu priest
defines religion as anything that lifts one up. Brutality is
driven out, humanity gives way to divinity. The theory of
[re]incarnation does not confine man to this small earth.
His soul can go to other, higher earths where he will be a
loftier being, possessing, instead of five senses, eight,
and continuing in this way he will at length approach the
acme of perfection, divinity, and will be allowed to drink
deep of oblivion in the "Islands of the Blest."

We need not give here the report on the lectures that ap-
peared in the Press of the same date, for nothing additional is
to be learned from it except that "Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton
Herbert entertained the lecturers at her residence Thursday
evening, and here the third lectures were delivered." (Mrs.
Elizabeth Boynton Herbert, incidentally, had spoken before
the Universal Religious Unity Congress at the Parliament on
the same day, September 23, as had Swamiji.)
Other evidence of Swamiji's lecturing outside of Chicago
comes from the following letter, which he wrote on October
10 to Mrs. Kate Tannatt Woods, his hostess in Salem during
the days before the Parliament:

Dear Mrs. Tannatt Woods:

I received your letter yesterday. Just now I am

lecturing about Chicago-and am doing as I think very
well-it is ranging from 30 to 80 dollars a lecture and just
now I have been so well advertised in Chicago gratis by
367
the Parliament of religions that it is not advisable to give
up this field now. To which I am sure you will agree.
However I may come soon to Boston but when I cannot
say. Yesterday I returned from Streator where I got 87
dollars for a lecture. I have engagements every day this
week. And hope more will come by the end of the week.
#

368
 My love to Mr. Woods and compliments to all our
friends.
Yours truly,ll
Vivekananda

Streator is a relatively small city, ninety miles southwest of

Chicago. To judge from the announcement which appeared in
the Streator Daily Free Press of October 5, the prices of
admission to Swamiji's lecture, delivered in the Plumb Opera
House, were twenty-five cents For the first floor and thirty-
five cents for the balcony. Although in midwestern towns the
words "opera house" were applied to any building, however
small or shabby, where performances were held-the term
being more cultural-sounding and uplifting than the morally
questionable "theatre"-the Plumb Opera House seems to have
been a fairly sizable place. By a mathematical process, and
allowing for the percentage taken by the manager of the
house, one can arrive at the conclusion that Swamiji's
audience consisted of approximately four hundred people.
But although the lecture was well attended, the Daily Free
Press of October 9 ran the following somewhat dreary
review:

VIVEKANANDA

The lecture of this celebrated Hindoo at the Opera

House, Saturday night, was very interesting. By compara-
tive philology, he sought to establish the long admitted
relationship between the Aryan races and their
descendants in the new world. He mildly defended the
caste system of India which keeps three-fourths of the
369
people in utter and humiliating subjection, and boasted
that the India of today was the same India that had
watched for centuries the meteoric nations of the world
flash across the horizon and sink into oblivion. In
common with the people, he loves the past. He lives not
for self, but for God. In his country a premium is placed
on beggars and tramps, though not so distinguished in his
lecture. When the meal
#

370
 is prepared, they wait for some man to come along who is
first served, then the animals, the servants, the man of the
house and lastly the woman of the household. Boys are
taken at 10 years of age and are kept by professors for a
period of ten to twenty years, educated and sent forth to
resume their former occupations or to engage in a life of
endless wandering, preaching, and praying, taking along
only that which is given them to eat and wear, but never
touching money. Vivekananda is of the latter class. Men
approaching old age withdraw from the world, and after a
period of study and prayer, when they feel themselves
sanctified, they also go forward spreading the gospel. He
observed that leisure was necessary for intellectual
development and scored Americans for not educating the
Indians whom Columbus found in a state of savagery. In
this he exhibited a lack of knowledge of conditions. His
talk was lamentably short and much was left unsaid of
seeming greater importance than much that was said.

It is clear from the above report that the American press,

for one reason or another, did not always give Swamiji an
enthusiastic reception.
To date, these reports are all we have been able to gather in
connection with his side trips from Chicago, although un-
doubtedly there are others waiting to be found.

The reader may have formed some idea of Swamiji's

state of mind during this period from his letters to
Professor Wright. Additional new material indicates what
371
a blessed state it was-a state which, despite his incessant
activity, was one of perfect peace. How fortunate were
those who knew him at this time, for his inner serenity
was such that it shone out as a blessing and a revelation.
In an excerpt from a newly discovered letter written to
Swamiji by Mrs. Hale she recalls Swamiji as
#

372
 . . . the great and glorious soul that came to the
Parliament of Religions, so full of love of God, that his
face shone with Divine light, whose words were fire,
whose very presence created an atmosphere of harmony
and purity, thereby drawing all souls to himself. 12

One look at a photograph which has recently come to our

hands is enough to show us something of what Mrs. Hale
meant, for one cannot fail to be moved by the childlike
tenderness of Swamiji's appearance, and by the wonderful
peace and calm of his expression. Inasmuch as this picture
was copyrighted in Washington by the photographer, it was
evidently taken after Swamiji had become Famous, that is,
after the first day of the Parliament. It has come to us along
with a group of five other photographs, 13 all of which, there is
reason to believe, were taken in September of 1893, and all of
which have been published. One of these is no doubt familiar
to the reader; it is that in which Swamiji stands with arms
folded across his chest and which was used as a colored
poster during Parliament days. All six pictures are
autographed by Swamiji and inscribed with English
translations from Sanskrit mottoes, some with the original
Sanskrit written in Bengali characters. The mottoes are as
follows:

1. Ajaramaravat prajnah vidyam

arthancha chintayet
Grihita-iva kesheshu mrityuna
dharmam acharet

373
 When in search of knowledge or prosperity think that
you would never have death or disease, and when
worshipping God think that death's hand is in your hair.

2. Eka eva suhrid dharma

nidhanepyanuyati yah

Virtue is the only friend which follows us even beyond

the grave.
Everything else ends with death.
#

374
 3. One infinite pure and holy-beyond
thought beyond qualities I bow down
to thee

4. Samata sarva-bhuteshu etanmuktasya

Lakshanam

Equality in all beings is the sign of the free

5. Thou art the only treasure in this world

6. Thou art the father the lord the
mother the husband and love

It was through the kindness of the late Swami

Vishwananda, then in charge of the Vivekananda Vedanta
Society in Chicago, that these photographs and other
invaluable material regarding Swamiji came to our hands,
and the story of how this material was discovered by the
Swami is worth telling here, for it is an example of those
coincidences that occur so frequently in matters concerning
Swamiji. Swami Vishwananda told us that a young man,
unconnected with Vedanta, had received from his
grandmother a bundle of unpublished letters, photographs,
and other material, all pertaining to Swami Vivekananda.
Knowing that his grandmother had cherished them, the young
man had kept them, and indeed might still possess them, or
perhaps by this time have discarded them, had it not been that
a friend of his was a student of Swami Vishwananda's. How
this friend came to know of the bundle of old documents is
375
not known, but one day she told Swami Vishwananda of its
existence. The Swami forthwith visited the young man and
found, with what joy we can imagine, a veritable feast of
hitherto unknown material! The young man gladly gave him
the bundle, which had originally belonged, the Swami
learned, to the McKindley sisters, nieces of Mr. and Mrs.
Hale. It is such unlooked-for and fortuitous discoveries which
give us hope that eventually more hidden material regarding
Swamiji will come to light, slowly pushing its way up
through the years.
#

376
 But to return to Swamiji as he was during the Chicago days
following the Parliament. Perhaps the clearest indication of
his exalted state is given in a letter that Swami Vishwananda
received in 1939 from Sarat Chandra Chakravarti, a disciple
of Swamiji's whose diary is published in the Complete Works.
A translated portion of this letter reads as follows:

. . . Swamiji once told me that one moonlight night

when he was on the shore of Lake Michigan his mind
began to merge in Brahman. Suddenly he saw Sri Rama-
krishna and he remembered the work for which he had
come to this world, and then his mind came down and
again turned toward the fulfillment of his mission. I re-
corded this in my diary, but I did not think it necessary to
make it public; therefore I have not published it as yet. I
am letting only you know. . . 14

In what a transcendent state Swamiji lived at the very time

when the world was his for the asking! The doors of the rich,
the socially prominent, the brilliant were all open to him, and
everywhere he was in demand. But his difficulty, it would
seem, was not to lift his mind above the world that pressed
about him on all sides but, for the sake of his work, to hold it
down. It was always so with him; yet during the first few
months of his stay in America the difficulty was perhaps at its
most obvious. One recalls in this connection the following
passage from Sister Nivedita, as quoted in the Life:

The Swami never seemed, it must be remembered, to

be doing tapasya, but his whole life was a concentration
377
so intense that for any one else it would have been a most
terrible tapasya. When he first went to America, it was
extremely difficult for him to control the momentum that
carried him into meditation. "When he sits down to
meditate," had said one whose guest he was in India, "in
two minutes he feels nothing, though his body be black
#

378
 with mosquitoes." With this habit thus deeply ingrained,
he landed in America, that country of railways and tram-
ways, and complicated engagement lists, and at first it
was no uncommon thing for him to be carried two or
three times round a tramcircuit, only disturbed periodic-
ally by the conductor asking for the fare. He was very
much ashamed of such occurrences, however, and
worked hard to overcome them.15

During the months Swamiji remained in Chicago after the

Parliament of Religions he must have been the house guest of
various friends. He himself writes of this period: "Many of
the handsomest houses in this city are open to me. All the
time I am living as a guest of somebody or other." As we
have seen, one home that was always open to him and where
he stayed both during and after the Parliament was that of Mr.
and Mrs. John B. Lyon at 262 Michigan Avenue, and to judge
from the fact that a letter dated November 19, 1893, which he
wrote to Mrs. Tannatt Woods (see chapter four) was written
on stationery bearing the letterhead "George W. Hale, 541
Dearborn Avenue, Chicago," it is almost certain that he was a
guest of the Hale family for at least a part of the time. * The
Hales were excellent hosts, treating him from the first as a
cherished member of the family and understanding him, per-
haps not fully, but with the unquestioning insight of love.
The Hale house (on Dearborn between Burton Place and
Schiller) was a block and a half from Lincoln Park, and there
Swamiji sometimes went to sit in the sun and open air. A
touching and revealing incident took place during these out-
ings. It seems that each day when Swamiji sat in the park, a
young woman and a little girl six years old would pass by on
379
their way to the market. One day the woman, no doubt con-
vinced that the young Hindu was kind and trustworthy, asked
him if she might leave her child in his charge while she went
about her marketing. Swamiji assured her that she might, and
thenceforth every morning that they met in the park, Swamiji
#

380
took the little girl into his care. But the story does not end
here. When the child had grown to fifteen or sixteen, her
mother came upon a picture of Swamiji, of whose fame she
had by that time learned, and allowing it to her daughter,
asked, "Do you remember your friend?" She remembered; for
who knowing Swamiji, even at the age of six, could forget?
Later, after she had married and moved to Philadelphia, the
memory of Swamiji again became vivid in her mind, drawing
her to spiritual life. She became a student of Swami
Akhilananda, who used to visit that city now and then to
meet with a group of devotees. 16 How many small
happenings such as that of a mother leaving her child in his
charge took place throughout Swamiji's visit to America, how
many chance contacts he had with people whose lives were
translated by his touch or glance, we can only guess.
The Hale family were perhaps the moat fortunate of all;
for, as is known, not only was Swamiji their guest from time
to time, but he made their home his headquarters during
almost all of 1894, before the pivot of his activities moved
eastward to the Atlantic Coast. It was on George W. Hale's
letter paper and thus, presumably, during one of his stays at
Dearborn Street, that he jotted down in pencil a series of
notes on the subjects of reason, faith, and love which have
recently come to light. The date of the manuscript cannot be
accurately determined, but inasmuch as Swamiji wrote these
notes in the sanctuary that the Hales offered him in Chicago, I
think their reproduction here will not be out of place. I am
giving them exactly as they appear in the original:

Reason-has its limits its base

its degeneration. The walls round it
381
Agnosticism. Atheism. But must not stop
The beyond is acting upon influencing us every
moment-the sky the stars acting upon us-even
those not seen. Therefore must go beyond-reason
alone can't go-finite can not get at the infinite
#

382
 Faith its degeneration when alone-bigotry
fanaticism--sectarianism. Narrowing
finite :. can not get to the infinite
Sometimes gain in intensity but looses [sic] in
extensity-and in bigots & fanatics become
worship of his own pride & vanity
Is there no other way-there is Love
it never degenerates-peaceful softening
ever-widening-the universe is too small
for its expansiveness.
We can not define it we can only trace
it through its development and describe its
surroundings
It is at first-what the gravitation
is to the external world-tendency to unification
forms and conventionalities are its death.
Worship through forms-methods-services
forms-up to then no love.
When love comes method dies.
Human language and human Forms
God as father, God as mother, God as
the lover-Surata-vardhanam etc. Solomon's Song of
Songs-Dependence and independence
Love Love
Love the chaste wife Anasuya Sita-
not as hard dry duty but as ever pleasing
love-Sita worship-
The madness of Love--God intoxicated man
The allegory of Radha-misunderstood
The restriction more increase-
383
Lust is the death of love
Self is the death of love
individual to general
Concrete to abstract-to absolute
The praying Mahomedan and the girl
The Sympathy-Kavir
#

384
 The Christian nun from whose hands blood came
The Mahomedan Saint
Every particle seeking its own complement
When it finds that it is at rest
Every man seeking-happiness-& stability
The search is real but the objects are themselves
but happiness is coming to them momentary at least
through the search of these objects.
The only object unchangeable and the only
complement of character and aspirations of the
human Soul is God
Love is struggle of a human Soul to find its
complement, its stable equilibrium its infinite rest. 17

While Swamiji was in Chicago, word of his great and

saving spiritual power spread from person to person, and very
likely many came to him for private interviews, seeking help
and guidance and finding in his presence not only the solace
of profound and unjudging wisdom, but, as well, the
understanding friendship of one who was not divorced from
an interest in the life around him. He was father, son, teacher,
and friend.* From the few facts we know of his days in
Chicago after the Parliament we can form some sort of
picture of what he must have been like. We see him in the
vigor of youth, his face shining with divine light, fulfilling
many lecture engagements, and no doubt many social
engagements, taking a keen interest in Western life and
institutions, and explaining India's life and culture in their
true significance. That fraction of his mind with which he
385
attended to the world was brilliantly alert indeed, was in itself
far more than a match for the keenest intellect. But we see
also that this fraction was informed and illumined by a far
larger part that lay quiet and untouched beneath the surface,
always absorbed in God, ready to pour out blessings upon
and alter the lives of those who came to him. How often
Swamiji verged upon nirvikalpa samadhi, only to be drawn
back ,by Sri Ramakrishna, or by his own love and
compassion for
#

386
man, in order that he might fulfill his mission here, we cannot
know; but we can assume that he always lived on the border-
line between the relative and the Absolute, as a prophet of his
supreme eminence must.

It is still not known exactly when Swamiji felt it advisable

to sign up with a lecture bureau. Unfortunately, we cannot be
much more precise than the Life, which tells us that "it must
have been in the very late autumn or the early winter months
when, to use his own expression, he `began to whirl to and
fro.' " Although it must indeed have been around this time
that the lecture tour started, Swamiji used the expression "I
was whirling to and fro" at a much later date and in
connection with his rapid travel between New York and
Boston.18 He actually tells very little about his midwestern
"whirlings," or when and why he had joined a lecture bureau.
But if his purpose was to broadcast the truth regarding Indian
religion, culture, and customs, which had been so
systematically and thoroughly misrepresented in America by
Christian missionaries, and if he felt that he must earn money
both for his own support and For the work in India, then to
engage himself with a bureau would seem the logical step for
him to take. Then, as now, lecture bureaus, concert agencies,
impresarios, and so on were necessary evils to anyone who
would come before the general public, there being no other
way to make coordinated engagements in many towns. The
expedience of this move may have occurred to Swamiji as
early as November 2, for in a letter written on that date he
387
speaks of the fact that "a Christian lady from Poona, Miss
Sorabji, and the Jain representative, Mr. Gandhi, are going to
remain longer in the country and make lecture toms." From
this we can gather that while Swamiji had not yet made any
definite plans, he may have been considering the advantages
of enlisting with a bureau.
#

388
 One can be fairly certain that Mr. Slayton, the head of the
lecture bureau under which Swamiji placed himself, knew
that he had a prize on his lists. If he had not known it from
reading the Chicago newspapers, he learned it from the
following letter, written to him by the Reverend Dr. W. H.
Thomas, a Congregational minister. Mr. Slayton was later to
use the text of the letter by way of advertisement.

Dear Mr. Slayton: Of the many learned men in the East

who took part in the great World's Parliament of
Religion, Vivekananda was the most popular favorite,
and when it was known that he was to speak thousands
were turned away for want of room. Nor was it curiosity
alone that drew the masses; for those who heard him once
were so impressed by the magnetism of his fine presence,
the charm and power of his eloquence, his perfect
command of the English language and the deep interest in
what he had to say, that they desired a11 the more to hear
him again. It will be the opportunity of a life time for the
cities of our land to see and hear this noble, earnest,
loving Brahman dressed in the costume of his order, and
telling the true story of the religions and customs of his
far-off country. Affectionately, W. H. Thomas.19

Mr. Slayton somehow persuaded Swamiji to sign a three

year contract. It is in a sense difficult to understand this, for
although Swamiji was uncertain of the future at this time, he
had little intention of remaining in America for three years,
and certainly would not have wanted to commit himself to do
so. It is also difficult to understand why no one warned him
389
that almost as a matter of course attempts would be made to
exploit him, unless it were that his friends were as naive in
this respect as was he. In any case, if one is to believe what
one reads in newspapers, he did sign a long-term contract.
This information is to be Found in the Appeal-Avalanche of
January 21, 1894, a Memphis, Tennessee, newspaper. "He is
under
#

390
contract with the `Slayton Lyceum Bureau,' of Chicago," this
paper reported, "to fill a three-years' engagement in this
country." In this connection it might be mentioned that in the
"Memoirs of Sister Christine" it is said, "after the Parliament
of Religions, Swami Vivekananda was induced to place
himself under the direction of Pond's Lecture Bureau and
make a lecture tour of the United States."20 Pond's Lecture
Bureau was a well-known agency with headquarters in New
York and was not the same as the Slayton Lyceum Bureau of
Chicago. It is now definitely established that Swamiji signed
up with Slayton Lyceum Bureau. But this knowledge is not
so valuable as one could wish, for to date one finds no trace
of the Bureau's old files. One fears they have been destroyed
and with them the information that could enable us to trace
Swamiji's itinerary and follow his footsteps in the Midwest.
However, even without this help, we are able to fill in some
of the gaps in our knowledge of his tour, though to be sure
many remain.
One thing that should perhaps be of some consolation to
those who would like to see all the gaps filled in the story of
Swamiji's life is that his brother monks and friends in India
had an even more difficult time than we in attempting to keep
track of him. The following letter of some poignancy was
written at the direction of friends who longed to hear of the
doings and triumphs of their beloved Swamiji in this strange
land. It was addressed to Thos. Cook and Son, Calcutta, and
dated March 28, 1894:

Dear Sirs-

Swami Vivekananda
391
 Care Mr. Geo. W. Hale
54I Dearborn Ave
Chicago
The above Hindu monk has been travelling under
Messrs Tho. Cook & Sons Agency. Your Bombay people
arranged last year for his passage to America where he
went to represent the Hindu religion at the Parliament
#

392
of Religions held in connection with the World's Fair at
Chicago---Swami Vivekananda is reported to have deli-
vered several Ictuses in America, a few of which only are
reproduced or noticed in the Indian papers-But as the
extracts and notices that appeared here are believed to be
unsatisfactory, the brother monks and admirers of
Swamiji are anxious to obtain all the American papers or
cuttings thereof as most convenient containing all the
speeches that have been delivered in and about Chicago,
and in fact wherever he spoke in America, these to
include all newspaper notices or criticisms both for and
against that are known to have appeared, but not to
include the Report of the Parliament of Religions issued
by the Secretary of the Chicago Exhibition, a copy of
which has already been secured from here. Under the
circumstances the undersigned on behalf of the brother
monks and admirers of Swami Vivekananda shall be very
much obliged if you will kindly arrange, owing to the
excellent facilities you possess on a/c of your numerous
agencies and branches, with your people at Chicago for
the collection of papers and pamphlets named above
together with one or two copies of photos if they are in
circulation, and have them all forwarded to your care, the
express thereof shall be paid by Swamiji's admirers
through the undersigned. Further the only address known
of Swami Vivekananda is noted as above. It is quite
possible that Swamiji has or will have left the place ere
this reaches your Chicago Agent, therefore I beg to ask
you to kindly write and inform your Chicago Agent to
put himself in communication with Mr. Hale or any other
party regarding the movements of Swami Vivekananda,
393
who according to the rules of Hindu Sannyasi (ascetic)
will not write and inform of his whereabouts, which
information however is so anxiously looked for by his
admirers and brother monks
Yours obediently21
Kali Krishna Dutta
#

394
 For many years it seemed evident that Swamiji did not
communicate with his brother disciples until he had been in
America for over seven months, or until March 18, 1894, the
date assigned to the published version (in both the Bengali
and the English translation) of what is clearly his first letter to
any one of them.22 However, one finds that on February 18,
1894, Swami Ramakrishnananda wrote to Munshi
Jagmohanlal, the private secretary of the Maharaja of Khetri,
giving him a resume of the first, recently-received, letter from
Swamiji.* Swami Ramakrishnananda's resume goes into
some detail, and there can be no doubt that it refers to the
same letter as that which has all along been dated March 19;
nor can there be any doubt that this letter was written not in
March but probably around the middle of January, the mail
taking in those days about a month to go from America to
India.
But even though this letter was apparently written after
mid January rather than in March, many months had passed
since Swamiji had left India, months during which he had
written at least three times to his Madras disciples, and the
question. remains why he had waited so long before com-
municating with his brothers. Had he grown out of the habit
of writing to them through a long separation? Or was he not
yet prepared to offer them the new program which was taking
shape in his mind, wanting perhaps to initiate it through his
own disciples? Or, again, was he waiting for a divine
command before asking his brothers to follow his ideas? Yet
another and more simple explanation presents itself: during
this time most of the monastic disciples of Sri Ramakrishna
395
were still wandering through India and were as hard to trace
as was Swamiji himself. The difficulty with this answer is
that when Swamiji wanted to communicate his plans to his
brother monks, he found their dispersion over India no
particular drawback. It was possibly in April of 1894 that he
wrote to Swami Shivananda asking that he call all the monks
back to the Math to begin work. Shortly after receiving this
letter, Swami Shivananda met Swami Brahmananda and
Swami Turiyananda in
#

396
Lucknow and `relayed' Swamiji's request to them. Swami
Turiyananda returned to Calcutta in August, while Swami
Brahmananda went first to Brindavan, not leaving there for
Calcutta until November or December. Gradually all
returned. During 1894 and the early part of 1895 Swamiji's
letters to his brothers were not many, but during the latter part
of 1895 and the first part of 1896 we find him writing to them
frequently. These letters did not, it is true, give much news of
his external life, but they gave something better-the power of
his inspiration and vision that was to revolutionize the con-
cept of monasticism in India.
#

397
 NOTES FOR CHAPTER THREE

Page Symbol Note

158 * Elisha Gray, the famous electrical inventor,

was chairman of the International Electrical
Congress, which had been held toward the end
of August in conjunction with the Columbian
Exposition. Evidently some of the foreign
delegates had remained in Chicago for a time.
Kelvin and Helmholtz were, of course,
delegates from, respectively, Scotland and
Germany. As for Ariton Hopitallia, whoever he
may have been, historians, biographers, and
encyclopedists do not seem to have
remembered him. Let us note here, however,
that the name of the delegate from France to
the International Electrical Congress at the
World‘s Fair was Professor Edouard
Hospitalier.

175 * A letter to an Indian friend, dated November

15, 1893, was also written on the Hale‘s
stationery (Original Letters, Belur Math).

178 * A story of one such interview, recounted by

Mme Emma Calce, the famous operatic singer,
in her autobigraphy My Life, has been quoted
in the Life. In the first two editions of the
present book an extended version of Calve‘s
first interview with Swamiji was related in this
398
 chapter. But now that his itinerary is more fully
known, we find that the meeting could not have
taken place in 1894. In that year Mme Calve
was singing in Chicago with the Metropolitan
Opera Company between March 12 and April
12 (and only then), during which weeks, we
#

399
Page Symbol Note

178 cont. now know, Swamiji was first in Detroit and

then in New York, and not for a moment in
Chicago. Since the account of their first
meeting doest not, then, belong in 1894, and
therefore not in the present chapter, I have
given it in Appendix A, where the reader will
also find Mme Calve‘s account of Swamiji‘s
meeting with Mr. John D. Rockefeller, the date
of which is now also open to question.

183 * Swami Ramakrishnananda‘s lettet to Munshi

Jagmohanlal was first published in Swami
Vivekananda – A Forgotten Chapter of His
Life by Beni Shanker Sharma. The date of this
important letter has long been uncertain, but
recent examinations of the original have shown
the correct date to be February 18, 1894. In
connection with the date of Swamiji‘s first
letter from America to Swami
Ramakrishnananda, it may be noted that in its
opening paragraph Swamiji mentions a letter
from Haridas V. Desai which, we learn
elsewhere (Complete Works 8:297), he had
received ―a few days‖ before January 29. This
tends to confirm that Swamiji‘s letter to his
brother disciple was written in the latter half of
January. It was, incidentally, not Swamiji who
misdated his letter March 19; the original
Bengali letter bears no date at all, as was often
400
 the case with his letters to his brothers. There is
evidence that the date March 19, 1894, should
very probably be assigned to the second letter
Swamiji wrote to Swami Ramakrishnananda
(Complete Works 6 : 282), which is also
undated.

183 + On December 27, 1893, the Indian Mirror

#

401
Page Symbol Note

183 cont. printed a letter to the Editor from ―Trigunatit‖

(Swami Trigunatita, one of Swami
Vivekananda‘s brother disciples). The letter
contained quotations from the New York
Critique (Critic) and the New York Herald in
praise of Swamiji. One might infer from this
taht Swamiji had sent these clippings to his
brother disciples to let them know of his
doings. It is more probable, however, that the
clippings, or the quotations from them, came to
the knowledge of Swami Trigunatita through
Swamiji‘s letter of November 15, 1893
(wrongly dated November 15, 1894, in the
Complete Works, volume eight), to Haridas V.
Desai, which contained these same quotations
exactly, no more and no less. ―I cease from
quoting more, ―lest you think me conceited; but
this was necessary to you who have become
nearly frogs in the well and would not see how
the world is going on elsewhere. I do not mean
you personally, my noble friend, but our nation
in general.‖
#

402
 CHAPTER FOUR

THE MIDWESTERN TOUR

1

The first definite knowledge we have of the date on which

Swamiji left Illinois to widen his field of activity is contained
in a letter he wrote to Mrs. Kate Tannatt Woods on
November 19, 1893. It read in full:

Dear Mrs. Woods-

Excuse my delay in answering your letter. I do not
know when I will be able to see you again. I am starting
tomorrow for Madison and Minneapolis. The English
gentleman you speak of is Dr. Momerie of London. He is
a well-known worker amongst the poor of London and is
a very sweet man: You perhaps do not know that the
English church was the only religious denomination in
the world who did not send to us a representative and Dr.
Momerie came to the parliament in spite of the
Archbishop of Canterbury's denouncing of the Parliament
of religions.
My love for you, my kind friend, and your noble son is
all the same whether I write pretty often or not.
Can you express my books and the cover-all to the care
of Mr. Hale? I am in need of them, the express will be
paid here.
The Blessings of the Lord on you and yours.
403
 Ever your friend,
Vivekananda

P.S. If you have the occasion to write to Miss Sanborn

and others of our friends in the east kindly give them
my deepest respects.
Yours truly,l
Vivekananda
#

404
 Swamiji's departure from Chicago for Madison, the capital
of Wisconsin, no doubt marks the beginning of his famous
and important lecture tour of the Midwest and South, which
lasted until April of 1894. But although this tour is famous
and important, we have been able to gather information about
Swamiji's lectures in only four cities prior to his visit to
Detroit in February of 1894. We have found that he visited
not only Madison and Minneapolis in November of 1893 but,
in the same month, Des Moines. Through a more recent
finding we have also learned that in mid-December he
returned to Minneapolis to deliver an additional lecture there.
Another discovery is that Swamiji visited Memphis,
Tennessee, in January of 1894. Thus today we have
information regarding five different engagements of his tour
in the winter of 1893-94, and while these findings by no
means fill all the gaps in our knowledge, they do, I believe,
give a more or less representative idea of his tour as a whole.
Madison, Swamiji's first stop in his tour, was 140 train-
miles northwest of Chicago and had a population of about
thirteen thousand. His short visit there (not even an overnight
stay) is described in a letter he wrote to Mrs. Hale from
Minneapolis the following day. (On its envelope someone
was to write: "Lovely letter-with benediction." And indeed,
Swamiji was already dear to the Hale family, and they to
him.) His letter read in full:

Minneapolis
21 Nov. '93
Dear Mother
405
 I reached Madison safely went to a hotel and sent a
message to Mr Updike: He came to see me. He is a Con-
gregational and so of course was not very friendly at first
but in the course of an hour or so became very kind to
me-and took me over the whole place and the University.
I had a fine audience and 100$ Immediately after the
lecture I took the night train to Minneapolis. I tried to
#

406
 get the clergymen's ticket but they could not give me any
not being the headquarters. The thing to be done is to get
a permit from every head office of every line in Chicago.
Perhaps it is possible for Mr. Hale to get the permits for
me. If it is so I hope he will take the trouble to send them
over to me to Minneapolis if they can reach me within
[the] 25th, or to Des Moines if within the 29th. Else I
would do it the next time in Chicago. I have taken the
money in a draft on the bank which cost me 40c.
May you be blessed for ever my kind friend you and
your whole family have made such a heavenly impression
on me as I would carry all my life.
Yours sincerely2
Vivekananda

Swamiji's lecture at the Congregational Church in Madison

was reported upon somewhat meagerly in the Wisconsin State
Journal the following day:

GAVE AN INTERESTING LECTURE

The lecture at the Congregational church last night by

the celebrated Hindoo monk, Vivekananda, was an ex-
tremely interesting one, and contained much of sound
philosophy and good religion. Pagan though he be, Chris-
tianity may well follow many of his teachings. His creed
is as wide as the universe, taking in all religions, and ac-
cepting truth wherever it may be found. Bigotry and
superstition and idle ceremony, he declared, have no
place in "the religions of India."

407
 A more satisfactory report of this lecture is to be found in
the Daily Cardinal of November 21-a students' newspaper of
the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It read in full:
#

408
 RELIGIONS OF INDIA

Viva Kananda, the Hindoo Orator Delivers

an Interesting Lecture

A crowded house greeted Viva Kananda at the Con-

gregational Church last evening. The speaker was attired
in native costume, which consisted of a cream turban,
with yellow gown and cardinal sash.
The first part of the lecture was devoted to illustrating
the many resemblances of Sanscrit, the language of the
Hindoos, to that of English. They have no word in their
language which means salvation; to them it is freedom
from bondage. They believe that man's real nature is
perfect, and that cause and effect controls all except God.
Religion was aptly illustrated by the story of the blind
men who each felt of a portion of a huge elephant, and
each thought the animal like the particular part he felt of
it; so with religion each of the various sects have a part of
the whole truth, while truth itself is infinite and no man
can say "I have seen it all."
The Hindoo belief was shown to be one of the most
charitable of beliefs. Persecution is something unknown
in India; there is no such word in their language. The
lecturer challenged the world to show an instance in
Hindoo progress, of a Christian missionary being per-
secuted. A Greek historian, writing of them said: "No
Hindoo man is dishonest, no Hindoo woman unchaste."

409
 Viva Kananda came to this country from India in the
interest of the world's congress of religions, and his
lecture last evening on the "Religions of India," was an
inspiration to all who heard him. He has a pleasant, clear-
cut, dusky face, and a decidedly impressive manner and
bearing. His voice is low and pleasant, with a secret
something which rivets your attention at the start.
#

410
 From Madison, Swamiji traveled overnight some two
hundred and fifty miles farther northwest to Minneapolis,
Minnesota, a city with a population of about a hundred and
sixty-five thousand and of no little importance. Indeed, Min-
neapolis and its "Twin City," St. Paul, on the eastern bank of
the Mississippi, are said to have constituted the "regional
capital of the old Northwest." Although Swamiji arrived on
the morning of Tuesday, November 21, he apparently did not
lecture in the city until the twenty-fourth. Meanwhile, he
seems to have been with friends, unknown to us today, who
showed him the beauties of a city, a lake, and a river trans-
formed by snow and ice into a wonderland. He had what was
most probably his first sleigh ride behind steaming horses
and on November 23 saw the Minnehaha Falls, more
beautiful in winter, some said, than in summer-"a solid mass
of rugged ice fifty feet high, glistening in the bright sunlight
"3 On that same day he was sought out and interviewed by a
reporter from the Minneapolis Tribune, who was charmed by
this "Priest of Brahma," who, in turn, was still entranced by
his awakened memories of Hiawatha. (The full text of the
interview can be found in Appendix B.) That Swamiji
thoroughly enjoyed the sub-zero weather in Minneapolis (for
now he had clothes and overshoes to withstand it), we learn
from his second letter to Mrs. Hale, which read in full:

Minneapolis
24th Nov'93
Dear Mother

411
 I am still in Minneapolis. I am to lecture this afternoon
and day after tomorrow go to Des Moines
The day I came here they had their first snow and it
snowed all through the day and night and I had great use
For the arctics.* I went to see the frozen Minihaha falls.
They are very beautiful. The temperature today is 21.
below zero but I had been out sleighing and enjoyed it
immensely though. I am not the least afraid of losing
#

412
 the tips of my ears or nose.
The snow scenery here has pleased me more than any
other sight in this country.
I saw people skating on a frozen lake yesterday.
I am doing well hoping this will find you all the same I
remain
Yours obediently4
Vivekananda

Swamiji gave his first public lecture in Minneapolis in the

evening (not afternoon, as he wrote) of Friday, November 24.
The next day, the Minneapolis Star ran the following report:

THE HINDOO RELIGION

Its Principles and Truths Set Forth in a Clear and Forceful

Manner in a Lecture by Swami Vive Kananda.

"Brahminism" in all its subtle attraction, because of its

embodiment of ancient and truthful principles, was the
subject which held an audience in closest attention last
evening at the First Unitarian Church, while Swami Vive
Kananda expounded the Hindoo faith. It was an audience
which included thoughtful women and men, for the lec-
turer had been invited by the "Peripatetics," and among
the friends who shared the privilege with them were
ministers of varied denominations, as well as students
and scholars. Vive Kananda is a Brahmin priest, and he
occupied the platform in his native garb, with caftan on
head, orange colored coat confined at the waist with a red
sash, and red nether garments.
413
 He presented his faith in all sincerity, speaking slowly
and clearly, convincing his hearers by quietness of speech
rather than by rapid action. His words were carefully
weighed, and each carried its meaning direct. He offered
the simplest truths of the Hindoo religion, and while he
said nothing harsh about Christianity, he touched upon it
in such a manner as to place the Faith of Brahma before
#

414
 all. The all-pervading thought and leading principle of the
Hindoo religion is the inherent divinity of the soul; the
soul is perfect, and religion is the manifestation of
divinity already existing in man. The present is merely a
line of demarcation between the past and future, and of
the two tendencies in man, if the good preponderates he
will move to a higher sphere, if the evil has power, he
degenerates. These two are continually at work within
him; what elevates him is virtue, that which degenerates
is evil.
Kananda will speak at the First Unitarian Church
tomorrow morning.

It should perhaps be mentioned here that the Peripatetics'

invitation to Swamiji does not preclude the possibility of his
being engaged at this time by a lecture bureau; for it was a
function of lecture bureaus to arrange such engagements. On
the other hand, his schedule appears to have been more or
less flexible. For instance, his Sunday morning lecture at the
Unitarian Church was evidently not scheduled in advance.
Swamiji did not mention it in his letter of November 24 to
Mrs. Hate. Indeed, as seems clear in the following report,
which appeared in the Minneapolis Journal of Monday,
November 27, he gave it in response to popular demand:

AN ORIENTAL VIEW

Livami Vivekananda Addresses a Minneapolis Audience.

Mercenaries in Religion
In this Way He Characterizes the Western Nations-
415
 He Tells About the Religions of India.

The Unitarian church was crowded yesterday morning

by an audience anxious to learn something of eastern
religious thought as outlined by Swami Vivekananda, a
Brahmin priest, who was prominent in the Parliament of
Religions at Chicago last summer. The distinguished re-
#

416
presentative of the Brahmin faith was brought to Min-
neapolis by the Peripatetic Club, and he addressed that
body last Friday evening. He was induced to remain until
this week, 3n order that he might deliver the address
yesterday. Vivekanandi is a typical Uindeu, dark-skinned,
well rounded features, and a flashing eye that gives evi-
dence of a quick intellect. He appeared in his picturesque
native dress. He occupied the platform with Dr. H. M:
Simmons, the pastor, the opening prayer was sung,
Vivekanandai following the lines closely, and then Dr.
Simmons read from Paul's lesson on faith, hope and
charity, and "the greatest of these is charity,"
supplementing that reading by a selection from the
Brahmin scripture which teaches the same lesson, and
also a selection from the Moslem faith, and poems from
the Hindu literature, all of which are in harmony with
Paul's utterances.
After a second hymn Swami Vivekanandi was intro-
duced. He stepped to the edge of the platform and at once
had his audience interested by the recital of a Hindu
story. He said in excellent English:

"I will tell you a story of five blind men. There was a
procession in a village in India, and all the people turned
out to see the procession, and specially the gaily capari-
soned elephant. The people were delighted, and as the
five blind men could not see, they determined to touch
the elephant that they might acquaint themselves with its
form. They were given the privilege, and after the
procession had passed, they returned home together with
the people, and they began to talk about the elephant. `It
417
was just like a wall,' said one. `No it wasn't,' said another,
`it was like a piece of rope.' `You are mistaken,' said a
third, `I felt him and it was just like a serpent.' The
discussion grew excited and the fourth declared the
elephant was like a pillow. The argument soon broke into
more angry expressions and the five blind men took to
fighting. Along came a man with two eyes, and he says,
#

418
`My friends, what is the matter?' The disputation was
explained, whereupon the new comer said, `Men, you are
all right: the trouble is you touched the elephant at
different points. The wall was the side, the rope was the
tail, the serpent was the trunk and the toes were the
pillow. Stop your quarreling; you are all right, only you
have been viewing the elephant from different
standpoints."'.
Religion, he said, had become involved in such a
quarrel. The people of the West thought they had the only
religion of God, and the people of the East held the same
prejudice. Both were wrong; God was in every religion.
There were many bright criticisms on Western thought.
The Christians were characterized as having a "shop-
keeping religion." They were always begging of God"
Oh, God, give me this and give me that; Oh, God, do this
and do that:' The Hindu couldn't understand this. He
thought it wrong to be begging of God. Instead of
begging, the religious man should give. The Hindu be-
lieved in giving to God, to his fellows, instead of asking
God to give to them. He had observed that the people of
the West, very many of them, thought a good deal of
God, so long as they got along all right, but when reverse
came, then God was forgotten: not so with the Hindu,
who had come to look upon God as a being of love. The
Hindu faith recognized the motherhood of God as well as
the fatherhood, because the former was a better fulfill-
ment of the idea of love. The Western Christian would
work all the week for the dollar, and when he succeeded
he would pray, "Oh, God, we thank thee for giving us this
benefit," and then he would put all the money into his
419
pocket; the Hindu would make the money and then give it
to God by helping the poor and the less fortunate. And so
comparisons were made between the ideas of the West
and the ideas of the East. In speaking of God, Vivek-
anandi said in substance: "You people of the West think
#

420
you have God. What is it to have God? If you have Him,
why is it that so much criminality exists, that nine out of
ten people are hypocrites? Hypocrisy cannot exist where
God is. You have your palaces for the worship of God,
and you attend them in part for a time once a week, but
how few go to worship God. It is the fashion in the West
to attend church, and many of you attend for no other
reason. Have you then, you people of the West, any right
to lay exclusive claim to take possession of God?"
Here the speaker was interrupted by spontaneous ap-
plause. He proceeded: "We of the Hindu faith believe in
worshipping God for love's sake, not for what he gives
us, but because God is love, and no nation, no people, no
religion has God until it is willing to worship Him for
love's sake: You of the West are practical in business,
practical in great inventions, but we of the East are
practical in religion. You make commerce your business;
we make religion our business. If you will come to India
and talk with the workman in the fields, you will find he
has no opinion on politics. He knows nothing of politics.
But you talk to him of religion, and the humblest knows
about monotheism, deism and all the isms of religion.
You ask: `What government do you live under?' and he
will reply: `I don't know. I pay my taxes, and that's all I
know about it' I have talked with your laborers, your
farmers, and I find that in politics they are all posted.
They are either Democrat or Republican, and they know
whether they prefer free silver or a gold standard. But
you talk to them of religion; they are like the Indian
farmer, they don't know, they attend such a church, but

421
they don't know what it believes; they just pay their pew
rent, and that's all they know about it-or God."
The superstitions of India were admitted, "but what
nation doesn't have them?" he asked. In summing up, he
held that the nations had been looking at God as a
monopoly. All nations had God, and any impulse for
#

422
 good was God. The western people as well as the eastern
people, must learn to "want God," and this "want" was
compared to the man under water, struggling for air-he
wanted it, he couldn't live without it. When the people of
the West "wanted" God in that manner then they would
be welcome in India, because the missionaries would
then come to them with God, not with the idea that India
knows not God, but with love in their hearts and not
dogma.

From Minneapolis, without even a day's rest, Swamiji

traveled two hundred and sixty miles south to Des Moines,
the capital city of Iowa. It was most probably on this trip that
he engaged in conversation with a rugged and god-fearing
Presbyterian cowboy, who did indeed know his religion, or
part of it, and who, on learning that his Fellow traveler was
not a Christian, stated with finality that he (Swamiji) was
bound to end up in hell. Yet, before long, the same cowboy
was confessing a long-held belief in, of all things,
reincarnation! Small as this incident was, it opens up to the
imagination an aspect of Swamiji's travels that one is apt to
overlook. In attempting to follow him on his lecture tour, the
mind leaps with ease from one town or city to the next; but
Swamiji spent long hours in day coaches and no doubt, when
traversing the wide distances between lecture stops, in
"family tourist cars" which, as a Great Northern Railway
brochure boasted, "look like regular sleepers, being built on
the same plan, but not having the same ornate finish, the
upholstering being in leather instead of plush‖ 5 On such trips
he could not but have struck up friendships with his fellow
travelers, for those cars were "family" cars indeed. "There is a
423
spirit of fraternity and friendliness apparent at once in the
well-filled tourist car," the same brochure went on to say.
"People get acquainted quickly and easily. They share their
delicacies, their story-books and newspapers, and their hopes
and fears with one another, stroll out of the cars in company
when there is a stop, to gather flowers
#

424
or to `take in the town,' and in all ways fraternize as though
they had all known each other for years." 6 In the trains that
clacked along, rarely at a greater speed than forty miles per
hour, through wintry prairies and bleak little towns, Swamiji
must have had many an extraordinary conversation with
Americans of all types: with cowboys and farmers, traveling
salesmen and entertainers, businessmen, laborers, and poli-
ticians, preachers, reformers, and those in need of reform.
How many encounters he thus had with people whom he
would not otherwise have met and who most likely would not
have attended his lectures it is impossible to guess; but there
can be little doubt that his long journeys by train,
monotonous and wearisome as they must often have been,
played a not inconsiderable part in the significance of his
lecture tour. Indeed, the single, wondrous glimpse one gets of
Swamiji discussing reincarnation with a dour Presbyterian
cowboy while traveling from Minneapolis to Des Moines is
like looking into some fleeting chamber of time where
threads of a coming culture were perhaps being spun.
Arriving in Des Moines, Swamiji gave an informal talk on
the afternoon of Monday, November 27, and a formal lecture
that evening. The first talk was given at the home of Rev. and
Mrs. Harvey O. Breeden at 1318 Woodland Avenue and,
according to a brief item in the Des Moines Daily News of
November 25, had been arranged by the Tourist Club
probably the Des Moines counterpart of the Peripatetics. The
afternoon was a success. Indeed, it would appear from the
following news item in the Daily News of November 28 that
from the very start Des Moines took to Swamiji with en-
thusiasm:

425
 On Monday afternoon, a small company were invited
to the home of Dr. and Mrs. H. O. Breeden on Woodland
avenue, to meet the Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda,
whose brilliant intellect made him one of the prime
favorites of the parliament of religions, and whose
lectures
#

426
 to Des Moines may be said to be of the era-making type.
The distinguished oriental first gave an informal talk, in
costume, on the manners and customs of India, and after-
wards submitted to a running fire of questions from the
guests, his witty and often sarcastic retorts proving highly
entertaining.

Swamiji's fame had spread before him, and the Central

Church of Christ, of which Dr. Breeden was pastor, was well
filled for his first public lecture in Des Moines. "The great
oriental scholar and Hindu Monk is a great drawing card
judging from the advance sale of seats," the Daily News had
noted on November 25, and had added, "The elite as well as
the cultured people of Des Moines will hear him." "Thinkers"
also were urged to attend. "The lecture event of the season
will take place to-night at the Central Church of Christ when
the Hindoo Monk will deliver his lecture on `The Hindoo
Religion,"' the same paper announced on November 27. "No
thinker can afford to miss it."
On the day following Swamiji's lecture both the Daily
Iowa Capitol and the Des Moines Daily News printed fairly
long reports of the lecture. The following from the Daily
lowa Capitol appeared on the front page:

ALL RELIGIONS ARE TRUE

SUCH IS THE MESSAGE BROUGHT
FROM INDIA
by a Hindu Monk

Swami Vivekananda Tells of Ancient Faith

Speaks again Tonight
427
 It was a rare as well as an odd treat which the people of
Des Moines enjoyed last evening at the Central Church of
Christ. A monk, of the ancient faith of Brahma, made a
happy presentation of that faith, not so much of its
peculiarities as of its underlying principles. The audience
#

428
was a good sized one, perhaps 500 or 600 persons being
present. The main floor being well filled and there were
perhaps a couple of hundred in the gallery.
The speaker opened by saying that all religious
systems were an attempt to answer the question What am
I? This and the kindred ones, Whence Come I? and
Whither Am I Going? are constantly recurring. Without
following the speaker throughout the entire lecture,
suffice it to say, that underlying the Hindu religion
according to the speaker is the belief that "We are all
divine". In each is a conscious spirit that survives the
body and the mind and is a part of the absolute. The
speaker very ably defended religion against the attacks of
science. The latter can use only the five senses, and
unless a thing can be proven to be by these senses is
disposed to doubt its existence. But does science know
that there are only five senses? The speaker contended for
the existence of a supersensuous sense; through which
man obtains revelations of spiritual truths. The Hindu
word For revelation is "Veda". Hence the "Vedas" are the
revelations. These writings are not confined to those of
the Hindus, but include those of all peoples; because said
the speaker, all religions are true.
When "revelations" undertake to tell of material things
they enter upon a domain which belongs to science and
are not to be accepted. There was an ancient superstition
that because Moses gave a revelation of the will of God,
therefore everything Moses wrote must be true. There is a
modern superstition that, because there are mistakes in
the writings of Moses, therefore nothing Moses wrote is
true. When Moses wrote the tables of the law he was
429
inspired. When he told of the creation what he said was
merely the speculations of Moses the Jew.
The speaker was not favorably impressed with the
efforts to make Hindu converts-perverts he calls them to
Christianity, nor the converse. All religions being true,
#

430
such perversions serve no good end. The Hindu religion
the speaker claimed is not disposed to antagonize any
belief; it absorbs them. As for tolerating different beliefs,
the language of the Hindu has no word corresponding
with the English word "intolerance". That language had a
word for religion and one for sect. The former embraced
all beliefs. The conception of the latter the speaker
illustrated by telling the story of the frog, who had no
idea there was any world outside the well in which he had
always lived,
The speaker urged his hearers to cultivate the divine
within them and to discard the "nonsense" of sects.
The lecturer is an able, dignified and forcible speaker.
His mastery of English is perfect, there being only the
faintest indications of a foreign accent. The lecturer was
followed with closest attention by the audience. After the
lecture, the speaker consented to answer questions to a
portion of the audience that remained for that purpose. In
the course of these answers he said that the Hindus were
altogether opposed to the destruction of the life of any
animal. He admitted the worship of the sacred cow. He
said further that the Hindus had nothing answering to our
church organizations. He was his own priest, bishop and
pope.
This evening this eloquent Hindu will speak on "Re-
incarnation". It will unquestionably be well worth hear-
ing. These lectures will doubtless awaken and intensify
an interest in those of Nagarkar of the Brahmo-Somaj,
which are coming this week and next.

431
 The reporter from the Daily News had more to add to the
above, and although in spots he failed to follow Swamiji's
argument regarding conversion, it is apparent from his
account that this was an exceptional lecture, containing ideas
that Swamiji did not often express in quite this way. The
report was embodied in a daily column entitled "Des
Moines," and thus had no heading of its own:
#

432
 Swami Vivekananda, the talented scholar from the far-
off India, spoke at the Central church last night. He was a
representative of his country and creed at the recent
parliament of religions assembled in Chicago during the
world's fair. Rev. H. O. Breeden introduced the speaker
to the audience. He arose and after bowing to his
audience, commenced his lecture, the subject of which
was "Hindoo Religion: ' His, lecture was not confined to
any line of thought but consisted more of some of his
own philosophical views relative to his religion and
others. He holds that one must embrace all the religions
to become the perfect Christian. What is not found in one
religion is supplied by another. They are all right and
necessary to the true Christian. When you send a
missionary to our country he becomes a Hindoo Christian
and I a Christian Hindoo. I have often been asked in this
country if I am going to try to convert the people here. I
take this for an insult. I do not believe in this idea of
conversion. To-day we have a sinful man; tomorrow
according to your idea he is converted and by and by
attains unto holiness. Whence comes this change? How
do you explain it? The man has not a new soul for [then]
the soul must die. You say he is changed by God. God is
perfect, all powerful and is purity itself. Then after this
man is converted he is that same God minus the purity he
gave that man to become holy. There is in our country
two words which have an altogether different meaning
than they do in this country. They are "religion" and
"sect." We hold that religion embraces all religions. We
433
tolerate everything but intoleration. Then there is that
word "sect." Here it embraces those sweet people who
wrap themselves up in their mantle of charity and say,
"We are right; you are wrong." It reminds me of the story
of the two frogs. A frog was born in a well and lived its
whole life in that well. One day a frog from the sea fell in
that well and they commenced to talk about the sea. The
frog whose home
#

434
 was in the well asked his visitor how large the sea was,
but was unable to get an intelligent answer. Then the at-
home frog jumped from one corner of the well to another
and asked his visitor if the sea was that large. He said yes.
The frog jumped again and said, "Is the sea that large?"
and receiving an affirmative reply, he said to himself,
"This frog must be a liar; I will put him out of my well."
That is the way with these sects. They seek to eject and
trample those who do not believe as they do.

That Des Moines was at once enchanted by Swamiji is

apparent from the following article that appeared on Novem-
ber 28 in the Iowa State Register. One also finds in this report
a number of sidelights, including fairly conclusive evidence
that he was indeed at this time on a planned lecture tour:

A MESSAGE FROM INDIA

Vive Kananda, the Famous Hindoo
Monk and Scholar, Appears
in Des Moines

A Young Man of Thirty Years and

a Big, Active Brain and
True Heart

The people of Des Moines had a glimpse of Oriental

life and thought at its best yesterday, from the lips of the
famous Hindoo monk, Swami Vive Kananda. A central
figure in the great Parliament of Religions at Chicago
this summer, where he coped with some of the greatest
minds of the country with honor to himself and his
435
people, he gave those who heard him, and especially
those who met him at Dr. Breeden's, something new to
think about. It was a message from over the sea, from
another people of wholly different surroundings, training,
customs and traditions, but as the monk says, the basic
principles are
#

436
the same in all religions. It is his doctrine that there is
good in all religions and he preaches it with great power.
In personal appearance, Vive Kananda is a prince, and
indeed he is of the royal Brahmin blood. Of medium
stature, erect bearing, handsome, one may truly say,
beautiful face, he is a striking and attractive, though
never a sensational figure, even in his native costume, red
trousers, loose red gown, with belt and large white
turban.
"The Mild Hindoo" is a beautiful character. In his own
country he is above all caste and is responsible to no one
but himself and the people. He is not allowed to marry or
to touch money. His occupation is entirely a spiritual one.
He goes about from place to place preaching, and the
people take care of him and his fellows, giving them the
clothing and food and any thing else they may need. This
lecture tour is being made for the purpose of founding a
school in India for the poor, to elevate them from their
present unfortunate condition. But he prefers not to put
his lectures upon this ground, but upon their own merits.
Yesterday afternoon he met a large number of the
brightest women in Des Moines, members of the various
literary clubs, at the invitation of Mrs. H. O. Breeden, at
her home, 1318 Woodland avenue, and he talked to them
for two or three hours about his religion, his view of
Christianity, in which he heartily concurs, and of the
manners and customs of his people. The thing which
Vive Kananda most strongly insists upon is that the
Hindoo religion is not to be blamed for all that is bad in
India any more than Christianity is to be blamed for all
that is bad in America. And he insists that it is absurd to
437
give Christianity credit for all the marvelous undertakings
and achievements of the people who cherish it. He joins
in the praise of the sublime things in the bible, but says
that when Moses undertook to speak of the creation of the
world, he was merely Moses, the Jew and nothing more.
#

438
 This view from the other side, and a sympathetic side
at that, is a most helpful and instructive and intensely
interesting one. Vive Kananda uses the purest English,
for he was well educated in the English university, Cal-
cutta.
He praises the American women most enthusiastically.
"I do not know what would have become of me if it had
not been for your women," he said to a reporter for THE
REGISTER last night. "They took me up and took care of
me and made all necessary arrangements for me. They
are the best women in the world. They have been so kind
to me," with a grateful smile.
Last night Vive Kananda spoke on "The Hindoo Reli-
gion," and will speak to-night at the Central Church of
Christ on "The Reincarnation: ' The lecture will begin
promptly at 8 o'clock and will last one hour. From 9 to
10:30 Vive Kananda will spend with the Prairie club at
the Savery house, where he will answer questions.

Swamiji's lecture "Reincarnation" (not "The Reincarna-

tion") was also announced in the Daily News of November
28:

"Reincarnation" will be the subject of Swami Vivek-

ananda's lecture at the Central Christian church to-night.
Those who heard the gifted Hindu monk last night will be
glad of a second opportunity and those who did not are to
be congratulated on the fact that they can still hear him.
Do not fail to go.

439
 Regrettably, the only accounts that have been found in the
Des Moines papers of this lecture are brief paragraphs in the
Daily Iowo Capitol of November 29 and the Iowa State
Register for the same date. These read respectively as
follows:

Swami Vivekananda last night talked of reincarnation.

It is based, he contended, on the fact that there never has
#

440
 been a new creation; that creation has existed coevally
with God from all eternity. Departed souls find bodies to
inhabit either better or worse than their former tenement,
according as they made them fit for one or the other. The
lecturer will speak again on Thanksgiving evening at the
same place on the manners and customs of India.
Vive Kananda, the Hindoo monk, lectured last night on
the "Reincarnation" at Central Church of Christ and after
the lecture was received by the Prairie Club at the Savery
House. His dates west have been cancelled and he will
speak on Thanksgiving night at the same place on "The
Manners and Customs of India" which to the popular
mind is his most entertaining lecture.

Whether Swamiji himself canceled his lecture

engagements further west or whether they were canceled by
the lecture bureau is not known. In any event, Des Moines
was delighted, as the cancellation enabled him to remain two
days longer in the city, which was by now thoroughly
captivated by "his charming presence and adroit
scholasticism." On one of these days-Wednesday, November
29-he gave no lecture or talk, and thus he was free to see the
sights of this capital city, one of which was the Iowa State
Historical Department. As to how he passed Wednesday
evening, the following item from the Daily News gives an
idea:

Vivekananda attended a prayer meeting Wednesday

evening and witnessed the baptism of two young women.
The service impressed him very much. He said: "I see.
The sentiment is ennobling and the ceremony beautiful. It
441
 is the more impressive that the minister is honest, earnest
and believes what he says."

According to the Iowa State Register of November 30,

Wednesday seems to have been a day for the meeting of
clubs
#

442
in Des Moines. While Swamiji rested, or at least did not
lecture, the intellectuals of the city digested all they had so far
heard:

An Intellectual Feast

The remarkable discussions started by the famous

Hindu monk, Vive Kananda, were the topic of interest in
intellectual circles yesterday. Especially so was his com-
ment on the work of American missionaries in India, and
his strong defense of his own people and morals and reli-
gion. His position is that the people of India do not need
any more religion, but training in the practical things of
life that will enable them to cope with the English who
have occupied India. Vive Kananda was the guest of Mr.
F. W. Lehman and Mr. O. H. Perkins yesterday and in
their company visited the state house, which he very
much admired. He took a special interest in the portraits
of the American Indians that he saw there. [Swamiji's
visit to the "State historical department at the Capitol"
was also noted in the Social News of the Iowa Daily
Capitol of December 1.] He will lecture tonight at the
Christian church on "Manners and Customs of India" and
will reply to questions after the lecture.

On Thursday afternoon Swamiji surely experienced the

awesome bounty of an American Thanksgiving dinner at the
home of one or another of his Des Moines friends, and that
evening delivered the lecture that was announced as follows
in the Daily Iowa Capitol:

443
 The now celebrated Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda
will Lecture for the last time in Des Moines tonight. He
will speak on "Life in India" ("Manners and Customs of
India"] a most interesting theme. The renowned Hindu is
a brilliant man about 30 years old. He says American
women are lovely, but American men are entirely too
practical.
#

444
 Such casual announcements were, of course, not the sole
means of advertising Swamiji's lectures. If he was at this time
engaged by a lecture bureau, and most likely he was, raucous
posters, in which good taste was no consideration, proclaimed
his presence. Publicity of this sort was simply one of the
ordeals of a lecture tour in the 1890s. "When you arrive in an
American town to lecture," a touring lecturer wrote in 1890,
"you find the place flooded with your pictures, huge
lithographs stuck on the walls, on the shop windows, in your
very hotel entrance hall. Your own face stares at you
everywhere, you are recognized by everybody. You have to
put up with it. If you love privacy, peace, and quiet, don't go
to America on a lecturing tour."7 Swamiji was not spared in
this respect. In Prophets of the New India, Romain Rolland
has described one of the posters that heralded his arrival: "I
have in my hands," Rolland wrote, "an advertising
prospectus, in which the headlines announce him in large
letters to the passers by as `One of the Giants of the Platform.'
His portrait is included with four inscriptions proclaiming at
the four cardinal points that he is: `An Orator by Divine
Right; A Model Representative of his Race; A Perfect Master
of the English Language; the Sensation of the World's Fair
Parliament.' The Announcement does not fail to enumerate
his moral and physical advantages, especially his physical,
his bearing, his height, the colour of his skin and clothing-
with attestations from those who had seen him, heard him and
tried him."8 Lecture bureaus left nothing to chance or
imagination.

445
 However, by the time Swamiji gave his last lecture in Des
Moines posters were unnecessary; he himself had electrified
the city. Although no report of "The Manners and Customs of
India" has been found in the newspapers, both the Daily News
and the Iowa State Register commented with enthusiasm on
the effect his visit as a whole had had on the intellectual
circles of this "western" city. The following two articles are
taken, respectively, from the Daily News of November 29 and
the Register of December 3.
#

446
 Dr. Breeden has conferred a real intellectual benefit
upon this community by giving it an opportunity to hear
the representatives of the Greek and Hindu religions dis-
course upon their favorite themes. There is a good deal of
philistinism in America, and the west, which feels leas of
the in8uence of our foreign relations than is perceptible at
the seaboard, is peculiarly liable to become a little narrow
and intolerant in its excessive Americanism. The
archbishop of Zante and the Hindu monk, Swami Vivek-
ananda, have shown thinking people in Des Moines how
possible it is to honestly view the problems of life from a
point of view different from that of a busy, practical
American.

(Although the Archbishop of Zante, a delegate to the

Parliament, is mentioned in connection with Swamiji, it is
apparent that he visited Des Moines at an earlier date. Unlike
Swamiji,s lectures in Evanston which, as the reader will
remember, were given in conjunction with Dr. Carl von
Bergen, those in Des Moines were delivered alone.)
A brief portion of the following from the Iowa State
Register of December 3 will perhaps seem familiar, as it has
been quoted in the Life:

THE CASUAL OBSERVER

It has done no harm to Christianity to have some of its

weaknesses of so-called Christians pointed out as they
have been so clearly and mercilessly during the past week
by Swami Vivekananda, the Hindoo monk who spoke
447
three times in Des Moines. During his stay in the city,
which was happily prolonged by the cancellation of en-
gagements farther west, Vivekananda met many of the
best people in the city, who found their time well spent in
discussing religious and metaphysical questions with
him. But it was woe to the man who undertook to combat
the monk on his own ground, and that was where they
#

448
all tried who tried it at all. His replies came like flashes of
lightning, and the venturesome questioner was sure to be
impaled on the Indian's shining intellectual lance. The
workings of his mind, so subtle and so brilliant, so well
stored and so well trained, sometimes dazzled his hearers,
but it was always a most interesting study. He said
nothing unkind, for his nature would not permit that.
Those who came to know him best found him the most
gentle and lovable of men, so honest, frank and
unpretending, always grateful for the many kindnesses
that were shown him. Vivekananda and his cause found a
place in the hearts of all true Christians. It is to the credit
of Dr. Breeden that, knowing what Vivekananda would
say, he brought him here to address the members of his
congregation. He did not look at it as one woman did,
who tried to get Dr. Breeden to suppress the monk's
address wherein he criticised some features of
Christianity because it would prevent Christians from
going to hear him. Dr. Breeden thinks that a religion that
cannot stand discussion, or being looked at from the other
side, is not of much account. So with the polished
Hindoo, he feared not to meet, single-handed and alone,
the combined attacks of all the Christians of America. He
had that much confidence in his religion. Yet he did not
seek to proselyte. He does not wish to persecute. He
remarked once: "We Hindoos have never burned
witches."* Although his knife cuts deep sometimes, it is
like that of the surgeon, in that it cuts only to be kind. He
sifts out the good from the bad and the dead in
Christianity with a fine discrimination. Having no
superstitious fear to restrain him the Oriental scholar does
449
not hesitate to assail what is weak in Christianity or
Christendom, and we are a very narrow-minded people if
we cannot profit from his criticisms, even if they do
sometimes go too far.
Probably the most practical thing that Vivekananda has
done is to give us a truer idea of India and to correct
#

450
some of the mistaken ideas that we have obtained from
reading what he calls the recent books about India,
written by Americans and Englishmen who have spent a
few weeks in India talking with servants and in sport and
then come home and written five volumes about the
customs and religion of the higher classes. Vivekananda
recommends Sir W. Wilson Hunter's "Short History of
the People of India" as being official and perfectly
reliable, and almost the only book published in English
about India and the religion and customs of the Hindoo
people that can be depended upon.
Another effect of the Eastern influence will be, or at
any rate it ought to be, to make us treat our dumb animals
better. The Hindoo holds it to be a very great sin to kill
any of God's creatures, or to cause them pain. He is a
vegetarian. When his horses are old they are sent to a
hospital and taken care of in their old age. His nature is
gentle, so he is called the mild Hindoo and he is proud of
it. The way dumb animals are abused in America is a
great reproach to the civilization that we boast of. We are
reforming a little, however, and perhaps this lesson from
the East will shame us into doing better.
There was not much comfort for prohibitionists in the
results of such legislation in India, as Vivekananda ex-
plained them to the Prairie club. He said that his people
were the victims of too much legislation. They are the
most temperate people on earth and statistics show that
there is less crime there, though magistrates are promoted
according to the number of convictions secured and if
they fall below a certain number they are removed. But
the people have been dwarfed intellectually by this
451
weight of moral legislation. For ages it has crushed them
down, till they have no moral guide but the law. They are
a degenerate race. They have no choice between right and
wrong. They are mere automatons. The monk thinks that
they will never become a strong people until they throw
#

452
off these restrictions, gradually, and learn to think and
choose for themselves. He says it is not more morals,
more religion or more superstition that his people need,
but to be taught the affairs of life and how to govern
themselves, that they may be able to protect themselves
against the English, who occupy and govern India. So he
says the extent of good that the Christian missionaries do
in India is to maintain schools for the Indian boys and
girls. "Of course," he said, "the boys have to listen to all
these stories about Noah and the Ark and all such non-
sense, but the Hindoo lad is clever and he takes the bait
clean off and never gets the hook. The average cost of
converting a Hindoo to Christianity is $30,000. Yes, we
like to have you send the missionaries, because they
spend money with us and do us no harm. Most of them
are good men. But I find that the desire of the Christian is
not to help the heathen, as he calls us, but to compel us to
believe as he does. He takes us by the throat and says:
`Here, you rascally heathen, you must be converted!' The
Christians will not help the heathen. They will help the
Christianized heathen, but not those who remain true to
their own religion. If I should become a Christian I could
get a million dollars tomorrow for my school for the poor
in India. But I prefer to earn the money by hard work,
though it seems like the work of a lifetime to get enough
to make a start in the work I want to do: '
Everywhere he has gone the monk has been made a
lion of, especially by the women of America, and of them
he says: "They are the grandest women in the world.
Your men I do not like; they are all for money; they think

453
of nothing but dollars. But your women-Lord bless them!
They have been so kind to me."
In his own land the Hindoo monk is not allowed to
touch money. He cannot marry or own any property. He
goes from place to place and preaches to the people and
they give him clothing and food, and this is all he may
#

454
 have. He is responsible to no one. There is no pope,
bishop, or any ecclesiastical authority to which he is
amenable. There is no church and the monks do not live
in or build monasteries. The priests build and occupy the
temples, but as they marry and take pay for their services
they are far beneath the monks in rank. The monk is in-
dependent of all caste. Vivekananda had never touched
money till he went on board ship to come to America. His
visit to Des Moines, where he became at once the chief
subject of discussion in intellectual circles has had a
permanent good effect in broadening the views of a great
many people, and compelling them, by the force of his
intelligence and character, to see things from a different
standpoint.
There is now in Des Moines another representative of
India [Mr. B. B. Nagarkar], the more advanced class, the
Bramo-Somaj, which is doing a great deal in India to
abolish the old customs that savor of barbarism, chief
among them being child marriage, which is a result of
the Mohammedan invasion. It was resorted to in northern
India to protect the girls from falling into the hands of the
ruthless invaders, who would carry them off to their
harems. The Rev. Mr. Nagarkar, who is now lecturing in
Des Moines, has thrown off nearly all the old Hindoo
customs.

In the eighteen-nineties, the more modern, the more

valuable was axiomatic. Thus while appreciating Swamiji,
the Daily Iowa Capitol mused, "In the lectures to be given at
the Unitarian Church by B. B. Nagarkar of Bombay, India,
we shall have the yet higher privilege of hearing the modern
455
religious thought of the Hindu people." Swamiji himself had
of course only good to say of his fellow countryman, who
was among his detractors. The following sentences come
from a brief article about Mr. Nagarkar in the Iowa State
Register of . December 1:
#

456
 Before he left the city, Vive Kananda took occasion to
say a warm word of praise for the Bramo-Somaj, the
work it is doing in India, especially For the women, and
of its representative in this country. The visit of Vive
Kananda, stirring as it did the intellectual centers of the
city to their depths and starting a lively religious
discussion prepared the way for the present visitor
[Nagarkar] from the Orient and heightened public interest
in whatever he might have to say.

Swamiji would have been well pleased, one thinks, with

this immediate and visible result of his visit to Des Moines.
To stimulate open-minded religious discussion and generate
an understanding of and sympathy for India were, as is
eminently clear from the subjects he generally chose to
lecture on, two of the purposes uppermost in his mind during
this early period of his Western mission.
Swamiji delivered his last lecture in Des Moines on the
evening of November 30. We do not know at present where
he went from there, but through a recent discovery we find
him two weeks later back in Minneapolis. On December 9,
the Ariel, a student newspaper of the University of
Minnesota, announced his return to the city with the
following article:

SWAMI VIVE KANANDA

The most impressive figure at the World's Parliament

of Religions was the Hindu monk Swami Vive Kananda.
457
He was sent to that body as a representative of the
Brahmin faith. The convincing sincerity of his words and
the magnetic power of his personality fascinate all who
hear him and have given him the title of "an orator of
divine right." Stories and fables are very often used to
convey his thought and the richness and color lent his
speech by this oriental imagery are as native as the turban
worn upon his head. His strongly intellectual face, in its
picturesque setting of
#

458
 yellow and orange, is hardly less interesting than his
earnest words. It is sensitive to every thought in the
shifting humour of the speaker. One is reminded in seeing
him of the elder Salvini.* There is the same repose, yet
glow of feeling and fiery burst of passionate power. Vive
Kananda has something to say, something new,
refreshing and important for thinking people to learn. He
seeks to enlighten us in regard to his religion and the
words of its philosophers to give a true account of the
lives of his people in their far away eastern home. The
subject on which he speaks in Minneapolis next Thursday
evening [December 14] at the Unitarian church will be
"Manners and Customs in India." While in the city
Swami Vive Kananda will be the guest of Dr. Folwell. It
is earnestly hoped that a surplus in receipts will result, to
be devoted to a worthy University institution.
The gentleman mentioned has spoken in Minneapolis
informally before and those who listened to him are ex-
tremely desirous of hearing him again. Kananda was the
sensation of the World's Fair Parliament of Religions, and
the mere fact of his appearance on the platform
repeatedly filled the hall to its utmost. He is, exceedingly
interesting and well worth the attention of every student.

So, too, was the First Unitarian Church of Minneapolis

filled to its utmost when Swamiji made his second
appearance in the city. Reports of the lecture he gave on the
evening of December 14, entitled "Manners and Customs of
India," were printed in the Minneapolis Journal and Tribune
on the following day and read, respectively:

459
 A WITTY HINDU

Swami Vivekananda Entertains Another

Large Audience.
A large number of people assembled at the Unitarian
church last evening for the purpose of listening to Swami
#

460
Vivekananda of India. The customs and manners of the
people of that country were described, and during his
lecture the Brahmin took occasion to show up some of
the rough points of America. He is of the humorist order
and his quick replies and witty sallies rarely failed to
evoke applause. He would not admit that his people were
wrong in everything, but there were a great many things
peculiar to India which the Americans did not approve of
and yet which might be all right. He had never seen
husband and wife go before a magistrate to tell their
troubles. They grew up with the idea that they were to be
married and they loved each other as brothers and sisters.
He described the customs of his country, the temples,
the art of the juggler and all of the other peculiarities of
oriental countries in a manner that was charming. Follow-
ing the address a number of questions were asked by
persons in the audience.
__________

Swami Vive Kananda, the Brahmin priest, was greeted

by. a packed house last evening at the First Unitarian
Church, when he appeared before his second Minneapolis
audience. Vive Kananda is a bright, quick witted talker,
ready at all points to attack or defend, and inserts a humor
into his speeches that is not lost upon his auditors. He
spoke last evening under the auspices of the Kappa
Kappa Gammas of the University, and the audience
embraced a large number of earnest thinking men and
women, pleased to be enlightened upon the "Manners and
Customs of India," which was his chosen subject.

461
 Robed in his native garb, with his hands for the most
part clasped behind his back, Kananda paces back and
forth the narrow platform, talking as he paces, with long
pauses between his sentences, as if willing that his words
should sink into the deepest soil. His talk is not so
weighty that the frivolous mind may not appreciate some
of his
#

462
sayings, but he also speaks a philosophy that carries
gravest truth. He tells of the manners and customs of
India, of the divided life between the male and female, of
the reverence for and holiness of women, and again of
their degeneracy; of the calm and peaceful life, that yet is
not true life because it is not liberty; he speaks of the
Mohammedans, who form one-fifth of the Indian popula-
tion, and that 65,000,000, equal to the entire population
of the United States. He describes the magnificence of the
temples, the art of the jugglers, who are the gypsies of the
Indian race, and he touches upon the superstitions of the
people, of how they fill the water jars and stand them in
the doorway before starting on a journey; he speaks of the
metaphysical knowledge of the plowman, who yet only
knows that he "pays taxes to the government;" he admits
the reverence of the Hindu for the river Ganges, and his
ever lingering wish that he shall die on its banks; he tells
all these things in a quiet, half supercilious voice that
presently leads to some remark on the American way of
doing things, and then his audience is in a ripple of
laughter, and a tremor of clapping expresses amused ac-
knowledgement of his sarcasm.
A marked accent that strangely perverts the vowel
sounds, and misplaces the inflection, lends a novelty to
his delivery that constitutes a sort of charm. Charm there
is, to hear this dark-skinned, smiling-faced, caftan-
covered East Indian descant upon the ways of life in his
foreign home. He is broadly intelligent, and keen in his
criticism.
When some one at the close of his lecture asked him
"What class of people are reached and converted by the
463
missionaries?" he quickly replied, "You know as much
about that the American sees the reports, we never do,"
he has turned the query into a cause for smiling, and
while the house regains its composure he paces quietly to
and fro. The address was followed with the closest atten-
tion and was supplemented by several questions and
#

464
 answers among the audience, from whom he invited
interrogation.

We now lose all trace of Swamiji until the middle of

January, 1894, and thus, except for this brilliant flash of light
in mid December, when we find him in Minneapolis, a period
of six weeks remains in darkness. Although during this time
he must have been extremely active, lecturing here and there
in large and small cities, our attempts to unearth information
regarding his whereabouts have been largely in vain. But the
search continues and hope is by no means given up.

The nineties were strange and confused years. On the one

hand, Americans looked backward into a more or less orderly
century in which they had been robustly confident that they
were headed toward a state of social perfection and that their
nation was "a special object of Divine favor." On the other
hand, the nineties stared aghast into a new age in which the
end was not at all certain. Economic and social conditions
were undergoing rapid and radical changes with which the
old moral and spiritual values could not cope. These values,
moreover, were being attacked from within by physics and
biology, to say nothing of Darwinism, which had given a re-
sounding blow to the doctrine of man's unique position in the
universe. The optimism and self confidence that had charac-
terized the eighteenth century and most of the nineteenth had
suddenly given way to doubt and confusion. Nerves were on
465
edge and, as in all transition periods, both the resistance to
change and the attempts to adjust to it contained a note of
hysteria.
As the story of the Parliament of Religions has shown,
there were two very definite and clear-cut religious attitudes.
One was that which clung to the old order of things with the
strength and ferocity of a death struggle. The denominations
which
#

466
held this attitude, and which were later to be characterized as
"fundamentalist," refused to give way either to Darwinism or
to the social conditions which called for a broader and more
liberal outlook. They resented the higher criticism and clung
with fierce tenacity to a literal and rigid interpretation of
Scripture.
Liberal Christianity, on the other hand, had set itself to
accept and incorporate into its tenets man's new knowledge,
and at the same time it attempted to socialize religion, con-
ceiving it the duty of the church to examine such problems as
the labor question, the growth of slums, the creation of huge
and predatory fortunes, political corruption, and so on. It
assumed a moral responsibility for man's social and economic
welfare and invaded the political field to the neglect of the
spiritual. Secularization was the inevitable result. But never-
theless it was the clergy of this liberal Christianity which,
priding itself upon its broad-mindedness, welcomed Swamiji.
It was no accident that in every city he was almost invariably
invited to speak at either a Unitarian or a Congregational
church.
It has been said by some that the Transcendentalist move-
ment, which took place earlier in the nineteenth century, had
prepared the American mind for Swamiji's teachings. In a
sense this is true, for the eyes of many had been opened to the
life of the spirit by the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, and
even Bronson Alcott. Yet it is a fact that by the seventies
Transcendentalism had lost ground. It was no longer in tune
with a generation that was becoming increasingly
materialistic and which looked for a solution to its problems
in a more down-to earth and scientific philosophy. The
vanguard of religious thought strove to come to terms with
467
the findings of science, and the emphasis was now upon
social reform in accordance with the laws of nature rather
than those of spirit. It is true that such religions as Christian
Science and New Thought were spreading rapidly, but by and
large these religions emphasized man's material rather than
spiritual welfare. Only
#

468
insofar as they asserted that man's problems can be solved
through regeneration of the spirit were they in sympathy with
the teachings of Swamiji. But even so, theirs was a small
voice scarcely heard; it was drowned out by the most
"respectable" liberal thought of the age, which insisted that a
change in human nature could be brought about only by first
transforming the social environment.
While socialized Christianity, whose leaders and adherents
were to be found for the most part on the East Coast, fought
for all manner of economic and social reforms, the "funda-
mentalists," who predominated in the Middle West and
South, busied themselves with frenzied attacks upon
intemperance and vice. The "churchwomen" whom Swamiji
mentioned during an interview in India no doubt belonged to
this breed of reformer. Of them he was to say:

These `churchwomen' are awful fanatics. They are

under the thumb of the priests there. Between them and
the priests they make hell of earth and make a mess of
religion. With the exception of these, the Americans are a
very good people.9
These "churchwomen" were a far cry from the
warmhearted, noble-minded, and public-spirited women who
gave meaning to the much-used phrase, "pure and
enlightened womanhood," and whom Swamiji never tired of
praising. The "churchwoman" was, in a sense, a caricature of
America's nineteenth century woman, but she was not
without power. A book which depicts the period speaks of
this type of woman as "a terror to editors, the hope of
missionary societies and the prey of lecturers. . . . She was an
emblem, a grotesque shape in hot black silk, screaming at
469
naked children in a clear river, with her companionable
ministers and reformers at heel."10 Shrill and aggressively
moral, these formidable women, who, for the most part, lived
in the smaller cities and towns of the Middle West, were not
content simply to seek out and attack the depravity,
#

470
real and imagined, of the large cities, but found a made-to--
order outlet for their chronic indignation in the monstrous
tales of "heathen" practices, which for decades had been fed
to them by the missionaries. The missionaries, in turn, had
found in these women an eager audience, and, between the
two, India's reputation had been dragged to a lower and yet
lower level.
It is hard today to grasp the enormity of missionary pro-
paganda that held hypnotic sway over the American mind
during the last half of the nineteenth century; for ignorant and
fanciful as we may still be in regard to Hinduism, the ground
has certainly been cleared of the more fantastic notions that
then flourished unchecked and unexamined. The following
hymn is typical of the kind of thing that filled the air. It
comes from a book entitled Songs for the Little Ones at Home
written by a Christian missionary in India for the edification
of the young:

See that heathen mother stand

Where the sacred current flows;
With her own maternal hand
Mid the waves her babe she throws.

Hark! I hear the piteous scream;

Frightful monsters seize their prey,
Or the dark and bloody stream
Bears the struggling child away.

Fainter now, and fainter still,

471
Breaks the cry upon the ear;
But the mother's heart is steel
She unmoved that cry can hear.

Send, oh send the Bible there,

Let its precepts reach the heart;
She may then her children spare-
Act the tender mother's part.
#

472
 Such verses, earnestly piped by "the little ones at home,"
were heard with perfect credulity, nor was their message con-
fined to missionary circles. All strata of society had been
bombarded with falsehoods and slander regarding India.
When Swamiji later said that all the mud on the bottom of the
Indian Ocean could not balance the filth that had been thrown
at his motherland, he was not exaggerating. Characteristic
was a book entitled India and Its Inhabitants. First published
in 1858, it comprises 335 pages of lectures delivered
throughout America by a Mr. Caleb Wright, M.A. (no
relation of Prof. John Henry Wright). On the title page is the
information that "The Author Visited India and Travelled
Extensively There, For the Express Purpose of Collecting
The Information Contained in This Volume"-information
which was predominantly false, calumnious, and sensational.
This book, profusely illustrated with line drawings and
replete with moral reflections on the order of "Send, oh send
the Bible there," had a phenomenal success among the
intelligentsia. A preface cites testimonials from the presidents
of twenty American colleges who gave unstinting praise to
the lectures of Caleb Wright. A comparison of two editions of
the book shows that within a space of two years over 36,000
copies were printed.
And this was but one book among many of its kind. For
decades before Swamiji came to America, missionary
calumny against India had saturated the public mind and
provided it with thrills of righteous horror. The atmosphere in
the early nineties was still thick with ignorance and bigotry,
poisonous to both America and India, and it was inevitable
473
that Swamiji, confronted by so strongly entrenched and so
pernicious an enemy to his motherland, would make every
effort to combat it.
One indication that he gave serious thought to the
missionary propaganda against India is the fact that a few
months after the Parliament he took the trouble to copy out in
longhand on three sheets of letter paper a passage which
portrayed the true missionary situation in India. It was
through the kindness of the late Swami Vishwananda, head of
the Vedanta center in
#

474
Chicago, that these three pages, covered with Swamiji's hand-
writing in pencil, came into the hands of Swami
Ashokananda. Welcome as they were, they presented a
mystery, for there was no indication from what source
Swamiji had quoted, if he had quoted at all. The only clue
was a single notation in his hand on the back of the third
sheet, which read: "Louis Rousselet ", an unknown name
which could mean anything or nothing. But while Swami
Ashokananda was puzzling over the import of Swamiji's
writing, the San Francisco Vedanta Society received a packet
of secondhand books that had been bought on sale, sight
unseen. Among them was a large illustrated travel book on
India, long out of print-by Louis Rousselet! On page 533 was
the passage in question. The title of this book is India and Its
Native Princes-Travels in Central India and in the
Presidencies of Bombay and Bengal. It is a translation of the
French L'Inde des Rajahs and was first published in 1876 and
later ran into other editions. The passage which struck
Swamiji and which, no doubt, was the first true account of
India he had read for a long time, is given here precisely as he
copied it:

Is there a people in the world more tolerant than this

good gentle Hindoo people, who have been so often de-
scribed to us as cunning, cruel and even bloodthirsty?
Compare them for an instant with the Mussulmans, or
even with ourselves, in spite of our reputation for civil-
ization and tolerance. Only let a Chinese or an Indian
come and walk in our streets during a religious festival or
ceremony, and will not the crowd exhibit the most hostile
feelings towards him if his bearing should not be in con-
475
formity with the customs of the country? Will his
ignorance excuse him? I doubt it. And in what country
could such a spectacle be witnessed as that which met my
eyes that day in this square of Benares? There, at ten
paces from all that the Hindoo holds to be most sacred in
religion, between the Source of Wisdom and the idol of
Siva a
#

476
 Protestant missionary has taken his stand beneath a tree.
Mounted on a chair, he was preaching in the Hindostani
language, on the Christian religion and the errors of
paganism. I heard his shrill voice, issuing from the depths
of a formidable shirt-collar, eject these words at the
crowd, which respectfully and attentively surrounded
him-"You are idolaters! That block of stone which you
worship has been taken from a quarry, it is no better than
the stone of my house."
The reproaches called forth no murmur; the missionary
was listened to immovably, but his dissertation was at-
tended to, for every now and then one of the audience
would put a question, to which the brave apostle replied
as best he could. Perhaps we should be disposed to
admire the courage of the missionary if the well-known
toleration of the Hindoos did not defraud him of all his
merit; and it is this tolerance that most disheartens the
missionary one of whom said to me "Our labours are in
vain; you can never convert a man who has sufficient
conviction in his own religion to listen, without moving a
muscle, to all the attacks you can make against it."
This passage must have seemed like a refreshing oasis of
sanity to Swamiji, and he copied it out for the benefit of
friends. On the back of the second page of his transcription
there is the following notation in an unknown hand:

Written by Swami the 12th [really the 11th] of

February -after dining with Mr. and Mrs. Woodhead and
Carl Von Bergen-Before leaving us in the afternoon, he
gave us one of his most wonderful efforts on spiritual
things, "I say there is but one remedy for one too anxious
477
for the future-To go down on his knees: '-Mr. and Mrs.
Norton came home with the girls in the evening. Swami
left for Detroit Monday Feb. 13 [12]-1894.
#

478
 3

The Parliament of Religions can perhaps be likened to a

huge boulder dropped into the middle of a shallow pond,
causing upheaval on all sides. Even without Swamiji the
Parliament would have created no little confusion, for it was
a shock to people to discover that Oriental priests were not on
a level with grotesquely masked medicine men; but with
Swamiji the effect was galvanizing and permanent.
Something had happened in America that could never be
talked away, although many an effort was made to do just
that. In view of the religious climate of the country during the
last decade of the nineteenth century one may be able to
deduce the various reactions to the Parliament. It is not
surprising, for example, that many orthodox Christians
prayed God "that such a gathering may never again give
occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme"; or that
they fulminated against "that sophistical Hindu `monk '
Vivekananda."11 But the disturbance was even more pro-
nounced and widespread than one might have expected, and
perhaps there is no better way to study it than through the
contemporaneous newspapers of a typical American city, for
there one can see the situation at first hand.
In the Life it is said: "In his tours the Swami visited all the
larger cities of the Eastern and Midwestern States,"12 and in
the early editions the list of these cities includes St. Louis,
Missouri. It would appear, however, that Swamiji did not go
there. A thorough search has been made of the St. Louis
newspapers of 1893and 1894, and no mention has been found
of his lectures. This omission constitutes fairly conclusive
479
evidence that St. Louis was not included in his itinerary; for
wherever Swamiji went he made news, and it seems
unthinkable that the reporters of St. Louis would have failed
at least to mention his presence. One explanation of this lies
in the fact that, according to contemporary accounts, St.
Louis was "a wretchedly poor lecture town," and was no
doubt shunned by lecture bureaus. But even if Swamiji did
not lecture there, the city
#

480
was not exempt from repercussions of the Parliament, and I
think it will serve very well as our typical "case."
The St. Louis Republic ran a column called "Sunday
Thoughts on Morals and Manners." It was written by an
anonymous clergyman and is perhaps one of the finest
examples that one could come upon of the religious mentality
of the Midwest. On September 10, the eve of the opening of
the Parliament, all was serene. The clergyman with admirable
and placid broadmindedness invoked the blessings of God
upon the Congress which was to open the next day:
There ought to come out of the parliament an
authoritative statement of the creeds of the world,
brought down to date, and revised into as close harmony
with the age as possible---of rare interest and importance
to all students of comparative religion. Thus far we have
been obliged to consult ancient authorities, or to grope
after rare and sometimes inaccessible books, or else take
the word of unfriendly critics, regarding the tenets of
faiths beyond the Christian pale. It will be a gain worth
the whole cost of the parliament to get from these faiths
themselves their raison d'etre. . . . Not that the Faiths
represented will fraternize. Far from it. They are
essentially antagonistic and exclusive. Each claims all, or
will accept nothing. But it is something to win the
consent of their representatives to confer at all, and to
make on a common platform an expose of faith and
conduct.
Our clergyman immediately followed these reflections
with statistical proof, for the benefit of "those who imagine
that Christianity is declining," that on the contrary it was
growing by leaps and bounds and that "the Electric Age, on
481
whose threshold we stand, will bring in the greater part of the
whole human race [to the Christian roster]."
By the following Sunday this quiet and reasonable clergy-
man had become transformed. The generosity and calm
#

482
with which he had settled down to hear what the religions
beyond the Christian pale had to say for themselves were no
longer anywhere in evidence. He was raging mad. He wrote:

The reports of the proceedings of the Parliament of

Religions, which assembled in Chicago last Monday, and
is now in session, show, as might have been expected, an
insistence upon the part of all the speakers that each one
is eternally and exclusively right. This is especially true
of the representatives of the various Oriental faiths.
Claims are easily made-often out of wind! When claims
conflict, the courts test them. Christ lays down a practical
rule "By their fruits ye shall know them!" What are the
fruits of the Oriental faith?
Take India. Polytheism prevails in the grossest forms.
There are not less than 33,000,000 deities-enough to give
each man, woman and child a god of his or her own.
These are worshipped by impure rites, and exact on the
part of their devotees self torture, including in the case of
widows burial or burning alive. The Hindoo is taught that
these images are divine, and the heaviest judgments are
denounced against him if he dares to suspect that they are
nothing else than the elements which compose them.
Cast[e] is universal. Tyranny is immemorial. Woman is
degraded. Polygamy abounds. Infanticide is common.
Lying and theft are habitual. There is a want of
tenderness toward and care for the sick, the poor and the
dying. Ignorance and slavery and immorality compose
the real trinity of Hindustan. These facts are undeniable.

483
 "Sunday Thoughts" went on to give a brief outline of the
faiths of Shintoism and Mohammedanism, which latter "came
out of the distempered brain of the epileptic Mohammed."
This was the minister who had a week before serenely
welcomed the opportunity the Parliament offered for the
study of com-
#

484
parative religion. This indeed was the Middle West in its true
colors, the thin veneer of liberality thrown to the winds.
The following week, as the Parliament drew to a close, our
clergyman made it clear, lest anyone be misled, that nothing
at all had been learned from the sessions other than what he
had predicted in the beginning:

Perhaps the chief value [of the Parliament] will be

found in the demonstration given of the universality of
the religious instinct. . . . There is a difference as abysmal
as the space that divides heaven and earth between the
ethics of Confucius, the dreamy mysticism of Buddha,
the mist and moonshine of Theosophy, the dizzy
polytheism of Brahmanism, the ancestor-worship of
Shinto and the Christian system. All that there is of sweet
and pure and good in the other faiths Christianity
contains in a higher development, with a super-added
wealth of distinctive tenets all its own. . . . We inscribe
over it the old legend that was traced on the pillars of
Hercules-Ne plus ultra
.
Having settled this point, he deals another blow at Moham-
medanism and then sits back to pursue the unruffled and
platitudinous tone of his column.
But not for long. The Parliament continued to rankle
within him. On October 15, a large part of "Sunday
Thoughts" was devoted to a comparison of the Christian ideal
of womanhood with that of "the semi-civilized peoples of the
Orient." He wrote:

485
 The ethnic religions of China, India and Japan and the
teachings of Islam are alike in making woman guilty of
her sex and in giving her importance solely as an annex
to man. . . . She must be "protected," and to make and
keep her willing to be "protected" she is dwarfed in mind,
stunted in soul and prostituted to mere physical uses.
#

486
 There is a great deal more in this same vein. The fact was
that if anyone wanted to stir up hostility against a culture or a
religion he could not do better than suggest, or boldly state,
that its treatment of women was not all that it should be.
Never had American women been more conscious of
themselves as women than in the nineties. One woman writer,
an exception among them, summed up the situation with
humor and objectivity. In an article entitled "Women's
Excitement Over `Woman,' " which was published in the
Forum of September 1893, she writes:
Woman is a species of high and heroic and
emancipated womanhood, as serviceable to the sex for
the purposes of rhetorical and impassioned address, as
that gentle and vapid species, "the Fair Sex," is to men
for after-dinner gallantry. She is wise with the wisdom of
clubs and conventions and strong in her inheritance of
instincts. There is nothing of which she is not sure, except
that man was designed by nature to be her helper; and
there is nothing which she will not do for the good of her
own species, except do nothing. . . . She gets columns,
nay pages, of the newspapers written by Her for Her. . . .
The magazines bow to the pressure of Her personality,
and review Her profoundly in the light of history and of
every possible and impossible modern circumstance.

All the missionaries needed to do in the nineties was to

elaborate on the plight of the Hindu widow and they had the
full force of outraged American womanhood ranged beside
them. It was a force to be reckoned with and one which few
editors dared oppose. It is little wonder that Swamiji so often
487
spoke of the Hindu ideal of womanhood as he toured
America, for this aspect of Indian culture had been dragged
as far down as possible into the mud and there exploited for
all it was worth.
In "Sunday Thoughts" of October 15 our clergyman made
use of another current device-one which served many of his
#

488
colleagues in getting around the inconvenient fact of the
intellectual brilliance and moral grandeur displayed at the
Parliament by the Oriental delegates. He quotes the following
item taken from a Chicago newspaper, the Interior: "It is
especially noticeable that most of the men who eulogized
alien faiths were those who personally owed their intellectual
quickening and their morals to contact with Christianity."
But how was one to deal with Swamiji in this respect? The
author of "Sunday Thoughts" maintained a judicious silence
on the subject, and one can only imagine the intensity of his
indignation when on October 30, 1893, Prince Wolkonsky,
the Russian delegate to the Parliament, who, as readers will
remember, became a friend of Swamiji's, spoke in St. Louis
on his impressions of America. In the course of his talk,
which appeared in the St. Louis Republic of October 31,
Wolkonsky said with his customary frankness:

Don't ask every man: "To what church do you

belong?" It is of no importance to you, but it is to him.
The question is: Is he a man? Judge him by what he is.
The great value of the religious congress was that these
people learned to know a man. There was one man there
the embodiment of spirituality! I do not know what
church he belonged to. He thinks and acts and speaks as a
Christian. But you say he is not a Christian. So much the
better. You say he is a Buddhist. Better still. If you
belong to a higher religion you should try to be better still
than he.

There can be no doubt that Wolkonsky was referring to

Swamiji, who was often called Buddhist. The point was not
489
missed, but it wasn't until February 18 that our clergyman had
his answer. In one short paragraph he neatly disposed of
Wolkonsky and Swamiji once and for all. It was the perfect
retort. One can almost see him standing aside to watch the
effect of it:

One of the picturesque figures at the Chicago

Parliament
#

490
 of Religions was a Hindoo monk named Vive Kananda.
He impressed his hearers as being a man of remarkable
intelligence and vivacity. Many thought highly of a reli-
gion that could produce such a representative. Now it
transpires that he is a graduate of Harvard University.
That is where all his Nineteenth Century notions come
from. He is indebted to Asia only for his color and his
costume.

The Christian clergy could now draw a deep breath.

"Sunday Thoughts on Morals and Manners," however, does
not represent the whole of religious thought in the Middle
West. In their reaction to the Parliament of Religions not all
clergymen resorted to a tempest of name-calling. The liberal
section of the Christian church, which had already faced the
fact that the Christian doctrine needed reexamining if it was
to meet the requirements of the times, took a more serious
and honest view of the situation. The St. Louis Daily Globe-
Democrat, a far more liberal paper than the Republic,
reflected this attitude in an article of October 2, which
covered the sermons given on the Sunday following the close
of the Parliament. Its headlines read: "Religious
Provincialism: It Has Received Its Death Blow in America,
says Dr. Snyder. The Parliament of Religions Discussed in
Many Pulpits-Christianity Must Prove Its Superiority at the
Bar of Public Intelligence."
But whatever were the reactions to the Parliament of Reli-
gions, there can be no doubt that it had caused a ferment in
the pulpits of America. Ministers ranted, reasoned, and made
resolutions regarding the necessity for self examination. The
storm extended as far as China, where, according to the
491
Republic of February 18, 1894, a religious Parliament,
composed of the various missionary elements at work there,
was held for "mutual encouragement in the one great mission
of Christian enlightenment."
But repercussions of this sort were not all: something else
happened. A nation-wide religious revival of immense
propor-
#

492
tions took place. People suddenly began to rush to the
churches in overwhelming numbers. According to the
Republic of January 21, 1894:

Revivals are being held everywhere, and the

accessions to the church are gratifying results that prove
the stability of the great truths taught by the prophets of
old, and explained by Christ himself.... In New York,
Boston, Philadelphia and even in San Francisco, the work
is being carried on by religious workers with unusual
success, and the new year promises to be as productive of
good results as the years of 1857-58, when failure after
failure created distrust in the permanence of things of
earth. . . . The present generation watching the mighty
strides of progress and struggling in the vortex of
business cares, has been prone to adopt the negative creed
of the Pantheist or to answer in the easy manner of the
Agnostic; but now, in the time of trouble, the soul
instinctively seeks its Maker and a tide of religious
sentiment is rushing with an irresistible current, cleansing
sinful lives and carrying away the barriers of sin. . . .
Evangelists, zealous workers, are converting sinners
everywhere and the light of gospel, with incomparable
radiance, is flooding the land.

On January 29, 1894, the Republic again covered the reli-

gious revival in a Front page dispatch from New York, head-
lined: "A Religious Wave Now Sweeping Over New York
and Brooklyn." The article reads in part:

493
 Church workers in New York think that a tidal wave of
religion has been fairly launched in the United States and
is fairly settling over New York and Brooklyn. Revival
meetings are being held in more than half of the churches
in Brooklyn, and ministers in New York are joining the
crusade. . . . Now from all parts of the country the news is
coming of a religious awakening, promising to surpass
#

494
in magnitude that one of the past. . . . Ministers from
every portion of the City of Churches reported renewed
interest; there seemed to be remarkable religious Feeling.
At last evangelists were engaged. Meetings have been
held daily in half a dozen places. Hundreds and hundreds
have risen for prayers, and thousands have promised to
lead a better life. Last Sunday the new acquisitions to the
membership of the churches of the city (Brooklyn]
aggregated nearly 500. . . . Last week the Central
Committee (a body made up of 17 clergymen of all
denominations] decided that the movement had assumed
such proportions that the body could not adequately take
care of it, so the responsibility was delegated to the
rightful authorities and notice was given that every pastor
in the city must attend to those nearest his own doors. For
three weeks meetings have been held in 13 churches
every evening. During the day two meetings have been
kept up. This week more churches will be opened every
night and the day meetings will be continued. The
attendance at all of these meetings has been phenomenal.
Every church is crowded. People willingly stand for
hours. "After meetings" draw more people than ever.
They seem loath to leave the church. The revivals of to-
day are conducted very differently from those of 10 years
ago. The old way was to frighten sinners with terrible
stories of an everlasting hell until they were driven, from
sheer sense of fear, into the inquiry room, where
"experience meetings" were depended on to do the rest.
All is now changed. The all powerful love of Jesus Christ
is the appeal. God's love and forgiveness the theme.

495
 The St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat also covered the
religious revival, devoting, on February 4, 1894, more than a
full page to a statistical report of conversions in five states.
The article consists almost solely of the names of the
churches in 177 counties and the number of people who had
recently joined
#

496
them. I cannot imagine anyone sitting down to read this, and
fortunately the essence of the whole story is told in the
following headlines: "THE CHRISTIAN HARVEST.
Astonishing Results of Religious Revivals in the West.
Nearly Fifty-Four Thousand Conversions Since Last
September. Churches Strengthened by Forty-Nine Thousand
New Members. A Religious Awakening Almost
Unprecedented in Extent and Power. Special Reports from
Globe-Democrat Correspondents, Covering One Hundred and
Seventy-Seven Counties in Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Texas
and Arkansas." I hope the reader will note the figures given
pertain to five states only, and that he will also note that the
revival started in September, 1893 the month of the
Parliament of Religions.
It is always a problem for historians and psychologists to
explain what propels such phenomena as the sudden
conversion of thousands upon thousands of people. Perhaps
many forces are at work. In this particular case one can
clearly see at least three. First, the obvious one: there was at
the time a financial depression. Second: the Christian clergy
had been pressed by the unexpected outcome of the
Parliament to stir up Christian fervor. And third, and I believe
most important: there suddenly appeared in America one who
embodied a spiritual power of the very highest order.
The most remarkable thing about this revival of 1893 was
the unmistakable atmosphere of joy which pervaded it and
which distinguished it from revivals of earlier times. A new
note had been struck in the exhortations of the ministers. The
clergy no longer hammered, as they had done in previous
revivals, upon the imminence of hellfire and eternal
damnation, terrorizing their parishioners into a hysterical
497
surrender. Now the emphasis was upon God's infinite mercy,
the glories of heaven. People were not hounded to church;
they poured in and sang their hymns with an irrepressible
elation.
A reporter in the St. Louis Republic remarked upon this
change from that of the old days in a lengthy article entitled
"In the Olden Time." He concluded with the following
paragraph:
#

498
 [The old time exhorter's] spirit is the distilled essence
of vinegar mixed with the extracts of wormwood and gall
and his dolorous voice sounds the Funeral knell of his
parishioners' hopes for happiness on earth. Happily, this
class of exhorters is dying off rapidly and the penetrating
rays of the true conception of God's mercy are
penetrating the fastnesses and jungles in which the
somber exhorter had so long held forth.

But aside from the change in the voice from the pulpit,
there was a spontaneity in the response which took even the
clergymen by storm and which makes it difficult not to
believe that the advent of so great a prophet as Swamiji had
stirred the spiritual forces latent in America and awakened
such a hunger for spiritual sustenance that men and women
everywhere eagerly rushed to satisfy it, flocking in droves to
the religion closest to them, in whose tradition they had been
reared, and with whose doctrines and forms they were
familiar.
Swamiji's fame, as we know, had spread like wildfire
through America both during and after the Parliament of
Religions. Swami Abhedananda, who knew at first hand the
American reaction to him, said in a lecture delivered on
March 8, 1903, before the Vedanta Society of New York:
"During the last decade there have been few pulpits in the
United States which have not held preachers who have had
something to say either for or against the teachings of the
world-renowned Swami Vivekananda."13 Swamiji's message
was spread far and wide. In one guise or another it became
known to the people, and it cannot but be supposed that a
499
surge of genuine religious feeling came as a result of this
great current of fresh thought from the East, which was given
with the full vigor of a spiritual power such as the world has
rarely known. Such power moves silently and invisibly but
surely, working on all levels, churning the surface into a
foam, as well as altering forever the deep, hidden currents of
the spiritual life of a whole people. It was
#

500
the latter result for which Swami Vivekananda had come, but
the former was bound to take place; and when one thinks of
it, it would seem more a matter for wonder if something of
this sort had not happened than that it had.
#

501
 NOTES FOR CHAPTER FOUR

Page Symbol Note

192 * For the benefit of modern readers, ―arctics‖ are

rubber overshoes. Mrs. Hale had evidently
supplied Swamiji with a pair for his winter
travels.

211 * Any good New Englander will here protest,

―We did not burn our witches in Salem; we
hanged them.‖ This distinction, it is true, may
have been lost on Swamiji, but, as far as can be
determined, he was not referring in this context
been speaking in a broader vein, including all
of Christendom. As is well known, the burning
of witches at the stake was for long the usual
and accepted Christian method of their
execution. Whenever Swamiji flung out this
taunt about burning witches, which he did more
than once during the course of his tour, his
listeners always jumped to the conclusion (and
relished it) that he meant Salem witches.
Perhaps he did, but according to all reports, he
never specifically said so.

216 * Tomaso Salvini (1829-1916), Italian actor of

the Romantic school, known throughout
Europe and America in the 1870s and 1880s,
was considered by some ot be the greatest actor
of the day and was particularly famous for the
502
―cyclonic force‖ of his interpretation of
Othello.

503
 CHAPTER FIVE

IN A SOUTHERN CITY
1

On Saturday, January 13, 1894, Swamiji arrived in Mem-

phis, invited by the members of the Nineteenth Century Club,
some of whom had attended the Parliament of Religions and
had been deeply impressed by "the Hindu Monk." It would
seem from what we so far know that many of Swamiji's
engagements were made independently of the lecture bureau,
negotiations being made directly between him and various
clubs or individuals. For instance, the Peripatetic Club invited
him to speak in Minneapolis; Dr. H. O. Breeden arranged for
his lectures in Des Moines; the Nineteenth Century Club
brought him to Memphis; and, as will be seen in a following
chapter, the Unity Club first sponsored him in Detroit. But if
Swamiji signed a contract with the lecture bureau in
November, that agency no doubt received a large share of the
proceeds from every lecture given thereafter-whether
arranged under its management or not.
In Memphis Swamiji was the guest of Mr. Hu L. Brinkley,
who lived in what was variously known as "Miss Moon's
establishment" or the "La Salette Academy." Actually, al-
though its name persisted in current use, the La Salette
Academy was nonexistent, having closed in 1891. Miss Vir-
ginia Moon, fondly known in Memphis as "Miss Ginny,"
turned the building in which the academy had been housed
into a boardinghouse for six or seven bachelor gentlemen. At
the time of Swamiji's visit Miss Moon was around fifty and
one of Memphis's most extraordinary characters. She must
504
have delighted Swamiji with her spirit of independence, for
she was an emancipated woman par excellence, who had little
use for
#

505
men and who toted a pearl-handled revolver in a dainty,
ruffled parasol. But Miss Ginny had a heart of gold. Her main
vocation was giving in charity and, with her ever-present and
persuasive parasol in hand, convincing the wealthy men of
Memphis that they should do likewise. History has recorded
her as "a one woman community fund: ' It was in the large
parlors of Miss Ginny Moon's boardinghouse that Swamiji
received callers, held interviews, and twice lectured.
On the evening of his arrival in Memphis a reception was
held for him by a Mrs. S. R. Shepherd, and the next day,
Sunday, January t¢, he granted an interview to a local re-
porter. The interview was in certain respects unique, as will
be seen in the following article from the Memphis
Commercial of January I5:

SWAMI VIVE KANANDA HERE

__________

The Hindu Monk Who Is to Lecture in This City

__________

He Talks Entertainingly to a Reporter on Various

Subjects, Among Them Suspended Animation and
Other Marvels Peculiar to His Home.

Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindu Monk,. who will

lecture this afternoon at 3 o'clock before the Nineteenth
Century Club, and tomorrow night at the Auditorium,
arrived in Memphis Saturday, and is the guest of Hu L.
Brinkley at Miss Moon's establishment, Third Street, near
Poplar.
506
 Swami Vive Kananda is in some respects the most in-
teresting visitor Memphis has ever had. Himself a
Brahmin, he sacrificed his rank and joined the order of
Hindu monks called Sanyasin. He was to Americans at
least perhaps the most interesting figure in the World's
Parliament of Religions, held at Chicago in connection
with the World's Fair. This was not alone because he
came as the representative of a religion of a far away
land, but because of the
#

507
excellent speeches which he made during the great
religious gathering.
Yesterday afternoon Swami Vive Kananda dined at
Col. R. B. Snowden's [at Annesdale] where he met
Bishop Thomas F. Gailor. He had only a short time
returned from this visit when a Commercial reporter
called upon him at Miss Moon's, and was accorded an
interview with him in the rooms of Gen. R. F. Patterson,
where he was sitting at the time. *
Vive Kananda is very striking in his personality.
Though quite dark of complexion, his intellectual
forehead, large fine eyes and black hair, his easy, graceful
manners and fine figure and carriage make him a very
handsome man.
Asked by the reporter for his impressions of America,
he said:

"I have a good impression of this country especially of

the American women. I have especially remarked on the
absence of poverty in America."

The conversation afterward turned to the subject of

religions. Swami Vive Kananda expressed the opinion
that the World's Parliament of Religions had been
beneficial in that it had done much toward broadening
ideas.
"What," asked the reporter, "is the generally accepted
view held by those of your faith as to the Fate after death
of one holding the Christian religion?"
"We believe that d' he is a good man he will be saved.
Even an atheist, if he is a good man, we believe must be
508
saved. That is our religion. We believe all religions are
good, only those who hold them must not quarrel."
Swami Vive Kananda was questioned concerning the
truthfulness of the marvelous stories of the performance
of wonderful feats of conjuring, levitation, suspended
animation, and the like in India. Vive Kananda said:

"We do not believe in miracles at all but that

apparently strange things may be accomplished under the
operation of natural laws. There is a vast amount of
literature in
#

509
India on these subjects, and the people there have made a
study of these things.
"Thought reading and the foretelling of events are suc-
cessfully practised by the Hathayogis.
"As to levitation, I have never seen anyone overcome
gravitation and rise by will into the air, but I have seen
many who were trying to do so. They read books pub-
lished on the subject and spend years trying to
accomplish the feat. Some of them in their efforts nearly
starve themselves, and become so thin that if one presses
his finger upon their stomachs he can actually feel the
spine.
"Some of these Hathayogis live to a great age."
The subject of suspended animation was broached and
the Hindu monk told the Commercial reporter that he
himself had known a man who went into a sealed cave,
which was then closed up with a trap door, and remained
there for many years, without food. There was a decided
stir of interest among those who heard this assertion.
Vive Kananda entertained not the slightest doubt of the
genuineness of this case. He says that in the case of
suspended animation growth is for the time arrested. He
says the case of the man in India who was buried with a
crop of barley raised over his grave and who was finally
taken out still alive is perfectly well authenticated. He
thinks the studies. which enabled persons to accomplish
that feat were suggested by the hibernating animals.
Vive Kananda said that he had never seen the feat
which some writers have claimed has been accomplished
in India, of throwing a rope into the air and the thrower

510
climbing up the rope and disappearing out of sight in the
distant heights.
A lady present when the reporter was interviewing the
monk said some one had asked her if he, Vive Kananda,
could perform wonderful tricks, and if he had been buried
alive as a part of his installation in the Brotherhood. The
answer to both questions was a positive negative. "What
#

511
 have those things to do with religion?" he asked. "Do
they make a man purer? The satan of your Bible is
powerful, but differs from God in not being pure."
Speaking of the sect of Hathayoga, Vive Kananda said
there was one thing, whether a coincidence or not, con-
nected with the initiation of their disciples, which was
suggestive of the one passage in the life of Christ. They
make their disciples live alone for just forty days.
Only the members and invited guests of the Nineteenth
Century Club will hear Swami Vive Kananda this after-
noon; tomorrow night, when he appears at the Auditor-
ium, the public will have an opportunity to see and hear
this very interesting man and no less interesting talker.
Vive Kananda will likely go from here to Chicago. He
does not yet know how long he will remain in America.

On the afternoon of Monday, January 15, Swamiji gave his

first lecture in Memphis at the Nineteenth Century Club.
What his subject was we do not know, but we do know from
an item in the Appeal-Avalanche of January 21 that "the
address of Swami Vive Kananda before the Nineteenth
Century Club and the reception given after the lecture was
one of the pleasant events of this eventful year in club
calendar." A piano solo and a song "formed the musical
program of the afternoon." How many musical programs
Swamiji must have heard while on tour! Few occasions were
considered complete without at least two solos, rendered as a
rule by "accomplished young women."
The following reports which cover the first three days of
Swamiji's stay in Memphis and which give some idea of how
his reputation had spread, appeared in the Appeal-Avalanche
512
of January 14, 15, and 16 respectively. As will be seen, no
matter how well known Swamiji became, the idea still
persisted that he had been a Brahmin who became a Hindu
priest or monk. (Most of the following was obviously copied
from Lucy Monroe's "Chicago Letter" of November 11,
which appeared in the Critic. See chapter three.)
#

513
 COMING WEEK'S ATTRACTIONS

Memphis this morning has a distinguished visitor in

the person of Swami Vive Kananda, a Brahman monk of
India, who is the guest of the Nineteenth Century Club.
His culture, his eloquence, and his fascinating personality
has given this country a new idea of Hindoo civilisation.
He is an interesting figure, his fine, intelligent, mobile
face in its setting of yellows and his deep, musical voice
prepossessing one at once in his favour. So it is not
strange that he has been taken up by the literary clubs,
and has lectured and preached in many American
churches. He speaks without notes, presenting his facts
and his conclusions with the greatest art, the most
convincing sincerity, and rising at times to a rich,
inspiring eloquence. "Hinduism" will be his subject next
Tuesday evening at 8 o'clock at the Auditorium.
__________

AMUSEMENTS

"One of the giants of the platform," "a model repre-

sentative of his race," "a sensation of the World's Fair
parliament," "an orator by divine right " All this and more
is true of Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindu Monk, who is
in the city, a guest of the Nineteenth Century Club.
Several members of the club heard Vive Kananda during
the recent parliament of religions, and were so charmed
514
with his eloquence, his earnestness, his culture, that they
determined to have him visit Memphis, and to this end
have been in correspondence with him since the adjourn-
ment of the parliament. On tomorrow evening at 8
o'clock in the Auditorium an opportunity will be given
the people of Memphis to see and hear this earnest,
eloquent Brahman tell of the religions, manners, and
customs of his people.
#

515
 ____________
THE HINDOO MONK

The Eloquent Lecturer from the Orient

Will Be Heard Tonight

Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindoo monk, who is to

lecture at the Auditorium tonight, is one of the most
eloquent men who has ever appeared on the religious or
lecture platform in this country. His matchless oratory,
deep penetration into things occult, his cleverness in
debate, and great earnestness captured the closest atten-
tion of the world's thinking men at the World's Fair
Parliament of Religion, and the admiration of thousands
of people who have since heard him during his lecture
tour through many of the states of the Union.
In conversation he is a most pleasant gentleman; his
choice of words are the gems of the English language,
and his general bearing ranks him with the most cultured
people of Western etiquette and custom. As a companion
he is a most charming man, and as a conversationalist he
is, perhaps not surpassed in the drawing-rooms of any
city in the Western World. He speaks English not only
distinctly, but fluently, and his ideas, as new as sparkling,
drop from his tongue in a perfectly bewildering overflow
of ornamental language.
Swami Vive Kananda, by his inherited religion or early
teachings, grew up a Brahmin, but becoming converted to
the Hindoo religion he sacrificed his rank and became a
Hindoo priest, or as known in the country of oriental
516
ideality, a sanyasin. He had always been a close student
of the wonderful and mysterious works of nature as
drawn from God's high conception, and with years spent
as both a student and teacher in the higher colleges of that
eastern country, he acquired a knowledge that has given
him a worldwide reputation as one of the most thoughtful
scholars of the age.
#

517
 His wonderful first address before the members of the
World's Fair Parliament stamped him at once as a leader
in that great body of religious thinkers. During the
session he was frequently heard in defence of his religion,
and some of the most beautiful and philosophical gems
that grace the English language rolled from his lips there
in picturing the higher duties that man owed to man and
to his Creator. He is an artist in thought, an idealist in
belief and a dramatist on the platform.
Since his arrival in Memphis he has been guest of Mr.
Hu L. Brinkley, where he has received calls day and
evening from many in Memphis who desired to pay their
respects to him. He is also an informal guest at the Ten-
nessee Club and was a guest at the reception given by
Mrs. S. R. Shepherd, Saturday evening. Col. R. B.
Snowden gave a dinner at his home at Annesdale in
honor of the distinguished visitor on Sunday, where he
met Assistant Bishop Thomas F. Gailor, Rev. Dr. George
Patterson and a number of other clergymen.
Yesterday afternoon he lectured before a large and
fashionable audience composed of the members of the
Nineteenth Century Club in the rooms of the club in the
Randolph Building. Tonight he will be heard at the
Auditorium on "Hindooism."

By the time Swamiji reached Memphis his name seems to

have been established as Vive Kananda. This division of
Vivekananda into a first and last name was probably an
inspiration on the part of the lecture bureau. It was easier to
remember this way, less liable to distortion in spelling and
518
pronunciation and, in the jargon of modern publicity agents,
"better box office." In most cases, particularly in advance
publicity, the "Vive" was dropped altogether and he was
heralded in the papers as "Kananda" in letters an inch high.
Swamiji s lecture on Hinduism, as has been seen in the
above , accounts, was delivered on Tuesday evening, January
16, at
#

519
the Auditorium. The Commercial of January 17 reported
upon it as follows:

PLEA FOR TOLERANCE

__________

Swami Vive Kananda Instructs Christians

on the Faith of the Hindus.

An audience of fair proportions gathered last night at

the Auditorium to greet the celebrated Hindu monk,
Swami Vive Kananda, in his lecture on Hinduism.
He was. introduced in a brief but informing address by
Judge R. J. Morgan, who gave a sketch of the
development of the great Aryan race, from which
development have come the Europeans and the Hindus
alike, so tracing a racial kinship between the people of
America and the speaker who was to address them.
The eminent Oriental was received with liberal ap-
plause, and heard with attentive interest throughout. He is
a man of fine physical presence, with regular bronze
features and form of fine proportions. He wore a robe of
pink silk, fastened at the waist with a black sash, black
trousers and about his head was gracefully draped a
turban of yellow India silk. His delivery is very good, his
use of English being perfect as regards choice of words
and correctness of grammar and construction. The only
inaccuracy of pronunciation is in the accenting of words
at times upon a wrong syllable. Attentive listeners,
however, probably lost few words, and their attention was
well rewarded by an address full of original thought,
520
information and broad wisdom. The address might fitly
be called a plea for universal tolerance, illustrated by
remarks concerning the religion of India. This spirit, he
contended, the spirit of tolerance and love, is the central
inspiration of all religions which are worthy, and this, he
thinks, is the end to be secured by any form of faith.
His talk concerning Hinduism was not strictly circum-
#

521
stantial. His attempt was rather to give an analysis of its
spirit than a story of its legends or a picture of its forms.
He dwelt upon only a Few of the distinctive credal or
ritual features of his Faith, but these he explained most
clearly and perspicuously. He gave a vivid account of the
mystical features of Hinduism, out of which the so often
misinterpreted theory of reincarnation has grown. He ex-
plained how his religion ignored the differentiations of
time, how, just as all men believe in the present and the
future of the soul, so the faith of Brahma believes in its
past. He made it clear, too, how his faith does not believe
in "original sin," but bases all effort and aspiration on the
belief of the perfectibility of humanity. Improvement and
purification, he contends, must be based upon hope. The
development of man is a return to an original perfection.
This perfection must come through the practice of
holiness and love. Here he showed how his own people
have practiced these qualities, how India has been a land
of refuge for the oppressed, citing the instance of the
welcome given by the Hindus to the Jews when Titus
sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.
In a graphic way he told that the Hindus do not lay
much stress upon forms. Sometimes every member of the
family will differ in their adherence to sects, but all will
worship God by worshiping the spirit of love which is
His central attribute. The Hindus, he says, hold that there
is good in all religions, that all religions are embodiments
of man's inspiration for holiness, and being such, all
should be respected. He illustrated this by a citation from
the Vedas, in which varied religions are symbolized by
the differently formed vessels with which different men
522
came to bring water from a spring. The forms of the
vessels are many, but the water of truth is what all seek to
fill their vessels with. God knows all forms of faith, he
thinks, and will recognize his own name no matter what it
is called, or what may be the fashion of the homage paid
him.
#

523
 The Hindus, he continued, worship the same God as
the Christians. The Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva
is merely an embodiment of God the creator, the
preserver and the destroyer. That the three are considered
three instead of one is simply a corruption due to the fact
that general humanity must have its ethics made tangible.
So likewise the material images of Hindu gods are simply
symbols of divine qualities.
He told, in explanation of the Hindu doctrine of in-
carnation, the story of Krishna, who was born by im-
maculate conception and the story of whom greatly
resembles the story of Jesus. The teaching of Krishna, he
claims, is the doctrine of love for its own sake, and he
expressed [it] by the words "If the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of religion, the love of God is its end."
His entire lecture cannot be sketched here, but it was a
masterly appeal for brotherly love, and an eloquent de-
fense of a beautiful Faith. The conclusion was especially
fine, when he acknowledged his readiness to accept
Christ but must also bow to Krishna and to Buddha; and
when, with a fine picture of the cruelty of civilization, he
refused to hold Christ responsible for the crimes of
Progress.

It may have been after this lecture on Hinduism that the

pen of a journalist took wings. The following flight has come
down to us as an undated clipping from an undesignated
paper, said to be of Memphis. Whoever wrote it had clearly
been deeply moved by hearing Swamiji, and although the
piece contributes little to our factual knowledge of his
524
lectures, it does indicate something of the effect upon those
who heard him; and for this reason it is included here at least
in part:

Swami Vive Kananda.

Did you ever read Sir Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia"?

What sweet entrancing thought is rife in every
#

525
graceful verse and every verse is grace and beauty and
love. . . .
It is a thing of beauty, that poem. How lovely-no
clashing cruelties only tolerant self abnegation and a
supreme purity, clothed in the calm of never-ending
peace. Heaven on earth is its story and Swami Vive
preaches just such things.
Yes, he preaches, for every word, every burning, living
thought enunciated is a sermon on tolerance, truth and
purity. Eloquent, logical scholar that he is-to his fingers
ends, every word of the Talmud, Koran, Bible and the
Vedas, a mind electric in the rapidity and clearness of its
perceptions, infinite in the variety, beauty and perfection
of his parallels and similes. He is the artist, the scholar,
the high-priest of man glorified.
He thinks and makes you think. You should hear, it
must benefit. To detail his addresses or lectures, would be
to write pages of closely thought out discourse. A sketch
would not even suggest his outline. To say that he held
his auditors interested would ill express their rapt
attention.
Characteristic as was his discourse of the higher intel-
ligence, he was not above his auditors in that respect. Our
most intelligent readers and thinkers were his hearers.
Applaud they did, but dissect his arguments as well.
There were those who agreed and those who differed
materially, but all conceded that "toleration after all is the
true charity," and a visitation of many such emissaries of
such a creed could but prove a blessing to us in this age
of selfish, unkindly living.

526
 On the evening following his talk on Hinduism, Swamiji
lectured in the rooms of the Woman's Council on "The
Destiny of Man." The lecture was reviewed in a relatively
down-to-earth manner by the Appeal-Avalanche of January
18:
#

527
 THE DESTINY OF MAN DISCUSSED
__________
Lecture by Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindoo Monk.
__________
The Eloquent Orator Talks Entertainingly of Man and
His Destiny-Synopsis of His Lecture Last Night
in the Rooms of the Woman's Council

"The Destiny of Man" was the subject of a lecture by

Swami Vive Kananda last night at the Woman's Council-
room, corner Second and Adams street.
The audience was moderately large, and was made up
of the best literary and musical talent of the city,
including some of the most distinguished members of the
legal fraternity and financial institutions.
The speaker differs in one respect in particular from
some American orators. He advances his ideas with as
much deliberation as a professor of mathematics demon-
strates an example in algebra to his students. Kananda
speaks with perfect faith in his own powers and ability to
successfully hold his position against all argument. He
advances no ideas, nor makes assertions that he does not
follow up to a logical conclusion. Much of his lecture is
something on the order of Ingersoll's philosophy. He does
not believe in future punishment nor in God as Christians
believe in Him. He does not believe the mind is immortal,
from the fact that it is dependent, and nothing can be im-
mortal except it is independent of all things. He says:
"God is not a king sitting away in one corner of the
528
universe to deal out punishment or rewards according to a
man's deeds here on earth, and the time will come when
man will know the truth, and stand up and say, `I am
God,' am life of His life. Why teach that God is far away
when our real nature, our immortal principle is God?
"Be not deluded by your religion teaching original sin,
for the same religion teaches original purity. When Adam
#

529
fell he fell from purity. (Applause) Purity is our real
nature, and to regain that is the object of all religion. All
men are pure; all men are good. Some objections can be
raised to them, and you ask why some men are brutes?
That man you call a brute is like the diamond in the dirt
and dust brush the dust off and it is a diamond, just as
pure as if the dust had never been on it, and we must
admit that every soul is a big diamond.
"Nothing is baser than calling our brother a sinner. A
lioness once fell upon a flock of sheep and killed a lamb.
A sheep found a very young lion and it followed her and
she gave it suck, and it grew up with the sheep and
learned to eat grass like a sheep. One day an old lion saw
the sheep lion and tried to get it away from the sheep, but
it ran away as he approached. The big lion waited till he
caught the sheep lion alone, and he seized it and carried
it to a clear pool of water, and said, `You are not a sheep,
but a lion; look at your picture in the water: The sheep
lion, seeing its picture reflected from the water, said, `I
am a lion and not a sheep.' Let us not think we are sheep,
but be lions, and don't bleat and eat grass like a sheep.
"For four months I have been in America. In Massa-
chusetts I visited a reformatory prison. The jailer at that
prison never knows for what crimes the prisoners are in-
carcerated. The mantle of charity is thrown around them.
In another city there were three newspapers, edited by
very learned men, trying to prove that severe punishment
was a necessity, while one other paper contended that
mercy was better than punishment. The editor of one
paper proved by statistics that only 50 per cent of
criminals who received severe punishment returned to
530
honest lives, while 90 per cent of those who received
light punishment returned to useful pursuits in life.
"Religion is not the outcome of the weakness of human
nature; religion is not here because we fear a tyrant;
religion is love, unfolding, expanding, growing. Take the
#

531
watch-within the little case is machinery and a spring.
The spring, when wound up, tries to regain its natural
state. You are like the spring in the watch, and it is not
necessary that all watches have the same kind of a spring,
and it is not necessary that we all have the same religion.
And why should we quarrel? If we all had the same ideas
the world would be dead. External motion we call action;
internal motion is human thought. The stone falls to the
earth. You say it is caused by the law of gravitation. The
horse draws the cart and God draws the horse. That is the
law of motion. Whirlpools show the strength of the
current; stop the current and stagnation ensues. Motion is
life. We must have unity and variety. The rose would
smell as sweet by any other name, and it does not matter
what your religion is called.
"Six blind men lived in a village. They could not see
the elephant, but they went out and felt of him. One put
his hand on the elephant's tail, one of them on his side,
one on his tongue [trunk], one on his ear. They began to
describe the elephant. One said he was like a rope; one
said he was like a great wall; one said he was like a boa
constrictor, and another said he was like a fan. They
finally came to blows and went to pummeling each other.
A man who could see came along and inquired the
trouble, and the blind men said they had seen the elephant
and disagreed because one accused the other of lying.
`Well,' said the man, `you have all lied; you are blind,
and neither of you have seen it.' That is what is the matter
with our religion. We let the blind see the elephant.
(Applause.)

532
 "A monk of India said, `I would believe you if you
were to say that I could press the sands of the desert and
get oil, or that I could pluck the tooth from the mouth of
the crocodile without being bitten, but I cannot believe
you when you say a bigot can be changed.' You ask why
is there so much variance in religions? The answer is this:
The little streams that ripple down a thousand mountain
#

533
 sides are destined to come at last to the mighty ocean. So
with the different religions. They are destined at last to
bring us to the bosom of God. For 1,900 years you have
been trying to crush the Jews. Why could you not crush
them? Echo answers: Ignorance and bigotry can never
crush truth."
The speaker continued in this strain of reasoning for
nearly two hours, and concluded by saying: "Let us help,
and not destroy."

At the request of his already large following Swamiji de-

livered three more lectures in Memphis. The first two of these
were held at La Salette Academy (Miss Moon's boarding-
house), whose parlors were no doubt large enough to hold a
sizable audience. On Friday evening the subject was "Re-
incarnation," and the lecture was reported by the Appeal -
Avalanche of January 20:

VIVE KANANDA ON REINCARNATION

__________

The Hindoo Monk Discourses on Metempsychosis.

___________

An Appreciative Audience Is Enlightened on the Subject

of the Transmigration of the Soul by the Learned
Theosophist from the East.

534
 Swami Vive Kananda, the beturbaned and yellow--
robed monk, lectured again last night to a fair-sized and
appreciative audience at the La Salette Academy on Third
street.
Kananda's popularity has increased wonderfully since
his arrival in this city, and especially is this noticeable
among the ladies. To them he is like the latest sensation,
they never grow tired of talking about him. Two-thirds of
the audience last night were feminine and throughout the
#

535
discourse they were most attentive, taking in every word
that dropped from the speaker's lips as if they were pearls
given up by the bottomless seas.
The subject was "Transmigration of the Soul, or me-
tempsychosis." Possibly Vive Kananda never appeared to
greater advantage than in this role, so to speak. Me-
tempsychosis is one of the most widely-accepted beliefs
among the Eastern races, and one that they are ever ready
to defend, at home or abroad. As Kananda said:

"Many of you do not know that it is one of the oldest

religious doctrines of all the old religions. It was known
among the Pharisees, among the Jews, among the first
fathers of the Christian Church, and was a common belief
among the Arabs. And it lingers still with the Hindoos
and the Buddhists.
"This state of things went on until the days of science,
which is merely a contemplation of energies. Now, you
Western people believe this doctrine to be subversive of
morality. In order to have a full survey of the argument,
its logical and metaphysical features, we will have to go
over all the ground. All of us believe in a moral governor
of this universe; yet nature reveals to us instead of justice,
injustice. One man is born under the best of
circumstances. Throughout his entire life circumstances
come ready made to his hands-all conducive to happiness
and a higher order of things. Another is born, and at
every point his life is at variance with that of his
neighbor. He dies in depravity, exiled From society. Why
so much impartiality [partiality] in the distribution of
happiness?
536
 "The theory of metempsychosis reconciles this dis-
harmonious chord in your common beliefs. Instead of
making us immoral, this theory gives us the idea of
justice. Some of you say: `It is God's will.' This is no
answer. It is unscientific. Everything has a cause. The
sole cause and whole theory of causation being left with
God, makes him a most immoral creature. But
materialism is as much
#

537
illogical as the other. So far as we go, perception [causa-
tion?] involves all things. Therefore, this doctrine of the
transmigration of the soul is necessary on these grounds.
Here we are all born. Is this the first creation? Is creation
something coming out of nothing? Analysed completely,
this sentence is nonsense. It is not creation, but
manifestation.
"A something cannot be the effect of a cause that is
not. If I put my finger in the fire the burn is a
simultaneous effect, and I know that the cause of the burn
was the action of my placing my finger in contact with
the fire. And as in the case of nature, there never was a
time when nature did not exist, because the cause has
always existed. But for argument sake, admit that there
was a time when there was no existence, Where was all
this mass of matter? To create something . new would be
the introduction of so much more energy into the
universe. This is impossible. Old things can be re-created,
but there can be no addition to the universe.
"No mathematical demonstration could be made that
would have this theory of metempsychosis. According to
logic, hypothesis and theory must not be believed. But
my contention is that no better hypothesis has been
forwarded by the human intellect to explain the
phenomena of life.
"I met with a peculiar incident while on a train leaving
the city of Minneapolis. There was a cowboy on the train.
He was a rough sort of a fellow and a Presbyterian of the
blue nose type. He walked up and asked me where I was
from. I told him India. `What are you?' he said. `Hindoo,'
I replied. `Then you must go to hell,' he remarked. I told
538
him of this theory, and after [my] explaining it he said he
had always believed in it, because he said that one day
when he was chopping a log his little sister came out in
his clothes and said that she used to be a man. That is
why he believed in the transmigration of souls. The
whole basis of
#

539
 the theory is this: If a man's actions be good, he must be a
higher being, and vice versa.
"There is another beauty in this theory-the moral motor
[motive] it supplies. What is done is done. It says, `Ah,
that it were done better.' Do not put your finger in the fire
again. Every moment is a new chance: '
Vive Kananda spoke in this strain for some time, and
he was frequently applauded.
Swami Vive Kananda will lecture again this afternoon
at 4 o'clock at La Salette Academy on "The Manners and
Customs of India."

The lecture on "The Manners and Customs of India" was

poorly attended owing to inclement weather: It was perhaps
the smallness of the gathering that gave this lecture a
somewhat informal aspect. As will be seen in the following
report from the Appeal-Avalanche of January 21, the ladies
kept interrupting Swamiji to ask questions both relevant and
irrelevant:

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF INDIA

Lecture by Swami Vive Kananda, The Hindoo Monk.

__________
He Beautifully Describes the Traditions of His Native
Country-A Cordial Welcome Has Been Extended the
High Priest from India-He Lectures Again Tonight.

Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindoo monk, delivered a

lecture at La Salette Academy yesterday afternoon.

540
Owing to the pouring rain, a very small audience was
present.
The subject discussed was "Manners and Customs in
India." Vive Kananda is advancing theories of religious
thought which find ready lodgment in the minds of some
of the most advanced thinkers of this as well as other
cities of America.
His theory is fatal to the orthodox belief, as taught by
the Christian teachers. It has been the supreme effort of
Christian America to enlighten the beclouded minds of
#

541
heathen India, but it seems that the oriental splendor of
Kananda's religion has eclipsed the beauty of the old-
time Christianity, as taught by our parents, and will find a
rich field in which to thrive in the minds of some of the
better educated of America.
This is a day of "fads," and Kananda seems to be
filling a "long felt want " He is, perhaps, one of the most
learned men of his country, and possesses a wonderful
amount of personal magnetism, and his hearers are
charmed by his eloquence. While he is liberal in his
views, he sees very little to admire in the orthodox
Christianity. Kananda has received more marked
attention in Memphis than almost any lecturer or minister
that has ever visited the city.
If a missionary to India was as cordially received as
the Hindoo monk is here the work of spreading the gospel
of Christ in heathen lands would be well advanced. His
lecture yesterday afternoon was an interesting one from a
historic point of view. He is thoroughly familiar with the
history and traditions of his native country, from very
ancient history up to the present, and can describe the
various places and objects of interest there with grace and
ease.
During his lecture he was frequently interrupted by
questions propounded by the ladies in the audience, and
he answered all queries without the least hesitancy,
except when one of the ladies asked a question with the
purpose of drawing him out into a religious discussion.
He refused to be led from the original subject of his
discourse and informed the interrogator that at another

542
time he would give his views on the "transmigration of
the soul," etc.
In the course of his remarks he said that his
grandfather was married when he was 3 years old and his
father married at 18, but he had never married at all. A
monk is not forbidden to marry, but if he takes a wife she
becomes a monk with the same powers and privileges
and occupies the same social position as her husband.
#

543
 In answer to a question, he said there were no divorces
in India for any cause, but if, after 14 years of married
life, there were no children in the family, the husband
was allowed to marry another with the wife's consent, but
if she objected he could not marry again. His description
of the ancient mausoleums and temples were beautiful
beyond comparison, and goes to show that the ancients
possessed scientific knowledge far superior to the most
expert artisans of the present day.
Swami Vive Kananda will appear at the Y.M.H.A.
Hall to-night for the last time in this city. He is under
contract with the "Slayton Lyceum Bureau" of Chicago,
to fill a three-years' engagement in this country. He will
leave to-morrow for Chicago, where he has an
engagement for the night of the 25th.

It is unlikely that Swamiji made the remark attributed to

him in the third paragraph above regarding the marriage of
monks. This must have been a blunder on the part of the
reporter; for, as is well known, if a sannyasin takes a wife he
is considered by Hindu society to have fallen, as it were, from
grace and is ostracized. Probably what Swamiji said was that
if a married man should renounce the world, his wife would
do likewise. Or perhaps he said "priest," not "monk."
Swamiji's "theory fatal to the orthodox belief" was too
much for one Reverend G. T. Sullivan whose Sunday sermon
was given in the Appeal-Avalanche of January 22. The
Reverend Mr. Sullivan took as his theme a Biblical text often
cited at the Parliament of Religions: "For I am not ashamed
of the Gospel of Christ." The sermon need not be quoted
544
here. Suffice it to say that the Reverend Mr. Sullivan
characterized the Parliament of Religions as "the greatest
fraud of the Nineteenth Century." It might also be mentioned
that in the course of his lecture he displayed a confusion
typical in Western thought regarding the doctrine of
reincarnation. Swamiji had just delivered a lecture on this
subject and often took pains to set
#

545
the matter straight, for it was a stumbling block to the West's
understanding of Eastern religions. Out of his fund of misin-
formation, the Reverend Mr. Sullivan explained:

Another feature of the world's [non-Christian] religion

is, it does not recognize the immortality of man. Transmi-
gration of the soul is taught; that is, our soul, they say
will go out into some animal, perhaps, or some other
creature. . . . I would rather never to have lived to think
my soul would go into an ox. I had rather not live at all
than to die and be annihilated. Better be cast into the sea
with a millstone about your neck than to be a materialist.

On Sunday, January 21, Swamiji held a discussion in the

parlors of La Salette Academy. The reporter from the Appeal-
Avalanche was evidently deeply appreciative of the Hindu
monk, and fortunately he was present at this meeting, for he
gives us one of our rare and invaluable close-range word
pictures of him:

A TALK WITH THE HINDOO MONK.

__________
He Thinks Americans Are Materialists and Tells Why
__________

His Mission to This Country Is Not to Gain Converts to

His Faith, But to Raise Funds for a College in
His Native Land-His Religion.

Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindoo monk, whose lec-

tures have attracted marked attention during his sojourn
546
here, has been misunderstood, insomuch as the object of
his visit to America is concerned. He is here not to pro-
pagate the doctrines of any religion of India and make
converts to the same, but to raise the money wherewith to
establish a polytechnic institution in his native land that
shall be the nucleus around which he hopes to build an
educational system that shall tend to develop the minds of
#

547
his people along lines of thought to which, owing chiefly
to their religious beliefs, they have been strangers here-
tofore.
Kananda has no quarrel with the faith of the people of
the Western world, as he calls Americans. While he sees
much in their mode of life, their social and religious in-
stitutions, to disagree with, he does not criticise them
unless called upon to do so. He is here rather to cull from
American soil ideas and natural aid that will advance his
people. As a conversationalist Kananda is very agreeable.
Modest in his demeanor, he is inclined to be diffident
until aroused by some query that affects his mission, his
religion or his people. Then he is assertive, but never
aggressive. Perhaps there is at times a tinge of irony, felt
rather than seen, in his manner when contrasting the
manners and customs of his people with those of the
West, but being a gentleman by instinct, a scholar by
training and a monk by choice he is always courteous and
never impatient.
If there has been anything of the irascible in his nature
it would surely have been developed last evening when,
for an hour or more, he was subjected to a cross-fire of
interrogatories that kept him ever on the alert and fre-
quently on the defensive. The conversation was partici-
pated in by a number of those who have become
interested in the work [monk] and his mission since he
arrived in Memphis, among those present being a
representative of the Appeal-Avalanche. Kananda has
said much in behalf of his people and their religion and
much concerning Americans and the doctrines of
Christianity, and it was to ascertain something of the
548
ground upon which he bases his claims for the Hindoo
belief and to settle points not made clear by his
discourses that the monk was induced to discuss certain
interesting topics.
Kananda is diplomatic to a marked degree. While ever
ready to reply to any question propounded him, he is,
nevertheless, capable of amusing those that he does not
see
#

549
fit to enter into conversation in detail in a way that pre-
cludes further discussion, while not committing himself
or offending his interrogator. He is remarkably well
versed upon religious, scientific and metaphysical
literature, not only of his own country but of the world as
well, and is capable, by reason of his versatility, of
maintaining himself in any position in which
circumstances may cast his lot. There is throughout his
bearing and conversation a certain child-like simplicity of
manner that enlists one's sympathy, and convinces one of
the sincerity of the man's utterances before he begins to
speak.
According to Kananda, the spiritual life ought to be
developed at any cost, and it is to the attainment of the
spiritual rather than the material that his religion tends.
"I am a monk," he said, as he sat in the parlors of La
Salette Academy; which is his home while in Memphis,
"and not a priest. When at home I travel from place to
place, teaching the people of the villages and towns
through which I pass. I am dependent upon them for my
sustenance, as I am not allowed to touch money.
"I was born," he continued, in answer to a question, "in
Bengal and became a monk and a celibate from choice.
At my birth my father had a horoscope taken of my life,
but would never tell me what it was. Some years ago
when I visited my home my father having died, I came
across the chart among some papers in my mother's
possession and saw from it that I was destined to become
a wanderer on the face of the earth."
There was a touch of pathos in the speaker's voice and
a murmur of sympathy ran around the group of listeners.
550
Kananda knocked the ashes from his cigar and was silent
for a space.
Presently some one asked:

"If your religion is all that you claim it is, if it is the

only true faith, how is it that your people are not more
advanced in civilization than they are? Why has it not
#

551
elevated them among the nations of the world?" "Because
that is not the sphere of any religion," replied

the Hindoo gravely. "My people are the most moral in

the world, or quite as much as any other race. They are
more considerate of their fellow man's rights, and even
those of dumb animals, but they are not materialists. No
religion has ever advanced the thought or inspiration of a
nation or people. In fact, no great achievement has ever
been attained in the history of the world that religion has
not retarded. Your boasted Christianity has not proven an
exception in this respect. Your Darwins, your Mills, your
Humes, have never received the endorsement of your
prelates. Why, then, criticize my religion on this
account?"
"I would not give a fig for a faith that does not tend to
elevate mankind's lot on earth as well as his spiritual
condition," said one of the group, "and therein I am not
prepared to admit the correctness of your statements.
Christianity has founded colleges, hospitals and raised the
degenerate. It has elevated the downcast and helped its
followers to live."
"You are right there to a certain extent," replied the
monk calmly, "and yet it is not shown that these things
are directly the result of your Christianity. There are
many causes operating in the West to produce these
results.
"Religious thought should be directed to developing
man's spiritual side. Science art learning and meta-
physical research all have their proper functions in life,
but if you seek to blend them, you destroy their
552
individual characteristics until, in time, you eliminate the
spiritual, for instance, from the religious altogether. You
Americans worship what? The dollar. In the mad rush for
gold, you forget the spiritual until you have become a
nation of materialists. Even your preachers and churches
are tainted with the all-pervading desire. Show me one in
the history of your people who has led the spiritual lives
that those whom I can name at home have done. Where
are those
#

553
who, when death comes, could say, `O Brother Death, I
welcome thee: Your religion helps you to build Ferris
wheels and Eiffel towers, but does it aid you in the devel-
opment of your inner lives?"
The monk spoke earnestly, and his voice, rich and well
modulated, came through the dusk that pervaded the
apartment, half sadly, half accusingly. There was some-
thing of the weird in the comments of this stranger from a
land whose history dates back 6,000 years upon the
civilization of the Nineteenth Century America.
"But, in pursuing the spiritual, you lose sight of the
demands of the present," said some one. "Your doctrine
does not help men to live."
"It helps them to die," was the answer.
"We are sure of the present "
"You are sure of nothing."
"The aim of the ideal religion should be to help one to
live and to prepare one to die at the same time."
"Exactly," said the Hindoo, quickly, "and it is that
which we are seeking to attain. I believe that the Hindoo
faith has developed the spiritual in its devotees at the
expense of the material, and I think that in the Western
world the contrary is true. By uniting the materialism of
the West with the spiritualism of the East I believe much
can be accomplished. It may be that in the attempt the
Hindoo faith will lose much of its individuality."
"Would not the entire social system of India have to be
revolutionized to do what you hope to do?"
"Yes, probably, still the religion would remain un-
impaired."

554
 The conversation here turned upon the form of worship
of the Hindoos, and Kananda gave some interesting in-
formation on this subject. There are agnostics and atheists
in India as well as elsewhere. "Realization" is the one
thing essential in the lives of the followers of Brahma.
Faith is not necessary. Theosophy is a subject with which
#

555
Kananda is not versed, nor is it a part of his creed unless
he chooses to make it so. It is more of a separate study
Kananda never met Mme. Blavatsky, but has met Col
Olcott, of the American Theosophical Society. He is also
acquainted with Annie Besant. Speaking of the "fakirs"
of India, the famous jugglers or musicians [magicians],
whose feats have made for them a world-wide reputation.
Kananda told of a few episodes that had come within his
observation and which almost surpass belief.
"Five months ago," he said, when questioned on this
subject, "or just one month before I left India to come to
this country, I happened in company in a caravan, or
party of 25, to sojourn for a space in a city in the interior.
While there we learned of the marvelous work of one of
these itinerant magicians and had him brought before us.
He told us he would produce for us any article we
desired. We stripped him, at his request, until he was
quite naked and placed him in the corner of the room. I
threw my traveling blanket about him and then we called
upon him to do as he had promised. He asked what we
should like, and I asked for a bunch of California grapes,
and straightway the fellow brought them forth from under
his blanket. Oranges and other fruit were produced, and
finally great dishes of steaming rice."
Continuing, the monk said he believed in the existence
of a "sixth sense" and in telepathy. He offered no
explanation of the feats of the fakirs, merely saying that
they were very wonderful. The subject of idols came up
and the monk said that idols formed a part of his religion
insomuch as the symbol is concerned.

556
 "What do you worship?" said the monk, "What is your
idea of God?"
"The spirit," said a lady quietly.
"What is the spirit? Do you Protestants worship the
words of the Bible or something beyond? We worship
God through the idol."
#

557
 "That is, you attain the subjective through the
objective," said a gentleman who had listened attentively
to the words of the stranger.
"Yes, that is it," said the monk, gratefully.
Vive Kananda discussed further in the same strain until
the call terminated as the hour for the Hindoo's lecture
approached.
Vive Kananda goes to Chicago today.

That night Swamiji gave his last, and, according to the

Appeal-Avalanche of January 22, his most stirring talk. This
farewell lecture was announced in the Appeal-Avalanche of
January 21 as follows:

Tonight Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindoo monk, will

lecture at the Young Men's Hebrew Association Hall on
"Comparative Theology." Among the literary and think-
ing people generally of Memphis, he has attracted a great
deal of attention. He possesses a keen mind, his ideas are
broad and philosophic, and he reasons with a logic that is
almost convincing. Altogether, he is a man of strong
intellect, and his lectures are very instructive, especially
to the student of religion and its more intimate relation to
civilization and mankind.

On the same day the Memphis Commercial also announced

Swamiji's lecture. In addition to giving the facts of time and
place, the item read:

558
 HE'LL SPEAK TO ALL CLASSES
........
This lecture will not be in the interest of any
institutions, but has been arranged by Col Hu Brinkley
and some other gentlemen who, having heard the oriental
orator and conversed with him, have been so impressed
with his remarkable learning and talents that they desire
all the people to
#

559
 have an opportunity to hear him. Swami Vive Kananda
has been entertained in a public and private way by the
citizens and has created a profound sensation in all cul-
tured circles. His learning embraces such a wide range of
subjects and his knowledge is so thorough that even
specialists in the various sciences, theology, art and
literature, learn from his utterances and absorb from his
presence. The topic he has chosen for his oration tonight
is one that he can treat with masterly ability and in a
manner peculiarly his own. The conditions of the
arrangements are such that the man would secure a large
audience of all classes of people, as he no doubt will. The
lecture will occur at the Young Men's Hebrew
Association hall, and will begin at 8 o'clock.

It is interesting to note that although Swamiji was

attempting to earn money by lecturing, it was evidently
impossible for him not to contribute most of what he earned
to some needy cause. Not only in Memphis, but in other
towns, notably Boston, we see him lecturing for the benefit of
various local charities. To judge from .the report of
"Comparative Theology" in the Appeal-Avalanche of January
22, that lecture was the only one delivered in Memphis the
proceeds of which Swamiji did not give away (perhaps to one
or another of Miss Moon's favorite charities). The article
reads as follows:

560
 GAVE HIS FAREWELL LECTURE
___________

Swami Vive Kananda Makes the Grandest Effort

of His Life.
___________

"Comparative Theology" Was the Subject, and He

Handled It in a Masterful Manner. The Discourse
Was Interspersed With Eloquence and Logic.

"Comparative Theology" was the subject of a

discourse last night by Swami Vive Kananda at the
Young Men's
#

561
Hebrew Association Hall. It was the blue-ribbon lecture
of the series, and no doubt increased the general admira-
tion the people of this city entertain for the learned
gentleman.
Heretofore Vive Kananda has lectured for the benefit
of one charity-worthy object or another, and it can be
safely said that he has rendered them material aid. Last
night, however, he lectured for his own benefit. The
lecture was planned and sustained by Mr. Hu L. Brinkley,
one of Vive Kananda's warmest friends and most ardent
admirers. In the neighborhood of two hundred gathered at
the hall last night to hear the eminent Easterner for the
last time in this city.
The first question the speaker asserted in connection
with the subject was: "Can there be such a distinction
between religions as their creeds would imply?"
He asserted that no differences existed now, and he
retraced the line of progress made by all religions and
brought it back to the present day. He showed that such
variance of opinion must of necessity have existed with
primitive man in regard to the idea of God, but that as the
world advanced step by step in a moral and intellectual
way, the distinctions became more and more indistinct,
until finally it had faded away entirely, and now there
was one all-prevalent doctrine-that of an absolute
existence.
"No savage," said the speaker, "can be found who does
not believe in some kind of a god.
"Modern science does not say whether it looks upon
this as a revelation or not. Love among savage nations is
not very strong. They live in terror. To their superstitious
562
imaginations is pictured some malignant spirit, before the
thought of which they quake in fear and terror. Whatever
he likes he thinks will please the evil spirit. What will
pacify him he thinks will appease the wrath of the spirit.
To this end he labors ever against his fellow-savage."
#

563
 The speaker went on to show by historical facts that
the savage man went from ancestral worship to the
worship of elephants [the elements], and later, to gods,
such as the God of Thunder and Storms. Then the
religion of the world was polytheism. "The beauty of the
sunrise, the grandeur of the sunset, the mystifying
appearance of the star-bedecked skies and the weirdness
of thunder and lightning impressed primitive man with a
force that he could not explain, and suggested the idea of
a higher and more powerful being controlling the
infinities that flocked before his gaze," said Vive
Kananda.
Then came another period-the period of monotheism.
All the gods disappeared and blended into one, the God
of Gods, the ruler of the universe. Then the speaker
traced the Aryan race up to that period, where they said:
"We live and move in God. He is motion." Then there
came another period known to metaphysics as the "period
of Pantheism." This race rejected Polytheism and Mono-
theism, and the idea that God was the universe, and said
"the soul of my soul is the only true existence. My nature
is my existence and will expand to me: '
Vive Kananda then took up Buddhism. He said that
they neither asserted nor denied the existence of a God.
Buddha would simply say, when his counsel was sought:
"You see misery. Then try to lessen it." To a Buddhist
misery is ever present, and society measures the scope of
his existence. Mohammedanism, he said, believed in the
Old Testament of the Hindoo [Hebrew] and the New
Testament of the Christian. They do not like the Chris-
564
tians, for they say they are heretics and teach man -
worship. Mohammed ever forbade his followers having a
picture of himself.
"The next question that arises," said he, "are these
religions true or are some of them true and some of them
false? They have all reached one conclusion, that of an
absolute and infinite existence. Unity is the object of re
#

565
ligion. The multiple of phenomena that is seen at every
hand, is only the infinite variety of unity. An analysis of
religion shows that man does not travel from fallacy to
truth, but from a lower truth to a higher truth.
"A man brings in a coat to a lot of people. Some say
the coat does not fit them. Well, you get out; you can't
have a coat. Ask one Christian minister what is the matter
with all the other sects that are opposed to his doctrines
and dogmas, and he will answer; 'Oh, they're not
Christians.' But we have better instruction than these. Our
own natures, love and science-they teach us better. Like
the eddies to a river, take them away and stagnation
follows. Kill the difference in opinions, and it is the death
of thought. Motion is necessity. Thought is the motion of
the mind, and when that ceases death begins.
"If you put a simple molecule of air in the bottom of a
glass of water it at once begins a struggle to join the
infinite atmosphere above. So it is with the soul. It is
struggling to regain its pure nature and to free itself from
this material body. It wants to regain its own infinite
expansion. This is everywhere the same. Among
Christians, Buddhists, Mohammedans, agnostic or priest,
the soul is struggling. A river flows a thousand miles
down the circuitous mountain side to where it joins the
seas and a man is standing there to tell it to go back and
start anew and assume a more direct course! That man is
a fool. You are a river that flows from the heights of
Zion. I flow from the lofty peaks of the Himalayas. I
don't say to you, go back and come down as I did, you're
wrong. That is more wrong than foolish. Stick to your
beliefs. The truth is never lost: Books may perish, nations
566
 may go down in a crash, but the truth is preserved and is
taken up by some man and handed back to society, which
proves a grand and continuous revelation of God."

The people of Memphis had received Swamiji royally. Not

#

567
only did they like his lectures, they liked him and honored
him at all manner of parties. The climax was reached by a
Mrs. Jere Horn, who went to great pains to pay tribute to her
guest and his country. The following description of her
luncheon is from an unidentified Memphis paper:

CHOTA-HAZRI.

Swami Vive Kananda was the recipient of many social

courtesies during his stay in the city, and it devolved in
most appropriate graciousness for Mrs. Jerre [Jere] Horn
to extend the hospitality of her handsome home as a most
beautiful and fitting conclusion to the week's series of
triumphs.
Mrs. Horn spent some time in the Orient and brought
back with her many souvenir curios and draperies from
the East. These she used with most effective beauty
Friday afternoon in transforming her home into an
oriental court of Indian symphony. The walls were hung
with Eastern draperies and the lotus flower reigned
supreme.
The table covered with oriental drapery was defined
by a wreath of smilax interwoven with poppies and the
same seductive flower graced the epergne in the center of
the table.
The menu also symbolized the Indian floral emphasis,
and reflected poppies. Altogether it was a most charming
and artistic event and a most delicate compliment to the
honored guest.

568
 One wonders about the menu, but whatever it may have
been, Swamiji must have been much touched by this chota
hazri or "little repast."
Among the many friends he made in Memphis was a Mr.
G. C. Connor, who had somehow learned, and had verified,
that he was a member of the brotherhood of Freemasons,l a
society then prestigious and influential in the United States.
On the day he left Memphis, Mr. Connor gave Swamiji
#

569
what was, in effect, an open sesame to the Freemasons of
Chicago. This letter of introduction was written on paper en-
graved with the letterhead "Office of Most Worshipful Grand
Master, State of Tennessee," and read:

Bun. F. Price
Grand Master Memphis, Tenn., January 22, 1894

Gilbert W. Barnard, Esqur.

Masonic Temple,
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Brother:-I take very great pleasure in

introducing to you personally, and as a Freemason, our
East India Brother

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

Whom I examined in the English Work, in which he

was made a Master Mason, in Anchor and Hope, 236,
E.C. He was educated in India, and is a Monk of the
oldest, and most humane of the Religions of the world;
and because of my own family relations to the city of
Calcutta I am anxious that this amiable representative of
that wonderful land receive as cordial consideration in
my country as I received in his. And because of such
desire I have given him letters to you and General Smith.
I will add that I am here to attend the Convention of all
the Lodges. of this city tonight, and the Brethren are very
much disappointed that his lecture engagements prevent
Brother Vivekananda from being with us.
570
 Sincerely Yours,2
G. C. Connor

On Monday, January 22, Swamiji left Memphis for

Chicago. He had been. in this southern city for only a little
over a week; yet in his short stay had clearly been a fruitful
one. Hundreds of people had come in contact with him, had
felt uplifted by his
#

571
talks and lectures, had absorbed his teachings, and,
knowingly or unknowingly, had been spiritually nourished.
This was, of course, true of Swamiji's lecture tour as a
whole. At the end of January, 1894, Mr. Menvin-Marie Snell,
who had been assistant to the Chairman of the Parliament of
Religions, and who had evidently kept track of Swamiji
through the following months, wrote an open letter to the
editor of the Indian periodical Hope, in which he spoke of the
readiness of many of the American people to benefit from a
true representative of Hinduism. His letter, which was
reprinted in the Indian Mirror of March 9, 1894, read in part:

. . . Since the Parliament [Swami Vivekananda] has

been lecturing before large audiences in the principal
cities of the United States and has received an ovation
wherever he went. He has often been invited to preach in
Christian pulpits and has by all who have heard him on
any occasion, and still more by those who have made his
personal acquaintance, been always spoken of in terms of
the highest admiration. The most rigid or orthodox Chris-
tians say of him, "He is indeed a prince among men,"
even when they find it necessary, for the sake of their
time honoured prejudices, to add, "but he must be
altogether an exception: of course there are no other
Hindus like him."
As intense [as] is the astonished admiration which the
personal presence and bearing and language of Parama-
hansa Vivekananda have wrung from a public ac-
customed to think of Hindus-thanks to the fables and half
truths of the missionaries-as ignorant and degraded
"heathen", there is no doubt that the continued interest is
572
largely due to a genuine hunger for the spiritual truths
which India through him has offered to the American
people.
America is starving for spiritual nourishment in spite
of its absorption in material things, in spite of the
ignorance
#

573
and provincialism of its upper classes and the savagery of
its lower, there are many souls scattered everywhere
throughout its great population who are thirsty for higher
things. Europe has always been indebted to India for its
spiritual inspirations. There is little, very little of high
thought and aspiration in Christendom which cannot be
traced to one or another of the successive influxes of
Hindu ideas: either to the Hinduised Mazdaism of the
Gnostics, to the Hinduised Judaism of the Kabbalists, or
to the Hinduised Mohamedanism of the Moorish
philosophers, to say nothing of the Hinduised Socialism
of the New England Transcendentalists and the many
other new streams of Orientalising influence which are
fertilising the soul of contemporary Christendom. . . .
All the Hinduising forces hitherto at work have re-
ceived a notable impulse from the labours of Swami
Vivekananda. Never before has so authoritative a re-
presentative of genuine Hinduism-as opposed to the
emasculated and Anglicised versions of it so common in
these days-been accessible to American inquirers. . : .
A few, and only a few, representatives of the extreme
orthodox wing of the protestant Christian community
have been provoked into hostile criticism by jealousy of
his success. But this has come exclusively from
religionists of an abnormal and obsolescent type, and, as
a rule, jealousy and sectarian animosity even from this
quarter have been silenced by the uniform kindliness and
good will, as well as the learning and dignity and
personal charm, of the orange-robed monk From the land
of the Bharatas.3

574
 The fact was that the animosity of the orthodox wing of the
Protestant Christian community had not yet, at the date of Mr.
Snell's letter, reared its ugly head. It was to do so about a
month later.
#

575
 3

In trying to trace Swamiji's footsteps through the Mid-

western states of America one finds that at times the trail is
clear; at other times it is altogether lost, but I think the reader
will by now have gathered a general impression of the nature
of his lecture tour and of the enthusiastic reception he
received wherever he went. Perhaps, however, the physical
and mental suffering it cost him has not been apparent.
For months, most of which fell in the dead of a severe
winter, Swamiji traveled almost incessantly, lecturing many
times a week. As has been seen in the preceding chapters, he
spent October and the first three weeks of November in
Chicago and nearby towns. Toward the end of November he
traveled farther afield, presumably under the direction of the
Slayton Lyceum Lecture Bureau, and commenced his long
and arduous tour. The first cities on his itinerary were
Madison, Minneapolis, and Des Moines, all three of which he
visited within the space of one short week.
Although after this (except for a day in mid-December,
when he returned to Minneapolis) we lose trace of Swamiji
for approximately six weeks, we can infer from various
sources something of what this period was like. For instance,
if the pace with which he began his tour in the last week of
November was continued, as very likely it was, then within
those six weeks he must have lectured-to make a conservative
estimate-in at least fifteen towns. The far-flung location of
these towns we can judge from his own words. "Necessity,"
he wrote to Swami Ramakrishnananda, "makes me travel by
576
rail to the borders of Canada one day, and the next day finds
me lecturing in a southern state of America."4 This
information may not be literal as regards time, but it
nonetheless characterizes the lecture tour. A little of the
nature of this period can also be gathered from the "Memoirs
of Sister Christine," in which she writes of his tour "As is the
custom, the committee at each, new place was offered the
choice of several lectures;- The
#

577
Divinity of Man,' `Manners and Customs of India,' `The
Women of India,' `Our Heritage.' . . . Invariably when the
place was a mining town with no intellectual life whatever,
the most abstruse subjects were selected. He told us the
difficulty of speaking to an audience when he could see no
ray of intelligence in response."5
Evidently the lecture bureau led Swamiji on a regular
"barnstorming" tour, advertising him "as if he were a circus
turn," and the picture comes to mind of him making one-night
stands week after week, enduring all the hardships of winter
travel, keeping account of luggage and of money, meeting the
blank and perhaps often stony faces of small-town audiences,
and being besieged, after having just delivered a lecture on
"The Divinity of Man," by questions concerning the feeding
of Hindu infants to Ganga crocodiles. His visits to the larger
cities, as, for instance, Des Moines or Memphis, where intel-
lectual torpor was less ingrained and fundamentalism less
pronounced, were no doubt a relief to him, but even there the
pace was grueling and the demands made upon his energy un-
relenting. Perhaps one way to form an idea of a lecture tour
through the Midwest in the t8gos is to read the memoirs of
another visitor who undertook one. In the winter of 18go,
when conditions were no worse than in t8gg, a Max O'Rell
made the Midwest circuit under the auspices of Pond's
Lecture Bureau. In his book A Frenchman in America O'Rell
remarked of the tour as a whole:

. . . Such work is about the hardest that a man, used to the

comforts of this life, can undertake. Actors, at all events, stop
a week, sometimes a fortnight, in the cities they visit; but a
lecturer is on the road every day, happy when he has not to
578
start at night. No words can picture the monotony of journeys
through an immense continent, the sameness of which strikes
you as almost unbearable. . . . Burned-up fields, stumps of
trees, forests, wooden houses all built on the same pattern.
All the stations you pass are
#

579
 alike. All the towns are alike. . . . All the streets are alike,
with the same telegraph poles, the same "Indian" as a sign for
tobacconists, the same red, white, and blue pole as a sign for
barbers. . . . All the hotels are alike. Some are worse. . . . If
you arrive at one minute past three (in small towns, at one
minute past two) you find the dining-room closed, and you
must wait till six o'clock to see its hospitable doors open
again. . . . To be in a railroad car for ten or twelve hours day
after day can hardly be called luxury, or even comfort. . . .
Constant traveling softens the brain, liquefies it, churns it,
evaporates it, and it runs out of you through all the cracks of
your head. I own that traveling is comfortable in America,
even luxurious in Pullman cars]; but the best fare becomes
monotonous and unpalatable when the dose is repeated every
day.. .. Of course I have not seen California, the Rocky
Mountains, and many other parts of America where the
scenery is very beautiful; but I think my remarks can apply to
those States most likely to be visited by a lecturer, that is,
Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and
others, during the winter months, after the Indian summer,
and before the renewal of verdure in May.6
While Swamiji, the sannyasin, was not used to the "com-
forts of life" in the same sense as was Max O'Rell, and while
he found not burned-up fields but "masses of snow, spotlessly
white," one cannot forget that this life of ceaseless, harried
travel was one to which his body, tuned to profound
contemplation, was ill suited. At what cost he willingly lived
the life of an itinerant lecturer one cannot imagine.
But there was a bright side: the Middle West was not, after
all, a totally unrelieved spiritual desert. "Churchwomen" and
bigoted clergymen did not constitute the entire population. In
580
every town, at least in every city, there were people eager to
hear Swamiji and to open their minds and hearts to his
thought and his presence. Scattered here and there, moreover,
were
#

581
some who at once understood and spoke his language, and to
come across such rare souls naturally delighted him. 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. 7

The story of how Swamiji first met the Hales just before
the opening of the Parliament of Religions has been
recounted in an earlier chapter and need not be repeated here.
It can be said, however, that the family almost at once
582
became, as it were, his own. The Hales' home served as a
kind of pivot for his midwestern tour, an oasis to which he
could return from time to time and there find the refreshing
atmosphere of sheer goodness. A brief description of his
"headquarters" can be found in a letter to Swami
Ramakrishnananda.
#

583
 I shall now tell you something of the Hales to whose
address you direct my letters. He and his wife are an old
couple, having two daughters [Mary and Harriet], two
nieces [Isabelle and Harriet] and a son [Sam]. The son
lives away from home and earns a living. The daughters
live at home. . . . All the four are young and not yet
married. . . . They will probably live unmarried; besides,
they are now full of renunciation through contact with me
and are busy with thoughts of Brahman!
The two daughters are blondes, that is, have golden
hair, while the two nieces are brunettes, that is, of dark
hair. They know all sorts of occupations. The nieces are
not so rich, they conduct a kindergarten school; but the
daughters do not earn. . . . The girls call me brother, and I
address Mrs. Hale as mother. All my things are at their
place, and they look after them, wherever I go. 8

And at another time he wrote of the Hales, "I scarcely find

a family so highly pure and kind. Or why should God shower
His blessings on them in such abundance? Oh, how
wonderfully kind they are! If they chance to learn that a poor
man is in a strait at such and such a place, there they will go,
ladies and gentlemen, to give him food and clothing, and find
him some job,"9
It should be added here for the sake of completeness that
there was a married McKindley niece named Mary, who was
living in Omaha, Nebraska, during the time Swamiji was in
Chicago. Mary never met Swamiji, but her seven-year-old
daughter-then Louise Baker and later Mrs. Herbert E. Hyde -
584
often saw him while visiting her great-aunt, Mrs. Hale. "I
remember Swami very well," Mrs. Hyde told me. "I
remember his luminous eyes and his beautiful voice. He was
so gorgeous, so handsome! I remember him sitting in a
beautiful robe and snow-white turban. He pointed his finger
at me and said, `That child is a fire-worshiper.' And, to be
sure, I have always loved fire; I have loved fireplaces, and I
have also loved the sun." Mrs. Hyde has told me of her
memories not only of Swamiji
#

585
but of the Hales and McKindleys, and thus more can be
added to our knowledge of this family to whom Swamiji was
so close.
Mrs. Hyde's mother and her two aunts, Harriet and Isabelle
McKindley, were the daughters of Mr. Hale's sister Mrs. John
Gilchrist McKindley, who had died when her children were
young. Harriet and Isabelle had come to live with their Uncle
George and Aunt Belle Hale after the death of their father,
who, during his last years, had lost a good deal of money in
the stock market, leaving his two unmarried daughters
without means of support. The Hales' spacious, three-story
house on Dearborn Avenue in Chicago was well able to
accommodate the two girls with room to spare, and the
arrangement was a happy one, For the Hale daughters and
nieces were close friends. Of the four girls, all of whom were
in their twenties when Swamiji was in America, Harriet
McKindley was the oldest by several years; next in age was
her sister Isabelle; then came Mary Hale and, after her,
Harriet Hale. Sam Hale, the only boy in this household of
spirited women, was the youngest of all and in 1893 had been
but a short time out of Yale University. Like his sisters, Sam
was tall, blond, and very handsome. Although he was not
living at home when Swamiji was first in Chicago, he was no
doubt in and out of the house, for Swamiji knew him and
often mentioned him in his letters to the family. Later in the
nineties, Sam took off in a spirit of adventure for the
Klondike gold fields near Alaska, where thousands of
Americans hoped to find their fortune and where a large
percentage found only extreme hardship. (It was this trip to
which Swamiji referred when he wrote in July of 1901 to
Mary Hale, who was then in Italy: "Sam is with you this year
586
I am so glad! He must be enjoying the good things of Europe
after his dreary experience in the North: ')10
The kindergarten that Harriet and Isabelle conducted in
Chicago to earn a living was in its day a somewhat startling
innovation. While charity kindergartens for children of
destitute parents were comparatively well known, private
kindergartens
#

587
for the children of the rich were a new departure in the field
of education. It was to this latter type of school that the
McKindley girls gave their time. "It wou1d be impossible to
find women of more culture, refinement and intelligence than
the little band of kindergartners," a contemporary newspaper
writes of the McKindleys and their colleagues. "They are all
well connected and known socially, which seems almost
necessary, since they must gain the whole confidence of the
mothers and come in such close and frequent contact with
them. They are earnest women who appreciate the
importance of the work they are doing, and they are giving
the very best of themselves to it. . . . Miss [Isabelle]
McKindley has a wonderfully comprehensive grasp of the
work, and her attitude with the children is all that love and
wisdom could suggest. She has a fine mind and is a brilliant
conversationalist "11
Of all the four girls, Isabelle was perhaps the most
sparkling. "It was said in years gone by " Mrs. Hyde related,
"that no dinner party was complete without Isabelle
McKindley. Her conversation was scintillating and she had a
rare sense of humor. she was, moreover, very good looking.
She was the dominant one of the McKindley sisters; Harriet,
more dryly intellectual and far less beautiful, adored her and
bowed to her in everything."12 A line drawing of Isabelle
McKindley, which accompanied the newspaper article quoted
above, shows her classical beauty and her resemblance to the
Venus de Milo-a resemblance that was remarked upon by her
family and that Swamiji verified for himself when he later
visited Europe. "By the by," he wrote to Mary Hale from
Darjeeling in 1897, "I saw the Venus of what do you call it-
and you are right Isabelle's face is much like that statue. Of
588
course her hands are better, for the statue has only stumps-
that is to say, to our uneducated taste. Anyhow, Isabelle is
beautiful because she is like Venus and that Venus is
beautiful because she is like Isabelle!!* On the whole I think
she is much more beautiful than the statue, stumps
notwithstanding."13
Mary Hale, in her own blond and statuesque way, was as
#

589
beautiful as Isabelle and, perhaps, as talented. Although
neither she nor her younger sister Harriet had to earn a
living, for Mr. Hale had retired in 1882 from a senior
partnership in a highly successful iron-manufactory firm and
was well off, they were not idle; both were actively engaged
in charitable work and busy also, of course, in the whirl of
Chicago's social life. Both girls were gifted pianists and often
played duets together no doubt at times for Swamiji himself.
Swamiji was totally at home in this family and, elder
brother, sage, and child combined, he was much loved. There
was, certainly, no dull moment in his company, and very
likely no predictable one. Mary Hale once told a small but
revealing story of life at Dearborn Avenue with Swamiji to
Swami Abhedananda, who has recounted it in his
autobiography. It seems that one day Swamiji decided to
learn to roller-skate. Forthwith, he fastened skates to his
shoes and for two or three days earnestly practiced in the
expensively carpeted and furnished parlors and halls of the
Hale house, wheeling about the rooms to his heart's content,
no one objecting. Mercifully, after mastering the art, this
beloved, gerrua-clad son promptly lost interest in his new
skill.
With his keen perception and concern for their future, the
girls' beloved "brother" once wrote a character sketch of
them: "Harriett [Hale] will have a most blessed and happy
life," he predicted, "because she is not so imaginative and
sentimental as to make a fool of herself She has enough of
sentiment as to make life sweet, and enough common sense
and gentleness as to soften the hard points in life which must
come to everyone. So has Harriett McKindley in a still higher
degree. She is just the girl to make the best of wives. . . . You,
590
Mary, are like a mettlesome Arab-grand, splendid. You will
make a splendid queen, physically, mentally. You will shine
alongside of a dashing, bold, adventurous heroic husband;
but, my dear sister, you will make one of the worst wives.
You will take the life out of our easy-going, practical,
plodding husbands of the everyday world. . . . As to sister
Isabelle she has the same
#

591
temperament as you; only this kindergarten has taught her a
good lesson of patience and forbearance. Perhaps she will
make a good wife."*14
Although Swamiji loved all four "sisters" it was not the
two Harriets whom he Found the most companionable.
Rather it was the two "mettlesome Arabs," Isabelle
McKindley and her cousin, Mary, who was not only queenly
and spirited but also, according to her niece, "a very gentle
and sweet person, warmhearted and serene." Swamiji's deep
and abiding affection for Mary Hale is well known to readers
of his published letters, but not so his affection for Isabelle
McKindley, for his letters to the latter have been unknown.
However, in the bundle of papers that Swami Vishwananda
discovered and made available to us were many letters from
Swamiji to Isabelle, most of which will be produced in the
course of this narrative. Suffice it to say here that they show
how fond he was of her, confiding to her his various
thoughts, allowing her to attend to many small personal
matters for him and feeling sure that in whatever mood he
wrote-playful or serious-his letters would be read in a
matching spirit. "Dear Sister," he wrote from Detroit in one
of the many letters found in the bundle of papers and very
likely meant for Isabelle, "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."15
Isabelle was perhaps as dear to Swamiji as was Mary Hale.
But however that may be, all four Hale "sisters" must have
been extraordinary young women, born, as he writes, "like
Howers," "good and pure," their faces "holy, happy," for
592
otherwise he could not have associated with them as
intimately as he did throughout the years. "You are all so
kind, the whole Family, to me," he wrote to Mary Hale from
India in 1898, "I must have belonged to you in the past as we
Hindus say."16 And again in 1899, "It is curious, your family,
Mother Church [Mrs. Hale] and her clergy, both monastic
and secular, have
#

593
made more impression on me than any family I know of.
Lord bless you ever and ever."17
But to return to the midwestern lecture tour, such "holy
happy faces" as those of the Hales and McKindleys were few
and far between, and on the whole we cannot but look upon
the tour as an ordeal in which, as Sister Nivedita writes, using
Swamiji's own words, "he was bowled along from place to
place, being broken the while!' "18
#

594
 NOTES FOR CHAPTER FIVE

Page Symbol Note

241 * Swamiji probably first met General and Mrs.

Robert Franklin Patterson in Memphis, where
they lived. During the Civil War, General
Patterson had served with distinction as a
brigadier general in the Union Army. He was
postmaster of Memphis from 1889 to 1893 and
was later appointed American Consul General
to India, a post he held from 1897 to 1906.
According to Josephine MacLeod, Mrs.
Patterson persuaded President McKinley to
give her husband this appointment so that they
could be near Swamiji in India. (Pravrajika
Prabuddhaprana, Tantine, the Life of Josephine
MacLeod [Calcutta : Sri Sarada Math, 1990],
p.202) Marion Patterson‘s dream was more
than fulfilled. As is well known, she traveled
with Swamiji'‘ party through northern India (up
to Anantnag in Kashmir) in 1898.

It is sometimes said that Mrs. Patterson was the

southern lady who rescued Swamiji from color-
prejudiced hotelkeepers, inviting him to stay in
her home. However, the incidents in which
Swamiji was refused admittance to several
first-class hotels tooke place in Baltimore,
Maryland, not Memphis.

595
278 * 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,

596
 278 cont. 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.

281 * It is generally assumed that it was the armless

Venus de Milo that Isabelle McKindley
resembled. However, in his letter of April 28,
1897, Swamiji‘s reference seems to have been
to a statue in Florence, which city he had
visited in December of 1896. The Venus de
Milo is and was in the Louvre in Paris. During
his first visit to the West, Swamiji visited the
museums of Paris only in August of 1895. The
Venus de Medici is in Florence, but both her
arms are intact.

283 * Swamiji was not here foretelling the future; he

was reading character only. Neither Harriet nor
Isabelle McKindley married. Isbelle died
young; Harriet lived to be 95, dying in 1955 in
San Diego, where for many years she had lived
at the El Cortez Hotel. Harriet Hale‘s marriage
to Clarence Woolley was not happy and ended
in divorce. As for Mary Hale, in the early
597
1900s (after 1902) she married Signor
Giuseppe Matteini, a wealthy Italian, very
much her senior. They lived in a large and
beautiful estate outside Florence, and as far as
is known, the marriage was not unhappy. Mr.
Matteini died in 1922 and Mary went to live
with her mother in a hotel in Florence.

598
 CHAPTER SIX

THE CLIMAX AT DETROIT

After leaving Memphis on January 22, Swamiji arrived in

Chicago in time to keep an engagement on the evening of the
twenty-fifth. Although no reports can be found in the
Chicago newspapers to throw light on this visit, he
presumably remained in the city almost three weeks, for on
Sunday, February 11, he lunched there with Mr. and Mrs.
Woodhead and Carl von bergen, at which time he copied out
the passage from a travel book on India which was quoted
earlier. Readers may remember that the back of one of the
pages on which he had written bore a notation to the effect
that he left Chicago for Detroit on Monday, February 12.
In the Life and other biographies very little has been said of
Swamiji's visit to Detroit in 1894, and one is left with the im-
pression that this city was just another on his itinerary where
he delivered a few lectures and received the usual amount of
both acclaim and criticism. Although it is true that we have
been able to learn from the memoirs of Sister Christine and
Mrs. Mary Funke something of the extraordinary and radiant
power which he manifested during his Detroit lectures,
nowhere is there an intimation that this period was one of the
most important in his American mission, almost equal in
significance to that of the Parliament of Religions. The old
Detroit newspapers, however, tell the story of what took
place, without a knowledge of which Swamiji's midwestern

599
tour seems inconclusive and, coming after the Parliament of
Religions, almost anticlimactic.
Detroit is known as "the dynamic city" not only because it
is today one of the greatest industrial centers of the world, but
#

600
because it was always, from early days, a town of vigor and
enterprise. One of the oldest cities in the United States, it is
also one of the most restless, "ever renewing itself," as one
historian writes, "lucky-or at least versatile-in finding new
sources of wealth, new patterns of life, new inventions to
profit by, new contentions to debate."1 Although in February
of 1894 the first automobile had not yet chugged along the
streets, industry had been thriving, and the people, of whom
there were a little over two hundred thousand, were energetic
and adventurous, alive to every issue and ready to battle for
every opinion. Detroit was, in a sense, a turbulent vortex of
the contemporaneous thought of the nation, both conservative
and radical, and this, together with the fact that Swamiji's
power was rising to a peak, tended to make his visit there
akin to the explosion of a long-brewing storm.
The first clouds had gathered, of course, at the Parliament
of Religions. Although at that historic assembly every effort
had been made to maintain a spirit of "tolerance and frater-
nity," and although displays of antagonism had been
forbidden, the animosity of the more rigidly orthodox toward
non Christian religions had broken through in unrestrained
bursts of anger. Politic handclasps with the heathen and
fraternal smiles had overstrained the endurance of many a
clergyman, and it is little wonder that directly after the
Parliament was over good manners were dropped altogether.
Indeed it was considered a Christian duty to drop them.
"While in the Parliament, he [Vivekananda] was here as our
guest," wrote the editor of a Presbyterian newspaper in
Chicago, "but now that it is over we ought to make an
enthusiastic attack against him and his false doctrines."2 In
this spirit of Christian righteousness Swamiji was openly
601
persecuted and denounced. "However a man may conduct
himself," he wrote later to Mrs. Ole Bull, "there will always
be persons who invent the blackest lies about him. At
Chicago I had such things every day against me!" 3
But that was only the beginning. During the next four
#

602
months, as he toured the Midwest, attracting large crowds
and gaining the acclaim and support of influential citizens,
antagonism against him increased. The pulpits rang with
frantic repudiations of his teachings and equally frantic
affirmations of the superiority of Christianity. As in
Memphis, perhaps in almost every town where Swamiji
lectured alarmed clergymen warned their flocks against the
heathen and his false doctrines. Yet, although these cries
were loud and anguished, it was not until he reached Detroit
that his opponents launched for the first time an unrestrained
and concerted attack against his every word-particularly his
words regarding conditions in India and the value of
Christian missions.
On reading the diatribes against Swamiji, it is hard today to
comprehend that they were not the work of a few fanatics and
cranks, but were representative of a solid block of
contemporary opinion and prejudice. Bigotry, hiding behind a
guise of moral righteousness, was a national force, a force
which was, it is true, dying out, but, because dying, all the
more virulent. Swamiji faced the assault of opposition
undaunted. He was the warrior monk, whose only reaction to
criticism and slander was an increase in power; he strode on
without the slightest hesitation, fighting never for himself but
for his motherland and also for America.

The railway journey from Chicago to Detroit was about

270 miles, but Swamiji's trip took all day and far into the
freezing night, for his train could barely inch through the
heavy snow.
Arrived safely night before last at 1 o clock A.M. [he
wrote in a letter to Mrs. Hale dated February 14]. The
603
train was 7 hours late being blocked by snow drifts on the
way. However I enjoyed the novelty of the sight [;]
several men cutting & clearing the snow and two engines
tugging and pulling was a new sight to me.
Here I met Mr Bagley the youngest [Paul F. Bagley]
waiting for me at the station and it being very late in the
#

604
 night Mrs Bagley had retired but the daughters sat up for
me.4

While the Bagley family gave a warm welcome to

Swamiji, the city itself greeted him that night with a blizzard.
It was a fitting reception, foreshadowing the antagonism that
was to howl around him for the next six weeks. But this was
not the only welcome he received, and the other, though in
sharp contrast, was equally prophetic. On the evening
following his arrival Mrs. John J. Bagley, one of Detroit's
most influential women, who had met Swamiji five months
earlier at the Parliament of Religions and who was now his
hostess, honored him with a gala reception to which the
whole town, as it were, was invited. Here in the spacious and
cheerful drawing rooms of Mrs. Bagley's house the leading
lights of Detroit's social and cultural life paid their respects to
the famous Hindoo monk. Thus here, too, was a
foreshadowing of what was to come; for throughout
Swamiji's Detroit visit he was feted and championed by many
friends who loved and revered him.
Mrs. Bagley's large brick and stone house on the corner of
Washington Boulevard and Park Avenue, with its high
central tower and round-arch windows, which the Detroit
Free Press had once called "a monument of elegance and
cultivated taste ", had in the past been the scene of many
receptions for distinguished visitors to the city, among whom
had been Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and
Matthew Arnold. The main parlor, where the receptions
centered, was a vast, high-ceilinged room, lighted by a gas
chandelier of colored globes and crystal pendants. 5 Gilt-
framed paintings, carved mahogany high-boys and
605
mantelpieces, and the overstuffed chairs and divans of the
period made it an impressive gathering place for the crowds
of guests who came to meet Vive Kananda. The imposing
invitation list for this first important reception Detroit had
seen for a long time was printed in the Tribune of February
14. The names went on and on and included those of bishops,
ministers, rabbis, professors, the mayor and his wife, and at
#

606
least three hundred of the cream of Detroit society. The list
occupies an eleven-inch column of small type. Swamiji,
whose last wish would have been to be taken up by "the best
people," had nevertheless become the "social lion of the day,"
as the following item from the Detroit Journal of February
14, 1894, makes clear:

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL

The social lion of the day is Swami (brother) Vive

Kananda. He is the guest of Mrs. John J. Bagley at her
home on Grand Circus park, and last night was given a
reception that was one of the most important social func-
tions that has taken place in Detroit this season.
The most common impression that prevails of the great
east, its philosophy and mysticism, is akin in character
and color to the impression that was received from the
reading of the "Arabian Knights" [sic]. Perhaps in the
whole of literature, excepting the bible, there is no book
that has left so marked an impression as these thousand
fairy tales. They are entrancing in themselves and are
read by every boy and girl in the land when the mind and
imagination were so susceptible to such influences that
the impressions are indelible.
The popular mind in a hazy sort of a way, realizes
India as a land of ghastly and beautiful mysteries, and
when it was ingeniously announced that a monk of the
Hindoo religion, one of the eminent ecclesiastics of the
country, was to be a guest in Detroit, society turned its
eyes in an easternly and heavenly direction and expected
to see him appear on a white horse in mid air. Even after
607
he had properly arrived on a railroad train and had been
typographically announced by the reporters, there was
still an eagerness to see realized in flesh and blood one of
the fascinating figures of childhood dreams.
Aside from exhausting the visiting list of exclusive
society in compiling the invitation list Mrs. Bagley made
a
#

608
 special effort to bring to her reception, thinkers of all
religions and creeds. In this she was extremely
successful. There has not gathered in a home in Detroit in
many a day and perhaps never such a distinguished
assemblage of Detroiters as were present last evening to
meet the polished Hindoo monk. The reception with its
dignities and formalities was entirely worthy of its
reason.
Swami Vive Kananda speaks perfect English and was
able to be pleasantly intimate with the men and women,
who did themselves the honor to be present in Mrs.
Bagley's home last evening.
Tonight, tomorrow night, and Saturday night he will
lecture at the Unitarian church, under the asupices of the
Unity club. Tonight the subject of his lecture will be
"Manners and Customs in India" and he will be intro-
duced by Bishop Ninde.

The Detroit Tribune of February 14 commented more

satisfactorily upon the reception, and in the following report
one can almost see Swamiji in his robe and turban beaming
upon thc ladies and gentlemen who flocked about him.

THEY MET KANANDA

__________
A Reception to the Hindu Monk at Mrs.. Bagley's
__________
One of the Most Brilliant Affairs of the Kind
This Season.
__________
The Distinguished Oriental Greatly Pleased at the
609
 Opportunity to Meet a Real American Blizzard-He
Charmed Everyone with His Manner Last Night.

An exceptionally large and representative assemblage-

pronounced by many of the guests present the most
brilliant reception of many years-filled the large hospit-
#

610
able rooms last evening of the Bagley home on
Washington avenue, which has been the scene of so many
famous gatherings. The reception was given by Mrs. J. J.
Bagley in honor of the Hindu monk and scholar, Swami
Vive Kananda. His English was polished, his smile
cordial, his manners dignified and pleasing, and he made
a most picturesque and attractive feature in his long robe
of orange, with its scarlet sash, and his pink turban. He
conversed easily and happily with the throng that
crowded around him and expressed himself as highly
favored by having a chance to witness the American
"blizzard" of Monday. As snow was an unknown quantity
to him until he came to America, and as Monday gave
him his first experience with a flying snowstorm, it all
forms a few more links in his chain of experiences, and
experiences he considers the only items that can minister
to growth.
Mrs. Bagley formed a charming picture by his side
with her fair and madonna like face Framed in its
characteristic bands of smooth hair and the pale gray
gown shading into delicate old lace at the throat and
wrists. She was assisted in receiving by Mrs. John
Newbury Bagley, Mrs. Florence Bagley Sherman, Miss
Olive Bagley and Miss Helen Bagley. Roses bloomed in
profusion and the dining room was brilliant in an
arrangement of poinsettia and smilax.
One noticeable fact was that nearly all the religious
denominations in the city were represented, which was an
appropriate carrying out of the idea of the congress of
religions at Chicago last summer, in which Kananda was
so prominent and so earnest. It was not only a society but
611
an intellectual gathering and as such of unusual interest.
The following is the invitation list and as all but about
one hundred of those invited were present it shows that
the guests who were in attendance came because they
desired to do so, while all present Felt more than repaid
in the enjoyment of the rare hospitality of the home and
the
#

612
 unique pleasure they had in meeting the guest of honor: .
. . (Here follows the long invitation list.]
Kananda will deliver his first lecture at the Unitarian
Church under the auspices of the Unity Club tonight, and
will be introduced by Bishop Ninde of the M. E. Church.
The bishop has been in India and is especially interested
in the lecturer's subject, "Manners and Customs of India."
There was a discordant note in this reception that the re-
porter does not mention and that must have been infinitely
more mortifying to Mrs. Bagley than to Swamiji. Despite the
warmth of her drawing rooms, a little of the blizzard seeped
in. In a letter which was printed in the Free Press of February
23 and which will be quoted in full in another connection, we
find the following information: "Before he ever addressed
one word to the public here, a woman, be it said to her shame,
took it upon herself to attack and most unkindly denounce
him to his face in a house to which she was invited as a guest
to meet him." How often Swamiji met with such malevolence
in America one can only guess, perhaps every day-and this,
as he once wrote, from "the very Christian of Christians!" 6
Mrs. Bagley is spoken of in the Life as "the widow of the
exgovernor of Michigan and a lady of rare culture and
unusual spirituality."7 She was also a woman of unusual
spirit, for in those days to be hostess to a "heathen" who was
preached against in orthodox pulpits was to court many a
raised eyebrow and pursed lip. Mrs. Bagley was undoubtedly
severely criticized. We have learned from her granddaughter,
Mrs. Frances Bagley Wallace, who was nine years old when
Swamiji first came to Detroit, that the children at the private
school she was attending made faces at her because her

613
family was host to the heathen-faces that undoubtedly
reflected the outraged sensibilities of their elders.
But Mrs. Bagley, "one of Detroit's most widely known and
honored women,"8 was in a position not only to withstand
#

614
criticism but to command the leading citizens of the city,
clergymen and all, to greet her guest on his arrival, and thus
many who otherwise might not have dared approach Swamiji
for fear of social censure came into his presence and
benefited by his influence.
Mrs. Bagley was born in Rutland, Ohio, in 1833. Her
father, the Reverend Samuel Newbury, a Presbyterian
minister from Vermont, was "a man of great mental vigor and
enthusiasm," and her mother "a spirited woman of culture and
executive ability." During her childhood she was taken on
many travels abroad, which may have contributed to her
liberal outlook, unusual for the age in which she lived.
In 1855 she was married to the young John Judson Bagley
of Detroit, who had just embarked upon the manufacture of a
fine-cut chewing tobacco. In those days small beginnings
plus great enterprise quickly resulted in huge fortunes. John
Bagley prospered. He became a director in several banks, a
power in the Republican party in Michigan, and in 1872,
when he was forty, governor of the state. He was well known
in Detroit for his progressive ideas in charitable, religious,
and political affairs, and one might well believe that had he
lived to know Swamiji he would have understood and loved
him. But he had died in 1881.
Mrs. Bagley was extremely active. During her husband's
governorship, she had been "much admired and esteemed for
her refined and elegant manners and the intelligence with
which she aided him in all philanthropic work."9 She was,
moreover, busy with many undertakings of her own. In con-
nection with the Unitarian Church, of which she was a
member, she taught a Sunday Bible class on ancient religion,
a class so popular that it soon overflowed the church parlors.
615
She was also instrumental in organizing a Sunday school near
Detroit's House of Correction, where for many years she
taught a class of young women. At the time of Governor
Bagley's death she was president of the Woman's Hospital,
which she had helped to found. She was also actively
interested in Detroit's Industrial
#

616
School and various other charitable institutions whose object
was to educate and uplift the poor from a life of ignorance
and drudgery.
It is obvious that Mrs. Bagley took a keen and warm
interest in the world in which she lived, but her interest
extended also to ancient cultures. She was a member of the
English Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Study and of
the Archeological Institute of America, whose Michigan
branch was organized at her house. She was also a
corresponding member of the Anthropological Society in
Washington and of the Egyptian Exploration Society. Aside
from all these various interests and activities she found time
throughout her life to travel widely.
In 1893, Mrs. Bagley was elected one of the lady managers
at the Chicago World's Fair. At the time of her appointment it
was said of her: "An extensive acquaintance throughout
Europe and America has admirably fitted Mrs. Bagley, for a
commissioner at large. Being an example of the society born
and reared in the state of which Chicago is the Metropolis,
free from provincial prejudices, of cosmopolitan tastes, genial
in manner, and having a warmth of nature, she will help to
serve as hostess of our American society when the people
from beyond the oceans shall seek the shores of this continent
"10
It was undoubtedly at one of the elaborate receptions held
for the delegates during the first week of the Parliament that
Mrs. Bagley first met Swamiji. Whether she was instrumental
in arranging for him to lecture in Detroit is not certain; it is
certain, however, that upon his arrival she gave him, as it
were, the key to the city. One might even say that she
introduced him to Detroit were it not for the fact that even
617
before her reception the city was in a state of excitement over
his arrival. On February 11, the Free Press heralded his
coming with a welcoming announcement, a portion of which
has been quoted in the Life. The article was accompanied by a
line drawing of the poster photograph that shows Swamiji
standing with arms folded. The full text read as follows:
#

618
 FROM THE OTHER SIDE.
__________

A Distinguished Brahman Coming to Detroit.

__________

He is Said to be an Eloquent and Fascinating Orator.

The people of this country are already beginning to be

familiar with many oriental peoples. The Chinese and
Japanese are well-known figures in the streets of all cities
and large towns. They belong chiefly to the common
people and so the more highly educated and cultured
members of these races are scarcely known to us. This is
true of both classes of India. They are rare and novel, and
a high caste Brahman is almost a natural curiosity. They
were, however, among the most distinguished and attrac-
tive in the congregations of the world's fair, and
especially the parliament of religions. One of the most
popular of these Hindu representatives was Swami Vive
Kananda, formerly a high caste Brahman who abandoned
his order for the sake of joining a brotherhood of monks,
whose first principle is to sacrifice their pride by
relinquishing their Brahminical privileges. He showed
himself to be one of the best of orators at the congress,
speaking faultless English without notes, and with an
utterance that many of his hearers declared would of
itself have been music had you not understood a word.

619
 Since the parliament he has spoken to immense audi-
ences in many towns and cities who have but one opinion
of praise and [are] enthusiastic over his magnetic power,
and his way of giving light and life to every subject he
touches. Naturally his views of great questions, coming
like himself from the other side of the globe, are
refreshing and stirring to American people. His hearers
are pleasantly astonished when the dark-hued, dark-
haired, dignified man arises in rich yellow robes and
speaks their own language with fluency, distinctness and
correctness.
#

620
 He is to address Detroit audiences at the Unitarian
church, on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings
of this week.
The day after his arrival Swamiji granted an interview to a
reporter from the Free Press, during which he touched on the
same problem as he had during a discussion in Memphisthat
of combining material power with spirituality. The devel-
opment of a new type of man who would combine the
"energy of the lion with the gentleness of the lamb," typifying
the union of West and East, was later to take a prominent
place in Swamiji's thought. The interview, which was
published on February 14, read in full:

SWAMI VIVE KANANDA

_________

The Distinguished Hindoo Monk is in Town.

_________

Differences Between Creed and Religions Defined.

__________

Interesting Conversation with the Visitor.

__________

He will Give Several Lectures at the Unitarian Church.

The complacency of the Hindoo god is superlative.

Nothing disturbs him; nothing ruffles the infinite calm
which rests upon his features; nothing changes the placid
621
conscientiousness of his inner life. More inscrutable than
the Sphinx, the mysticism of the Indian atmosphere sur-
rounds him and with eyes which seem infinite in their
wisdom he has gazed and continues to gaze upon the,
developments of religious ideas, and only those versed in
Sanscrit lore question the mute lips. Beside the multitude
of Oriental hearts that have bowed before the eastern
mountain of life, a band of westerners, with Edwin
Arnold and others acting as guides, have wandered as
pilgrims into the recesses of the old country, which
suffers a
#

622
material decadence whatever may be its spiritual condi-
tion. Swami Vive Kananda, a monk of the Hindoo
religion, is in the city, the guest of Mrs. John J. Bagley,
and while here he will deliver a number of lectures.
Swami (or Brother) Vive Kananda attracted much
attention at the Chicago congress of religions, his
wonderful eloquence and profound spirituality marking
him as a unique and impressive figure among the masters
assembled on that occasion. Strange as it may appear, the
Indian exponent of divine doctrines made many converts
in the Windy City, and he received a great deal of
adulation. His personality is charming.
Upon learning that the eastern monk was coming here,
a certain lady said: "I think it is so funny that they should
bring to Detroit a heathen to speak upon religious
matters. Why, he has even converted many people since
he came to this country."
In this connection the conversation which the repre-
sentative of The Free Press had with the gentleman seems
especially significant, indicating an entire lack of the mis-
sionary spirit in the distinguished visitor. Swami is a
person of medium stature, with the dusky complexion
common with people of his nationality, gentle in manner,
deliberate in movement, and extremely courteous in
every word, movement and gesture. But the most striking
feature of his personality are his eyes, which are of great
brilliancy. The conversation naturally drifted upon the
subject of religion, when Swami said among many other
striking remarks:
"I make the distinction between religion and creed.
Religion is the acceptance of all existing creeds, seeing in
623
them the same striving toward the same destination.
Creed is something antagonistic and combative. There are
different creeds because there are different people, and
the creed is adapted to the commonwealth where it fur-
nishes what people want. As the world is made up of [an]
#

624
infinite variety of persons of different natures, intellec-
tually, spiritually and materially, so these people take to
themselves that form of belief in the existence of a great
and good moral law which is best fitted for them.
Religion recognizes and is glad of the existence of all
these forms, because of the beautiful underlying
principle. The same goal is reached by different routes
and my way would not be suited perhaps to the
temperament of my western neighbor, the same that his
route would not commend itself to my disposition and
philosophical way of thinking. I belong to the Hindoo
religion. That is not the Buddhists' creed, one of the sects
of the Hindoo religion. We never indulge in missionary
work. We do not seek to thrust the principles of our
religion upon anyone. The fundamental principles of our
religion forbid that. Nor do we say anything against any
missionaries whom you send from this country anywhere.
For all of us they are entirely welcome to penetrate the
innermost recesses of the earth: Many come to us, but we
do not struggle for them; we have no missionaries
striving to bring anyone to our way of thinking. With no
effort from us many forms of the Hindoo religion are
spreading far and wide, and these manifestations have
taken the form of Christian science, theosophy, and
Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia." Our religion is older
than most religions and the Christian creed-I do not call it
a religion, because of its antagonistic features-came
directly from the Hindoo religion. It is one of the great
offshoots. The Catholic religion also takes all its forms
from us, the confessional, the belief in saints and so on,
and a Catholic priest who saw this absolute similarity and
625
recognized the truth of the origin of the Catholic religion
was dethroned from his position because he dared to
publish a volume explaining all that he observed and was
convinced of." [Swamiji's reference was no doubt to
Bishop Bigandet's Life of Buddha.]
"You recognize agnostics in your religion?" was asked.
#

626
 "Oh, yes; philosophical agnostics and what you call
infidels. When Buddha, who is with us a saint, was asked
by one of his followers: `Does God exist?' He replied :
`God. When have I spoken to you about God? This I tell
you, be good and do good: The philosophical agnostics,
there are many of us, believe in the great moral law
underlying everything in nature and in the ultimate
perfection. All the creeds which are accepted by all
people are but the endeavors of humanity to realize that
infinity of self which lies in the great future."
"Is it beneath the dignity of your religion to resort to
missionary effort?"
For reply the visitor from the orient turned to a little
volume and referred to an edict among other remarkable
edicts.
"This," he said, "was written 200 B.C., and will be the
best answer I can give you to that question."
In delightfully clear, well modulated tones, he read :
"The King Piyadasi [Priyadarshi, otherwise known as
Ashoka], beloved of the gods, honors all sects, both
ascetics and householders; he propitiates them by alms
and other gifts, but he attaches less importance to gifts
and honors than to the endeavor to promote the essential
moral virtues. It is true the prevalence of essential virtues
differs in different sects, but there is a common basis.
That is, gentleness, moderation in language and morality.
Thus, one should not exalt one's own sect and decry
others, but tender them on every occasion the honor they
deserve. Striving thus, one promotes the welfare of his
own sect, while serving the others. Striving otherwise,
627
one does not serve his own sect, while disserving others
and whosoever from attachment to his own sect and with
a view to promote it decries others, only deals rude blows
to his own sect. Hence, concord alone is meritorious, so
that all bear and love to bear the beliefs of each other. It
is with this purpose that this edict has been inscribed; that
all people, whatever their fate [faith]
#

628
may be, should be encouraged to promote the essential
moral doctrines in each and mutual respect for all the
other sects. It is with this object that the ministers of
religion, the inspectors and other bodies of officers
should all work."1'
After reading this impressive passage Swami Vive
Kananda remarked that the same wise king who had
caused this edict to be inscribed had forbidden the in-
dulgence of war, as its horrors were antagonistic to all the
principles of the great and universal moral doctrine. "For
this reason," remarked the visitor, "India has suffered in
its material aspect. Where brute strength and bloodshed
has advanced other nations India has deprecated such
brutal manifestations and by the law of the survival of the
fittest, which applies to nations as well as to individuals,
it has fallen behind as a power on the earth in the material
sense.‖
"But will it not be an impossibility to find in the great
combative western countries, where such tremendous
energy is needed to develop the pressing practical neces-
sities of the nineteenth century, this spirit which prevails
in placid India?"
"May not one combine the energy of the lion with the
gentleness of the lamb?" he asked.
Continuing, he intimated that perhaps the future holds
the conjunction of the east and the west, a combination
which would be productive of marvelous results. A con-
dition which speaks well for the natures of the western
nation is the reverence in which women are held and the
gentle consideration with which they are treated.

629
 He says, with the dying Buddha, "Work out your own
salvation. I cannot help you. No man can help you. Help
yourself." Harmony and peace, and not dissension is his
watchword.
[Here, by way of illustrating the foolishness of paro-
chialism, Swamiji related the story of the frog-in-the-
well,
#

630
 which he had told earlier in Des Moines (see chapter
four) and earlier still at the Parliament of Religions.] "I
have to thank you of America [he concluded] for the
great attempt you are making to break down the barriers
of this little world of ours, and hope that, in the future,
the Lord will help you to accomplish that purpose."
Last evening Swami Vive Kananda was given a recep-
tion at the residence of Mrs. John J. Bagley. It was a
brilliant occasion and one which many persons availed
themselves of in order to meet the learned and scholarly
visitor. To-night to-morrow night and Saturday night he
will lecture at the Unitarian church.
The Detroit Evening News of February 14 took its copy
directly from the above, prefacing it, however, with a touch
of sarcasm:

THE HINDOO RELIGION

__________

As it is Explained by Swami Vive Kananda.

__________

He is a High Grade Hindoo and Says Christianity is Not

a Religion but Only a Creed and a Hindoo Offshoot.

Such christians as desire to become converted to the

Hindoo religion can apply for the purpose at the
residence of Mrs. John J. Bagley. A monk of that faith is
the lady's guest, Swami Vive Kananda, who was one of
the higher grades of ecclesiastics who made an
impression upon the Chicago congress of religions.
631
 From Canada's icy mountains, from Florida's sunny
strands, where California's fountains roll down their
golden sands; from many a Michigan river, from many a
western plain, we've called him to deliver our souls from
error's chain. What though our handsome city will make
an artist smile; where every fancy pleases and only man
is vile; in vain with lavish kindness great Vishnu's gifts
are
#

632
shown, the christian in his blindness is fighting for the
bone.
(The above is, of course, a parody of lines from the
famous Christian hymn by Bishop Heber, which go:

From Greenland's icy mountains, from India's coral

strand,
Where Afric's sunny fountains roll down their golden
sand;
From many an ancient river, from many a palmy plain,
They call us to deliver their land from error's chain.
What though the spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's
isle;
Though every prospect pleases and only man is vile:
In vain with lavish kindness the gifts of God are
strown;
The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and
stone.]

The Hindoo religion, artistically speaking, is of the

half tone order, soft, modified and mellowed by the
receding centuries, a religion that appeals to the romantic
and dreamy as in itself a dream. But its code of morals is
essentially the same as that of the christian. Those with
whom the various creeds have become a little stale, per-
haps, might seek long before they would find anything
more adaptable to their moral needs than the quieting
creeds of the orient. But, seriously speaking, and placing
implicit reliance upon Kananda's own statements, the
Hindoo theologist is not here to do missionary work.

633
 (The remainder of this article is the same as that in the
Free Press.]

Swamiji remained in Detroit from February 12 to 23, and

then again from March 9 to 30. During these two visits he
gave, in all, eight public lectures (not including those
delivered in nearby towns) and spoke often at private
gatherings. The material in the Detroit papers regarding these
visits is voluminous. The battles that raged between the
liberal and reactionary
#

634
forces of Christianity through letters and editorials were long,
complex, and revealing as to the salutary upheaval that
Swamiji created. "The power that emanated from this
mysterious being," wrote Sister Christine, who attended every
public lecture Swamiji gave in Detroit, "was so great that one
all but shrank from it. It was overwhelming."12 In this
connection Mrs. Charles Erskine Scott Wood, the American
poetess, better known as Sara Bard Field, tells of an incident
that was related to her by a Miss Marguerite Cook. Miss
Cook, a teacher of German in a Detroit high school at the
time of Swamiji's visit, attended one of his lectures at the
Unitarian Church. Although of a stolid German nature and
ordinarily unimpressionable, she was deeply struck by
Swamiji's power and, for the first time in her life, felt an
impulse to congratulate a speaker. Shaking hands with him
after his lecture, she felt suddenly overwhelmed and at a loss
for words. Swamiji held her hand for several moments. "I
shall never forget his searching look," she told Mrs. Wood
many years later. "I was so aware of his greatness and
holiness that I couldn't bear to wash my hand for three days!"
It is little wonder, considering Swamiji's effect upon his
audience, that the city was in an uproar.
Mrs. Wood, whose family lived in Detroit in 1894, also
tells us, quoting her father, that for weeks one could not pick
up a daily paper without seeing the name Swami
Vivekananda. Only a child at the time, she remembers that
her father, a stern Baptist, was scornful of Detroit's
uninhibited excitement over Swamiji. Surfeited with reading
about and hearing about the heathen monk (being a friend of
the Bagley family, he must have heard a great deal), he
protested by appearing one morning at the breakfast table
635
with a towel wrapped turbanwise around his head and
sonorous syllables in imitation of Sanskrit chanting issuing
from his mouth. (It was a protest unheeded by his small
daughter, who in later life was to become a Vedantin.)
It will not be possible in this narrative to reproduce in its
entirety every editorial and letter which was written under the
#

636
impact of Swamiji's presence in Detroit, but I hope at least to
tell of them all insofar as they serve as an index of the various
popular reactions and their developments.
Reports from the Free Press of four of the lectures which
Swamiji gave during his first stay in Detroit were made avail-
able in the Vedanta Kesari of February 1924, and
subsequently in volume eight of the Complete Works. The
story of how these reports came to light after thirty years is, I
believe, one that is worth telling. In 1908 the clippings from
the Free Press of February, 1894., were sent to Swami
Brahmananda by Mrs. Mary C. Funke, one of Swamiji's most
ardent Detroit followers who became his disciple. The
closing paragraph of the letter which accompanied the
clippings and which was printed in the Vedanta Kesari reads:
"Dear Swami, I am enclosing the newspaper clippings of
fifteen years ago, for I think they may be of interest to you.
They are priceless to me and cannot be duplicated. I trust that
you will not consider it selfish in me to ask you to return
them, but at your leisure. I have so few mementos of him and
you have the Math, his room, and the sacred spot under the
Bel tree. Please keep them as long as you wish. . . ."13
Thirteen years later, while cleaning out an old catch-all
chest of drawers at the Ramakrishna Math in Madras, Swami
Ashokananda came across a copy of Mary Funke's letter to-
gether with typed-out copies of the Free Press clippings. Re-
cognizing the value of these treasures, the Swami rescued
them from oblivion and forthwith gave them to the editor of
the Vedanta Kesari. Thus it is that we have not had to wait
until now For those excellent reports of some of the most
fiery and inspiring lectures that Swamiji gave in America-the
lectures of which Sister Christine later wrote: "Was it
637
possible to hear and feel this and ever be the same again? All
one's values were changed. The seed of spirituality was
planted to grow and grow throughout the years until it
inevitably reached fruition."14
Swamiji gave his first lecture in Detroit on Wednesday
evening, February 14, at the Unitarian Church. In recalling it
Mrs. Funke is quoted in the Life as having said: "The large
#

638
edifice was literally packed and the Swami received an
ovation. I can see him yet as he stepped upon the platform, a
regal, majestic figure, vital, forceful, dominant, and at the
first sound of the wonderful voice, a voice all music-now like
the plaintive minor strain of an Eolian harp, again, deep,
vibrant, resonant there was a hush, a stillness that could
almost be felt, and the vast audience breathed as one man." 15
The text of the Free Press report of this lecture is given in
full in volume eight of the Complete Works under the title
"India." The following headlines which accompanied the
report, however, are not reproduced in the Complete Works
and seem well worth quoting here:

MOST MORAL NATION

_________

Vive Kananda States He So Considers India.

__________

Though in Bondage Its Spirituality Endures.

__________

Eloquent Address by the Eastern Brother.

__________

Tonight He will Speak on "Hindoo Philosophy."

Those words "Most Moral Nation" were fighting ones to at

least one member of the Christian clergy, as were two para-
graphs of the text itself:

639
 It seems somewhat singular that the eastern monk who
is so outspoken in his disapproval of missionary labor on
the part of the Christian church in India (where, he
affirms, the morality is the highest in the world) should
have been introduced by Bishop Ninde, who in June will
depart for China in the interest of foreign missions. The
bishop expects to remain away until December, but if he
should stay longer he will go to India.

Further along in the article Swamiji was paraphrased:

#

640
 There is something Christ-like in the humility of the
people to endure the stings and arrows of outraged
fortune [sic], the while the soul is advancing toward the
brighter goal. Such a country has no need of Christian
missionaries to "preach ideas," for theirs is a religion that
makes men gentle, sweet, considerate and affectionate
toward all God's creatures, whether man or beast.
Morally, said the speaker, India is head and shoulders
above the United States or any other country on the
globe. Missionaries would do well to come there and
drink of the pure waters, and see what a beautiful
influence upon a great community have the lives of the
multitude of good and holy men.

This was the first bombshell that Swamiji dropped in

Detroit. The lecture was quoted in the Evening News, the
Tribune, and the Journal as well as in the Free Press, and
there was probably no literate person in the city who was not
now aware that Christian missionaries, for all their talk, were
not doing any too well in India. Although the other reports of
the lecture were, for the most part, repetitious of that in the
Free Press, the Tribune of February 15 adds considerably to
our knowledge of what Swamiji said and helps to explain
some of the subsequent criticisms. With the exception of
those portions that are repetitious of the Free Press report,
which I have omitted, the Tribune covered the lecture as
follows:

HAD TO ENTERTAIN
641
 __________

Kananda Tells of the Hospitality of the Hindu.

__________

He is Bound to Guard Against Selfishness Above

All Things.
__________

The Famous Monk Addresses an Interested Audience

at Unity Church-Facts about the People of
India Told by an Indian in the Purest English.
#

642
 Last evening a good sized audience had the privilege
of seeing and listening to the famous Hindu Monk of the
Brahmo Samaj, Swami Vive Kananda, as he lectured at
the Unitarian Church under the auspices of the Unity
Club. He appeared in native costume and made with his
handsome face and stalwart figure a distinguished
appearance. His eloquence held the audience in rapt
attention and brought out applause at frequent intervals.
He spoke of the "Manners and Customs of India" and
presented the subject in the most perfect English. He said
they did not call their country India nor themselves
Hindus. Hindostan was the name of the country and they
were Brahmans. In ancient times they spoke Sanscrit. In
that language the reason and meaning of a word was
explained and made quite evident but now that is all
gone. Jupiter in Sanscrit meant "Father in Heaven." All
the languages of northern India were now practically the
same, but if he should go into the southern part of that
country he could not converse with the people. In the
words father, mother, sister, brother, etc., the Sanscrit
gave very similar pronunciations. This and other facts
leads him to think we all come from the common stock,
Aryans. Nearly all branches of this race have lost their
identity.
There were four castes, the priests, the landlords and
military people, the trades people and the artisans,
laborers and servants. In the first three castes the boys at
the ages of ten, eleven and thirteen respectively are
placed in the hands of professors of universities and
643
remain with them until thirty, twenty-five and twenty
years old, respectively. . . . In ancient times both boys and
girls were instructed, but now only the boys are favored.
An effort, however, is being made to rectify the long-
existing wrong. A good share of the philosophy and laws
of the land is the work of women during the ancient
times, before barbarians started to rule the land. In the
eyes of the Hindu the
#

644
woman now has her rights. She holds her own and has
the law on her side.
When the student returns from college he is allowed to
marry and have a household. Husband and wife must bear
the work and both have their rights. In the military caste
the daughters oftentimes can choose their husbands, but
in all other cases all arrangements are made by the
parents. There is a constant effort now being made to
remedy infant marriage. The marriage ceremony is very
beautiful, each touches the heart of the other and they
swear before God and the assemblage that they will prove
faithful to each other. No man can be a priest until he
marries. When a man attends public worship he is always
attended by his wife. In his worship the Hindu performs
five ceremonies, worship of his God, of his forefathers, of
the poor, of the dumb animals, and of learning. As long
as a Hindu has anything in the house a guest must never
want. When he is satisfied then the children, then father
and mother partake. They are the poorest nation in the
world, yet except in times of famine no one dies of
hunger. Civilization is a great work. But in comparison
the statement is made that in England one in every 400 is
a drunkard, while in India the proportion is one to every
million. A description was given of the ceremony of
burning the dead. No publicity is made except in the case
of some great nobleman. After a fifteen days' fast gifts
are given by the relatives in behalf of the forefathers to
the poor or for the formation of some institution. On
moral matters they stand head and shoulders above all
other nations.

645
 Bishop Ninde, a Methodist Episcopalian, who had intro-
duced Swamiji with the prayer that the heathens would
someday see the light and who had been under the impression
that he was going to hear entertaining descriptions of heathen
customs and, perhaps, praise, direct or implied, for the work
of Christian missions, had received a severe shock. Before his
#

646
very eyes, on the same platform with him, Swamiji had cap-
tured the audience, extolled the religion of the Hindu people
and declared that India was a moral nation in no need of
Christian missionaries! The bishop was shaken and, very
likely, in serious difficulties with his church. A hasty
explanation was in order, and directly following Swamiji's
first lecture in Detroit he penned a letter to the editor of the
Free Press, which appeared on February 16 as follows:

Vive Kananda's First Lecture.

To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:

In referring to the above lecture, your issue of

yesterday says: "It seemed somewhat singular that the
eastern monk, who is so outspoken in his disapproval of
missionary labor on the part of the Christian church in
India (where, he affirms, the morality is the highest in the
world) should have been introduced by Bishop Ninde,
who in June will depart for China in the interest of
foreign Christian missions."
It is due to myself and to the Christian public who
believe in missions that I should claim the privilege of
making an explanation. I was courteously invited by
friends in whom I have the fullest confidence to introduce
the lecturer to his audience, with the assurance that
nothing would be said that could be at all offensive to
Christian ears. I inferred that we should be treated to an
entertaining description of the manners and customs of
one of the most interesting countries on the globe, and
without any manifest religious bias. It was suggested that
647
the introduction, coming from me, would be appropriate,
as I was, perhaps, the only person in the city who had
visited India. I felt no hesitation under the circumstances
in rendering so simple a courtesy to a gentleman of such
acknowledged ability and learning as Mr. Kananda.
Imagine my surprise, however, as the lecture proceeded,
#

648
when I saw it to be a studied effort to magnify the virtues
of the Hindoos and discount the morals of Christian
nations, with the evident purpose of showing the
impertinence and uselessness of Christian missions. Had
I foreseen the drift of the lecture, and especially some of
its more caustic and unfriendly references, I should have
felt obliged by simple self respect to decline the honor of
presenting the speaker.
But the lecture, though able and interesting, instead of
weakening my faith in the value of Christian missions in
India, has strongly confirmed my conviction of their im-
portance and ultimate triumph. The lecture from first to
last was a scathing arraignment of modern Brahmanism
(the accepted religion of India to-day) from the view
point of a professed Hindoo reformer.
One who has been on the ground cannot be misled by
rose-colored exhibits of Hindoo morality. The lecturer
stated with emphasis that drunkenness was unknown
among the Hindoos, when to the writer's personal knowl-
edge the drinking habit had become quite recently so rife
among the natives in a portion of western India that a
firm of Hindoo merchants in Bombay engaged one of our
unemployed missionaries to go through the country in
company with a Brahman to lecture on temperance and
offer the pledge. In fact, the moral abominations that
prevail throughout India to-day, and under the sanctions
of the accepted religion, are too notorious to be
successfully denied.
I have no doubt that Mr. Kananda and a few others of
like spirit are doing their best to counteract the ever-
downward tendency and restore the simpler yet greatly
649
inadequate faiths of primitive Hindooism; yet I am firm
in the conviction, despite his denial, that such beneficent
reforms as have come about in these latter times in the
social and moral condition of India have sprung, not from
impulses within the body of Hindooism, but from the
direct and
#

650
 indirect influence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that
the work which the toilsome and self denying
missionaries are doing to-day in India should be the
subject, not of sneering or critical animadversion, but of
warm and unstinted praise. The success of our Methodist
missions in central India in making converts is simply
marvelous. It indicates with unerring certainty the speedy
breaking away of great masses from the old superstitions
and their reception of a revealed religion that will satisfy
all their needs and regenerate, as no other power can, that
ancient and noble race.
I repeat what I said in introducing the distinguished
speaker, that, "while I differ very widely from him in my
conception of the religious idea and religious duty, yet I
long and pray for the day when, in the clearer light which
God's spirit may vouchsafe to each one of us, the people
of all lands and all races may see eye to eye and be
perfectly joined together in the service of a common
divine Redeemer."
Detroit, February 15, 1894
W. X. NINDE.

The war was on. Henceforth the newspapers fairly crackled

with letters and editorials attacking and defending Swamiji,
and one can imagine the discussions that must have taken
place in the drawing rooms, in the church parlors, and in the
club rooms of the city. Members of orthodox, or what
Swamiji would call "blue-nose," Christianity were happy
with the bishop's letter, and on February 24 the Michigan
Christian Advocate, a weekly published in Detroit, printed it
with the following introduction:
651
 A HINDOO IN DETROIT

The distinguished Hindoo monk, Swamie Vive Ka-

nanda, lectured two or three times in Detroit last week,
praising the religion of Buddha and making numerous
"cute little jabs at the Christian religion," as the daily
#

652
 papers said. But the cunning heathen was careful to avoid
any comparison between the social condition of the
people in his own land and those to whom he was
speaking, though he boldly animadverted upon the great
missionary movements of Christianity and sought to
belittle and disparage them as other heathens in America
have recently been doing. As Bishop Ninde was induced
to introduce the speaker the first evening, he wisely made
a very satisfactory and instructive explanation through
the Free Press next day: [Here followed the full text of
the bishop's letter.]

Bishop Ninde's "satisfactory and instructive explanation"

was made good use of by Swamiji's missionary opponents. In
November, 1894, the Homiletic Review, an organ of the
orthodox Christian churches, printed an article in defense of
Christian missionaries in India. The writer set the stage for
his attack on Swamiji by the following interpretation of the
Detroit incident:

. . . Vivekananda, acting under the auspices of

hospitable friends in Detroit, gave a series of lectures on
the superiority of Hinduism, which created no little stir in
religious and anti religious circles. He spoke repeatedly
in Unitarian churches, and he received many courtesies
also from men of what are known as the orthodox creeds.
On one occasion he was very courteously introduced to
his audience by Bishop Ninde of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. But so contemptuous and bitter was
the attack upon Christianity and Christian missions which
followed, that the good Bishop felt compelled to
653
 apologize through the press for the position in which his
Hindu friend had placed him as a minister and a bishop in
the Christian Church.
Needless to say, when on Thursday evening, February 15,
Swamiji gave his second lecture, the good bishop did not
intro
#

654
duce him. And sad to say, although the public crowded into
the Unitarian Church, the Detroit press had been intimidated
by the bishop's repudiation of his Hindu friend. Methodism
was strong in the city, and Bishop Ninde, a stalwart figure,
was well known and highly respected among the orthodox.
Thus the reports of Swamiji's second lecture, "Hindu
Philosophy," are meager and, with one exception,
misrepresentative.
The Journal of February 16 took a safe stand beside the
bishop, whom its reporter had interviewed:

SCORED CHRISTIANITY
__________

Vive Kananda Tells about the Trouble it Has

Caused in India.

Bishop Ninde did not introduce the Hindoo monk,

Vive Kananda, last evening when he was to deliver his
second lecture at the Unitarian church. In fact, the bishop
had ceased to take any stock in the Hindoo, because of
his propensity for attacking the Christian religion, as well
as for what he considered his untruthfulness as displayed
in his lecture on Wednesday evening. The bishop has
traveled in India extensively himself, and in an interview
with the Journal after the lecture said the monk had
evidently been talking for the purpose of creating an
impression. If a more worldly man than the bishop had
been describing the monk's lecture he would have said he
was "talking through his hat," as that is just what the
bishop meant.
655
 "For instance," said the bishop, "he told us there was
absolutely no drunkenness in India; that one might travel
all through the country without seeing an intoxicated
man. Now, I know better, for I have been there and have
observed with my own eyes to what an extent the drink
habit has taken hold of the natives. Why, it is positively a
fact that English liquor merchants have been sending men
throughout India for the express purpose of educating the
#

656
 natives to drink intoxicating liquors, and from my
observations I should say they were very apt pupils. I
could recite many instances of degradation caused by the
drink habit if it was necessary."
The monk's lecture last evening was on "Hindoo
Philosophy," but those who expected to learn something
from the lecture must have been greatly disappointed, for
the whole lecture was made up of pointed little cracks at
the Christian religion. He dwelt at some length on what
he designated the trouble and misery his people had
experienced by the introduction of Christianity into India.
His references to "Hindoo Philosophy" were so very few
that they could hardly be distinguished from his attacks
upon the Christian religion. He thought it only an idle
dream to think of all the nations of the earth having the
same religious view. He said finally that Buddhists had
sent out the first missionaries, and they are the only
people who can say they have converted millions without
shedding a drop of blood.

It is interesting to notice, in connection with the attacks

against Swamiji, that those who opposed him, although often
men of high standing in the community, almost invariably
betrayed a confusion of mind either in their style of writing or
in their multiple self contradictions. Bishop Ninde, for
instance, not only misquoted Swamiji regarding drunkenness
in India, but attributed its existence to the wiles of English,
and presumably Christian, liquor merchants. But in whatever
muddle the bishop managed to get himself, the fact remained,
as Swamiji had pointed out, that the alcoholic Hindu was an
extreme rarity.
657
 The Free Press of February 16 was as cautious as the
Journal in its report on Swamiji's second lecture. It was from
the following article of February 16 that the Michigan
Christian Advocate would pick up the phrase, "cute little jabs
at the Christian religion" :
#

658
 "HINDOO PHILOSOPHY."

Another Large Audience Listens to

Swami Vive Kananda.

The second lecture of the Hindoo monk, Swami Vive

Kananda, was given last evening at the Unitarian church
to a large and very appreciative audience. The
expectation of the audience that the speaker would
enlighten them regarding "Hindoo Philosophy," as the
lecture was entitled, was gratified to only a limited
extent. Allusions were made to the philosophy of
Buddha, and the speaker was applauded when he said
that Buddhism was the first missionary religion of the
world, and that it had secured the largest number of
converts without the shedding of a drop of blood; but he
did not tell his audience anything about the religion or
philosophy of Buddha. He made a number of cute little
jabs at the Christian religion, and alluded to the trouble
and misery that had been caused by its introduction into
heathen countries, but he skillfully avoided any
comparison between the social condition of the people in
his own land and that of the people to whom he was
speaking, In a general way he said the Hindoo
philosophers taught from a lower truth to a higher;
whereas, a person accepting a newer Christian doctrine is
asked and expected to throw his former belief all away
and accept the newer in its entirety. "It is an idle dream
when all of us will have the same religious vows," said
659
 he. "No emotion can be produced except by clashing
elements acting upon the mind. It is the revulsion of
change, the new light, the presentation of the new to the
old, that elicits sensation."

It is from the Tribune, which consistently upheld Swamiji,

that we are able to get some idea of his lecture "Hindu Philos-
ophy." Although the Tribune reporter seems to have been
more than a little at sea and to have taken somewhat sketchy
notes,
#

660
his account, which appeared on February 16, was unbiased
and gives proof that the lecture by no means consisted of
"cute little jabs at the Christian religion":

HINDU PHILOSOPHY
__________

The Subject of Kananda's Talk to

the Unity Club Last Night

The Brahman monk, Swami Vive Kananda, again

lectured last evening at the Unitarian church, his topic
being "Hindu Philosophy." The speaker dealt for a time
with general philosophy and metaphysics, but said that he
would devote the lecture to that part pertaining to
religion. There is a sect that believes in a soul, but are
agnostic in relation to God. Buddahism [sic] was a great
moral religion, but they could not live long without
believing in a god. Another sect known as the giants
[Jains] believe in the soul, but not in the moral
government of the country. There were several millions
of this sect in India. Their priests and monks tie a
handkerchief over their faces, believing if their hot breath
comes in contact with man or beast death will ensue.
Among the orthodox, all believe in the revelation.
Some think every word in the Bible comes directly from
God. The stretching of the meaning of a word would
perhaps do in most religions, but in that of the Hindus
they have the Sanscrit, which always retains the full
meaning and reasons of the word.

661
 The distinguished Oriental thought there was a sixth
sense far greater than any of the five we know we
possess. It was the truth of revelation. A man may read
all the books on religion in the world and yet be the
greatest blackguard in the country. Revelation means
later reports of spiritual discoveries.
The second position some take is a creation without
beginning or end. Suppose there was a time when the
#

662
world did not exist; `what was God doing then? To the
Hindus the creation was only one of forms. One man is
born with a healthy body, is of good family and grows up
a godly man. Another is born with a maimed and crooked
body and develops into a wicked man and pays the
penalty. Why must a just and holy god create one with so
many advantages and the other with disadvantages? The
person has no choice. The evildoer has a consciousness of
his guilt. The difference between virtue and vice was
expounded. If God willed all things there would be an
end to all science. How far can man go down? Is it
possible for man to go back to brute again?
Kananda was glad he was a Hindu. When Jerusalem
was destroyed by the Romans several thousand [Jews]
settled in India. When the Persians were driven from their
country by the Arabs several thousand found refuge in
the same country and none were molested. The Hindus
believe all religions are true, but theirs antedates all
others. Missionaries are never molested by the Hindus.
The first English missionaries were prevented from
landing in that country by English and it was a Hindu that
interceded for them and gave them the first hand.
Religion is that which believes in all. Religion was
compared to the blind men and the elephant. Each man
felt of a special part and from it drew his conclusions of
what an elephant was. Each was right in his way and yet
all were needed to form a whole. Hindu philosophers say
"truth to truth, lower truth to higher." It is an idle dream
of those who think that all will at some time think alike,
for that would be the death of religion. Every religion
breaks up into little sects, each claiming to be the true one
663
and all the others wrong. Persecution is unknown in
Buddahism. They sent out the first missionaries and are
the only ones who can say they have converted millions
without the shedding of a single drop of blood. Hindus,
with all their faults and superstitions, never persecute.
The speaker wanted to know
#

664
 how it was the christians allowed such iniquities as are
everywhere present in christian countries.

Obviously Swamiji's "jabs" were directed for the most part

toward the contention that the whole world must become
Christian or be doomed. Such "jabs," even though
constituting a very small part of a long lecture on Hindu
philosophy and spoken without rancor, entered the orthodox
mind as lightning thrusts, obliterating everything else that had
been said. One can only imagine the power behind his
criticisms of the contemporary religious scene when he
spoke them from the platform-a power not of voice but of
spirit, a force that drove his rebukes deep into the very soul of
those for whom they were intended and brought forth howls
of protest.
Nothing could have exposed the worst aspects of Christian
orthodoxy more effectively than its adherents' denunciation
of Swamiji. It was perhaps largely through the process of self
exposure on the part of bigotry that his lecture tour awoke
America to its most pernicious aspects. He rarely made any
rejoinder to his critics. He did not have to. Shortly following
Bishop Ninde's repudiation of "Mr. Kananda," for instance,
three long and forceful letters ridiculing and reprimanding the
bishop appeared in the daily newspapers. The first of these,
dated February 16, appeared in the Free Press of February
17:

Bishop Ninde and Kananda.

To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:

665
 In The Free Press of Friday Bishop Ninde offers an
explanation by way of apology For having been induced
under what he seems to construe as false pretenses, to act
as chairman and introduce the Brahmin Monk Kananda to
a Unitarian church audience. It would now seem from the
tone of his letter, that the good Methodist bishop feels as
if he had "fallen from grace," and now
#

666
repents of the disgrace, as he would probably put it if he
expressed his innermost convictions. His acceptance and
fulfillment of the duty with such good grace, won much
admiration from all liberal minded people, many
Christians included. It is lamentable that he did not have
the grace and moral courage to let well enough alone,
even though his private views conflicted with those of the
Brahmin. . . .
Bishop Ninde again errs when he attempts to convey
the impression in his letter that he was supposed to be the
only man in Detroit who had visited India. He should
know that this is simply nonsense. But a few days ago
Frederick Stearns gave a lecture in the city upon his
travels in India, and the bishop well knows that there are
scores of others here who have seen as much of that
wonderful country as he has, and the public are not
ignorant of that Fact. The writer was present at the first
and last lectures of Kananda, and saw the bishop wince
and squirm at the mild mannered, though telling rebuke
of "Christian" methods and intolerance with not only the
alleged heathen, but with different "Christian"
denominations, among themselves. . . . The discourse of
[Kananda] was indeed "caustic," as the bishop says, but
not "unfriendly," as he further states. . . . He fails to
recognize the liberal, generous and holy spirit with which
it was conveyed. . . .
The bishop furthermore affirms that whatever social
and moral conditions exist in India "have not sprung from
impulses within the body of Hindooism, but from the
direct and indirect influences of the gospel of Jesus
Christ." This the bishop knows to be false if he is versed
667
in ancient history, as he should be. The fundamental
morals and virtues of Buddha, Brahma, Confucius and
other moral reformers were known long before Christ's
coming. Human brotherhood and the godlike in man were
taught ages before. If Bishop Ninde is going to the orient
as a true missionary he will have to learn the chief lesson
of "God in
#

668
 man" before he can truthfully preach the glad tidings of a
gospel of peace and love. . .
O. P. DELDOC.

The second long letter written in reproach of Bishop Ninde

and in defense of Swamiji was published in the Free Press of
February 18. It was signed "Lover of Fair Play" and
expressed, for the most part, the same sentiments and
emphasized the same points as the above. The following
passages, however, can be quoted :

. . . The fundamental principle of the Hindoo religion is

the absolute tolerance of all other religions, and it strikes
me that the learned bishop has displayed a great deal of
intolerance in advocating his own cause. He states that he
inferred, when called upon to introduce the speaker, that
nothing would be said that showed any religious bias.
May a layman be permitted to ask why should we not
have one Hindoo missionary among us when we send
hundreds to India? Is not turn about fair play? What, then,
about the quality of the distinguished brother's moral
teachings? He says we should live up to the doctrine that
all self is bad and all non-self is good. Is not such
teaching grand and ennobling? Is it not as beneficial to
poor human nature as the golden rule? The Hindoo
religion being the most spiritual in the world, goes further
than the golden rule. It teaches its followers to treat your
neighbor better than you would expect to be treated. Can
anyone question such morality as this? . . .
. .. It seems strange that the bishop should resent the
expression of his views from the visitor. Do not the mis-
669
sionaries of the church he so ably represents intrude their
views upon the benighted heathen, who in their five daily
worships show that the unselfishness of the Hindoo
religion, is something beautiful to contemplate? . . .
#

670
 . . I know full well that Vive Kananda will not reply to
the bishop's letter because his theory is that silence is
golden when a religious controversy is impending. He
says there should be no quarreling among the
representatives of the creeds, for he who casts a reflection
upon another creed casts a slur upon his own faith. He
casts no reflection upon the Christian religion. What he
said was that different people have different religions,
and that is well. The Christian religion may answer the
needs of certain people, but the Hindoo religion answers
better the needs of the people of India, because it teaches
them higher doctrines of morality than other nations are
prepared to receive. . . . The sublime religion of the
Hindoo we are unprepared for and therefore the Christian
religion answers every purpose. This is a cut-throat
generation and the gentle doctrine of the divinity of non-
self is too far in the future for us. . . .

The third letter appeared in the Journal of February 20 and

was signed "E. J." It read in part as follows:

. . It would have done more credit to our Christianity

for the bishop to have accepted without comment Vive
Kananda's assertion that there is comparatively little
drunkenness in India than to have proved its falsity by
admitting that a Christian nation, professing a civilization
and a religion far in advance of that of Buddha,
introduced that degrading vice to a temperate and
religious people, and spread it broadcast there through
insatiate love of gain. It is a more bitter reflection upon
671
our boasted Christianity than any Vive Kananda made. . .
.
As for the "cracks at the Christian religion," the sting
lay in their truth. This Hindoo knows where to find the
weak joints in our armor. We ought to be grateful to him
for the hits he didn't make. Do our missionaries treat
foreign-pagan, we like to call them-religions as tenderly
and inoffensively as Vive Kananda treated ours? He was
#

672
 not here to convert us; indeed, in his last lecture he
expressly disclaimed any such purpose. . . .
To tell the truth, his broad liberality, that recognizes in
every human soul the effort toward freedom (his
synonym of our "salvation") and light, and makes that
effort religion, irrespective and independent of creed or
dogma, shames us all. The spectacle of a Methodist
bishop introducing a Buddhist monk in a Unitarian
church to an audience composed of Christians, Jews and
Gentiles, looked like a move toward the breaking down
of the barriers of sectarianism. It seems a pity the bishop
thought necessary to excuse his commendable part in it,
to the extent of a quarter column of solid nonpareil in the
morning papers, because a Brahmin of the Buddhists
didn't preach orthodox Christianity.

It can be safely assumed that a large percentage of the

Detroit population both read and approved these letters.
Bishop Ninde in his denunciation of Swamiji had done
nothing but play directly into the hands of the liberals and
strengthen their position.
A further point that Swamiji's defenders should have
clarified was that in speaking against the Christian
missionaries after having been introduced by the bishop he
had not overstepped the bounds of courtesy. Bishop Ninde,
probably under the impression that Swamiji, like Mazumdar
and other "enlightened" Hindus, looked to Christianity for
the salvation of India, .had introduced him with a fervent
prayer for the day "when people of all lands and all races may
see eye to eye and be perfectly joined together in the service
of a common divine Redeemer"- that is, in the service of
673
Jesus Christ. Swamiji's subject was "Manners and Customs in
India," and he could not, in giving a true picture of his
country, avoid referring to the Christian missionaries who
had so misrepresented her to the world and who had done her
such untold harm. But while his purpose in appearing on the
platform was not to observe the social
#

674
amenities, if Bishop Ninde had omitted his prayer, Swamiji
might in courtesy to him have softened his blows. As it was,
the bishop had forfeited his right to such consideration.
Because of the prayer, it became incumbent upon Swamiji to
make his points all the more clear and telling, to correct all
misconceptions regarding his country and, above all, to
disabuse his audience of the notion that Christianity was
India's only hope.

There were two misconceptions regarding India prevalent

in the 1890s. While on the one hand she was maligned as a
land of immorality, idolatry, and superstition and in crying
need of Christian missionaries, on the other hand she was
lauded as a realm of mystery and marvel where "mahatmas"
performed wonderful feats of occult power and telepathically
communicated cosmic secrets to the elect, This latter view
resulted in a kind of delirium in which occultism, spirituality,
super science, and the turban were hopelessly confused. It
was in the throes of this fever that the Evening News of
February 14 had greeted Swamiji on his arrival in Detroit
with the following article:

GIVE US SOME MIRACLES.

It may sound vulgar, but it is not improper for Detroit

to insist, now that it has gotten one of these wonderful
East Indian mahatmas or priests, or whatever they are
called, in its social grip, that he either "put up or shut up."
During the past 10 or 15 years the people of christian
675
lands have been asked to believe that there exists among
some of the upper casts of India a profundity of esoteric
wisdom and a knowledge of the laws of nature which, in
comparison with our occidental ignorance, borders on the
infinite. The mystifying tricks of the eastern fakirs have
been long recognized as the best specimens of sleight-of
hand work that exist anywhere in the world, and these
tricks have been
#

676
used as the foundation for stories of wonder-working that
places the doings of the adepts of India on a par with the
miracles of Jesus of Nazareth.
A series of articles is now running in the Arena,
written by a man who claims to have seen all that he tells
about, tending to prove that the eastern adepts have
gotten so far on the inner side of things in this world that
they have almost complete control over all the powers of
nature. Large trees from 40 to 75 feet high are grown
before man's eyes in a few minutes and the spectators are
permitted to climb into the branches of them; rocks and
mountains which have stood for centuries are made to
disappear and then to reappear; thunderbolts leap from
the tips of the fingers of the mahatmas and do what
destruction the owner of the finger wills, and other works
are done which show that the performers are possessed of
powers divine.
Now if all this wonder-working were advanced to
show how much more skillful in legerdemain the easterns
are over the westerns, we could well confess the
superiority and let it go at that; but the claim is that it all
shows that the adepts have pushed nearer the center of
things than we have, and that it shows how very low and
childish our boasted civilization is. It is claimed that the
religious knowledge of the adepts is luminosity itself
compared with our poor christian paganism.
The obvious answer to all these claims of miracle
working is that if they were true, the adepts would come
west and do some missionary work by showing the
christians what the eastern knowledge would do. The
adepts answer this by saying that they have a secret
677
reason why they will not do this. But the world's fair
brought a small swarm of these people to our shores, and
one of the most celebrated of them is in Detroit at the
present moment. The present moment, then, is the time to
give notice to Swami Vive Kananda that this great
opportunity has arrived to prove
#

678
 that all that has been said about his wonderful miracle
working powers is true.
Swami Vive Kananda will talk at the unitarian church,
but will he do nothing but talk? There are thousands of
Americans who can talk better and longer than he can.
They can say sweeter things and say them in more
elegant form, but they cannot grow a pine tree before the
eyes of 10,000 people. They cannot pick up Belle Isle and
sink it in Lake St. Clair and then put it back again. If
Swami Vive Kananda declines to do some of these things
in addition to saying sweet things, he will injure his
boasted religion of superiority more than he will help it.
If his religion is better than ours, it surely does not show
among the millions of the people of India. It does not
show in any wonders seen by western eyes. Where, then,
does it show? Answer: As yet only in sensational stories
of travelers which thousands of Americans have
swallowed. Will Kananda do something handsome while
in Detroit?
In the tense atmosphere of Detroit no criticism of Swamiji
was let pass without public rejoinder. Through the letter
columns of the Journal of February 16 one of Swamiji's most
articulate defenders, O. P. Deldoc, whose retort to Bishop
Ninde has been reproduced above, was the first to give the
Evening News a staunch reply:

Mysteries and Miracles.

I read with no little surprise and disgust an editorial in

the Evening News of February 14, headed, "Give us
Some Miracles," said article being called forth on
679
account of the appearance in Detroit of Swami Vive
Kananda, the Brahmin monk, who edified and delighted,
not only the clergy of all denominations, but all who
heard him in the parliament of religions at Chicago. His
candor, simplicity and marvelous mentality are only
exceeded by his earnest
#

680
efforts towards the unity of religion and the brotherhood
of man.
The editorial in substance calls upon Vive Kananda,
whom it styles "one of those wonderful East Indian
mahatmas, to shut up or put up," and challenges him to
show some of the "mystifying tricks" alleged to have
been witnessed by travelers in India, special attention
being called to the articles written by Dr. Hensholdt, now
being published in the Arena. The editorial sneeringly
and sarcastically alludes to these "doings of the adepts of
India" as professedly "being on a par with the miracles of
Jesus of Nazareth," yet carries the inference that they are
but "tricks of fakirs: ' The article concludes by avowing
that "Kananda will talk, but do nothing but talk," and
because he does not produce any of the so-called miracles
"he will injure his boasted religion of superiority more
than he will help it."
The writer of that editorial ought to know that none
more stoutly declare that there are no miracles, never was
such a thing as a miracle, that nothing is supernatural,
more than the "wise men of the east," or the intelligent
recorder or traveler, familiar with the Orient. What the
East Indians do claim, and what theosophists and all pro-
found thinkers claim, is that the learned of that country
have a better and purer knowledge of the hidden forces of
nature, of spirituality, of practical humanity, of religious
mysteries, and the occult generally, than has been
revealed to many in the western world.
They have a better knowledge of the Arians, earth's
earlier ages, and of pure Sanscrit literature, including the
lost arts and sciences of modern times, and also of the
681
fundamental basis of all religions. The wise of India are
no more responsible for the superstitions, the pretensions,
or for those who err and sin, than the good of our own
land are responsible for the mistakes and wickedness of
the present day. Why call an honest exponent of a pure
and simple
#

682
religion of charity and humanity, to account for the errors
of some of his fellows of that vast and varied country,
whose total population some self styled Christians delight
in dubbing "heathen"? Shall we send our sectarian mis-
sionaries to his land, and kick him out of ours because
forsooth! he can't hoodoo us with some hocus-pocus
tricks or show us what never existed-a miracle?
Christ when in the flesh, was thus importuned by the
ignorant rabble, who disbelieved his holy name, and
charged him with being an imposter, and who was finally
spat upon and put to death by the same bigoted, intolerant
mob, who only cried: "Crucify him!" When they jeered
him to scorn, and cried, "Show us a miracle," he calmly
and meekly rebuked them, saying, "Ye would not believe
Moses and the prophets, neither would ye believe though
one arose from the dead: ' It is only the ignorant who
expect or seek for the miraculous.
The adepts of India or of any other land do not pretend
to do marvels; they only by a superior spirituality gained
by long fasting, long study, long crucifying of the lusts of
the flesh, long meditation upon "nature's finer forces," are
enabled to do what would fill the minds of the
superstitious with awe and wonder. All scientists familiar
with that wonderful country declare the natives experts or
adepts in hypnotic power, and for unknown ages they
have held the key to electricity, and many other of
nature's marvels. India was very old before our nation
was born, and her savants have forgotten more than we
with our boasted civilization know.
If Swami Vive Kananda succeeds in expounding a
gospel of peace, of purity, of self sacrifice and brotherly
683
love; if he succeeds in opening the blind eyes of bigotry,
and in unstopping the deaf ears of the intolerant, and
shows the professed Christian that even a heathen has
some virtues which Christians lack, and more than all if
he softens the strong heart of humanity, which he already
#

684
 seems qualified to do, his mission among us will not be
in vain.
O. P. DELDOC.

Another retort to the Evening News was included much

later in a letter to the editor of the Free Press, in which the
author, "having pursued the published reports of Swami Vive
Kananda's course of lectures," dutifully set himself to point
out the errors of Swamiji's logic. The result, as might be
expected, was total confusion, with which I will not burden
the reader. The letter concludes, however, with the following
more lucid paragraph:

But despite the Hindoo's errors there is so much that is

good and true in his tenets and their application that the
self professing Christian may well profit by. For certain it
is that few, indeed, of any "nation or people, or tongue,"
can derive any substantial advantage or profit by the
adoption of Christianity as at present taught and practi-
cally applied; which is but a travesty of the teachings of
Christ and his immediate apostles and disciples; and the
Hindoo teacher may well return the brutal and blasphem-
ous cry recently hurled at him by certain professed
Christians (?) : "Give us some miracles."

But the most pertinent and conclusive reply to the editorial

was given by Swamiji himself when the Evening News, more
by way of self-justification than apology, printed on February
17 the following brief interview:

ONLY WONDERS WORKED.

685
 __________

No Miracles in the Pure Hindoo

Religion.
__________

"I cannot comply with the request of The News to

work a miracle in proof of my religion," said Vive
Kananda to
#

686
 a representative of this paper, after being shown The
News editorial on the subject. "In the first place, I am no
miracle worker, and in the second place the pure Hindoo
religion I profess is not based on miracles. We do not
recognize such a thing as miracles. There are wonders
wrought beyond our five senses, but they are operated by
some law. Our religion has nothing to do with them.
Most of the strange things which are done in India and
reported in the foreign papers are sleight-of hand tricks or
hypnotic illusions. They are not the performances of the
wise men. These do not go about the country performing
their wonders in the market places for pay. They can be
seen and known only by those who seek to know the
truth, and not moved by childish curiosity."

Thus the matter was settled. Later, the Evening News of

February 20 was to boast at the end of a rather sour editorial:
The News has done the only sound service that has
been done for the Detroit public and the occidental world
in connection with this visit of the Hindu monk. It has
wrested from highest Hindu authority testimony about the
wonder-working that has been so persistently claimed For
the mahatmas of the east. Kananda says that the truth of
the Hindu faith does not rest on wonder-working. He
makes no pretension either for himself or any of his coun-
trymen on this line. He despises as much as any
occidental can the tricks of the fakirs. Truth stands on its
own feet. This testimony which The News has wrested
From so high authority sweeps away the huge mass of
claims that have been set up for the eastern mahatmas by
such writers as Sinnet and Blavatski and the writer now
687
running a series of articles in the Arena. The News
appreciates Kananda, not as a popular fad, but because he
has come and delighted us with the things that are
valuable for their own sake.
#

688
 It was of course, not necessary to "wrest" a
denunciation of miracle-working from Swamiji. With
every lecture and every interview he gave-indeed, by his
very presence-he established for all thinking people the
distinction between true Eastern mysticism and
mysterious occultism.
It is not surprising, however, in view of his
extraordinary personality, that many people regarded him
as a miracleworker. Nor is it surprising that stories
confirming this assumption spread far and wide. One
such story was told me out of the memory of Mrs.
Frances Bagley Wallace, and concerns the reception her
grandmother, Mrs. Bagley, held for Swamiji. Mrs.
Wallace writes: "I was only nine years old at the time, but
I remember that after being locked in Grandfather's study
at one end of the house, the Swami materialized in the
center of the big parlor at the other end of the house
where the guests were. When the prominent gentlemen
who had locked him in the study and had pocketed the
key returned and unlocked the door, there sat the Swami
in the same position as he had been when they had locked
him in there!"16 This story is not altogether incredible, for
such materialization is not unknown. There is, for
instance, an authentic story regarding Sri Ramakrishna,
who, being at Dakshineswar temple, appeared at the same
time in a city in East Bengal. What is difficult to believe,
however, is that Swamiji would have submitted himself
to such a test of his powers, or that he would have used
those powers to entertain and astound his friends.
Although Mrs. Wallace is definite regarding the
689
authenticity of her memory, a skeptic might be inclined to
consider that she had been too young at the time to
discriminate between rumor and fact. But however that
may be, the story at least proves that fascinating rumors
were current regarding Swamiji. It may well have been
such rumors that reached the skeptical ears of the editor
of the News and prompted him to write his sarcastic
editorial.
In any case, Swamiji, with one stroke, absolved India
of "mahatmaism" as well as "heathenism"-a stroke which
neither the Theosophists nor the missionaries thanked
him for.
#

690
 4

By the time Swamiji gave his third lecture, "The Divinity

of Man," at the Unitarian Church, on Saturday, February 17,
the Detroit newspapers had recovered from their reticence
and reported upon it at some length. The first two paragraphs
of the report in the Free Press of February 18 have been
quoted in the Life and the next five paragraphs in volume four
of the Complete Works under the title "Is India a Benighted
Country?"17 But although much of the following article will
be familiar to the reader, I will nevertheless reproduce it in its
entirety, for it gives so excellent a picture of both Swamiji
and his Detroit audience. Moreover, so far as I know, the
latter half of this report has not hitherto been reprinted:

INDIVIDUAL INFINITY
__________

Swami Vive Kananda's Lecture Last Evening.

__________

Philosophy of Swedenborg from a Hindoo Source.

__________

Fatalistic Qualities of the Ancient Indian Religion.

__________

Unitarian Church Crowded to the Doors by

691
 Pleased Auditors.

Swami Vive Kananda, Hindoo philosopher and priest,

concluded his series of lectures, or, rather, sermons, at the
Unitarian church last night, speaking on "The Divinity of
God" [sic]. In spite of the bad weather, the church was
crowded almost to the doors half an hour before the
eastern brother-as he likes to be called-appeared. All
professions and business occupations were represented in
the attentive audience-lawyers, judges, ministers of the
gospel, merchants, a rabbi-not to speak of the many
ladies who have by their repeated attendance and rapt
attention shown a decided inclination to shower adulation
#

692
upon the dusky visitor whose drawing-room attraction is
as great as his ability in the rostrum.
The lecture last night was less descriptive than
preceding ones, and for nearly two hours Vive Kananda
wove a metaphysical texture on affairs human and divine,
so logical that he made science appear like common
sense. It was a beautiful logical garment that he wove,
replete with as many bright colors and as attractive and
pleasing to contemplate as one of the many-hued fabrics
made by hand in his native land and scented with the
most seductive fragrance of the Orient. This dusky
gentleman uses poetical imagery as an artist uses colors;
and the hues are laid on just where they belong, the result
being somewhat bizarre in effect, and yet having a
peculiar fascination. Kaleidoscopic were the swiftly
succeeding logical conclusions, and the deft manipulator
was rewarded for his efforts from time to time by
enthusiastic applause.
The 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 the
juggernaut?"
"Do they burn widows with their husbands?"

693
 The first question the lecturer treated in the vein that
an American abroad would answer inquiries about
Indians running around in the streets of New York and
similar myths which are even to-day 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
#

694
tender and could be more easily masticated by the
inhabitants of the rivers in the benighted country.
Regarding the juggernaut legend the lecturer explained
the old practice in the sacred city and remarked that
possibly a few 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 version from which the
good people of other countries shrank with horror. Vive
Kananda denied that the people burned widows. It was
true, however, that widows had burned themselves. In the
few cases where this had happened, they had been urged
not to do so by the priests and 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 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 loved one through the realms
of immortality; suicide 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.
Proceeding to the lecture proper, Vive Kananda pro-
ceeded to analyze the physical, mental and soul attributes
of life. The body is but a shell; the mind something that
acts but a brief and fantastic part; while the soul has
695
distinct individuality in itself. To realize the infinity of
self is to attain "freedom" which is the Hindoo word for
"salvation." By a convincing manner of argument the
lecturer showed that every soul is something independent,
for if it were dependent, it could not acquire immortality.
He related a story from the old legends of his country to
#

696
illustrate the manner in which the realization of this may
come to the individual. A lioness leaping towards a sheep
in the act gave birth to a cub. The lioness died and the
cub was given suck by the sheep and for many years
thought itself a sheep and acted like one. But one day
another lion appeared and led the first lion to a lake
where he looked in and saw his resemblance to the other
lion. At that he roared and realized the full majesty of
self. Many people are like the lion masquerading as a
sheep and get into a corner, call themselves sinners and
demean themselves in every imaginable fashion, not yet
seeing the perfection and divinity which lies in self. The
ego of man and woman is the soul. If the soul is
independent, how then can it be isolated from the infinite
whole? Just as the great sun shines on a lake and
numberless reflections are the result, so the soul is
distinct like each reflection, although the great source is
recognized and appreciated. The soul is sexless. When it
has realized the condition of absolute freedom, what
could it have to do with sex which is physical? In this
connection the lecturer delved deeply into the waters of
Swedenborgian philosophy, or religion, and the connec-
tion between the conviction of the Hindoo and the
spiritual expressions of faith on the part of the more
modern holy man was fully apparent. Swedenborg
seemed like a European successor of an early Hindoo
priest, clothing in more modern garb an ancient
conviction; a line of thought that the greatest of French
philosophers and novelists saw fit to embody in his
elevating tale of the perfect soul. Every individual has in
himself perfection. It lies within the dark recesses of his
697
physical being. To say that a man has become good
because God gave him a portion of His perfection is to
conceive the Divine Being as God minus just so much
perfection as he has imparted to a person on this earth.
The inexorable law of science proves that the soul is
individual and must have perfection within itself, the
attainment of which means freedom, not salvation, and
#

698
the realization of individual infinity. Nature! God! Reli-
gion! It is all one.
The religions are all good. A bubble of air in a glass of
water strives to join with the mass of air without; in oil,
vinegar and other materials of differing density its efforts
are less or more retarded according to the liquid. So the
soul struggles through various mediums for the
attainment of its individual infinity. One religion is best
adapted to a certain people because of habits of life,
association, hereditary traits and climatic influences.
Another religion is suited to another people for similar
reasons. All that is, is best seemed to be the substance of
the lecturer's conclusions. To try abruptly to change a
nation's religion would be like a man who sees a river
flowing from the Alps. He criticizes the way it has taken.
Another man views the mighty stream descending from
the Himalayas, a stream that has been running for
generations and thousands of years, and says that it has
not taken the shortest and best route. The Christian
pictures God as a personal being seated somewhere above
us. The Christian can not necessarily be happy in Heaven
unless he can stand on the edge of the golden streets and
from time to time gaze down into the other place and see
the difference. Instead of the golden rule, the Hindoo
believes in the doctrine that all non-self is good and all
self is bad, and through this belief the attainment of the
individual infinity and the freedom of the soul at the
proper time will be fulfilled. How excessively vulgar,
stated Vive Kananda, was the golden rule! Always self!
always self! was the Christian creed. To do unto others as
you would be done by! It was a horrible, barbarous,
699
savage creed, but he did not desire to decry the Christian
creed, for those who are satisfied with it to them it is well
adapted. Let the great stream flow on, and he is a fool
who would try to change its course, when nature will
work out the solution. Spiritualist (in the true acceptance
of the word) and fatalist, Vive Kananda em
#

700
 phasized his opinion that all was well and he had no
desire to convert Christians. They were Christians; it was
well. He was a Hindoo; that, also, was well. In his
country different creeds were formulated for the needs of
people of different grades of intelligence, all this marking
the progress of spiritual evolution. The Hindoo religion
was not one of self; ever egotistical in its aspirations, ever
holding up promises of reward or threats of punishment.
It shows to the individual he may attain infinity by non-
self. This system of bribing men to become Christians,
alleged to have come from God, who manifested Himself
to certain men on earth, is atrocious. It is horribly
demoralizing and the Christian creed, accepted literally,
has a shameful effect upon the moral natures of the bigots
who accept it, retarding the time when the infinity of self
may be attained.

The letter Mary Funke wrote to Swami Brahmananda,

which has been published in the Vedanta Kesari, gives a
much better picture of Swamiji in the process of answering
questions than does the above report. She wrote:

I remember that on his first visit to Detroit, when he

was lecturing at the Unitarian Church, we were told that
the Swami would be glad to answer any question we
might wish to ask. The questions were to be written and
put in a box one night and the Swami was to answer them
publicly the evening following. Many of the questions
submitted were serious, others were trivial and flat. Of
course, some ninny asked the same old question about
Hindu mothers throwing their babies to the crocodiles,
701
etc. I noticed the Swami shrink as he read it and then
came a smile of merry mischief and he told in a half
serious, half comic manner how, when he was a baby, his
mother took him to the Ganges but that he was "such a fat
little baby the crocodiles refused to swallow me" ; and he
added facetiously, "whenever I feel badly about being
such a fat monk, I
#

702
 think of how I was saved from the crocodiles and am
comforted." Then he suddenly became very serious, even
stern, drew himself up proudly and in tones of thunder
hurled forth, "But, ladies and gentlemen, we, I assure
you, never burned witches." This brought down the house
and there was cheer after cheer, for an American
audience enjoys a joke on itself and none of us are proud
of the burning of witches at Salem . 18

To continue with the newspaper reports of this Saturday

evening lecture: The Tribune reporter, perhaps the same who
had earlier heard "giants" for "Jains," this time heard "bury"
for "burn." Otherwise, with the exception of Swamiji's state-
ments regarding the golden rule, he seems to have reported
more or less accurately:

THEIR OWN CHOICE

__________

That Story About Burying Widows Alive.

__________

Swami Vive Kananda's Version of an

Old Custom of India.
__________

The Practice Forbidden by One Emperor, but It

Grew Again Until Stopped by the English-Religious
Fanatics in All Religions.

703
 Swami Vive Kananda at the Unitarian Church last
night declared that widows were never buried alive in
India through religion or law, but the act in all cases had
been voluntary on the part of the women. The practice
had been forbidden by one emperor, but it had gradually
grown again until a stop was put to it by the English
government. Fanatics existed in all religions, the christian
as well as the Hindu. Fanatics in India had been known to
hold their hands over their heads in penance for so long a
time that the arm had gradually grown stiff in that posi-
#

704
tion, and so remained ever after. So, too, men had made a
vow to stand still in one position. These persons would in
time lose all control of the lower limbs and never after be
able to walk. All religions were true, and the people
practiced morality, not because of any divine command,
but because of its own good. Hindus, he said, did not
believe in conversion, calling it perversion. Associations,
surroundings and educations were responsible for the
great number of religions, and how foolish it was for an
exponent of one religion to declare that another man's
belief was wrong. It was as reasonable as a man from
Asia coming to America and after viewing the course of
the Mississippi to say to it: "You are running entirely
wrong. You will have to go back to the starting place and
commence it all over again: ' It would be just as foolish
for a man in America to visit the Alps and after following
the course of a river to the German Sea to inform it that
its course was too tortuous and that the only remedy
would be to flow as directed. The golden rule, he
declared, was as old as the earth itself and to it could be
traced all rules of morality. Man is a bundle of
selfishness. He thought the hell fire theory was all non-
sense. There could not be perfect happiness when it was
known that suffering existed. He ridiculed the manner
some religious persons have while praying. The Hindu,
he said, closed his eyes and communed with the inner
spirit, while some christians he had seen had seemed to
stare at some point as if they saw God seated upon his
heavenly throne. In the matter of religion there were two
extremes, the bigot and the atheist. There was some good
in the atheist, but the bigot lived only for his own little
705
 self. He thanked some anonymous person who had sent
him a picture of the heart of Jesus. This he thought a
manifestation of bigotry. Bigots belong to no religion.
They are a singular phenomena [sic].

This same paper (the Tribune, February 18) discussed the

#

706
importance of Swamiji's first three lectures-"Manners and
Customs of India," "Hindu Philosophy," and "The Divinity of
Man"-in an editorial entitled "The Hindu Among Us" :

People whose ideas of India and its inhabitants are

chiefly derived from the school book pictures of the
Hindu mother standing on the bank of the Ganges and
throwing her baby to a crocodile, and of the great car of
juggernaut rolling over and crushing scores of devotees,
must be a good deal astonished to hear a native Hindu
like Swami Vive Kananda talk For an hour or two before
intelligent American audiences, and hold their attention
to the point of absolute silence, upon the customs,
philosophy and religion of his own country. This heathen
speaks the English language with more elegance than is
usually heard from our platforms and pulpits, and he
seasons his descriptions with a refinement of wit that is
almost unequaled among all the speakers whose words
are familiar to our ears in public addresses. His intellect
is agile in a way that is marvelous, and if he stabs a belief
or a custom which is distasteful to him he always does it
with a needle and not with a pike-staff. His method is not
like that of our conventional speakers. In his habit of
moving about on the stage and talking sometimes in a
way that suggests a soliloquy, he reminds one of John
Fiske [a popular lecturer on history and Darwinism].
It is not necessary for one to be a Hindu, or to have any
sympathy with the Hindu system of religious belief, to
appreciate and enjoy a man like Vive Kananda who has
given a course of three lectures here in the last week. He
could apparently go on without much effort and talk for a
707
dozen successive evenings with a new topic and fresh
thoughts for every night. It would be hard to imagine him
reading from a manuscript or coming to an end of his
discourse except for the reason that his time was up. He is
not what is called a "talkative" man by any means, but
#

708
 when he is making a talk in the way of a lecture his
fluency and readiness and nicety of expression are
beyond praise.
It is a good sign when christians are willing to hear all
that can be said about religions other than their own. It is
a hopeful state of affairs ,when a distinguished christian
can meet a distinguished Hindu and listen respectfully to
what he has to offer. The congress of religions at Chicago
may be said to have marked an epoch in the history of
beliefs. It showed the advocates of diverse faiths that they
all had something to learn from each other. It was a great
and fruitful experiment in the field of religious toleration.
One result has been the appearance of this distinguished
Hindu in our midst. It would not hurt us to listen to a
disciple of Mahomet and another of Confucius. The study
of religions by comparison is not an old science but it is
one that marks in a very useful way the progress of the
nineteenth century.

This was, of course, the voice of liberal Christianity-a

voice, which, added to Swamiji's own, was enough to drive
missionaryminded Christians into a veritable frenzy.
Swamiji's opponents, however, almost invariably based their
criticism upon written reports of his lectures. Because of this,
a whole week went by and he had already left Detroit before
the pulpits resounded with attacks against his provocative
Saturday evening lecture, "The Divinity of Man," which was
not printed until Sunday morning-too late for the sermons.

709
 In the meantime, the liberal ministers who had heard his
lecture had much to say. On Sunday, February 18, the Rev-
erend Reed Stuart of the Unitarian Church delivered a sermon
entitled "The Gate Opening Toward the East," and Rabbi
Grossman of the Temple Beth El spoke on "What Vive
Kananda Has Taught Us." Condensed versions of both these
sermons were given in the Detroit Journal of February 19.
The
#

710
Detroit Tribune of the same date, however, gave a more com-
plete text of each. The following articles are excerpts from
the Tribune reports:

Rev. Reed Stuart preached a sermon on "The Gate

Opening Toward the East" at the Unitarian Church
yesterday morning. The subject was suggested by the
recent lectures of Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindu priest.
Kananda was in Mr. Stuart congregation yesterday
morning, and he nodded his head in approval at frequent
intervals during the discourse.
Mr. Stuart said: ". . . As persons are, so they think and
as they think they act. Thus, sciences, governments, arts,
philosophers, religions, are the product of temperament;
and temperament is largely a product of latitude and
longitude and material surroundings.
"Nowhere is this diversity more apparent than between
the east and west. The eastern mind deals with the larger
aspect of things; the western with the minute and measur-
able. The one believes in the All; the other also believes
in the All, but separates it into the Many. The one unites,
the other divides. The one believes in infinity the other in
boundaries. The one meditates; the other acts. . . . The
one thinks of nature as an illusion and something to be
freed from. The other faces nature, analyzes it, and sets it
to work for him. . . . The one has given philosophy; the
other science. The east has given religion; the west has
given creeds...
"The interesting young lecturer from India pleads that
those of his countrymen who have given themselves up
wholly to meditation shall be left to ply their avocation
711
undisturbed. The more critical and incisive intellects from
other nations should not molest them in their pleasant
dreams. His plea ought to be granted. But to grant that,
wholesale condemnation need not be passed upon all
those who are gifted with power of action, or mixing their
#

712
thoughts with nature and events and turning them to use
for the welfare of humanity. . . .
"Civilization is not a fixed quantity. It implies a
mysterious progress. It is mounting up a spiral stairway,
the first step of which lies hidden now in the black abyss
where the brute began to fade and the human began to
appear-where soul gained its first triumph over sense and
whose last step is still hidden in the empyrean. Mankind
is slowly and laboriously passing along it. The nations
are all groups upon it at different stages. Some are higher
than others. But no one is high enough to begin to boast.
What they should do is to make a sympathetic
comparison of the excellencies of each, and exchange
good for good for the benefit of all humanity, and not
make a hostile contrast between the best of one and the
worst of the other. There is no need for any nation to send
missionaries half around the world merely to point out
the defects of another nation. Whatever exchange there is
should be in kind. One excellence should be added to
another excellence. Our missionaries who have returned
have told us only of the vices of the East. When they
were there they only told of the virtue of the christian
civilization of the West. They told of the peace and purity
and gentleness of christianity. When they came home
they told us of the vices of paganism. The books they
wrote abounded in illustrations of the car of Juggernaut
and the deluded mortals casting themselves under the
wheels; of widows burning themselves upon the burial
pyre of their husbands; of devotees torturing themselves
in many ways; of aged parents exposed to die of neglect;
of mothers flinging their babies into the jaws of hideous
713
crocodiles. Whatever good there was was all concealed
from us.
"It would have been better for them and for us if they
had told all the truth. Now that the East is sending mis-
sionaries to the West, it is to be hoped that they will not
make the same mistake. They can go home and tell that
so
#

714
many in every thousand become murderers; many
become thieves; that intemperance is widespread; that
divorces are frequent; that there is much public and
private dishonesty; that infanticide is not unknown. It
would be easy to convince their countrymen that America
is a complete failure, and that christianity is a religion of
cruelty, fraud and superstitions. If they do this they will
only do what our missionaries have done in the past. How
much wiser and how much better for the world if they
would go and find what is good in each civilization and
carrying it back would make it common property. The
ivory of one nation would make a fine setting for the gold
of another nation. The spirituality of the East ought to be
set in the practical reason of the West. . . .
"There is a demand becoming now quite general for a
freer and larger religion. That we have gone to excess in
our zeal for exact definitions and measurements there
cannot be much doubt. Around religion we have built
doctrinal and verbal barriers. It was all confined to one
ancient book. Or it was crowded into a dogma, and put
into the pigeon holes the sects had made and labeled as
their own. . . .
"There is a growing disposition to remedy that
mistake. It is seen in the unrest now prevalent in all the
sects. . . . The time seems to be full of promise. Men are
looking through the gate which opens toward the East,
and see streaming through it the glory of the ideal, of the
infinite-the splendor of that universe which lies beyond
sense. . . .

715
 The Reverend Reed Stuart was perhaps a little cautious in
making comparisons between East and West, but not so
Rabbi Grossman. The rabbi, whose sermon follows, later
became a devoted friend of Swamiji. It was at his temple that
Swamiji lectured when he revisited Detroit in 1896:
#

716
 A GOD EVERY DAY
__________

Rabbi Grossman is Refreshed by Swami Vive Kananda

__________

Hails the Words of the Talented

Hindu as Great Wisdom
__________

The Lesson of Universal Brotherhood Taught by

the Indian-Too Much Creed about the Beliefs of
the West and Not Enough of True Religion.

Dr. Grossman, of the Temple Beth El, yesterday morn-

ing spoke on "What Vive Kananda Has Taught Us." He
said:

"It was refreshing to hear the healthy sense of Kananda

after the morbid ecstacy of the Chapman revival. After
listening to his truly natural religion one is not quite sure
but there is more heathenism in this land of ours than
ever we charged to his people. His religion goes beyond
the limits of creed. Our creeds often go beyond the decent
limits of religion. . . . Kananda says his Sanscrit has no
word for persecution, but our language, our theology, our
history, our life, is infected with a brood of such terms
and our society is only the truce, and hostilities in it never
cease. A quarrel about a vowel and the fine deduction of
717
the scholiasts from it set Europe afire with zealotry. That
word [homoiousian or homoousian] was written out with
the blood of nations. What has not bigotry done? It has
stalked, death in every step, over fertile fields and
peaceful homes. It has torn parents from children, and
children from parents, and today its gaunt hand is raised
in secret against fellow-citizens and neighbors. Thank
God, that at last, today, it must shrink from the light and
is driven to its last despair.
"For years the churches have had missionaries to India,
to China, and to the rest of the heathens. Good money,
and
#

718
what is more, the good will of the people have been put
into the proselyting work, while all along our poor were
at our door, and the charity, which was so much needed
here, was turned into an enterprise as sanctimonious as it
was distant. Every day hundreds pine away their dreary,
somber lives in the tenement houses of New York, in the
miserable back-yard shanties of our own city. The
ministration of kind people might have cheered many a
despondent soul, might have manned many an exhausted
laborer, might have refreshed lives and rescued children
from the infection and contagion of impoverished
morality, but missionaries had to go to the `heathen.'
How, in this good and sympathetic country of ours, such
an illusion, I will not say delusion, could enthrall the
robust and sound-sensed citizens, I do not understand.
Kananda has told us something of the heathen with a
clearness, with a precision, with a candor, which puts to
shame the confused and vehement pretension which so
long has usurped an unrighteous prestige in church and
religion.
"Religion is life, not thought. We have many ideas,
fine, elegant notions, but they float in the air. Our religion
deals with great ideas, but in catechisms only. The flesh
and the blood of the average man has not yet been
disciplined into the noble, natural sense, which is as
reliable as it is sufficient. We talk of brotherhood, but
insult freely a fellowman who happens to live in the East.
Our theology makes free to condemn dissenters to hell
and our priests and preachers are too busy in peopling the
lower world to notice they are at the same time despoiling
the world, for many, of its beauty, and charm and divine
719
attractiveness. . . We westerners, we have a God in the
sky. Kananda has a God on earth. Our spirit [God] from
the beginning is divinely idle save when unfortunate
persons who pray unctuously every Sunday give Him
something to do and send Him on multifarious errands of
grace. Let us learn from the Hindu the lesson that God
lives and reigns, now
#

720
 and ever, that God is in every flower of the field; in every
breath of the air; in every throb of our blood.
" `I take your Jesus,' Kananda said last Saturday even-
ing. `I take him to my heart as I take all the great and
good of all lands and of all times. But you, will you take
my Krishna to your heart? No-you cannot, you dare not
still you are the cultured and I am the heathen.'
"Here is the contrast, the great fatal flaw in
christianity. It is a sect, a restricted, limited sect, not that
responsive absorpture [sic], great world-thought and
world-fact of a brotherhood. Oh, we say much of
something like brotherhood and of equality and such
things. True words. But you hear your pastor in the
pulpit, that's one thing, do you see the facts of practice?
That's another.
"The Hindu is hospitable-`Aditi' [atithi, guest], cries
the child into the door of the house, though the family be
the poorest. `Aditi' is the charm that opens all the flood-
gates of hospitality, and. the guest is sacred. Contrast our
parlor hypocrisies. The church is a holy place-oh, so it is,
on Sunday for two hours. But not even on Sunday
evening, that's the time for the young to come in pairs, as
if to a party, which is as cheap as it is guileless. But to a
people of 5,000 years of domestic virtue and neighborly
rectitude every day is holy and every spot earnest and
significant. . . ."
Both these sermons reflected the current dissatisfaction
with Christian orthodoxy and the need for a vital religion
undivorced from the intellectual, emotional, and social
conditions of the modern world. It was a need which
Swamiji's teachings both stimulated and filled. But the
721
Evening News, which in a later article called itself "an arbiter
of the truth and an impartial friend or critic of all creeds and
dogmas," took a somewhat resentful attitude toward the idea
that the West could learn from the East. Rabbi Grossman's
talk on "What Vive Kananda Has Taught Us" did not sit too
well with the editor, as is
#

722
evidenced by the following excerpts from an editorial that
appeared in the News of February 20:

THE WONDERFUL LUCK OF

SWAMI KANANDA

Swami Vive Kananda may well pray his gods to save

him from his American friends. This oriental gentleman
came to Detroit last week and conducted himself in a
manner to win all hearts. In personal appearance his very
eye is suggestive of deep spirituality; in social converse
he is delightful; on the lecture platform he is eloquent and
persuasive. But the moment this distinguished personage
became a temporary guest of Detroit, his admirers began
to make him the fad of the hour. Though he did not give
to the people of this city a single utterance that added to
their previous knowledge of things in the heavens above
or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth,
yet he was pushed to the front in private conversation and
in editorials as the possessor of knowledges more
wonderful than have ever been revealed to the occidental
world.
Sunday the pulpit took up the fad, and Dr. Grossmann,
of Temple Beth El, devoted the time usually allotted to a
sermon to encomiums of the things that Kananda said in
Detroit, as if that gentleman said a single thing that the
students of christian literature are not perfectly familiar
with. . . .
It is true that Rabbi Grossmann pointed out yesterday a
thing or two that distinguishes, or which he concedes as
distinguishing, oriental from occidental modes of
723
thought. For instance, he points out that Kananda claims
for the Sanscrit language that it has no word for what we
call persecution. But does not the good rabbi know that
neither has the English language any such word? It is
probable that the Hindu monk did not know the meaning
of the word "persecute" when he made that ridiculous
compari-
#

724
 son. We ourselves had to borrow the word from the
Latins, and its meaning is nothing more horrid than to
"follow up." The English is quite as lacking as the
Sanscrit in a single word that expresses the idea of
continuous pursuance with the purpose of injuring. Does
the friend of Kananda believe that the Sanscrit has no
way of expressing the idea of persecution? Does he
believe Kananda if he says that the Hindu man never
followed up to injure a Hindu man? And will Kananda
look an intelligent occidental in the face with those great
honest eyes of his and affirm that his language would
have no word to express the act if a Hindu should
suddenly take to persecuting another Hindu ? . . .

(The remainder of this editorial consists of the paragraph,

earlier quoted, which tells of how the News "wrested
testimony" from Swamiji regarding miracles.)
Although those ministers who were, to say the least, not in
accord with Swamiji had missed his Saturday night lecture,
they undoubtedly found ample subject matter for many a
sermon in his first and second lectures-particularly the first,
in which he had said, with emphasis, that India was morally
head and shoulders above the United States or any other
nation on the globe and that missionaries would do well to
learn from her. Unfortunately, the first Sunday sermons
preached against Swamiji are not available, but that they
existed is evidenced from the following letter written by one
of his anonymous defenders. This letter, which appeared in
the Free Press of February 23, also gives a little information
regarding the almost constant "following up" Swamiji
endured:
725
 Praise For Kananda.

To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:

Much has been said about Swami Vive Kananda's
attacks on the Christian religion. I do not think any one
who has heard his lectures can truthfully say he has
#

726
attacked the religion itself-that is, what Jesus taught. On
the contrary, he has ever spoken with love and reverence
of Jesus and His work. What he has done is to denounce
the outward expression of so-called Christianity, the
creeds, dogmas, superstitions and bigotry which degrade
our faith on the one hand, and the dishonesty, cruelty,
intolerance and utter selfishness which dominate our
social and business life on the other. He has told us that
in India with its population of 300,000,000 in about half
the area of the United States, no one actually suffers for
food if food is to be had; that only in time of famine,
when there is no food, are any allowed to want. He that
hath freely gives to him that hath not. What does he see
in this country to-day, this country of twice the area of his
own and only 65,000,000 of people? Hundreds and
thousands cold and starving and half clad, not through a
Failure of the food supply, not because there is not plenty
of fuel in the land, not because we have no wool and
cotton for clothing-for there is an abundance and to spare
of all these, so that none may suffer-but because of our
false industrial conditions, because of our selfish greed
and grasping, every man for himself regardless of his
brother man, so that the few have almost all, the many
scarce nothing. Is this Christianity, what Jesus meant
when he said "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? I deny it.
Also, when we come to know the facts as to how Ka-
nanda has been treated personally, is it to be wondered at
that he has told us some caustic truths about ourselves? In
Chicago he was maligned and persecuted by fanatical
women-American women, think of it! In this city he has
been assailed with most insulting letters in nearly every
727
mail. Before he ever addressed one word to the public
here, a woman, be it said to her shame, took it upon
herself to attack and most unkindly denounce him to his
face in a house to which she was invited as a guest to
meet him. He has also been imposed upon and most
unjustly dealt with
#

728
in the management of his lecture tour through his lack of
knowledge of our laws and our custom to overreach and
take every mean advantage we can in business. He has
been preached against in almost savage terms from some
of our orthodox pulpits by ministers who know nothing
of what he has said except by the newspaper reports,
which, I think, were inadequate and greatly misleading.
How dare these men pronounce upon him without first
hearing him! "Judge not that ye be not judged."
Under these circumstances, is it astonishing that he has
told us some of our faults? Indeed, I think he has been
exceedingly mild and temperate. It seems to me it is a
good thing for us that people outside the Christian world
should come and tell us how we appear to them. Give us
more Kananda not less, to make us see ourselves as
others see us, say I. How is it that we, who claim to
worship the gentle Nazarene, who gave us a gospel of
toleration and love, were ever ready in the past to kill and
torture, and are in the present eager to bitterly attack and
persecute those who differ from us? Our preachers preach
the universal brotherhood of man, and yet, when the
eastern brother comes to us, we have nothing but
contumely for him. How can we expect him to form any
opinion of us other than he has?
And yet, Kananda, judge us not all to be so narrow and
unfeeling. There are some of us, not many, I am sorry to
say, who really try to strip our minds of the dogmas and
superstitions that have somehow attached themselves to
our faith, and to truly follow the humble and tender
teacher of Judea, whose love included the whole world,

729
 and all of us extend to you the hand of welcome and of
fellowship, and say to you, "brother."

JUSTITIA.

This letter from "Justitia" started off a controversy in the

Free Press letter column, "From Our Readers," that lasted
#

730
through February. The main issue was whether or not one had
to hear and see Swamiji before one could be in a position to
judge him. Although this argument was fruitless, it revealed
that those who had seen and heard him were convinced that
he was no mere lecturer, but a power, and that to see and hear
him was an experience, the essence of which one could not
communicate through words. It is evident that Swamiji's lec-
tures, significant as they are, were but a small fraction of
what he gave to America through the tremendous vitality of
his presence. Furthermore, those who heard him always
spoke of his "mild manner," "his liberal, generous and holy
spirit" and so forth. On reading his lectures, one finds his
criticisms sometimes drastic; yet he was never harsh, and
except for his enemies, those who heard him seldom took
offense at his rebukes, for such was his love for all men and
such was his uplifting power, that few felt from him anything
but benediction. The following letters are indicative of this,
and I believe they are also indicative of the general ferment
and excitement that Swamiji created in Detroit. "Justitia" and
"One Who Heard All The Lectures" are no doubt
representative of hundreds who heard him, and "Occidental"
of hundreds who didn't hear him and perhaps of some who
did.
The first response to "Justitia" from "Occidental" appeared
in the Free Press of February 25:

Kananda Again.

To The Editor of The Detroit Free Press:

Being one of those found fault with in a
communication in Friday morning's Free Press for
731
assuming to criticise Mr. Kananda without having heard
him, it seems eminently proper to state my position. Mr.
Kananda has been thrust upon me as a subject for
discussion without my asking. Some of my most intimate
and cordial friends, who have heard the Hindoo monk,
have not hesitated to discuss the subject matter of one or
more of his addresses in my
#

732
presence, thereby inevitably thrusting upon me the posi-
tion of defending my own tenets of faith or giving silent
consent to those of the discussion. And now, for sooth,
one is told that he must have heard the addresses in order
to deal fairly with the subject.
My position is like this, which is formulated merely
from the statements of what my friends have heard. The
conviction is strongly impressed on my mind that this
man of the east is as great a trickster with facts as some
of his native prestidigitators are with eggs, or other
material objects, making them appear and disappear at
pleasure. Don't infer from this, please, a fear on my part
of having my religious faith shaken by what he might
say; this would imply a decided lack of steadfastness, but
rather infer a scorning to hear sacred truths handled in a
spirit savoring in the least of unfairness or charlatanism.
And now please follow me through one or two
examples of this lack of fairness in Mr. Kananda's
method of treating Christianity. In the course of one of
his discussions he read letters or extracts of letters that
had been addressed to him here. One of these he stated
contained a picture, for which he desired to return thanks,
which picture he further stated was ca4ed "The Heart of
Our Savior." Of course it was only necessary to make
such a statement without comment to cause a sardonic
smile to ripple over an audience of Christian believers, to
say nothing of the emotions caused in the skeptics
present. However, Mr. Kananda must have known that
he thus implied an exhibition of a synonym of our
religion, whereas, and notwithstanding any amount of
gentlest sentiment that might cluster around such a
733
symbol of our Savior's love for the sender, ninety-nine
persons out of every hundred would say, and ought to
say, on sober second thought, that there was more
sentiment than sense in thus placing a weapon of ridicule
in an opponent's hands. But is this a fair way to deal with
such a sacred subject, may I ask?
#

734
 Again, Mr. Kananda stated that one inquirer wished to
know whether or not they burned widows in his country.
To this he replied by condoning the fact that widows
burned themselves, as he stated, and added: "We do not
burn witches in India." Here is exhibited the same spirit
of unfairness and ridicule. Does Mr. Kananda mean to
seriously imply that we condone the burning of witches
as a tenet of our religious faith, or that the Christian
world ever did so?
We assume to be progressive, if anything, and assert
with little fear of controversion that Christianity has done
more to humanize mankind, wherever founded, than any
or all other religions. Then, why this implication by Mr.
Kananda? Undoubtedly we have the Spanish inquisition,
the Scottish kirk and the Salem, Mass., episodes to blush
for in connection with the followers of our faith, but we
have not, thank heaven, such scenes as attended the
Sepoy insurrection as a recent heritage from the
humanizing influences of Christianity.
Let me suggest, in closing, that if any friends conclude
to serenade Mr. Kananda before he leaves our city, that
they may secure a Scotch band to play "The Campbells
are Coming," which, it will be remembered, was the first
sound to greet the ears of the besieged at Lucknow and
notify them that relief was at hand.
OCCIDENTAL.

Detroit, February 24,

735
 Before "Justitia" had a chance to answer this diatribe, she
gained an ally in "One Who Heard All The Lectures":

Doesn't Think Hearsay Will Do.

To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:

I observed a communication in this morning's Free

Press from one who signs himself "Occidental." The
writer states
#

736
that one cannot judge Kananda, so he is told, unless he
has heard the monk. The writer of the communication ex-
presses surprise that he is not capable of judging him
from what his friends have told him about the lectures. It
seems to me that one could as easily criticise one of
Raphael's pictures from hearsay as to express an opinion
about anyone without having heard him. I could just as
accurately pass an opinion upon one of Mozart's operas
from having heard a friend hum or whistle a few arias as
this writer can upon the Brahman visitor without either
having met him or having listened to him. Under the
circumstances it seems supremely stupid either to sit in
judgment or even to venture to express an opinion, no
matter how pompous the writer may be in the way he
words his opinions. In confessing to ignorance of the
monk, the writer stamps his ideas of him at once as
totally valueless and unworthy of more than passing
mention. One should realize that hearsay cannot be
depended upon; after statements have passed through a
few hands they emerge in all kinds of distorted forms,
and this meager and misleading information is all that the
writer has to base his opinions upon. Without in any way
desiring to eulogize Kananda, it might not be amiss to
respectfully advise the writer of the communication under
consideration to go and hear the monk when he again
comes here, to digest carefully what he says, sleep over
it, throw away from his clouded intellect all habiliments
of prejudice and then, after praying and fasting For a
time, write another letter to The Free Press, giving his
estimate of the character of the visitor's religious
teachings.
737
 I was at the lecture and heard what Kananda said about
witches. He cast no reflection on Christians. What he said
was that, so far as widows being thrown into the flames
by the people of his country was concerned, no facts
could bear out the exaggerated statements of travelers
relating thereto. After refuting the falsehood, he added,
but in
#

738
"India they never did burn witches." So much for this
alleged fling at Christianity. The conclusion of the letter
is unworthy of serious consideration. In India Kananda
says that the Hindoos receive the Christian missionaries
in the spirit of tolerance. They smile at them and say:
"Let them go ahead. They are children in religion. Let
them amuse themselves." They regard them with a broad
philosophical smile. How differently have we treated a
single Hindoo missionary? We haven't stoned him or
tried to boil him in a pot in a cannibal fashion, but we
have assailed him with mean, anonymous letters, calling
him all kinds of vilifying names and have politely
informed him, without signing any names, that there was
a warm place waiting for him hereafter, and we have
robbed him of the funds to which he is entitled as a
lecturer. No wonder he feels bitter toward Americans as a
money-loving country when he has realized hardly
nothing from his lectures for the grand object he has in
view-the establishment of an educational institution in
India-while his unscrupulous managers have reaped
nearly all. Kananda knows not the value of money. He
was an easy mark for speculating managers. I am not a
profound admirer of Kananda, but I like to see a square
deal given everyone even if he is a "heathen."

ONE WHO HEARD ALL THE LECTURES.

Detroit, February 25.

739
 "Occidental," who, on the whole, does not appear to have
been very bright, evidently confused "One Who Heard All
the Lectures" with his original opponent `;Justitia," and
answered as though carrying on the same correspondence:

More Kananda.

To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:

It appears that "One Who Heard All the Lectures"
(Kananda's) still insists that a person must at least hear
#

740
the oriental, whether inclined that way or not, in order to
enter into an intelligent discussion of the subject matter
of his discourses. But, unhappily for me, there is added
both penance and prayer before my condition will be
fitted for this exalted privilege. And it is hinted at in the
Raphael simile that one must see as well as hear
Kananda before a just estimate of his discourses can be
formed; be it known, therefore, that Occidental must have
seen him once, having occupied a front seat at the
opening of the world's congress of religious bodies.
However, isn't all this simply absurd?
Suppose the Hindoo's addresses had received that
attention that "One Who Heard All the Lectures" regards
as requisite, must another person surrender at command
every opinion formed by forty years of casual reading as
well as those resulting from conversations with an
intimate acquaintance (a missionary's son), born in India,
who grew to young manhood there, speaking their
language and singing their songs, merely on Kananda's
statements?
Having heard and seen the Hindoo, is it not possible
that some might not be better prepared to discuss the
questions involved than before: besides, in this country is
it not usual to defend opinions when they are assailed
without such formality as this case seems to demand?
Sympathy is extended to the disappointment
manifested over the financial failure of Kananda's
undertaking, but if he also failed to make converts here,
please regard the sympathy as ending with the money
questions involved.

741
 In conclusion, please receive assurance that nothing
has been said less complimentary of Kananda than he has
said collectively of all American men and women.

OCCIDNTAL
February 27, 1894

But it was "Justitia" who had the last word. In the same
column as the above letter, appeared her reply to "Occi-
dental's" previous one.
#

742
 "Justitia" to "Occidental."

To The Editor of The Detroit Free Press :

Referring to the letter of "Occidental" in reply to my

former communication, I am pleased to see the gentleman
realized his position required defense. He admits that the
inquisition, Scottish kirk and Salem persecutions were
stains upon our past, but from his manner of referring to
the Sepoy insurrections as a recent outcome of the eastern
faith, one is led to infer that he would have us think we
have no blots upon our modern life to blush for. In the
first place, the Sepoy rebellion was not altogether a
religious matter. It was the rising of a subject people
against a foreign invader, and would never have occurred
if the English had kept their hands off India. It was not a
case of fratricidal strife of the people among themselves.
Let us look at Christendom. Has the gentleman forgotten
the French revolution, an internal outbreak of the people
against rulers of their own blood and faith, the atrocities
of which certainly equaled, if they did not surpass, those
of the Sepoy mutiny? And yet France had been Christian
for centuries. Coming to our own time and country, has
he also forgotten the war of the rebellion, which
emphatically was one of brother against brother, where
we sprung to cut one another's throats in the heart of our
own nation and the horrors of whose Andersonville and
Libby prisons, at least, were not far behind those he refers
to? And yet we were Christians, and so were our
743
forefathers for generations before us. Kananda does not
claim that his religion and civilization contain all the
good there is in the world and ours all the bad. Neither
should we, I think, arrogate to ourselves all the good and
ascribe to his land all the bad. Let us be actuated by a
broad spirit of charity and remove the beam from our
own eyes before we attempt to do so for others. As to the
principles upon which our
#

744
 civilization and faith are founded, there are none grander.
Let us live up to them.
In conclusion, I would ask the reverend brother
whether he thinks such preaching and writing as he has
indulged in exemplify a gospel of love. Also, would a
brass band serenading Kananda with "The Campbells Are
Coming" be Jesus' way to bring the stranger within our
gates to a realizing sense of the "humanizing" influence
of Christianity?
JUSTITIA

Detroit, February 26.

This was the end of the matter. "Occidental" no doubt went

on thinking as he thought, but for nearly a month he wrote no
more letters, or if he did, they were not published.
While we are on the subject of letters, a curious one
appeared in the Free Press letter column during the progress
of the above controversy. It is difficult to know just what the
writer was endeavoring to prove, but whatever it may have
been, his letter stands as added testimony that Swamiji's
statements were not taken lightly by anyone. They were
either vehemently resented or heartily endorsed. In this age of
transition, in which Western civilization was beginning to re-
examine its foundations and structure, Swamiji, as has been
pointed out, championed the reforming and progressive spirit
of America. The liberal forces rallied round him, while the
reactionary forces attacked him with any weapon they could-
even citing at length the ancient laws of Manu. The letter in
question read in part as follows:

745
 Hindoo vs. Christian Civilization and Law.

To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:

In view of the fact that this community has been

recently favored with the presence of a distinguished and
learned Hindoo monk-Kananda-who expressed himself
freely, as he had an undoubted right to do, in criticism of
our
#

746
"Christian" civilization, I am tempted to devote a leisure
hour or two in laying before the multitude of your
readers, a few scattered points of Hindoo law, as taken
from Sir William Jones' "Institutes of Hindoo Law,"
being a translation of the "Ordinances of Manu."
The laws of a nation are the best criterion of its
civilization. The extracts herewith presented-like the
early statutes or ordinances of the Puritans in this land-
may have been, many of them, repealed; but do not both
tend to show the fact, as the monk is reported to have
stated, of a kinship of both peoples to the ancient Aryan
race, with the Sanscrit language in common? I quote: "In
the Hindoo law of Baron and Feme we find many
judicious enactments. Thus every Hindoo is enjoined not
to marry `a girl with reddish hair,' or `with inflamed
eyes,' or who is `immoderately talkative,' but one who
`walks gracefully like a phenecopteros ( ?) or like a
young elephant.' By way of insuring respect for the Feme
(woman) in the married state, the Baron is very properly
forbidden `to eat with his wife or look at her eating or
sneezing, or yawning, or sitting carelessly at her ease.'
The gentleman is also himself enjoined not `to read
lolling on a couch, nor with his feet raised on a bench,
nor with his thighs crossed, nor having lately swallowed
meat.' "
The mode of recovering a debt is much the same as
under the Grutoo law: "By whatever means a Lawful
creditor may have gotten possession of his own property,
let the king ratify such payment by the debtor, though
obtained even by compulsory means. By the mediation of
friends, by suit in court, by artful management, or by
747
distress, a creditor may recover the property lent, and
fifthly by legal force." [Here followed a solid column of
ancient Hindu laws which were not pertinent to
nineteenth century America. The writer, no doubt a
lawyer, ended his letter with the following plea:]
I ask the admirers and apologists of this monk if the
#

748
 standard of civilization is the regulated liberty enjoyed by
and the enlightened intelligence possessed by the in-
dividual in a nation, about how much inferior are the
American people of to-day to this priest-ridden people of
Hindoostan?

HAMILTON GAY HOWARD.

Detroit, February 23, 1894

While Swamiji was making enemies among the "blue-

nosed,"
"hard-shelled," and "soft-shelled" fanatics, he was at the
same time making numerous friends among the cultured and
intellectual circles of Detroit. Readers of the Life know from
the letters of Mrs. Bagley how deeply he was respected in
that "old conservative city," and how much sought after.
Perhaps no day went by during his stay in Detroit that he was
not entertained. "We all enjoyed every day of the six weeks
he spent with us," Mrs. Bagley writes. ". . . He was invited by
the different clubs of gentlemen in Detroit, and dinners were
given him in beautiful homes so that greater numbers might
meet him and talk with him and hear him talk . . . and
everywhere and at all times he was, as he deserved to be,
honoured and respected."19
A report in the "Personal and Social" column of the Detroit
Journal of Monday, February 19, tells of the various
luncheons, teas, and dinners given For Swamiji during his
first week in Detroit. Although the following item seems
somewhat confused, it at least indicates that he was often and
749
elaborately entertained, or, more to the point, that many
people came into close contact with him, conversed with him
and absorbed something of his thought, and who knows how
much of his spirit:

"PERSONAL AND SOCIAL"

Charles L. Freer gave a small reception and supper

Saturday evening in honour of Swami Vive Kananda.
#

750
 The guests were George H. Russel, William H. Wells,
Bryant Walker, Dr. F. W. Mann, Fred H. Seymour, John
N. Bagley, Joseph H. Brewster, L. A. McCreary, John C.
Grout, Capt. Gardiner, Charles M. Swift, F. T. Sibley,
Harry W. Skinner, Dr. Devendorf, T. S. Jerome, Dr.
Jennings, I. T. Cowles, L. F. Schultz, George Mason,
Zach Rice, S. T. Douglass, George Nettleton, George S.
Hosmer and Rev. Reed Stuart.
A number of fashionable and private entertainments
were given last week in honor of the social lion of the
day, Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindoo monk. Tuesday
evening [?] Miss Helen Bagley gave a luncheon at the
Detroit club to a favored few. Thursday evening, the
evening after the large public reception given by Mrs.
John J. Bagley, at the family residence on Washington-
ave., a select tea was given by Mrs. Bagley. Friday
evening C. L. Freer entertained the Witenagamote club at
his home on Ferryave., for Mr. Kananda. A number of
other guests were present. All of these entertainments
were very elaborate affairs.

Mr. Charles L. Freer was a young railway and industrial

capitalist-a partner in the Michigan-Peninsular Car Company,
which was the largest car-building enterprise in the country.
Huge fortunes were made readily in the latter part of the
nineteenth century, and, as has been pointed out, even before
the advent of the automobile Detroit was a city of industry
and wealth. For the most part, wealthy industrialists were
absorbed in making and spending their fortunes. But Freer
was an exception to the rule. "By one of those subtle
alchemies of personality that escape logic," one account of
751
him tells, his interest was centered in Oriental art. Charles
Freer gathered what is said to be the greatest collection of
Chinese and Japanese masterpieces ever brought together in
America. This entire collection he later gave to the
Smithsonian Institution of Washington, D.C., together with
the building which
#

752
today houses it. Although Freer did not start to gather his
masterpieces in earnest until he retired in 1900, very likely
his house already showed signs of itself becoming a museum
of Oriental art when Swamiji dined there in 1894.
A meal served at Mr. Freer's would have been perfection
from start to finish, a ceremonial offering to his guests; for
this connoisseur of art would suffer nothing short of
excellence in all things. "Many of his chefs were returned to
New York from his Middle Western home; ' it has been
written of him, "having survived but a single meal. His
finicky scrutiny missed no detail."20 But if not all the formal
dinners of the 1890s were as unflawed as Mr. Freer's, all were
of necessity Gargantuan, one large course following upon
another endlessly, each with its appropriate wine; each, when
no ladies were present, punctuated by cigars. For Swamiji,
these dinners were, in their way, a kind of tapasya.
It is rather wearisome this constant receptions & din-
ners [Swamiji confided to Mrs. Hale in a letter of
February 20]. And their horrible dinners-100 dinners
concentrated into one! And when in a man's club, why
smoking goes on between the courses and then begins
afresh. I thought the Chinese alone make a dinner run
through half a day with intervals of smoking!!

Yet Swamiji appreciated the kindness of his Detroit

Friends. "They are very gentlemanly men," he went on, "and
strange to say an episcopal clergyman & a Jewish Rabbi take
great interest in me and eulogise me."21
It seems unfortunate that those who knew Swamiji in the
various American cities he visited were not contacted during
their lifetime. What a wealth of anecdotes could have been
753
gathered! But at least two incidents, which could have
occurred at Freer's dinner party, are preserved by the
following item in the Evening News of February 25:
#

754
 CULTURE AT HOME.
__________

Anecdotes of Swami Vive Kananda's Visit to Detroit.

Anecdotes of Swami Vive Kananda's visit are

numerous and amusing-at least they must have been
amusing to him, although a little humiliating to the
American self love. One lady said:
"I really was ashamed at the contrast between the
knowledge possessed by him and by some of our Detroit
men who consider themselves gentlemen of culture. At
one dinner party a gentleman asked Kananda what books
he would advise him to read on chemistry, whereupon the
Hindu monk responded with a long list of English works
on this science, which one would naturally expect an
American to know more about than a Hindu. Another
gentleman followed by a request as to books on
astronomy, to which Kananda obligingly answered with
another equally good list of English astronomical works.
But his growing astonishment reached its climax when a
lady spoke of `The Christ,' and said, `What do those
words mean?' He again furnished the desired information,
but in a tone growing slightly sarcastic."
Probably the choicest example of nineteenth century
civilization and culture was given by a lady, who asked
Kananda if he liked the English. He very naturally re-
sponded that he did not. Then she continued, with fine
tact, to pursue the subject still further by touching refer-
755
 ences to that pleasant event, the Sepoy rebellion. As the
Hindu grew excited she smiled at him ironically and said:
"I thought I could disturb your philosophical Eastern
calm."
It was indeed rare for Swamiji to grow excited. Those who
knew him often remarked upon the fact that no matter how
violent his antagonist, he remained always calm and serene.
#

756
Perhaps the only subject which aroused his anger, particularly
in the early days, was that of the English in India-a topic best
left undiscussed. But there was no dearth of topics to discuss
with Swamiji, who continually surprised and delighted his
friends with his unending knowledge on every imaginable
subject. The conversations at the private gatherings held for
him must have covered many fields-science, history, art,
politics and upon each he must have thrown the light not only
of his intellectual knowledge but of his spiritual insight. But
the subject dearest to his heart was India. That the desire to
collect funds for his motherland was still uppermost in his
mind during the Detroit period can be seen from the
following excerpts of an oracle that appeared in the Tribune
of February 18, written by one of the guests at the evening
supper given by Mr. Freer:

HINDU PHILOSOPHY
__________

Its Recent Expression by Vive Kananda.

__________

His Mission Worthy the Serious

Attention of Americans.
__________

The Two Remarkable Things in the United States Which

Gratifies the Distinguished Pagan-What Environment
757
 Will Do for Any People-Rap at Missionaries.

There has seldom been such a sensation in cultured

circles in Detroit, as that created by the advent of Swami
Vive Kananda, the learned Hindu monk, whose excep-
tional command of our own language has enabled us to
receive impressions concerning ourselves from an
oriental standpoint and to acquire knowledge of a people
of whose peculiar civilization and philosophy we have
heard so much.
Both in public and private the Hindu brother has talked
freely and frankly. He acknowledges that the masses in
#

758
India are very poor, very ignorant and are divided into a
diversity of sects, with forms of worship varying from
downright idolatry to the broadest and most liberal Form
of divine conception based on the brotherhood of man
and the oneness of God. His mission, he says, is not to
proselyte us-to try and make us think as he does-but to
get means to start a college in India for the education of
teachers who are to go among the common people and
work a reform of existing evils, of which there are many.
He states that India is priest-ridden to a harrowing degree.
It is priest craft that distorts truth and perpetuates
ignorance. It is priest-craft that substitutes its own crude
and narrow interpretations for truth, which perverts the
people and prevents their moral progression. The Swami
regards all sects and creeds from a broad basis. He even
sees good in idolatry. It is an ideal, he thinks, for the
ignorant whose mental capacity is insufficient to grasp
abstract ideas, and who require a direct personification in
some material form. He frankly states that we of the
occident are also retarded in our progression by too much
priest-craft, and that we are not free from idolatrous
practices, in that some of our sects worship shrines,
figures and pictures and even the sanctity with which the
rostrum and pulpit of a modern church is regarded is an
ideal idolatry.

Two Remarkable Things in This Country

The Swami notes two most remarkable things in this

country, when asked his frank opinion of us: First, the
superiority of our women, as regards influence in position
759
and intellect. Second, in our charities and treatment of the
poor, he says, we have almost solved the problem as to
what shall be done with them. Not only in this, in the
direction of hospitals and charitable institutions, but in
our tremendous development of labor-saving machinery.
He has no admiration for our material progress, as it does
#

760
not make man better, nor for our boasted civilization, as
we only ape and imitate the customs and manners of the
English-sometimes to a very ridiculous extent. We are yet
too young, to have a distinctive civilization; we have yet
to assimilate the human sewerage of Europe we have
allowed to be poured upon us, before we produce a
distinct American type.
[The writer goes on to say that Swamiji's Indian back-
ground makes it difficult for him to understand that
Western competitiveness is not undesirable but a primal
law of nature itself-the survival of the fittest-and that
inasmuch as "the dreamy and sentimental philosophy of
the Hindoos" accounts for their poverty, degradation, and
domination by a "mere handful of Englishmen," the
Swami would do well neither to ignore nor to despise the
materialism of the West. Having thus editorialized, he
continues:]

His Criticism of Missionaries

If what he states is true about the results accomplished

by foreign missions in India, the various boards of these
various organizations would do well to consult him and
follow his advice. It is for the betterment of his people he
is here. But he says missionary work does no good; only
adds additional sects and creeds to an already sect-ridden
country; that the teachings of the Vedas, with which
every Hindoo is familiar, is identical with the teachings
of Christ. He makes the reasonable plea that foreign
creeds and dogmas are not consonant with their inherited

761
proclivities or civilization, and are consequently difficult
to propagate.
The mission of Kananda is, however, one that should
commend it[self] to every lover of humanity. He hopes to
see the best of our material philosophy and progress in-
fused into Hindoo civilization, and that, also, we may
take lessons from them, until we shall all become, as we
once
#

762
 were in ages past, brother Aryans, possessing a common
civilization-the exalted philosophy of non-self, being
alike without sect or creed in oneness with God.
FRED H. SEYMOUR.

It is almost impossible to know how much help Swamiji

was able to obtain for the work in India From individual
donations, but very likely some of his wealthy and
sympathetic friends contributed at least something to his
cause. We know, for instance, that Mr. Charles Freer was
such a contributor. The following letter written by Mrs.
Bagley's eldest married daughter to Swamiji after he had left
Detroit the first time gives evidence of this and also that he
was considering a return to India. It was dated February 24
and addressed to the care of Mrs. Hale at 541 Dearborn
Avenue, Chicago:

Dear Mr. Vive Kananda:

My mother wishes me to write for her, expressing her

regret that the draft for the money received here was not
sent today. It will go early Monday morning, and I trust
will be received on time to save you any annoyance.
Mr. Freer, the gentleman at whose house we dined,
sent a check last evening, for two hundred dollars-to Mrs.
Bagley-to be forwarded to you, so that is included in the
draft.
Do believe me-my dear Mr. Kananda-when I say that
when you have been able to enlist the interest and
practical help of men like my friend Mr. Freer, in your
work, you have no right to go back to India without one
763
supreme effort for your normal school: your personal
appeal-with your magnetism-your powerful-masterful
presence, can alone make that appeal effective. If in any
way we can aid you-I am sure you will ask us, feeling
sure of our sympathy and respect.
Yours very sincerely22
Florence Bagley Sherman
#

764
 The draft referred to was made out for the sum of money
Swamiji had received in Detroit through his lectures and
donations, as one learns from a letter he wrote to Mrs. Hale
on February 22 (to be shortly quoted in full). It may also be
mentioned, parenthetically, that it was of Mrs. Bagley's
daughter that he wrote to Mary Hale on March 30, when he
was about to make his final departure from Detroit: "By the
by, Mrs. Sherman has presented me with a lot of things
amongst which is a nail set and letter holder and a little
satchel etc., etc. Although I objected, especially to the nail
set, as very dudish with mother of pearl handles, she insisted
and I had to take them although I do not know what to do
with that brushing instrument. Lord bless them all. She gave
me one advice-never to wear this Afrikee dress in society.
Now I am a society man! Lord! What comes next? Long life
brings queer experiences!"23
Although Swamiji's first visit to Detroit extended from
February 12 to 23, he had originally intended to stay only one
week, giving a series of three lectures at the Unitarian
Church. But the people-the hundreds who had heard him
speak both publicly and at private gatherings, and the
hundreds more who wanted to hear him-would not let him
leave their city so soon. As is seen by the following
announcement in the Free Press of Monday, February 19, he
was induced to give a Fourth lecture:

VIVE KANANDA ON "LOVE."

765
 The Hindoo monk, Vive Kananda, will give an extra
lecture at the Unitarian Church on Wednesday evening,
February 21, on the subject of "Love." Many of those
who have already heard him, and many who have failed
to do so, have put in a special request for another
opportunity to listen to his interesting and eloquent
discourses.
#

766
 There was some confusion regarding the date on which this
lecture was to be given. As has been seen above, it was an-
nounced, as late as February 19, as scheduled for
Wednesday, February 21. Other papers made this same
mistake in their "Amusement Columns," which must have
misled all those who failed to check further, for actually
Swamiji gave his fourth lecture on Tuesday, February 20. But
although a correction did not appear in the papers until
Tuesday morning, the confusion of dates did not confound
too many. The Unitarian Church was jammed, and one is
reminded of Sister Christine's description of Swamiji's
Detroit audiences:

"Those who came to the first lecture at the Unitarian

Church came to the second and to the third bringing others
with them. `Come,' they said, `hear this wonderful man. He is
like no one we have ever heard'; and they came until there
was no place to hold them. They filled the room, stood in the
aisles, peered in at the windows." And Swamiji's fourth
lecture, which Sister Christine does not mention, was the
most crowded of all!
The Free Press report on "The Love of God" was one of
those which were sent by Mary Funke to Swami
Brahmananda and has been reproduced (in slightly altered
form) is volume eight of the Complete Works. The headlines
and first paragraph of the actual report read as follows:

SONGS OF SOLOMON
__________
767
 Kananda Views Them with the Greatest Admiration.
__________

One Should Not Approach God in a Begging Spirit.

__________

Story of the Religion of a Hindoo Saint.

__________

Another Lecture This Afternoon on

Hindoo Philosophy

Vive Kananda delivered a lecture on "The Love of

God" at the Unitarian church last night, before the largest
#

768
 audience that he has yet had. The trend of the lecturer's
remarks was to show that we do not accept God because
we really want Him, but because we have need of Him
for selfish purposes. Love, said the speaker, is something
absolutely unselfish; that which has no thought beyond
the glorification and adoration of the object upon which
our affections are bestowed. It is a quality which bows
down and worships and asks nothing in return. . . .

Another report of this lecture, which will not be so

familiar, was given by the Tribune of February 21, as
follows:

THE HINDU ON LOVE

__________

He addresses a Large and Fashionable Audience

The First Unitarian Church was crowded last night to

hear Vive Kananda. The audience was composed of
people who came from Jefferson avenue and upper part
of Woodward avenue. Most of it was ladies who seemed
deeply interested in the address and applauded several
remarks of the Brahman with much enthusiasm.
The love that was dwelt upon by the speaker was not
the love that goes with passion, but a pure and holy love
that one in India feels for his God. As Vive Kananda
stated at the commencement of his address the subject
was "The Love the Indian Feels for His God." But he did
not preach to his text. The major portion of his address
was an attack on the christian religion. The religion of the
769
Indian and the love of his God was the minor portion.
The points in his address were illustrated with several
applicable anecdotes of famous people in the history. The
subjects of the anecdotes were renowned Mogul
emperors of his native land and not of the native Hindu
kings.
The professors of religion were divided into two
classes by the lecturer, the followers of knowledge and
the followers of devotion. The end in the life of the
followers
#

770
 of knowledge was experience. The end in the life of the
devotee was love.
Love, he said, was a sacrifice. It never takes, but it
always gives. The Hindu never asks anything of his God,
never [prays] for salvation and a happy hereafter, but
instead lets his whole soul go out to his God in an
entrancing love. That beautiful state of existence could
only be gained when a person felt an overwhelming want
of God. Then God came in all of His fullness.
There were three different ways of looking at God.
One was to look upon Him as a mighty personage and
fall down and worship His might. Another was to
worship Him as a father. In India the father always
punished the children and an element of fear was mixed
with the regard and love for a father. Still another way to
think of God was as a mother. In India a mother was
always truly loved and reverenced. That was the Indian's
way of looking at their God.
Kananda said that a true lover of God would be so
wrapt up in his love that he would have no time to stop
and tell members of another sect that they were following
the wrong road to secure the God, and strive to bring him
to his way of thinking.
Vive Kananda said last night that he expected to leave
Detroit this evening.
The ,Journal also commented on "The Love of God" as
follows:

A MERE HOBBY
__________

771
 That is Vive Kananda's Opinion of Modern Religion.

If Vive Kananda, the Brahmin monk, who is delivering

a lecture course in this city could be induced to remain
for a week longer the largest hall in Detroit would not
hold the crowds which would be anxious to hear him. He
has
#

772
 become a veritable fad, as last evening every seat in the
Unitarian church was occupied, and many were
compelled to stand throughout the entire lecture.
The speaker's subject was, "The Love of God." His
definition of love was "something absolutely unselfish;
that which has no thought beyond the glorification and
adoration of the object upon which our affections are
bestowed." Love, he said, is a quality which bows down
and worships and asks nothing in return. Love of God, he
thought, was different. God is not accepted, he said, be-
cause we really need him, except for selfish purposes. His
lecture was replete with story and anecdote, all going to
show the selfish motive underlying the motive of love for
God. The Songs of Solomon were cited by the lecturer as
the most beautiful portion of the Christian Bible and yet
he had heard with deep regret that there was a possibility
of their being removed. "In fact," he declared, as a sort of
clinching argument at the close, "the love of God appears
to be based upon a theory of `What can I get out of it?'
Christians are so selfish in their love that they are con-
tinually asking God to give them something, including all
manner of selfish things. Modern religion is, therefore,
nothing but a mere hobby and fashion and people flock to
church like a lot of sheep ."
Kananda expected to leave the city this morning, but
he has been prevailed upon to remain over and deliver
one more lecture this afternoon. It will be given at the
residence of Mrs. John J. Bagley.

Jefferson Avenue and the upper part of Woodward

Avenue, referred to at the beginning of the Tribune report,
773
were representative of the most fashionable residential streets
of Detroit. Here many of the city's influential industrialists of
the nineties lived in large stone mansions, surrounded,
especially on Woodward Avenue, by broad lawns and great
trees. It was primarily from this district that Swamiji drew
his audience. Yet it was
#

774
hardly his fault that those who attended his lectures belonged
for the most part to the intellectual and cultured classes.
Indeed it could not very well have been otherwise. Nor was it
his fault that the progressive ministers who espoused his
cause had, at the same time, a reputation for catering to the
wealthy and the fashionable. Yet, there existed so much
bitterness between classes in the nineties that Swamiji was
accused, along with other slander, of being exclusive! One
such criticism came in a letter dated March 20, 1894, to the
editor of the Free Press from one who certainly had not heard
all the lectures.
The anonymous writer stated with a good deal of asperity
that the preachers of progressive, or creedless, Christianity,
catered only to wealth and aristocracy, thus dividing religion
into social castes and failing to make any impression on the
masses.

From a social standpoint [he writes], the religious

revival inaugurated in Detroit by Swami Vive Kananda,
Citizen Palmer and ethers is the ideal of missionary work.
To deliver well-paid lectures to a select audience, to give
banquets where the guests are all intellectual and interest-
ing people, and then and there, while sipping good old
wine, discourse on genuine Christianity, free from the
cobwebs of creed-that indeed is the latest and most
pleasant device yet imagined to diffuse the right kind of
religion among our fellowmen. . . . When Vive Kananda
said to his audience at the Detroit Opera House, "Send to
India missionaries like Francis Xavier, who mingled with
the downtrodden people," this was the best illustration of
what we need in this country as much as in India. For
775
when Vive Kananda was extolling true Christianity and
lauding missionaries like Francis Xavier, the poor of
Detroit could not listen to him, because they had not the
money to pay for their seats and their clothes were too
antiquated to sit with propriety among his well-dressed
listeners.
#

776
 The writer of the above explains Swamiji's affiliation
with progressive Christian ministers by stating that he
was brought up in a religion which for "6,000 years has
divided India into exclusive castes." He then concludes
his article with the somewhat irrelevant observation that
the "so-called science of the Hindoo sages was looked
upon with reverence only so long as it was kept secret,"
and that, submitted to the light of investigation, it was
found incapable of producing a single laborsaving device.
This letter was no doubt representative of a popular resent-
ment against "fashionable religion." But in charging Swamiji
with religious snobbishness the writer failed to realize, in the
first place, that the non fashionable Christian creeds would
not give him a hearing and, in the second place, that Swamiji
had asked Christian missionaries to give to the poor in India
not religion but bread. In India rich and poor had religion to
spare, whereas in America both were in need of it. A further
point that might be mentioned here is that Swamiji, in the
tradition of Hindu monks, accepted the hospitality of rich and
poor alike and with equal compassion gave his teachings to
both. Quite literally, he saw the same in all-be they Brahmins
or outcastes, industrialists or paupers. This was not true,
however, of the Christian missionaries who, professing to
serve the poor of India, invariably associated themselves with
the English community, whose members lived in a style
grander than that of the wealthy Hindu.
It is true that Swamiji's Detroit audiences consisted on the
whole of "the best people," but it was these very people
whom he scolded for the wrongs of Christian civilization. He
neither identified himself with them nor did he belabor them

777
in anonymous tirades behind their backs; he spoke directly to
them-and they listened and asked for more:
It was at Swamiji's fifth lecture in this city, given at the
insistence of his friends, that he blasted the rich for the exces-
sive wealth they had so long believed to be theirs through the
will of God. This now famous lecture was delivered at Mrs.
#

778
Bagley's house on Wednesday afternoon, February 21, and
the Free Press report of it has been printed in volume eight of
the Complete Works, under the title "Hindus and Christians."
The headlines and first paragraph of the original report are
as follows:

IT IS IRONY OF FATE.
__________

Christian Religion Preached in the Name of Luxury.

__________

Idols in India are Nothing but Suggestive Symbols.

__________

The Hindoo Monk Lectured Yesterday

at the home of Mrs. John J. Bagley

The most interesting lecture Vive Kananda has yet

delivered was that of yesterday afternoon at the residence
of Mrs. John J. Bagley, on the different Hindoo philos-
ophies. The large rooms were crowded. The monk spoke
for two hours about the different philosophies, showing
how thousands of years ago the spiritual science of India
had reached a condition equal to that of today. As on
other occasions the talk was freely interspersed with
charming stories from the Sanscrit.

The lecture was open to the public, but evidently Mrs.

Bagley also invited many of her Friends. Of this occasion she
was to write:
779
 . . . He lectured to invited guests in my parlour, one
hundred & twenty eight, all I could comfortably seat, & I
charged 1.00 admission. I had included lawyers, judges,
ministers, army officers, physicians and business-men
with their wives and daughters. Vivekananda talked two
hours on "The Ancient Hindu Philosophers and What
They Taught " All listened with intense interest to the
end. Wherever he spoke people listened gladly and said,
"I
#

780
 never heard man speak like that." He does not antagonize,
but lifts people up to a higher level-they see something
beyond man-made creeds and denominational names, and
they feel one with him in their religious beliefs. 24

"You are not Christians," Swamiji had said at the end of

this lecture. "No, as a nation you are not. Go back to Christ!
Go back to Him who has nowhere to lay His head. `The birds
have their nests and the beasts their lairs, but the Son of Man
hath nowhere to lay His head.' "

Yours is 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, 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. All prosperity which comes with
Mammon is transient, is only for a moment. Real
permanence is in Him. If you can join these two, this
wonderful prosperity with the ideal of Christ, it is well.
But if you cannot, better go back to Him and give this up.
Better be ready to live in rags with Christ than to live in
palaces without Him!25

In this same lecture Swamiji also gave the "blue-nose"

ministers and missionaries cause for chagrin. Among other
things, he said:

One thing I would tell you, and I do not mean any

unkind criticism. You train and educate and clothe and
781
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 idol-
ators, you will go to hell." . . . And then you, who train
men to abuse and criticize, if I just touch you with the
#

782
 least bit of criticism, with the kindest of purpose, you
shrink and cry: "Don't touch us; we are Americans." . . .
And whenever your ministers criticize us let them re-
member this: If all 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. 26

Another blast that was to create much commotion in the

pulpits was the following:

With all your brags and boasting, where has your

Christianity succeeded without the sword? Show me one
place in the whole world. One, I say, through the history
of the Christian religion-one; I do not want two. I know
how your forefathers were converted. They had to be
converted or killed; that was all.27

I have taken these quotations directly from the Free Press.

For the most part the lecture as printed in the Complete
Works follows this report word for word. A short report of
this same lecture appeared in the, Journal of February 22 and
is interesting largely because of its headline:

HIS PARTING SHOT

__________

Vive Kananda Delivered His Final

Lecture Yesterday.

783
 Monk Kananda delivered his last lecture in Detroit at
the residence of Mrs. John J. Bagley yesterday afternoon.
In many respects it was the most entertaining lecture of
the series. The large rooms and halls of the Bagley
mansion were filled to their utmost capacity, and the
audience listened for over two hours while this talented
orator discussed the different philosophies. The burden of
his argu-
#

784
 ment was that the Hindoo never argues that his is the only
way to salvation. Vive Kananda made many friends
during his brief stay in Detroit, and many were the regrets
over his departure.

To judge from the following report in the Journal of

Friday, February 23, Mrs. Bagley held a small farewell tea
for her departing guest:

VIVE KANANDA LEAVES

__________

He Tells Something About the Conditions of

Hindoo Laborers

Swami Vive Kananda repaid the admiration of his lady

acquaintances by writing verses, at the same time
religious and semi-sentimental, yesterday afternoon. He
departed this morning for Ada, O.
In a conversation concerning the material condition of
the Hindu workingmen, the learned monk said that the
poor lived on porridge alone. The laborer ate a breakfast
of porridge, went off to his daily toil and returned in the
evening to another breakfast of porridge and called it
dinner. In most of the provinces the Farmers were so poor
that they could not afford to eat any of the wheat raised.
A day laborer on a farm received only 12 pence a day,
but a dollar in India brought 10 times as much as it would
in this country. Cotton was raised, but its fiber was so
short it had to be woven by hand, and even then it was

785
 necessary to import American and Egyptian cotton to mix
with it.

Swamiji had been in Detroit less than two weeks, but there
were, perhaps, few people who had not heard of him. On the
evening of his departure, a miniature "Kananda" appeared at
a children's fancy-dress party and was the hit of the evening.
The Tribune covered the masquerade:
#

786
 A PSEUDO KANANDA
__________

One of the Characters at Strassburg's

Children's Party.

The natives of nearly every nation on the globe, as well

as many characters of literature and mythology were im-
personated in miniature at the children's fancy carnival in
Strassburg's Hall last night. And among the 200 charac-
ters a little prototype of Vive Kananda was the most
noticed by the spectators.
The carnival last night was occasioned by the closing
of the first quarter's classes of children in the Strassburg
[Dancing] Academy. It was one of the social events of
the season with the little ladies and gentlemen. [Here
follows a description of the various costumes.] And
walking about in all this cosmopolitan throng was the
prototype of Vive Kananda, with his orange robe, red
sash, and buff colored turban in exact counterfeit of the
costume worn by the Hindoo lecturer.
On Thursday, February 22, the day after his lecture at Mrs.
Bagley's house, Swamiji wrote to Mrs. Hale:

Dear Mother
787
 I have got the 200$ for the engagements, 175$ & 117$
by private lectures & 100$ as a present from a lady. [As
we have seen earlier, Mr. Freer was to add two hundred
dollars to the total.]
This sum will be sent to you tomorrow in checks by
Mrs. Bagley. Today the banks being closed we could not
do it.
I am going tomorrow to lecture at Ada Ohio. I do not
know whether I would go to Chicago from Ada or not.
However kindly let not Slayton know anything about the
#

788
 rest of the money, as I am going to separate myself from
him.
Yours obediently28
Vivekananda

Ada, Ohio, was a small town a few hours' train ride from
Detroit. On the evening of his arrival, February 23, Swamiji
gave a lecture there entitled "The Divinity of Man." Although
a report of the lecture should, chronologically, be given here,
it must wait until a later chapter, for it has little bearing on the
story of Detroit, with which we are not finished. Swamiji
meant to say good-bye to Detroit when he left at the end of
February, but the city had not said good-bye to him; it
continued to quiver under the impact of his recent presence,
and these repercussions, which threatened to undo his work,
were shortly to draw him back into the field to settle, as it
were, some unfinished business.
#

789
 CHAPTER SEVEN

THE CHRISTIAN ONSLAUGHT

No sooner had Swamiji left Detroit than the orthodox

divines began, as one writer put it, "to pound the dust all out
of their pulpit cushions." The five public lectures and the
many informal talks he had given, together with the favorable
comments in the press, which attested to his strong influence,
were more than many a clergyman could endure. Swamiji had
undermined the very ground upon which the Christian
missionaries had stood for so long. Not only did he teach that
no one religion was superior in essence to another, but he
pointed out the hypocrisy of Christianity as it was practiced
both at home and abroad. Added to this, he repudiated every
story of immoral "heathen" practices by which missionary
societies had heretofore justified their existence-and Christian
nations their right to colonize. Idolatry, Juggernaut, under the
wheels of which Hindus were reputed to be in the habit of
flinging themselves, infanticide, the tragic plight of women,
the burning of widows indeed every tale over which Christian
missionaries had become frenzied Swamiji either explained
in rational terms or denied utterly.
But the fiction of a degenerate India was the very lifeblood
of the more narrow missionary circles, and they had little
intention of parting with it. The obvious move was to attack
Swamiji with every weapon available. "Vive Kananda, the
Hindoo monk, served at least one good purpose by his recent
visit to Detroit," said the Detroit Journal of February 26, "for
790
his name and ideas furnished a dozen or more local ministers
with themes for their discourses yesterday." Some ministers
ranted against
#

791
him without restraint, others spoke more obliquely, brash
oratory being no longer fashionable.
"Some of them Smite Kananda on Hip and Thigh," the
Journal quaintly expressed it in headlines. The reader,
however, should not be burdened with the full texts of those
Sunday smitings. The main points made against Swamiji's
lectures revolved around the insistence on the part of the
orthodox clergymen that India was not moral but degenerate
and that Christian missionaries were heroes and saints to
whom the benighted Hindu should bow down in gratitude and
whom the American people should support.
Every tactic was used. One Baptist clergyman, irate over
Swamiji's attack on the Christian mode of praying, gravely
declared that the reason "Kananda and his people do not pray
at all," is that "their God, Brahma," being without attributes,
has no ears.
The Reverend Mr. Newman of the Central Christian
Church summed up the attitude of his brethren in the
following paragraphs which have been taken from the Detroit
Journal report of his Sunday sermon :

"I preach this sermon," he said by way of preface,

"because there are many who stand ready to accept as
true anything and everything Kananda said while here. I
will give the monk credit for believing his own theories,
but I do not believe they represent either Hindooism or
India." In support of this belief Mr. Newman read numer-
ous extracts from Hindoo authorities. . . . "I am aston-
ished " he went on, "to see the way in which the women,
of this city ran after Kananda and lauded him to the skies

792
when, if they had been women of his own country, they
would have occupied a coop at the rear of the house.
"It is said that a nation's morality may be judged from
the condition of its women, and I intend to read to you
the · condition of women in India." [There follows a long
misinterpretation of Hindoo customs, after which the
Rev-
#

793
 erend Mr. Newman concludes triumphantly:] "And still
Vive Kananda says it would be a good thing for our mis-
sionaries to go over there and take a few lessons on
morality."

In Ypsilanti, a city in Michigan near Detroit, not only

Swamiji but his friends, the Reverend Mr. Stuart of the Uni-
tarian Church and Rabbi Grossman, came in for a sermon. It
will be remembered that in his talk on Sunday, February 18,
Rabbi Grossman had highly praised Swamiji and had rebuked
the Christian churches for squandering the good money and
goodwill of the American people in proselytizing work far
from home, "while all along our poor were at our door."
"How in this good and sympathetic country of ours," the
rabbi had said "such an illusion, I will not say delusion, could
enthrall the robust and sound-sensed citizens, I do not
understand." This, together with the Reverend Mr. Stuart's
equally high praise of Swamiji and equally damning criticism
of Christian methods, could not be let pass without rejoinder.
Forthwith the Rev. H. M. Morey of Ypsilanti, who had
evidently been reading the Detroit papers, delivered a Sunday
retort. I will spare the reader the full text of his sermon,
which was given in the Detroit Tribune of February 26, for it
was long and filled with the usual indictment of Hinduism
and the usual praise of the missionary "heroes" who "have
told us of the sufferings and sorrows of humanity, not in the
self righteous spirit suggested by the Brahmin, but with
tenderness in the voice and with teats in their eyes."
Mr. Morey accused Swamiji and his supporters of telling
only "half truths," which "may sometimes do the work of lies
and slanders." For instance, both Rabbi Grossman and Mr.
794
Stuart had suggested that there was as much immorality in
America as in India-if not more. Said Morey:

There are half truths here, but these men of thought

should have discriminated. Drunkenness and
licentiousness
#

795
 and cruelty exist in Detroit under the shadow of
churches. They exist also in Calcutta. Here they are
contrary to Christianity and are the remains of the native
barbarism not yet extinguished by Christianity. There
they exist in the temples of the gods, sanctioned by their
example and precepts. In India the people have only to
follow the examples of their gods to become drunken and
licentious. I wish to deal fairly in this matter and not to
deal in half truths.

According to the Reverend Mr. Morey, Swamiji also dealt

in half truths:

Vive Kananda .was asked some questions which he

answered in the pulpit. He answered with a display of
humor and apparent frankness that may deceive. "Do the
people of India throw their children into the jaws of cro-
codiles?" "Do they kill themselves beneath the wheels of
Juggernaut?" "Do they burn widows with their hus-
bands?" He ridicules the ideas, and denies the fact except
in exceedingly rare and exceptional cases. He has told a
truth or a half truth and in such a way as to justify the
claim of the rabbi that it is a "delusion" to send mis-
sionaries to India.

Mr. Morey went on to say that while these "horrible rites"

(upon which he enlarged at length) no longer exist, their sup-
pression has been due solely to "the direct and indirect
influence of the `delusion' as the rabbi calls christian
missions." Indeed, by the time Morey was through, India had

796
nothing whatsoever in her favor except the presence of
Christian missionaries.

The following Sunday (March 4) an editorial which ran in

two papers, the Tribune and the Sunday News Tribune,
evinced some surprise that the ministry had reacted to
Swamiji with so much hysteria:
#

797
 VIVE KANANDA

No hurt can yet come to any truth by stirring up the

turbid streams of opinion. No evil has resulted to
humanity since the days of creation by agitating the
sources of religious belief. The pool of Bethesda had no
healing power till the angel had troubled its waters, and
no doctrine, dogma, creed or item of faith is too sacred to
be troubled by the spirit of inquiry and examined with a
view of finding upon what it rests.
It does not seem to the secular intellect as though
christianity could be imperiled by the public lectures of a
single benighted Hindu who stands up and in good
queen's English gives some reasons why he thinks the
religion of his country has hardly been judged fairly by
the missionaries who have been sent to India. The natural
man can hardly perceive why a dozen or score of talented
and orthodox divines, brightest examples of christian
learning and culture, should consider it needful to pound
the dust all out of their pulpit cushions in declaiming
against one poor pagan who stands alone to defend his
ancestral religion in a country where he is surrounded by
millions upon millions of christians; and where the fixed
habits and customs and social and religious life of the
people have been moulded by generations of christians
and christian teachers.
It ought to be very safe for christians who know what
they believe and why they believe it to hear Vive
Kananda or anybody else. If they carry their faith around
798
on a plate and it is liable to slip off at the least joggle, it is
high time for it to be joggled.
Plainly speaking, it does not seem to be worthy of the
dignity of christian clergymen in a great city to leave all
other topics and cry out with one voice against any un-
believer who may chance to speak publicly against the
prevailing religion of the churches. It is not worth while
for
#

799
 a clergyman who respects the intelligence of his hearers
to declare that there is only one religion in the world.
Most men carry brains around with them all through the
week, and they can be trusted to cling to the doctrines
which they understand and believe. It is vain and foolish
to undertake to smother discussion. It is ridiculous for a
protestant clergyman to lay down a rule that the faithful
of his flock shall hear only those preachers with whom
they are in entire accord. There may not be much use in
religious controversy, but there is a great deal of use in
getting at other people's thoughts and ways of thinking. A
late revered and admired bishop in Michigan said in
connection with his reading of books upon oriental faiths
that "the time had come when religion must be studied
comparatively." Vive Kananda has helped us in such a
study.

Clearly, the writer. of the above editorial did not grasp the
main issue. There was every reason for the more narrow
clergymen to declaim against Swamiji, for theirs was a creed
from which the age itself was moving away. The American
people were, on the whole, searching for a more liberal and
more rational faith, one which would be applicable to an
expanding world, and Swamiji was the very personification
of that faith. He himself later wrote: "The orthodox section of
this country are crying for help; . . . they are mortally afraid
of me and exclaim, `What a pest! Thousands of men and
women follow him! He is going to root out orthodoxy!"' The
word "pest" was an understatement. To every narrow mind
Swamiji was the archenemy to be eliminated at any cost.

800
 To this end, the Baptists of Detroit held a mass meeting on
March 5. Among the speakers was a Dr. W. B. Boggs of Cin-
cinnati, Ohio, who had spent several years in India as the
principal of the Telegu Theological Seminary at Ramepatan
and could therefore, it was presumed, speak with authority.
India is the most idolatrous land on the face of the earth," he
declared. "The land is full of idols, not only in the temples,
but
#

801
by the wayside, on the tank embankments, at the public wells,
in the fields, in their houses, idols of all sorts representing
gods and goddesses, fabulous creatures, and beasts and
reptiles. Many of these images are monstrous, repulsive,
obscene. . . . A1l the foulest crimes that have ever entered
into the imagination of man are to be found in the characters
of some of the divinities that they worship."
Dr. Boggs next took up the caste system, "one of the
masterpieces of Satan," wherein he found a weapon with
which to deliver a blow at Swamiji. "The Brahmans," he said,
"look with unconcealed disdain upon those of the lower
castes and will tell you it is `physically nauseating, etc: And
these are the men that will come to this country and talk with
mellifluous words about the `Brotherhood of Man.' It is just
as consistent for a Brahman to talk about the brotherhood of
man as it would be for a Japanese to boast that chastity and
moral purity are a distinguishing characteristic of his nation. .
. ."
"There is no saving light in Hinduism," concluded Dr.
Boggs. "There is no Savior in Hinduism. Christ alone can
save India. . . . The need of Christian missions in India was
never exaggerated and never can be. The need was never
greater than it is today."1
A Dr. Mabie and a Dr. Gordon spoke in somewhat the
same vein at the Baptist mass meeting, Dr. Gordon
concluding his talk with the following remarks: "I never
believed in parliaments of religion because all forms of
religion aside from christianity are counterfeits. There is
every evidence that all religions except that which treats of
the one Christ are bogus. We had better stand by the religion

802
of Jesus Christ. We must still send out missionaries and have
an abundance of faith."
This was the crux of the matter: the missionaries not only
must go out, but must go out as God's elect. That a heathen
should be preaching religion in the West, that he should be
followed and revered by thousands, was an intolerable, unfor-
givable affront.
There was perhaps no meeting of missionaries in Detroit
#

803
which did not discuss and attack Swamiji during his absence.
One such meeting was reported in the Tribune of March 8:

MIGHT AS WELL BE BURNED

Another Indian Missionary Talks of Kananda's Ideas.

__________

The Missionary Society of the Fort Street Presbyterian

Church held its annual meeting at the residence of Allan
Shelden, West Fort street, yesterday afternoon. Rev. J. F.
Dickie read the scripture lesson and Rev. Mr. Edwards
led in prayer . . . Mrs. Harvey, the president, made a short
address and then introduced Rev. Dr. Thackwell, who has
been a missionary in India for 45 years, under the
presbyterian board.
Dr. Thackwell said he thought that the work of the
foreign missionary was the greatest work in the world. . .
. In speaking of the former habit of burning widows alive,
he said that some of them question whether their
condition was changed any or not by the law. Before they
knew their fate, but now it is a living death. Some people
may come over here, as did Kananda, and say that the
widow's position is improved, but if it is true then the
word of all returned missionaries is untrue. The widow is
stripped of her jewels and her finery and a coarse garment
placed upon her and she is thenceforth the Cinderella of
the family. The belief in regard to their being burned was
that the gods were displeased and to insure the husband's
salvation his widow must die.

804
 Many female babies are strangled to death, in some
cases by their mothers. Marriage and death are principal
causes of the national poverty. The son is not exempt
from the debts of his forefathers. The girl upon marriage
has to be furnished a dower and in order to avoid it, the
females are murdered by the thousands. The Brahmins
have never tried to prevent these atrocities, but the
English govern-
#

805
ment is using its influence to stop them. The Brahmins
have not much power in the cities but flourish in the
outlying country, where the missionaries have not yet
established themselves. . . .
The women uphold their religion because they have
more religious fervor and are entirely sincere. The mother
brings her little ones to the idol and teaches them to
worship it and thus through a mother's constant devotion
and influence another idolator is reared. It is the women
that must be reached and when they are converted to
Christ they will bring up their children in the new faith.
The greatest men of India will attend receptions given
by the viceroy. They will come in their richest costumes
and chat with the Europeans, but on going home they
divest themselves of their clothing and bathe, to rid them-
selves of the pollution. . . . The Hindu idea of God is that
He is wrathful and thirsty for human blood, that He is
ready to wreak His vengeance and they must appease
Him. Among various methods to attain His pleasure is to
lie naked on a plank studded with sharp nails, to hold an
arm or leg up until the limb becomes withered. They
punish their bodies for the sin of their souls. If they will
come over to the side of christianity they will become a
power for good. [And so on.]2
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.

806
 Foreign Missions.

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
#

807
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 missionary 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
808
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
#

809
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.
J. STEELE.
810
 2

The Student Volunteer Missionary Movement held its

second international convention in Detroit shortly after
Swamiji had left. The convention, a gathering of no small
proportions and no little significance, was in full sway from
February 28 to
#

811
March 4. According to the Michigan Christian Advocate of
March 10:

. . . Never before had Detroit been favored with a con-

vention so large in point of numbers, and at the same time
of so wide scope and far-reaching significance. As a mis-
sionary 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 mis-
sionary 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." The article continues:

It was indeed a grand sight, and one calculated to

quicken the pulse and stir the blood of any person inter-
ested in the great missionary movements for the world's
812
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
#

813
 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:

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!

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:
814
 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." . . .
#

815
 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.' "
It is not too difficult to believe that this sudden surge of
spiritual earnestness both at home and abroad was due to
Swamiji's many reminders that something of the sort was
called for in missionary activity. If the watchword, "Let us
advance upon our knees," was an "antidote" to him it was one
816
that, could only have gratified him, provided it was carried
out. It was, however, not the convention's only answer to
Swamiji. Although public repudiations of his views are not
available, they were unquestionably delivered by the
delegates, for, as will be seen, they were at least partly the
cause of his return to Detroit.
In the meantime, his first visit to the city was already
bearing
#

817
fruit. In the very teeth of the missionary convention the
Evening News of March 1 published a long illustrated article
that unmercifully ridiculed the tall tales of missionary
propaganda-particularly those in Caleb Wright's book, India
and Its Inhabitants, a book which had been published in the
1850s and which formed part of the mental framework of the
generation that had grown up under its spell. India and Its
Inhabitants has been referred to before (Chapter Four) as one
of the most potent weapons of the Christian missionaries. Its
luridly illustrated tales of heathen mothers throwing their
newborn infants to the crocodiles and of wild-eyed Hindus
flinging themselves beneath the crushing wheels of Jagannath
had been read and reread, had been believed as gospel truth,
and had deposited a good deal of debris in the American
mind, which only a hard jolt could dislodge. Swamiji had
delivered that jolt; whereupon the Evening News, which was
known in those days as a "sensational" paper and which took
delight in shocking its subscribers out of their accustomed
grooves of thought, followed up with an expose of Caleb
Wright and his ilk. The article need not be quoted in full; the
closing paragraphs will be sufficient to show that public
opinion was undergoing a radical change and also that, now
and then, a modern American missionary gave testimony to
the truth of Swamiji's assertions. The editorial concluded:

In a work written by Rev. A. D. Rowe, an American

missionary, and published by the American Tract society,
his introduction says:

"There is an India of the books and there is a real

India, and so different are the two that the student of the
818
one would hardly recognize the other, if without a guide
he should suddenly find himself in a Hindoo village.
These books," he says, "have been written by European
travelers, who confined themselves to main routes of
travel, the cities and the larger towns, where they see but
little undisguised Hindoo life. Many of these books seem
to have
#

819
 been made with the aim of astonishing rather than in-
structing the reader, and they leave on the mind an im-
pression that India is a country where women are caged
up like parrots, where widows are burned alive, and
children are hung up in baskets to be eaten by birds, or
thrown into the Ganges to be eaten by crocodiles; that it
is inhabited chiefly by voluptuous native princes, self
torturing religious devotees, powwowing Brahmin
priests, jewel-bedecked dancing girls, and ferocious
Bengal tigers. Of the millions of soberminded, toiling
fellow human beings, with hopes and fears, joys and
sorrows, sympathies and ambitions common to all
mankind, little or nothing is said.
"The school children of America know more about the
burning of widows and the drowning of infants in India
than do the fathers of an ordinary Hindoo village. These
things are as surprising to the young Hindoo as they are
to the young American. I do not say that these accounts
are literally untrue, but they put too much stress upon
characters and topics that are of comparatively little
importance to the life of the masses."
A captain of one of the Peninsular & Oriental steamers
told Thomas W. Knox that an American passenger on
board his ship was very much disappointed when he
heard that he would not see a widow burned or a pilgrim
crushed by the car of Juggernaut. He was very angry, and
said all the poetry of the east was gone, and he wished he
had never left home.

Appearing on the same page with the above article was a

poem entitled "Christian and Heathen" by J. W. W.
820
When Chapman waved the christian banner
In a mild and graceful manner, . . . '
Stirring souls of men and women
Up against the dreadful foeman.
#

821
"In hoc signo vinces" shouted ,
Showed that dangers all were scouted;
That the foe was wholly routed.

But, alas! that prince of evil,

Most properly yclept the devil,
Sly old barbed-tailed, split-hoofed minion,
Issued from his hot dominion
Full of argument and knowledge,
Gathered in Experience college,
Came within these precincts urban,
Wearing flowing robes and turban;
Hoofs and tail beneath them hid he,
Called himself Kananda did he,
Put his Hindoo logic neatly,
And overthrew our force completely.

All was silence round about us

The heathen monk, by George, did rout us
And we were feeling rather sickly
Till other forces gathered quickly.
They rose like locusts in the air,
Aspiring like a heartfelt prayer;
And here they are from hills and prairies,
Bold-hearted College Missionaries!

Hip! Hip! Hur-stay, our great rejoicing

May have a slightly hasty voicing;
Our solid front may still be hollow,

822
 As who knows, brethren, what may follow? . . .
Therefore let us wait the ending,
Our posts most quietly defending.

What followed was Swamiji's reappearance on March

ninth after a two-week absence. This was an unscheduled
visit-
#

823
neither planned by Swamiji nor expected by the missionaries.
To all intents and purposes, Swamiji had left Detroit for
good, possibly to return to India. Thus his reappearance must
have come as a shock to many of his adversaries. He was
greeted by various articles and letters in the Detroit
newspapers, which reflected the general excitement over the
return of the warrior monk. The following item appeared in
the Evening News of March I0:

CHRISTIAN ECCENTRICITIES

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 mem-
bers, 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 acknowl-
edgment 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
824
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!
#

825
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:

"HYPOCRITS"
__________

The Christian Religion

Has Very Many of Them
Who Hide Their Heads behind Its Convenient Cloak.
__________

Hail Vive Kananda, the Hindoo.

__________

A Nervy Writer Discusses the Abuse of Kananda

826
 With a Very Bitter Pen.
__________

Some Truths Which are Very Hard to Swallow.

__________

An Open Letter to Vive Kananda.

Dear Swami:

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.
#

827
 "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
828
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. . . .
#

829
 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 pew-holders. "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:
830
 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
#

831
 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.

Yours, for human brotherhood,

O. P. DELDOC.

The equally vehement opposition was represented by "Oc-

cidental," whom readers will remember as a friend of the
missionaries who did not deem it necessary to hear Swamiji
speak in order to judge him. Occidental appears, to say the
least, somewhat fanatical; yet one cannot on this account
ignore his letters, for they were as representative of contem-
porary thought as were the writings of Deldoc. The following
was written on March to, the day after Swamiji's return to
Detroit, and appeared in the Free Press of March 12 :

Kananda Again In Our Midst.

832
 To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:

"That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the

devil, and yet to stand."
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
#

833
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 Ka-
nanda. Such is my sincere belief, but he may do incalcul-
able 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
834
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
#

835
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
836
and saying, with as much doubt in her looks as possible,
"Perhaps he doesn't know."
Horror of horrors! Wholesale infanticide, cobras, cro-
codiles 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 deliber-
#

837
 ately 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.
OCCIDENTAL.

The above letter is so palpably malicious and befuddled

that no comment is called for. One thing, however, is clear:
Swamiji's second visit to Detroit was not welcomed by
everyone.
#

838
 CHAPTER EIGHT

RETURN OF THE WARRIOR

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 anti-
dote 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
supposition.

KANANDA AGAIN

The Hindu Will Speak at the Detroit Opera House.

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
839
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
#

840
valor. "Christian Missions in India," delivered on Sunday,
March 11, was his answer.
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:

NOT EASY TO CONVERT

__________

The People of India Take the Bait

But not the Hook.
__________

Missionaries are not in Sympathy with the People.

__________

Do not Speak the Language or

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.
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
841
 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.
Vive Kananda was received with great applause. . . .

The Tribune report of this same lecture caught many of

Swamiji's sentences that were missed by the Free Press and
reads:
#

842
 KANANDA, THE PAGAN
__________

Attacked Christian Missions in Last Night's Lecture.

__________

And His Words were Warmly Applauded by the

Audience.
___________

Christian Nations Kill and Murder, He Said, and Import

Disease into Foreign Countries, then Add Insult to
Injury by Preaching of a Crucified Christ.

Swami Vive Kananda lectured to a very large audience

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
843
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.
"We have with us tonight a gentleman who, from
#

844
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 Gentlemen,
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.

"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 in-
habitants 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
845
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 " ,
he said, "and so they seized the tooth of Buddah and
destroyed it. By the way, it was not a tooth of Buddah
#

846
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.
"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.

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.
847
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
#

848
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 methodist
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
education cheap. The missionaries bring some money
with them from the people who send them, and the Indian
government appropriates some, so that there are some
very good colleges and schools available to the natives
through missionaries. But I will be frank with you. There
are no conversions 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

849
christian religion, although they will espouse it if
necessary to get the other advantages.

Most Missionaries Incompetent.

"The most of the men whom you send us as

missionaries are incompetent," he said. "I have never
known of a single
#

850
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
851
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.
#

852
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 become followers of Mohammed? Why can't you
make an impression on India and China, and Japan?
Because oneness of mental temperament all over the
world would be death. Nature is too wise to allow such
things.

Filled the World with Bloodshed.

"The christian nations have filled the world with

bloodshed 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.
853
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
#

854
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.
855
 Even in Swamiji's estimation this lecture was one of his
best. The following day he wrote to Mary Hale, "My last
address was the best I ever delivered. Mr. Palmer was in
ecstasies and the audience remained spellbound, so much so
that it was after the lecture that I found I had spoken so long.
A speaker always
#

856
feels the uneasiness or inattention of the audience."2 There
was certainly no inattention that Sunday night, and it might
be said that his words became a part of the mental
convictions of many who heard him. True, perhaps only a
thousand or so heard that lecture, but a handful of people with
firm convictions -provided that those convictions coincide
with truth-can slowly change the thought of a nation.
Moreover, Swamiji's words were spread through the medium
of the press, not only in reports hut in editorials. For instance,
the Evening News, one of the most widely read papers in
Detroit, which had earlier been hostile to him, printed an
article on March 12 entitled, "A Pointer for the Missionaries."
A large portion of this editorial was later reprinted by the
Boston Evening Transcript of April 5, 1894, and thereby
found its way into volume four of the Complete Works, where
it was included under the title "Is India a Benighted
Country?" 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:

A POINTER FOR THE MISSIONARIES

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
857
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:
"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
#

858
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 as-
sumed the spiritual supervision of Greenland's icy moun-
tains 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
859
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 com-
#

860
 mercial 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.

Swamiji's lecture at the Opera House not only impressed

his friends but silenced his critics, at least for the time being.
The following Sunday not one orthodox minister dared
openly respond. An editorial in the Sunday News Tribune,
which was controlled by the publisher of the Evening News,
anticipated this silence in the following editorial that
appeared on March 18:

THE LESSON OF TOLERATION

"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;
861
nevertheless the chances are a good many to one that the
clergymen hereabouts 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
#

862
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
**** 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
863
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
#

864
 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. The
color and mood of the silence following the Opera House
lecture was perhaps well expressed by the following
anonymous letter that appeared in the Free Press of March
17:

Mission Work in India.

To the Editor of The Detroit Free Press:

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?
865
 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 mem-
ory 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 repre-
#

866
sents, 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?
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.
ONE OF THE MISSIONARIES.

867
 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. The
following highly abridged version of Deldoc's lengthy
polemic shows to
#

868
what an extent Swamiji had aroused the liberal element of
Detroit, and how dry the timber he had set ablaze:

CHIMERICAL RELIGION
__________

A Brainy Writer Discusses One of the Great

Questions of the Present Day
__________

Was there No Love, No Joy, No Hope and No Religion

Before Christ Came to Us?
__________

Were All Noble Souls before His Time Doomed

to Perdition?

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 funda-
mental 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. . . .
Was there no love, no hope, no joy, no religion then? .
. . Were all the noble souls abiding before Christ doomed
to perdition? . . .
The question is not whether christianity is true, but are
we true to Christianity as professed Christians?
869
 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
#

870
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 en-
counter an individual with manhood, moral courage and
wisdom . . . , they proceed at once to damn him.
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 Pres-
byterians, and Methodist mummies. . . .
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 falsehood 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. . . . .
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. . . .

871
 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 ad-
vancement, all civilization. Whence came all the glory,
all
#

872
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. . . .
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. . . .
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.
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. . . .
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 chi-
merical christians who would knock away these four
corner stones of the universe. . . .
873
 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. .
..
Let the Star of Bethlehem be the true Christian's polar
star; let it arise and shine with all its ancient glory, as be-
held by the wise men of the east; let its splendid light
#

874
 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.

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:

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.
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
875
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.
#

876
 Mrs. Bagley & all the family are heartily glad at my
return and people are again coming in to see me. 3

The Honorable Thomas Witherell Palmer, who had invited

Swamiji to be his guest, was one of Detroit's wealthy
businessmen 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
877
 against me! ! He used to give the best dinners of all
Washington! Hopeless! I am resigned!4

That very night the dinner parties began. On March I2

Swamiji wrote to Mary Hale:
#

878
 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."5

And again, on March 15, he wrote to the Hale sisters:

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.6

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
879
 __________

Pleasant Function of E. W. Cottrell Last Evening.

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,
#

880
 M. S. Smith, W. Livingstone, jr., F. E. Driggs, Capt.
Gardener, of Fort Wayne, Michael Brennan, G. W.
Cottrell and George C. Robinson.
___________

KANANDA LECTURES AGAIN MONDAY

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 instruc-
tive. One of the guests commenting upon the event re-
marked 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."]

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."
Many of the names mentioned in the above reports are also
mentioned in histories of Detroit. These were men who
881
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."
#

882
 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."7
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.

883
 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.8

Mr. Palmer was able to free Swamiji from his three-year

#

884
contract with the lecture bureau, which, rascally though it
was, had served a purpose through its wide-flung circuit *
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."9
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. 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:
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,
885
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. . . .
#

886
 . . . I do not care for lecturing any more. It is too dis-
gusting, 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.10

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."11
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:

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
887
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.
As to informing others and doing good that way-I have
failed to persuade myself that I have really anything
#

888
 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. . . 12

It is difficult to estimate exactly how much money Swamiji

was able to collect for India during his midwestern lecture
tour, for his known references to this subject do not tell a
complete story. It is fairly certain, however, that he could not
have accumulated a great deal by the end of March, 1894. As
for financial contributions to his cause, we know only that
Mr. Freer donated two hundred dollars and "a lady" one hun-
dred. It is probable that Mr. Palmer and some of the other
"merchant-princes" of Swamiji's acquaintance also contri-
buted, but at present we have no way of knowing. On the
other hand, we do know a little in regard to his earnings. For
instance, immediately following the Parliament he writes that
he received "from 30 to 80 dollars a lecture."13 His next men-
tion of his earnings comes in late November, when he wrote,
"I had a fine audience [in Madison, Wisconsin] and 100$."14
In January of 1894, "A lecture fetches from two hundred up
to three thousand rupees. I have got up to five hundred [about
160 dollars]."15 Again on February 22 he wrote from Detroit
(Chapter Six), "I have got the 200$ for the engagement, $175
& 117$ by private lectures. . . ."16 And in July, referring back
to this period of his midwestern tour, "In the Detroit lecture I
got $900, i.e. Rs 2,700.* In other lectures, I earned in one
$2,000 i.e. Rs. 7,700, in one hour, but got only 200 dollars! I
889
was cheated by a roguish lecture bureau. I have given them
up."17 Of other money that he earned in March of 1894
Swamiji wrote to Mrs. Hale on the twenty-seventh,
"Herewith I send two cheques of 114$ and 75$-to be put in
the bank For me. I have endorsed them to your care."18
#

890
 Taking his midwestern tour as a whole, Swamiji perhaps
averaged about seventy-five dollars a lecture, which was cer-
tainly not much, considering that in Detroit, and no doubt
elsewhere as well, he often drew larger audiences than did
Ingersoll, who, as Swamiji had written earlier, "gets five to
six hundred dollars for a lecture."19 Seventy-five dollars was,
to be sure, no trifling amount even in America, * and in India
it could go far; nonetheless, compared to the amount of
energy Swamiji expended, his midwestern tour was, to say
the least, not lucrative. Moreover, the criticism he was
receiving from missionary circles as well as from some of his
own countrymen was doing his work considerable harm. On
June 20 he would write to India: "Now lecturing for a year in
this country, I could not succeed at all (of course, I have no
wants for myself) in my plan of raising some funds for setting
up my work. First, this year is a very bad year in America;
thousands of their poor are without work. Secondly, the
missionaries and the Brahmo Samaj try to thwart all my
views. Thirdly, a year has rolled by, and our country could
not even do so much for me as to say to the American people
that I was a real Sannyasin and no cheat, and that I represent
the Hindu religion."20
For almost a year Swamiji labored without the slightest
support from his countrymen, and while he earned enough
through lecturing to pay his own expenses, there could not
have been much left over. For the benefit of those who
judged his financial success by the popularity of his lectures
and who, for one reason or another, begrudged him any gain,
the following item in the Detroit Critic, March 25, pointed
out how little he was actually making:
891
 I hear a great deal about the money Kananda is making
by his rather sensational campaign in the efforts to pro-
pagate the great truths and beauties and spiritual blessings
of heathenism in Detroit. The financial gain to Kananda, I
happen to know, is almost as meager as the salaries of
Christian missionaries sent to India at the instance of the
#

892
 Foreign Missions departments of our various denomina-
tions. The fact is that he is making barely anything. He
has been here now some six weeks, and during that time
has given a public lecture at the Detroit Opera House, one
at the Auditorium, one in a church and one or two in the
state. At the first the opera house got about all the money
in sight; at the Auditorium, unless Mrs. Bagley made him
the present of the use of the building-which seems
possible as he has been her guest-he did well if he cleared
expenses; at the church I don't know how he came out,
probably better than anywhere else. The afternoon talks
at private houses which gave him his reputation are as
free as air. So Kananda, as I figure it, has done little more
the past six weeks than play even and besides, the
territory is now worked out. The fact remains, however,
that with rapid traveling and large territory he would be a
paying attraction.

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:

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
893
 America in particular "she" is the real operator at the nose
string.21

One suspects that Swamiji was also surfeited with "good

time."
#

894
 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.22
(It should perhaps be noted here that in his later years Mr.
Palmer became, for better or worse, an ardent advocate of
Prohibition.)
The afternoon talks at private houses that are mentioned
above in the Detroit Critic of March 25 electrified the city as
much as did his public lectures. Indeed, during them Swamiji
spoke on many subjects which did not fall within the scope
of the lectures and answered innumerable questions that must
have ranged all the way from the conditions of village life in
India to the subtleties of Hinduism, refreshing the minds of
his listeners with the newness and brilliance of his ideas.
Even his most casual comments and observations were
quoted far and wide. One of these was published by the
Evening News of March 21 :

WAYSIDE STORIES

Curiosity, says our Hindoo visitor, is the most con-

spicuous trait of the American people; but he added that it
is the way to knowledge. This has long been the
European estimate of the American, or more strictly the
Yankee character, and perhaps the Hindoo's comment
895
 was only an echo of what he had heard the Englishmen in
India say of the "Yankee."
The News, of course, was consistently adverse to giving
Swamiji any credit for independent observation. It is note,
worthy, however, that the phrase "our Hindoo visitor" needed
#

896
no further explanation, so famous had he become in Detroit.
Fortunately Swamiji's afternoon talks are not entirely lost
to us. The following article, which appeared in the Detroit
Tribune of March 17, was evidently written from notes taken
down on Friday afternoon, March 16:

KNEW NOT KIPLING

__________

Kananda Never Heard of Him till He Came Here.

__________

Hardly Agrees with Some of the

Stories Rudyard Has Told.
__________
The Monk Explains that It is Not
Proper to Talk of the Profession
of Lalun in India-The Oriental
Custom a Terrible Thing, Kananda Admits.

"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."
897
 RUDYARD KIPLING.

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.
But Vive Kananda, since he came to this country, has
#

898
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.
"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."
"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?"
"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
899
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.
#

900
 Our Great Sin.
"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."
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 fortyseven clergymen of mama's church, and
distributed 5,000 rupees in charity to the poor. And that
was a custom of the land."
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.
"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 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
901
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.
#

902
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: '
"Has there been any attempt in India to solve this ques-
tion? Is it a public question the way it is in America?"
"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 themselves. 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 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."
"Is there any ceremony by which a woman is declared
unchaste, a civil process?" Kananda was asked.
903
 "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
#

904
 note is sent around to all the other members of the caste
and she is banished.
"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."

On March 13, the Evening News printed the following little

item:

CHANCE FOR KANANDA

__________

Another Christian Pastor Touches up His Religion.

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.

Whether Swamiji was aware of this "chance" or not, he

gave a very clear answer to the leading Catholic clergyman of
Detroit in the lecture he delivered at the Auditorium on
Monday evening, March 19, a report of which appeared in
both the Journal and the Tribune of March 20. Unfortunately,
for it is all we have of this lecture on Buddhism, the report
was short. The following is from the Tribune:
905
 AS THE WAVE FOLLOWS WAVE
__________

So Soul Follows Soul, according to Kananda.

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."
#

906
Honorable Don M. Dickinson introduced him to the
audience.
"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?"
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.
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.
" `Why should we be good?' his disciples asked of him.
"
907
 `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.'
"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.
" `I can't tell (help) you,' he said, on his death bed, `nor
#

908
 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.

This lecture on Buddhism had been advertised as Swamiji's

"farewell lecture," which he no doubt intended it to be, for on
March 20 he had an engagement at Bay City, and on March
21 one at Saginaw, relatively small cities in Michigan not far
from Detroit. But before he left Detroit Swamiji evidently
had to promise his friends to come back as soon as he had
filled his out-of town engagements (which will be dealt with
in a later chapter). In the Sunday News Tribune of March 18
we read the following item:

Swami Vive Kananda has been prevailed upon to

deliver a lecture on "The Women of India" next Saturday
909
 evening (March 24] in the Unitarian Church. This is a
subject he has not exploited in Detroit, and his immediate
friends here expect to be highly entertained and
instructed.

The condition of women in India, as has already been seen,

was one of the topics of discussion at Swamiji's afternoon
talks.
#

910
So inspiring and so ennobling must have been his description
of the Hindu ideals of womanhood, and so contrary must they
have been to missionary propaganda that it is little wonder
that Swamiji was asked to make his talks on the subject
available to the public. This he did, but unfortunately his
lecture on "The Women of India" was reported upon only
briefly by the Free Press and the Evening News of March 25,
respectively, as follows. (An item in the Journal was a
repetition of that in the Free Press.)

WOMEN OF INDIA
__________

In the West Woman is a Wife; in the East a Mother.

Kananda lectured last night at the Unitarian church on

"The Women of India." The speaker reverted to the
women of ancient India, showing in what high regard
they are held in the holy books, where women were
prophetesses. Their spirituality then was admirable. It is
unfair to judge women in the east by the western
standard. In the west woman is the wife; in the east she is
the mother. The Hindoos worship the idea of mother, and
even the monks are required to touch the earth with their
foreheads before their mothers. Chastity is much
esteemed.
The lecture was one of the most interesting Kananda
has delivered, and he was warmly received.

INDIAN WOMEN
__________
911
 Vive Kananda Lectured upon Them Last Night.

Swami Vive Kananda lectured at the Unitarian Church

last night on "The Women of India, Past, Medieval and
the Present" He stated that in India the woman was the
visible manifestation of God and that her whole life was
given up to the thought that she was a mother, and to be a
perfect mother she must be chaste. No mother in India
ever abandoned her offspring, he said, and defied any one
#

912
 to prove the contrary. The girls of India would die if they,
like American girls, were obliged to expose half their
bodies to the vulgar gaze of young men. He desired that
India be judged from the standard of that country and not
from this.

Swamiji did not say everything in this lecture that he had

said in his afternoon talks on the same subject. Fortunately,
however, someone had the good judgment to take notes at
one of those informal gatherings, and thus at least some of
the things that Swamiji did not repeat in the lecture were
preserved for the Detroit public (and for us) in the following
article which appeared in the Tribune of April 1, 1894:

"WOMEN OF INDIA."
__________

Things Kananda Forgot to Say Publicly.

__________

Scraps of Conversation Reported by One of His

Listeners
__________

When He Sees a Hindu Girl Kananda "Marvels That

God could Make Anything so Exquisite"-Christian
Witch vs. Hindu Widow Burning-Things to Read.

While Swami Kananda was in Detroit he had a number

of conversations, in which he answered questions
regarding the women of India. It was the information he
913
thus imparted that suggested a public lecture from him on
this subject. But as he speaks without notes, some of the
points he made in private conversation did not appear in
his public address. Then his friends were in a measure
disappointed. But one of his lady listeners has put on
paper some of the things he told in his afternoon talks,
and it is now for the first time given to the press:
To the great tablelands of the high Himalaya
mountains
#

914
first came the Aryans, and there to this day abides the
pure type of Brahman, a people which we westerners can
but dream of. Pure in thought, deed and action, so honest
that a bag of gold left in a public place would be found
unharmed twenty years after; so beautiful that, to use
Kananda's own phrase, "to see a girl in the fields is to
pause and marvel that God could make anything so ex-
quisite." Their features are regular, their eyes and hair
dark, and their skin the color which would be produced
by the drops which fell from a pricked finger into a glass
of milk. These are the Hindus in their pure type, untainted
and untrammeled.
As to their property laws, the wife's dowry belongs to
her exclusively, never becoming the property of the
husband. She can sell or give away without his consent.
The gifts from any one to herself, including those of the
husband, are hers alone, to do with as she pleases.
Woman walks abroad without fear; she is as free as
perfect trust in those about her can render her. There is no
zenana in the Himalayas, and there is a part of India
which the missionaries never reach. These villages are
most difficult of access. These people, untouched by
Mahometan influence, can but be reached by wearisome
and toilsome climbing, and are unknown to Mahometan
and Christian alike.
India's First Inhabitants.

In the forest of India are found races of wild people

very wild, even to cannibalism. These are the original
Indians and never were Aryan or Hindu.

915
 As the Hindus settled in the country proper and spread
over its vast area, corruptions of many kinds found home
among them. The sun was scorching and the men
exposed to it were dark in color.
Five generations are but needed to change the trans-
parent glow of the white complexion of the dwellers of
the
#

916
Himalaya Mountains to the bronzed hue of the Hindu of
India.
Kananda has one brother very fair and one darker than
himself. His father and mother are fair. The women are
apt to be [fair,] the cruel etiquette of the Zenana estab-
lished for protection from the Mahomedams keeping
them indoors and fairer. Kananda is thirty-one years old.

A Clip at American Men.

Kananda asserts with an amused twinkle in his eye that

American men amuse him. They profess to worship
woman, but in his opinion they simply worship youth and
beauty. They never fall in love with wrinkles and gray
hair. In fact he is under a strong impression that
American men once had a trick-inherited, to be sure-of
burning up their old women. Modern history calls this the
burning of witches. It was men who accused and
condemned witches, and it was usually the old age of the
victim that led her to the stake. So it is seen that burning
women alive is not exclusively a Hindu custom. He
thought that if it were remembered that the christian
church burned old women at the stake, there would be
less horror expressed regarding the burning of Hindu
widows.

Burnings Compared.

The Hindu widow went to her death agony amid feast-

ing and song, arrayed in her costliest garments and
believing for the most part that such an act meant the
917
glories of Paradise for herself and family. She was
worshiped as a martyr and her name was enshrined
among the family records.
However horrible the rite appears to us, it is a bright
picture compared to the burning of the christian witch
who, considered a guilty thing from the first, was thrown
in a stifling dungeon, tortured cruelly to extort
confession, subjected to an infamous trial, dragged amid
jeering to
#

918
the stake and consoled amid her sufferings by the by-
stander's comfort that the burning of her body was but the
symbol for hell's everlasting fires, in which her soul
would suffer even greater torment.
Mothers are Sacred.

Kananda says the Hindu is taught to worship the prin-

ciple of motherhood. The mother outranks the wife. The
mother is holy. The motherhood of God is more in his
mind than the fatherhood.
All women, whatever the caste, are exempt from cor-
poral punishment. Should a woman murder, her head is
spared. She may be placed astride a donkey facing his
tail. Thus riding through the streets a drummer shouts her
crime, after which she is free, her humiliation being
deemed sufficient punishment to serve as a preventive for
further crime.
Should she care to repent, there are religious houses
open to her, where she can become purified or she can at
her own option at once enter the class of monks and so
become a holy woman.
The question was put to Mr. Kananda whether the
freedom thus allowed in the joining the monks without a
superior over them did not tend to hypocrisy among the
order, as he claims, of the purest of Hindu philosophers.
Kananda assented, but explained that there is no one
between the people and the monk. The monk has broken
down all caste. A Brahmin will not touch the low-caste
Hindu, but let him or her become a monk and the
mightiest will prostrate himself before the low-caste
monk.
919
 The people are obliged to take care of the monk, but
only as long as they believe in his sincerity. Once
condemned for hypocrisy he is called a liar and falls to
the depths of mendicancy-a mere wandering beggar -
inspiring no respect.
#

920
 Other Thoughts.

A woman has the right of way with even a prince.

When the studious Greeks visited Hindustan to learn of
the Hindu, all doors were open to them, but when the
Mohammedan with his sword and the Englishman with
his bullets came their doors were closed. Such guests
were not welcomed. As Kananda deliciously words it:
"When the tiger comes we close our doors until he has
passed by."
The United States, says Kananda, has inspired him
with hopes for great possibilities in the future, but our
destiny, as that of the world, rests not in the lawmakers of
today, but in the women. Mr. Kananda's words: "The
salvation of your country depends upon its women."

"The Women of India" was Swamiji's last lecture in the

"dynamic city." He wanted now to move on, away from the
Midwest. His letter of March 27 to Mrs. Hale, which
enclosed two checks for her safekeeping, read:

I am going to Boston in a day or two. I have got 57$

with me. They will go a long way. Something will turn
up as it always does. I do not know where I go from
Boston. I have written to Mrs. Breed but as yet heard
nothing from her. His will be done. Not me but Thou,
that is always the motto of my life.

921
 With my eternal gratitude, Love, and admiration for
Mother Church and all the dignitaries, I remain your son.
. . 23
A few days later something did indeed turn up.

Mrs. Breed wrote to me a stiff burning letter first [he

wrote in a letter of March 30 to Mary Hale], and then
today I got a telegram from her inviting me to be her
guest for a week. Before this I got a letter from Mrs.
Smith of New
#

922
 York writing on her behalf and [on behalf of] another
lady Miss Helen Gould and another Dr: to come over to
New York. As the Lynn Club wants me on the 17th of
next month, I am going to New York first, . . . 24

Thus, just as Swamiji was about to move on to the East

Coast invitations from that area came to him unbidden.

As has been pointed out earlier, there was scarcely any

outcry in Detroit against Swamiji's long and highly
provocative lecture "Christian Missions in India," which he
had delivered in reply to earlier uninhibited criticism. Why
this sudden silence? It certainly did not mean that Swamiji's
opponents had been overcome by a sense of universal
brotherhood and toleration, or, it seems clear, of shame.
Indeed, there does not appear to have been any natural cause.
One factor, however, that cannot be ignored when trying to
understand various reactions to Swamiji's lectures is the
tremendous-one might almost say, for lack of a better word,
supernatural-power he was able to exert when he so wished,
and in this particular instance it would indeed seem that
some power had drained away the strength of his opponents.
But however that may be, the strange new silence marked a
turning point in the attitude of orthodox Christianity toward
India. From this time forward few missionaries or clergymen
stood up in the pulpits of America and openly made absurd
and damning statements in regard to Hinduism, such as had
for generations been poisoning the Western mind.

923
 This is not to say that all open opposition to Swamiji was
suddenly dispensed with. On the contrary, Christian mission-
aries still indulged in a great deal of propaganda, although the
center of their operations was henceforth India rather than
America. As far as America was concerned, the opposition
went underground where, joining already existing forces, it
com-
#

924
menced a whispering campaign in an effort to besmirch Swa-
miji's character. As he was to write to Alasinga in April, "Of
course the orthodox clergymen are against me and seeing that
it is not easy to grapple with me they try to hinder, abuse and
vilify me in every way."25 Even worse; it was shocking to
contemplate, but his enemies, whoever they may have been,
not only spread malicious scandal about him in a desperate
attempt to discredit him in the eyes of his supporters and
followers, but plotted to do away with him altogether.
The following story comes to us from the recorded and
published conversations of Swami Vijnanananda, a disciple
of Sri Ramakrishna, who heard it from Swamiji himself. It
was at a dinner in Detroit that Swamiji, about to drink his
coffee, saw by his side the vision of Sri Ramakrishna warning
him, "Do not drink-it is poisoned." Such a story would
perhaps not pass as evidence in the law courts, but when told
by Swamiji and retold by Swami Vijnanananda, a great
monk, a great knower of God, and a great scholar, we cannot
doubt its veracity, nor can we fail to accept it as an indication
of the virulent enmity of some individuals toward Swamiji.
"But the Guru is with me," he had written in another con-
nection to Swami Ramakrishnananda in January of c8gq,
"what could anyone do?"26
Swamiji's friends were also unshakably with him. We
know from the Life how Mrs. Bagley and her unmarried
daughter Helen wrote letters repudiating the slander his
enemies had spread in Detroit and elsewhere through
anonymous letters and whispering campaigns, incredibly
vicious and yet perhaps only to be expected. "It goes without
saying," Romain Rolland wrote in his biography of Swamiji,
"that they produced the classic accusation of Anglo-Saxon
925
countries, seduction."27 The Bagley letters in defense of
Swamiji are so eloquent and throw so much light on his stay
in Detroit that, although written at a later period, they can, I
believe, be quoted here. According to an early copy, the
following letter was addressed to a Mrs. Smith; which Mrs.
Smith she was is not clear at present, but she
#

926
evidently knew Swamiji (though not well) and troubled by
gossipers, had sought a statement from Mrs. Bagley that
would settle the matter of his probity once and for all and
thereby silence his detractors. Writing from Annisquam on
June 22, 1894, Mrs. Bagley gave such a statement more than
willingly:

You write of my dear friend, Vivekananda. I am glad

of an opportunity to express my admiration of his charac-
ter and it makes me most indignant that anyone should
call him in question. He has given us in America higher
ideas of life than we have ever had before. In Detroit, an
old conservative city, in all the Clubs he is honoured as
no one has ever been, and I only feel that all who say one
word against him are jealous of his greatness and his fine
spiritual perceptions; and yet how can they be? He does
nothing to make them so.
He has been a revelation to Christians, . . . he has made
possible for all of us a diviner and more noble practical
life. As a religious teacher and an example to all I do not
know his equal. It is so wrong and so untrue to say that
he is intemperate. All who have been brought in contact
with him day by day, speak enthusiastically of his
sterling qualities of character, and men in Detroit who
judge most critically, and who are unsparing, admire and
respect him. . . . He has been a guest in my house more
than three weeks, and my sons as well as my son-in-law
and entire family found Swami Vivekananda a gentleman
always, most courteous and polite, a charming
companion and an ever-welcome guest. I have invited
him to visit us at my summer-home here at Annisquam,
927
and in my family he will always be honoured and
welcomed. I am really sorry for those who say aught
against him, more than I am angry, for they know so little
what they are talking about. He has been with Mr. and
Mrs. Hale of Chicago much of the time while in that city.
I think that has been his home. They invited him first as
guest and later were
#

928
 unwilling to part with him. They are Presbyterians; . . .
cultivated and refined people, and they admire, respect
and love Vivekananda. He is a strong, noble human
being, one who walks with God. He is simple and trustful
as a child. In Detroit I gave him an evening reception,
inviting ladies and gentlemen, and two weeks afterwards
he lectured to invited guests in my parlour. . . . I had
included lawyers, judges, ministers, army-officers,
physicians and businessmen with their wives and
daughters. Vivekananda talked two hours on "The
Ancient Hindu Philosophers and What They Taught." All
listened with intense interest to the end. Wherever he
spoke people listened gladly and said, "I never heard man
speak like that" He does not antagonize, but lifts people
up to a higher level-they see something beyond man-
made creeds and denominational names, and they feel
one with him in their religious beliefs.
Every human being would be made better by knowing
him and living in the same house with him. . . . I want
every one in America to know Vivekananda, and if India
has more such let her send them to us.28
And in another letter, dated March 20, 1895, Mrs. Bagley
writes to the same friend, who was evidently hearing a great
deal of gossip and was inclined to listen:

Let my first word be that all this about Swami Vivek-

ananda is absolute falsehood from beginning to end.
Nothing could be more false. We all enjoyed every day of
the six weeks he spent with us. . . . He was invited by the
different clubs of gentlemen in Detroit, and dinners were
given him in beautiful homes so that greater numbers
929
might meet him and talk with him and hear him talk, . . .
and everywhere and at all times he was, as he deserved to
be, honoured and respected. No one knew him without
respecting his integrity and excellence of character and
his strong religious nature. At Annisquam last summer I
#

930
 had a cottage and we wrote Vivekananda, who was in
Boston, inviting him again to visit us there, which he did,
remaining three weeks, not only conferring a favour upon
us, but a great pleasure I am sure, to friends who had
cottages near us. My servants, I have had many years and
they are all still with me. Some of them went with us to
Annisquam, the others were at home. You can see how
wholly without foundation are all these stories. Who this
woman in Detroit is, of whom you speak, I do not know.
I only know this that every word of her story is as untrue
and false as possible. . . . We all know Vivekananda.
Who are they that they speak so falsely?29

The following day Helen Bagley lent an indignant voice to

Swamiji's defense. To the same Mrs. Smith she wrote:

I am glad to know that the story was not circulated by

R-. If I find it possible I wish to see Mrs. S-- and ask her
what her authority for such a statement was. I shall do it
quietly of course, but I am going to find out for once, if
possible, who starts these lies about Vivekananda. These
things travel fast, and if once one is uprooted, perhaps
these women will stop to think before they circulate a
story so readily. If only they would investigate them they
would find how false they all are. . . 30

To return to the effect of Swamiji's lecture "Christian Mis-

sions in India," it is significant that the only open rejoinder of
any importance came from outside Detroit when, on March
21, the Reverend R. A. Hume, the director of a mission in
India, wrote an open letter to Swamiji in an obvious but
931
unsuccessful attempt to draw him into a public debate.
Swamiji replied briefly to this letter, whereupon Hume,
having received little satisfaction, again stated what he
considered to be his case, and there, for the time being, the
matter rested. This correspondence, which, according to
Hume's wish, was published
#

932
in the Detroit Free Press of April 8, 1894 (and later in
pamphlet form by the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions), was to lead to a long controversy, in
which Swamiji took no part. The Reverend Mr. Hume, who,
as readers may remember, had said at the Parliament of
Religions: "In a generation all the positions of influence and
responsibility will be in the hands of the Christian community
of India," wrote his first letter to Swamiji from Auburndale,
Massachusetts, on March 21, 1894. It began:

Swami Vivekananda,
My Fellow-countryman from India:
A Detroit Free Press of March 12, 1894, has just been
sent me, giving a long report of your address in the
Detroit Opera House on March 11. As one who was born
in India and has spent most of his life there, who has
traveled there extensively, and known leaders of Indian
thought in all parts, and seen hundreds of missionaries in
their work, I am surprised at many things which you are
reported as having said. Therefore I write you this letter
and first send it privately, with the hope that in reply you
will wish decidedly to modify the impression made by
that report. But as that has been printed, I desire
afterwards to have this letter printed, and, if you wish, to
have your answer also printed.
Much as I should like to speak of many things in your
reported address, it seems better to touch only a few
points.

The remainder of Hume's letter occupies a column of small

type two feet long. As this seems too much to impose upon
933
the present reader, I shall give a summary of Hume's points.
There were eight of them:
1. Hume expressed surprise and regret that the Swami did
not have one good thing to say about Christian missionaries
in India and declared that the majority of missionaries were
college graduates and self sacrificing men and women who
#

934
spoke the vernaculars better than any other group of
foreigners. In defense of their activity he quoted from a report
of the director of public instruction in Madras, and also from
an appreciative editorial in the Hindu, a daily paper published
in Madras for and by Hindus.
2. Hume did not approve of Swamiji's disparagement of
Christian converts and stated that whatever insincerity and
venality there might be in some was "manifestly due, not to
their Christianity but to their Hinduism:
3. Hume was astonished that Swamiji had said that the
interest in America in foreign missions was probably due to a
decline of Christianity at home. He countered by saying that
if Christianity were declining at home, the people would not
be so interested in spreading their religion abroad.
4. Hume denied that missionaries vilified the people of
India and spread vile falsehoods about them. Some of the
stories, he admitted, might not apply to the whole of India,
but were true of parts of India that Swamiji had not visited.
5. He then proceeded to give Swamiji an overall picture of
the Indian people and their religion, a picture that was ninety
nine per cent condemnatory.
6. He further told him what the missionaries were trying to
teach: they were trying to teach that God was universal and
that Jesus Christ was the only savior.
7. In substantiation of the missionaries' belief that only
Christianity could save India, Hume quoted from Kipling:
"What's the matter with this country is not in the least
political, but an all-round entanglement of physical, social,
and moral evils and corruptions, all more or less due to the
unnatural treatment of women. . . . The foundations of their
life are rotten-utterly rotten."
935
 8.In conclusion Hume challenged Swamiji to invite his
audience to come to India and help the Hindus. "You are not
likely," he said, "to get more than a few travelers who would
like your help in studying theosophy and jugglery and in
seeing the country." The fact was, Hume said, that the
Christian
#

936
missionaries were the only body of foreigners who had come
to India and who were willing to serve her.
Swamiji wrote a hurried reply to Hume, confining his re-
marks, for the most part, to correcting certain statements
falsely imputed to him. Other than this he neither modified
the Free Press report of his lecture nor repeated it. His letter
read as follows:

Detroit, March 29, 1894

Dear Brother;-- Your letter just reached me here. I am
in a hurry, so excuse a few points which I would take the
liberty of correcting you in.
In the first place, I have not one word to say against
any religion or founder of religion in the world-whatever
you may think of our religion. All religions are sacred to
me. Secondly, it is a misstatement that I said that
missionaries do not learn our vernaculars. I still stick to
my statement that few, if any, of them pay any attention
to Sanskrit; nor is it true that I said anything against any
religious body-except that I do insist on my statement
that India can never be converted to Christianity, and
further I deny that the conditions of the lower classes are
made any better by Christianity, and add that the majority
of southern Indian Christians are not only Catholics, but
what they call themselves, caste Christians, that is, they
stick close to their castes, and I am thoroughly persuaded
that if the Hindu society gives up its exclusive policy,
ninety per cent of them would rush back to Hinduism
with all its defects.
Lastly, I thank you from the bottom of my heart For
calling me your fellow-countryman. This is the first time
937
any European foreigner, born in India though he be, has
dared to call a detested native by that name-missionary or
no missionary. Would you dare call me the same in
India? Ask your missionaries, born in India, to do the
same-and those not born, to treat them as fellow human
#

938
 beings. As to the rest, you yourself would call me a fool
if I admit that my religion or society submits to be judged
by strolling globe-trotters or story-writers' narratives.
My brother--excuse me-what do you know of my
society or religion, though born in India? It is absolutely
impossible-the society is so closed; and over and above,
everyone judges from his preconceived standard of race
and religion does he not? Lord bless you for calling me a
fellow-countryman. There may still come a brotherly love
and Fellowship between the East and the West.
Yours fraternally,31
Vivekananda.

In Hume's defense it should be said that Swamiji had been

misquoted in the Detroit papers as having said that Christian
missionaries in India could not speak the native language. But
although we know that he had been referring to Sanskrit and
not to the vernaculars, the fact remained that the attempts of
the missionaries to speak the languages of the people left
much to be desired. Their often incomprehensible jargon was
a standing joke among the Hindus. Even Pratap Chandra
Mazumdar, the Brahmo leader, an avowed devotee of the
Christ, and a great friend of the Christians, emphatically
maintained in an article published in the Outlook that the
Christian missionaries did not know the vernaculars as they
were spoken by the people. A few did, however, attain a
working knowledge of the native languages, and with Hume's
avowal of this fact Swamiji readily concurred.
But Hume was not content to let the matter drop. His
second letter to Swamiji, written on March 31, was largely
concerned with the linguistic talents of his colleagues. The
939
important thing, he said, was that the missionaries knew the
vernaculars. It did not matter whether or not they knew
Sanskrit because even the best Brahmins in India had no real
knowledge of that language. The fact was, however, Hume
continued, that some missionaries did know Sanskrit. He
himself knew four or five
#

940
men who were well versed in that language. He named them.
He then went on to quote again from the Hindu in
contradiction of Swamiji's assertion that the lower classes in
India were not benefited by Christianity. In conclusion he
declared that he looked upon India as his own motherland.

Swamiji did not answer this second letter at all, and

because of this he was later criticized as having evaded the
main issues.
An article in the Outlook of April 28, 1894, editorialized
upon the Hume-Vivekananda letters as follows:

MISSIONARIES IN INDIA

Since the meeting of the Parliament of Religions in

Chicago two or three members of that body have devoted
themselves to lecturing in various parts of the United
States against the missionary work in India. One of them
-Vivekananda-has been speaking in Detroit, and, as a
result of his lectures, an interesting correspondence has
appeared in the "Free Press' of that city. The Hindu monk
has met an able and courteous antagonist in the Christian
missionary Robert A. Hume. We have seldom read any-
thing more courteous and more utterly conclusive than
the letters of Mr. Hame. The Hindu monk unqualifiedly
denounced the missionaries; he had not one good thing to
say about them. Mr. Hume begins his letter, "My Fellow
Countryman from India." He is entitled to begin it in that
way because he was himself born in India and has spent
the greater part of his life there. [The article goes on to
summarize Hume's letter and then continues:]
941
 The reply of the monk is evasive, and closes with the
simple assertion that it is not possible for foreigners to
know the people of India, that it is not possible for Mr.
Hume, even though he was born in that country. . . . The
simple fact, to say the least, is that Vivekananda finds it
quite as difficult to understand and appreciate the Chris-
tians as he imagines they find it difficult to understand his
people.
#

942
 Actually, as Swamiji said in the course of a letter, he sus-
pected that Mr. Hume was trying to drag him into a public
debate, into which he refused to enter. He had no wish to
engage in a controversy with men whose outlook was narrow
and superficial, for such debate could be nothing but a waste
of time and energy. He again expressed his feeling on this
subject when, at a later date, he wrote to Mrs. Hale: "I do not
care the least for the gambols these men play, seeing as I do
through and through the insincerity, the hypocrisy and love of
self and name that is the only motive power in these men."32
Swamiji's stand in this matter was fully justified, for later the
Reverend Mr. Hume was to show himself for what he was.
Sometime in August of 1894 Swamiji wrote to Dharmapala:
"A retired missionary in this country wrote me a letter
addressing me as `Fellow-countryman' and tried to create a
sensation by quickly printing my brief reply. But you know
what the people here think of these gentlemen. This very
missionary went to some of my friends in secret and tried to
persuade them not to help me in any way. He received only
pure contempt from them. I am surprised at this man's
behavior. He is a minister of religion, yet what a hypocrite he
is!"33 Nor was the Reverend Mr. Hume satisfied with his
attempts to slander Swamiji in America; he later extended his
activities to India. On September 8, 1895, Swamiji was to
write to Alasinga: "If the missionaries tell you that I have
ever broken the two great vows of the Sannyasin-chastity and
poverty-tell them that they are big liars. please write to the
missionary Hume asking him categorically to write you what
misdemeanours he saw in me, or give you the names of his
informants, and whether the information was first-hand or
943
not; that will settle this question and expose the whole
thing."34 There can be little doubt that this is the same Hume
with whom we are concerned and with whom Swamiji
refused to engage in debate.
Even had Swamiji wanted to give a point by point reply to
Hume, he could only have repeated what he had already said
many times to American audiences. Moreover Hume's points,
#

944
though couched in weighty language, were without
substance. His central theme (points 5, 6, and 7 of his first
letter) was that Hindu religion and culture were all wrong for
the Hindus and that conversion to Christianity was their only
salvation. Holding this view, it was inevitable that he would
express surprise and regret that Swamiji had found nothing
right about Christian missionaries (point 1) and that he had
disparaged Christian converts (point 2). But Swamiji was
convinced that one could not change the indigenous religion
and culture of a people without destroying the people
themselves. His view was that the missionaries could justify
their presence in India only by being of real service to the
Indian people and not by simply preaching Christianity to
them. In order to render real service, an understanding of the
religion and culture of the people was essential. Such
understanding, however, was impossible without a
sympathetic and respectful approach to Hinduism, which the
Christian missionaries refused to make, and therefore
Swamiji could not but condemn them. Further, the mission-
aries alienated the loyalty of the converts to their country and
their heritage, directing it toward those who financed mis-
sionary projects and also toward the religious heads of the
Christian churches, all of whom were foreign. The problem
of national loyalty is one of the unfortunate of shoots of
Christian missionary activity and one of which Swamiji was
undoubtedly aware. There is, moreover, no denying the fact
that missionary activity in Oriental countries has gone hand
in hand with the conquest of those countries by Western
powers. Just as such conquests constitute political and
economic colonialism, so Christian conversion has been
looked upon as a sort of religious colonialism.
945
 In regard to point 3, Swamiji, as quoted by the Detroit
Tribune, had said, "Perhaps the atheism and scepticism at
home is pushing the missionaries out all over the world." This
was a matter of opinion and not one for debate. There may
have been many reasons, very different from the ostensible
one, why missionaries went out to foreign lands, and the
motives behind
#

946
missionary activity were open to various interpretations. Swa-
miji's could have been a very good one. But that missionaries
had spread false and vilifying stories about India (point 4)
was a fact. It was one that Swamiji had vouched for many
times, and one which he now could only have repeated.
Hume's denial of the falsity of these stories was as absurd as
his supporting contention that Swamiji did not know India.
Hume's further contention that the Christian missionaries
were the only foreigners who had gone to India to "serve" the
Indians (point 8) was neither here nor there. Their uniqueness
did not necessarily make them either helpful or welcome.
In defense of missionary activity in India, Hume quoted
from a report of the director of public instruction, who was, I
dare say, an Englishman and a Christian. The director found
that the students among Christian converts had a higher
degree of English education than the students from Hindu
communities. Swamiji was well aware that Christian
missionaries provided schools and colleges in India and that,
from a practical point of view, such institutions were helpful.
But the value of education cannot be judged from a practical
standpoint alone. A foreign system of education which is
superimposed upon any country is bound to be destructive of
that country's own traditions, and the superimposition of
English education in particular upon India was in this respect
certainly not to her best interests. It was not designed to make
its students true upholders of Indian culture and religion; on
the contrary it implanted alien ideas in their minds and had
the effect of turning them into hybrid products belonging
neither to India nor to any other country. From Swamiji's
point of view, the schools and colleges of the missionaries
only made more complete the process of denationalization
947
begun by Christian conversion. He could hardly, therefore,
find them objects of his categorical praise. Indeed, shortly
before his death, he expressed the opinion that the
introduction of English education in India had set back her
progress by at least fifty years.
In addition, Hume quoted from the Hindu, whose Hindu
#

948
editor, a Mr. G. S. Iyer, had written appreciatively of the mis-
sionaries and their work. It should be mentioned, however,
that while Mr. Iyer may have been a good editor, it does not
follow that he was a good Hindu imbued with and loyal to the
ideas and ideals that had sustained his country for
millenniums. He and many other Hindus of his time (and of
the present time also) were infatuated by Western culture to
the neglect and disparagement of their own. The fact is that
despite the name of his journal, Mr. Iyer was an opponent of
orthodox Hinduism. In an article published in the Vedanta
Kesari of January and February 1923, which tells of
Swamiji's visit to Madras in 1897, Professor K. Sundararama
Iyer writes: "Mr. G. Subrahmanya Aiyer [Iyer] had once been
a very orthodox Hindu. . . . He changed to the opposite
extreme of a social revolutionary."
To justify the work of the Christian missionaries, Hume
also quoted, of all people, the chauvinistic Kipling. Indeed
Mr. Hume's authorities were in themselves enough to
disqualify his letter as worthy of serious consideration and
reply.
As for his second letter, Hume's statement that few Hindus
knew Sanskrit was absurd. India abounded in Sanskrit
scholars. Moreover, the large majority of those Hindus who
did not know Sanskrit were nonetheless imbued with the age-
old philosophy and religion of their country. It was not
necessary for the Hindus to be Sanskrit scholars in order to
comprehend their own religion, whereas it was essential for
the Christian missionaries if they were to understand India
and Hinduism and were to be of service to the country.
Hume's admission that very few of his colleagues knew
Sanskrit was tantamount to an admission that very few
949
understood Hinduism. Nor did Hume say what attitude those
few held toward India. Possibly such a disclosure would have
been inconvenient.
As regards the missionaries' knowing the vernaculars, how
many were able to read the religious literature embodied in
those languages? And of those who were able, how many
read to discover the excellences of the Hindu religion rather
than its weaknesses? Perhaps none. The result was, of course,
an
#

950
almost total misconception of Hindu religion and philosophy.
Except through a thorough reading knowledge of both
Sanskrit and the vernaculars there was no way in which the
missionaries could learn the inner meaning of Hinduism, for
in those days no one in India would have taught the religion
of the Vedas to avowed enemies of that religion. While India
has always disclosed her spiritual treasures to those who have
come in earnestness and with respect, she has always and
traditionally hidden them from those who have sought to pry
into her religion in order to destroy it. Swamiji was being
literal when he said that Hindu society and culture were
closed to Hume.
It should be mentioned here parenthetically that in its criti-
cism of Swamiji the Outlook was not just in equating his
relation to Christians with the missionaries' relation to the
Hindus. Swamiji had a full knowledge of Christianity, he had
a deep reverence for Christ and his teachings, and, as he
again and again stated, he had not come to America to
convert the people to Hinduism. Comparable observations
could not be made of the Christian missionaries in India.
As for Hume's contention that the Hindus of the lower
classes were benefited by becoming Christians, the fact was
that on the whole the benefit was so superficial as to be
harmful. Certainly no one could have longed more for the
economic betterment of the Indian masses than Swamiji, but
not at the cost of their integrity. Cultural suicide should
never, in his estimation, be committed for material gain. That
had never been and never should be India's way.
But Mr. Hume and others like him were incapable of
understanding this. Swamiji did not work on the plane where
Hume lived and thought, and it would have been laughable
951
had he engaged in a point by point controversy with him. Nor
was there need for Swamiji to reply in any detail to letters
such as Hume's, for the controversy was carried on by others.
The Hume-Vivekananda letters set off a bitter debate which
lasted into the early part of 1895 and which was published in
various ' widely read periodicals such as the Forum, the
Arena, the Monist,
#

952
and so on. The principal antagonists were, on the missionary
side: the Right Reverend Mr. J. M. Thoburn, Missionary
Bishop to India and Malaysia, Mr. Fred Powers, Rev. J. M.
Mueller, and Rev. E. M. Wherry; and on the Hindu side: Mr.
Virchand R. Gandhi and Mr. Purushottam Rao Telang. Every
conceivable facet of the subject was anatomized, dissected,
thrashed out, and rethrashed until by the end if the American
public knew nothing else they at least knew that there were
two sides to the matter and that, as Mr. Telan said, "to preach
Christianity to the Hindu who had a religion and was
civilized before the dawn of history seems . . . the most
ridiculous thing on earth-indeed, audacious."
It is not hard to see, when we survey Swamiji's lecture tour
through the Midwest, that his visit to Detroit marked its
climactic finish. He had by this time spoken to every type of
midwestern American, his ideas had spread throughout the
"Bible Belt," and there was perhaps not an orthodox minister
who was not shaken by them, nor a person ready to benefit
from them who was not uplifted. On both the intellectual and
spiritual levels, he had poured out enough energy to revitalize
a whole nation. He had done a major part of his work, and
whether or not he consciously thought of it in this way, we
can see from his letters that he knew it was time to move to
the East Coast. The fact was that he had said all that was
necessary for him to say in his battle with the missionaries,
and he could well write to India: "The conflagration that has
set in through the grace of the Guru will not be put out."35

953
 But was it merely to give battle to the bigots that a prophet
of Swamiji's supreme eminence underwent such suffering as
his Midwest lecture tour entailed? No doubt a question has
been growing in the reader's mind as to the real meaning of
his strange winter as well as the period which followed when,
released from the clutches of the lecture bureau, he continued
#

954
to tour the country. Swamiji rarely mentioned the hardships
he had to endure, and thus one is apt to forget them or, at
least, minimize them. I have already mentioned something of
the difficulties of the midwestern tour; but that was not all:
throughout his eastern tour his work continued to make rigor-
ous and exhausting demands upon him. A hint of these trials
comes from a letter he wrote to India in February of 1895. "In
order to give lectures," he confided, "I had often to make my
way through snow-covered mountains in the terribly severe
winters and had to travel even up to one or two o'clock at
night."36 From Swami Abhedananda we also learn something
of Swamiji s incessant labor. In his lecture "Vivekananda and
His Work," the Swami says: "Sometimes he would be invited
by people living in different cities hundreds of miles apart to
give public addresses on the same day and he would accept in
every case, travelling for hours by train or by any available
conveyance."37 Such traveling, as we have seen in an earlier
chapter, was grueling even to a seasoned lecturer and man of
the world.
One cannot but ask why Swamiji underwent this ordeal.
What did he think and feel during this time? What motives,
conscious or unconscious, guided him, and how are we to
interpret the significance of this itinerant period in relation to
his mission as a whole? As far as I am aware no clear or,
satisfactory answers to such questions have ever been set
forth. Swamiji was at the peak of his youth and vigor during
these many months. They comprised the best time of his life,
when his spiritual power was fully matured and his mental
and physical energies were still fresh. And it was during these
months that he gave of himself unstintingly until, by the end
of 1894, his health was already declining and his best energy
955
going. Thus, this lecture-tour period, which extends from the
time he first came to America until he settled in New York at
the beginning of 1895, deserves, I believe, much more study
than it has hitherto been given; for one cannot believe that
Swamiji, "who was born on earth," as Sri Ramakrishna said,
#

956
"to remove the miseries of mankind,"38 gave the best of his
youth and power without sufficient reason-a reason com-
mensurate with his gigantic spiritual stature. (It should be
mentioned here that while Swamiji's lecture tour cannot be
said to have come to a definite end until he settled in New
York, the last part of 1894. marks a transition in his attitude
toward his American work. In Chapters Eleven and Fourteen
the reader will find a discussion of this period.)
One can distinguish in his biographies three interpretations
of Swamiji's activities during his tour. First, it is said that he
was preaching Vedanta to the West; second, that his primary
object was to clear the ground of much that was false and
detrimental in American thought, so that later on Vedantic
philosophy might flourish in congenial soil; and third, that his
motive was primarily to obtain material help for India, and
also to destroy the missionary-created prejudice against his
country, which choked American generosity and stifled
reason. Broadly speaking, all three interpretations have been
woven together and considered to be a sufficient explanation
of his tour. But a study of this period through material not
fully available to his early biographers seems to reveal not
only that all three interpretations, whether taken singly or
together, miss the mark, but that the first two are not even in
accord with the facts.
Judging from what Swamiji himself said and did, it is hard
to avoid the conclusion that the idea of teaching Vedanta to
the West did not fully evolve in his mind until the last part of
1894. It was a complex and profound idea, involving an
intimate and mature knowledge of the characteristics and
needs of the Western mind. As Swamiji later conceived it,
Vedanta was the one unifying force of all the diverse
957
religious, philosophical, and cultural outlooks of man. He
showed it to be the philosophy of all religions, the inevitable
and ultimate conclusion of science, the justification of all
social, moral, psychic, and philosophical efforts of man to
realize his own glory, and the method by which that glory
might be fully attained. Vedanta, as he con-
#

958
ceived it, was India's saving gift to the world, and for this
reason he pleaded with his countrymen to become strong in
order to give, and to give in order to become strong. In the
early part of Swamiji's American visit one does not find this
conception of the function of Vedanta in the modern world
worked out in his mind and put into practical Form. It was a
development that required time.
Although Swamiji's mature conception of his mission was,
of course, implicit in all his earlier activities, and although
inevitably in all his lectures he taught some Vedanta, whether
under that name or not, Vedanta being a part of his very
nature, still we cannot read the concepts of 1895 into those of
1893 and 1894 without running headlong into complications.
For instance, even a cursory reading of his letters written
during the first nine to ten months of his stay in this country
can leave no doubt that his conscious purpose in coming to
America was to obtain material help for the masses of India,
whose suffering he felt as only he could feel. "With a
bleeding heart I have crossed half the world to this strange
land, seeking help," he wrote on August 20, 189339 And again
in 1894 he said in his first letter to Swami
Ramakrishnananda, "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 [the
regeneration of India]: '40 And in June of that year to the
Dewan of Junagad, "Primarily my coming [to America] has
been to raise funds for an enterprise of my own. . . . [The
masses] are to be given back their lost individuality. They are
to be educated."41 And around the same time to the Maharaja
of Mysore, "Our duty is to put ideas into (the heads of the
poor], they will do the rest. This is what is to be done in
959
India. It is this' idea that has been in my mind for a long time.
I could not accomplish it in India, and that was the reason of
my coming to this country."42 Again and again Swamiji made
similar statements, which do not seem to indicate that he was
essentially concerned at this period with spreading Vedanta in
the West. The intensity of his desire to
#

960
obtain American aid for India can be gathered from the fact
that although he despaired of earning the money through
lecturing, he never gave up the hope of finding help. As late
as April 1897 he wrote to Sarala Devi, a niece of
Rabindranath Tagore, "My going to the West [again] is yet
uncertain; if I go, know that too will be for India. Where is
the strength of men in this country? Where is the strength of
money?"43 (It may be noted in passing that in 1951 Swamiji's
dream of substantial material help from America to India
began to come true. Since that time, America's economic and
technical aid to India has on the whole increased greatly,
assuming at times magnificent proportions.)
But to say that Swamiji's primary purpose during the first
year or so of his visit to America was to obtain help for his
motherland either by asking for it directly, as he did prior to
the Parliament of Religions, or by earning it little by little
through a lecture tour, is not to say that his sole aim in
lecturing was a financial one. We find that wherever he went
he made it a point not only to describe the manners and
customs of the Indian people in their true light, but to explain
the ennobling and exalted ideals of the Hindu religion. His
effort to correct America's erroneous concept of India was
unceasing and at times this in itself seemed to him to be
sufficient reason for his having come to the West. "If my
coming has done nothing [else]," he wrote in November of
1893 to his friend Haridas V. Desai, the Dewan of Junagadh,
"it has done this that Americans have come to know that
India even today produces men at whose feet even the most
civilized nations may learn lessons of religion and
morality."44 Further, we find that Swamiji often spoke to the
American people of the divinity of man, of the true meaning
961
of religion, and of the essential characteristics of devotion;
he spoke also of Buddha and Buddhism, and, above all, he
invariably spoke, in one way or another, of his Master's
message of the basic unity of all religious aspirations and
teachings. But though Swamiji's lectures during his first year
or so in this country were necessarily an expression of his
own thought
#

962
and inevitably had a profound effect on the American public,
it does not appear that he felt they constituted a specific
mission to the West or that he was deliberately and
methodically teaching a spiritual philosophy and path to be
followed by the American people. Indeed, he himself
declared that such teaching, serious and deeply transforming,
could not be accomplished through public and itinerant
lecturing.
Further, we find that during his lecture tour he disclaimed
any such teaching mission. The tour was being made, he told
an interviewer in Des Moines in November of 1893, "for the
purpose of founding a school in India for the poor, to elevate
them from their present unfortunate condition." Some three
and a half months later this purpose had not changed: "His
mission, he says, is not to proselyte us-to try to make us think
as he docs," wrote a Detroit journalist, "but to get means to
start a college in India." After returning to India in 1897,
Swamiji made it clear that his purpose in going to America
had not been to preach Hinduism at the Parliament of
Religions, or elsewhere, but to seek help for India. In his
lecture "My Plan of Campaign," delivered in Madras, he said:
"I travelled years all over India, finding no way to work for
my countrymen, and that is why I went to America. Most of
you know that, who knew me then. Who cared about this
Parliament of Religions? Here was my own flesh and blood
sinking every day, and who cared for them? This was my first
step."45 Again during a lecture in India he explained, "My
mission in America was not to the Parliament of Religions.
That was only something by the way, it was only an opening,
an opportunity."46 We know, moreover, that had it not been

963
for the urging, the insistence, of Professor Wright, Swamiji
might well not have attended the Parliament at all.
The fact is that nowhere, either before leaving India or
during his first year in this country, does Swamiji speak or
write of teaching Vedanta in America or, for that matter, of
having a specific religious mission to the people of the West.
It is true that in February of 1893 he delivered a lecture in
#

964
Hyderabad entitled "My Mission to the West." But to judge
from the little we know of this lecture,* the word "mission"
must, I believe, be understood as "purpose in going" rather
than "message" or "spiritual teaching." In the first edition of
the Life Swamiji's biographers have written in regard to this
lecture: "Finally he spoke of his Mission, `which is nothing
less than the regeneration of the Motherland,' and he declared
that he felt it an imperative duty to go out as a missionary
from India to the farthest West, to reveal to the world the
incomparable glory of the Vedas and the Vedanta."47 During
this same period Swamiji had an interview with the Nawab of
Hyderabad, in the course of which, it is reported in the Life,
"he . . . gave out his intention of going to the West to preach
the gospel of the Universal, Eternal Religion."48 Whether or
not Swamiji actually spoke these exact words, the broad
purpose they define is not at all contrary to our present thesis:
to reveal t0 the world the incomparable glory of the Vedas
and the Vedanta and to preach the gospel of the Universal,
Eternal Religion is in effect what Swamiji did during his first
year or so in America, and this was, to his mind, an essential
part of his program for the regeneration of his Motherland. "It
is for the people of India that I am going to the West," he told
his Madras disciples, "-for the people and the poor!"49 He
explained his venture more specifically to Haridas V. Desai,
writing after the Parliament of Religions, "Some
representative men must come out of India and go to all the
nations of the earth to show at least that you are not savages.
You may not feel the necessity of it from your Indian home,
but believe me, much depends upon that for your nation."50
But to reveal the glories of the Vedas and the Vedanta and to
preach in a general way the Universal, Eternal Religion was
965
quite a different thing from teaching Vedanta to the American
people for their own spiritual benefit. Although Swamiji did
undoubtedly benefit America with every word he uttered, the
benefit of India was for many months clearly uppermost in
his mind.
In presenting the view that Swamiji did not come to
America
#

966
and did not undertake his lecture tour in order to teach
Vedanta to the American people, I am not forgetting that
there are some passages in his letters written before the fall of
18g¢ that might seem contradictory to this thesis. For
example, he wrote on December 28, 1893, to Mr. Haripada
Mitra, "As regards spirituality, the Americans are far inferior
to us, but their society is far superior to ours. We will teach
them our spirituality, and assimilate what is best in their
society."51 And in January of 1894 he wrote to Swami
Ramakrishnananda, "As our country is lacking in social .
virtues, so this country is lacking in spirituality. I give them
spirituality and they give me money."52 Now, there is no
question that Swamiji was giving spirituality to the American
people, both individually and collectively. But do the above
passages indicate that he was intent at the time of writing
these letters on teaching Vedanta to Americans? It does not
seem that this was what Swamiji was saying, for in both these
letters he mentioned his main reason for being in America. "I
came to this country . . . to see if I could find any means for
the support of the poor in India. If God helps me, you will
know by-and-by what those means are,"53 he wrote to Mr.
Mitra. And to Swami Ramakrishnananda, "I do not know
how long I shall take to realise my end. . . . I shall try to earn
the where withal myself to the best of my might and carry out
my plans, or die in the attempt."54 It would seem that when
Swamiji said in these particular letters, and elsewhere during
this period, that he was giving spirituality he was simply
stating a fact, not explaining his primary purpose.
There are, to be sure, other passages that may seem to
indicate that he had undertaken a world-wide mission of
religious teaching. During the summer of 1894, for example,
967
he wrote to his brother monks of his desire to spread the
message of Sri Ramakrishna "all over the world,"55 and he
urges them to do the same. Again, "We want thousands of
men and thousands of women who will spread like wild fire
from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, From the North Pole
to the South Pole-all over the world."56 Yes, it is true that just
as Swamiji
#

968
was giving spirituality to America, he was, as has been
pointed out above, spreading his Master's message of the
basic unity underlying all religious expression and spiritual
striving. Further, he knew that this message must eventually
be spread far and wide and with full vigor; and this ideal he
naturally set before his brothers, urging them to start to work.
But when one reads these and similar passages written during
the period in question in their proper context and when one
realizes that when they were written the work in India had not
even begun, one can, I believe, only see them as indications
of the general program Swamiji was developing in his mind
for the future and not as statements regarding the work he
was presently engaged in.
After considering all that Swamiji said explicitly in regard
to his American work in his letters, interviews, and lectures
and after taking into consideration the passages that might
seem by implication to contradict his own very clear and
unequivocal statements, I, for one, cannot but believe that
throughout the last part of 1893 and a large part of 1894 he
had not embarked upon the broad and world-encompassing
mission that he later knew to be his. It appears to have been
only toward the end of 1894 and the beginning of 1895 that
the fullness of his message to the West began to take shape in
his mind and that he settled down to formulate it.
The second interpretation of Swamiji's activities following
the Parliament comes from the pen of Swami Kripananda,
more generally known as Leon Landsberg, one of the three
people in America whom Swamiji initiated into sannyasa. In
a dispatch to the Brahmavadin, Swami Kripananda wrote in
regard to Swamiji's work: "Before even starting this great
mission [of the teaching of Vedanta in the West], it was
969
necessary to first perform the Herculean labour of cleansing
this Augean stable of imposture, superstition and bigotry, a
task sufficient to discourage the bravest heart, to dispirit the
most powerful will. But the Swami was not the man to be
deterred by difficulties. Poor and friendless, with no other
support than God
#

970
and his love for mankind, he set patiently to work,
determined not to give up until the message he had to deliver
would reach the hearts of truth-seeking men and women."57
Now, there is no gainsaying the fact that one result of
Swamiji's lecture tour through America was, as has been
seen, to correct much that was erroneous in contemporary
religious thought; but to interpret his activities prior to 1895
as a conscious and deliberate attempt to prepare the American
mind for the message of Vedanta would imply that he
intended all along to remain in the West to deliver that
message in its fully developed form. We have seen from
some of his letters written in the early part of 1894 that this
was not the case. Although later on he at times considered
remaining in America through another winter, he did not
come to a definite decision in this regard until the last part of
1894. As late as September of that year he wrote to Alasinga,
"I hope soon to return to India. I have had enough of this
country."58
It would seem, then, that the only warranted interpretation
of Swamiji's outer activities during 1893 and most of 1894 is
the third and most obvious one. It appears very clear from all
the evidence we have at hand that the uppermost motives that
guided him were ( 1) to raise funds for the development of his
work in India, and incidentally to provide for his self support
during his stay in this country, and (2) to give the American
people correct ideas of Hinduism, to combat the current mis-
conceptions regarding India, and to inculcate the spirit of
tolerance. With these correlated aims in mind, Swamiji joined
a lecture bureau as the best means of carrying them out-not as
the best means of teaching Vedanta philosophy to the
Western world.
971
 In other words, when we analyze the biographies in the
light of history and untangle the motives which have been
erroneously attributed to Swamiji from these that are in
accord with his own statements and activities, we are faced
with the strange conclusion that an illumined soul of the
greatest magnitude gave his best energies to thc task of
earning money for India,
#

972
of explaining Hindu customs and religion to the American
people, and of answering questions asked, for the most part,
by the ignorant, the bigoted, and the dull! Can we accept this
as a complete interpretation of the itinerant period of
Swamiji's life in America? Has not the essential significance
of his lecture tour somehow been overlooked?
When one reads the lives of saints and sages, it seems clear
that the activity of an illumined soul must necessarily be
understood on two levels. There is, first, the activity which
embraces the visible purposes of his life and which can be
seen and comprehended by all in greater or lesser degree. But
strenuous and inspired as such activity may be, it occupies
only a part of his mind, by far the larger and more potent part
operating on a level hidden from our view. Indeed, it would
seem that the very speciality of such a person consists in the
fact that far beneath his surface mind are depths that are fully
awake and fully absorbed in God. It is said that in its deepest
levels the mind of a saint is so close to God that His
effulgence forms, as it were, its very substance and texture.
Surely that vast and silent part of Swamiji's mind, which was
at one with God even while he was in the midst of the most
"cyclonic" outer life, not only served to inform and illumine
his surface mind but had a function of its own which
constituted the true and special significance of his mission.
But somehow this most important aspect of Swamiji's life
has been given little importance in his biographies, and his
life in America has been so presented as to give the reader the
impression that he was primarily a "man of action," a lecturer
and a writer-spiritually inspired, it is true, but first and fore-
most an intellectual genius. We do not see him as he must
have been: continually in a transcendental state of
973
consciousness, possessed of innumerable spiritual
experiences of the highest order and, while undertaking the
most rigorous of active lives, performing on a deeper level a
service of incalculable value to the world.
I do not mean here to minimize the importance of
Swamiji's
#

974
external accomplishments. His biographers have understand-
ably placed a great deal of emphasis upon his magnificent
vindication of India, his glowing and convincing oratory, and
his brilliant exposition of Hinduism in its various phases. All
this was certainly the work of great genius and helped to
establish India in the eyes of the world as a nation worthy of
honor and respect. But I must confess that to Americans Swa-
miji's patriotism is not so important as it is to his own
countrymen. And I believe that as time goes on and India
forgets her past degradation and urgent need For national
vindication in the eyes of the world, even she will see it as of
secondary importance. It would seem, therefore, unfortunate
that in the interpretation of Swamiji's mission in this country
the patriotic and intellectual aspects have been emphasized,
while the most important part-that which sprang from the
depths of his being and which had unique and infinitely more
lasting value -has been relatively neglected.
It is interesting to note in this connection that the bio-
graphies of the other monastic disciples of Sri Ramakrishna
are rich with accounts of their exalted spirituality and
spiritual experiences, but not so that of Swamiji, although, as
is well known, he was acknowledged by his Master and his
brother monks to have been spiritually the greatest among
them. The biographers themselves tell us this, but then, as
though forgetting their own words, they seem to become
bedazzled by the radiance of his external accomplishments,
almost losing sight of all else. Perhaps so one-sided a
portrayal has left the way open to a great deal of
misunderstanding.
For instance, some modern interpreters have explained that
Swamiji fulfilled the external aspect of Sri Ramakrishna's
975
mission, while the vast legacy of spiritual power was
embodied elsewhere. Again, one reads in an essay on Sri
Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda that if the latter had
not visited Dakshineswar, he might well have become one of
India's Foremost statesmen. But according to Sri
Ramakrishna himself, Swamiji was nityasiddha, eternally
perfect, and born to save the
#

976
world. While it is true that Swamiji had world-shaking gifts
and powers of all sorts, surely it was no accident that he came
to Dakshineswar and that his genius took the form it did.
Other interpreters, taking Swamiji's activities during the
lecture-tour period at their face value, have been led to
remark that he could not have been receiving divine guidance
at this time, for his mission was apparently of a temporal
nature and was directed, moreover, by his own instincts and
his own will. It has been suggested that, as far as his world
mission is concerned, this early period was one of groping
and of indecision and that, all in all, it was more human than
divine.
Now, it would seem to me that to criticize Swamiji as not
having been divinely guided simply because at times he
seemed to decide matters for himself is to fail in appraisal of
his spiritual stature. Not only was he divinely guided in the
sense of receiving commands from God, but, if we are to
believe the opinion of one of his great brother disciples,
Swami Shivananda, he was Ishwara-kalpa, literally Godlike.
Living as he did on the very borderland of the Absolute, his
will was God's will, his every action the action of God. More
than this, he was born with the tremendous spiritual power of
a world-teacher. Unless this aspect, indeed essence, of his life
on earth is brought into prominence how can we even begin
to understand and appreciate what he was accomplishing
during his long lecture tour?
It is said that by its very nature the deep center of an il-
lumined mind shines out over the relative world, redeeming it
and awakening it. Was it not this activity, this shining forth of
his being in its full perfection and power, that constituted
Swamiji's greatest service to America? 'The fact is that
977
American devotees view him, not as an intellectual
expounder of the Vedanta philosophy, but as the first great
prophet sent to this country by God. Swamiji himself said
that he did not lecture, he gave. Being what he was-a
completely illumined soul whose heart cried over the
suffering of all men-he inevitably poured out his blessings as
the sun pours out its light. In and
#

978
through everything he said and did, his profound calm and
peace, his boundless compassion for all humanity, and his
ready ability to awaken spirituality in others loomed large.
And it was these things-not his patriotism or his intellectual
genius-that captured the heart of this country.
Wherever Swamiji went, whatever his external activities,
his mission was, first and always, to impart spirituality to
whoever was able to receive it. Such was his very nature.
Whether he was answering questions regarding India's
customs, lecturing on Hinduism, or castigating the bigoted
and hypocritical, whether he was attending social gatherings
or making chance acquaintances on trains or in hotels, he
was, under all circumstances, shedding divine light. Quite
literally he planted the seeds of spirituality deep in the hearts
of innumerable human beings, changing the course of their
lives forever. So spontaneously and naturally did he do this
that at times it seems that he himself was not aware of it. And
indeed, such "unawareness" has always characterized
prophets and saviors-just as it characterizes the sun, which
does not deliberate upon whether or not it will shine. Yet,
there was awareness, too; did he not write, probably in March
of 1894, "Through this instrument He is awaking the spiritual
consciousness in thousands of hearts in this far-off country"
?59 Sometimes, at least, he well knew his stature and his
power.
It was during the period of the lecture tour that Swamiji
came in contact with more people than at any other time; and
if we accept the Hindu belief that every word of an illumined
soul bears everlasting beneficial fruit in the life of the hearer,
then we cannot even begin to estimate the spiritual effect of
that tour upon the life of America. How many hundreds and
979
thousands received his blessings as he went about from city
to city in the Midwest, South, and East we can never know.
Possibly even many of those who received them were
themselves not conscious of the fact, for blessings often work
in secret through inexorable ways. Thus, although the
apparent purpose of Swamiji's tour was to collect funds for
India, to spread a true
#

980
knowledge of her culture and religion, to combat the slander
disseminated against her, and to teach religious tolerance, his
deeper purpose was to fulfill the divine function of a prophet
among the people of the Western world, mingling with as
many as possible and blessing all. We in America believe that
it was this last which formed the true substance and inner
power of his mission to the West, and we believe that
America has been divinely favored.
Perhaps of all his interpreters Swami Abhedananda, who
knew Swamiji as he was in this country, came closest to the
American evaluation of him when, in his lecture before the
Vedanta Society of New York on March 8, 1903, he said:
"The preachers of truth are very few, but their powers are felt
by those who happen to come within the atmosphere of their
divine personality. Such a preacher of truth occasionally ap-
pears like a gigantic comet above the horizon, dazzling the
eyes and filling the hearts of ordinary mortals with wonder
and admiration, and silently passes away into the invisible
and unknown realms of the universe. The late Swami
Vivekananda was one of those great comets who appeared in
the spiritual firmament once perhaps after several
centuries."60
Yes, truly Swamiji was in the fullest sense a prophet sent
by God to America. He was a prophet who prepared us to
meet the modern age, which not only needs the philosophy
of Vedanta to solve its many and complex problems but
requires thousands of spiritually awakened people to put that
philosophy into practice and make it a living force in the
future history of the world. And since such a prophet can
fulfill his function only by mingling with the people, blessing
them through his very presence, it would seem strange had
981
Swamiji not traveled here and there, enduring untold
hardships and giving of himself without stint. Only thus could
he quicken and transform the inner life of this nation; and this
in truth is what he did.
It was only after having fulfilled this essential part of his
prophetic mission that Swamiji settled down in New York to
establish a center, to give Vedanta a definite intellectual
form,
#

982
to write books, and to train disciples. One might well say that
during the first sixteen months of his American visit he lit the
fire of spirituality in innumerable hearts, and then, during the
next sixteen months, built up a legacy of spiritual and
philosophical knowledge by which that fire might be fed for
centuries to come.
If the reader agrees with this interpretation of Swamiji's
activities during 1893 and 1894, then he will also agree that
they constitute an essential part of his function as a divine
prophet and that this period during which he moved among
the people of America, talking with them and blessing them,
formed one of the most important parts of his entire mission
to the West.
#

983
 NOTES FOR CHAPTER EIGHT

Page Symbol Note

422 * 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.

431 * 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.

432 * 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.)

433 * To which Detroit lecture Swamiji is referring

here is not clear, but it must have been given

984
 after he had become free of the inept Mr.
Holden as well as of the questionable Slayton.

434 * Although prices in 1894 seemed exorbitant to

Swamiji, the purchasing power of the dollar in
America was, of course, much greater than
#

985
Page Symbol Note

434 cont. it is today. As Swamiji himself pointed out

(with inverse intent), a decent pair of men‘s
shoes cost $8, a good suit $165 (which last was
indeed relatively high). A servant received $2
aday, but that same servant could buy, on sale,
a man‘s winter suit for $6.75, a hundred piece
English porcelain dinner set for $7.50, a coat
for $7.00.

435 * 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 toherwise 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.

986
471 * In recent times several efforts have been made
to find reports of this lecture of February 13,
1893, in the old newspapers and periodicals of
Hyderabad. (See, for instance, ―Swami
Vivekanada in Madras : 1892-93,‖ by Sri
Sankari Prasad Basu, Prabuddha Bharata,
August 1974, p.295.) The failure of these
efforts to date leads one to suppose that the
lecture was not reported by the newspapers of
the day.

987
 APPENDIX A

Meetings with Mme Calve and John. D. Rockefeller

While it is now fairly certain that Swamiji and Mme Calve

did not meet in Chicago in 1894, there is at present no cer-
tainty regarding what year their first meeting took place. It is
thought by some that it was in November of 1899. In
opposition to this is the fact that the circumstances
surrounding Swamiji's stay in Chicago at that time were quite
different from those described in Calve's memoirs; for one
thing, he was not then lecturing. Another possibility is that
they first met in the early part of April of 1896, when, also,
they were, for a few days at least, both in Chicago, Calve
singing and Swamiji holding classes. It is possible that he
was living at this time with Mr. and Mrs. Milward Adams,
who almost certainly knew the famous opera star, Mr. Adams
being manager of the Auditorium Opera House. On the
whole, however, the date of Calve's first meeting with
Swamiji is still so uncertain that I believe it best to let the
story remain as a part of this volume until some conclusive
evidence shows us where it more properly belongs.
In whatever year the following story took place, we are
indebted For it to the late Mme Paul Verdier of Paris and San
Francisco, for it was to her that Calve confided more details
of her first meeting with Swamiji than she chose to tell in her
published memoirs. Shortly after hearing the account, Mme
Verdier jotted down Calve's words, and it is these notes that
she shared with us.

988
 When she first met Swamiji, Emma Calve was visiting
Chicago with the Metropolitan Opera Company. In the 1890s
she was at the peak of her career, enjoying a tremendous suc-
cess in Europe and New York with her dramatic
interpretation of the role of Carmen. The world was at her
feet; she was entertained, as are most celebrities, by the
cream of society, and
#

989
had become friendly with whoever it was Swamiji was
staying with at the time (most likely not the Hales). But
Calve, the toast of two continents, was possessed of a
temperament that rarely makes for happiness. Tempestuous,
headstrong, and sensuous, she was, it would seem, frequently
involved in emotional attachments. The most recent and most
deeply felt of these had just come to an unhappy end, leaving
her desolate. Her only comfort was her daughter, who had
accompanied her to Chicago and upon whom she lavished her
love. The following is Mme Calve's story of her first meeting
with Swamiji and of the circumstances surrounding it, as
recounted in Calve's autobiography and in Mme Verdier's
notes:

My Life: . . . [Swamiji] was lecturing in Chicago one

year when I was there; and as I was at that time greatly
depressed in mind and body, I decided to go to him. l
Mme Verdier's Notes: She [Calve] told me that one
evening at the opera where she was singing Carmen her
voice had never been so beautiful, and although she Felt
nervous going to the theatre, she had after the first act a
tremendous success.
During the first intermission she suddenly felt terribly
depressed and thought she would not continue the second
act, but with a great effort she succeeded in getting ready,
and although she had the impression she would not be
able to sing, she sang magnificently. Right after the
second act, coming back to her dressing room she almost
collapsed and asked the manager to announce she was ill.
She was more depressed than before and had difficulty in
breathing. The manager and people around her insisted
990
so, that finally she continued and was almost carried to
the stage for the last act. She told me that at that minute
she made the greatest effort of her life to finish the
performance. She also said that it was the day she sang
her best and the public gave her a tremendous ovation.
She ran to her dressing room without waiting for the
applause, and when
#

991
she saw several people and the manager waiting for her
with sad faces, she knew something tragic had happened.
The tragedy was that her daughter, who had been in a
house of a friend that evening, was dead, having been
burned to death during the performance of Carmen. Calve
collapsed.
Then came the period of days during which she wanted
to commit suicide. Her friend Mrs. X was constantly with
her, trying to comfort her, asking, begging her to come to
her house to see Swamiji. Calve constantly refused. She
told me that her only thought was to commit suicide by
throwing herself in the lake, and each time as though in a
daze she found herself on the road to Swamiji's house.
She said it was like awaking from a dream. And each
time she came back home. Finally, the fourth or fifth
time, she found herself on the threshold of her friend's
house, the butler opening the door. She went in and sat in
a deep chair in the living room. She was there for a while
as in a dream, she said, when she heard a voice coming
from the next room saying, "Come, my child. Don't be
afraid," And automatically she got up and entered into the
study where Swamiji was sitting behind a large table-
desk.2
My Life: . . . Before going I had been told not to speak
until he addressed me. When I entered the room, I stood
before him in silence for a moment. He was seated in a
noble attitude of meditation, his robe of saffron yellow
falling in straight lines to the floor, his head swathed in a
turban bent forward, his eyes on the ground. After a
pause he spoke without looking up.

992
 "My child," he said, "What a troubled atmosphere you
have about you, Be calm. It is essential."
Then in a quiet voice, untroubled and aloof, this man
who did not even know my name talked to me of my
secret problems and anxieties. He spoke of things that I
thought were unknown even to my nearest friends. It
seemed miraculous, supernatural.
#

993
 "How do you know all this?" I asked at last. "Who has
talked of me to you?"
He looked at me with his quiet smile as though I were
a child who had asked a foolish question.
"No one has talked to me," he answered gently. "Do
you think that it is necessary? I read in you as in an open
book: '
Finally it was time for me to leave.
"You must forget," he said as I rose. "Become gay and
happy again. Build up your health. Do not dwell in
silence upon your sorrows. Transmute your emotions into
some form of external expression. Your spiritual health
requires it. Your art demands it "
I left him deeply impressed by his words and his per-
sonality. He seemed to have emptied my brain of all its
feverish complexities and placed there instead his clear
and calming thoughts. I became once again vivacious and
cheerful, thanks to the effect of his powerful will. He did
not use any of the hypnotic or mesmeric influences. It
was the strength of his character, the purity and intensity
of his purpose that carried conviction. It seemed to me,
when I came to know him better, that he lulled one's
chaotic thoughts into a state of peaceful acquiescence, so
that one could give complete and undivided attention to
his words.
(Records of the death of Mme Calve's daughter would, of
course, help us to determine the year of this interview, but
any such records seem to be as unavailable as are records of
the daughter's birth. Indeed, as has been pointed out by
skeptics, one can only take Mme Calve's of - the-record word
994
for it that she had a daughter-but who could have known
better than she?)
There is yet another story which Mme Calve told regarding
this period of Swamiji's life. Unfortunately we are not in a
position to authenticate it, but it is not in essence an unlikely
story, and at the risk of providing material for the start of a
legend I think it should be made available to Swamiji's fol-
#

995
lowers. It is related in Mme Verdier's journal from notes
taken during conversations with Mme Calve and reads as
follows:
Mr. X, in whose home Swamiji was staying in
Chicago, was a partner or an associate in some business
with John D. Rockefeller. Many times John D. heard his
friends talking about this extraordinary and wonderful
Hindu monk who was staying with them, and many times
he had been invited to meet Swamiji, but, for one reason
or another, always refused. At that time Rockefeller was
not yet at the peak of his fortune, but was already
powerful and strong-willed, very difficult to handle and a
hard man to advise.
But one day, although he did not want to meet
Swamiji, he was pushed to it by an impulse and went
directly to the house of his friends, brushing aside the
butler who opened the door and saying that he wanted to
see the Hindu monk.
The butler ushered him into the living room, and, not
waiting to be announced, Rockefeller entered into Swa-
miji's adjoining study and was much surprised, I
presume, to see Swamiji behind his writing table not even
lifting his eyes to see who had entered.
After a while, as with Calve, Swamiji told Rockefeller
much of his past that was not known to any but himself,
and made him understand that the money he had already
accumulated was not his, that he was only a channel and
that his duty was to do good to the world-that God had
given him all his wealth in order that he might have an
opportunity to help and do good to people.

996
 Rockefeller was annoyed that anyone dared to ta1k to
him that way and tell him what to do. He left the room in
irritation, not even saying goodbye. But about a week
after, again without being announced, he entered Swa-
miji's study and, finding him the same as before, threw on
his desk a paper which told of his plans to donate an
enormous sum of money toward the financing of a public
institution.
#

997
 "Well, there you are," he said. "You must be satisfied
now, and you can thank me for it "
Swamiji didn't even lift his eyes, did not move. Then
taking the paper, he quietly read it, saying: "It is for you
to thank me." That was all. This was Rockefeller's first
large donation to the public welfare.
The reader can make of this what he will. Except for the
fact that it was in the mid-1890s that Rockefeller entered
upon his career of philanthropy, there is nothing in the
published accounts of his life to corroborate the story that he
was inspired by Swamiji. But on the other hand, this is so
intimate a story that it is unlikely it would find its way into
the biographies of a financier. We do know that in his own
way Rockefeller was interested in religion, and once, almost
as though echoing Swamiji, he said, explaining the reason
behind his monumental philanthropies: "There is more to life
than the accumulation of money. Money is only a trust in
one's hands. To use it improperly is a great sin. The best way
to prepare for the end of life is to live for others. That is what
I am trying to do."3
#

998
 APPENDIX B

Minneapolis Tribune, Thursday, November 23, 1893

A PRIEST OF BRAHMA

Swami Vive Kananda Here on a Mission

__________

One of the Delegates to the Parliament of Religions at the

World's Fair Visits Minneapolis-Enthusiastic over the
Beauties of Minnehaha-A Benefactor to the Masses of
India-Projects for the Betterment of the Condition of His
People-An Interesting Talk to THE TRIBUNE-Lecture
for the Peripatetic Literary Club.
__________

A foreigner of dignified position, a Brahmin priest, Swami

Vive Kananda, is a guest in the city for a few days. He was
one of the delegates to the Parliament of Religions at Chicago
and arrived in Minneapolis Tuesday [November 21] to
remain over Friday, when he is to give a lecture in the
evening at the First Unitarian Church for the Peripatetic
Literary Club. He is stopping with friends during his stay.
Vive Kananda is an oriental in everything but dress, and
this he will be tomorrow evening when he will give his
lecture in the native priest costume. He is a man of little more
than 30 years, with dark brown skin, coal black hair and jetty
eyes. He is of medium height, compactly built, and with a
highly intelligent cast of countenance from which beams
kindliness and interest when in pleasant conversation. When
999
Vive Kananda was found by THE TRIBUNE yesterday
afternoon he was smoking a cigar, and he blew the smoke in
grateful enjoyment far above his head. He had just returned
from a trip to Minnehaha, and his frequent lapses into silence
were interrupted by the emphatic expression "Hiawatha." He
had read Long-
#

1000
fellow's poem far over in his Indian home in Calcutta, and he
was delighted to have visited the scene of the legend.
Kananda is not merely a casual visitor to this part of the
world. He comes with a purpose strong, deep and earnest. He
comes in the guise of a benefactor to the masses of India, the
lower class people who dwell in ignorance and poverty.
In his native land he is one of thousands of mendicant
monks who travel from village to town preaching the
Brahmin faith. As a priest Vive Kananda is above all caste,
and, in his own words, "I am my own man. I have no church.
I bow to no one: ' His official title, "Swami" a word of
Sanscrit origin, designates his position as "master," or as
rabbi in other nations. He uses the English language with
happy ease, and his speech is slow and dignified, while he
speaks in low musical tones. His mission to this country is to
obtain funds by his lectures, to return to India and establish
an institute of learning for the ignorant masses who swarm
through the country. In this errand he is an evangel, for no
one has ever yet endeavored to better the condition of the
lower classes.
Told by Vive Kananda, the story of his mission and his,
coming to America is pleasing to hear. "I am, as you know "
he says, "a monk, who with thousands of others travels about
the land speaking to the people. As I traveled I was called to
do a work that no one else had even attempted. I was called to
journey into the new world. The people of India are a
depressed race, and there are two reasons for their condition
their ignorance and political oppression. They can never
relieve themselves of the second calamity until they have
overcome the first. So I undertake a pilgrimage to interest

1001
distant people, and when the time comes I shall return to
establish a school for the masses."
Pressed further for details of his plan and for the location
of his school, Kananda smiled. "It is in my brain yet, and I do
not know where it will be," he said.
"I shall have thousands of workers to help me in the cause.
India has her universities, and one of them contains 20,000
#

1002
students, but it is only the higher class people who reap their
benefit. The poor people work in the fields and labor, but
education and the practical things of life are not their reward.
I wish to start a school, and this is how I shall do it. These
brother missionaries who are traveling about the country I
shall call upon them and they will help. When the people
gather in the fields at night and sit smoking after the toil of
the day, a missionary will join their number, and little by
little they will learn some of the things it will be good for
them to know. In this way my school will be started. Then I
shall have a training college, where sons of farmers will learn
to be missionaries, and soon they, too, shall teach and by and
by there will be a group of schools and colleges."
Vive Kananda grew more earnest as he dwelt upon his
plans, and when accused in a friendly way of being an apostle
in his work, he replied: "Apostle or no apostle, I do the work
and the people of my land will be aided to help themselves."
Kananda turns to America when he cannot and will not look
to England, and his stay in this country will be regulated by
the sympathy with which he meets.
His lecture tomorrow evening will be on the subject,
"Brahminism," and while the audience will be limited to
members and friends of the Peripatetics, he will probably
remain in the city for a few days, since both Rev. Mr.
Simpsons and Dr. Tuttle are desirous that the people of their
churches shall hear him speak. In his travels through this
country he conforms himself to the customs of the people
with whom he is, and at table, in dress or conversation he is
an agreeable and interesting person to meet. With one phase
of missionary work as conducted in foreign lands he is not in
sympathy, since he believes that the men who are most
1003
frequently employed as foreign missionaries are not always
the worthiest for the position and place they are called upon
to fill.
#

1004
#

1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019