Chapter (অধ্যায়): PART I : AMERICAN NEWSPAPER REPORTS PAGE-481Page: 481 of 548

faiths to heathen lands, and said that the various religions engaged in missionary work should be united. Mr. Vivekananda explained that the Hindoo religion is optimistic and not pes­simistic. His main point was the doctrine of reincarnation, which means that all have existed before and will live again in other forms. The proceeds of the lecture will be applied to the work of founding an international college.

 

LET INDIA ALONE1

[Daily Eagle, April 8, 1895]

Then It will Come Out All Right,

Says Swami Vivekananda

The English people were given a raking over last night by Swami Vivekananda of India, who lectured to a throng at the Pouch mansion.2 He said that the English used three B's__

       Bible, brandy and bayonets__in civilizing India. The preacher went ahead with the Bible to get the lay of the fortifications. The English, he said, had exaggerated the social conditions of India in their writings. They got their ideas from the Pariahs, who were a sort of human scavenger. No self‑respecting Hin­doo, he declared, would associate with an Englishman. The story about widows throwing themselves under the chariot of Juggernaut he declared to be a myth. Child marriage and caste he agreed were bad. Caste, he said, originated with the me­chanics' guilds. What India needed was to be let alone, and it would come out all right.



Foot Note:

1         New Discoveries, Vol. 2, p. 314.

2         Of which no verbatim transcript is available. Cf. the newspaper report "Some Customs of the Hindus", Complete Works, II: 515‑17, for a comple­mentary report on the same lecture.