the greatest expressions of the Faith is put into the mouth of a butcher, preaching, by
the orders of a married woman, to a sannyasin. Thus Buddhism became the religion of
a monastic order, but Hinduism, in spite of its exaltation of monasticism, remains ever
the religion of faithfulness to daily duty, whatever it may be, as the path by which man
may attain to God.
From Lannion, on St. Michael's Day, he visited Mont St. Michel. He was struck by the
similarity between the rituals of Hinduism and Roman Catholicism. He said,
'Christianity is not alien to Hinduism.'
Nivedita took leave of the Swami in Brittany and departed for England in order to raise
funds for her work on behalf of Indian women. While giving her his blessings, the
Swami said: 'There is a peculiar sect of Mohammedans who are reported to be so
fanatical that they take each new-born babe and expose it, saying, "If God made thee,
perish! If Ali made thee, live!" Now this which they say to the child, I say, but in the
opposite sense, to you, tonight — "Go forth into the world, and there, if I made you, be
destroyed. If Mother made you, live!"' Perhaps the Swami remembered how some of
his beloved Western disciples, unable to understand the profundity of his life and
teachings, had deserted him. He also realized the difficulties Westerners experienced in
identifying themselves completely with the customs of India. He had told Nivedita,
before they left India, that she must resume, as if she had never broken them off, all her
old habits and social customs of the West.
On October 24, 1900, Swami Vivekananda left Paris for the East, by way of Vienna
and Constantinople. Besides the Swami, the party consisted of Monsieur and Madame
Loyson, Jules Bois, Madame Calve, and Miss MacLeod. The Swami was Calve's guest.
In Vienna the Swami remarked, 'If Turkey is called "the sick man of Europe," Austria
ought to be called "the sick woman of Europe"!' The party arrived in Constantinople
after passing through Hungary, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria. Next the Swami and
his friends came to Athens. They visited several islands and a Greek monastery. From
Athens they sailed to Egypt and the Swami was delighted to visit the museum in Cairo.
While in Cairo, he and his women devotees, one day, in the course of sightseeing,
unknowingly entered the part of the city in which the girls of ill fame lived, and when
the inmates hurled coarse jokes at the Swami from their porches, the ladies wanted to
take him away; but he refused to go. Some of the prostitutes came into the street, and
the ladies saw from a distance that they knelt before him and kissed the hem of his
garment. Presently the Swami joined his friends and drove away.
In Cairo the Swami had a presentiment that something had happened to Mr. Sevier. He
became restless to return to India, took the first available boat, and sailed for Bombay
alone.
Throughout his European tour the Swami's friends had noticed that he was becoming
more and more detached from the spectacle of external things, and buried in
meditation. A sort of indifference to the world was gradually overpowering him. On
August 14 he had written to a friend that he did not expect to live long. From Paris he