American women! A hundred lives would not be sufficient to pay my deep debt of
gratitude to you! Last year I came to this country in summer, a wandering preacher of a
far distant country, without name, fame, wealth, or learning to recommend me —
friendless, helpless, almost in a state of destitution; and American women befriended
me, gave me shelter and food, took me to their homes, and treated me as their own son,
their own brother. They stood as my friends even when their own priests were trying to
persuade them to give up the 'dangerous heathen' — even when, day after day, their
best friends had told them not to stand by this 'unknown foreigner, maybe of dangerous
character.' But they are better judges of character and soul — for it is the pure mirror
that catches the reflection.
And how many beautiful homes I have seen, how many mothers whose purity of
character, whose unselfish love for their children, are beyond expression, how many
daughters and pure maidens, 'pure as the icicle on Diana's temple' — and withal much
culture, education, and spirituality in the highest sense! Is America, then, only full of
wingless angels in the shape of women? There are good and bad everywhere, true —
but a nation is not to be judged by its weaklings, called the wicked, for they are only
the weeds which lag behind, but by the good, the noble and the pure, who indicate the
national life-current to be flowing clear and vigorous.
And how bitter the Swami felt when he remembered the sad plight of the women of
India! He particularly recalled the tragic circumstances under which one of his own
sisters had committed suicide. He often thought that the misery of India was largely
due to the ill-treatment the Hindus meted out to their womenfolk. Part of the money
earned by his lectures was sent to a foundation for Hindu widows at Baranagore. He
also conceived the idea of sending to India women teachers from the West for the
intellectual regeneration of Hindu women.
Swami Vivekananda showed great respect for the fundamentals of American culture.
He studied the country's economic policy, industrial organizations, public instruction,
and its museums and art galleries, and wrote to India enthusiastically about them. He
praised highly the progress of science, hygiene, institutions, and social welfare work.
He realized that such noble concepts as the divinity of the soul and the brotherhood of
men were mere academic theories in present-day India, whereas America showed how
to apply them in life. He felt indignant when he compared the generosity and liberality
of the wealthy men of America in the cause of social service, with the apathy of the
Indians as far as their own people were concerned.
'No religion on earth,' he wrote angrily, 'preaches the dignity of humanity in such a
lofty strain as Hinduism, and no religion on earth treads upon the necks of the poor and
the low in such a fashion as Hinduism. Religion is not at fault, but it is the Pharisees
and Sadducees.'
How poignant must have been his feelings when he remembered the iniquities of the