A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

>"""SWAMl S REPLY TO THE ADDRESSES. 67what they call here the revivalist preaching. The dose ofhellfire and brimstone was too much for her.Look again at the books published in Madras againstthe Hindu religion.If a Hindu writes one such lineagainst the Christian religion, the missionaries will cryfire and vengeance.My countrymen, I have been more than a year in this"country. I have seen almost every corner of their society,and, after comparing notes, let me tell you that neither"are we devils as the missionaries tell the world we are,nor are they angels as they claim to be. The less themissionaries talk of immorality, infanticide, and the evilsof the Hindu marriage system, the better for them. Theremay be actual pictures of some countries beforewhich allthe imaginary missionary pictures of Hindu society willfade away into light.But my mission in life is not to be a paid reviler. Ishall be the last man to claim perfection for Hindu society.No man is more conscious of the defects that are therein,of the evils that have grown up under centuries of misfortunes. If, foreign friends, you come with genuinesympathy to help and not to destroy, God-speed to you.But ifby abuses incessantly hurled against the head ofa prostrate race in season and out of season you mean onlythe triumphant assertion of the moral superiority of yourown nation, let me tell you plainly if such a comparisonbe instituted with any amount of justice, the Hindus willbe found head and shoulder above all other nations in theworld as a moral race.In India religion was never shackled.ever challenged in the selection of hisNo man wasIshtadevata," orhis sect or his preceptor, and religion grew as itgrew nowhere else. On the other hand, a fixed point was necessary