Inspired Talks - Swami Vivekananda

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THE MASTER 29
and lectures. The room was not large enough to
accommodate the crowds, and to our great regret
many were turned away. The room, as also the hall,
staircase and library, was literally packed. At that
time he was all Bhakti—the love for God was a
hunger and a thirst. A kind of divine madness seem-
ed to take possession of him, as if his heart would
burst with longing for the Beloved Mother.
His last public appearance in Detroit was at the
Temple Beth El, of which the Rabbi Louis Grossman,
an ardent admirer of the Swami, was the pastor. It
was Sunday evening, and so great was the crowd that
we almost feared a panic. There was a solid line
reaching far out into the street and hundreds were
turned away. Vivekananda held the large audience
spell-bound, his subject being, ' India's Message to
the West', and ' The Ideal of a Universal Religion '. He
gave us a most brilliant and masterly discourse. Never
had I seen the Master look as he looked that night.
There was something in his beauty not of earth. It
was as if the spirit had almost burst the bonds of flesh,
and it was then that I first saw a fore-shadowing of
the end. He was much exhausted from years of over-
work, and it was even then to be seen that he was not
long for this world. ^ I tried to close my eyes to it, but
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