A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"66 SWAMl S REPLY TO THE ADDRESSES.What is meant by those pictures in the school booksfor children where the Hindu mother is painted as throwing her children to the crocodiles in the Ganges ? The mothe?is black, but the baby is painted white, to arouse moresympathy and get more money What is meant ! by thosepictures which paint a man burning his wife at a stakewith his own hands, so that she may become a ghost andtorment the husband senemy ? What is meant by thosepictures of huge cars crushing human beings ?The otherday a book was published for children in this countrywhere one of these gentlemen tells a narrative of his visit toCalcutta. He says he saw a car running over fanatics inthe streets of Calcutta. I have heard one of thesegentlemen preach in Memphis that in every village ofIndia there is a pondfull of the bones of little babies.What have the Hindus clone to these disciples of Christthat every Christian child is taught to call the Hindusvile wretches,"and the most horrible devils on earth ?Part of the Sunday School education for children hereconsists in teaching them to hate everybody who is not aChristian, and the Hindu especially so;that from theirvery childhood they may be induced to subscribe theirpenniesto the missions.If not for truth s sake, for the sake of the morality oftheir own children, the Christian missionaries ought not toallow such things to go on. Is it any wonder that suchchildren grow up to be ruthless and cruel men and women ?The greater a preacher can paint the tortures of eternal hell, the fire that isburning there, the brimstone, thehigher is his position among the orthodox.A servant girl in the employ of a friend of mine hadto be sent to a lunatic asylum as a result of her attending