the great delight of the Grand-dame."[7]

Thus the Indian saint. Let us now try to bring his conception into
relation with what we in the West believe to be real experience. In a
railway accident a driver is pinned against the furnace and slowly
burned to death, praying the bystanders in vain to put him out of his
misery. What is this? It is the sport of God! In Putumayo innocent
natives are deprived of their land, enslaved, tortured, and murdered,
that shareholders in Europe may receive high dividends. What is this?
The sport of God! In the richest countries of the West a great
proportion of those who produce the wealth receive less than the wages
which would suffice to keep them in bare physical health. What is this?
Once more the sport of God! One might multiply examples, but it would be
idle. No Western man could for a moment entertain the view of Sri
Ramakrishna. To him such a God would be a mere devil. The Indian
position, no doubt, is a form of idealism; but an idealism conditioned
by defective experience of the life in Time. The saint has chosen
another experience. But clearly he has not transcended ours, he has
simply left it out.

Now I am aware that it will be urged by some of the most sincere
representatives of religion in India that Sri Ramakrishna does not
typify the Indian attitude. Perhaps not, if we take contemporary India.
But then contemporary India has been profoundly influenced by Western
thought; modern Indians like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen,
Rabindranath Tagore, could hardly have thought and felt as they did, and
do, were it not for this influence. The following poem of Rabindranath
Tagore may aptly symbolise this breaking in of the West upon the East,
though I do not know that that was the author's intention:

"With days of hard travail I raised a temple. It had no
doors or windows, its walls were thickly built with
massive stones.

I forgot all else, I shunned all the world, I gazed in rapt
contemplation at the image I had set upon the altar.

It was always night inside, and lit by the lamps of
perfumed oil. The ceaseless smoke of incense wound
my heart in its heavy coils.

Sleepless, I carved on the walls fantastic figures in mazy
bewildering lines--winged horses, flowers with human
faces, women with limbs like serpents.

No passage was left anywhere through which could enter
the song of bi