the testimony of those who had heard about it from these two close companions of the Holy Mother. Concerning the latter part of her life, however, there are yet many living authorities to give first-hand information. Most of them are monks of the Ramakrishna Order, while the others are those few lady disciples of the Holy Mother who had the privilege of staying with her and serving her in her last days.
Judged by purely objective standards, the Holy Mother's life may look very simple and uneventful, and one may doubt whether it provides a fitting theme at all for the historian to work upon. A contemporary of many a great spiritual luminary of the past, with the figures of the big potentates and military leaders of the time looming large in his eyes, might also have felt in the same way if called upon to record the lives of those personalities whom the world has in later times come to recognize as the salt, of humanity. But greatness of the highest type is to be measured not in terms of the political, economic or military values of a life for the moment, but in terms of the character potential it embodies. When considered in this light, the Holy Mother, who was wife, nun, mother and teacher in one, is an arresting figure in the history of mankind, and it is our conviction that through her simple life and character a unique ideal. has been revealed to mankind - an ideal which, in spite of its artless simplicity, is dynamic enough to transform the lives of men and women who approach it in the right attitude of mind.
In recounting the events of her life, our aim has been to give an interpretative study of it, bringing into