THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS.

“And there are diversities of working, but the same God who worketh all things in all."— 1 Cor. xii. 6.

THE great events in the history of the world very commonly pass unnoticed by the people of the time. At any rate, it is only a few who comprehend their significance. When Columbus sailed from Palos, it was looked upon as a mad enterprise by the most of those who were familiar with his intention; and nobody had even the slightest conception. as to what was to be the magnificent result. And when, not long after, Copernicus died, having just seen his famous book on the Constitution of the Universe, few, perhaps, in all Europe, had any conception that he had revolutionized the thought of mankind. And when Luther, one poor, disaffected, heretical monk, nailed his theses on the church door in Wittenberg, how many appreciated that here again was one of the great turning-points in the history of the world? And when that poor peasant from Nazareth in Galilee was pronounced to be dead, and a few loving disciples had been allowed to carry away his body, and when not long after, Paul, the persecutor, having spent three and onehalf years brooding over the problems of his life and of the world in Arabia, went forth with his missionary message, how many were there that appreciated that here was the birth of the grandest organized religion that the world has ever known?

Once again in human history we stand at the birth of a marvellous movement. Something has recently happened. which is going to be memorable in every future age of the history of mankind.

Beginning on Monday, the 11th of September, and lasting

until Wednesday, September 27, there was a meeting held in the city of Chicago. When the World's Fair was projected, those who had the management of affairs determined that it should not only be a manifestation of the world's advance in material things, but that there should also go along with it an exposition of the thought, the feeling, the religious advance of mankind. A series of congresses was provided for in a building intended to be permanent, and not, like the White City, to fade away like the dream of beauty that it is. This was erected in the centre of the city of Chicago, on Michigan Avenue, close by the wondrous lake. In this Art Institute rooms were provided for the meetings of the various congresses that should represent the religious and social advance of the world.

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I have no time to refer to the congresses of each separate body of religionists, the Unitarians, the Free Religious, the Evolutionists, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Mental Scientists, and a great many others. These were only satellites that moved round and were drawn to the great main central body of this wondrous system of meetings. This central body was the Parliament of Religions which was held in the Hall of Columbus in the Art Institute. cannot go into any prolonged description of it. All that I want is to hint its make-up. Every great country in the world was there represented, not only nearly all the sects into which Christianity is divided (the exception being of such a nature that I shall be obliged to note it before I am through), but all the great pagan religions of the world, China and India, Ceylon and Japan, Africa and Australia. All the great countries of the earth had their representatives in this strange, new gathering. Here the follower of Confucius, the Brahmin from India, the Buddhist priest from Ceylon, the Shinto priest from Japan, the follower of Zoroaster, the Mohammedan, all came together on an equal footing in this wondrous parliament; and with freedom, and in the main with wondrous courtesy, all presented their peculiar ideas.

I wish to note the fact that this is something absolutely new in the history of mankind; and Mr. C. C. Bonney, who was the president of the entire aggregation of congresses, and Dr. John Henry Barrows, who was the president of the Parliament of Religions, have written their names where they will not be effaced by the passing of the years. There have been great religious gatherings which have been called œcumenical, that is, universal councils; but this is the first really œcumenical meeting that the world has ever seen. The council of Nice, the council of Trent, the great gatherings of the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, were but the meetings of sectarians. Here was, indeed, a universal council of mankind.

I wish now to point out a few of the characteristics of this meeting. Then I wish to call your attention to what seem to me some of the significant things which it indicates, and then ask you to consider to what it points in the future.

Three things I will briefly note. First, what I have already spoken of, this wondrous new fact that all the religions of the world should sit down in friendship and confer together. What that means I shall have occasion to speak of soon.

Another significant fact. The crowded audiences that attended these meetings, in the largest hall in the Art Institute, were always manifestly in sympathy, in the main, with the broader utterances and more universal ideas. Narrowness, sectarianism, had little favor; but those things which make for universal tolerance and sympathy were applauded to the echo.

I wish to note another fact. I do it with regret. I think I am correct in saying that, if there was during the entire progress of this meeting any departure from perfect brotherliness and courtesy, it was always on the part of those who would pride themselves on being exclusively Christian, extremely evangelical. That which we are accustomed to refer to as Christian courtesy was manifested in the gentlest and most delicate way by the "heathen " from first to last.

Note, then, that the sympathy of the audience, which was

a representative one of the modern world, was with the broadest ideas, and that the gentleness, tenderness, courtesy, charity, those characteristics which we have been accustomed to think as most distinctly Christian, were manifested without exception by the representatives of the different "heathen" religions of the world.

I wish now to call your attention to certain things which it seems to me are signified by a gathering like this.

In the first place, it is right on the surface; and I wish to speak about it and put it behind me as soon as possible, although it is of the utmost importance. Here is a living refutation of the charge of materialism that is being continually urged against this age, especially against this country, and more especially against the city of Chicago. It is said, on every hand, that this is an age in which the times of the world's great faiths have gone by. It is a materialistic age, it is an age in which people care only for money, for political power, for social aggrandizement. And it is commonly charged throughout the world that the one country which is on a wild and headlong rush after these things is America. And it is charged that the one city in America which manifests these characteristics in the most remarkable degree is the city of Chicago. It is supposed to care only for pork and for grain and for twenty-story buildings and for large parks and for great fortunes and for vulgar display. This is the characteristic picture as painted of Chicago by those who look at it only from the outside. And yet here in this material country and this most material city has just now been held the grandest spiritual meeting that the world has ever seen. From the time when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy over a finished creation, there has never been shown so grand and so magnificent an illustration of the care of the world for the very highest, the most spiritual, the most deeply religious things. I dare put this age, with such an illustration as this, in comparison with any age that the world has ever seen. Though there have been ages of credulity in the past, there has never been any

thing like this for a moment as an age of faith, as an age that cares for God and the highest things of mankind.

Now, I must note something which those who stand for the exclusive claims on the part of Christianity may think derogatory to Christianity, but which I think has been the finest illustration of its glory that has been given to us since this history began. That is the fact that Christianity has been willing to sit down on equal terms in a parliament of the world's religions. I have wondered whether all those who have favored it have quite appreciated what it means. It seems to me, however, that it means, and must mean, nothing less than a voluntary abdication on the part of Christianity of its autocratic and exclusive claims to being the only one revealed and infallible religion.

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It now becomes necessary to note the point I referred to a moment ago, the exception to the Christian universality of this Parliament. The Episcopal Church of America as an organized body, following the lead of the Anglican Church, has not been represented in this Congress. I do not know that any other religious body formally declined. Representatives of a good many of the orthodox sects of Christianity have looked askance upon it, have been suspicious of its effect, of its meaning; but I do not think, with the exception of individual instances, they have declined to attend. ought to be said also that representatives of the Anglican Church and high dignitaries of the Episcopal Church on their own personal responsibility have attended the Congress, and have regretted that they have not been represented in any official way. I think that logically and from the point of view of the old faith the Archbishop of Canterbury was right in declining to attend or to have the Anglican Church represented. At a meeting in the spring, in London, of the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed his opinion to the assembled bishops and dignitaries of the Church. He said that "it did not appear to him to be their business to put Christianity on a platform in competition with all the relig