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 THE QUEST 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 Baccalaureate Address by 
 
 President IV. F. Warren, S.T.D., LL.D. 
 
 1886. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE GRADUATING CLASSES OF BOSTON 
 "UNIVERSITY, BY 
 
 PRESIDENT W. v F: WARREN, S.T.D., LL.D., 
 
 June 1, 1886. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 RAND AVERY COMPANY. 
 
 jFrankltn ^xtm. 
 1887. 
 

 
THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 A few evenings since, as I was walking up one of the main 
 streets of Tokio, I encountered an experience not soon to be 
 forgotten. My companion, who was the American minister to 
 the Mikado's court, was pointing out to me at a considerable 
 distance a large hall, called the Meiji Kuaido, and explaining 
 that though now belonging to the government, it was originally 
 built in a spirit of opposition to Christian missions and was de- 
 signed to be a kind of headquarters for all who wished to 
 rehabilitate the old religions, or in any way to oppose the spread 
 of the Christian faith. While he was narrating some incidents 
 connected with it we came nearer and nearer, but soon found 
 our further progress blocked by an altogether unprecedented 
 crowd of people, evidently made up of the most diverse nationali- 
 ties. It filled not only the approaches to the building, but also 
 the whole street for some distance in front and on either side. 
 Upon inquiry we learned that a convention of quite unusual 
 interest was in progress and that all these people which the 
 building could not contain were waiting to learn what they 
 could of the progress of the deliberations within. One man 
 kindly showed us a copy of the call under which the assembly 
 had been brought together. At its top I read these words : 
 " "World's Convention for the Definition and Promulgation of a 
 Perfect and Universal Religion." The provisions under which 
 the Delegates were to be appointed, and the Convention organ- 
 ized, were carefully drawn and admirably adapted to secure a 
 most weighty and representative body. Nearly every religion 
 
 1 Baccalaureate Address by Rev. William F. Warren, S.T.D., LL.D., 
 President of Boston University. Delivered before tbe graduating classes 
 of tbe University, in Jacob Sleeper Hall, on Tuesday, June 1, 1886. [Soon 
 after translated into Japanese, and published in Yokohama ; also into 
 Spanish, and published in the city of Mexico,] 
 
4 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 and sect I had ever heard of — except the Christian — was 
 named and provided for. Of course I was at once intensely in- 
 terested to see so rare a body — the first of its kind in the 
 history of the world. But the crowd was so dense I was almost 
 in despair. Fortunately in our extremity two stout policemen 
 recognized my companion, and knowing his ambassadorial char- 
 acter undertook to make a way for us and to bring us into 
 the hall. The struggle was long and severe, but at last our 
 faithful guides succeeded in edging us into an overcrowded 
 balcony to a standing-place from which nearly the whole body 
 of the delegates could be seen. Never can I forget that manjr 
 hued and strangely clad assembly. Nearly every delegation had 
 some sacred banner, or other symbol, by which it might be dis- 
 tinguished. In the centre of the hall was the yellow silken 
 banner of the Chinese Dragon. On the left I saw the crescent 
 of Islam ; on the right the streamers of the Grand Lama of 
 Thibet. Not far away was the seven-storied sacred umbrella of 
 Burmah, and beyond it the gaudy feather-work of a dusk}' dele- 
 gation from Ashantee. In one corner I even thought I recog- 
 nized the totem of one of our Indian tribes of Alaska. 
 
 On the programme there were five questions, each evidently 
 framed with a view to make its discussion and answer contrib- 
 ute toward the common end, the definition of a perfect and uni- 
 versal religion. The first read as follows : ' ' Can there be 
 more than one perfect religion?" The opening of the discus- 
 sion of this had been assigned to a great Buddhist teacher from 
 Ceylon. The second question, to be opened by a Mohamme- 
 dan, was : " What kind of an object of worship must a perfect 
 religion present? " The third was assigned to a Taoist, and was 
 thus formulated: "What must a perfect religion demand of, 
 and promise to, the sincere worshipper? " The fourth, assigned 
 to a Hindu pundit, was the following : " In what relation must 
 the divine object and the human subject stand to each other in 
 a perfect religion ? " The fifth and last question read: "By 
 what credentials shall a perfect religion, if ever found, be 
 known ? ' ' The honor and responsibility of opening this last 
 and highest of the proposed discussions was reserved to the 
 official head of the Shinto priesthood of Japan, the highest 
 representative of the ancestral faith of the Empire. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 5 
 
 As soon as my friend and I could get our bearings, we were 
 pleased to find that only one of the questions had been discussed 
 and acted upon by the Convention before our arrival. We were 
 told that the assembly had been opened by the President desig- 
 nated in the call ; and that nothing on earth was ever more 
 impressive than the three minutes of silent prayer which fol- 
 lowed the uplifting of the Chairman's hand and eye. After 
 this there had been a brief address of welcome from the Com- 
 mittee of Arrangements, a few words of thanks from the Presi- 
 dent in response ; then a short opening address by the President, 
 and the introduction of the distinguished Buddhist representa- 
 tive from Ceylon, who was to discuss the question: "Can 
 there be more than one perfect religion?" To a Buddhist, 
 there could be, of course, but one answer to this question, and 
 that a negative. But he argued it — as our informants told us 
 — with wonderful tact as well as power. He kept the qualifica- 
 tion "perfect "so prominently before his hearers' minds that 
 however accustomed any of them might be to think and say that 
 there may be and are many good religions, none could fail to 
 see that of perfect religions there could be but one. He also 
 carefully abstained from identifying his own system with the 
 perfect religion, and thus avoided the mistake of exciting the 
 jealousy of rival religionists. So complete had been his success, 
 that after a short discussion in which several very diverse 
 speakers participated, a venerable Parsee had moved, and just 
 before our arrival the Convention had unanimously adopted the 
 following resolution: "Resolved, that in the opinion of this 
 World's Convention there can be but one perfect religion." 
 
 While we were getting hold of these facts we lost the Presi- 
 dent's introduction of the second pre-appointed speaker. We 
 soon learned, however, that he was the senior moulvie of the 
 great Mohammedan University at Cairo, a school of Islam in 
 which there are all the time about ten thousand students in 
 preparation for the duties of public religious teachers and 
 chanters of prayers. His piercing eye and snow-white beard 
 and vigorous frame would have made him anywhere a man of 
 mark. Seated after his manner of teaching in the mosque upon 
 a low bamboo frame, clad in his official robe, he looked like a 
 resurrected Old Testament prophet — an Isaiah in living form 
 
6 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 before us. At first I wondered if he would be able to speak to 
 so modern a question as the one assigned him : ' ' What kind of 
 an object of worship must a perfect religion present ? ' ' 
 
 Time would fail me were I to attempt to report with any ful- 
 ness his rhythmic speech. It was Oriental through and through 
 — quaint, poetic, full of apothegms, proverbs, parables, — but 
 it conclusively answered the question. He made even the 
 feather- decked gri-gri worshippers of Western Africa see that a 
 god who knows much about his worshipper, and can do great 
 things for him, is more perfect than a god who knows little and 
 can do but little. Then arguing up and up, he made it plain to 
 every intelligence that a perfect religion necessarily demands a 
 god possessing all knowledge and all power. It becomes a per- 
 fect religion only by presenting to the worshipper, as the su- 
 preme object of obedience, love and service, a perfect being. 
 He showed also that perfection in an object of worship required 
 that it be a living object, that it have intelligence, rational feel- 
 ings and purposes, in a word, that it possess real and complete 
 personality. It must be possible to address him as a person- 
 ality. He needs to be in every place, to be before all things, 
 in all things, above all things. Limit him in any respect and the 
 religion you present becomes less than perfect. 
 
 This was the thought stripped of all its weird and Oriental 
 adornments. But as he expanded and enforced it his e} r e 
 kindled and his chant-like speech rose and fell, and rose and 
 fell, until we hardly knew whether we were in the bod} r or out 
 of the body, so wondrous was the spell wherewith he had bound 
 us. 
 
 He was followed by an eloquent representative of the Brahmo 
 Somaj, and he in turn by a Persian Babist, both of whom argued 
 in the same line with such effect, that when a picturesquely 
 turbaned representative of the religion of the Sikhs gained the 
 floor and moved that it be the sense of the Convention that a 
 perfect religion must present a perfect god, the whole vast 
 assembly was found to be a unit in affirming this grand declara- 
 tion. 
 
 Next, of course, came the third question: "What must a 
 perfect religion demand of the sincere worshipper, and what 
 must it promise to him ? " To open its discussion the appointed 
 
THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 7 
 
 Taoist teacher was politely introduced. As his noble form 
 advanced quietly to the front of the platform in the costume of 
 a Chinese Mandarin of the highest rank, it was at once evident 
 that the better side of Taoism was to be represented, — the ideas 
 of the Tao-teh-king, and not the superstition and jugglery of 
 modern popular Taoism. 
 
 He began by saying that it seemed proper for him to start 
 out from the point T '^re the preceding discussion had stopped, 
 the Convention ha j, already voted that there could be but 
 one perfect religion, and that this religion in order to be perfect 
 must present a perfect object of worship. With both of these 
 propositions he said he was in full accord, provided only that it 
 be constantly borne in mind that the whole discussion related to 
 a purely abstract or hypothetical question. 
 
 "Now," said he, " if a man really had a perfect object of 
 worship, it is plain that his duty toward it would be very differ- 
 ent from that he owes to any of those finite and limited and 
 imperfect divinities which we and our fathers have been accus- 
 tomed to worship. Our duties to these, and their duties to us, 
 are more analogous to our duty to observe courtesy toward our 
 fellowmen and kindness toward those below us. The moment 
 we picture to ourselves a perfect God, the maker, upholder and 
 governor of all beings, lord even of the celestial and terrestrial 
 spirits whom we are in the habit of worshipping, that moment 
 we see that the worship of such a being would of necessity be 
 something very different. As giver of all our powers and possi- 
 bilities, he could justly demand that we employ them all for the 
 accomplishment of the purpose for which he gave them. Indeed 
 were he a perfectly rational being it would seem impossible that 
 he should require less. 
 
 "On the other hand such a being would of necessity pos- 
 sess both the power and the inclination to give to his sincere 
 worshipper the perfect fruit of genuine piety. This can be 
 nothing less than perfect virtue and even exquisite delight in 
 virtue. In a perfect piety all self-conflict, all internal resistance 
 to good, all self-will, must be absolutely and totally eliminated. 
 All fear — even of that perfect Being — would have to be ab- 
 sent ; nay, it would have to be transmuted into eager uninter- 
 mittent love. On the other hand, how unutterably would a 
 
8 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 perfect object of worship love and bless a perfectly sincere 
 worshipper ! " 
 
 After many other touching words, particularly upon the woe- 
 ful contrast between the ideal and the actual in life, and upon 
 the arduousness of the struggle for virtue under every religion, 
 he closed by submitting the following proposition for the further 
 consideration of the Convention: "Resolved, that a perfect 
 religion will have to demand of man a perfect surrender of will 
 and life to a perfect object of worship, and will have to promise 
 him a perfect freedom and satisfaction in the life of goodness." 
 
 A Sufi from Ispahan, a Theosophist from Bombay, and vari- 
 ous other speakers followed, all very nearly agreeing with the 
 first, but some of them preferring a different wording of the 
 resolution. Various amendments were proposed and discussed, 
 until at length the following substitute was offered : "Resolved, 
 that if a perfect religion were possible to imperfect men, it would 
 require of the worshipper a perfect devotion to a perfect god, 
 and would demand of the perfect god a perfect ultimate beatifi- 
 cation of the worshipper." This was unanimously and even 
 enthusiastically adopted. 
 
 Question four was now in order. The President rose and 
 said : "The fourth question reads as follows : ' In what relation 
 must the divine object and the human subject stand to each 
 other in a perfect religion ? ' The discussion of this question is 
 to be opened by one who has himself ofttimes been the recipient 
 of divine worship, and who represents an ancient and powerful 
 priesthood believed by millions to be a real embodiment of the 
 one divine and eternal Spirit. I have the honor to present to 
 the Convention the venerated head of all the sacred houses of 
 the Brahmins in the holy city of Benares." 
 
 Calm as his own imposing religion, yet keener than any who 
 had preceded him, the Hindu addressed himself to his allotted 
 task. For twenty minutes he held every eye and commanded 
 every mind. How shall I give you any conception of that cap- 
 tivating discourse ? The following is but the barest thread to 
 intimate the great truths touched upon by his master hand. 
 
 He began by saying that some personal relationship between 
 the worshipper and the worshipped was necessarily involved in 
 the very idea of worship. In this act the worshipper is think- 
 
THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 9 
 
 ing of the object of his worship, otherwise he is not worshipping. 
 So the being worshipped is thinking of his worshipper, other- 
 wise he is not receiving the worship. Here, then, is mutual 
 simultaneous thought. Each has a place in the consciousness of 
 the other. To this extent they possess a common consciousness. 
 In this fellowship of mutual thought they are mutually related, 
 by it they are vitally and personally connected. 
 
 This connection may, of course, be of two kinds. If the god 
 is angry with his worshipper, or the worshipper with his god, 
 the relationship is one of hatred and antagonism. If, on the 
 other hand, it is a relation of mutual inclination, — the man sin- 
 cerely seeking to please his god, and the god sincerely seeking to 
 bless his worshipper, it is, of course, a relationship of amity, of 
 good fellowship, of mutual love. But all religions agree that the 
 first of these relationships, that of enmity and estrangement, is ab- 
 normal, one which ought not to be. All religions aim to remove 
 or to transform such a relationship wherever it exists. It is there- 
 fore plain that the perfect religion, if there be one, must require 
 and make the personal relationship between the worshipper and 
 the worshipped a relation of mutual benevolence — a relation of 
 mutual love. Nowhere can there be a perfect religion if the 
 man do not sincerely love his god, and if the god do not sin- 
 cerely love his worshipper. 
 
 Here the speaker raised a most interesting question as to 
 degree. To what extent ought this love to go ? There could 
 be but one answer. In a perfect religion the love of the wor- 
 shipper for the worshipped must of course be the strongest 
 possible, particularly as the worshipped is himself all-perfect, 
 and hence all- worthy of this love. So, on the other hand, the 
 love of the worshipped toward the worshipper ought to be the 
 very strongest possible. "What then is the strongest possible 
 love which the divine can bear to the human and the human to 
 the divine? 
 
 I cannot enough regret that my limits compel me to suppress 
 his discussion of this pregnant question. I can only say that 
 from point to point he carried the convictions of his vast audi- 
 ence until he had triumphantly demonstrated three far-reaching 
 propositions : (1) That the ever higher and more perfect devo- 
 tion of a worshipper can never reach its supreme intensity until 
 
10 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 he is read} 7 , and even desirous, to merge his very will and life 
 and being in the will and life and being of the all-perfect object 
 of his worship. (2) That the gracious disposition of the object 
 worshipped toward the worshipper can never reach its supreme 
 intensity until the worshipped being is ready, and desirous, to 
 descend from the divine form and mode of being and, in an 
 avatar of compassionate love, take on the form and the limitations 
 of his human worshipper. (3) That in a perfect religion the 
 human subject and the divine object must be set in such rela- 
 tions that it shall be possible for God to become a partaker of 
 human nature, and for man in some sense to become a partaker 
 of the divine nature. 
 
 Profound was the silence which followed this wonderful dis- 
 course. The first to break it was a Professor in the Imperial 
 University of Tokio, a man who, though of European birth, was 
 in complete sympatlry with the purposes of the Convention. 
 After highly complimenting the Brahmin speaker, he said that 
 he himself had long been an admiring student of India's sacred 
 books. With the permission of the Convention he would like 
 to recite a few lines from one of them, the Isa Upanishad, which 
 seemed to him admirably to express the true relation subsisting 
 between the worshipping* soul and the Infinite. He then gave 
 the following : 
 
 Whate'er exists within this universe 
 Is all to be regarded as enveloped 
 By the great Lord, as if wrapped in a vesture. 
 There is one only being who exists 
 Unmoved, yet moving swifter than the mind; 
 Who far outstrips the senses, tho' as gods 
 They strive to reach him ; who himself at rest 
 Transcends the fleetest flight of other beings; 
 Who like the air supports all vital action. 
 He moves, yet moves not; he is far, yet near; 
 He is within tbis universe. Whoe'er beholds 
 All living creatures as in him, and him — 
 The universal Spirit — as in all, 
 Henceforth regards no creature with contempt. 
 
 " Now here " — continued the Professor — "here we have the 
 true conception admirably expressed. Because the Universal 
 Spirit is in all things, even in the worshipper, and on the other 
 
THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 11 
 
 hand all things, even the worshipper, are in this Universal Spirit, 
 it is more than possible — it is inevitable — that the divine should 
 have participancy in the human and the human in the divine. 
 Few of the great religions of the world have failed to recognize in 
 some way this basal truth. Even the Shamans of the barbarous 
 tribes claim to exercise divine powers only when personally pos- 
 sessed of divine spirits. In Thibet the faithful see in the distin- 
 guished head of their hierarchy, the Dalai Lama, — with whose 
 presence we to-day are honored, — a true divine incarnation. 
 For ages here in Japan the sacred person of the Mikado has been 
 recognized as a god in human form. The founders of nearry all 
 great religions and states have been held to be descendants, or 
 impersonations, of the gods. In like manner the apotheosis of 
 dying emperors, Roman and other, shows how natural is the faith 
 that good and great men can take on the nature and the life 
 divine. Ask India's hundreds of millions. They all affirm that 
 every human being may aspire to ultimate and absolute identi- 
 fication with God. The even more numerous followers of the 
 Buddha hold that, in his enlightenment, Sakya Muni was far 
 superior to any god. Now if such are the conceptions of the 
 actual religions, how certain is it that the ideal, the perfect reli- 
 gion, must provide a recognition of them. I move you, Mr. 
 President, that the propositions of our Brahmin orator from 
 Benares be adopted as the voice of this Convention." 
 
 No speaker appearing in the negative, the motion was put and 
 carried without dissent. 
 
 Thus, with astonishing unanimity, the assembly had reached 
 the final question upon the programme : ' ' By what credentials 
 shall a perfect religion be known ? ' ' 
 
 Intenser than ever grew the interest of the delegates. On 
 the answer to this question hung all their hopes as to any prac- 
 tically useful outcome from the holding of this great Ecumenical 
 Convention. Doubly intense was the interest of the on-looking 
 Japanese, for here, in the presence of the world's religions, the 
 highest and most authoritative religious voice of their Empire 
 was now to be heard. Breathless was the entire throng as the 
 speaker began : 
 
 " Hail to the Supreme Spirit of Truth. Praise to the Kami of 
 kami — the living essence of the everlasting, ever-living Light. 
 
12 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 "Why are we here, brothers from all climes, why are we' 
 here in serious search for the one true and perfect Wa}^ ? It is 
 because He, in whom are all things, and who is in all things — 
 as sang that Hindu poet — is yearning with ineffable affection 
 to be known of us, his earthly offspring, and to know us as his 
 own. Only lately have I learned this secret. Only since my 
 invitation to address this World's Convention have my eyes 
 been opened to the blessed truth. Never before had I been led 
 to meditate upon the necessaiy implications of a religion abso- 
 lutely perfect. In preparation for my question I was compelled 
 thus to meditate. Scarce had I addressed myself to my task 
 before I began to see what you have seen, and to lay down the 
 propositions which you to-day in due succession have been lay- 
 ing down. I could not help discerning that there can be but 
 one religion truly perfect ; that a religion can never be perfect 
 unless it present a perfect God ; that no religion can be perfect 
 which does not deliver man from sin and death and dower him 
 with pure and everlasting blessedness. I could not help per- 
 ceiving that no religion could ever claim perfection in which any 
 gulf is left unfilled between the worshipper and the object of his 
 worship. Oppressed and almost overwhelmed by these great 
 thoughts, convinced that there was no such perfect religion in 
 existence, nor any credential hy which it could be known, I was 
 yesterday morning alone, in a favorite hermitage by the sound- 
 ing sea, near Yokohama. The whole night I had passed in 
 sleeplessness and fasting. No light had dawned upon my mind. 
 To cool nry fevered brain, I strolled upon the seashore up and 
 down, and listened to the solemn beatings of the billows on the 
 sand. 
 
 " Here, in one of my turns, I fell in with a stranger — a 
 sailor fresh from his ship. In conversation I quickly learned 
 that he had followed the sea from early life, that he had been 
 quite round the world, and had seen more wonders than any 
 man it had ever been nvy fortune to meet. Long time we 
 talked together of lands and peoples underneath the world and 
 all around its great circumference. Repeatedly I was on the 
 point of opening my heart to this plain man and of asking him 
 whether in all his world-wide wanderings he had anywhere 
 found a religion more perfect than that of our ancestors. Every 
 
THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 13 
 
 time however I checked myself. I was confident that he would 
 not long remain in ignorance of my character and office, and 
 how could I, chief priest of my nation, betray to him such doubt 
 as this my question would imply. I was too proud to place my- 
 self in such an attitude of personal inquiry. And yet perpet- 
 ually this thought recurred : This man has seen cities and 
 mountains and rivers and peoples which you have never seen, 
 and you feel no humiliation in being a learner in these things ; 
 — why hesitate to ascertain if in religion he may not equally be 
 able to give fresh light and information. At last I broke my 
 proud reserve, and said : ' You must have seen something of 
 the chief religions of the whole world as well. Now, which 
 among them all, strikes you as the best? ' 
 
 " ' I have seen but one,' was the laconic reply. 
 
 " ' What mean you? ' I rejoined. ' You have told me of a 
 score of peoples and lands and cities whose temples you must 
 have seen, and whose rites you must have witnessed.' 
 
 " ' There is but one religion,' he repeated. 
 
 " ' Explain,' I demanded of him again. 
 
 " ' How many do you make? ' he said, evading my question. 
 
 " I paused a moment. I was about to answer : ' At least a 
 larger number than there are of different tribes and peoples,' — 
 but in my hesitation I was struck by the strange agree^eM be- 
 tween his enigmatic utterance and my own previous conclusion 
 that there could be but one perfect religion. Someway I yielded 
 to the impulse to mention the coincidence. 'Do you mean,' I 
 added, ' that there can be but one religion worthy of the name? ' 
 
 "My sacrifice of pride had its reward. It won an answering 
 confidence, and unsealed the stranger's lips. 
 
 " ' Have you time,' he said, ' to hear a sailor's story? More 
 than sixty years ago I was born in a beautiful home hard by the 
 base of our holy mountain, the Fusijama. This ver} r evening I 
 start to visit the scenes of my boyhood, after an absence of 
 more than forty years. My father and mother were persons of 
 deep piety, and from the first had dedicated me, as their first- 
 born, to the service of the gods. At an early age I was placed 
 in the care of a community of priests who kept one of the chief 
 shrines of my native province. Here I was to be trained up for 
 the same holy priesthood. For some years I was delighted with 
 
14 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 my companions, with my tasks, and with my prospects. But 
 at length, as I grew more and more mature, and as my medita- 
 tions turned oftener upon the mysteries of the world and of life, 
 an inexpressible sadness gradually mastered me. I shrank from 
 the calling to which I had been destined. I said to myself, How 
 can I teach men the way of the gods when I know it not myself? 
 How long have I yearned to find the way of peace and the way 
 of virtue ! How long have I cried unto all the kami of heaven 
 and all the kami of earth to teach it me ! Yet even while I see 
 the good I love that which is not good. I do myself the things 
 which I condemn in others. I teach others to be truthful, but 
 before an hour has passed I have lied to myself, — have done or 
 said what I had promised myself I would not. I love myself 
 more than I love virtue, and then I hate nryself because I love 
 myself so well. I am at war within. O who shall deliver me, 
 who can give me peace ? 
 
 " ' As time passed on I became more and more the prey of 
 this consuming melancholy. The time was at hand when my 
 period of pupilage was to end and I was to be given the dignity 
 of full admission to the sacred priesthood. The night before 
 the day appointed for the ceremony my agony was too great for 
 human endurance. Under the friendly cover of the darkness I 
 fled from the sacred precincts of the temple, fled from the lov- 
 ing parents and friends who had come to witness my promo- 
 tion. A wretched fugitive I arrived at this very port which 
 now stretches itself out before our eyes. Here I shipped as a 
 sailor and sought the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 
 " ' Years on years I kept to the high seas, alwa} T s choosing 
 the ships which would take me farthest from the scenes with 
 which I had become familiar. All great ports I visited, many 
 a language I learned. Steadily I prayed the gods some time 
 to bring me to some haven where I might learn the secret of a 
 holy peace within. 
 
 " ' At last one day — I can never forget it — in a great city 
 many thousand miles toward the sunrise, a city which is the 
 commercial metropolis of the greatest republic in the world, — 
 I was pacing heavy-hearted up and down a massive pier at 
 which lay vessels from man}' a nation. The wharves were per- 
 fectly quiet for it was a holy day. I was sadder than usual for I 
 
THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 15 
 
 was thinking of my useless pikers. I was saj'ing to myself : 
 I am as blind as ever, as much at war within. So many, many 
 years have I prayed and waited, and waited and pra3 r ed. The 
 gods have neither brought me to the truth nor the truth to me. 
 In my bitterness I said, The gods themselves are false, men's 
 faith in them is false. There are no gods, there can be none. 
 They would have some compassion, they would regard my 
 cries. Bursting into tears, I sobbed out : I cannot live in 
 such a world. I cannot live. Let me but sink in death's eter- 
 nal night. And as I sobbed out the bitter cry the rippling 
 water in the dock sparkled in my eyes and seemed to say, 
 Come, come, one brave leap only and I will give thee peace ! 
 
 " 'Just then a handsome stranger, arrested perhaps by my 
 strange behavior, stopped in passing and spoke to me. In 
 words of tender sympathy he asked my trouble. Too weak to 
 resist, I told him all. How beamed his face with gladness ! 
 "Come with me," he said, "this very day your year-long 
 prayers are to be answered." I followed, and a few rods dis- 
 tant he showed me what I had never seen before, a floating 
 temple which he had in charge. It was dedicated, I was told, to 
 the great God. And when I asked which great god, the priest of 
 the beaming countenance said : " Have you never heard of the 
 great King above all gods? " Then he brought out a holy book 
 and read to me these words: " O come let us sing unto the 
 Lord ; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. 
 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make 
 a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the Lord is a great 
 God and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the 
 deep places of the earth ; the strength of the hills is his also. 
 The sea is his and he made it, and his hands formed the dry 
 land. O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel be- 
 fore the Lord our maker. He is our God, and we are the 
 people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand." 
 
 " 'Then this strangely joyful man — Hedstrom was his name 
 — told me that this great God did truly care for every man who 
 truly yearns, for inward peace. He said he was a rewarder of 
 all who diligently seek him ; that he so loved the world that he 
 gave his only begotten Son for the saving of all who want to 
 be saved from sin, from self condemnation and despair. He 
 
16 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 assured me over and over that this divine Son was both able and 
 willing to save to the uttermost all who come unto God through 
 him. I could hardly believe such tidings. I said, You mean 
 that all } T our countrymen who thus come to your patron God may 
 find peace and divine favor. "No," he responded, " I mean 
 all — mean you — mean everybody whom this great being has 
 made to dwell on all the face of the earth, for as the Holy Book 
 sa} r s : there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for 
 the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For 
 whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." 
 
 " ' But do 3 T ou mean that I can call upon him and be deliv- 
 ered from this load I have carried so many years ? ' 
 
 " 'Certainly.' 
 
 ' ' ' And be delivered now ? ' 
 
 ' ' ' Certainly. Now — says the sacred book — is the accepted 
 time, behold now is the day of salvation.' 
 
 " ' It was enough. Down I fell upon m}*- face. Aloud I 
 cried unto the Great God. Through his Son I sought to come 
 unto him. But, believe me, before I could well frame my words, 
 — it was the day of salvation. My weary load was gone. My 
 heart was full of peace and of strange new life. I knew that 
 there exists a power which can deliver man and plant within 
 him everlasting blessedness.' 
 
 "Gentlemen of the World's Convention, one word and the 
 story of that wanderer is complete. That truant sailor proved 
 to be my own elder brother, proved to be the long lost son to 
 fill whose vacant place my mourning parents had dedicated me 
 to this same holy calling. M} 7 heart was broken with a double 
 jo}' at this discovery. And before we left that wave-worn shore 
 the day of salvation had also dawned on me. To-day I can 
 testify that a perfect religion is not a dream. To-day I possess 
 and can give you its credentials." 
 
 — Just at this point in the speaker's remarks the long-con- 
 tinued closeness of the atmosphere and the crushing pressure of 
 the crowd proved more than I could bear. A certain dizziness 
 came over me and I had to be carried from the hall. When I 
 next came to consciousness, it took me a long, long time to dis- 
 cover that I was safe at home in my study chair, and that I was 
 waking from a weird and wonderful dream. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 17 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen of the Graduating Classes : 
 You came to-day for counsel, for words of wisdom ; you have 
 received only a dream. 
 
 Be not angry. It is not all a dream. To such as you its 
 interpretation will not be difficult. 
 
 The great world of civilization into which you are just going 
 forth is an assembly hall vaster than that Meiji Kuaido which 
 stands in distant Tokio. Within it are assembled in earnest 
 conference the elect spirits of every nation. About its doors 
 hang millions of our humanity, conscious of their own lack of 
 light and truth, awaiting the discoveries of their better qualified 
 representatives. Within, the highest, the never-ceasing debate 
 relates to human perfection and to the means for its attainment. 
 The ever eloquent debaters dwell now upon one phase or force, 
 and now upon another, — but the theme is ever the same, ever 
 the perfection of human beings and the way to this perfection. 
 Some are seeking a perfect industrial adjustment, others a per- 
 fect education, others a perfect government, others a perfect 
 social order, others — that they may combine and unify all — 
 are in quest of a perfect religion. To-morrow, dear friends, 
 you are to receive your appointment as delegates to this World 
 Convention. Therein some of you will be called upon to speak, 
 all of you will be called upon to vote, in the presence of a hun- 
 dred nations. Whether you yet realize it or not, you are to- 
 morrow going forth to speak and to vote for or against the 
 Perfect Religion. The World Convention will insist on know- 
 ing what you can tell it respecting its supreme problem. And 
 you will have to meet the demand in a publicity as wide as the 
 world. The days of personal and national isolation are forever 
 gone. Under the same roof with our vanishing American abo- 
 rigines, within ear-shot of the moans of Africa, in full view of 
 the cruel idolatries of Hindustan, in full knowledge of the 
 hungry-souled millions of China, in the face of Europe's self- 
 sophisticated and gloomy and scoffing agnosticism — in the hush 
 of an Almighty Presence — you, each one of you, are going to tell 
 the world what you know respecting human perfection and the 
 road to its attainment. In doing it, — whether you will or no — 
 you will have to pronounce for or against the Perfect Religion. 
 For or against. Which it will be I have little doubt. To 
 
18 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 yourselves you have long ago admitted, that there can be but 
 one absolutely true and perfect religion. To yourselves you 
 surely have admitted, that the perfect religion must present a 
 perfect object of worship, that it must demand of man his highest 
 devotion, and must promise to man his highest good. Long ago 
 you must have admitted that the highest possible love should 
 rule both worshipper and worshipped, and that this highest pos- 
 sible love necessitates closest possible union in some form of 
 life, human and divine. I but utter your inmost conviction when 
 I add, that a religion consisting of supreme and mutual love 
 between a perfect divine object and a perfectly responsive human 
 subject can need no other credential than that which is given in 
 its own uplifting and life-giving presence. 
 
 To-day those for whom I speak — and I speak for none more 
 than for myself — are glad. We rejoice that as you join our grow- 
 ing Convocation and take your several stations in the world's 
 wide field, you hold in your hands — I hope in your hearts also 
 — the one solution to all earth's problems. To you it has been 
 given to know of the divine origin, the divine possibilities, the 
 divine destination of this living mystery in human form. You 
 know the path of deliverance from evil, and who it is that opened 
 it. You possess ideals of human perfection fairer, higher, broader 
 than any of which ethnic sages have ever dreamed. You know 
 of a life which even in its earthly stages is full of righteousness 
 and peace, of love and good fruits. Publish it to the weary 
 world. Exemplify it in church, and court, and hospital, in school- 
 house and in home. Count it the prima pMlosophia, the high- 
 est of all sciences, the finest of all fine arts. Let it be the one 
 knowledge in which you glory, the one knowledge by which you 
 seek to bring yourselves and all selves unto glory everlasting. 
 
 Apostles of human perfection, apostles of the perfect religion, 
 why should you not enlighten, wiry should you not emancipate the 
 most distant continents ? One sage of Asia, wise with a lesser wis- 
 dom, enlightened with a lesser light, has given ideals to millions. 
 Ye are sages — more than a hundred strong. This day I commis- 
 sion you, I charge you, — in Christ's name I command you : Be 
 ye in truth, as He himself has styled you, the light of the world. 
 
 And now unto the perfect Teacher of this perfect Way be 
 honor, and glory, and dominion, world without end. Amen. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 Willi 
 
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