WORLD'S COLUMB rt. A. JOHNSON. LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN IN MEMORY OF STEWART S. HOWE JOURNALISM CLASS OF 1928 STEWART S. HOWE FOUNDATION 290 W89W 1893 I.H.S. N. A. JOHNSON, K A. JOHNSON. •o X tn e o o Tllf: WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS Tilt: ADDF^RSSRS AND PAPHRS DELIVERED BErORE THE PARLIA/nENT. AND AN ABSTRACT OP THE CONGRESSES UHLD IN THE ART INSTITUTH. Chiccujo, Illinois. U.S.A.. AL'GUST 25 TO OCTOBER 15. 1893. L'nder the Auspices of The World's Columbian Exposition PFK)PIJSELY ILLUSTRATED. WITH MARGINAL NOTES. EDITED BY J. W. HANSON, D. D. For 7/ioties of faith let graceless zealots fight ; He can't he ^crong, luhose life is in the right." — Foi'i': tntered according; to Act of Congress in the year A. D. 1893, by the W. B. CONKEY COMPANY, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. D. C WEV ■ - r • 4 '<- PREFACE. HE Parliament of Religions and the World's Re- ligious Congresses attracted the attention of mankind all over the earth. Those who lis- tened to the valuable papers read and ad- dresses made regretted that millions could not read what only hundreds had heard. But it would require a library of encyclopedic vol- umes to contain all that was said at those great assemblages. The only feasible method of ex- tending their circulation in a concise form is to print the most of the best and the best of the most of the Parliament papers, and condense the substance of the Congresses into what might be termed a literary pem- mican, omitting, as far as possible, all personal and petty details con- nected with the conception, origin and progress of the meetings. Such matter, however interesting to those mentioned, is of minor impor- tance to the public, and if indulged in excludes the far more valuable papers themselves, and is at the expense of the increase of the size and cost of the volume, thus removing it beyond the reach of many who might otherwise possess it. This volume contains the most and the best of the Parliament and the Congresses. The Parliament papers are largely from authors' manu- scripts or stenographic reports, and the Congresses are mainly written by eminent clergymen and others who participated in them.' If the reader will compare this book with others that profess to cover the same ground, he will discover that the important papers are not "edited" in a manner to break the hearts of their authors by the pmission of vital portions, nor disfigured by such errors as were ex- 5 6 PREFACE. cusablc in the liastc incidental to their original appearance in the daily press, but discreditable in a permanent volume; that papers de- livered to the Congresses do not appear in the proceedings of the Parliament, nor vice versa; that papers never read are not printed in these pages, nor are important ones read omitted; in a word, that the documents themselves are given as nearly as possible within the com- pass of a single volume, without note or comment. Mechanically, this work is all that any one would desire. Its large, legible type, beautiful illustrations and handsome binding constitute it by far the most elegant book among those devoted to the laudable purpose of preserving the valuable words spoken at the World's Parlia- ment and Congresses. A complaint has been made by some of those who were prominent in the Parliament that their prerogatives have been invaded by others who have published the proceedings. PIven Christian clergymen, who profess to be anxious that their utterances may reach the widest cir- culation, have attempted to confine the publication of their papers to one particular work. But it must be apparent that the great Parlia- ment and Congresses were the property of mankind. No one pos- sesses any monopoly in them. They were made successful by the generous contributions, and the unpaid time and toil of thousands. It was the constant announcement of the prominent promoters of the Parliament, that the unique gatherings were for the moral and religious welfare of mankind, and multitudes of men and women worked with- out money and without price to render the great occasion the mag- nificent success that it was. The statement will, therefore, doubtless occasion surprise, yet it is true, that some of those most prominent in making this proclamation have not only availed themselves of their opportunities to promote their personal emolument, but have attempted to confine the circulation of the valuable documents to the publications in which they are financially interested. The publishers of this volume have proceeded on the ground that no private individual or corporation has any exclusive property in the papers of the World's Parliament and Congresses of Religion, but that they are entitled rather to the widest possible circulation — a view which, it is pleasing to state, has been very heartily indorsed by the majority of those who participated in the Congresses — and they desire to do their part in spreading them befo/e the world. To this end a large amount of money has been expended, and the present volume is the result; and they trust it will be a means to extend the beneficent work of the PREFACE. 7 greatest religious event of the Nineteenth Century, and, with con- fidence in its merits, they send it out to the world. In the compilation and preparation of this volume the publishers are indebted for valuable aid and services to a large number of gentle- men who were prominently identified with the great religious gather- ings, among whom may be specially mentioned Rev. Simeon Gilbert, D. D., Professor Andrew C. Zenos, of McCormick Theological Seminary, Rabbi Joseph Stolz, Bishop B. W. Arnett, D. D., Rev. J. P. Hale, D. D., Rev. George Hall, Rev. D. R. Mansfield, Rev. Lee M. Heilman, Rev. Hugh Spencer Williams and Count William J. Onahan, Secretary of the Catholic Congress. These and others rendered valuable aid, and it is due to them and a pleasure to us, to acknowledge their services. THE PUBLISHERS. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGES. Preface 5 to 8 Index of Papers 10 " 11 Index of Authors 12 Index of Illustrations 13 Opening of Parliam ent 15 " 45 God 47 " 82 Immortality 84 " 97 Scriptures » 98 " 142 Comparative Religions \ 053 .< 340 Judaism 154 " 195 Christ 197 " 251 Hinduism 341 " 376 Buddhism : 377 " 427 The Bramo-Somaj 428 " 440 Shintoism and Other Oriental Religions 467 " 469 Confucianism 471 " 490 J 491 " 504 523 " 538 „ „ V 536 " 539 Practical Subjects 1-^29 " 938 „ (507 " 521 Miscellaneous j ^2 « ,j<^ Close of Parliament 939 " 951 Denominational Congresses 953 " 1196 INDEX TO PAPERS. A PAGE. Armenia, Spirit and Mission ut the Apostolic Church of - 467 America, World's Debt to 773 America, What Christianity has Wrouglit for. 887 Anglican Church and Church of First Ages, Relation Between ..- 787 B Bible; What it has Taught 139 Brahmo-Somaj, The Principles of 428 Brahmo-Somaj, The Spiritual Ideas of 43.5 Buddha 419 Buddha, Law of Cause and Eftect Taught by 388 Buddha, The World's Debt to 377 Buddhism 409 Buddhism £ind('hristianity._. 413 Buddhism, As it Exists in Siam 404 Buddhism, Man's Relation to God _ . 395 Buddhism, What it has Done in Japan 401 V Catholic Church, Needs of Humanity Sup- plied by 810 ( Catholic Church, Relation to Poor 536 Children, The Religious Training of 851 China, America's Duty to .^07 Church, The Civic 763 (Christendom, The Reunion of 613 Christianity and the Social Question 901 Christianity, A Religion of Facts . 129 Christianity as a Social Force 863 Christianity as Interpreted by Literature 66-1 Christianity to Other Religions, The Message of , -.. 605 ( "hrist the Unifier of Mankind 241 Confucianism, Prize Essay 471 Confucianism 480 Confucianism, Genesis and Development of . 489 Criminal and Erring Classes, Religion and . . 911 Crime and the Remedy 738 E Ethical Ideas, The Essential Oneness of, Amon^allMen S-SO Evangelism in America 7.52 Evolution, Christianity and 779 F Faiths, Harmonies and Distinctions in the Theistic Teachings of the Various Historic . 319 a Germany, Religious State of 743 God, -Argument for 64 God, Being of 47 God, Moral Evidence of Existence 75 I'AGE. God, Rational Demonstratioa of the Being of .-- ---- 51 Greek (^hurch. Orthodox .547 Greek Philosophy and the Christian Religion 217 H Hinduism ., 347 Hinduism as a Religion ..366 Hinduism, Concessions to Native Keligionis, Ideas, Having Special Reference to 341 Hindu Thought, The Contact of Christian and.. .S63 Human Progres.'>, Spiritual Forces in 790 I Immortality, Argument for 84 International Arbitration 7.57 Incarnation Idea in History and in Jesus Christ 197 International Justice and Amity _ 718 Incarnation of God in (^hrist 20t> Indians, North American, Religion of.. 541 J Japan, Christianity, its Present ('ouditiou and Prospects 231 Jains, The Ethics and History of 445 Jews, Errors About. . 1S7 Judaism, The Outlook for . . . 17- Judaism, The Relation of HisUjric and its Future 162 Judaism, Theology of.. 154 K Koran, Extracts from .533 li Labor, Church and. 8t)9 31 Man From a Christian Point of View 917 Man's Place in Naiure (jp3 Marriage Bond, The Catholic ('hurch and fe40 Mohammedanism and Christianity, Points of Contact 491 Music, Emotion and Morals. 698 IV Ne«^, Christianity, and..., 747 Negro Race, The Catholic Church and 898 Negro, Religious Duty to H93 P Parliament, Opening of 15 Pekin, Religion of 517 Parliament, End of Vl9 D 10 INDEX TO PAPERS. PAOE. Eeconoiliation, VitalLNot Vicarious 248 Reform, Bucial, The Work of, in India 8ffi Religion, Certainties of «>6H Religion jind Condnct, Relation Between 870 Religion, Elements of Universal 829 Religion and the Love of Mankind 595 Religion, Essentials of 883 Religion Essentially Characteristic of Hn- manity _ 040 Religion and Wealth 835 Religion of the World 392 Religion, The Ultimate 983 Religion, Science of ^Aid to. From Philosophy 707 Religion, Supreme End andOiiiceof 805 Religions, Comparative Study of the World's 304 Religions, Importance of the Study of Com- parative -- 289 Religions, Influence of Ancient E^ptian, on Other Religions 148 Religions, Swfjdenborg and the Harmony of . 313 Religions, The Present Outlook of G29 Religions, The Sympathy of 264 Religions, What the Dead, Have Bequeathed to the Living 2C9 Religio Scientiae 723 Religious as Distingnished From Moral Life. 729 Religious Feeling, The Social Office of 821 Religious Intent, The (JSl Religious Mission of the English Speaking Nations 793 Religious Unification, Only Possible Method of. 253 Religions Unity, Practical Service of the Sci- ence of Religions to the Cause of 817 Re«»t Day, The Divine Element in Weekly 68S Revelation, Need of a Wider (k)nception of . 257 M Sacred Books of the World as Literature 872 Saviour of the World, Christ 220 Scriptures, Catholic Church and 106 Scriptures, Character and Degree of thelnspi- rationof ng Scriptures, Influence of the Hebrew 120 Scriptures, Truthfulness of 98 Scriptures, What they have Taught. 189 Shintoism 441 Social ConditioUjliie influence of 528 Social Question, The Voice of the Mother of Religions on 181 Somerset, Lady Henrj- Letter From 566 Soul and its Future Life 93 Sympathy and Fraternity, Gronndsof 600 T Theolo^-, Study of Comparative 280 Toleration, Plea for 860 W Woman and the Pulpit !551 Women, Influence of Religion on 568 Women of India 677 Women and Men, Cooperation of 558 Woman, A New Testament 580 Women, What Judaism lias done for 587 'A Zoroaster, Belief and Ceremonies of 452 Denominational and Other Congresses. PAliE. JewisJi 955 Jewish Women's 969 Catholic 984 Lutheran... 1025 Lutheran Women's 1082 Presbyterian 1085 Congretjational 1045 Methodist Episcot>al ^ 1058 Reformed Episcopal 1077 Universalist 1078 Unitarian 1098 African Methodist Episcopal 1102 Friends (Hicksite) 1121 Friends (Orthodox) 112(5 Cumberland Presbyterian 1180 Adventists 1184 Seventh-Day Baptists 1140 Evangelical Association 1145 Wales and International Eisteddfod 1151 PAGE. Disciples of Christ 1158 Missions 1160 ('hristian Science ._ ...1174 New Jerusalem Church 118S Religious Unity 1185 Evangelical Alliance 1188 Young Women's Christian Association. 1187 Evolutionists 1189 United Brethren in Christ 1191 King's Daughters 1192 German Evangelical ('hatch 1192 Theosophists 1192 Buddhist : 1198 Free Religionists 1104 Young Men's Christian Association IWR EthicaK^ilture 1195 Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant 1195 Reformed Church in the United States 1196 INDEX TO AUTHORS. PAGE. AbbotLRev. Lyman, D.D.. 640 Alger, Wm.R... _ 253 Amett, Bishop B. W., D. D 747 Ashitsu, Zitenzen 419 Azarias, Brother 851 Baldwin, R«v. S. J., D. D 718 Brown, Rev. Olympia.. - 738 Berkowitz, Rabbi H., D. D.. 181 Bemstorff, Count A 743 Blackwell, Rev. Antoinette Brown 551 Brand, Rev. James ,- 752 Boardman, Rev. Dr. George Dana 241 Brigg8, Charles A., D. D 98 Bruce, Prof. A. B _ C93 Burrell, David James, D. D 887 Byrne, Rev. Thos. S., D. D. __ 917 Carpenter, J. Estlin.. 257 Chatschumgan, Ohannee 467 Chudhaflham, Prince Chandradat... 401 Cleary, Rev. James M._ - 869 Cook, Joseph 139,658 Dawson, Sir William, F. U. S 723 Dickinson, Mrs. Lydia H 558 Dennis, Rev. James S - - - - 605 Dharmapala,H _. 377, 413 D'Harlez, Mgr. C. D.. _.. - 304 Donnelly. Charles F. 536 Dvivedi, Manilal N 347 Drummond, Prof. Henry 779 Eastman, Rev. Mrs. Annis, F. F 568 EUiott, Rev. Walter 805 Ely, Prof . Richard T 863 Faber, Dr. Ernest 489 Field, Dr. Henry M 860 Fisher, Prof. G. P.. D. D 129 Fletcher, Miss Alice C... ._- 541 Gandlhi, Virchand A 445 Gibbons, His Eminence Cardinal 810 Gladden, Rev. Washington 835 Goodspeed, Prof. G. 8 --. 269 Grant, J. A. S. (Bey) 143 Hale, Rev. Edward Everett 796 Harris, Hon. W. T 64 Haweis, Rev. H. R 698 Headland, Isaac T 517 Hewit, Very Rev. Angostine F 51 Higginson, Col. T. W 2G4 Hirsch, Dr Emil G. 329 Ho, Knng Heien 471 Hirai, Kinza Riuge 395 Host, Ex.-Gov. J. W 595 Holtin, Rev. Ida C 336 Hame, Rev. R. A 363 Jessup, Itev. Henry H 793 Keane, Rt-Rev. John J., D. D 197, 933 Kohnt, Dr. Alexander 120 Kw»to, Prof. Harnicbi 231 11 PAOK. Landis, Prof . J. P., D. D 707 Lazarus, Miss Josephine. 172 Lewis, Rev. A. H., D. D 683 Latas, Most Rev. Dionysios 547 Martin, Dr. W. A. P 507 Mendes, Rev. H. Pereira _. 162 Mailer, Prof. Max 217 Mills, Rev. B. Fay .._ 220 Modi, Jinanji Jamshedji... 452 Momerie, Rev. Alfred W.. 75, 88S Mercer, Rev. L. P _ 313 Moxom, Rev. Philip S 84 Mozoomdar. Protap Chander _ 428 Manger, Rev. Theodore T., D. D 664 Murdoch, Miss Marion 580 Nagarkar, B 435, 825 NiccoUs, 8. J., D. D.,LL. D 47 Noguchi, Zenshori 392 Peabody, Prof. F. G.. 901 Pentecost, Rev. Geo. F 629 Powell, A. M 600 Rexford, Rev. E. L., D. D... 651 Richey, Itev. Thomas 787 8chalf, Rev. Philip, D. D 618 Scovell, President (of Worcester College) . . . 729 Semmes, Thomas J 757 Seton, Rt.-Rev. Mgr 106 Sewell, Rev. Frank . 113 8hibata, Rt.-Rev.Renchi... 441 Silverman, Rabbi Joseph 187 Slater, Rev. L. E 341 Slattery, Rev. J. R._ 898 Smyth, Rev. Julian K.._ 206 Snell, iVIerwin— Marie 817 Somerset, Lady Henry 566 Sorabji, Mrs. Jeanne 577 Soyen, Shaku 388 Spencer, Rev. Anna G 911 Stead, W. D.... 763 Sunderland, Mrs. Eliza R., Ph. D„. 289 Szold, Miss Henrietta... 587 Terry, Milton S 672 Tiele, Prof. C. P.... 280 Toki, Horin 401 Toy, Prof.C.H 876 Vivekananda Swami 386 Valentine, Prof. M 319 Wade, Prof. Martin J 840 Warren, Rev. Samuel M 93 Washburn, Rev. George D. D 491 Webb, Mohammed Alex Russell 523 Williams, Mrs. Fannie B 893 Wright, Rev. Theodore F., Ph. D 248 Wise, Dr. Isaac M 154 Wolkonnky, Prince Serge 821 Wooley, Mrs. C«lia P... 773 Yatsubuchi, Banrieu 409 Yu. Hon Pong Kwang 480 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE. Art Institnte, Where the World's ('onRross of Religions was Held . 2 Officera of the World's Congress Auxiliary.. 14 Charles (Carroll Bonnoy 27 Rev. Dr. John Henry Harrows, Chicago 33 Rev. Dr. Aogusta J. Chapin, Chicago 41 Rev. Samnel T. Niccolls, D. I)., LL. D.. St. Louis, Mo -IH Very Rev. Augustine F. Hewit, Now York iiO Valley of Jehosaphat 63 Hon. W. T. Harris, Washington, D. C (Ki Rt.-Rev. Wm. K. McLaren, Bishop of Ciiicago 74 House of Pontius Pilate, Jerusalem 83 Rev. Philip S. Moxom, D. D., Boston Ki Mt. Lel)anon and Cedars i*2 Rev. Charles A. Briggs, 1). D., New York.... 9« Rt.-Rev. Mgr. Seton, Newark, N. J UYl ('hurchof the Nativity, Bethlehem 112 Fountain of the Apostles. Bethany 11« Dr. Alexander Kohut, New York 121 Rev. Prof, (ieorge P. Fisher, Yale College... 12S Joseph Cook, Boston 138 South Sea Island Chief; (Convert to Chi istian- ity - 115 Mount Carmel, Where Elijah Killed Baal's Prophets 153 Dr. Isaac M. Wise, Cincinnati 15."> Tomb of Rachel 1«0 (iate of Damascas, Jerusalem 179 Rabbi Joseph Silverman, New York 186 Rt.-Rev. John J. Keane, D. D. (Rector Catho- lic University), Washington, D. C 196 Tombs in the Valley of Jehosaphat, Jerusa- lem 205 Rev. Julian K. Smyth (Church of the New Jerusalem). Boston, Mass 207 Prof. Max Mtiller, Oxford University 216 Rev. B. Fay Mills, Rhode Island.. . . 221 Rev. (ieorge Dana Boardman, Philadelphia, Pa - 24() The(iateof Jerusalem 252 African Mission Children of the Upper Congo 263 Rt.-Rev. Bishop C. E. Cheney 268 Interior of the Free Church, Copenhagen, Denmark 279 Mrs. Eliza R. Sunderland, Ph.D., .\nn Arbor, Mich 288 Mission House, Upper Congo, Africa 3)2 Rabbi E.G. Hirsch, Chicago 328 Interior of the Church of Ecce Homo, Jerusa- lem - 335 A Hindu Temple, Colombo. Ceylon 316 Dai;oba (Sacred Shrine), .Vnuradhapiini— Buried (Hty, Ceylon 362 Group of Foreign Representatives 3R7 Buddhist Priest, Siain 383 Buddhist and Aztec Idols 391 Buddhist Temple, Bunirkok, Siam 40O Interior of Buddhist Temple. Canton, China.. 412 Buddhist Priest, Ceylon 418 Prayer in a Moorish Mosque 434 13 PAGE. Mohammedan Mother and Children at the Door of the Mosoue 451 Mohammodans of Damascus 466 Bedouin Sheik (Mohammedan) 470 Caravan to the PyrHiiiids .._ 479 Interior of the Mos-. Minneapolis 868 Entrance to the Temple of Thotmes III 910 Very Rev. Thomas S. Byrne. Cincinnati 918 Interior of St. Peter's Cathedral, Rome 932 Rev. John Z. Forgersen, Cbica^ 988 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. \% PAGE. Rev. M.C. Ranseen, Chicago 952 Kabbi Joseph Stolz, Chicago 954 Kabbi G. Gottheil. New York 957 Kabbi A. MoBen, Louisville, Ky 959 Dt. M. Mielzner, Cincinnati, 961 S. C, Eldridge, San Antonio, Texas 965 Miss Ray Frank, Oakland, Cal.. 971 Mrs. Helen Kahn Weil, Kansas (^itj-.. 975 Mrs. Henry Solomon ...979 Mrs. Louise Mannheimer, Cincinnati, Ohio 981 Pope Leo XIII 985 Francis Archbishop Satolli, Papal Ablegate.. .991 Archbishop John Ireland 997 Archbishop P. A. Feehan, Chicago 1007 Archbishop P. J. Kyan, Philadelphia 1013 St. Peter's Cathedral, Rome 1019 Rev. Lee M. Heilman, D. D 1027 Prof. A. C. Zenos, D. D., Chicago 1037 Rev. Simeon Gilbert, D. D., Chicago 1047 Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D. D., Cambridge, Mass.... 1049 Prof. Williston Walker, Hartford, Conn 1051 Rev. Henry A. Stimson, New York 1053 Rev. Frank Gnnsaulus, D. D., Chicago 1055 Mrs. C. H. Taintor, Chicago 1057 Mrs. George Sherwood, Chicago.. 10')9 Rev. J. O. Peck, D. D., New York lOU Rev. Jacob Todd, D. D., Philadelphia 1)67 Miss Frances E. Willard, Evanston, 111 1073 Rt.-Rev. Samuel Fallows, D. D 1076 Rev. B. T. Noakes, D. D., Cleveland, O 1079 PAGE. Rev. J. W. Hanson, A. M., D. D 1081 Rev. Dr. Thomas J. Sawyer, College Hill, Mass 1085 Rev. A.A.MVner, D." D.',' LL.' U.V IJoston, Mass 1089 Rev . J .' S." Cantweil, D. D .'_.."'.".".'"' i." j'" ! 1091 Mrs.M. R.M. Wallace. Chicago ...1095 Rev. Robert CoUyer, New York 1099 Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones 1101 The Late Bishop Daniel A. Payne, D. D., LL. D ...1108 Rev. J. H. Armstrong, D. D 1107 S.T.Mitchell 1111 Hon. Frederick Douglas, Washington, D. C..1113 Mrs. S. J. Early, Naenville, Tenn ...1115 H. T. Johnson, Philadelphia, Pa 1117 Jonathan W. Plnmmer, Chicago. , 1123 AnnaM. Starr, Richmond, Ind 1125 (^alvin W. Pritchard, Kokomo, Ind 1129 Rev. H. S. Williams, Chicago, 111 1131 Rev. D. R. Mansfield, Chicago 1135 Rev. A. H.Sibley, Haverhill, Mass.. 1137 Seventh-Day Baptists (Group) 1141 Rev. Prof. David Swing 1147 Rev. Dr. F. A. Noble 11.50 Rev. W. F. Black, Chicago .1155 Rev. H. W. Everest, Carbondale, 111 ll.')7 Prof. Williston Walker, Hartford, Conn 1161 Rev. John P. Hale, D. D 1171 Rev. Alfred Farlow, Kansas City, Mo... 1175 Rev. L. P. Mercer, Chicago 1184 >- < -J X D < if) !/) UJ a z o u c/) Q _i O ^ us n: [- u. O C/) CK US u. O a Is Opening of the Parliament. HIS great religious gathering, never possible before in the history of the world, nor even now, perhaps, possible anywhere else than in the great "city by the unsalted sea," was in- augurated in the Art palace (see frontispiece), on Monday, September ii, 1893, and con- tinued eighteen days. All nations, tribes and tongues seemed assembled in the Hall of Co- lumbus. The orient and the Occident clasped hands. From "India's coral strand," from Japan and China, clad in robes of white, and red and orange, the oriental priests mingled with the sober-clad representatives of the West, and the group on the platform gave to the ^ four thousand spectators in the auditorium such a picture as was never before seen on earth. It would be im- possible, short of a library of volumes, to report the speeches made. A single volume can onl}- give the best, and abstracts of others, and in these days when readers remember the brevity of life, and the multi- tude of books, in making which there is no end, they will be glad to know that the cream of the great religious parliament and congresses is in this one volume. This work is neither padded nor stuffed, and con- tains no extraneous matter. Nor is it devoted to glorifying the names of those who suggested, or launched, or were conspicuous in this great- est of religious gatherings. It aims, in the shortest, compactest shape, to present the gist of the World's Parliament and Congresses. Grouped on the platform were: Bishop U. A. Payne, Rajah Ram, of the Punjab; Carl von Bergen, President of the .Swedish Society for Psychical Research, Stockholm, .Sweden; Birchand Raghavji Gandhi, B. A., Honorary Secretary of the Jain Association, of India, Bomba\-; Rev^ P. C. Mozoomdar, India; H. Dharmapala, India; Miss Jeanne Scrabji, Bombay; Archbishop Ryan, Philadelphia; Rev. Alexander McKcn/.ie. Massachusetts; Count A. Bernstorff, Berlin; Prince Serge Wolkonsk}-, Russia; Most Rev. Dionysios Latas, Archbishop of Zante, Greece; Homer Perati, Archdeacon of the Greek church; Pung Ouang Yii, of China; Bishop B. W. Arnctt; H. Toki, Japan; Rev. Takayoshi Matsuga- ma, Japan; Right Rev. Reuchi .Shibata, Japan; Rev. Zitsuzen Asliitsu. Japan; Kinza Riuge Hirai, Japan; Swami Wevakananda, liombay; 15 The O'ipnt and Occiilf'ir ('lutip HanilH. On the Plat- form. 10 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Professor Chakravarti, Bombay; B. B. Xacjarkar. Bombay, representative of the religion of the Ikahmo, Sonuij; Jinc'a Ram. India; Rev. P. G. Phi- ambolic Occonomus, a priest of the Greek church; lianriu Yatsubuchi,' President of Hoju, Buddhist society. Japan; Shaku Soyen, Archbishop of the Zen, of the Buddhist sects; Bishop Sanuki, Japan; Noguchi and Nomura, Interpreters, Tokio, Japan; G. Bonet-Maury, Paris; Prince Momulu Massaquoi, of Liberia; Bishop Jenner, Anglican Free church; Rev. Alfred Williams Momerie, 1). D., London, P^ngland; Rev. Mau- rice Phillips, of Madras; Professor N. Valentine, William T. Harris, Dr. P>nest Taber, Rev. Geori^e T. Candlin, Professor Kosaki, Bishop Cotter, of Winona; Dr. Adolph Brodbcck, Z. Zimigrowski, Principal Grant, of Canada. After the Universal Prayer had been recited, led by Cardinal Gib- bons, President C. C. Bonney gave the Address of Welcome. Worshipers of God and Lovers of Man: Let'us rejoice that we have lived to see this glorious day; let us give thanks to the Paternal God, whose mercy endureth forever, that we are permitted to take part in the solemn and majestic event of a World's Congress of Religions. The importance of this event cannot be overestimated. Its influence on the future relations of the various races of men cannot be too highly esteemed. President ^^ this cougress shall faithfully execute the duties with which it Bonney's Ad- has becu charged, it will become a joy of the whole earth, and stand come. " in human history like a new Mount Zion, crowned. with glory, and marking the actual beginning of a new epoch of brotherhood and peace. P'or when the religious faiths of the world recognize each other as brothers, children of one Father, whom all profess to love and serve, then, and not till then, will the nations of the earth yield the spirit of concord, and learn war no more. It is inspiring to think that in every part of the world many of the worthiest of mankind, wlio would gladly join us here if that were in their power, this day lift their hearts to the Supreme Being in ear- nest prayer for the harmony and success of this congress. To them our own hearts speak in love and sympathy of this impressive and prophetic scene. In this congress the word "religion" means the love and worship of God and the love and service of man. We believe the Scripture that " of a truth God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him." We come together in mutual confidence and respect, without the least surrender or compromise of anything which we respectively believe to be truth or duty, with the hope that mutual acquaintance and a free and sincere interchange of views on the great questions of eternal life and human conduct will be mutually beneficial. As the finite can never fully comprehend the infinite, nor perfectly express its own view of the divine, it necessarily follows that indi- vidual opinions of the divine nature and attributes will differ. But, The WOkLD'S COMGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 17 properly understood, these varieties of view are not causes of discord and strife, but rather incentives to deeper interest and examination. Necessarily God reveals Himself differently to a child than to a man; to a philosopher than to one who cannot read. Each must see God with the eyes of his own soul. Each one must behold Him through the colored glass of his own nature. Each one must receive Him according to his own capacity of reception. The fraternal union of the religions of the world will come when each seeks truly to know how God has revealed Himself in the other, and remembers the inex- orable law that with what judgment it judges, it shall itself be judged. The religious faiths of the world have most seriously misunder- stood and misjudged each other from the use of words in meanings Faith8^''of*'tho radically different from those which they were intended to bear, and World, from a disregard of the distinctions between appearances and facts; between signs and symbols and the things signified and represented. Such errors it is hoped that this congress will do much to correct and to render hereafter impossible. He, who believes that God has revealed Himself more fully in his religion than in any other, cannot do otherwise than desire to bring that religion to the knowledge of all men, with an abiding conviction that the God who gave it will preserve, protect, and advance it in every expedient way.' And hence he will welcome every just oppor- tunity to come into fraternal relations with men of other creeds, that they may see in his upright life the evidence of the truth and beauty of his faith, and be thereby led to learn it, and be helped heavenward by it. When it pleased God to give me the idea of the World's Con- gress of 1893, there came with that idea a profound conviction that the crowning glory should be a fraternal conference of the world's religions. Accordingly, the original announcement of the World's Congress scheme, which was sent by the Government of the United States to all other nations, contained among other great themes to be considered, "The grounds for fraternal union in the religions of differ- ent people." At first the proposal of a World's Congress of Religions seemed impracticable. It was said that the religions had never met but in con- flict, and that a different result could not be expected now. A com- mittee of organization was, nevertheless, appointed to make the nee- committeoof essary arrangements. This committee was composed of representa- Organization, tives of sixteen religious bodies. Rev. Dr. John Henry Barrows was made chairman. How zealously and efficiently he has performed the great work committed to his hands this congress is a sufficient witness. The preliminary address of the committee, prepared by him and sent throughout the world, elicited the most gratifying responses, and proved that the proposed congress was not only practicable, but also that it was most earnestly demanded by the needs of the present age. The religious leaders of many lands, hungering and thirsting for a larger righteousness, gave the proposal their benedictions, and prom- ised the congress their active co-operation and support. 2 18 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. To most of the departments of the World's Congress' work a single week of the exposition season was assigned. To a few of the most important a longer time, not exceeding two weeks, was given. In the beginning it was supposed that one or two weeks would suffice for the department of religion, but so great has been the interest, and so many have been the applications in this department, that the plans for it have repeatedly been rearranged, and it now extends from Sep- tember 4th to October 15th, and several of the religious congresses have, nevertheless, found it necessary to meet outside of these limits. The programme for the religious congresses of 1893 constitutes what may with perfect propriety be designated as one of the most remarkable publications of the century. The programme of this of^'th™™ont general parliament of religions directly represents England, Scotland, uress. Sweden, Switzerland, France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Syria, India, Japan, China, Ceylon, New Zealand, l^razil, Canada and the American States, and, indirectly, includes many other Countries. This remarkable programme presents, among other great themes to be considered in this congress. Theism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Hin- duism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, Catholicism, the Greek church, Protestantism in many forms, and also refers to the nature and influence of other religious systems. This programme also announces for presentation the great sub- jects of revelation, immortality, the Incarnation of God, the universal elements in religion, the ethical unity of different religious systems, the relations of religion to morals, marriage, education, science, phi- losophy, evolution, music, labor, government, peace and war, and many other hemes of absorbing interest. The distinguished leaders of human progress, by whom these great topics will be presented, con- stitute an unparalleled galaxy of eminent names, but we may not pause to call the illustrious roll. For the execution of this part of the general programme seven- teen days have been assigned. During substantially the same period the second part of the programme will be executed in the adjoining Hall of Washington. This will consist of what are termed presentations of their distinctive faith and achievements by the different churches. These presentations will be made to the world, as represented in the World's Religious Congresses of 1893. All persons interested are cordially invited to attend. The third part of the general programme for the congresses of this department consists of separate and independent congresses of the different religious denominations for the purpose of more fully setting forth their doctrines and the .service they have rendered to man- kind. These special congresses will be held, for the most part, in the smaller halls of this memorial building. A few of them have, for special reasons, already been held. It is the special object of these denominational congresses to afford opportunities for further informa- tion to all who may desire it. The leaders of the.se several churches most cordially desire the attendance of the representatives of other THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 19 i-eligions. The denominational congresses will each beheld during the week in which the presentation of the denomination will occur. The fourth and final part of the programme of the department of religionavill consist of congresses of various kindred organizations. These congresses will be held between the close of the parliament of religions and October 15th, and will include missions, ethics, Sunday rest, the evangelical alliance, and other similar associations. The con- gress on evolution should, in regularity, have been held in the depart- ment of science, but circumstances prevented, and it has been given a place in this department by the courtesy of the committee of organ- ization. To this more than imperial feast, I bid you welcome. We meet on the mountain height of absolute respect for the relig- ious convictions of each other, and an earnest desire for a better knowledge of the consolations which other forms of faith than our Welcome to own offer to their devotees. The very basis of our convocation is the p^g^^ imperial idea that the representatives of each religion sincerely believe that it is the truest and the best of all; and that they will, therefore, hear with perfect candor and without fear the convictions of other sincere souls on the great questions of the immortal life. Let one other point be clearly stated. While the members of this congress meet, as men, on a common ground of perfect equality, the ecclesiastical rank of each, in his own church, is at the same time gladly recognized and respected, as the just acknowledgment of his services and attainments. But no attempt is here made to treat all religions as of equal merit. Any such idea is expressly disclaimed. In this con- gress, each system of religion stands by itself in its own perfect integrity, uncompromised, in any degree, by its relation to any other. In the language of the preliminary publication in the department of religion, we seek in this congress "to unite all religion against all irreligion; to make the golden rule the basis of this union; and to present to the world the substantial unity of many religions in the good deeds of the religious life." Without controversy, or any attempt to pronounce judgment upon any matter of faith, or worship, or religious opinion, we seek a better knowledge of the religious condition of all mankind, with an earnest desire to be useful to each other and to all others who love truth and righteousness. This day the sun of a new era of religious peace and progress rises over the world, dispelling the dark clouds of sectarian strife. This day a new flower blooms in the gardens of religious thought, filling the air with its exquisite perfume. This day a new fraternity is born into the world of human progress, to aid in the upbuilding of the kingdom of God in the hearts of men. Era and flower and fraternity bear one name. It is a name which will gladden the hearts of those who worship (iod and love man in every clime. Those who hear its music joyfully echo it back to sun and flower. It is the brotherhood of religions. In this name I welcome the first Parliament of the Religions of the World. go THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. He was followed by the Rev^ John Henry Barrows, D. D., chaii'- man of the general committee: Mr. President and Friends: If my heart did not overflow with cordial welcome at this hour, which promises to be a great moment in history, it would be because I had lost the spirit of manhood and had been forsaken by the spirit of God. The whitest snow on the sacred mount of Japan, the clearest water springing from the sacred fountains of India are not more pure and bright than the joy of my heart, and of many hearts here, that this day has dawned in the annals of time, and that, from the furthest isles of Asia; from India, the mother of religions; from Europe, the great teacher of civilization ; from the shores on which Dr.' Harrows. ^ breaks the "loug wash of Australasian seas;" that from neighboring lands, and from all parts of this republic which we love to contemplate as the land of earth's brightest future, you ha\'e come here at our invi- tation in the expectation that the world's first parliament of religions must prove an event of race-wide and perpetual significance. * * * Welcome, most welcome, O wise men of the East and of the West! May the star which led you hither be like unto that luminary which guided the men of old, ^nd may this meeting by the inland sea of a new continent be blessed of heaven to the redemption of men from error and from sin and despair. I wish you to understand that this great undertaking, which has aimed to house under one friendly roof in brotherly counsel the representativesof God's aspiring and believing children everywhere, has been conceixed and carried on through strenuous and patient toil, with an unfaltering heart, with a devout faith in God and with most signal and special evidence of His divine guidance and favor. * * * What, it seems to me, should have blunted some of the arrows of criticism shot at the promoters of this movement is this other fact, that it is the representatives of that Christian faith which we believe has in it such elements and divine forces that it is fitted to the needs of all men, who have planned and provided this first school of com- parative religions, wherein devout men of all faiths may speak for themselves without hindrance, without criticism, and without com- promise, and tell what they believe and why they believe it. I appeal to the representatives of the non-Christian faiths, and ask you if Christianity suffers in your eyes from having called this parliament of religions? Do you believe that its beneficent work in the world will be one whit lessened? On the contrary, you agree with the great mass of Christian schol- ars in America in believing that Christendom may proudly hold up this congress of the faiths as a torch of truth and of lo\'e which may prove the morning star of the twentieth century. There is a true and noble sense in which America is a Christian nation, since Christianity is recognized by the supreme court, by the courts of the several states, by executive officers, by general national acceptance and observance, as the prevailing religion of our people. This does not mean, of course, that the church and state are united. In America they are THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 21 separated, and in this land the widest spiritual and intellectual freedom is realized. Justice Ameer Ali, of Calcutta, whose absence we lament today, has expressed the opinion that only in this western republic would such a congress as this have been undertaken and achieved. I do not forget — I am glad to remember- that devout Jews, lovers of humanity, ha\e co-operated with us in this parliament; that these men and women representing the most wonderful of all races and the most persistent of all religions — who have come with good cause to appreci- ate the spiritual freedom of the United States of America — that these friends, some of whom are willing to call themselves Old Testament Christians, as I am willing to call myself a New Testament Jew, have zealously and powerfully co-operated in this good work. But the world calls us, and we call ourselves, a Christian people. We believe in the Gospels and in Him whom they set forth as "the Light of the World," and Christian America, which owes so much to Columbus and Luther, to the pilgrim fathers and to John Wesley, which owes so much to the Christian church and the Christian college and the Christian school, welcomes today the earnest disciples of other faiths and the men of all faiths who, from many lands, have flocked to this jubilee of civilization. Cherishing the light which God has given us and eager to send a Divine this light everywhither, we do not believe that God, the Eternal Spirit, ^^^^ht. has left Himself without witness in non-Christian nations. There is a divine light enlightening e\'cry man. "One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world has never lost." Prof. Max Muller, of Oxford, who has been a friend of our move- ment and has sent a contribution to this parliament, has gathered together in his last volume a collection of prayers — -Egyptian, Accadian, Babylonian, Vedic, Avestic, Chinese, Mohammedan and modern Hindu — which make it perfectly clear that the sun which shone over Bethlehem and Calvary has cast some celestial illumination and called forth some devout and holy aspirations by the Nile and the Ganges, in the deserts of Arabia antl by the waves of the Yellow sea. It is perfectly evident to all illuminated minds that we should cherish loving thoughts of all people and himiane views of all the great and lasting religions, and that whoever would advance the cause of his own faith must first discover and gratefully acknowledge the truths contained in other faiths. * * * Why should not Christians be glad to learn what God has wrought through Buddha and Zoroaster — through the sage of China and the prophets of India and the prophet of Islam! We are met together today as men, children of one God, sharers with all men in weakness and guilt and deed, sharers with devout souls everywhere in aspiration and hope and longing We are met as relig- ious men, believing even here in this capital of material wonders —in the presence of an exposition which displays the unparalleled marvels of steam and electricity — that there is a spiritual root to all human 22 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. progress. We are met in a school of comparative theology, which I hope will prove more spiritual and ethical than theological; we are romparative met, I bcHeve, in the temper of love, determined to bury, at least for Theology. jj^g time, our sharp hostilities, anxious to find out wherein we agree, eager to learn what constitutes the strength of other faiths and the weakness of our own ; and we are met as conscientious and truth-seeking men in a council where no one is asked to surrender or abate his indi- vidual convictions, and where, I will add, no one would be worthy of a place if he did. We are met in a great conference, men and women of different minds; where the speaker will not be ambitious for short-li\cd, verbal victories over others, where gentleness, courtesy, wisdom and moder- ation will prevail far more than heated argumentation. I am confi- dent that you appreciate the peculiar limitations which constitute the peculiar glory of this assembly. We are not here as Baptists and Buddhists, Catholics and Confucians, Parseesand Presbyterians, Meth- odists and Moslems; we are here as members of a parliament of re- ligions over which flies no sectarian flag, which is to be stampeded by no sectarian war cries, but where for the first time in a large council is lifted up the banner of lov^e, fellowship, brotherhood. We feel that there is a spirit which should always pervade these meetings, and if any one should offend against this spirit let him not be rebuked pub- licly, or personally; your silence will be a graver and severer rebuke. It is a great and wonderful programme that is to be spread before you; it is not all that I could wish or had planned for, but it is too large for any one mind to receive it in its fullness dm-ing the seven- Carpfni and ^^^^ days of our scssions. Careful and scholarly essays have been Scholarly Eb- prepared and sent in by great men of the old world and the new . which ^^^' are worthy of the most serious and grateful attention, and I am confi- dent that each one of us may gain enough to make this parliament an epoch of his life. You will be glad with me that, since this is a world of sin and sorrow, as well as speculation, our attention is for several days to be given to those greatest practical themes which press upon good men everywhere. How can we make this suffering and needy world less a home of grief and strife and far more a commonwealth of love, a kingdom of heaven? How can we abridge the chasms of alien- ation which have kept good men from co-operating? How can we bring into closer fellowship t'lose who believe in Christ as the Saviour of the world? And how can wo bring about a better understanding among the men of all faiths? I believe that great light will be thrown upon these problems in the coming days. * * Welcome, one and all. thrice welcome to the ^Vorkl's first Parlia- ment of Religions! Welcome to the men and women of Israel, the standing miracle of nations and religions! Welcome to the disciples of Prince Siddartha, the many millions who cherish in their hearts Lord Buddha as the light of Asia! Welcome to the high priest of the national religion of Japan! This city has every reason to be grate- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 23 fill to the enlightened ruler of the sunrise kingdom. Welcome to the men of India and all faiths! Welcome to all the disciples of Christ, and may God's blessing abide in our council and extend to the twelve hundred millions of human beings, the representatives of whose faiths I address at this moment! It seems to me that the spirits of just and good men hover over this assembly. I believe that the spirit of Paul is here, the zealous missionary of Christ, whose courtesy, wisdom and unbounded tact were manifest when he preached Jesus and the resurrection beneath the shadows of the Parthenon. I believe the spirit of the wise and humane g .^^.^^ . Buddha is here, and of Socrates, the searcher after truth, and of Jeremy Just and Good Taylor and John Milton and Roger Williams and Lessing, the great ^*"^' lapostles of toleration. I believe that the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, 'who sought for a church founded on love for God and man, is not far from us, and the spirit of Tennyson and Whittier and Phillips Brooks, who looked forward to this parliament as the realization of a noble idea. When, a few days ago I met for the first time the delegates who have come to us from Japan, and shortly after the delegates who have come to us from India, I felt that the arms of human brotherhood had reached almost around the globe. But there is something stronger than human love and fellowship, and what gives us the most hope and happiness today is our confidence that ' The whole round world is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." He was followed by Archbishop Feehan, of Chicago: On this most interesting occasion, ladies and gentlemen, a privilege has been granted to me — that of giving greeting in the name of the Catholic church to the members of this parliament of religion. Surely we all regard it as a time and a day of the highest interest, for we have here the commencement of an assembly unique in the history of the world. One of the representatives from the ancient East has mentioned that his king in early days held a meeting something like this, but certainly the modern and historical world has had no such thing. Men have Ar^ch'blshoo come from distant lands, from many shores. They represent many Feehan, types of race. They represent many forms of faith; some from the distant East, representing its remote antiquity; some from the islands and continents of the West. In all there is a great diversity of opinion, but in all there is a great, high motive. Of all the things that our city has seen and heard during these passing months, the highest and the greatest is now to be presented to it. For earnest men, learned and eloquent men of different faiths, have come to speak and to tell us of those things that of all are of the highest and deepest interest to us all. Wo are interested in material things; we are interested in beautiful things. We admire the won- ders of that new city that has sprung up at the southern end of our great city of Chicago; but when learned men, men representing the thought of the world on religion, come to tell us of God and of 1 lis truth, and 24 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. of life and of death, and of immortality and of justice, and of good- ness and of charity, then we listen to what will surpass, infinitely, whatever the most learned or most able men can tell us of material things. Those men that have come together will tell of their systems of faith, without, as has been well said by Dr. Barrows, one atom of sur- render of what each one believes to be the truth for him. No doubt it will be of exceeding interest; but whatever may be said in the end, when all is spoken, there will be at least one great result; because no matter how we may differ in faith or religion, there is one thing that is common to us all, and that is a common humanity. And those men representing the races and the faiths of the world, meeting together and talking together and seeing one another, will have for each other in the end a sincere respect and reverence and a cordial and fraternal feeling of friendship. As the privilege which I prize very much has been given to me, I bid them all, in my own name, and of that I rep- resent, a most cordial welcome. Response by Cardinal Gibbons: Your honored president has in- Response by formed you, ladies and gentlemen, that if I were to consult the inter- bons. ests of my health I should perhaps be m bed this mornmg, but as I was announced to say a word in respo'ise to the kind speeches that have been offered up to us, I could not fail to present myself at least, and to show my interest in your great undertaking. I would be wanting in my duty as a mmisterof the Catholic church if I did not say that it is our desire to present the claims of the Catholic church to the observation and, if possible, to the acceptance of every right-minded man that will listen to us. But we appeal only to the tribunal of conscience and of intellect. I feel that in possessing my faith I possess a treasure compared with which all treasures of this world are but dross, and, instead of hiding those treasures in my own coverts, I would like to share them with others, especially as I am none the poorer in making others the richer. But though we do not agree in matters of faith, as the Most Reverend Archbishop of Chicago has said, thanks be to God there is one platform on which we all stand united. It is the platform of charity, of humanit)', and of benevolence. And as ministers of Christ we thank him for our great model in this particular. Our blessed Redeemer came upon this earth to break down the wall of partition that separated race from race, and people from people, and tribe from tribe, and has made us one people, one family, recognizing God as our common Father, and Jesus Christ as our Brother. We have a beautiful lesson given to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ — that beautiful parable of the good Samaritan which we all ought to follow. We know that the good Samaritan rendered assistance to a dying man and bandaged his wounds. The Samaritan was his enemy in religion and in faith, his enemy in nationality, and his enemy in social life. That is the model that we all ought to follow. I trust that we will all leave this hall animated by a greater love for THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 2^ one another, for love knows no distinction of faith. Christ the Lord is our model, I say. We cannot, like our Divine Saviour, give sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, and walking to the lame and strength to the paralyzed limbs; we cannot work the miracles which Christ wrought; but there are other miracles far more beneficial to our- selves that we are all in the measure of our lives capable of working, and those are the miracles of char-t^'' of mercy, and of love to our feliowman. Let no man say that he cannot serve his brother. Let no man say, "Am I my brother's keeper?" That was the language of Cain, and I say to you all here today, no matter what may be your faith, that ■ you are and you ought to be your brother's keeper. What would be- come of us Christians today if Christ the Lord had said, "y\m I my brother's keeper?" We would be all walking in darkness and in the shadow of death, and if today we enjoy in this great and beneficent land of ours blessings beyond comparison, we owe it to Christ, who redeemed us all. Therefore, let us thank God for the blessings He has bestowed upon us. Never do we perform an act so pleasing to God as when we extend the right hand of fellowship and of practical love to a suffering member. Never do we approach nearer to our model than when we cause the sunlight of heaven to beam upon a darkened soul; never do we prove ourselves more w^orthy to be called the children of God, our Father, than when we cause the flowers of joy and of gladness to grow up in the hearts that were dark and dreary and barren and desolate before. For, as the apostle has well said, "Religion pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the orphan and the fatherless and the widow in their tribulations, and to keep one's self unspotted from this world." The Rev. Augusta J. Chapin, D. D., chairman of the women's committees, then said: I am strangely moved as I stand upon this platform and attempt Ren:ark!» hy to realize what it means that you all are here from so many lands rep- j.*rhapin!"*D! resenting so many and widely differing phases of religious thought ^• and life, and what it means that I am here in the midst of this unique assemblage to represent womanhood and woman's part in it all. The parliament which assembles in Chicago this morning is the grandest and most significant convocation ever gathered in the name of religion on the face of this earth. The old world, which has rolled on through countless stages and phases of physical progress, until it is an ideal home for the human family, has, through a process of evolution or growth, reached an era of intellectual and spiritual attainment where there is malice toward none and charity for all; where, without prejudice, without fear anil with perfect fidelity to personal convictions, we may clasp hands across the chasm of our indifferences and cheer each other in all that is good and true. The World's first Parliament of Religions could not lia\e been 26 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, called sooner and have gathered the religionists of all these lands together. We had to wait for the hour to strike, until the steamship, the railway and the telegraph had brought men together, leveled their walls of separation and made them acquainted with each other; until scholars had broken the way through the pathless wilderness of igno- rance, superstition and falsehood, and compelled them to respect each other's honesty, devotion and intelligence. A hundred years ago the world was not ready for this parliament. Fifty years ago it could not have been convened, and had it been called but a single genera- tion ago, one-half of the religious world could not have been directly represented. Woman could not have had a part in it in her own right for two reasons: One, that lier presen(^e would not have been thought of nor tolerated; and the other was that she, herself, was still too weak, too timid and too unschooled to avail herself of such an opportunity had it been offered. F^ew, indeed, were they a quarter of a century ago who talked about the Divine Fatherhood and Human Brotherhood, and fewer still were they who realized the practical religious power of these conceptions. Now few are found to question them. I am not an old woman, yet my memory runs easily back to the time when, in all the modern world, there was not one well equipped Highest college or university open to women students, and when, in all the Honors for modcm world, no woman had been ordained, or even acknowledged, as a preacher outside the denomination of Friends. Now the doors arc thrown open in our own and many other lands. Women are becoming masters of the languages in which the great sacred literatures of the world are written. They are winning the highest honors that the great universities have to bestow, and already in the field of religion hun- dreds have been ordained, and thousands are freely speaking and teaching this new Gospel of freedom and gentleness that has come to bless mankind. We are still at the dawn of this new era. Its grand possibilities are all before us, and its heights are ours to reach. We are assembled in this great parliament to look for the first time in each other's faces, and to speak to each other our best and truest words. I can only add my heartfelt word of greeting to those you have already heard. I welcome you brothers, of every name and land, who have wrought so long and so well in accordance with the wisdom high heaven has given to you; and I welcome you, sisters, who have come with beating hearts and earnest purpose to this great feast, to participate not only in this parliament, but in the great congresses associated with it. Isabella, the Catholic, had not only the perception of a new world, but of an enlight- ened and emancipated womanhood, which should strengthen religion and bless mankind. I welcome you to the fulfillment of her prophetic vision. President H. N. Higinbotham said: It affords me infinite pleasure Preai- to welcome the distinguished gentlemen who compose this august bothBmSwd,"' body. It is a matter of satisfaction and pride that the relations exist- Charleg Carroll Bonney, President World's Congress Auxiliary. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF ReUGIONS. 2d ing between the peoples and nations of the earth are of such a friendly- nature as to make this gathering possible. I have long cherished the hope that nothing would intervene to prevent the full fruition of the labors of your honored chairman. I apprehend that the fruitage of this parliament will richly com- pensate him and the world and prove the wisdom of his work. It is a source of satisfaction that, to the residents of a new city in a far country should be accorded this great privilege and high honor. The meeting of so many illustrious and learned men under such circum- stances evidences the kindly spirit and feeling that exists throughout the world. To me this is the proudest work of our exposition. [Cheers.] There is no man, high or low, learned or unlearned, but will not watch with increasing interest the proceedings of this parliament. Whatever may be the differences in the religions you represent, there is a sense in which we are all alike. There is a common plane on which we are all brothers. We owe our beings to conditions that are exactly the same. Our journey through this world is by the same route. We have in common the same senses, hopes, ambitions, joys and sorrows, and these to my mind argue strongly and almost conclusively a common destiny. To me there is much satisfaction and pleas'_n-e in the fact that we are brought face to face with men that come to us bearing the ripest wisdom of the ages. They come in the friendliest spirit that, I trust, will be augmented by their intercourse with us and with each other. I hope that your parliament will prove to be a golden milestone on the highway of civilization, a golden stairway leading up to the tableland of a higher, grander and more perfect condition, where peace will reign and the enginery of war be known no more forever. These addresses were responded to by many from the most emi- nent representatives of the world's religions present, extracts from which here follow: The Rev. Alexander McKenzie, of Harvard university, said: I suppose that everybody who speaks here this morning stands for some thing. The very slight claim I have to be here, rests on the fact that Remarks by I am one of the original settlers. I am here representing the New Rev. Alex. Mc- England Puritan, the man who has made this gathering possible. The Puritan came early to this country, with a very distinct work to do, and he gave himself distinctly to that work, and succeeded in doing it. There are some who criticise the Puritan, and say that if he had been a different man than he was he would not have been the man he was. * * * The little contribution that he makes this morning, in the way of welcome to these guests from all parts of the world, is to congrat- ulate them on the opportunity given them of seeing something of the work his hands have established. We are able to show our friends from other countries, not that we have something better than what they have, but that we have that which they can see nowhere else in the world. It would be idle to present trophies of old countries to men from India and Japan. We cannot show an old histor}' or statel)' Kenzie. 30 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. architecture. We cannot point to the castles and abbeys of Eng- land, but we can show a new country which means to be old. We can show buildings as tall as any in the world, and we can show the dis- placement of buildings that are a few score years old b)' the stately and elegant structures of our time. But there is another thing we can show, if our brethren from abroad will take pains to notice it. I am not exaggerating when I say that we can show what can be shown no- where else in the world, and that is, a great republic, and a republic in the process of making by the forces of Christianity. * * * The beginning of this republic was purely religious. The men who came to start it came from religious motives. Their religion may not have been exactly what other people liked, but they worked with a distinct- ively religious purpose. They came here to carry out the work of God They worked with energy and perseverance and steadfastness to that end. They started on Plymouth Rock a parliament of religion. He said, in concluding, "We have not built cathedrals yet, but we have built log schoolhouses, and if you visit them you will see in the cracks between the logs the eternal light streaming in. And for the work we are doing, a lOg schoolhouse is better than a cathedral. The Most Rev. Dionysios Latas, Archbishop of Zante, Greece, representing the Greek Catholic church, said: * * I consider my- Addreae b ^ Very happy in having set my feet on this platform to take part in Archbishop the congress of the different nations and peoples. I thank the great ^'*""' American nation, and especially the superiors of this congress, for the high manner in which they have honored me by inviting me to take part, and I thank the ministers of divinity of the different nations and peoples which, for the first time, will write in the books of the history of the world. * * * Reverend ministers of the eloquent name of God, the Creator of your earth and mine, I salute you on the one hand as my brothers in Jesus Christ, from whom, according to our faith, all good has originated in this world. I salute you in the name of the di- vinely inspired Gospel, which, according to our faith, is the salvation of the soul of man and the happiness of man in this world. All men have a common Creator, without any distinction between the rich and the poor, the ruler and the ruled; all men have a common Creator without any distinction of clime or race, without distinction of nationality or ancestry, of name or nobility; all men have a common Creator, and consequently a common Father in God. I raise up my hands and I bless with heartfelt love the great country and the happy, glorious people of the United States! The eloquent P. C. Mozoomdar, of the Brahmo-Somaj: Leaders of the Parliament of Religions, Men and Women of America: The recognition, sympathy, and welcome you have given to India today are gratifying to thousands of liberal Hindu religious p. c. Mo- thinkers, whose representatives I see around mc, and on behalf of my «oomdar countrymcu, I cordially thank you. India claims her place in the SSdus.**'^ * brotherhood of mankind, not only because of her great antiquity, but equally for what has taken place there in recent times. Modern India THE WORLD'S CONG k ESS OF RELIGIONS. 31 has sprung from ancient India by a law of evolution, a process of continuity which explains some of the most difficult problems of our national life. In prehistoric times our forefathers worshiped the great living Spirit, God, and after many strange vicissitudes we, Indian theists, led by the light of ages, worship the same living Spirit, God, and none other. No individual, no denomination, can more fully sympathize or more heartily join your conference than we men of the Brahmo-Somaj, whose religion is the harmony of all religions, and whose congregation is the brotherhood of all nations. An address from Hon. Pung Quang Yu, secretary of the Chinese legation, Washington, was read by Chairman Barrows: On behalf of the imperial government of China, I take great pleasure in responding to the cordial words which the chairman of the general committee and others have spoken today. This is a great moment in the history of Addreaaimm nations and religions. For the first time men of various faiths meet Quang Yu?°^ in one great hall to report what they believe and the grounds for their belief. The great sage of China, who is honored not only by the millions of our own land, but throughout the world, believed that duty was summed up in reciprocity, and I think that the word reciprocity finds a new meaning and glory in the proceedings of this historic parliament. I am glad that the great empire of China has accepted the invitation of those who have called this parliament and is to be represented in this great school of comparative religion. Only the happiest results will come, I am sure, from our meeting together in the spirit of friendliness. Each may learn from the other some lessons, I trust, of charity and good will, and discover what is excellent in other faiths than his own. In behalf of my government and people I extend to the representatives gathered in this great hall the friendliest salutations, and to those who have spoken I give my most cordial thanks. Prince Serge Wolkonsky, of Russia, described the feeling of fraternity everywhere present in the religious congresses, which he illustrated by a Russian legend. The story, he said, may appear rather Legnmi. too humorous for the occasion, but one of our national writers says: " Humor is an invisible tear through a visible smile," and we think that human tears, human sorrow and pain are sacred enough to be brought even before a religious congress. There was an old woman, who for many centuries suffered tortures in the flames of hell, for she had been a great sinner during her earthly life. One day she saw far away in the distance an ange' taking his flight through the blue skies, and with the whole strength of her voice she called to him The call must have been desperate, for the angel stopped in his flight and coming down to her asked her what she wanted. "When you reach the throne of God," she said, "tell Him that a miserable creature has suffered more than she can bear, and that she asks the Lord to be delivered from these tortures." The angel promised to do so and flew away. When he had transmitted the message, God said: A It u R H i a n 32 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. " Ask her whether she has done any good to anvone during her life." The old woman strained her memory in search of a good action during her sinful past, and all at once: " I've got one," she joyfully exclaimed: " One day I gave a carrot to a hungry beggar." The angel reported the answer. " Take a carrot," said God to the angel, " and stretch it out to he.*. Let her grasp it, and if the plant is strong enough to draw her out from hell she shall be saved." This the angel did. The poor old woman clung to the carrot. The angel began to pull, and lo! she began to rise! But when her body was half out of the flames she felt another weight at her feet. Another sinner was clinging to her She kicked, but it did not help. The sinner would not let go his hold, and the angel, continuing to pull, was lifting them both. But, oh! another sinner clung to them, and then a third, and more and always more — a chain of miserable creatures hung at the old woman's feet. The angel never ceased pulling. It did not seem to be any heavier than the small carrot could support, and they all were lifted in the air. But the old woman suddenly took fright. Too many people were availing themselves of her last chance of salva- tion, and, kicking and pushing those who were clinging to her, she exclaimed: " Leave me alone; hands off; the carrot is mine." No sooner had she pronounced this word "mine" than the tiny stem broke, and they all fell back to hell, and forever. In its poetical artlessnessand popular simplicity this legend is too eloquent to need interpretation. If any individual, any community, any congregation, any church, possesses a portion of truth and of good, let that truth shine for everybody; let that good become the property of everyone. The substitution of the word "mine" by the word "ours," and that of "ours" by the word "everyone's" — this is what will secure a fruitful result to our collective efforts as well as to our individual activities. This is why we welcome and greet the opening of this congress, where, in a combined effort of the representativ^es of all churches, all that is great and good and true in each of them is brought together in the name of the same God and for the sake of the same men. We congratulate the president, the members and all the listeners of this congress upon the tendency of union that has gathered them on the soil of the country whose allegorical eagle, spreading her mighty wings over the stars and stripes, holds in her talons these splendid words: "E Pluribus Unum." The Rev. Reuchi Shibata voiced the feelings of those of the Th^^'of^ the Shinto faith, Japan, and expressed the hope that the parliament might Shinto Faith, "increase the fraternal relations between the different religionists in investigating the truths of the universe, and be instrumental in uniting all the religions of the world, and in bringing all hostile nations into peaceful relations by leading them into the way of perfect justice." Here three Buddhist priests from Japan were introduced: Zitsuzen Rev. Dr. John Henry Barrows, Chicago. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 35 Ashitsu, Shaku Soyen and Horiu Toki. Through their spokesman, Z. Noguchi, they expressed their appreciation of the cordial welcome they received. Count Bernstorff, of Germany, expressed his delight at being present on an occasion when religion for the first time was ofificially connected with a world's exposition. The basis of this congress is common humanity. Though the term humanity has often been used to designate the purely human Addre^ bj apart from all claims of divinity, I hesitate not, as an evangelical etorff, of Ger- Christian, to accept this thesis. It is the Bible which teaches us that ™a°y- the human race is all descended from one couple, and that they are, therefore, one family. Let us not forget this; but the Bible also teaches that man is created after the image of God. Therefore, man as such, quite apart from the circumstances which made him be born among some historic religion, is meant to come into connection with God. This parliament teaches us that other great lesson. Not that — some one might say, and 1 have heard the objections expressed before — this idea of humanity will tend to make religion indifferent to us. I will openly confess that I also for a time felt the strength of this ob- jection, but I trust that nobody is here who thinks light of his own religion. I, for myself, declare that I am here as an individual evangelical Christian, and that I should never have set my foot in this parliament if I thought that it signified anything like a consent that all religions are equal and that it is only necessary to be sincere and upright. I can consent to nothing of this kind. I believe onl}' the Bible to be true and Protestant Christianity the onl)- true religion. I wish no compromise of an}' kind. We cannot deny that we who meet in this parliament arc sepa- rated by great and important principles. \Vc admit that these differ- ences cannot be bridged over, but we meet, belie\ing evcrjbod}' has the right to his faith. You invite everybody to come here as a sincere defender of his own faith, * * * But what do we then meet for if we cannot show tolerance. Well, the word tolerance is used in a ver}' different wa\-. If the words oi the great King Frederick, of Prussia, "In vay country- e\er}body can go to heaven after his own fashion," are used as a maxim of states- manship, we cannot approve of it too highly. What bloodsiied, what cruelty would have been spared in the histor\' of the world if it had been adopted. V>\\t if it is the expression of the religious indiffer- ence prevalent during this last century and at the court of the monarch who was the friend of Voltaire then we must not accept it. St. Paul, in his Papistic to the Galatians, rejects exery other doc- trine, even if it were taught by an angel from heaven. W^e Christians are servants of our master, the li\ing .Sa\iour. W^e have no right to compromise the truth He intrusted to us, either to think lightl\- of it, or withhold the message He has given us for humanit)-. But we meet 36 THE WORljys CONGRESS OF RELIGION^. to<;cthcr, each one \vi.shin«;^ to ^ain the others to his own creed. Will this not be a parliament of war instead of peace? Will it bring us further from, instead of nearer to, each other? I think not if we hold fast our truths that these great vital doctrines can only be defended and propagated by spiritual mea*ns. l\\\ honest fight with spiritual weapons need not estrange the combatants; on the contrary, it often bring them nearer. Prof. G. Bonet-Maury spoke for France, and as " a Christian Frenchman and liberal Protestant," alluding to the purposes of the parliament, he said: There is also at Paris a similar institution in our religious branch Mrur/' Si^Tks of the " P^cole fratique des hauter etude." You might have seen for for France. six ycars in the old Sorbama's house, just now pulled down, Roman Catholics and Protestant ministers, Hebrew and Buddhist scholars commenting on the sacred books of old India and Egypt, Greece and Palestine, or telling the history of the various branches of the Christian church. Well now, gentlemen, you have resumed the same work as the Conqueror Akbar, and more recently the P'rench republic. You have convoked here, in that tremendous city which is itself a wonder of human industry and, as it were, a modern phcenix springing again from its ashes, representative men of all great religions of the earth in order to discuss, on courteous and pacific terms, the eternal problem of divinity, which is the torment, but also the sig.n of sovereignty of man over all animal beings. 1 present )'ou the hearty messages of all friends of religious liberty in Prance and my best wishes for your success. Ma)' God, the Almighty P\ather, help )-ou in your noble undertaking. May lie gixcusall His spirit of love, of truth,oflibert}', of mutual help. » and unlimited progress, so that we may become pure as He is pure, good as He is good, loving as He is love, perfect as He is perfect, and we shall find in these moral improvements the possession of real liberty, equality and fraternity. P\)r, as said our genial poet, Victor Plugo: All men are sons of the same father, They are the same tear and pour from the same eye! Archbishop Redwood, of Australia, represented "the newest phase of civilization of the Anglo-Sa.xon race and the P^nglish speaking Addrosa b- pt-'^'pl^'-" Hc closcd an eloquent address by saving: ArchbiHhoi) Man is not only a mortal being, but a social being. Now the con- dition to make him happy and prosperous as a social being, to make him progress and go forth to conquer the world, both mentall)' and physically, is that he should be free, and not only to be free as a man in temporal matters, but to be free in religious matters. Therefore, it is to be hoped that from this day will date the dawn of that period when, throughout the whole of the universe, in every nation the idea of oppressing any man for his religion will be swept away. I think I can siy in the name of the young country I represent, in the name of New Zealand, and the church of Australasia, that has made such a marvelous progress in our day, that we hope God will speed that day. kt«iw(>o'ou try to convert the whole of human- ity to the dogma of universal toleration and fraternity. Old Armenia blesses this grand undertaking of young America, and wishes her to succeed in la)'ing on the extinguished volcanoes of religious hatred the foundation of the temple of peace and concord. At the beginning of our sittings, allow the humble representatives of the Armenian people to invoke the Divine benediction on our labors, in the very language of his fellow country: Zkorzs tserats merots oogheegh ora i mez. Der, yev zkorzs tserats merots achoghia mez. Prof. C. N. Chakravarti represented Indian theosophy. He said: I came here to represent a religion, the dawn of which appeared in a misty antiquity which the powerful microscope of modern research has notyetbeenabletodiscovcr; the depth of whose beginnings the plummet of history has not been able to sound. Fromtime immemorial spirit has been represented by white, and matter has been represented b\' black, and the two sister streams which join at the town from which I came, Allahabad, represent two sources of spirit and matter, according to the philosophy of my people. And when I think that here, in this cit)- of Chicago, this vortex of physicality, this center of material ci\ilization. you hold a parliament of religions; when I think that, in the heart of the world's fair, where abound all the excellencies of the physical world, you have provided also a hall for the feast of reason and the flow of soul, I am once more reminded of my native kuul. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 3» "Why?" Because here, even here, I find the same two sister streams of spirit and matter, of the intellect and physicality, joining hand in hand, representing the symbolical evolution of the universe. I need hardly tell you that, in holding this parliament of religions, where all the religions of the world are to be represented, you have acted worthily of the race that is in the vanguard of civilization — a civilization the chief characteristic of which, to my mind, is widening toleration, breadth of heart, and liberality toward all the different re- ligions of the world. In allowing men of different shades of religious opinion, and holding different views as to philosophical and metaphys- ical problems, to speak from the same platform — aye, even allowing me, who, I confess, am a heathen, as you call me — to speak from the same platform with them, you have acted in a manner worthy of the motherland of the society which I have come to represent today. The fundamental principle of that society is universal tolerance; its car- dinal belief that, underneath the superficial strata, runs the living water of truth. Swami Vivekananda, of Bombay, India, a monk, responded: It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the ■ warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in Unspeakable the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank "^" you in the name of the mother of religion, and I thank you in the narrie of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to the different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both toler- ance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal tol- eration,, but we accept all religions to be true. I am proud to tell you that I belong to a religion into whose sacred language, the Sanskrit, the word seclusion is untranslatable. I am proucl to belong to a na- tion which has sheltered th-e persecuted and the refugees of all relig- ions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, a remnant which came to southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remem- ber to have repeated .from my earliest boyhood, which is e\ery day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea, oh. Lord, so the different paths which men take through differ- ent tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all Icati to Thee." The present convention, which is one of the most august assem- blies ever held, is in itself a \indication, a dcclaratit^i to the world of 40 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. the wonderful doctrine preached in Gita. " Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form I reach him, they are all struggling through paths that in the end always lead to Me." Sectarianism, bigotry and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have possessed long this beautiful earth. It has filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to de- spair. Had it not been for this horrible demon, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But its time has come, and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention will be the death-knell to all fanaticism, to all persecutions with the sword or the pen, and to all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal. Principal Grant, of Canada, referring to the feeling of fraternity _,*'eeiinK of bctwecn Canada and the United States, remarked: Eighteen years ago, for instance, all the Presbyterian denominations united into one church in the Dominion of Canada. Immediately thereafter all the Methodist churches took the same step, and now all the Protestant churccs have appointed committees to see whether it is not possible to have a larger union, and all the young life of Canada says "Amen" to the proposal. Now it is easy for a people with such an environment to under- stand that where men differ they must be in error, that truth is that which unites, that every age has its problems to solve, that it is the glory of the human mind to solve them, and that no church has a monopoly of the truth or of the spirit of the living (iod. It seems to me that we should begin this parliament of religions, not with a consciousness that we are doing a great thing, but with ah humble and lowly confession of sin and failure. Why have not the inhabitants of the world fallen before truth? The fault is ours. The Apostle Paul, looking back on centuries of marvelous God-guided history, saw as the key to all its maxims this: That Jehovah had stretched out his hands all day long to a disobedient and gainsaying people; that although there was always a remnant of the righteous- ness, Israel as a nation did not understand Jehovah, and therefore failed to understand her own marvelous mission. If St. Paul were here today would he not utter the same sad con- fession with regard to the nineteenth century of Christendom. Would he not have to say that we have been proud of our Christianity instead of allowing our Christianity to humble and crucify us; that we have boasted of Christianity as something we possessed, instead of allowing it to possess us; that we have divorced it from the moral and spiritual order of the world, instead of seeing that it is that which interpen- etrates, interprets, completes and verifies that order, and that so we have hidden its glories and obscured its power. All day long our Saviour has been saying: "I have stretched out My hands to a diso- bedient and gainsaying people." But, sir, the only one indispensable condition of success is that we recognize the cause of our failure, that we confess it with humble, Rev. Dr. Augusta J. Chapin, Chicago. THE WORLUS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 43 ReinarkH of a Converted Par- see Woman. lowly, penitent and obedient minds, and that with quenchless western courage and faith we now go forth and do otherwise. Miss Jeanne Serabji, a converted Parsee woman, of Bombay, spoke: When I was leaving the shores of Bombay the women of my coun- try wanted to know where I was going, and I told them I was going to America on a visit. They asked me whether I would be at this con- gress. I thought then I would only come in as one of the audience, but I have the great privilege and honor given to me to stand here and speak to you, and I give you the message as it was given to me. The Christian women of my land said: "Give the women of America our love and tell them that we love Jesus, and that we shall always pray that our countrywomen may do the same. Tell the women of America that we are fast being educated. We shall one day be able to stand by them and converse with them and be able to delight in all they delight in." And so I have a message from each one of my countrywomen, and once more I will just say that I haven't words enough in which to thank you for the welcome you have given to all those who have come here from the East. When I came here this morning and saw my countrymen my heart was warmed, and I thought I would never feel homesick again, and I feel today as if I were at home. Seeing your kindly faces has turned away the heartache. We are all under that one banner, love. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I thank you. You will hear, possibly, the words in His own voice, saying unto you, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these. My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." B. B. Nagarkar spoke for the Brahmo-Somaj. He said: The Brahmo-Somaj is the result, as you know, of the influence of various religions, and the fundamental principles of the theistic church, in India, are universal love, harmony of faiths, unity of prophets, or rather The "Brahmo- unity of prophets and harmony of faiths. The reverence that we pay ^^'^• the other prophets and faiths is not mere lip loyalty, but it is the uni- versal love for all the prophets and for all the forms and shades of truth by their own inherent merit. We try not only to learn in an in- tellectual way what those prophets have to teach, but to assimilate and imbibe these truths that are very near our spiritual being. It was the grandest and noblest aspiration of the late Mr Senn to establish such a religion in the land of India, which has been well known as the birthplace of a number of religious faiths. This is a marked charac- teristic of the East, and especially India, so that India and its outskirts have been glorified by the touch and teachings of the prophets of the world. It is in this way that we live in a spiritual atmosphere. The Rev. Alfred W. Momerie, D. U., of London, closed an elo- quent address, thus: The fact is, all religions are, fundamentally, more 1 i. Ill !■• a • w lii All KeliKionB or less true; and all religions are, superncially, more or less false. True. And I suspect that the creed of the universal religion, the religion of the future, will be summed up pretty much in the words of Tennxson, words which were quoted in that magnificent address which thrilled B. B. Nagar- kar Speaks of 44 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. us this morning: "The whole world is everywhere bound by gold chains about the feet of God." Bishop y\rnett, of the African Methodist church, rejoiced that through him Africa had been welcomed. Africa has been welcomed, and it is so peculiar a thing for an African to be welcomed, that I con- gratulate myself that I have been welcomed here today. In respond- ing to the addresses of welcome I will, in the first place, respond for Welcome to the Africans in Africa, and accept your welcome on behalf of the Afri- "*^*' can continent, with its millions of acres, and millions of inhabitants, with its mighty forests, with its great beasts, with its great men, and its great possibilities. Though some think that Africa is in a bad way, I am one of those who has not lost faith in the possibilities of a re- demption of Africa. I believe in providence and in the prophesies of God that Ethiopia yet shall stretch forth her hand unto God, and, • although today our land is in the possession of others, and every foot of land, and every foot of water in Africa has been appropriated by the governments of Europe, yet I remember, in the light of history, that those same nations parceled out the American continent in the past. But America had her Jefferson. Africa in the future is to bring forth a Jefferson, who will write a declaration of the independence of the dark continent. And, as you had your Washington, so God will give us a Washington to lead our hosts. Or, if it please God, He may raise up not a Washington, but another Toussaint L'Ouvcrture, who will become chc pathfinder of his country, and, with his sword, will, at the head of his people, lead them to freedom and equality. He will form a republican government, whose corner-stone will be religion, morality, education and temperance, acknowledging the Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of Man; while the Ten Commandments and the golden rule shall be the rule of life and conduct in the great republic of redeemed Africa. But, sir, I accept your welcome, also, on behalf of the negroes of the American continent. As early as 1502 or 1503, we are told, the negroes came to this country. And we have been here ever since, and we are going to stay here too — some of us are. Some of us will go to Africa, because we have got the spirit of Americanism, and wherever there is a possibility in sight, some of us will go. We accept your welcome to this grand assembly, and we come to you this afternoon and thank God that we meet these representatives of the different religions of the world. We meet you on the height of this parliament of religions and the first gathering of the peoples since the time of Noah, when Shem, Ham and Japhet met together. I greet the chil- dren of Shem, I greet the children of Japhet, and I want you to under- stand that Ham is here. * * * We come last on the programme, but I want everybody to know, that although last, we are not least in this grand assembly, where the Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man is the watchword of us all; and may the motto of the church which I represent bqthq motto of TtiE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 4f) the coming civilization: "God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, and mankind our brother." The addresses that follow are not given in the order in which they were presented, but are grouped according to topics, as far as possi- ble. Nor are all the addresses given, nor, in all cases the entire ad- thaTFolIow. dress. Some of the papers read were of little interest to others than their authors, and frequently speakers indulged in unimportant per- sonal and extraneous matter. The most of the best, and the best of the most, papers of the parliament, and the substance of the congresses will be found to follow. Addrescos Rev. Samuel T. Niccolls, D. D. LL.D., St. Louis, Mo. 3eing of God. Introductory Address by the REV. S. J. NICCOLS, D. D., LL. D,, of St. Louis. EMBERS of the Parliament, Sons of a Common Heavenly Father and Broth- ers in a Common Humanity: It is with special pleasure that I assume the task now assigned to me. Happily for me at least it involves no serious labors, and it requires no greater wisdom than to mention the names of the speakers and the subjects placed upon the pro- gramme for today. And yet, when I mention the name of the subject that is to invite our consideration today, I place before you the most momentous theme that ever engaged human thought — the sublimest of all facts, the greatest all thoughts, the most wonderful of all real- and yet when I mention the name it points to a law, not to a principle, not to the ex- planation of a phenomenon, but it points us to a living person. The human mind, taught and trained by human thoughts and human loves, points us to One who is over all, above all and in all, in whom we live, move and have our being, with whom we all have to do, light of our light, life of our life, the grand reality that underlies all realities, the Being that pervades all beings, the sum of all joys, of all glory, of all greatness; known yet unknown, revealed yet not revealed; far off from us yet nigh to us; for whom all men feel if happily they might find Him; for whom all the wants of this wondrous nature of ours go out in inextinguishable longing; One with whom we all have to do and from whose dominion we can never escape. [Applause.] If such be the subject that we are to consider today, surely it becomes us to undertake it in a spirit of reverence and of humility. We cannot bring to its contemplation the exercise of our reasoning faculties in the same way that we would consider sc^me phenomenon t)r fact of history. He who is greater than all hides Himself from the proud and 47 Being that ia Infinite. 48 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RMLldlON^. the self-sufficient; lie reveals Himself to the meek, lowly and the hum- ble in heart. It is rather with the heart that we shall find Him than by measuring Him merely with our feeble intellects. Today, as always, the heart will make the theologian. Perhaps some one may say: " After so long a period in human history, why should we come to consider the existence of God? Is the fact so obscure that it must take long centuries to prove it? Has He so hidden Himself from the world that we have not yet exactly found out that He is or what He is?" This is only apparently an objection of wisdom. If God were sim- ply a fact of history, if He were simply a phenomenon in the past, then GodaPersoD. ^j^^.^. found out or oncc discovered it would remain for all time. But since He is a person each age must know and find Him for itself; each generation must come to know and find out the living God from the standpoint which it occupies. It is not enough for you and for me that long generations ago men found Hiin and bowed reverently before Him and adored Him. We must find Him in our age and in our day to know how He fills our lives and guides us to our destiny. This is the grand fact that lies before us, the great truth that is to unite us. Here, if anywhere, we must find God and unite in our beliefs. We could not afford to begin the discussions of a religious parliament without placing this great truth in the foreground. A parliament of religious belief without the recognition of the living God — that were impossible. Religion with- out a God is only the shadow of a shade; only a mockery that rises up in the human soul. [Applause.] After all, we can form no true conception of ourselves or of man's Conceptionof greatness without God. The greatness of human nature depends upon lean's Great- jj.^ conceptions of the living God. All true religious joy, all greatness of aspiration that has wakened in these natures of ours, comes not from our conception of ourselves, not from our own recognition of the dignity of human nature within us, but from our conception of God and what He is, and our relation to Him. [Applause.] No man can ever find content with his own attainments or find peace and satisfaction in his own achiexements. It is as he goes out toward the infinite and tiic eternal and feels that he is linked to Him that he finds satisfaction in his soul, and the peace of God, which passeth understanding comes down into his heart. There are many reasons, therefore, why we should begin today with the study of Him who holds all knowledge and all wisdom. If there is a God Explanation or a Creator, a Lord of all things, beginning of all things and end of all ''Nature*'' things, for whom all things are, then in Him we are to find the key to history, the explanation of human nature, the light that shall guide us in our pathway in the future. You can all readily see, if you will reflect a moment, how everything would vanish of what we call great and glorious in our material achievements, in our literature, in all our civil and .social institutions, if that one thought of the living God were taken away. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIOXS. 49 Rut utter that simple name and straightway there comes gather- ing around it the clustering of glorious words shining and leaping out of the darkness until they blaze like a galaxy of glory in the heavens — law, order, justice, love, truth, immortality, righteousness, glory! vfYppt„f,i Blot out that word and leave in its place simply that other word, Simpi<- Name, "atheism," and then in the surrounding blackness we may see dim shadows of anarchy, lawlessness, despair, agony, distress; and if such words as law and order remain they are mere echoes of something that has long since passed away. [Cheers.] We need it, then, first of all for ourselves that wc may understand the dignity of human nature, that this great truth of God's existence should be brought close to us; we need it for our civilization. Very Rev. Augustine F. Hewitt, New York. Rational Demonstration of tiie D^'ng of God. Paper by VERY REV. AUGUSTINE F. HEWIT, of New York. :^^' N honorable and arduous task has been assigned me. It is to address this numerous and dis- tinguished assembly on a topic taken from the highest branch of special metaphysics. The thesis of my discourse is the "Rational Demonstration of the Being of God," as pre- sented in Catholic philosophy. This is a topic of the highest importance and of the deepest interest to all who are truly rational, who think and who desire to know their destiny and to fulfill it. The minds of men always and everywhere, in so far as they have thought at all, have been deeply interested in all questions relating to the divine order and its relations to nature and humanity. The idea of a divine principle and power, superior to sensible phenomena, above the changeable world and its short-lived inhabitants, is as old and as extensive as the human race Among vast numbers of the most enlightened part of mankind it has existed and held sway in the form of pure monotheism, and even among those who have deviated from this original religion of our first ancestors the divine idea has never been entirely effaced and lost. In our own surrounding world and for all classes of men differing in creed and opinion who may be represented in this audience, this theme is of paramount interest and import. Christians, Jews, Mohammedans and philosophical theists are agreed in professing monotheism as their fundamental and cardinal doctrine. Even unbelievers and doubters show an interest in discuss- ing and endeavoring to decide the question whether God does or does not exist. It is to be hoped that many of them regard their skepti- cism rather as a darkening cloud over the face of nature than as a light clearing away the mists of error; that they would gladly be convinced 51 Idea of a Di- fine Princiijic. 52 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. that God docs exist and govern a world which He has made. I may, therefore, hope for a welcome reception to my thesis in this audience. I have said that it is a thesis taken from the special metaphysics of Catholic philosoplu'. I must explain at the outset in what sense the term Catholic philosophy is used. It does not denote a system derived from the Christian revelation and imposed by the authority of the Catholic church, it signifies only that rational scheme which is received and taught in the Catholic schools as a science proceeding from its own proper principles by its own methods, and not a subal- Trae*Bci«fnce!* ^^''" scicucc to dogmatic tlieologv It has been adopted in great part from Aristotle and Plato and does not disdain to borrow from any pure fountain or stream of rational truth. The topic before us is, therefore, to be treated in a metapln-sical manner on a ground where all who pro- fess philosophy can meet and where reason is the only authority' which can be appealed to as umpire and judge. All who profess to be stu- dents of philosophy thercb\' proclaim their conviction that metaphysics is a true science by which certain knowledge can be obtained. Metaphysics, in its most general sense, is ontology, /. c, discourse concerning being in its first and universal principles. Being in all its latitude, in its total extension and comprehension, is the adequate object of intellect, taking intellect in its absolute essence, excluding all limitations. It is the object of the human intellect in so far as this limited intellectual faculty is proportioned to it and capable of appre- hending it. Metaphysics seeks for a knowledge of all things which are within the ken of human faculties in their deepest causes. It in- vestigates their reason of being, their ultimate, efficient and final causes. The rational argument for the existence of God, guided by the principles of the sufficient reason and efficient causalit}', begins from contingent facts and events in the world and traces the chain of causation to the first cause. It demonstrates that God is, and it pro- ceeds, by analysis and synthesis, by induction from all the first princi- ples possessed by reason, from all the \estiges, reflections and images of God in the creation, to determine what (iod is. His essence and its perfections. Let us then begin our argument from the first principle that everything that has any kind of being, that is, which presents itself as e^^of^HehiK!'*' '^ thinkable, knowable or real object to the intellect, has a sufficient reason of being. The possible has a sufficient reason of its possibility. There is in it an intelligible ratio which makes it thinkable; without this it is unthinkable, inconceivable, utterly impossible; as, for instance, a circle, the points in whose circumference are of unequal distances from the center. The real has a sufficient reason for its real existence. If it is contingent, indifferent to non-existence or existence, it has not its sufficient reason of being in its essence. It must have it, then, from something outside of itself, that is, from an efficient cause. All the beings with which we are acquainted in the sensible world around us are contingent. They exist in determinate, specific, actual, individual forms and modes. They are in definite times and places. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. ' 53 They have their proper substantial and accidental attributes; they have qualities and relations, active powers and passive potencies. They do ao,t exist by any necessary reason of being; they have become what they are. They are subject to many changes even in their smallest molecules and in the combinations and movements of their atoms. This changeableness is the mark of their contingency, the result of that potentiality in them, which is not of itself in act, but is brought into act by some moving force. They are in act, that is, have actual being, inasmuch as they have a specific and individual reality. But they are never, in any one instant, in act to the whole extent of their capacity. There is a dormant potency of further actuation always in their actual essence. Moreover, there is no necessity in their essence of Thtngsf^"''* for existing at all. The pure, ideal essence of things is, in itself, only possible. Their successive changes of existence are so many move- ments of transition from mere passing potency into act under the im- pulse of moving principles of force. And their \'ery first act of exist- ence is by a motion of transition from mere possibility into actuality. The whole multitude of things which become, of events which happen, the total sum of the movements and changes of contingent beings, taken collectively and taken singly, must have a sufficient reason of being in some extrinsic principle, some efficient cause. The admirable order which rules over this multitude, reducing it to the unity of the universe is a display of efficient causality on a most stupendous scale. There is a correlation and conservation of force acting on the inert and passi\'e matter, according to fixed laws, in '^Jf ^>'«^^'^ harmony with a dennite plan and producing most wonderful results. Let us take our solar system as a specimen of the whole univ-erse of bodies moving in space. vVccording to the generally received and highly probable nebular thcor)', it has been evolved from a nebulous mass permeated by forces in violent action. The best chemists affirm by common consent that both the matter and the force are fixed quantities. No force and no matter ever disappears, no new force or matter ever appears. The nebulous mass and the motive force acting within it are definite quantities, having a definite location in space, at definite distances from other nebulas. The atoms and molecules are combined in the definite forms of the various elementary bodies in definite proportions. The mo\ements of rotation are in certain direc- tions, condensation and incandescence take place under fixed laws, and all these movements arc co-ordinated and directed to a certain result, viz., the formation of a sun and planets. Now, there is nothing in the nature of matter and force which determines it to take on just these actual conditions and no others. By their intrinsic essence they could just as well ha\e existed in greater or lesser quantities in the solar nebula. The proportions of h)-dro- gen, oxygen and other substances might have been different. The movements of rotation might ha\e been in a contrary direction. The process of evolution might have begun sooner and attained its finality ere now, or it might be beginning at the present moment. The 54 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. marks of contingency arc plainly to be discerned in the passive and active elements of the inchoate world as it emerges into the consist- ency and stable equilibrium of a solar system from primitive chaos. Equally obvious is the presence of a determining principle, acting as an irresistible law, regulating the transmission of force, along A FiretCaose definite lines and in anUiarmonious order. The active forces at work in emande . nature, giving motion to matter, only transmit a movement which they have received; they do not originate. It makes no difference how far back the series of effects and causes may be traced, natural forces remain always secondary causes, with no tendency to become primary principles; they demand some anterior, sufificient reason of their being, some original, primary principle from which they derive the force which they receive and transmit. They demand a first cause. In the case of a long train of cars in motion, if we ask what moves the last car, the answer may be the car next before it. and so on until we reach the other end; but we have as )'et only motion received and transmitted, and no sufficient reason for the initiation of the move- ment by an adequate efficient cause. Prolong the series to an indefi- nite length and you get no nearer to an adequate cause of the motion; you get no moving principle which possesses motive power in itself; the need of such a motive force, however, continually increases. There is more force necessary to impart motion to the whole collection of cars than for one or a few. If you choose to imagine that the series of cars is infinite you have only augmented the effect produced to infinity without finding a cause for it. You have made a supposition which imperatively demands the further supposition of an original principle and source of motion, which has an infinite power. The cars singly and collectively can only receive and transmit motion. Their passive potency of being moved, which is all they have in themselves, would never make them stir out of their motionless rest. There must be a locomotive with the motive power applied and acting, and a con- nection of the cars with this locomotive, in order that the train may be propelled along its tracks. The scries of movements given and received in the evolution of the world from primitive chaos is like this long chain of cars. The question, how did they come about, what is their efficient cause, starts up and confronts the mind at every stage of the process. You may trace back consequents to their antecedents, and show how the things which come after were virtually contained in those which came before. The present earth came from the paleozoic earth, and that from the azoic, and so on, until you come to the primitive nebula from which the solar system was constructed. But how did this vast mass of matter, and the mighty forces act- Chance an J^g upon it, comc to be started on their course of evolution, their Absurdity. movement in the direction of that result which we see to have been accomplished? It is necessary to go back to a first cause, a first mover, an original principle of all transition from mere potency into act, a THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 55 Final Causes. being, self-existing, whose essence is pure act and the source of all actuality. The only alternative is to fall back on the doctrine of chance, an absurdity long since exploded and abandoned, a renuncia- tion of all reason and an abjuration of the rational nature of man. Together with the question " How" and the inquiry after efficient causes of movements and changes in the world, the question "Why" also perpetually suggests itself. This is an inquiry into another class of the deepest causes of tilings, viz., final causes. Final cause is the same as the end, the design, the purpose toward which movements, changes, the operation of active forces, efficient causes, are directed, and which are accomplished by their agency. Here the question arises, how the end attained as an effect of efficient causality can be properly named as a cause. How can it exert a causative influence, retroactively, on the means and agencies by which it is produced? It is last in the series and does not exist at the beginning or during the progress of the events whose final term it is. Nothing can act before it exists or give existence to itself. Final cause does not, therefore, act physically like efficient causes. It is a cause of the movements which precede its real and physical existence, only inasmuch as it has an ideal pre-existence in the foresight and intention of an intelligent mind. Regard a masterpiece of art. It is because the artist conceived the idea realized in this piece of work that he employed all the means necessary to the fulfillment of his desired end. This finished work is, therefore, the final cause, the motive of the w^hole series of operations performed by the artist or his workmen. The multitude of causes and effects in the world, reduced to an admirable harmony and unity, constitutes the order of the universe. In this order there is a multifarious arrangement and co-ordination of Design and means to ends, denoting design and purpose, the intention and art of ^" a supreme architect and builder, who impresses his ideas upon what we may call the raw material out of which he forms and fashions the worlds which move in space, and their various innumerable contents. From these final causes, as ideas and types according to which all movements of efficient causality are directed, the argument proceeds which demonstrates the nature of the first cause, as in essence, intelli- gence and will. The best and highest Greek philosophy ascended by this cosmo- logical argument to a just and sublime conception of God as the supremely wise, powerful and good Author of all existing essences in the universe, and of all its complex, harmonious order. Cicero, the Latin interpreter of Greek philosophy, with cogent reasoning and in and Divme^;^- language of unsurpassed beauty, has summarized its best lessons in thor. natural theology. In brief, his argument is that since the highest human intelligence discovers in nature an intelligible object far sur- passing its capacity of apprehension, the design and construction of the whole natural order must proceed from an author of supreme and divine intelligence. Demand of 56 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The questioning and the demand of reason for the deepest causes of things is not, however, yet entirely and explicitly satisfied. The concept of God as the first builder and mover of the universe comes short of assigning the first and final cause of the underlying subject matter which receives formation and motion. When and what is the first matter of our solar nebula? How and why did it come to be in hand and lie in readiness for the divine architect and artist to make it Reason. burn and whirl in the process of the evolution of sun and planets? Plato is understood to have taught that the first matter, which is the term receptive of the divine action, is self-existing and eternal. The metaphysical notion of first matter is, however, totally differ- ent from the concept of matter as a constant quantity and distinct from force in chemical science. Metaphysically, first matter has no specific reality, no quality, no quantity. It is not as separate from active force in act, but is only in potency. Chemical first matter exists in atoms, say of hydrogen, oxygen or some other substance, each of which has .definite weight in proportion to the weight of different atoms. It would be perfectly absurd to imagine that the primitive nebulous vapor which furnished the material for the evolution of the solar system was in any way like the platonic concept of original chaos. We may call it chaos, relatively to its later, more developed order. The artisan's workshop, full of materials for manufacture, the edifice which is in its first stage of construction, are in a comparative disorder, but this disorder is an inchoate order. So, our solar chaos, as an inchoate virtual system, was full of ini- tial, elementary principles and elements of order. The platonic first matter was supposed to be formless and void, without quality or quan- tity, devoid of every ideal element or aspect, a mere recipient of ideas which God impressed upon it. The undermost matter of chemistry has definite quiddity and quantity, is never separate from force, and as it was in the primitive solar nebula, was in act and in violent, activity of motion. It is obvious at a glance that a platonic first matter, exist- ing eternally by its own essence, without form, is a mere vacuum, and only intelligible under the concept of pure possibility. Aristotle saw and demonstrated this truth clearly. Therefore, the analysis of male- rial existences, carried as far as experiment or hypothesis will admit, finds nothing except the changeable and the contingent. Let us suppose that underneath the so-called simple substances, such as oxygen and h}'drogen, there exists, and may hereafter be dis- cerned by chemical analysis, some homogeneous basis, there still remains something which does not account for itself, and which demands a sufficient reason for its being, in the efficient causality of the first cause. The ultimate molecule of the composite substance and the ultimate atom of the simple substance, each bears the marks of a manufactured article. Not only the order which combines and arranges all the simple elements of the corporeal world, but the gath- ering together of the materials I )r the orderly structure; the union and relation of matter and force: thg beginning of \\\^ first mptiQns, of God. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 57 and the existence of the movable element and the motive principle in definite quantities and proportions, all demand their origin in the ijitelligence and the will of the first cause. In God alone essence and cKistcnce are identical. He alone exists by the necessity of His nature, and is the eternal self-subsisting being. There is nothing outside of His essence which is coeval with Him, and which presents a real existing term for His action. If He wishes to communicate the good of being beyond Himself He must create out of ^Creative act nothing the objective terms of His beneficial action. He must give first being to the recipients of motion, change and every kind of tran- sition from potency into actuality. The first and fundamental tran- sition is from not being, from the absolute non-existence of anx'thing outside of God, into being and existence by the creati\'e act of God; called by His almighty word the world of finite creatures into real existence. In this creative act of God the two elements of intelligence and volition are necessarily contained. Intelligence perceives the possi- bility of a finite, created order of existence, in all its latitude. Possi- bility does not, however, make the act of creation necessary. It is the free volition of the creator which determines him to create. It is likewise his free volition which determines the limits within which he will give real existence and actuality to the possible. We have al- ready seen that final causes must have an ideal pre-existence in the mind, which designs the work. of art and arranges the means for its execution. The idea of the actual universe and of the wider universe which He could create if He willed must have been present eternally to the intelligence of the Divine Creator as possible. Now, therefore, a further question about the deepest cause of being confronts the mind with an imperatixe demand for an answer, sibiiity. What is this eternal possibility which is coeval with God? It is e\'i- dently an intelligible object, an idea equixalent to an infinite number of particular ideas of essences and orders, which are thinkable by in- tellect to a certain extent, in proportion to its capacity, and exhaust- ively by the divine intellect. The divme essence alone is eternal and necessary self-subsisting being. In the formula of .St. Thomas: "Ipsum esse subsistens." It is pure and perfect act, in the most simple, indivisible unity. Therefore, in God, as Aristotle demonstrates, intelligent subject and intelligible object are identical. Possibility has its foundation in the divine essence. God contemplates His own essence, which is the plentitude of being, with a comprehensixe intelligence. In this con- templation He perceives His essence as an archetype which eminently and virtually contains an infinite multitude of typical essences, capable of being made in various modes and degrees a likeness to Himself. He sees in the comprehension of His omnipotence the power to create whatever He will, according to His divine ideas. And this is the total ratio of possibility. These arg the eternal reasons according to which the order of Eternal Poa» 58 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Something Divine. Mental cepte. Con- nature has been established under fixed laws. They are reflected in the works of God. By a perception of these reasons, these ideas im- pressed on the universe, we ascend from single and particular objects up to universal ideas and finally to the knowledge of God as first and final cause. When we turn from the contemplation of the visible word, and sen- sible objects to the rational creation, the sphere of intelligent spirits and of the intellectual life in which they live, the argument for a first and final cause ascends to a higher plane. The rational beings who are known to us, ourselves and our fellowman, bear the marks of con- tingency in their intellectual nature as plainly as in their bodies. Our individual, self-conscious, thinking souls have come out of non-exist- ence only yesterday. They begin to live with only a dormant intellect- ual capacity, without knowledge or the use of reason. The soul brings with it no memories and no ideas. It has no immediate knowledge of itself and its nature. Nevertheless the light of intelligence in it is something divine, a spark from the source of light, and it indicates clearly that it has received its being from God. In the material things we see the vestiges of the Creator, in the rational soul His very image. It is capable of apprehending the eternal reasons which are in the mind of God; its intelligible object is being in all its latitude, according to its specific and finite mode of apprehen- sion and the proportion which its cognoscitive faculty has to the think- able and knowable. As contingent beings, intelligent spirits come into the universal order of effects from which by the argument, a posteriori, the existence of the first cause, as supreme intelligence and will is in- ferred, and likewise the ideas of necessary and eternal truth which, as so many mirrors, reflect the eternal reasons of the divine mind, sub- jectively considered, come under the same category as contingent facts and effects produced by second causes and ultimately by the first cause. These ideas are not, however, mere subjective concepts. They are, indeed, mental concepts, but they have a foundation in reality, according to the famous formula of St. Thomas: " Universalia sunt conceptus mentis cum fundamento in re." They are originally gained by abstraction from the single objects of sensitive cognition; for instance, from single things which have a concrete existence, the idea of being in general, the most extensive and universal of all concepts is gained. So, also, the notions of species and genus; of essence and existence; of beauty, goodness, space and time; of eflicient and final cause; of the first principles of metaphysics, mathematics and ethics. But, notwithstanding this genesis of abstract and universal concepts from concrete, contingent realities, they become free from all con- tingency and dependence on contingent things, and assume the char- acter of necessary and universal, and therefore of eternal truths. For instance, that the three sides of a triangle cannot exist without three angles, is seen to be true, supposing there had never been any bodies QX minds created. There is an intelligible world of ideas, super-sensible THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 59 and extra-mental, within the scope of intellectual apprehension; they have objectiv^e reality, and force themsel\-es on the intellect, com- pelling its assent as soon as they are clearly perceived in their self- 'evidencc or demonstration. Now, what are these ideas? Are they some kind of real beings, inhabiting an eternal and infinite space? This is absurd and they can- not be conceived except as thoughts of an eternal and infinite mind. In thinking them we are re-thinking the thoughts of God. They are the eternal reasons reflected in all the works of creation, but especially in intelligent minds From these necessary and eternal truths we infer, therefore, the intelligent and intelligible essence of God in which Necesearjand they have their ultimate foundation. This metaphysical argument is EtemaiTruthB. the apex and culmination of the cosmological, moral, and in all its forms the a posteriori ; rgument from effects, from design, from all reflections of the divine perfections in the creation to the existence and nature of the first and final cause of the intellectual, moral and physical order of the universe. It goes beyond every other line of argument in one respect. From concrete, contingent facts we infer and demonstrate that God does exist. We obtain only a hypothetical necessity of His existence; i. c, since the world does really exist it must have a creator. The argument from necessary and eternal truths gives us a glimpse of the absolute necessity of God's existence; it shows us that He must exist, that His non-existence is impossible. We rise above contingent facts to a consideration of the eternal reasons in the intelligible and intelligent essence of God. We do not, indeed, perceive these eternal reasons immediately in God as divine ideas identical with his essence. We have no intuition of the essence of God. God is to us inscrutable, incomprehensible, dwelling in light, inaccessible. As when the sun is below the horizon we perceive clouds illuminated by his rays, and moon and planets shining in his reflected light, so we see the reflection of God in His works. We perceive Him immediately, by the eternal reasons which are reflected in nature, in our own intellect, and in the ideas which have their foundation in His mind. Our mental concepts of the divine are analogical, derived from created things, and inade- quate. They are, notwithstanding, true, and give us unerring knowl- edge of the deepest causes of being. They give us metaphysical certitude that God is. They give us also a knowledge of what God is, within the limits of our human mode of cognition. All these metaphysical concepts of God are summed up in the formula of St. Thomas: " Ipsum esse subsistens." Being in its in- trinsic essence subsisting. He is the being whose reason of real, self- subsisting being is in His essence; He subsists, as being, not in any limitation of a particular kind and mode of being, but in the while intelligible ratio of being, in every respect which is thinkable and comprehensible by the absolute, infinite intellect. He is being in all its longitude, latitude, profundity and plentitude; He is being subsist- ing in pure ^nd perfect act, without any mixture of potentiality or 60 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. possibility of change; infinite, eternal, without before or after; always being, never becoming; subsisting in an absolute present, the now of eternity. Boethius has expressed this idea admirably: "Totasimul ac perfecta possessio vitae interminabilis." The total and perfect pos- session, all at once, of boundless life. In order, therefore, to enrich and complete our conceptions of the nature and perfections of God, we have only to analyze the compre- hensive idea of being and to ascribe to God, in a sense free from all V ♦ - ^^A limitations, all that we find in His works which comes under the gen- Nut a re and 1 • , r 1 • T-. • 1 1 11- PerfectioDB of eral idea of bemg. bemg, good, truth, are transcendental notions ^°^' which imply each other. They include a multitude of more specific terms, expressing every kind of definite concepts of realities which are intelligible and desirable. Beauty, splendor, majesty, moral excel- lence, beatitude, life, love, greatness, power and every kind of per- fection are phases and aspects of being, goodness and truth. Since all which presents an object of intellectual apprehension to the mind and of complacency to the will in the effects produced by the first cause must e.xist in the cause in a more eminent wa}-, we must predi- cate of the Creator all the perfections found in creatures. The vastness of the universe represents His immensity. The multifarious beauties of creatures represent His splendor and glory as their archetype. The marks of design and the harmonious order which are visible in the world manifest his intelligence. The faculties of intelligence and will in rational creatures show forth in a more per- fect image the attributes of intellect and will in their Author and orig- inal source. All created goodness, whether physical or moral, pro- claims the essential excellence and sanctity of God. He is the source of life, and is, therefore, the living God. All the active forces of nature witness to His power. All finite beings, however, come infinitely short of an adequate representation of their ideal archetype; they retain something of the intrinsic nothingness of their essence, of its potentiality, changeable- ness and contingency. Many modes and forms of created existence have an imperfection in their essence which makes it incompatible with the perfection of the divine essence that they should ha\c a for- mal being in God. We cannot call him a circle, an ocean or a sun. Such creatures, therefore, represent that which exists in their arche- type in an eminent and divine mode, to us incomprehensible. And those qualities whose formal ratio in God and creatures is the same, being finite in creatures, must be regarded as raised to an infinite power in God. Thus intelligence, will, wisdom, sanctity, happiness are formally in God, but infinite in their excellence. All that we know of God by pure reason is summed up by Aris- totle in the metaphysical formula that God is pure and perfect act, logically and ontologically the first principles of all that becomes by a transition from potential into actual being. And from this concise, comprehensive formula he has developed a truly admirable theodicy. Aristotle says: "It is evident that act (energeia) is anterior tO THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 61 potency (dunamis) logically and ontologically. A being does not pass from potency into act and become real except by the action of a principle already in act." (Met. viii, 9.) Again, "All that is pro- duced comes from a being in act." (De Anim. iii, 7.) "There is a being which moves without being moved, which is eternal, is substance, is act. * * * The immovable mover is necessary being, that is, being which absolutely is, and cannot be otherwise. This nature, therefore, is the principle from which heaven (meaning by this term immortal spirits who are the nearest to God) and nature depend. Beatitude is his very act. * * * Contempla- tion is of all things the most delightful and excellent, and God enjoys it always, by the intellection of the most excellent good, in which intelligence and the intelligible are identical. God is life, for the act Goti a Perfect of intelligence is life and God is this very act. Essential act is the LiviuKfteing. life of God, perfect and eternal life. Therefore we name God a perfect and eternal living being, in such a way that life is uninterrupted; eternal duration belongs to God, and indeed it is this which is God." ( Met. xi., 7.) I have here condensed a long passage from Aristotle and inverted the order of some sentences, but I have given a verbally exact statement of his doctrine. I will add a few sentences from Plotinus, the greatest philosopher of the Neo-Platonic school. "Just as the sight of the heavens and the brilliant stars causes us to look for and to form an idea of their author, so the contemplation of the intelligible world and the admiration which it inspires lead us to look for its father. Who is the one, we exclaim, who has given existence to the intelligible world? Where and how has he begotten such a child, intelligence, this son so beau- tiful? The supreme intelligence must necessarily contain the universal archetype, and be itself that intelligible world of which Plato dis- courses." (Ennead iii. L viii. 10 v. 9.) Plato and Aristotle have both placed in the clearest light the relation of intelligent, immortal spirits to God as their final cause, and together with this highest relation the subordinate relation of all the inferior parts of the universe. Assimi- lation to God, the knowledge and the love of God, communication in the beatitude which God possesses in Himself, is the true reason of being, the true and ultimate end of intellectual natures. In these two great sages rational philosophy culminated. Clem- ent, of Alexandria, did not hesitate to call it a preparation furnished by divine Providence to the heathen world for the Christian revela- tion. Whatever controversies there may be concerning their explicit teachings in regard to the relations between God and the world, their principles and premises contain implicitly and virtually a sublime nat- ural theology. St. Thomas has corrected, completed and developed this theology with a genius equal to theirs, and with the advantage of a higher illumination. It is the highest achievement of human reason to bring the intel- Highest lect to a knowledge of God as the first and final cause of the world. of'Hunmn"' The denial of this philosophy throws all things into night and chaos, Keasoa, 62 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. ruled over by blind chance or fate. Philosophy, however, by itself does not suffice to give to mankind that religion the excellence and Its Last Les- necessity of which it so brilliantly manifests. Its last lesson is the '*"• need of a divine revelation, a divine religion, to lead men to the knowledge and love of God and the attainment of their true destiny as rational and immortal creatures. A true and practical philosopher will follow, therefore, the example of Justin Martyr; in his love of and search for the highest wisdom he will seek for the genuine religion revealed by God, and when found he will receive it with his whole mind and will. a. CIt 'Yhe /Argument for the J^ivine 3^i^g- Paper by HON. W. T, HARRIS, United States Commissioner of Education. HE first thinker who discovered an adequate proof of the existence of God was Plato. He devoted his life to thinking out the necessary conditions of independent being, or, in other words, the form of any whole or totality of being Dependent being implies something else than itself as that on which it depends. It cannot be said to derive its being from another dependent or derivative being, because that has no being of its own to lend it. Awholeseries of connected dependent beings must derive their origin and present subsistence from an independent being — that is to say from what exists in and through itself and imparts its be- ing to others or derived beings. Hence the indepciulciit being, which is presupposed by the dependent being, is_ creative and active in the sense that it is self-determined and deter- mines others. Plato in most passages calls this presupposed independent being by the word idea e.x sos or idea. He is sure that there are as many ideas as there are total beings in the universe. He reasons that there are two kinds of motion — that which is derived from some other mover and that which is derived from self; thus the self-moved and the moved-through-others includes all kinds of beings. But the moved- through-others presupposes the self-moved as the source of its own motion. Hence the explanation or all that exists or moves must be sought and found in the self-moved. (Tenth book of Plato's laws.) In his dialogue named "The Sophist" he argues that ideas or inde- pendent beings must possess activity and, in short, be thinking or rational beings. This great discovery of the principle that there must be indepen- Foondation ^^^^ being if there is dependent being is the foundation of philosophy of PhiioBophy and also of theology. Admit that there may be a world of dependent an eoogy. j^^jj^^g^ each ouc of which depends on another and no one of them nor all of them depend on an independent being, antl at once philosophy 64 Hon. W. T. Harris, Washingrton, D. C. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 67 is made impossible and theology deprived of its subject matter. But such admission would destroy thought itself. Let it be assumed, for the sake of considering where it would lead, that all existent beings are dependent; that no one possesses any other being than derived being. Then it follows that each one borrows its being from others that do not have any being to lend. Each and all are dependent and must first obtain being from another before they can lend it. If it is said that the series of dependent beings is such that the last depends upon the first again, so that there is a circle of dependent beings, then it has to be admitted that the whole circle is independent, and from this strange result follows that the independence of the whole circle of being is something transcend- ent — a negative unity creating and then annulling again the particu- lar beings forming the members of the series. This theory is illustrated in the doctrine of the correlation of Correlation forces. The action of force number one gives rise to force number o* Forces, two, and so on to the end. But this implies that the last of the series gives rise to the first one of the series, and the whole becomes a self- determined totality or independent being. Moreover, the persistent force is necessarily different from any one of the series — it is not heat nor light nor electricity nor gravitation, nor any other of the series, but the common ground of all, and hence not particularized like any one of them. It is the general force whose office it is to energize and produce the series — originating one force and annulling it again by causing it to pass into another. Thus the persistent force is not one of the series but transcends all of the particular forces — they are de- rivative; it is original, independent and transcendent. It demands as the next step of explanation the exhibition of the necessity of its production of just this series of particular forces as involved in the nature of the self-determined or absolute force It involves, too, the necessary conclusion that a self-determined force which originates all of its special determinations and cancels them all is a pure Ego or self-hood. For consciousness is the name given by us to that kind of being which can annul all of its determinations. For it can annul all ob- jective determination and have left only its own negative might while it descends creatively to particular thoughts, volitions or feelings. It can drop them instantly by turning its gaze upon its pure self as the creator of those determinations. This turn upon itself is accomplished by filling its objective field with negation or annulment — this is its own act and in it realizes its personal identity and its personal tran- scendence of limitations. Hence we may say that the doctrine of correlation of forces pre- supposes a personality creating and transcending the series of forces correlated. If the mind undertakes to suppose a total of dependent or derivative beings, it ends by reaching an independent, self-deter- mined being which, as pure subject, transcends its determinations as object and is therefore an Ego or person. Again, the insight which established this doctrine of independent 68 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Homan R«a. eon. beings or Platonic "ideas" is not fully satisfied when it traces depend- ent or derivative motion back to any intelligent being as its source; there is a further step possible, namely, from a world of many ideas to an absolute idea as the divine author of all. For time and space are of such a nature that all beings contained by them, namely, all extended and successive beings, are in necessary mutual dependence and hence in one unity. This unity of dependent beings in time and space demands a one transcendent being. Hence the doctrine of the idea of ideas — the doctrine of a divine being, who is rational and personal and who creates beings in time and space in order to share his fullness of being with a world of created beings — created for the special purpose of sharing his blessedness. This is the idea of the supreme goodness, and Plato comes upon it as the highest thought of his system. In the Timasus he speaks of the absolute as being without envy, and therefore as making the world as another blessed God. In this Platonic system of thought we have the first authentic sur- vey of human reason. Human reason has two orders of knowing — one the knowing of dependent beings and the other the knowing of inde- pendent beings. The first is the order of knowing the senses, the sec- ond the order of knowing by logical presupposition. 1 know by see- ing, hearing, tasting, touching things and events. I know by seeing what these things and events logically imply or presuppose that there is a great first cause, a personal reason who reveals a gracious purpose by creating finite beings in time and space. This must be, or else human reason is at fault in its very founda- tions. This must be so or else it must be that there is dependent being which has nothing to depend on. Human reason, then, we may say from this insight of Plato, rests upon this knowledge of transcend- ental being — a being that transcends all determinations of extent and succession such as appertain to space and time, and therefore, that transcends both time and space. This transcendent being is perfect fullness of being, while the beings in time and space are partial or imperfect beings in the sense of being embryonic or undeveloped, being partially realized and partially potential. At this point the system of Aristotle can be understood in its har- mony with the Platonic system. Aristotle, too, holds explicitly that the beings in the world which derive motion from other beings pre- suppose a first mover. But he is careful to eschew the first expression self-moved as applying to the prime mover. God is Himself unmoved, but He is the origin of motion in others. This was doubtless the true thought of Plato, since he made the divine eternal and good. In his metaphysics (book eleventh, chapter seven) Aristotle un- Proof oe Di- folds his doctrine that dependent beincfs presuppose a divine being whose activity is pure knowing. He alone is perfectly realized — the school men call this technically "pure act" — all other being is partly potential, not having fully grown to its perfection. Aristotle's proof of the divine existence is substantially the same as that of Plato — an vine Existence. THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 69 ascent from the dependent being by the discovery of presuppositions to the perfect beingr who presupposes nothing else than the identifi- cation of the perfect or dependent being with thinking, personal, will- ing being. This concept of the divine being is wholly positive as far as it goes and nothing of it needs to be withdrawn after further philosophic reflection has discussed anew tlie logical presuppositions. More pre- suppositions may be discovered — new distinctions discerned where none were perceived before — but those additions only make more cer- tain the fundamental theory explained first by Plato and subsequently by Aristotle. This may be seen by a glance at the theory of Christianity, which unfolds itself in the minds of great thinkers of the first six cent- Human Nat. uries of our era. The object of Christian theologians was to give unity "'raughtby'**^ and system to the new doctrine of the divine-human nature of God Christ, taught by Christ. They discovered, one by one, the logical presuppo- sitions and announced them in the creed. The Greeks had seen the idea of the Logos or eternally begotten son, the word that was in the beginning and through which created be- ings arose in time and space. But how the finite and imperfect arose from the infinite and perfect the Greek did not understand so well as the Christian. The Hindu had given up the solution altogether and denied the problem itself. The perfect cannot be conceived as making the imper- fect—it is too absurd to think that a good being should make a bad being. Only Brahman the absolute exists and all else is illusion — it is Maya. How the illusion can exist is too much to explain. The Hindu has only postponed the problem, and not set it aside. His philosophy remains in that contradiction. The finite, including Brahma him- self, who philosophizes, is an illusion. An illusion recognizes itself as an illusion — an illusion knows true being and discriminates itself from false being. Such is the fundamental doctrine of the Sankhya philosophy, and the Sankhya is the fundamental type of all Hindu thought. The Greek escapes from this contradiction. He sees that the absolute cannot be empty, indeterminate, pure being devoid of all attributes, without consciousness. Plato and Aristotle sec that the absolute must be pure form — that is to say, an activity which gives form to itself — a self-determined being with subject and object the same, hence a self-knowing and self-willed being. Hence the absolute cannot be an abstract unity like Brahma, but must be a self-deter- mined or a unity that gives rise to duality within itself and recovers its unity and restores it by recognizing itself in its object. The absolute as subject is the first — the absolute as object is the second It is Logos. God's object must exist for all eternity, because He is always a person and conscious. But it is very important to recognize that the Logos, God's object,is Himself, and hence equal to Himself, and also self-conscious. It is not the world in time and 70 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. space. To hold that God thinks Himself as the world is pantheism — it is pantheism of the left wing of Hegelians. To say that God thinks llimself as the world is to say that He discovers in Himself finite and perishable forms, and therefore makes them objecti\e. The schoolmen say truly that in God intellect and will arc one. This means that in God his thinking makes objectively existent what it thinks. Plato saw clearly that the Logos is perfect and not a world of change and decay. He could not explain how the world of change and decay is derived except from the goodness of the divine being who imparts gratuitously of his fullness of being to a series of creatures who have being only in part. But the Christian thinking adds two new ideas to the two already found by Plato. It adds to the divine first and the second (the Logos), also a divine third, the holy spirit, and a fourth not divine, but the process of the third — calling it the processio. This idea of process explains the existence of a world of finite beings, for it contains evolution, development or derivation. And evolution implies the existence of degrees of less and more perfection of growth. The pro- cession thus must be in time, but the time. process must have eternally gone on because the third has eternally proceeded and been pro- ceeding. The thought underneath this theory is evidently that the Second Person or Logos, in knowing Himself or in being conscious, knows Himself in two phases — first, as completely generated or perfect, and this is the Holy Spirit, and secondly, He knows Himself as related to the P^irst as his eternal origin. In thinking of His origin or genesis from the P^ather, He makes objective a complete world of evolution con- taining at all times all degrees of development or evolution and covering every degree of imperfection from pure space and time up to the invisible church. This recognition of His derivation is also a recognition on the part of the Plrst of His own act of generating the Second — it is not going on, but has been eternally completed, and yet both the Divine F'irst and the Divine Second must think it when they think of their relation to one another. Recognition is the intellectual of the First, and Sec- ond is the mutual love of the P'ather and the Son, and this mutual love is the procession of the Holy Spirit. But the procession is not a part of the holy trinity; it is the crea- Not a Part of ^'^'^ ''^ time and space of an infinite world of imperfect beings develop- thoHoiyTriu- ing into sclf-activity and as self-active organizing institutions — the "*■ family, civil society, the state and the church. The church is the New Jerusalem described by St. John, the apostle, who has revealed this doctrine of the third person as an institutional person — the spirit who makes possible all institutional organism in the world and who tran- scends them all as the perfect who energizes in the imperfect to develop it and complete it. Thus stated, the Christian thought as expressed in the symbol of the holy trinity, explains fully the relations of the world of imperfect THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 71 beings and makes clear in what way the goodness or grace of God makes the world as Plato and Aristotle taught. The world is a manifestation of divine grace — a spectacle of the evolution or becoming of individual existence in all phases, inorganic and organic. Individuality begins to appear even in specific gravity and in ascending degrees in cohesion and crystallization. In the plant it is unmistakable. In the animal it begins to feel and perceive itself. In man it arri\'es at self-consciousness and moral action and recog- nizes its own place in the universe. God, being without envy, does not grudge any good; He accord- ingly turns, as Rothe says, the emptiness of non-being into a reflection of Himself and makes it everywhere a spectacle of His grace. Of the famous proofs of divine existence, St. Anselm's holds the first place. But St. Anselm's proof cannot be understood without re- curring to the insight of Plato. In his Proslogium St. Anselm finds that there is but one thought which underlies all others; one thought universally presupposed, and this he discribes as the thought of that than which there can be nothing greater. "Id quo nihil majus cogi- tari potest." This assuredly is Plato's thought of the totality. Ev^ery- thing not a total is less than the totality. But the totality is the greatest possible being. The essential thing to notice, however, is that St. Anselm per- ceives that this one thought is objectively valid and not a mere sub- jective notion of the thinker. No thinker can doubt that there is a totality — he can be perfectly sure that the plus the not me includes all that there is. Gaunillo, in the lifetime of St. Anselm, and Kant in re- cent times have tried to refute the argument by alleging the general proposition — the conception of a thing does not imply its corre- sponding existence. The proposition is true, except in the case of this oneontological thought of the totality of the thoughts that can be log- ically deduced from it. The second order of knowing, by presump- tions, implies an existence corresponding to each concept. St. Anselm knew that the person who denied the objective validity of this idea of the totality must presuppose its truth right in the very act of denying it. If there be an Ego that thinks, even if it be the PLgo of a fool (insipiens), who says in his heart, "there is no God," it must be cer- tain that its self plus its not-self makes a totality, and that this totality surely exists. The existence of his Ego is or may be contingent, but the totality is certainly not contingent but necessary. This is an onto- An^Ontoiofr. logical necessity and the basis of all further philosophical and thcolog- "'" ical thoughts. St. Anselm does not, it is true, follow out this thought to its con- templation in his Proslogium nor in his Monologium. He 'leaves it there with the idea of a necessary being who is supreme and perfect because he contains the fullness of being. He undoubtedly saw the further implication, namely, that the totality is an independent being and self-existent because it is self- active He saw this so clearly that he did not think it worth while to ical Necessity. VS THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. stop and unfold it. But he did speak of it as a necessary existence contrasted with a contingent existence. "Everywhere else besides God," he says, "can be conceived not to exist." Descartes, in his Third Meditation, has repeated with some modi- fication the demonstration of St. Anselm. He holds, in substance, that the idea of a perfect being is not subjective, but objective; we see that he is dealing with the necessary objectivity of the idea of totality. The expression "perfect being" is entirely misunderstood by most writers in the history of philosophy; it must be taken only in the sense of in- dependent being — being — for itself — being that can be what it is with- out support from another — hence perfectly self-determined being. The expression "perfect" points directly to Aristotle's invented word, ontelechy, whose literal meaning is the having of perfection itself. The word is invented to express the thought of the independent presup- posed by dependent being. Perfect being, as Aristotle teaches, is pure energy; all of his poten- tialities are realized; hence it is not subject to change nor is it passive or recipient of anything from without — it is pure form, or rather self- formative. Read in the light of Plato's idea and Aristotle's entelachy, St. Anselm and Descartes' proofs are clear and intelligible, and are not touched by Kant's criticism. In his philosophy of religion and else- where, Hegel has pointed out the source of Kant's misapprehension. Gaunillo instanced the island Atlantis as a conception which does not imply a corresponding reality. Kant instanced a hundred dollars as a conception which did not imply a corresponding reality in his pocket. But neither the island Atlantis, nor any other island, neither a hundred dollars — in short, no finite dependent being is at all a necessary being, and hence cannot be deduced from its concept. But each and every contingent being presupposes the existence of an independent being — a self-determined being — an absolute divine reason, St. Anselm proved the depth of his thought by advancing a new New Theoo- theory of the death of Christ as a satisfaction, not of the claims of the >f .\tonement. ^\Qy[\^ but as the satisfaction of the claims of God's justice for sin. Al- though we do not trace out his full thought in the Proslogium we can see the depth and clearness of his thinking in this new theory of atone- ment. P"or, in order to understand it philosophically, the thinker must make clear to himself the logical necessity for the exclusion of all forms of finitude or dependent being from the thought of the divine reason who knows Himself in the Logos. To think an imperfection is to annul it; hence God's thought of an imperfect being annuls it. This logical statement corresponds to the political definition of the idea of justice. Justice gives to a being its dues; it completes it by adding to it what it lacks. Add to an imperfect being what it lacks and you destroy its individuality. This is justice instead of grace. Grace bears with the imperfect being until it completes itself by its own act of self-determination. But, in order that a world of imperfect beings, sinners, may have this field of probation, a perfect being must bear THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 73 theii imperfection. The divine Logos must harbor in His thought all the stages of genesis or becoming, and therebx' endowed beings in a finite world with reality and self-existence. I'hus the conception of St. Anselm was a deep and true insight. The older view of Christ's atonement as a ransom paid to Satan is not so irrational as it seems, if we divest it of the personification whi<4i figures the negative as a co-ordinate person with God. God only is absolute person. His pure not-me is chaos, but not a personal devil. In order that God's grace shall have the highest possible manifesta- tion. He turns His not-me into a reflection of Himself by making it a series of ascending stages out of dependence and nonentity into inde- pendence and personal individuality. But the process of reflection by creation in time and space involves God's tenderness and long suffer- ing; it involves a real sacrifice in the Divine Being, for He must hold and sustain in existence by His creative thought the various stages of organic beings — plants and animals are mere caricatures of the divine — then it must support and nourish humanity in its wickedness and sin — a deeper alienation than even that of minerals, plants and animals, because it is a willful alienation of a higher order of beings. Self-sacrificing love is, therefore, the concept of the atonement; it is, in fact, the true concept of the divine gift of being of finite things; it is not merely religion, it is philosophy or necessary truth. But it is very important so to conceive nature as not to attach it to the idea of God by them in Himself; such an idea is pantheism. Nature does not form a person of the Trinity. It is not the Logos, as supposed by the left wing of the Hegelians. And yet on the other hand nature is not Nature not an accident in God's purposes as conceived by theologians, who react Seif-Existent. too far from the pantheistic view. Nature is eternal, but not self-ex istent; it is the procession of the Holy Spirit and arises in the double thought of the First Person and the Logos, or the timeless generation which is logically involved in the fact of God's consciousness of Him- self as eternal reason. The thought of God is a regressive thought — it is an ascent from the dependent to that on which it depends. It is called dialectical by Plato in the sixth Book of the Republic. "The Dialectic Method," says he, "ascends from what has a mere contingent or hypothetic existence to the first principle by proving the insufficiency of all except the first principle." This is the second order of knowing — the discovery of the onto- logical presuppositions. The first order of knowing sees things and events by the aid of the senses, the second order of knowing sees the first cause. The first order of knowing attains to a knowledge of the perishable, the second order attains to the imperishable. The idea of God is, as Kant has explained, the supreme directive or regulative idea in the mind. It is, moreover, as Plato and St. Anselm saw, the most certain of all our ideas, the light in all our seeing. Rt. Rev. Wm. E. McLaren, Bishop of Chicago. jy^oral ^vidence of a ]2)ivine Existence. Paper by REV. ALFRED W. MOMERIE, of London, England. HE evidences for the existence of God may be summed up under two heads. First of all there is what I w-ill designate the rationality of the world. Under this head, of course, comes the old argument from design. It is often sup- posed that the argument from design has been exploded. " Nowadays," says Comte, " the heavens declare no other glory than that of Hipparchus, Newton, Kepler and the rest who have found out the laws of their sequence. Our power of foreseeing phenomena and our power of controlling them destroy the belief that they are governed by changeable wills." Quite so. But such a belief— the belief, viz., that phenomena were governed by change- able wills — could not be entertained by any philosophical theist. A really irregular phenomenon, as Mr. Fiske has said, would be a manifestation of sheer diabolism. Philosophical theism — belief in a being deservedly called God — could not be estab- lished until after the uniformity of nature had been discovered. We BasisforB^ must cease to believe in many changeable wills before we can begin to believe in one that is unchangeable. We must cease to believe in a finite God, outside of nature, who capriciously interferes with her phenomena, before we can begin to believe in an infinite God, immi- nent in nature, of whom mind and will and all natural phenomena are the various but never varying expressions. Though the regularity of nature is not enough by itself to prove the existence of God, the irreg- ularity of nature would be amply sufficient to disprove it. The uniformity of nature, which, by a curious observation of the logical faculties, has been used as an atheistic argument, is actually the first step in the proof of the existence of God. The purposes of a reason- able being, just in proportion to his reasonableness, will be steadfast and immovable. And in God there is no change, neither shadow of turning. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. 75 Discovery of 76 THE WORLDS COl.'CRESS OF RELIGIONS. There is another scientific doctrine, viz., the doctrine of evolution, which is often supposed to be incompatible with the argument from design. But it seems to me that the discovery of the fact of evolution was an important step in the proof of the divine existence. Evolution has not disproved adaptation; it has merely disproved one particular kind of adaptation, the adaptation, viz., of a human artifice. In the time of Paley God was regarded as a great Mechanician, spelled with a capital M, it is true, but employing means and methods for the accomplishment of His purposes more or less similar to those which would be used by a human workman. It was believed that every species, every organism and every part of every organism had been individually adapted by the Creator for the accomplishment of a defi- nite end, just as every portion of a watch is the result of a particular act of contrivance on the part of the watchmaker. A different and far higher method is suggested by the doctrine of evolution, a doctrine which may now be considered as practically Evoi'^tion'a"n demonstrated, thauks especially to the light which has been shed on it ^"ite^"*^ by the sciences of anatomy, physiology, geology, paleontology and embryology. These sciences have placed the blood relationship of species beyond a doubt. The embryos of existing animals are found again and again to bear the closest resemblance to extinct species, though in the adult form the resemblance is obscured. Moreover, we frequently find in animals rudimentary, or abortive, organs, which are manifestly not adapted to any end, which never can be of any use, and whose presence in the organism is sometimes positively injurious. There are snakes that have rudimentary legs — legs which, however interesting to the anatomist, are useless to the snake. There are rudi- ments of fingers in a horse's hoof and of teeth in a whale's mouth, and in man iiimself there is the vermiform appendix. It is manifest, there- fore, that any particular organ in one species is merely an evolution from a somewhat different kind of organ in another. It is manifest that the species themselves are but transmutations of one or a few primordial types, and tliat they have been created not by paroxysm but by evolution. The Creator saw the end from the beginning. He had not many conflicting purposes, but one that was general and all- embracing. Unity and continuity of design serve to demonstrate the wisdom of the designer. The supposition that nature means something by what she does has not infrequently led to important scientific discoveries. It was in this way that Harvey found out the circulation of the blood. He took notice of the valves in the veins in many parts of the body, so placed as to give free passage to the blood toward the heart, but opposing its passage in the contrary direction. Then he bethought himself, to use his own words, "that such a provident cause as nature had not placed so many valves without a design, and the design which seemed most probable was that the blood, instead of being sent by these veins to the limbs, should go first through the arteries, should return through other veins whose valves did not oppose its course." Thus, apart from THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 77 the supposition of purpose, the greatest discovery in physiological science might not have been made. And the curious thing is — a cir- cumstance to which I would particularly direct your attention — the word purpose is constantly employed even by those who are most strenuous in denying the reality of the fact. The supposition of pur- [)ose is used as a working hypothesis by the most extreme materialists The recognition of an imminent purpose in our conception of nature Recognition I I'll- 1 • I 1 /- 1 • 1 • 1 117 of a Purpose. can be so little dispensed with that we hnd it admitted even by Vogt. Haeckel, in the very book in which he says that "the much talked-of purpose in nature has no existence," defines an organic body as "one in which the various parts work together for the purpose of producing the phenomenon of life." And Hartmann, according to whom the universe is the outcome of unconsciousness, speaks of "the wisdom of the unconscious," of "the mechanical contrivances which it employs," of "the direct activity in bringing about complete adaptation to the peculiar nature of the case," of "its incursions into the human brain which determine the course of history in all departments of civiliza- tion in the direction of the goal intended by the unconscious." Pur- pose, then, has not been eliminated from the universe by the discover- ies of physical science. These discoveries have but intensified and elevated our path. And there is yet something else to be urged in favor of the argu- ment from design. If the world is not due to purpose it must be the result of chance. This alternative cannot be avoided by asserting that the world is the outcome of law; since law itself must be accounted for in one or other of these alternative ways. A law of nature explains a Law of Na- nothing. It is merely a summary of the facts to be explained; Nofhinf^^*^^ merely a statement of the way in which things happen, e. g., the law of gravitation in the fact that all material bodies attract one another with a force varying directly as their mass and inversely as the squares of their distances. Now, the fact that bodies attract one another in this way cannot be explained by the law, for the law is nothing but the precise expression of the fact. To say that the gravi- tation of matter is accounted for by the law of gravitation is merely to say that matter gravitates because it gravitates. And so of the other laws of nature. Taken together they are simply the expression, in a set of convenient formulae, of all the facts of our experience. The laws of nature are the facts of nature summarized. To say, then, that nature is explained by law is to say that the facts -are explained by themselves. The question remains. Why are the facts what they are? And to this question we can only answ^er, Either through purpose or by chance. In favor of the latter hypothesis it may be urged that the appear- ance of purpose in nature could have been produced by chance. Ar- rangements which look intentional may sometimes be purely accidental. Something was bound to come of the play of the primeval atoms. Why not the particular world in which we find ourselves? Why not? For this reason: It is only within narrow bounds that THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. An Infinites- imal Fraction in a Universe. Evidences of Pnrpose. Other Evi- dencesof a Buiireme Intelligence. seemingly purposeful arrangements are accidentally produced. And, therefore, as the signs of purpose increase the presumption in favor of their accidental origin diminishes. It is the most curious phenomenon in the history of thought that the philosophers who delight in calling themselves experienced should have countenanced the theory of the accidental origin of the world, a theory with which our experience, as far. as it goes, is completely out of harmony. When only eleven planets were known De Morgan showed that the odds against their moving in one direction around the sun with a slight inclination of the planes of their orbits — had chance determined the movement — would have been twenty billions to one. And this movement of the planets is but a single item, a tiny detail, an infinitesimal fraction in a universe which, notwithstanding all arguments to the contrary, still appears to be pervaded through and through with purpose. Let every human being now alive upon the earth spend the rest of his days and nights writing down arithmetical figures; let the enormous numbers which these figures would represent — each number forming a library in itself — be all added together; let this result be squared, cubed, multiplied by itself ten thousand times, and the final product would fall short of ex- pressing the probabilities of the world having been evolved by chance. But over and above the signs of purpose in the world there are other evidences which bear witness to its rationality, to its ultimate dependence upon mind. We can often detect thought even when we fail to detect purpose. " Science," says Lange, "starts from the prin- ciple of the intelligibleness of nature." To interpret is to explain, and nothing can be explained that is not in itself rational. Reason can only grasp what is reasonable. You cannot explain the conduct of a fool. You cannot interpret the actions of a lunatic. They are contradictory, meaningless, unintelligible. Similarly, if nature were an irrational system there would be no possibility of knowledge. The interpretation of nature consists in making our own the thoughts which nature implies. Scientific hypothesis consists in guessing at these thoughts; scientific verification in proving that we have guessed aright. " O, God," says Kepler, when he discovered the laws of plan- etary motion, "O, God, I think again Thy thoughts after Thee." There could be no course of nature, no law of sequence, no possibility of scientific predictions, in a senseless play of atoms. But, as it is, we know exactly how the forces of nature act and how they will continue to act. We can express their mode of working in the most precise mathematical formulae. Every fresh discovery in science reveals anew the order, the law, the system; in a word, the reason which underlies material phenomena. And reason is the outcome of mind. It is mind in action. Nor is it only within the realm of science that we can detect traces of a supreme intelligence. Kant and Hegel have shown that the whole of our conscious experience implies the existence of a mind other than but similar to our own. For students of philosophy it is needless to explain this; for others it would be impossible within the THE WORLD- S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 79 short time at my disposal. Suffice it to say, it has been proved that what we call knowledge is due subjectively to the constructive activity of our own individual minds, and objectixcly to the constructive activity of another mind which is omnipresent and eternal. In other words, it has been proved that our limited consciousness implies the existence of a consciousness that is unlimited, that the common c\'cr)- day experience of each one of us necessitates the increasing activity of an infinite thinker. The world, then, is essentially rational. But if that were all we could say we should be very far from having proved the existence of God. A question still remains for us to answer: Is the infinite thinker good? I pass on, therefore, to speak briefly on the second Progipssivp- part of my subject, viz., the progressiveness of the world. The last, vv-^ia'** ^'"^ the most comprehensive, the most certain word of science is evolution. And it is the most hopeful word I know. For when we contemplate the sufiering and disaster around us, we are sometimes tempted to think that the Great Contriver is indifferent to human welfare. But evolution, which is only another form for continuous nriprovement, inspires us with confidence. It suggests, indeed, that the Creator is not omnipotent, in the vulgar sense of being able to do impossibilities; but it also suggests that the difficulties of creation are being surely though slowly overcome. Now, it may be asked, How could there be difficulties for God? How could the infinite be limited or restrained? Let us see. We are too apt to look upon restraint as essentially an evil; to regard it as a sign of weakness. This is the greatest mistake. Restraint may be an evidence of power, of superiority, of perfection. Why is poetry so much more beautiful than prose? Because of the restraints of conscience. Many things are possible for a prose writer which are impossible for a poet; many things are possible for a villain which are impossible for a man of honor; many things are possible for a devil which are imjDossiblc for a God. The fact is, infinite wisdom and goodness in\olve noLhing infinite Rc- less than infinite restraint. When we say taat God cannot do wrong we virtually admit that He is under a moral obligation or nccessit}', and reflection will show that there is another kind of necessity, viz., mathematical, by which even the infinite is bound. Do you suppose that the Deity could make a square with only three sides or a line with only one end? Admitting, for the sake of argument, that theoretically He had the power, do you suppose that under any conceivable circumstances He would use it? .Surel}' not. It would be prostitution. It would be the employment of an infinite m..,i„. ,• , power tor the production of what was essentially irrational and absurd, ^icces^ity. It would be the same kind of folly as if some one who was capable of writing a sensible book were deliberately to produce a volume \\ith the words so arranged as to convey no earthly meaning. The .same kind of folly but far more culpable, for the guilt of foolishness increases in proportion to the capacity for wisdom. A being, therefore, who attempted to reverse the truth of mathematics would net be c]i\ine. To mathematical necessity Deity itself must yield. 80 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Similarly in the physical sphere there must be restraints equally necessary and equally unalterable, viz., it may be safely and reverently affirmed that God could not have created a painless world. The Deity must have been constrained by His goodness to create the best world possible, and a world without suffering would have been not better, but Hfrain? NecesT worsc than our own. For consider, sometimes pain is needed as a **»•■>• warning to preserve us from greater pain; to keep us from destruc- tion. If pain had not been attached to injurious actions and habits, all sentient beings would long ago have passed out of existence. Sup- pose, c. g., that fire did not cause pain, we might easily be burnt to death before we knew we were in danger. Suppose the loss of health were not attended with discomfort, we should lack the strongest mo- tive for preserving it. And the same is true of the pangs of remorse which follow what we call sin. Further, pain is necessary for the development of character, especially in its higher phases. In some way or other, though, we cannot tell exactly how, pain acts as an intel- lectual and spiritual stimulus. The world's greatest teachers, Dante, Shakespeare, Darwin, etc., have been men who suffered much. Suffer- ing, moreover, develops in us pity, mercy, and the spirit of self-sacri- fice; it develops in us self-respect, self-reliance and all that is implied in the expression, strength of character. In no other way could such a character be conceivably acquired. It could not have been bestowed upon us by a creative fiat; it is essentially the result of personal con- fllict. Even Christ became perfect through suffering. And there is also a further necessity for pain arising from the reign of law. There is, no doubt, something awesome in the thought of the abso- lute inviolability of law; in the thought that nature goes on her way quite regardless of your wishes or mine. She is so strong and so indif- ferent! The reign of law often entails on individuals the direst suffer- ing. But if the Deity interfered with it He would at once conxert the The Reign of universe into chaos. The first requisite for a rational life is the certain Law. knowledge that the same effects will always follow from the same cause; that they will never be miraculously averted; that they will never be miraculously produced. It seems hard — it is hard — that a mother should lose her darling child by accident or disease, that she cannot by any agony of prayer recall the child to life. But it would be harder for the world if she could. The child has died through a violation of some of nature's laws, and if such viola- tion were unattended with death men would lose the great induce- ment to discover and obey them. It seems hard — it is hard — that the man who has taken poison by accident dies, as surely as if he had taken it on purpose. But it would be harder for the world if he did not. If one act of carelessness were ever overlooked, the race would cease to feel the necessity for care. It seems hard — it is hard — that children are made to suffer for their father's crimes. But it would be harder for the world if they were not. If the penalties of wrong doing were averted from the children, the fathers would lose the best incentive to do right. V^icarious suffering has a great part to play in the moral THE WORLD'S CONGRESS CF RELIGIONS, 81 development of the world. Each individual is apt to think that an exception might be made in his favor. But of course that could not be. If the laws of nature were broken for one person, justice would require that they should be broken for thousands, for all. And if only one of nature's laws could be proved to have been only once violated, our faith in law would be at an end; we should feel that we were liv- ing in a disorderly universe; we should lose the sense of the para- mount importance of conduct; we should know that we were the sport of chance. Pain, therefore, was an unavoidable necessity in the creation of Tend*>ncvTo- the best of all possible worlds. But, however many and however great ward Right- were the difficulties in the Creator's path, the fact of evolution makes ®*'°^®^- it certain that they are being gradually overcome. And among all the changes that have marked its progress, none is so palpable, so remark- able, so persistent as the development of goodness. Evolution "makes for righteousness." That which seems to be its end varies. The truth is constantly becoming more apparent that on the whole and in the long-run it is not well with the wicked; that sooner or later, both in the lives of individuals and of nations, good triumphs over evil. And this tendency toward righteousness, by which we find our- selves encompassed, meets with a ready, an ever readier response in our own hearts. We cannot help respecting goodness, and we have inextinguishable longings for its personal attainment. Notwithstand- ing "sore lets and hindrances," notwithstanding the fiercest tempta- tions, notwithstanding the most disastrous failures, these yearnings cantinually reassert themselves with ever increasing force. We feel, we know that we shall always be dissatisfied and unhappy until the tendency within us is brought into perfect unison with the tendency without us, until we also make for righteousness steadily, unremit- tingly and with our whole heart. What is this disquietude, what are these yearnings but the spirit of the universe in communion with our spirits, inspiring us, impelling us, all but forcing us to become co- workers with itself. To sum up in one sentence — all knowledge, whether practical or scientific, nay, the commonest experience of everyday life, implies the existence of a mind which is omnipresent and eternal, while the tend- Deveippmcnt ency toward righteousness, which is so unmistakably manifest in the course of history, together with the response which this tendency awakens in our own hearts, combine to prove that the infinite thinker is iust and kind and good. It must be because he is always with us that we sometimes imagine that he is nowhere to be found. "Oh, where is the sea?" the fishes cried As they swam the crystal clearness through; "We've iheard from of old of the ocean's tide And 've long to look on the waters blue. The wise ones speak of an infinite sea; Oh, who ran tell us if such there be?" of Goodnese. 82 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The lark flew up in the morning bright And sang and balanced on sunny wings, And this was its song: "I see the light; I look on a world of beautiful things; And flying and singing everywhere In vain have I sought to find the air." a! 3 O s ^he y\rgument for Jmmortality. Paper by REV. PHILIP S. MOXOM, of the University of Chicago. Life of the Human Spirit. T is impossible, of course, within the limits of this brief paper even to state the entire argu- ment for the immortality of man. The most that I can hope to do is to indicate those main lines of reasoning which appeal to the average intelligent mind as confirmatory of a belief in immortality already existent. Three or four considerations should be noticed at the outset: First, it is doubtful if any reasoning on this subject would be intelligible to man if he did not have precedently at least a capacity for immortality. However we may define it, there is that in man's nature which makes him sus- ceptible to the tremendous idea of everlasting existence. Here sits he, shaping wings to fly; His heart forebodes a mystery; He names the name Eternity! It would seem that only a deathless being, in the midst of a world in which all forms of life perceptible by his senses are born and die in endless procession, could think of himself as capable of surviving this universal order. The capacity to raise and discuss the question of immortality has, therefore, implications that radically separate man from all the creatures about him. Just as he could not think of virtue without a capacity for virtue, so he could not think of immortality without at least a capacity for that of which he thinks. A second preliminary consideration is that immortality is insep- arably bound up with theism. Theism makes immortality rational; atheism makes it incredible, if not unthinkable. The highest form of the belief in immortality inevitably roots itself in and is part of the soul's belief in God. A third consideration is that a scientific proof of immortality is. at present, impossible in the ordinary sense of the phrase "scientific proof." The life of the human spirit is a transcendent fact. It cannot be co-ordinated with the phenomena of nature on which the scientific mind is turned. Even the miracle of a physical resurrection, while it 84 Rev. Philip S. Moxom, D, D,, Boston. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 87 would be demonstration of revival from death, would not prove immor- tality; for it would be a transaction quite as much on the plane if the material as revival from a swoon, and, as death supervened once, it might supervene again. Demonstration of immortality lies solely in the sphere of personal . Demoustra- experience. The man who, from blindness, attains sight, has demon- taiuy!^ ^°"° ''" stration of the reality of vision; but even he could not demonstrate that reality to blind men. So only the soul that has entered upon immortality has demonstration of that supreme reality, and "though one should rise from the dead," yet would he be incapable of demon- strating immortality to mortal man. It is both interesting and immensely suggestive that while St. Paul evidently argues immortality from the attested resurrection of Jesus, Jesus Himself uttered no word basing the doctrine of immortality on the mere fact of His return from death in the sphere of sense perception. True, He said to His disciples, "Because I live ye shall live also;" but that was an affirmation entirely apart from the implications of physical resurrection. None of the highest, the essentially spiritual, facts of man's knowledge and experience fall within the scope of what is known as scientific proof. God, the soul, truth, love, righteousness, repentance, faith, beauty, the good — all these are unapproachable by scientific tests; yet these and not salts and acids and laws of cohesion and chemical affinity and gravitation, are the supreme realities of man's life e\'en in this world of matter and force. When one demands scientific proof of immortality, then it is as if he demanded the linear measurement of a principle, or the troy weight of an emotion, or the color of an affection, or as if he should insist upon finding the human soul with his scalpel or microscope. A fourth consideration is that immortality is inseparable from personality. The whole significance of man's existence lies ultimately in its discreetness — in the evolution and persistence of the self- conscious ego. Men cheat themselves with phrases who talk about the re-absorption of the finite soul in the infinite soul. The finite and the infinite co-exist in this world; that of itself is proof that they may co-exist in the next world and forever. The absorption of the con- scious finite into the infinite is unthinkable save as the annihilation of the finite. With the semblance of deeply religious self-abnegation, this idea of human destiny mocks the heart and hope of man by eternally frus- trating the supreme end of aspiritual creation. The treasures of life— gonaUty?' ^" of its struggle and passion and pain — are inseparable from personality — the unfolding and perfecting being in whom the continuity of experience conserves the results of all the divine education of man; the perfected individual fulfilling himself in the perfected society, the ever unfolding kingdom of God, The loss of personality is, for man, the loss of being. Extinction is remediless waste. In nature there is no waste. Individuals perish, but the type remains in ever recurring forms that but repeat the antecedent forms by absorbing their disor- 88 THE WORLD' ^ CONCRK^S OF RELIC IONS. ganized substance. There is succession and there is economy, but no advance. In man, because he is a spiritual personality, there is the possibility and the realization of endless progress, not the mere recur- rence of types nourished on the decay of preceding types.* The loss of personality is utter loss of life, and such self-abnega- tion as the poet contemplates, were it possible, would be suicide and the lapse of human life into absolute, hopeless failure. The plea that the desire for "personal immortality" (as if there were or could be an impersonal immortality) is selfish, is at once specious and false. The greatest service which we can render to our kind, present or future, is by and through the fullness and strength and sweetness of personality to which we attain. To covet this is the supreme passion of unselfish- ness. " One sows and another reaps," said Jesus, but " that both he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together " The argument for immortality presents as its first, if not its weightiest consideration, the fact that the belief in the survival of the soul after death is well nigh universal. Practically, it is co-extensive and co-etaneous with the human race. In this respect it is like the belief in God. Within the bounds of our knowledge there is no people nor even a considerable tribe entirely destitute of some idea of God. Quatrefages and other anthropologists make this affirmation. In the case of rare apparent exceptions it is safe to assume that these are due to a lack of adequate and accurate knowledge on the part of inves- tigators. So intimately are these two ideas related — the idea of God and the idea of the perdurable soul — that it is not surprising to find them held co-extensively by mankind. Immortality is not merely an idea to which man in his progress upward from the brute has attained, it is also and increasingly a desire. Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die. There is in humanity an instinctive revolt against death. This is far more than our natural recoil from the pain of physical dissolution. Revolt Againflt Indeed the fear of death is in part due to the still imperfect discrim- ination in the minds of most men between the fact of mere physical death and the complete extinction of being. Death is the palpable contradiction of life. Man Thinks he was not made to die And instinctively revolts from the threatened termination of his existence. The belief in immortality and the aspiration for immortality, not- withstanding apparent exceptions which a particular time, when special moods are dominant, seems to present, grow stronger with the growth of men, and they are strongest in the best. The wisest, the most spiritual, may be the least dogmatic, but they hold the finest ahd the most efficacious faith in the persistence of the human spirit through and beyond the death of the body. We are dealing here with a broad and multiform fact of experience and observation. Man does believe that He was not made to die. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 89 And that belief, allying with itself the most of the faiths and hopes and purposes that make life worth living, becomes a reasonable evidence that the belief is a result and reflex of the possession of immortality. Moreover, the universality and strength of the desire suggests its fulfillment. There is prophecy in pure and elemental human desire if we believe in God. The principle of correlation in natural, gains in significance as it is carried up into the spiritual realm. The adoption of supply to need in the whole realm of creature life surely does not cease the moment we rise above the level of sense. It is a fair inference that if man has an appetite and a need for an existence beyond the material life which he shares with plant and ani- a Need"°°'°' mal, there is provision for that need in the divine ordering of the uni- verse. In the experience of men we see instinct growing into idea, and idea ripening into conviction, and conviction shaping not onl)- j^hiios- ophy but the entire conduct of life. That conviction gives steadiness to the thinker, patience to the sufferer and energy and inspiration to the toiler, for it makes life intelligible when otherwise it would sink in confusion and defeat. "For my own part," says John Fiske, "I believe in the immortality of the soul, not in the sense in which I accept the demonstrable truths of science, but as a supreme act of faith in the reasonableness of God's work." Man is God's creature, the evolution of His thought and the product of His love, and his instinctive belief that "life is life forever more" is but his "faith in the reasonableness of God's work." The denial of immortality is always an artificial product; it is not a natural stage in the progress of thought, but the corollary of the philosophy which regards humanity not as an end, but as "a local inci- dent in an endless and aimless series of cosmical changes." An argument for immortality is grounded in the nature of the human mind, that is, in the nature of man as an intelligent being. I cannot pause here to consider the materialistic conception of mind which excludes the possibility of life after the organism has perished, because it identifies mind with organism. It will sufifice to quote these trenchant sentences from Fiske: "The only thing w^hich cerebral physiology tells us, when studied with the aid of molecular physics, is against the materialist, so far as it goes. It tells us that, during the present life, although thought and feeling are always manifested in connection with a peculiar form of matter, yet by no possibility can thought and feeling be in any sense the products of matter. Nothing could be more grossly unscientific than the famous remark of Cabanis, that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile. It is not even correct to say that thought goes f^n in the brain. What goes on in the brain is an amazingly complex series of molecular movements with which thought and feeling are in some imknown way correlated, not as effects or as causes, but as con- comitants. * * * The materialistic assumption * * * that 90 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. the life of the soul accordingly ends with the life of the body, is per- haps the most colossal instance of baseless assumption that is known to the history of philosophy." An argument for immortality, to many the strongest argument of all, is that which is drawn from revelation. Naturally this argument Drawn from appeals chiefly to those whose minds have been nourished on the Revelation. Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The implications of the most spiritual utterances of the Hebrew prophets and psalmists are on the side of man's immortality. The teachings of the New Testa- ment are surcharged with the idea and the atmosphere of immortality- Whoever accepts these needs no other argument To expound them here in detail is unnecessary, even were there time. But revelation is broader than the l^ible, for it is the communication of spiritual truth to man by the immediate action of the divine spirit, and that is not limited even to the great and incomparable writings of Hebrew prophet and Christian seer. But were we confined to the sacred scriptures we should have ample ground and reason for the faith That those we call the dead Are breathers of an ampler day. Whatever the Scriptures contain with respect to the triumph of the soul over death reaches highest expression in the character and teachings of Jesus. Nowhere does Jesus explicitly affirm the abstract truth of man's immortality, but it is the ever-present assumption that is absolutely necessary to the intelligibility of His doctrines and His life and death. Many are His sayings which imply the dealhlessness of the human spirit. Many and strong are His affirmations of life eternal. But more impressive even than His words are Flis constant air and temper. He speaks out of a consciousness of indwelling life to which death, save as an incident in physical experience, is absolutely foreign. The three words that are dominantly expressive of that consciousness are "light," "life" and "God." So domesticated is He in the sphere of eternal moral being that we feel no shock when He speaks of Himself as "The .Son of man who is in Heaven." The consciousness of Jesus, as revealed in His speech, approaches as near to a demonstration of immortality as is possible to souls that have not passed through the gate of death. In His last hours before the betrayal, fully aware of what awaited Him, with the seriousness that imminent death must ever give to the calm and thoughtful soul. He spoke to His disciples words, the significance of which lies less even in their explicit sense than in the time and situation and manner in which they were spoken: "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God and believe in Me. In my Father's house are many abiding places. If it were not so, I would have told you, because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and will receive you to Myself, that where I am ye may be also." One cannot read those words, even at this remote day, without feeling the calm certainty as of impregnable faith and clear insight THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 91 which breathes through them to infect his heart with happy con- fidence. _ - The teaching of Jesus in its entire scope is unintelligible apart from the fact of immortality,and the unique person of Jesus and His transcendent life among men, and His profound and ever deepening influence on human lives is inexplicable apart from the fact of immor- tality Out of a full consciousness of an indwelling divine life which could not know death He said, "Because I live, ye shall live also." Such a personality and such a life would make man immortal by con- tagion. With true insight Emerson exclaimed: "Jesus explained nothing, but the influence of Him took people out of time, and they felt eternity." Of revelation as a subjective experience in its bearing on the argu- ment for immortality little has been said, but somewhat has been im- plied in the preceding pages. The communication of God with man is not limited to objective means and forms In the deeper and simpler spiritual natures there is a witness of the ever permanent God. In man's experience there are moments of illumination that compensate for many years of darkness and struggle and pain. There are crises in our lives when we suddenly grow conscious of the real greatness of our nature through the disclosure within us of capacities that nothing but the infinite and the eternal can satisfy Then the soul recognizes itself in God, and through communion with Him immortality passes from a faith into an experience — an actual participation in the eternal love and thought and being of God. Experience of this sort makes clear the truth that immortality is not only a divine gift, but also a moral achievement of man. In other Saryivai of worlds, as well as this, the fit sur\ive, and the fit are they who, per- ceiving the prize, press their way into fullness of life by the avenues and process of the spirit. On the subject of immortality the science that deals with the facts and forces of matter has nothing to say, either for or against. To immortality a life of sensual indulgence is insensi- ble or repugnant. To the soul that knows God and strives toward the ideals of culture and character which rise in divine beckonings before us, immortality dawns in growing reasonableness and attractiveness, grows from a hope into an assurance, and from a serene faith deepens into a conscious experience which neither time nor death can bring to an end. the Fittest. Mt, Lebanon and Cedars. The §oul and Jts^puture Life. Paper by REV. SAMUEL M. WARREN, of the Swedenborgian Church. T is a doctrine of the New Church that the soul is substantial — though not of earthly substance — and is the very man; that the body is merely the earthly form and instrument of the soul, and that every part of the body is produced from the soul, according to its likeness, in order that the soul may be fitted to perform its functions in the world during the brief but important time that this is the place of man's conscious abode. If, as all Christians believe, man is an im- mortal being, created to live on through the endless ages of eternity, then the longest life in this world is, comparatively, but as a point, an infinitessimal partof hisexistence. In this view, I ' it is not rational to believe that that part of man which is for his brief use in this world only, and is left behind when he passes out of this world, is the most real and substantial part of him. That is more substantial which is more enduring, and that is the more real part of man in which his characteristics and his qualities are. All the facts and phenomena of life confirm the doctrine that the soul is the real man. What makes the quality of a man? What gives him character as good or bad, small or great, lovable or detest- able? Do these qualities pertain to the body? Every one knov\s that they do not. But they are the qualities of the man. Then the real man is not the body, but is "the living soul." If there is immor- tal life he has not vanished, except from mortal and material sight. As between the soul and the body, then, there can be no rational question as to whicl^ is the substantial and which the evanescent thing. • Again, if the immortal soul is the real man, and is substantial, what must be its form? It cannot be a formless vaporous thing and be a man. Can it have other than the human form? Reason clearly sees that if formless or in any other form he would not be a man. The soul of man, or the real man, is a marvelous assemblage of powers and 93 Form of tlie Soul. 94 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. faculties of will and understanding, and the human form is such as it is because it is perfectly adapted to the exercise of these various powers and faculties; in other words, the soul forms itself, under the Divine Maker's hand, into an organism by which it can adequately and perfectly put forth its wondrous and wonderfully varied powers, and bring its purposes into acts. The human form is thus an assemblage of organs that exactly cor- respond to and embody and are the express image of the various fac- Form of the ultics of the soul. And there is no organ of the human form the ^°^- absence of which would not hinder and impede the free and efficient action and putting forth of the soul's powers. And by the human form is not meant merely, nor primarily, the organic forms of the material body. The faculties are of the soul, and if the soul is the man, and endures when the body decays and vanishes, it must itself be in a form which is an assemblage of organs perfectly adapted and adequate to the exercise of its powers, that is, in the human form. The human form is then primarily and especially the form of the soul — which is the perfection of all forms, as man, at his highest, is the consummation and fullness of all living and intelligent attributes. But when does the soul itself take on its human form? Is it not until the death of the body? Manifestly, if it is the very form of the soul, the soul cannot exist without it, and it is put on in and by the fact of its creation and the gradual development of its powers. It could have no other form and be a human soul. Its organs are the necessary organs of its faculties and powers, and these are clothed with their similitudes in dead material forms animated by the soul for temporary use in the material world. The soul is omnipresent in the material body, not by diffusion, formlessly, but each organ of the soul is within and is the soul of the corresponding organ of the body. That the immortal soul is the very man involves the eternal pres- ervation of his identity. For in the soul are the distinguishing qual- ities that constitute the individuality of a man — all those certain characteristics affectional and intellectual which make up such or such a man, and distinguish and differentiate him from all other men. He remains, therefore, the same man to all eternity. He may become more and more, to endless ages, an angel of light — even as here a man may advance greatly in wisdom and intelligence, and yet is always the same man. This doctrine of the soul involves also the permanency of established character. The life in this world is the period of char- acter building. It has been very truthfully said that a man is a bundle of habits. What manner of man he is depends on what his manner of life has been. If evil and vicious habits are continued through life they arc fixed and confirmed and become of the very life, so that the man loves and desires no other life, and does not w ish to — will not be led out of them — because he loves the practice of them. On the other hand, if from childhood a man has been inured to virtuous habits, these habits become fixed and established and of his very soul and life. In either THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 95 case the habits thus fixed and confirmed are of the immortal soul and constitute its permanent character. The body, as to its part, has been but the pliant instrument of the soul. With respect to the soul's future life, the first important consider- ation is what sort of a world it will inhabit. If we have- shown good reasons for believing the doctrine that the soul is not a something thelioui win formless, vague and shadowy, but is itself an organic human form, sub- l^iiiabit. stantial, and the very man, then it must inhabit a substantial and very real world. It is a gross fallacy of the senses, but there is no sub- stance but matter, and nothing substantial but what is material. Is not God, the Divine, Omnipotent Creator of all things, substantial? Can Omnipotence be an attribute of that which has no substance and no form? Is such an existence conceivable? But He is not material and not visible or cognizable by any mortal sense. Yet we know that He is substantial; for it is manifest in His wondrous and mighty works. There is, then, spiritual substance. And of such substance must be the world wherein the soul is eternally to dwell. It is the reality of the spiritual world that makes this world real, just as it is the reality of the soul that makes the human body a reality and a possibility. As there could be no body without the soul there could be no natural world without the spiritual. Not only is that world substantial, but it must be a world of sur- passing loveliness and beauty. It has justly been considered one of the most beneficent manifestations of the divine love and wisdom that this beautiful w-orld that we briefly inhabit is so wondrously adapted to all men's wants and to call into exercise and gratify his every faculty and good desire. And when he leaves this temporary abode, a man with all his faculties exalted and refined by freedom from the incumbrance of the flesh — an incumbrance which we are often very conscious of — will he not enter a world of beauty exceeding the loveliest aspects of this? The soul is human and the world in which it is to dwell is adapted to human life; and it would not be adapted to human life if it did not adequately meet and answer to the soul's desires. Is it reasonable that this material world should be so full of life and loveliness and beauty, where "Nature spreads for every sense a feast," to gratify every exalted faculty of the soul, and not the spiiitual world, wherein the soul is to abide forever. And the life of that world is human life. The same laws of life and happiness obtain there that govern here, because they are grounded in human nature. Man is a social being, and even there, in that world as in this, desires and seeks the companionship of those that are congenial to him; that is, who arc of similar quality to him- self. Men are thus mutually drawn together by s})iritual afitinit}-. This is the law of association here, but it is less perfectly operative in this world, because there is much dissimulation among men, so that they often do not appear to be what they really are, and thus by fal.ic and deceptive appearances the good and the evil are often associated tos/ether. 96 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. And so it is for a time and in a measure in the first state and region into which men come when they enter the spiritual world. They go into that world as they are, and are at first in a mixed state, as in this world. This continues until the real character is clearly manifest, and Separation of good and evil are separated, and they are thus prepared for their final ^ ^* ■ and permanent association and abode. They who, in the world, have made some real effort, and beginning to live a good life, but have evil habits not yet overcome, remain there until they are entirely purified of evil, and are fitted for some society of heaven; and those who inwardly are evil and have outwardly assumed a virtuous garb, remain until their dissembled goodness is cast off and their inward character becomes outwardly manifest. When this state of separation is complete there can be no successful dissimulation — the good and the evil are seen and known as such and the law of spiritual affinity becomes per- fectly operative by their own free volition and choice. Then the evil and the good become entirely separated into their congenial societies. The various societies and communities of the good thus associated constitute heaven and those of the evil constitute hell — not by any arbitrary judgment of an angry God, but of voluntary choice, by the perfect and unhindered operation of the law of human nature that leads men to prefer and seek the companionship of those most con- genial to themselves. As regards the permanency of the state of those who by estab- lished evil habit are fixed and determined in their love of evil life, it is not of the Lord's will, but of their own. We are taught in His Holy Word that He is ever "gracious and full of compassion." He would that they should turn from their evil ways and live, but they will not. There is no moment, in this or in the future life, when the infinite mercy of the Lord would not that an e\il man should turn from his evil course and li\'e a virtuous and upright and happy life; but they will not in that world for the same reason that they would not in this, because when evil habits are once fi.xed and confirmed they love them and will not turn from them. " Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may they also do good that are accus- tomed to do evil." Heaven is a heaven of man and the life of heaven is human life. The conditions of life in that exalted state are greatly different from the conditions here, but it is human life adapted to such transcendent conditions, and the laws of life in that world, as we have seen, are the same as in this. Man was created to be a free and will- ing agent of the Lord to bless His kind. His true happiness comes, not in seeking happiness for himself, but in seeking to promote the happiness of others. Where all are animated by this desire, all are mutually and reciprocally blest. Such a state is heaven, whether measurably in this world or fully ;mu1 perfectly in the next. Then must there be useful .vays in heaven by which they can contribute to each other's happiness. And of such Empioymeiitfl kind will be the employments of heaven, for there must be useful m Heaven. employments. There could be no happiness without to beings who TMR WokLb's CoNGkESS of kELlCtONS. 07 are designed and formed for usefulness to others. What the employ- ments are in that exalted condition we cannot well know, except as same of them are revealed to us, and of them we have faint and fee- ble conception. But, undoubtedly, one of them is attendance upon men in this world. Such, in general, according to the revealed doctrines of the New Church, is the future life of the immortal souls of men. truthfulness of H^ly §criptures. Paper by REV. CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D. D., of New York. M n B t Face Criticism and Science. HE time alotted for a paper like this is so short that I can only treat the subject very cursorily and with many gaps, which every one of you will probably notice. All the great historic religions have sacred books which are re- garded as the inspired word of God. Prom- inent among those sacred books are the Holy Scriptures of the Christian church. The his- tory of the Christian church shows that it is the intrinsic excellence of these Holy Script- ures which has given them the control of so large a portion of our whole race. With a few exceptions the Christian religion was not extended by force of arms or by the arts of statesmanship, but by the holy lives and faithful teaching of self-sacrificing men and women, who had firm faith in the truthfulness of the Holy Scriptures and were able to convince men in all parts of the world that they arc faithful guides to God and salvation. Wemay now say confidently to all men: "All the sacred books of the world are now accessible to you; study them; compare them; rec- ognize all that is good and noble and true in them all and tabulate results, and you will be convinced that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are true, holy and divine." When we have gone scarchingly through all the books of other religions we will find that they are as torches of various sizes and brilliance lighting up the dark- ness of the night, but the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Tes- taments are like the sun shining in the heavens and lighting up the whole world. We are living in a scientific age, which demands that ever)^ tradi- tional statement shall be tested. Science explores the earth in its height and breadth in search of truth; it explores the heavens in order to solve the mysteries of the universe; it investigates all the monu- ments of histor>', whether of stone or of metal, and that man must be lacking in intelligence, or in observation at least, who imagines that 98 Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D., New York. THE WORLUS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 101 the sacred books of the Christian religion or the institutions of the Christian church shall escape the criticism of this aj:fe. It will not do to'oppose science with religion or criticism with faith. Criticism makes it evident that the faith which shrinks from criti- cism is a faith so weak and uncertain that it excites suspicion as to its life and reality. Science goes on, confident that every form of religion which resists this criticism will ere long crumble into dust. All depart- ments of human investigation sooner or later come in contact with the * Christian Scriptures; all find somethmg thai accords with them or con- flicts with them, and the question forces itself upon us, Can we main- Scientific tain the truthfulness of the Holy Scriptures in the face of modern Errors, science? We are obliged to admit that there are scientific errors in the Bible, errors of astronomy, geology, zoology, botany and anthro- pology. In all these respects there is no evidence that the authors of the Scriptures had any other knowledge than that possessed by their contemporaries. Their statements are such as indicate ordinary obser- \ation of the phenomena of life. They had not that insight, that grasp of conception and power of expression in these matters such as they exhibited when writing concerning matters of religion. If it was not the intent of God to give to the ancient world the scientific knowledge of our nineteenth century, why should any one suppose that the Divine Spirit influenced them in relation to any such matters as science? Why should they be kept from mis-statements, misconceptions and errors in such respects? The Divine Spirit wished to use them as religious teachers, and so long as they made no mis- takes in that respect they were trustworthy and reliable, even if they erred in such matters as come in contact with modern science There are historical mistakes in the Bible, mistakes of chronology and geog- raphy, discrepancies and inconsistencies which cannot be removed by any proper method of interpretation. There are such errors as we are apt to find in modern history. There is no evidence that the writ- ers of the Scriptures received any of their history by revelation from God. There is no evidence that the Divine Spirit corrected these nar- ratives. The purpose of the sacred writers v/as to give us the history of God's redemptive workings. This made it necessary that there should be no essential errors in the redemptive facts and agencies, but did not make it necessary that there should be no mistakes in places, dates and persons, so long as these did not change the redemptive lessons or redemptive facts. None of the mistakes which have been discov- ered disturb the religious lessons of the Biblical history, and those les- sons are the only ones whose truthfulness we are concerned to defend. [Applause.] Higher criticism recognizes faults of grammar, of rhetoric and logic in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, but errors in these formal things do not mar the truthfulness of the religious instruction itself. Higher criticism shows that most of the books were composed by unknown authors; that they passed through the hands of a consid- erable number of unknown editors. In this process of editing, anang- 102 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. ing, subtraction and reconstruction, extending through so many cent- uries, what evidence have we that these unknown editors were kept from error in all their work? They were guided by the Divine Spirit in their comprehension and expression of the divine instruction, but, judging also from their work, it seems most probable that they were not guided by the Divine Spirit in grammar, rhetoric, logic, expression, arrangement of material or general editorial work. They were left to those errors which even the most faithful and scrupulous of writers will sometimes make. The science which approaches the Bible from without and the science which studies it from within agree as to the essential facts of the case. Now, can the truthfulness of Scripture be maintained by those who recognize these errors? There is no reason why the substantial truthfulness of the Bible shall not be consistent with circumstantial errors. God did not speak Himself in the Bible except a few words recorded here and there; He spoke in much greater portions of the Old Testament through the voices and pens of the human authors of the Scriptures. Did the human minds and pens always deliver the inerrant word? Even if all writers possessed of the Holy Spirit were merely pass- ive in the hands of God, the question is. Can the human voice and pen express truth of the infinite God? How can an imperfect word, an imperfect sentence express the divine truth? It is evident that the writers of the Bible were not, as a rule, in an ecstatic state. The Holy Spirit suggested to them the divine truths they were to teach. They received them by intuition, and framed them in imagination and fancy. Then, if the divine truth passed through the conception and imagina- tion of the human mind, did the human mind receive it fully without any fault or shadow of error; did the human mind add anything to it or color it; was it delivered in its entirety exactly as it was received? How can we be sure of this when we see the same doctrine in such a variety of forms, all partial and all inadequate? All that we can claim is inspiration and accuracy for that which suggests the religious lessons to be imparted. God is true He is the truth. He cannot lie; He cannot mislead or deceive His creatures, and Accuracy, l^'^'t the question arises, When the infinite God speaks to finite man, must He speak words which are not error? This depends not only upon God's speaking, but on man's hearing, and also of the means of communication between God and man. It is necessary to show the capacity of man to receive the W'ord before we can be sure that he transmitted it correctly. The inspiration of the Holy Scriptures does not carry with it inerrancy in every particular; it was sufficient if the divine truth was given with such clearness as to guide men aright in religious life. The errors of Holy Scripture are not errors of falsehood or deceit, but of ignorance, inadvertence, partial and inadequate knowledge and of incapacity to express the whole truth of God which belonged to man US man. Just as light is seen, not in its pure unclouded state, but in THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 103 the beautiful colors of the spectrum, so it is that the truth of God, its revelation and communication to man, met with such obstacles in human nature. Men are capable of receiving it only in its diverse operations and diverse manners as it comes to them through the diverse temperaments and points of view of the biblical writers. The religion of the Old Testament is a religion which includes somethings hard to reconcile in an inerrant revelation. The sacrifice of Jephtha's daughter, the divine command to Abraham to offer up his son as a burnt offering and other incidents seem unsuited to divine revelation. The New Testament taught that sacrifices must be of broken, contrite hearts and humble and cheerful spirits. What pleasure could God take in smoking altars? How could the true God prescribe such puerilities? We can only say that God was training Israel to the meaning of the higher sacrifices. The offering up of children and domestic ani- mals was part of a preparatory discipline. But it was provisional and temporal discipline. It was the form necessary then to clothe the divine law of sacrifice in the early stages of revelation. They were the object lessons by which the children of the ancient world could be trained to understand the inerrable law of sacrifice for man. St. Paul calls them the w'eak and beggarly rudiments, the shadow of the things to come. We cannot defend the morals on the Old Testament at all points. Nowhere in the Old Testament was polygamy or slavery condemned. The time had not come in the history of the world when they could be condemned. Is God to be held responsible for these twin relics of p,,^^™^,''^*" "'® barbarism because He did not condemn, but, on the contrary, recognized ' "° °'"°" them and restrained them in the early stages of His revelation? The patriarchs are not truthful. Their age seems to have had little com- prehension of the principles of truth, yet Abraham was faithful to God, and so faithful under temptation and trial that he became the father of the faithful, and from that point of view the friend of God. David was a sinner, a very wicked sinner, but he was a very penitent sinner, and showed such a devout attachment to the worship of God that his sins, though many, were all forgiven him, and his life, as a whole, exhibits such generosity, courage, human affection and such heroism and patience under suffering, and such self-restraint under magnificent prosperity, such nobility and grandeur of character alto- gether that we must admire him and love him as one of the best of men, and we are not surprised that the heart of the infinite God went out to him. Many of the stories of revenge in the Old Testament stand out in glaring contrast to the picture of Jesus Christ praying for His enemies, and it is the story of Christ that lifts us into a different ethical air from any of the Old Testament. We cannot regard these things in the Old Testament as inerrable, in the light of the moral character of Christ and the moral character of God as He reveals it. And yet we may well understand that the Old Testament times were not ripe for the higher revelation of His will Old Testament. 104 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. such as would guide His people in the right direction, with as steady and rapid a pace as they were capable of making. Jesus Christ teaches the true principle. You may judge the ethics of the Old Testament when He repealed the Mosaic laws of divorce. He said: "Moses, for your hardness of heart suffers you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it hath not been so." In other words, Mosaic law of divorce was not in accord with the original institution of marriage, or with the mind and will of the holy God. [Applause.] God revealed Himself partially to the people of the Old Testa- ment in a way sufficient for their purposes of preparatory discipline, which revelation was to disappear forever when it had accomplished its purpose. The laws of the Old Testament have all been cast down DbcfpSne.**'^ by the Christian church, with the single exception of ten laws; and with reference to the fourth of these Jesus Christ says: "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath." The doctrine of the creation is set forth in a great variety of beautiful poetical representa- tions, which give in the aggregate a grand conception of the creation, a fuller conception than the ordinary doctrine drawn from an interpre- tation of the first and second chapter of Genesis. I grant He was con- ceived as the Father of the nations and of the kings. But as our Father made known to us through Jesus Christ, He was not known to the Old Testament dispensation. The profound depth of sympathy of God and of Jesus Christ were not yet manifested. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity was not yet revealed. But there is a difference in God's revelation in these other successive layers of the Old Testament writing, which is like the march of an invincible army. It is true there are times when there are expressions of the jealousy of God and a cruel disregard of human sufferings, all of which betrayed the inadequacy of ancient Israel to understand their God. We all know that the true God, whom we all love and worship, does not agree with these ancient conceptions. The truthfulness of the teachings of the doctrine of God is not destroyed by occasional inac- curacies among the teachings. The doctrine of man of the Old Testament is a noble doctrine. Unity of brotherhood of the race in origin and destiny is established in the Old Testament as nowhere else. The origin and development of sin finds a response in the experience of mankind. The ideal of righteousness and the original plan of God for man. His ultimate destiny for man is held up as a banner over the heads of the people. Surely these are inspirations; they are faithful, they are divine. But there are doubtless expressions of faulty psychology and occasional exaggerations of mere external forms in ceremonial worship; but these do not mar, but rather serve to enhance our estimate of their value for all of that in the Scriptures which binds our race to all that is good in the history of the past, created and given by holy God for the welfare of humanity. The scheme of redemption is so vast, so comprehensi\e, so far reaching,, that the Christian church has even thus far failed to fully THE WOkLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 1()5 comprehend it. All evil is to be banished. There is to come in a reign of universal peace. There is to be a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem, from which the wicked will be excluded. Such ideals of redemption are divine ideals which the human race has not yet attained, and which we can only partially and inadequately comprehend. If, in the course of training for these ideals of redemp- tion for God's people, they have made mistakes, it is quite sure that forgiveness of sins was appropriated without any explanation of its grounds. The sacrifices of the New were unknown in the Old Testament. It is the mercy of God which is the forgiveness of sins. There is a lack of appreciation in the Old Testament of the richness of faith. It was Jesus Christ who first gave faith its unique place in the order of salva- tion—the doctrine of holy love; the doctrine of the future life and .Sacrifices of of the resurrection from the dead. Thus in every department of ment.^^ ^ doctrine the Old Testament has only advanced through the centuries. The several periods of Biblical literature, of unfolding of the doctrines prepared the way for a full revelation in the New Testament. That revelation looked only at the end, the highest ideals, that what would be accomplished in the last century of human time; that would be a revelation for all men, but it would be of no use to any other century but the last. But man must be prepared for the present as well as for the future. Man must have something for every century of human history, a reve- lation for the barbarian as well as for the Greek, the Gentile as well as the Jew, the dark-minded African as well as the open-minded Euro- pean, the South Sea Islander as well as the Asiatic, the child as well as the man. It is just in this respect that the Holy Scriptures in the New Testament are so permanent and have in them religious instruc- tions for the world. They were designs for the training of Israel in every stage of their development, and so they will train all minds in every stage of their development. It does no harm to the advanced student to look back upon the uneducated years of his youthful days. It does not harm the Christian to see the many imperfections, crudities and errors of the more ele- mentary instructions of the Old Testament. Nor does it destro\' his faith of the truthfulness of the Divine Word because it has passed through human hands. The infallible will has all the time been at work using the imperfect medium, training them to their utmost capacity, to get man to raise them, to advance them in the true relig- ion. The great books are always pointing forward and upward. They are always extending in all directions They are now, as the)' always have been, true and faithful guides to God and all the highest. They are now, as they always have been, trustworthy and reliable in their religious instruction. They are now, as they always have been, alto- gether truthful in their testimony to the heart and experience of mankind. Written and Printed Word. T^he Qatholic (phurch and the H^ly §criptures. Paper by RT. REV. MGR. SETON, of Newark, N. J. IBLE is the name now given to the sacred books of the Jews and Christians. Indepen- dently of all considerations of its moral and religious advantages, we believe that no book has conduced more than the Bible to the intellectual advancement of the human race; we believe that no book has been to so many and so abundantly wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in sickness, society in sol- itude; and as a divinely inspired work, such as the testimony of the Jewish nation for the greater part of it and the tradition of the Christian church for the whole of it, declares it to be, it claims our sincerest homage The relations of the church to these Scriptures of the Old and New Testament form an important part of dogmatic theology and an inter- esting portion of ecclesiastical history. Ihey have, also, been the occasion of religious differences in the Christian body; for as the wise Englishman, John Selden, said in his Table Talk of two centuries ago, " 'Tis a great question how we know Scripture to be Scripture, whether by the church or by man's private judgment." We shall not discuss purely controversial matters, but limit ourselves to an introductory statement of facts and to a brief consideration of the Canon, the Inspiration and the Vulgate edition of Scripture. The church is a living society commissioned by Jesus Christ to preserve the word of God pure and unchanged. This revealed word of God is contained partly in the Holy Scripture and partly in tradi- tion. The former is called the Written Word of God. Writing, not necessarily, indeed, on paper, but as often found on more durable materials, such as clay or brick, tablets, stone slabs and cylinders, and metal plates, being the art of fixing thoughts in an intelligible and 106 Rt. Rev. Mgr. Seton, Newark, N. J. Written THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 109 lasting shape, so as to fiand them down to other generations and thus perpetuate historical records. There is a special congruity that the Almighty, from whose instructions not only original spoken, but prob- ably also written, language was derived, should have put His divine revelations in writing through the instrumentality of chosen men; and as the human race is originally one, we think that the fact that script- ures of some sort claiming to be inspired are found in all the civilized nations of the past, shows that such conceptions, although outside of the orthodox line of tradition, are derived from the primitive unity and religion of the human family. The church teaches that the sacred Scriptures are the written Word of God and that He is their author, and consequently she receives them with piety and reverence. This gives a distinct character to the Bible which no other book possesses, for of no mere human composition, however excellent, can it ever be said that it comes directly from God. The church also maintains that it belongs to her — and to her alone — to determine the true sense of the Scriptures, and that they cannot be Word of God.' rightly interpreted contrary to her decision; because she claims to be and is the living, unerring authority to whom — and not to those who expound the Scripture by the light of private judgment— infallibility was promised and given. Her teaching is the rule of faith, since she is a visible, perpetual and universal organization, possessed of legislative, executive and judicial functions. She is historically independent of the Holy Script- - ures, some parts thereof being anterior and other parts subsequent to her own existence, but receives safeguards and preserves them as her most sacred deposit, somewhat as. to make a comparison taken from our civil polity, the government of the United States in its three co- ordinate branches venerates, interprets and executes the American constitution. One of the duties incumbent upon the pastors of the church, in the conduct of public worship, has ever been the reading of the Script- ures with an explanation of what was read or an exhortation derived from it. Durmg the middle ages, owing to the lack of those aids and appliances, such especially as archaeology and comparative philolog}', learned and scientific as contrasted with scholastic and devotional in- terpretation of the Holy Scripture, although never quite neglected, oc- cupied relatively only a small share in the studies of those times. The Catholic principles as to the general use of the Bible may be deduced from the Tridentine decree, which was particularly directed against those irreverent and sometimes blasphemous expounders of holy writ, whom the council qualifies as " petulant spirits." According to our view, the Bible does not contain the whole of revealed truth, /:f°«'PJ', ^^ nor IS it necessary tor every Christian to read and understand it. 1 lie church existed as an organized society, having powers from her Di\'inc Founder to teach all nations, before the Scriptures as a whole existed and before there was question or dispute about an\- part (.>f the Script- ures. 110 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Vernacular Versions. 8e^)tu a g i n t Version. The redemption by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ being the central idea of all Christian instruction, the Old Testament subjects in these rare and valuable works were chosen for their typical significance and relation to it, and thus the people were instructed in a manner not less calculated to excite their piety than that which is conveyed by means of speech. During this present century several popes have warned the faithful against societies which distribute vernacular ver- sions, often corrupt ones, with the avowed purpose of unsettling the belief of simple-minded Catholics; but it is unjust to conclude from this that the church is not solicitous for her children to read the Bible if this be correctly rendered into their language and they possess the necessary qualifications and jjroper disposition. The Christian church did not recei\c the canon of Old Testament Scripture. from the Jewish synagogue, because there was not settled Hebrew canon until long after the promulgation of the Gospel. The inspired writers of the New Testament did not enumerate the books received by Christ and His disciples. Nevertheless, we are certain that the Septuagint version, or translation of the Old Testament Scriptures into Greek, made some part (the Pentateuch) at Alexandria about 280 \'ears B. C, and the rest, made also in Egypt before 133 B. C, which contains several books now thrown out by the Jews, was favorably viewed and almost constantly quoted from by them, so that .Saint Augustine says that it is "of most grave and pre-eminent authorit}-." It is supposed to be the oldest of all the v'ersions of the Scriptures and was commonly used in the church for four centuries, since from it was made that very early Latin translation which was used in the western part of the empire before the introduction of Saint Jerome's Vulgate. It was held in great repute for a long time by the Jews and read in their synagogues, until it became odious to them on account of the arguments drawn from it by the Christians. From it the great body of the fathers have quoted, and it is still used in the Greek church. This celebrated translation contains all the books of the Old Testa- ment which Catholics acknowledge to be genuine. The Christian writers of the first three centuries were unanimous in accepting these books as inspired; and the letter of Pope Saint Clement, written about A. D. g6, indicates that a scriptural canon must already have been fixed upon by apostolical tradition in the church at Rome, since the author cites from almost every one of the books of the Old Testament, including those called deutero-canonical and rejected by the Jews. At the council of Florence the canon was not discussed. "A clear proof," says Dixon in his General Introduction to the-. Sacred Scripture, "that the Greek and Latin churches were then unanimous upon this point." At this period, A. D. 1439, the decree of union drawn up by Pope Eugene IV for the Orientals who came to Rome to abjure their errors, gives the canon as it had always been held by his predecessors. In the next century the Bible having become an occasion of bitter religious controversy, the canonicity of the .Script- ures was thoroughly discussed and forever settled for Catholics by THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 1 1 1 the council of Trent, which uses these words in the fourth session, held on the 8th day of April, A. D. 1546: The synod, "following the examples of the orthodox fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety and reverence, all the books, both of the Old and of the New Testament, seeing that one God is the author of both; and it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in anyone's mind which are the books that are received by this synod." Inspiration is a certain influence of the Holy Spirit upon the mind of a writer urging him to write, and so acting upon him that his work is truly the word of God. Father, since Cardinal, Franzelin's second thesis on the sacred Scriptures, in his course at the Roman college in 1864, states the Catholic idea of inspiration in the following words: ."As books may be called divine in several senses, the Scriptures, according to Catholic doctrine contained both in the apostolic writ- ings and in unbroken tradition, must be held to be divine in this sense, ijeaof inspi* that they are the books of God as their efficient cause and that God ration, is the author of these books by His supernatural action upon their human writers, which action is styled inspiration in ecclesiastical terminology derived from the Scriptures themselves," The Holy Scriptures have been translated into every language, but among these almost innumerable versions one only, which is called the Vulgate, is authorized and declared to be "authentic" by the church. The belief of the faithful being that the doctrinal authority of the church extends to positive truths and "dogmatic facts" which, although not revealed, are necessary for the exposition or defense of revelation. The Vulgate has an interesting history. It is the common opin- ion that, from the first age of Christianity, one particular version made from the Septuagint, was received and sanctioned by the church in Rome and used throughout the west. Among individual Christians almost innumerable Latin translations were current, but only one of these, called the Old Latin, bore an official stamp. These translations, corrections and portions left untouched by Saint Jerome, being brought together form the Vulgate, which, how- ever, did not displace the old version for two centuries, although it spread rapidly and constantly gained strength, until about A. D 600 it was generally received in the churches of the west and has continued ever since in common use. In the collect for the feast of Saint Jerome, September 30th, he is called, "A doctor mighty in expounding Holy Scripture." 2 (character and D^S^^^ o^ the Inspiration of the (christian §criptures. Paper by REV. FRANK SEWALL, of New York. HERE is a common consent among Christians that the Scriptures known as the Holy Bible are divinely inspired, that they constitute a book unlike all other books in that thej- con- tain a direct communication from the Divine Spirit to the mind and heart of man. The nature and the degree of the inspiration which thus characterizes the Bible can only be learned from the declaration of the Holy Scriptures themselves, since only the Divine can truly reveal the Divine or afford to human minds the means of judging truly regarding what is divine. The Christian Scripture, or the Holy Bible, is written in two parts, the Old and the New Testament. In the interval of time that transpired between the writing of these two parts, the divine truth and essential word which, in the beginning, was with God and was God, became incarnate on our earth in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He, as the word made flesh and dwelling among men, being himself "the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world," placed the seal of divine authority upon certain of the then existing sacred Scriptures. He thus forever fixed the divine canon of that portion of the written word; and from that portion we are enabled to derive a criterion of judgment regarding the degree of divine inspi- ration and authority to be attributed to those other scriptures which were to follow after our Lord's ascension and which constitute the New Testament. The Divine Canon of the Word in the Old Testament Scriptures is declared by our Lord in Luke, twenty-fourth chaptfer, forty-fourth verse, where he says: "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning 113 Olii Teetament Scriptnree. 114 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Me." And in verses twenty-five to twenty-seven: "O, fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken;" and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scripture things concerning Himself. The Scriptures of the Old Testament, thus enumerated as testify- ing of Him and as being fulfilled in Him, embrace two of the three divisions into which the Jews at that time divided their sacred books. These two are the Law (Torah ). or the Five Books of Moses, so-called, and the Prophets (Nebiim ). Of the books contained in the third division of the Jewish canon, known as the Ketubim, or "Other Writ- ings," our Lord recognizes but two; He names by title "The Psalms," and in Matthew, twenty-fourth chapter, fifteenth verse, when predict- ing the consummation of the age and His own second coming, our Lord cites the prophecy of Daniel. It is e\'ident that our Lord was not governed by Jewish tradition in naming these three classes of the ancient books which were henceforth to be regarded as essentially "The Word," because of having their fulfillment in Himself. In the very words of Jesus Christ the canon of the word is estab- lished in a twofold manner: First, intrinsically, as including those books which interiorly testify of Him, and were all to be fulfilled in The Law, the Him. Secondly, the canon is fixed specifically by our Lord's naming ?i'^''H^!i^*°'^ the books which compose it under the three divisions: "The law, the (he i salms. i i i i >» prophets and the psalms. The canon in this sense comprises, consequently, the five books of Moses, or the "law," so-called; the books of Joshua, the Judges, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, or the so-called earlier prophets; the later prophets, including the four "great" and the twelve "minor" prophets, and finally the booT< of Psalms. The other books of the Old Testament are P2zra, Nehemiah, Job, Proverbs, P"irst and Second Chronicles, Ruth, Esther, the Song of Solomon and P2cclesiastes, as well as the so-called ".Apocrypha." Of these books, which compose the Divine Canon itself, it maybe said that they constitute the inexhaustible source of revelation and inspiration. We may regard, therefore, as established that the source of the divinity of the Bible, of its unity, and its authority as divine revelation lies in having the Christ— as the Eternal Word within it, at once its source, its inspiration, its prophecy, its fulfillment, its jjower to illuminate the minds of men with a knowledge of divine and spirit- ual things, to "convert the soul," to "make wise the simple." We next observe regarding these divine books, that, besides being Word of iho thus set apart by Christ, they declare themselves to be the word of the Lord in the sense of being actually spoken by the Lord and so as constituting a divine language. This shows that not only do these books claim to be of God's revealing, but that the manner of the revelation was that of direct dictation by means of a voice actually heard, as one hears another- talking, although by the internal organs of hearing. The same is also true throughout the prophetical books above enumerated. Here we arc met with the constant declaration of THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 115 the "Word of the Lord coming," as the "voice of the Lord speaking," to the writers of these books, showing that the writers wrote not of themselves, but from the "voice of the Lord through them " We now turn to the New Testament, and applying to these books TheNewToa- which in the time of Christ were yet unwritten, criteria derived from tamt-nt. those books which had received from him the seal of divine authority, namely, that they are words spoken by the Lord or given by His spirit, and that they testify of Him and so have in them eternal life; we find in the four Gospels either: First. The words "spoken unto" us by our Lord Himself when among men as the Word, and of which He says: "The words which I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life." Second The acts done by Him or to Him "that the Scriptures might be fulfilled," or finally the words " called to the remembrance " of the apostles and the evangelists by the Holy Spirit according to His promise to them, in John xiv, 26. Besides the four Gospels we have the testimony of John the Revelator that the visions recorded in the Apocalypse were vouchsafed to him by the Lord Himself, thus showing that the book of Revelation is no mere personal communica- tion from the man John, but is the actual revelation of the Divine Spirit of truth itself. No such claims of direct divine inspiration or dictation arc made in any other part of the New Testament Only to the four Gospels and to the book of Revelation could one presume to apply these words, written at the close of the Apocalypse and applying immedi- ately to it. "If any man shall take away from the words of the proph- ecy of this book God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the Holy City and from the things which are written in this book." In the portion of the Bible which we may thus distinguish pre-eminently as the "Word of the Lord," it is therefore the words themselves that are inspired, and not the men that transmitted them. This is what our Lord declares. Moreover, the very words which the apostles and the evangelists themselves heard and the acts which they beheld and recorded had a meaning and content of which they were partially, and in some cases totally, ignorant. Thus when our Lord speaks of the "eating of His flesh" the disciples murmur, "This is an hard saying; who can bear it?" and when He speaks of "going away to the Father and coming again." the disciples say among themselves, "What is this that He saith? We cannot tell what He saith." If we look at the Apocalypse, with its strange visions, its myste- rious numbers and signs, if we read the prophets of the Old Testament, with their commingling of times and nations, and lands and seas, and things animate and inanimate, in a manner discordant with any con- ceivable earthly history or chronology, if we read the details of the ceremonial law dictated to Moses in the Mount by the "voice of Jeho- vah;" if we read in Genesis the account of creation and of the origins of human history, wc are compelled to admit that the penmen record- 116 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. ing these things were writing that of which they knew not the meaning; that what they wrote did not represent their intelligence or counsel, but Divine Reve- ^vas the faithful record of what was delivered to them by the voice of i**D°iaml'^^ the Spirit speaking inwardly to them. Here, then, we see the manner of divine revelation in human language again definitely declared and exemplified in Jesus the word incarnate, in that not only in His acts did He employ signs and miracles, but in teaching His disciples He "spake in parables," and "without a parable spake He not to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept sacred from the foundation of the world." We learn, therefore, that the divine language is that of parable wherein things of the king- dom of heaven are clothed in the familiar figures of earthly speech and action. If the Bible is divine, the law of its revelation must be coin- cident with that of divine creation. Both are the involution of the divine and Infinite in a series of veils or symbols, which become more and more gross as they recede from their source. In revelation the veilings of the divine truth of the essential Word follow in accord- ance with the receding and more and more sensualized states of man- kind upon earth. Hence, the successive dispensations, or church eras, which mark off the whole field of human history After the Eden days of open vision when "heaven lay about us in our infancy" fol- lowed the Noetic era of a sacred language, full of heavenly meanings, traces of which occur in the hieroglyphic writings and the great world — myths of most ancient tradition; then came the; visible and localized theocracy of a chosen nation, with laws and ritual and a long history of its war and struggle and victory and decline, and the promise of a final renewal and perpetuation; all being at the same time a revelation of God's providence and government over man, and a picture of the process of the regeneration of the human soul and its preparation for an eternal inheritance in heaven. But even the law of God thus revealed in the form of a national constitution, hierarchy and ritual was at length made of none effect through the traditions of men, and men "seeing saw not, and hearing heard not, neither did they understand." Then for the redemption of man in this extremity "the Word itself was made flesh and dwelt among us," and now, in the veil of a humanity subject to human temptation and suffering, even to the death upon the cross. Thus the process of the evolution of the Spirit out of the veil of the letter of the Scripture, begun in our Lord's own interpretation of the "Law for those of ancient time," is a process to whose further con- tinuance the Lord Himself testifies. The letter of Scripture is the cloud which everywhere proclaims the presence of the Infinite God with His creature man. The cloud of the Lord's presence is the infin- itely merciful adaptation of divine truth to the spiritual needs ot humanity. The cloud of the literal gospel and of the apostolic tradi- tions of our Lord is truly typified by that cloud wiiich received the THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 117 ascending Christ out of the immediate sight of men. The same letter of the Word is the cloud in which He makes known His second comiug in power and great glory, in revealing to the church the inner and cioud of the spiritual meaning of both the Old and New Testaments of His Word. Literal fioer>ei. For ages the Christian church has stood gazing up into heaven in ado- ration of Him whom the cloud has hidden from their sight, and with the traditions of human dogma and the warring of schools and critics, more and more dense has the cloud become. In the thickness of the cloud it behooves the church to hold the more fast its faith in the glory within the cloud. The view of the Bible and its inspiration thus presented is only one compatible with a belief in it as a divine in contradistinction from a human production. Were the Bible a work of human art, embody- ing human genius and human wisdom, then the question of the writers' individuality and their personal inspiration, and even of the time and circumstances amid which they wrote, would be of the first importance. Not so if the divine inspiration and wisdom is treasured up in the ver\' words themselves as divinely chosen symbols and parables of eternal truth. Far from placing a human limitation upon the divine Spirit, such a verbal inspiration as this opens in the Bible vistas of heavenly and divine meanings such as they could never possess were its inspira- tion confined to the degree of intelligence possessed by the human writers, even under a special illumination of their minds. The difference between inspired words of God and inspired men writing their own words, is like that between an eternal fact of nature and the scientific theories which men have formulated upon or about it. The fact remains forever a source of new discovery and a means of ever new revelation of the divine; the scientific theories may come and go with the changing minds of men. It is not, then, from man, from the intelligence of any Moses, or Daniel, or Isaiah, or John, that the Word of God contains its authority as divine. The authority must be in the words themselves. If they are unlike all other words ever written; if they have a meaning, yea, worlds and worlds of meaning, one within or above another, while human words have all their meaning on the surface; if they have a message who,se truth is dependent upon no single time or circum- stance, but speaks to man at all times and under all circumstances; if they have a validity and an authority self-dictated to human souls, which survives the passing of earthly monuments and powers, which speaks in all languages, to all minds — wise to the learned, simple to the simple — if, in a word, these are words that experience shows no man could have written from the intelligence belonging to his time, or from the experience of any single human soul, then may we feel sure that we have in the words of our Bible that which is diviner than any pen- man that wrote them. Here is that which " speaks with authority and not as the scribes." The words that God speaks to man are " spirit and are life." The authorship of the Bible and all that this implies of divine authority to 118 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. the conscience of man is contained, like the flame of the Urim and Thummim, on the breastplate of the high priest, in the bosom of its It Abide th own language to reveal itself by the spirit to all who will " have an ear Forewr. ^q hear." So shall it continue to utter the " dark parables of old which we have known and our fathers have told us," and " to show forth to all generations the praises of the Lord," becoming ever more and more translucent with the glory that shines within the cloud of the letter; and so shall the church rest, amid all the contentions that engage those who study the surface of revelation, whether in nature or in Scripture, in the undisturbed assurance that the " Word of the Lord abidcth forever." WM^ CQ Influence of the Hebrew S^^ip^^^^s. Paper by DR. ALEXANDER KOHUT, of New York. Viewed in tJit Light of Faith. _ CharacteriB- tic8 of Israel's Faith. O them who, cradled in the infancy of faith, rocked by the violent tempests of adversity and tried by passion waves of lurking tempta- tion; who, seeking virtue find but vice; who, striving for the ideal, gain but the bleakest summit of realism; who, sorely pressed by rude time and ruder destiny and whirled by gay balloons of chance into rainbow clouds of space, redescend into the sad arena of mortal tragedy, only to encounter fresh shipwrecks in the turbulent oceans of existence; God is the anchor of a new-born hope, the electric quickener of life's uneven current, drifting into His harbor of safest refuge from the hur- ricane of outward seas into the gladsome, cheery gulf shores of welcome peace, the placid water's sacred con- sciousness, wherein no ship, no craft, no burden and no trust ever founders, the tranquil Bible streams. Faith is a spark of God's own flame and nowhere did it burn with more persistence and vehemence than in the ample folds of Israel's devotion. With faith as the corner-stone of the future, the glorious past of the Jew, suffused with the warmest sunshine of divine efful- jjence and human trust, reflects the most perfect image of individual and national existence. Faith — the Bible creed of Israel — was the first and most vital principle of universal ethics, and it was the Jew, now the I*ariah pilgrim of ungrateful humanity, who bequeatlied the precious legacy to Semitic-Aryan nations; who sowed the healthy seeds of irradicablc belief in often unfertile ground, but with inex- haustible vigor infused that inherent vitality of propagation and endurance, which forever marks the progress and triumph of God's chosen, though unaccepted people. The sonorous clang of the trite adage, "The Hebrews drank of the fountain, the Greeks from the stream, and the Romans from the pool," applied by an able critic, is more universally acknowledged with the dawn of unbiased reason, turned upon history with the 120 Dr. Alexander Kohut, New York, THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 123 Diogenes lantern of searching justice. The religion of Israel is the grandest romance of idealism, blended with the sedate realism of ter- restrial perpetuity. Every unprejudiced mind gladly acknowledges that the Bible, the divine encyclopedia of unalienable truths and morals, belongs to the world, like the sun, the air, the ocean, the rivers, the fountains — the common heirloom of humanity. The doctrine of divine unity, by collecting all the scattered race of beauty and excellence, from every quarter of the universe, and con- densing them into one overpowering conception — by tracing the innu- merable rills of thought and feeling to the fountain of an infinite mind — surpasses the most elegant and ethereal polytheism immeasur- ably more than the sun does the "cinders of the element." However beautiful the mythology of Greece, as interpreted by Wordsworth, it must yield without a struggle to the thought of a great One Spirit. Compared to those conceptions, how does the fine dream of the pagan mythus melt away; Olympus, with its multitude of stately, celestial natures dwindles before the solitary, immutable throne of Adonay, the poetry as well as the philosophy of Greece shrink before the single sentence, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord," or before any one of these ten majestic commands hurled down amid lurid blaze above in a halo of divine revelation! The history of the Jewish nation offers to the consideration of the philosopher and the chronicler many peculiar circumstances nowhere else exemplified in any one branch of the great family of mankind, originating from one common stem. In all the characteristics which iistinguish the Israelites from other nations, the difference is wide. The most remarkable of the distinctions which di\ide the Jewish people from the rest of the world is the immutability of their laws. Revelation, the primal source of inspiration and prophecy, set the universe on fire with a torch of blazing grandeur aglow with the com- bustible sparks of heaven-imparted gifts and illuminated the softly creeping shadows of fast decaying races with the brightest colors of a future hope. Revelation, the essence of religious relief, was the guid- Kssencp of ing star in the unstudded labyrinth of national and individual progress RpiiKious Be- and inspiration. The code bequeathed to Israel by their great law- giver contains, as a modern exegetist, Wilkins, aptly remarked, "the only complete body of law ever vouchsafed to a people at one time." The Mosaic ordinance, with its unequalcd mastery of detail, its com- prehensiveness of character, its universality of human rights and rigid suppression of most trivial wrongs, its earnest, nay, enthusiastic avowal and championship of truth, justice, morality and above all righteous- ness — yet the firmest seal of His imperishable document — is the most unique marvel of lofty wisdom and divine forethought ever penned into the inspired records of ancient history. Righteousness, from its patriarchal primitivcness to the full-grow ii glory of prophetic instinct, is the choicest pearl of biblical ethics, ami, excepting the fervent sentiment of brotherly love, which is so often 124 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. commended by the sages of the Tahnud, embodying the frequent teachings of the Nazarene, pleads most eloquently Judea's claim as the first moral preceptor of antiquity. Bible ethics, justice, morality, righteousness and all the mighty elements embodied in virtuous life are summed up in Judaism's great truths, faithfully portrayed and preserved to mankind in that ponder- ous volume of poetic inspirations. Israel's Bible first re-echoed the reverberating melody of truth as a musical synonym for omniscience. No more plausible evidence of Scripture verity can be cited than Abraham, that staunch pioneer of monotheism, who, after mocking the household gods of Terah, emerged from his gross surroundings in Ur of Chaldean magic, unscathed by the stigma of sinful idolatry and Ev^id^c™ o^ prosecuted his noble mission of popularizing the God-idea with una- scripture Ver- bated vigor. The same God, with whom Abraham's chivalric spirit of *^*' brother-redeeming love pleaded, Jacob's dreaming fancy beheld en- throned on the celestial ladder-top of sterling faith. That very same invigorating and omnipresent impulse preserved Joseph's chastity; lured Moses from his flocks to guide a nation's destiny; led Joshua to victory; smote the enemies of Gideon and gave Samson iron strength. David's lyre pealed forth, Solomon's wisdom lauded, and prophecy proclaimed the majesty of God the only truth, in poetry, in rhythmic prose and in melody of song What, then, is truth but faith ; what, then, is faith but trust in His sole unity, and where else so manifest as in Judea's inscribed rock of salvation? Israel's entire history teems with apt illustration to preserve intact their sublime doctrine of the All Father, and jealously guard every accessory to higher, perfecter conception of the potential Deity — Jehovah — the Lord of Hosts. \Vc "search the writ" according to its liberal dictates and cannot but remark a tacit, unflinching and unbending perseverance, continu- ally on the alert to comprehend and appropriate a deeper, more enlightening idea of God and His ways. "We have seen." again remarks Mathew Arnold, "how in its intuition of God — of that net ourselves, of which all mankind from some conception or other — as the eternal that makes for righteousness, the Hebrew race found the revelation needed to breathe the notion into the laws of morality and to make morality religion. This revelation is the capital fact of the Old Testament and the source of its grandeur and power. F"or while other nations had the misleading idea that this or that other than right- eousness is saving, and it is not; that this or that, other than conduct, brings happiness, and it does not, Israel had the true idea — that righteousness is saving, that to conduct belongs happiness." We have pointed out the priceless benefits conferred upon man- kind by Israel's Bible. It only remains to be briefly demonstrated to what degree humanity is indebted to Hebrew scriptures for gifts equall\' invaluable, though not so generallj- accredited to Judaism by the envy of modern skeptics. On Judea's soil, that green oasis in the desert of antiquity, there THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OP RELIGIONS. 125 blossomed the bud of polite arts, of the so much boasted sciences of later Greece and plagiarizing;^ Rome. Greece and Rome were indebted to-humble Israel for that reputed familiarity with profound* philosophy and cognate learning which ascribed to any source and every origin, save that here atlvocated, the wide diffusion of Hebraic wisdom among the heathen nations of the past. Can Plato, Demosthenes, Cato, Cicero and other thunderers of eloquence compete with such lightning rods of magnetic power as Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and other past orators of Bible times? Who wrote nobler history, Moses, Livy or Herodotus? Were ^.^^ ^.^^ the dramas and tragedies of Sophocles, /Eschylus and Euripides sion of Hebraic worthy of classification with the masterpieces of realism and grand ' °°^" cosmogonic conceptions, furnished us in thesoul-\ibrating account of Job's martyrdom? In poetry and hymnology, the harp of David is tuned to sweeter melody than Virgil's ^neid or Horace's odes. Strabo's accurate geographical and ethnological accounts are not more thorough in detail than scriptural narratives and the famous tenth chapter of Genesis. The haughty philosophical maxims of Mar- ' cus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca fade into insignificance before the edifying discourse and moral chidings of Koheleth, whose very pessi- mism, in contradistinction to heathenish levity, failed not to inspire and instruct. Compare the ethics of Aristotle with those pure gems of monition to truth, righteousness and moral chastity contained in the Book of Proverbs, as confront even the all-conquering wisdom of Soc- rates with Solomonic sagacity. "The Zephyrs of Attica were as bland, and Helicon and Parnassus were as lofty and verdant before Judea put forth her displays of learning and the arts as afterward." Yet no Homer was ever heard reciting the vibrating strains of poetry with David. Isaiah and other monarchs of genius and soul culture poured forth their sublime symphonies in the holy land; yet none of all the muses breathed their inspiration ov^er Greece till the spirit of the Most High had awakened the soul of letters and of arts in the nation of the Hebrews. Not to Egypt, Phoenicia, or S}'ria, do Greece and her apt disciplC; Rome, owe their eminence in the entertaining and refined branches of learning. They flourished at a period so remote that fable replaces fact, and no authentic records — chiefly obtained through a comparatively new field in modern exploration — are extant which establish an impartial priority of culture and science before the He- braic age. Egypt is accredited with far too much distinction in knowledge which she never possessed to any eminent degree Recent excava- tions and discoveries from ruins of her ancient cities tend to corrobo- rate our view. A mass of inscribed granite, a papyrus roll, or a sar- cophagus, bears the tell-tale message of her standard in taste and her progress in art. "They prove.'' says IJosmer, "that if she was ever en- titled to be called the Cradle of Science, it must have been when science, owing to the feebleness of infancy, required the use of a cradle. But when science had outgrown the appendages of bewildering and Pre-eminence 126 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. tottering infancy, and had reached matured form and strength. Egypt was neither her guardian nor her home." Many of Egypt's works of art, for which an antiquity has been claimed that would place them anterior to David and Solomon, have been shown to be compara- tively modern; while those confessedly of an earlier date have marks of an age which may have excelled in compact solidity, but knew lit- tle or nothing of finished symmetry or grace. Architecture, the boast of Greece and the pride of Assyria, whose stately palaces at Nineveh are to this day the marxel of the world, attained its loftiest summit oi perfection in the noble structure reared by Israel's mighty hand in Jerusalem, of which the holy tabernacle mounted by the cherubim ot peace and sanctity was the magnificent model. No one acquainted with the history of the Hebrews can question their pre-eminence in the noble art. The proof of it is found in the record that endureth forever. Though the temple at Jerusalem was destroyed before Greece became fully adorned with her splendid archi- in tiie Art of tccturc, the plan which had been given by inspiration from heaven, re iitectnre. ^^^ according to which the peerless edifice was built, remains written at full length in Hebrew scriptures. The dimensions, the form and proportions of all the parts are described with minute exactness. Everything that could impart grandeur, grace, symmetry to the art palace of worship, and which made it to be called for ages "the excel- lency of beauty," was placed in the imperishable volume to be con- sulted by all nations in all ages. Wherever we turn, in fact, we are forcibly reminded of Israel's precious legacies to mankind in almost every department ot industry. VVe must ever return and sit at the feet of the Hebrew bards, who as teachers, as poets, as truthful and earnest men, stand as yet alone — - unsurmounted and unapproached — the Himalayan mountains of man- kind. The Hebrew scriptures, not mere trickery of fate, is the cause and effect of the long life and immortality of Judaism. To us " the dictum of a romantic scribe," unique among all the peoples of the earth, it has come undoubtedly to the present day from the most dis- tant antiquity. Forty, perhaps fifty, centuries rest upon this vener- able contemporary of Egypt, Chaldea and Troy. The Hebrew defied the Pharaohs; with the sword of Gideon he smote the Midianite; in Jephthah, the children of Ammon. The purple chariot bands of Assyria went back from his gates humbled and diminished. Babylon, indeed, tore him from his ancient seats and led him captive by strange waters, but not long. He had fastened his love upon the heights of Zion, and, like an elastic cord, that love broke not, but only drew with the more force as the distance became great. He saw the Hellenic flower bud, bloom and wither upon the soil of Greece. He saw the wolf of Rome suckled on the banks of the Tiber, then prowl ravenous for dominion to the ends of the earth, until paralysis and death laid hold upon its savage sinews. At last Israel was scattered over the lensfth and breadth of the THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. J 27 earth. In eveiy kingdom of the modern world there has been a Jew- ish element. There are Hebrew clans in China, on the steppes of Cen- tral Asia, in the desert heat of Africa. The most powerful races have not been able to assimilate them. The bitterest persecution, so far from exterminating them, has not eradicated a single characteristic. In mental and moral traits, in form and feature even, the Jew today is the same as when Jerusalem was the peer of Tyre and Babylon. And why not strive through the coming ages to live in fraternal concord and harmonious unison with all the nations on the globe? Not theory but practice, deed not creed, should be the watchword of jj^^ ^^^ modern races stamped with the blazing characters of rational equity Creed, and unselfish brotherhood Why not, then, admit the scions of the mother religion, the wandering Jew of myth and harsh reality, into the throbbing affections of faith-permeating, equitable peoples now inhabiting the mighty hemispheres of culture and civilization? Three religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, imbibed the liquid of enlightenment from that virgin spring of truth, and yet they are distinct, estranged from each other by dogmatic separatism and a fibrous accumulation of prejudice, which yet awaits the redeeming champion of old, who with Herculean grasp of irrevocable conviction should hurl far away the lead-weight of passion and bigotry, of malice and egotism from the historical streams of original truth, equity and righteousness. Three religions and now many more are gathered at the sparkling fountain of a glorious enterprise in the cause of truth, congregated beneath the solid splendor of a powerful throne, wherein reclines the new monarch of disenthralling sentiment, a glorious sov^- ereign of God-anointed grace, to examine and to judge with the impartial scepter of Israel's holiest emblem — justice— the merits of a nation, who are as irrepressible as the elements, as unconquerable as reason and as immortal as the starry firmament of eternal hope. The scions of many creeds are convened at Chicago's succoring parliament of religions, aglow with enthusiasm, imbued with the courage of expiring fear, electrified with the absorbing anticipation of dawning light. The hour has struck. Will the stone of abuse, a bur- den brave Israel bore for countless centuries, on the rebellious well of truth, at last be shattered into merciless fragments by that invention of every-day philosophy, the gun-powder of modern war, rational con- viction; and finally, a blessed destiny, establish peace for all faiths and unto all mankind? Who knows? Rev. Prof. George P. Fisher, Yale College. (Christianity a f^eligion of pacts. Paper by PROF G. P. FISHER, D. D., of Yale College. N saying that Christianity is an "historical re- ligion," more is meant, of course, than that it appeared at a certain date in the world's his- tory. This is true of all the religions of man- kind, except those which grew up at times prior to authentic records and sprung up through a spontaneous, gradual process. The significance of the title of this paper is that, in distinction from every system of religious thought or speculation, like the philosophy of Plato or Hegel, and from every religion which consists exclusively, or almost exclusively, like Moham- medanism, of doctrines and precepts, Christian- ity incorporates in its very essence facts or transactions on the plane of historical action. I • These are not accidents, but are fundamental in the religion of the Gospel. The preparation of Christianity is indissolu- bly involved in the history of ancient Israel, which comprises a long succession of events. The Gospel itself is, in its foundations, made up of historical occurrences, without which, if it does not dissolve into thin air, it is transformed into something quite unlike itself. More- over, the postulates of the Gospel, or the conditions which make its function in the world of mankind possible and rational, are likewise in the realm of fact, as contrasted with theoretic conviction or opinion. We can best illustrate and confirm the foregoing remarks by referring to a passage in one of the writings of the great Christian apostle, St. Paul. It stands at the beginning of the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians. The state of the Corinthian church, disgraced as it was by con- troversies upon the relative merits of the teachers from whom they had received the Gospel, was the occasion which led St. Paul to bring out in bolder relief the essential principles of Christianity. These would put to flight all radical errors, and at the same time cast into the shade minor topics of contention. A due regard to fundamental truth would quell dissension. 9 129 In the RealiE of Fact. 130 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The apostle begins the passage with announcing his intention to describe the Gospel which he had preached to the Corinthians, which they had embraced, in which they stood, indeed, as a vain thing, an idea that none for a moment would admit. After this preface, he pro- ceeds to give a formal statement of that which constitutes the Gospel, and the point which challenges attention is this — that the Gospel, as Paul here describes it, is made up of a series of facts. It is the story of Jesus Christ — of His death and resurrection. And all the proofs to which he makes allusions are also matters of fact. The Gospel a These circumstanccs in the Saviour's life were " according to the Script- aeriesof Facts, ures;" that is, in agreement with the predictions of the Old Testament. They arc vouched for by witnesses, and the grounds of their credibility are stated. Not only James and Peter and the other apostles were still alive, but the greater part of the five hundred disciples who were in the company of Jesus after His resurrection were also living and could be appealed to. And, finally, he himself had been suddenly converted from bitter enmity, by a specific occurrence, by seeing Jesus, and had set about the work of a teacher, not of his own notion, but by the Saviour's express command — a command to which he was not disobedient. Into this part of the passage, however, which touches on the evi- dence that satisfied Paul of the historical reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we need not here enter. We simply remark that the nature of these proofs accords with the whole spirit of the passage. It is more the contents of the Gospel as here given than the peculiar character of the evidence for the truth of it that at present calls for consideration. Christianity is distinctly set forth as a religion of facts. Be it observed that in asserting that Christianity is composed of facts, we do not mean to deny it to be a doctrine and a system of doctrine. These facts have all an import, a significance which can be more or less perfectly defined. That Christ was sent into the world is not a bare fact, but He was sent into the world for a purpose, and the end of His mission can be stated. The death of Jesus has certain relations to the divine administration and to ourselves. Thus, in the passage referred to it is said, *' He died for our sins," or to procure for us forgiveness. And of all the facts of the Gospel, they have a theological meaning. The benefit which flows from them corresponds to the character and situation of men, and this condition in which we are placed is one that can be described in plain propositions. " Sin " is not some unknown thing, we cannot tell what, but is "the transgression of the law;" and the meaning of the law and meaning of transgression can be explained. Nor is there any valid objection to saying that the Gospel is a sys- tem of doctrine. These truths, of which we have just given examples, are not isolated and disconnected from each other, but they are related to one another. If we are unable in all cases to combine them and adjust their relations, if there are gaps in the structure not filled out, THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 131 parts that even appear to clash, the same is true of almost every branch of knowledge. The physiologist, the chemist, the astronomer, will confess just this imperfection in their respective sciences. For who, for example, will pretend that he understands the human bod\' so thoroughly that he has nothing to learn and no difficulties to explain? If all human knowledge is defectixe, and if, in every department of research barriers arc set at some point to the progress of discovery, how unreasonable to cry out against Christian theology because the Bible does not reveal everything, and because everything that the Bible does not rev-eal is not yet ascertained. In affirming, then, that the Gospel is pre-eminently a religion of facts, there is no design to favor in the slightest degree the sentimental pietism or the indifference to objective truth, whatever form it ma\' take, which would ignore theological doctrine l^ut there is a sort of explanation and a sort of science which men, especially in these da)s, are prone to demand, which, from the nature of the case, is impossiljlc; and the state of mind in which this demand originates is a fatal dis- qualification for receiving or even comprehending the Gospel. There is a disposition to overlook this grand peculiarity of Chris- tianity, that whatever is essential and most precious in it lies in the sphere of spirit, of freedom. We are taken out of the region of meta- physical necessity and placed among personal beings and among events which find their solution, and all the solution of which they are capable, in the free movement of the will and affections. To seek for an ulterior cause can have no other result than to blind us to the real ^""f^ ¥°,^®" 1 • T 1 nient of t li e nature of the phenomena, which we have to explain. In order to pre- Will, sent the subject in a clear light, let me ask the reader to reflect for a moment on the nature of sin. Look at any act, whether committed by yourself or another, which you feel to be iniquitous. This verdict, with the self-condemnation and shame that attend it. imply that no good reason can be given for such an act. Much more do they imply that it forms no part of that natural development and exercise of our faculties over which we have no control. It is an act — a free act — a breaking away from reason and law — having no cause behind the sinner's will, and admitting of no further explication. Do you ask why one sins? The only answer to be given is, that he is foolish and culpable. You strike upon an ultimate fact, and you will stay by that fact, but to endeavor to make it rational or inevitable you must deny morality, deny that sin is sin and guilt is guilt, and pronounce the simple belief in personal responsibility a delusion. What we have said of a single act of wrongdoing holds good, of course, of morally evil habits and principles. Suppose, again, an act of love and self-sacrifice. A man resolves to give up his life for a religious cause, or a woman, like Florence Nightingale, to forsake her pleasant home for the discomforts and ex- posure of a soldiers' hospital. What shall be said of these actions? Why, plainly you have done with the explanation when you comeback to that principle of free benevolence — to the noble and loving heart — 132 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. from which they spring. To make them links in some necessary proc- An Insult to ess by which they no longer originate in the full sense of the word, in a free preference lying in a sphere apart from natural development and inevitable causation, would be an insult to the soul itself. Or, take a benevolent act of another kind — the forgiveness of an injury. A man whom you have grievously injured magnanimouslj- foregoes his right to exact the penalty, though if he were to exact it you would have no right to complain. His forgiveness is an act, the beauty of which is due to its being a pre-resolve on his part, a will- ing gift, a voluntary love. The supposition of an exterior cause which reduces this act to a mere effect of organization or mental constitution or anything else destroys the very thing which you take in hand to ex- plain. And the consequence would follow if the injury which calls forth pardon were resolved into something besides an unconstrained, inex- cusable, unreasonable, and, in this sense, unaccountable act. So that in the sphere of spirit we come to facts in which we have to rest, there being no further science conceivable. Here the bands of necessity which we find in the material world, and up to a certain point in the operations of the human mind, have no place. We do not account for events here as in the material world, by going back to forces which evolved them and the laws which necessitated them. Enough that here has been a choice to sin, there has been a hoh' will and a love that flinches from no sacrifice. Our solutions are, to use technical language, moral, not metaphysical. We have to do, not with puppets moving about under the pressure of a blind compulsion, but with personal beings, endued with a free spiritual nature. The preceding remarks will suggest our meaning when we affirm that Christianity is a religion of facts. We may even go back of the method of solution to the first truth of religion — that of God, the Cre ator. To give existence to the world was the act of a personal Being, who was not constrained to create but freely put forth His power, be- ing influenced by motives such as His desire to communicate good and increase the sum of blessedness. The existence of the will of God is a fact which admits of no further explication, and he who seeks to go •behind the free will of God in quest of some anterior force, out of which he fancies the world to have been dei'ived, lands in a dream}- pantheism, satisfying neither liis reason nor his heart. But let us come to the Gospel itself. The starting point is in fact concerning our character and condition — the fact of sin, or alienation from fellowship with God. Refuse to look upon sin in this light, just asthe.unperverted conscience looks upon it, and the Gospel has no longer any intelligible purpose. Unless sin brings a separation from God, with whom we ought to be in fellowship and a union with whom is our true life, there is no significance in the Gospel. Here, then, we begin not with an abstract theory or first proof of philosophy, but with a naked fact, which memory and consciousness THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 133 testify to. Sin is something done. It is a hard fact, to be compared to the existence of a disease in the human frame, whose pains are felt in every nerve. And sin, be it observed, is no part of the healthy proc- ess of life, but of the process of death. To presume to think of it as a necessary, normal transition point to the true life of the soul, is to annihilate moral distinctions at a sin- gle stroke. And what is salvation regarded as the work of God? It is a work. It is not a form of knowledge, but is a deed emanating from the love of God. It is an act of His love. Christ is a gift to the world. He teaches, to be sure, but He also goes about doing good, and rises from the dead, opening by what He does a way of reconcil- iation with God. The method of salvation is not a philosophical theorem, but a living friend of sinners, suffering in their behalf and inviting them to a fellowship with Himself. It is the reconciliation of an offender with the government whose laws he has broken, and with the Father whose house he has deserted. In like manner, the reception of the Gospel is not by the knowing faculty, moving through thought. It is rather an act of the will and heart. It is the acceptance of the gift. Repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ are each an act, as much so as repent- ance for a wrong done an earthly friend and faith in his forgiveness. Repentance What is repentance? To cease to do evil and begin to do well, to and Faith, cease to live to ourselves and to begin to live to God. And what is faith? It is an act of confidence by which we commit ourselves to another to be saved by him. When you witness the rescue of a drown- ing man, who is struggling in the waves, by some one who goes to his assistance, you do not call this a philosophy. Here is not a series of conceptions evolved from one another and resting on some ultimate abstraction, but here is life and action. There was distress and ex- treme peril and fear on the one side with no means of self-help; there was compassion, courage and self-sacrifice on the part of him who did the good deed. And the metaphysics of the matter ends when you see this. So it is with Christianity, though the knowledge of it is preserved in a book. It is not, properly speaking, a philosophy. On the contrary, it is made up of the actions of personal beings and of the effect of these upon their relations to each other. There is ill-desert, there is love, there is sacrifice, there is trust and sorrow for sin. The story of the alienation of a son from an earthly parent, of his penitence and return, of his forgiveness and restoration to favor, is a parallel to the realities which make up Christianit}'. The Gospel being thus the very op[)osite of si^cculation, being historical in its very foundations, being simply, as the term imports, the good news of a fact, everytliing depends upon our regarding it from the right ])oint of view. For if we expect to find in the liible that which the Bible does not profess to furnish, and to get from Cliristianity that which Christianity does not undertake to provide, we shall almost invariably be misled. Let us suppose, for example, that 134 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. a person comes to the Bible, having previously persuaded himself that the verdict of conscience and the general voice of mankind respecting moral evil are mistaken. There has been no such jar in the original creation as the doctrine of sin implies. There is no such perversion of the soul from its true destination and true life, no such violation of law as is assumed. But there is nothing save the regular unfolding of human nature passing No Jar in the through various stages of progress according to the primordial design. Original Crea- j^ seems Strange that anyone who has looked into his own heart and looked out for a moment upon the world can hold such a notion as this. Yet the disbelief which presents itself in the garb of philosophy at the present day plants itself on this theory, that the system of things or the cause of things, as we experience it and behold it, is tlie ideal system. There has been no transgression in the proper sense, but only an upward movement from a half brute existence to civilization and enlightenment, the last step of advancement being the discovery that sin is not guilt, but a point of development, and that evil really is good. And the forms of unbelief which do not bring foward distinct theories generally approximate more or less nearly to the view just mentioned. The effect upon the mind of denying the simple reality of sin, as it is felt in the conscience, is decisive. One who embraces such a speculation can make nothing of Christianity, but must either reject it altogether or lose its real contents in the effort to translate them into metaphysical notions of his own. A living God, a living Christ, with a heart full of compassion, offering forgiveness, calling to repentance and His redemption can have no significance. What call for a divine interposition in a system already ideally perfect, with all its harmonies undisturbed ? Why break upon a strain of perfect music? Why give medicine to them who are not ill? They that are whole need not a physician. How evident that the failure to recognize sin as a perverse act proceeding from the will of the creature incapacitates one from receiving Christianity! Now, suppose the case of a person who abides by the plain and well-nigh inevitable declarations of his conscience respecting good and evil, and the utter hostility of one to the other. He has committed sin. His memory recurs in part to the occasions. Every day adds to luwarti Peace. ^\^q number of his transgressions. His motives have not been what they ought to be. A sense of unworthiness weighs him down and sep- arates him, as he feels, from fellowship with every holy being. He is not suffering so much from lack of knowledge. He needs light, it may be, but he has a profounder want, a far deeper source of distress. He desires something to be clone for him to restore his spiritual integ- rity and take him up another plane where he can find inward peace. It is just the case of a child who has fallen under the displeasure of a parent and under the stains of conscience. The want of the soul in this situation is life. The cry is: "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?" We will not stop to inquire whether this state of feeling represents the truth or not; but suppose it to exist, how will THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS 135 a man, thus feeling, come to the Bible or to the Gospel? He is not concerned to explain the universe and enlarge the bounds of his knowledge by exploring the mysteries of being. He feels that no intellectual acquisition would give him much comfort — that none could be of much value, as long as this canker of sin and guilt is within. He craves no illumination of the intellect; at least, this desire is subordinate. But how shall this burden be taken from the spirit? How shall he come to peace with God and himself? It is the bread of life he longs for. Nothing can satisfy him, in the least, that does not correspond to his necessities as a moral being. He needs no argument to prove to him that he is not what he was made to be, and that his misery is his fault. To him Ch istianity, announcing redemption through Jesus Christ, God's love to sinners, and His method of justifying the ungodly, is adopted, and is, therefore, likely to be welcome. A sin is a deed, so it is natural that redemption should be. As sin breaks the original order, so it is natural to expect that the system will be restored from the top. A penitent sinner is prepared to meet God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself; and this fact is sweeter and grander in his view^ than all philosophies which profess, whether truly or falsely, to gratify a speculative curiosity. Were it his chief desire to be a knowing man, he would feel differently; but his intense and absorbing desire is to be a good man. It is not strange that among Protestants there should impercep- tibly spring up the false view concerning the Gospel on which I have commented. We say truly that the Bible is the religion of Protestants. Our attention is directed to the study of a book. A one-sided, intel- lectual bent leads to the idea that the sole or the principal office of Christ is that of a teacher. He does not come to live and die and rise again and unite us to Himself and God, imparting a new principle or moral and spiritual life to loving, trusting souls; but He comes to teach and explain. If this be so, the next step is to drop Him for a consideration as a person and to fasten the attention on the contents of His doctrine; and who shall say that this step is not logically taken? As the intellectual element obtains a still stronger sway the interest in His doctrine is merely on the speculative side. Historical Christianity, with its great and moving events and the august personage who stands in the center, disappear from view and naught is left but a residuum of abstractions, a perversion and carica- ture of Gospel ideas. This proceeding may be compared to the course Redemption of one who should endeavor to resolve the American revolution into Made up of an intellectual process. Redemption is made up of events as real as the battles by which independence was achieved. We need some ex- planation of the purport of those battles and their bearing on the end which they secure. And so in the Bible, together with the record of what was done by God, there is given an inspiretl interpretation from the Redeemer Himself, and from those who stand near Him, on whom the events that secured salvation made a fresh and lively imprcs- Events. 136 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. sion. The import of these events is set forth. And the conditions of attaining citizenship in this new state in the kingdom of God, which is provided through Christ, are defined. From the views which have been presented, perhaps, it is possible to see the foundation on which Christians hereafter may unite, and also how the Gospel will finally prevail over mankind. If redemption, looked at as the work of God, is thus historical, consisting in a series of events which culminate in the Lord's resurrection and the mission of the Holy Ghost, the first thing is that these events should be be- lieved. So that Christianity, in both fact and doctrine, will become a thing perfectly established, as much so in our minds and feelings as are now the transactions of the American revolution, with the import and results that belong to them. It is every day becoming more evident that the facts of Christianity cannot be dissevered from the Christian system of doctrine, that the one cannot be held while the other is renounced; that if the doctrine is abandoned the facts will be denied. So that the time approaches when the acknowledgment of the evan- gelical history, carrying with it, as it will, a faith in the Scriptural exposition of it, will be a sufficient bond of union among Christians, and the church will return to the apostolic creed of its early days, which recounts an epitome of the facts of religion. 10 Joseph Cook, Boston. What the Bible H^s Taught. Address by JOSEPH COOK, of Boston. HE trustworthiness of the Scriptures in revealing the way of peace for the soul has well been called religious infallibility. The worth of the Bible results also from the fact that it contains a revelation of religious truth not elsewhere communicated to man. The worth of the Bible results also from the fact that it is the most powerful agency known to history in promoting the social, industrial and political reformation of the world by securing the religious regeneration of individual lives. It is certain that men and nations are sick, and that the Bible, open and obeyed, heals them. All this is true wholly irrespective of any question as to the method of inspiration. The worth of the Bible results, in the next place, from its containing, as a whole, the highest religious and ethical ideals known to man. There is the Bible, taken as a whole, and without a forced interpretation, a coherent system of ethics and theology and an implied philosophy dazzling any other system known to any age of Religious in- the world. In asserting the religious infallibility of the Scriptures I [f,e^scu^ur"8^ assume only two things : One. The literal infallibility of the strictly self-evident truths of Scripture. Two. The veracity of Christ. It is a fact, and a verifiable, organizing, redemptive fact, that the Scriptures teach monotheism, not polytheism, not pantheism, not atheism, not agnosticism. This pillar was set up early. It has been maintained in its commanding position at the cost of innumerable struggles with false religions and false philosophies. It has resisted all attack and dominates the enlightened part of the world today. Man's creation in the image of God is the next, columnar truth. This means God's Fatherhood and man's sonship. It means God's sovereignty and man's debt of loyalty. It means the unity of the race. Men can have communion with each other only through their common union with God. It means susceptibility to religious inspiration. It means free will with its responsibilities. 139 140 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The family is the next column which we meet in the majestic nave. Here is the germ of all human government. The ideal of the family set up in Scripture is monogamy. This ideal has been subjected for ages to the severest attack. It is an unshaken columnar truth, how- ever, and dominates the enlightened portions of humanity to this hour. The Sabbath is the next pillar, a column set up early and seen far Pillars in the and wide across the landscapes of time, and dominating their most fruitful fields. The cuneiform tablets now in the hands of Assyriolo- gists show that centuries before Abraham left Chaldea, one day in seven was spoken of as the day of cessation from labor, and the day of rest for the heart. A severe view of sin is the next pillar. Ethical monotheism . appears on the first page of the Bible. The free soul of man is there represented as under probation without grace. Freedom is abused; disorder springs up among the human faculties; there is a fall from the divine order. This severe view of sin is found nowhere outside the Scriptures. This fall from the divine order is a fact of man's experience to tile present hour. Hope of redemption through undeserved mercy, or the divine grace, is the next pillar. This column is set up early in the Biblical cathedral and the top of it yet reaches to the heavens themselves. Man is represented in the most ancient page of the Scriptures as at first under probation without grace. He fell from the divine order and is then represented as under probation with grace. "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." These words are the germ of the Gospel itself. The Decalogue is the next pillar — a clustered column — wholly erect after ages of earthquakes. This marvelous pillar is the cen- tral portion of the earliest Scriptures. All the laws in the books in which the Decalogue is found, cluster around it. Even if it were known where and how and when the Decalogue originated, the prodigious fact would yet remain that it works well. Who knows where the mul- tiplication table originated? It works well. Who can tell who in- vented the system of Arabic notation, giving a different value to a figure according to its position? The books do not inform us. This system is based on a very refined knowledge of numbers, and is prob- ably a spark from the old Sanscrit anvil; but the Hindu writers ascribe it to supernatural revelation. No matter where the scheme originated, it- is certain that it works well. The Psalms are the next pillar in the divine cathedral of the Script- ures, or rather a whole transept of pillars. Three thousand years they have been the highest manual of dev^otion known among men. Nothing like them as a collection can be found in all antiquity. Greece has spokv en, Rome has had the ear of ages, modern time has uttered all its voices, but the Psalms remain wholly unsurpassed. They express, as nothing outside the Holy Scriptures does, not only the unity, the righteou.s- ness, the power, and the majesty of God, but also His mercy, His con- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 141 descension, His pity, His tenderness, His love. They are the blossom- ing of the religious spirit of the law. The Great Prophecies are the next pillar, or rather we must call these, like the Psalms, a whole transept of pillars. A chosen man called out of Ur of the Chaldees was to become a chosen family, and that family was to become a chosen nation, and that nation gave birth to a chosen religious leader, who was to found a chosen church to fill the earth. This prediction existed ages before Christianity appeared in the world. Not even the wildest claim made by negative criticism invalidates the fact that this prophecy spans hundreds of years as an immeasurably majestic bow of the divine promise. This was to be the course of re- ligious history, and it has been. The Jews were to be scattered among all nations and yet preserved as a separate people, and they have been. The Sermon on the Mount is the next pillar, and it stands where nave and transept of the Bibical cathedral open into the choir. " The Sermon on the Mount," Daniel Webster wrote on his tombstone, " can- not be merely human production. This belief enters into the depth of my conscience. The whole history of man proves it." There stands the clustered column, there it has stood forages, and there it will stand forever. The Lord's Prayer is the next column. It has its foundation in the profoundest wants of man; its capital in the boundless canopy of the Fatherhood of God. Neither the foundation nor the capital will crum- ble, nor the column fall while man's nature and God's nature remain unchanged. The character of Christ is the Holy of Holies of the cathedral of Hoiyof Hoiie the Scriptures. The Gospels, and especially the fourth Gospel, are the inmost sanctuary of the whole divine temple. "I know men," said Napoleon, "and I tell you that Jesus Christ was not a mere man." Mrs. Browning wrote these words on the leaf of her New Testament, and Robert Browning quoted them from that sacred place to a friend at the point of death. "The sinlessncss of Christ," said Horace Bush- nell, "forbids His possible classification with men." The identification of Christ with the Logos, or the eternal wisdom and reason, and of Christ's spirit with the Holy Spirit, is the supreme truth rising from the side of the sanctuary in the Holy of Holies of the Biblical cathedral. The verifiable promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit to every soul self-surrendered to God in conscience is the next pillar. The founding of the Christian church, which is with us to this day, is the ne.xt. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, insti- tuted by our Lord Himself, are His continuous autograph, written across the pages of centuries. The fruits of Christianity are the final cluster of jjillars rising to the eastern window that looks on better ages to come, and is perpetu- ally flooded with a divine illumination. Goethe represented the Phil- istine as failing to admire cathedral windows because he sees them f.rorri the outside, while they are all glorious if seen from within the 142 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, temple. All this is true of the majestic windows in the Biblical cathe- dral, including the most sacred spiritual history of the church, age after age. The foundation stones beneath all the pillars and beneath the altar in the cathedral of revelation arc the strictly self-evident truths of the tionSionei! "' eternal reason or the divine Logos, who is the essential Christ. God is one, and so the systems of nature and of revelation must be one. The universe is called such because it is a unit. It reveals God as Unity, Reason and Love. And all the strength of the foundation stones belongs to the pillar and pinnacle of the cathedral of the Holy Word. And the form of the whole cathedral is that of the cross. The unity of the Scriptural architecture, built age after age, is one of the supreme miracles of history. It is a self-revelation of the hand that lifted the Biblical pillars one by one according to a plan known unto God from the beginning. And the cathedral itself is full of a cloud of souls. There is a goodly company of the martyrs and the apostles and the prophets. There is the Lord and the Giver of Life. And with this company we join in the perpetual anthem: "Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." "Oh, how love I Thy law; sweeter is it to me than honey and the honeycomb." It is true there are things in the Old Testament we do not now imitate, but they were trees that were trimmed from the start. But take the Scriptures as a whole and from them you can gather an inspi- ration such as comes from no other book. I believe it and you believe it. I take up the books of Plato, which I think are nearest to those of the Bible, and press those clusters of grapes, and there is an odious stench of polygamy and slavery in the resulting juices. I will say nothing of the other sacred books. There are adulterated elements in all of them, however good some of the elements may be. Now it is nothing to me if Professor Briggs can show that some fly has lighted here or there on one or two of these golden clusters of grapes and specked it. Now, don't misunderstand me, for I think that parts of the Bible were absolutely dictated by the Holy Ghost. I believe the Lord's Prayer is exactly as God gave it. Was Christ inspired? If anybody ever was, he was. Influence of the Ancient j^gyptian {Religion on Q^her Religions. Paper by J. A. S. GRANT (Bey), of Cairo, Egypt. ANETHO, an ancient Epfyptian priest and historian, writing in Greek a history of his country and people at the request of Ptolemy Philadelphus (280 B. C.) for the grand library at Alexandria, tells us that the history of Egypt, as gathered from the hieroglyphic archives in the temple libraries, was divided into a myth- ical period and an historical period. These periods were also subdivided into dynasties. The mythical period had four dynasties and the historical period had thirty, down to Nectanebo II, the last Pharaoh of Egyptian blood. As the ancient Egyptian religious beliefs have their foundation in the mythical period, I shall confine myself to that particular division of the history, leaving out only the prehistoric dynasty that does not come within the scope of this paper. Here, then, is Manetho's way of putting it: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HISTORY. A Kind of Evolu- tion. I. THE MYTHICAL PERIOD. 1st Dynasty — A Dynasty of Gods (Elohim in Hebrew), as rulers, probably over nature and the lower creation. 2d Dynasty — A Dynasty of Gods, as rulers over a higher creation, as Man. 3d Dynasty — A Dynasty of Demi-Gods, as rulers over Man as a race. 4th Dynast)^ — A Dynasty of Prehistoric Kings, as rulers over communities of men. We see in this profane history of Manetho transitions that he hiroself does not explain, but that now are made clear by the latest 143 The Mythical Period. 144 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. light thrown on the religion of the ancient Egyptians. Let me then give you a running commentary on the above. The first dynasty, that lasted a great many Sothic cycles, was taken up with the creation of the world under the gods (Elohim). The second dynasty probably became so through some great change that took place on the creation of man. The gods now were ruling over while at the same time they had free intercourse with man. Here Manctho's division of his history might have stopped, and if so we should have had at the present day the second dynasty of the mythical period still continuing, i. e., God ruling over and having free intercourse with unfallen man; but no, it was destined otherwise. It appears, from some cause unrecorded by Manetho, that the gods were obliged to withdraw themselves from man and have no further intercourse with him. Man, however, being naturally religious, was ill at ease, owing to the withdrawal of his gods. And the gods had pity on him, so, as he could no more raise himself to the level of the gods, the gods lowered themselves by partaking of his nature, and thus they came again to the earth to rule over and have friendly inter- course with man. This introduces us to the third dynasty, or dynasty of demi-gods. This was taught to the people thus: The sky was deified and called Nut, a goddess, while the earth was deified and called Seb, a god. DemfGoSe. **^ Seb and Nut now appear as husband and wife, and have a large family of sons and daughters, who are partly terrestrial and partly celestial, sharing the natures of father and mother. This is the family of demi- gods that introduces the third dynasty of Manetho's mythical period. The names of the more prominent among them are Osiris (male), Isis (female), Set (male), Nephthys (femalej. This part of the myth has been put into verse by a Scottish bard, thus: A new relationship, yet old, In ancient story hath been told; The sky's descent to meet the earth, And shower its blessings on each hearth. Its azure hue beams on its face, While o'er the earth in close embrace It bends and holds with loving clasp The rounded globe within its grasp. Could we discern these movements made As zephyrs waft o'er hill and glade The lovmg whispers sent from heaven, Of peace on earth, of sins forgiven, We might not think the Egyptians wrong Who led the sky in nuptial song The earth to wed; and thus began A race, at once both Ciod and man (The offspring of this union fair), On earth to dwell, for man to care. In this family of demi-gods Osiris took the lead and ruled. He married his sister Isis, but we do not read of their having any children South Sea Island Chief; Convert to Christianity. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 147 during their married life. Osiris was the personification of everything good. He and his brothers and sisters had their seat of government at Abydos in upper Egypt; but Osiris was always going on journeys to do his people good, and more especially to teach them agriculture. They were a happy family and lived in paradise — peace and concord — until undue ambition on the part of Set made him conspire against his brother Osiris and kill him. Set now becomes the personification of satan, or the evil one, and usurped the place of Osiris. This is a paral- lel of the apocalyptic rebellion in heaven and the rule of satan on the earth. Isis was in great distress and wept over the dead body of her husband, and while thus engaged she became miraculously pregnant and in due time gave birth to Horus, who was destined to wage war against .Set and to overcome him. Being demi-gods, however, neither the one nor the other could be annihilated; so Set came and arbi- trated between them, and decided that they both should have place and power. This was by way of explaining the continuance of good and evil on the earth Although Osiris was killed in as far as his earthly body was concerned, yet he appears in the nether world as judge of the dead, and Horus, his son, is represented in the world of spirits introducing the justified ones to his father. Here Osiris takes the place of the Christian Messiah, and is offered up as a sacrifice for sin. The Osirian myth was also allegorically explained by a solar myth. Osiris, after his death, became "the sun of the night," and ap- peared no more upon the earth in his own person, but in that of his son Horus, who was "the sun at sunrise," as the dispeller of darkness, to bring light and life to the whole world and to destroy the power of Set. Osiris, after his death, was Ra, the, sun of the day. Isis, the wife of Osiris, was the moon goddess, and all the Pharaohs were deified and looked upon as the personificatioi of Ra upon the earth. ( Here we have the origin of the divine right of kings.) The belief in the death of Osiris on account of sin was the only atoning sacrifice in the Egyptian religion. All the other sacrifices Were sacrifices of thanksgiving, in whichx they offered to the gods flow- ers, fruits, meat and drink; for they thought the gods had need of such things, as the Egyptians believed spiritual beings lived on the spiritual essences of material things. Besides these beliefs, the ancient Egyptians had a moral code in which not one of the Christian virtues is forgotten — piety, charity, sobriety, gentleness, self-command in word and action, chastity, the protection of the weak, benevolence toward the need)', deference to superiors, respect for property— in its minutest details, etc. Osiris, Isis and Horus, /. c, father, mother and son, were wor- shiped universally as a triad; and Isis, so frequently represented with Horus as a suckling child on her knee, ga\e origin. to the combination of the Madonna and infant on her knee in the Christian religion. This worship of the Madonna was a cunning de\'ice to gain over the pagans to Christianity, who saw in her their Isis or Ashtoreth,as the Sacrifices. 148 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. case might be. (The Ptolemies, about four centuries before this, adopted a similar trick to unite the Egyptians and Greeks in their cultus, and when Egypt came under the sway of the Romans they adopted the tactics of the Greeks.) Again, the ancient Egyptians believed that the living human body consisted of three parts: First, Sahoo, the fleshy, substantial body — Human ^^ mummified body; second, Ka, the double. It was the exact coun- terpart of the substantial body, only it was spiritual and could not be seen. It was an intelligence that permeated all through the body and guided its different physical fimctions, such as digestion, etc. It cor- responded to what we call " the physical life ; third, Ba. The Ha corresponds to our soul, or, rather, spirit; that part of our nature which fits us for union with God. When the Sahoo died the Ka and the Ba continued to live, but separated from each other. The Ba, after the death of the body, took flight from this earth to go to the judgment hall of Osiris in Amenta, there to be judged as to the deeds done in the body, whether they had been good or bad. The justified soul was admitted into the presence of Osiris, and made daily progress in the celestial life, as represented by different heavenly mansions, which the soul entered by successive gates, if it could pronounce the special prayers necessary for opening these gates. There were still obstacles in the path, but these were easily over- come by the soul assuming the form of the deity. And, in fact, the justified soul is always called " the Osiris " or Pa-aa, the great one, i. i\, it became assimilated to the great and good god. The Ba was gener- ally represented as a hawk with a human head (the hawk was the em- blem of Horus), as if the seat of the soul was in the head, which was furnished with the hawk's body, whereby it was able to fly away from the earth to be with Horus. The Ka, which means double, was represented by two human arms elevated at right angles at the elbows. This was to indicate that the spiritual body was exactly the same in every way as the natural body, just as one arm is like the other, only it could not be seen. The Ka was not furnished with wings, so that it could not leave the earth, but contiiuied to live where it used to live before it was dis- embodied and more particularly in the tomb, where it could rest in the mummy (it was for this very purpose that the l^gyptians preserved the dead both'), or in the portrait statues placed for it in the ante- chamber of the tomb. The Egyptians believed that the Ka could rest also in portrait statues. This must ha\'e been a great consolation to the friends of those whose bodies had been lost at sea or in any other way that pre\ented their being embalmed and preserved. The Ka continued to have hunger and thirst, to be subject to fatigue, etc., just as when in the body, and it had to live on the spiritual essence of the offerings brought to it. It could die of hunger, etc., but this meant annihilation for the Ka. There is some indication of the future union of the Ka and the Ba, THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 149 for we occasionally find the Ba visiting the mummy in the tomb where the Ka dwells, and again we have a divinity called Neheb-Kaoo, which pimply means the joiner of Kas (probably to Bas). This may come out more clearly after further research. There were two grades of punishment for the condemned Ba: The more guilty Ba was condemned to frightful sufferings and tortures and devouring fire till it succumbed and was ultimately annihilated; the less guilty Ba was put into some unclean animal and sent back to the earth for a second probation. After the dead body was embalmed, it was a common custom with the Egyptians for the relatives of the deceased to keep the mummy „ for even a lengthened period in the house, and the place apportioned Kept in the to it was the dining-hall, where it served as a constant reminder of House, death. And at their great public feasts a mummified image of Osiris was handed round among the guests, not only to remind them of death, but to indicate that the contemplation of the death of Osiris would benefit them in the midst of their feasting and hilarity. While Osiris and Horus are represented as father and son, they are yet really one and the same. Osiris was "the sun of the night," while Horus was "the sun of the day." This symbolism simply taught different phases of the same deity; for the sun remains the same sun after sunset as it was before sunset, and all the Egyptians must have known this. You may get people even nowadays to believe in the coat of Treves, the Veronica, the liquifying of St. Januarius' blood, and a thousand other cunningly devised fables that do not lead to higher beliefs, but rather detract from such beliefs when they exist. The ancient Egyptians, however, although accused of animal worship, saw in these animals attributes of their one nameless God, and origi- nally their apparent adoration of an animal was in reality adoration of their god for one or other of his beneficent attributes; and the result was elevating, as the history of the early dynasties proves. Bunsen says that the animals in the animal worship of Egypt were at first mere symbols, but became by the inherent curse of idolatry real objects of worship. Maspero believes that the religion of the Egyptians, at first pure and spiritual, became grossly material in its later developments, and that the old faith degenerated. To clothe or symbolize a spiritual truth is evidently a very dan- gerous proceeding, as we learn from past history. The ancient Egyp- tians figured the attributes of their one god, and in due time each of ""try- these figures was worshiped as a separate deity. This constituted idolatry, which led to the degradation of the Egyptians and disinte- gration of their power. The Elohim of the Hebrews was exactly the same as the gods of the Egyptians, /. c, a unity in pluralitx- and vice versa, one god with many attributes. The one god of the Egyptians was nameless, but the combination of all the other good divinities made up his attributes, which were simply powers of nature. Renouf says that in the I^gyptian, as in almost all known religions, a power behind all the powers of nature 150 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. was recognized and was frequently mentioned in the texts. But to this power no temple was ever raised. "He was never graven in stone His shrine was never found with painted figures. He had neither ministrants nor offerings." The Jehovah of the Hebrews would correspond to the Egyptian Osiris. Jehovah is more particularly the divine ruler of the Hebrews, while Osiris was the divine ruler more particularly over Egypt and the Egyptians, having his seat of government in Egypt. These two names were held so sacred that they were never pronounced, and in the ancient Egyptian religion this superstition was carried to such an extent that sculptor and scribe always spelled the name Osiris backward; i. e., instead of "As-ari," made it "Ari-as." We don't know, I believe, how Jehovah should be spelled or pro- nounced, and, therefore, we do not know its etymology; but some Solar Deity, scholars trace it through the Phtenician to an appellation for the sun. Now, Osiris was a solar deity, and his name, "As-ari," means "the en- throned eye," no doubt to indicate that he is the all-seeing one, just as the sun in the heavens throws light on everything and rules the sea- sons for the benefit of man. Jehovah-Elohim in the Hebrew religion would be Osiris-Ra in the Egyptian mythology. Elohim created the heavens and the earth, in the Hebrew religion, while Ra, in Egyptian mythology, received mate- rials from Phthah to create the world with. Ra was the creative prin- ciple of Phthah. Phthah was the originator of all things, but he worked visibly through Ra, just as, in the case of the Christian relig- ion, God created all things through Jesus Christ. "The search for knowledge is only good when it is the seeking for truth, and truth valiiable only when it leads to duty, right and God. Sleepless vigilance is the price of liberty. What man knows of God is from Christ, who was able to reveal the one to the other, because He partook of the nature of each. Christ's doctrine of a God-head is that of One whose unity is not the unity of a monad but of an organ- ism. That God could be God in the attributes which our modern consciousness ascribes to Him, i. e., that He could be ethical, social and paternal, involves the necessity of His nature containing subject and object, both of knowledge and feeling; in other words, of a sub- division of His essence into what we may speak of as persons." Summary: In the ancient P^gyptian religion, therefore, we have clearly depicted to us an unnamed almighty deity who is uncreated and self-existent. He is at first represented by a battle-ax and after- ward by a dwarfish, embryonic-looking human figure, and as such he supplied materials (protoplasm) to Ra, tiie sun god, to create the world with. God dwelt with man till man rebelled against Him. A god man (Osiris) had to come to the earth to deliver and do good to man. He, however, was sacrificed, having been killed by the evil principle, but only in as far as his human body was concerned, for he afterward appeared in the next world as the judge of the dead, and his son, Horus, who came from his father's dead body, manifested THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 151 himself on the earth as the sun at sunrise to dispel darkness and de- stroy the works of the wicked one. The ancient Egyptian hope, both for time and for eternity, was founded on faith in the Osirian myth and conformed to the code of morals laid down in the religious books. After death the condemned soul, according to the enormity of its guilt, was allowed a second pro- bation, or had such punishment inflicted as ultimately to end in anni- hilation; the justified soul was assimilated into Osiris, dwelt in his presence and obeyed his commands, being helped by angelic servants (ushabtioo) in carrying on the mystic husbandry. The justified soul had to take part in the daily celestial work, and had daily to acquire more knowledge and wisdom to help it in its progress through the mansions of the blest. The illustrations for this paper graphically explain the influence the ancient Egyptian religion exerted over the religions that came in contact with it, more particularly by way of grafting a great deal of its symbolism on those religions; and many of our Biblical expressions are word for word the same as we find in the Egyptian mythological texts. The evolution of the emblem now used to represent the Christian cross had its origin in ancient Egyptian symbols. The fore and middle fingers w^ere used as a talisman by the ancient Egyptians to avert the evil eye. It was grafted on to the Christian religion as the symbol for conferring a divine blessing. The winged disc of the sun that overshadowed the gateways of the Egyptian temples and that represented the overruling Providence was called by the Greeks the Agathodaemon, and the Messiah is referred to in the Bible as the sun of righteousness, rising with healing in His wings. Besides these similarities in symbolism between the Egyptian mythology and other religions, mention might also be made of the sameness in plan of an Egyptian temple and the tabernacle of the Israelites and temple of Solomon. There is also a singular similarity . ^i^'^^it > <^«- between the cherubim and the winged Isis and Nephthys protecting Horus. The ostrich egg that one meets with so frequently suspended in oriental places of worship has its origin in the mundane egg that Ra, the sun-god, created and out of which the world came when it was hatched. The Pharaoh (who was always deified), like the Jewish high priest, was the only one admitted into the Holy of Holies (Adytum), there to appear before the symbol of Deity to present the oblations of his people; for, be it remembered, no- one could offer an'oblation to the Deity but through the deified king. The temple processions and car- rying of shrines with symbols of gods in them formed a conspicuous part of the ancient Egyptian ritual. Before the Pharaoh entered upon a warlike campaign the image that symbolized the warlike attribute of the Deity was carried in a shrine at the head of a grand procession of priests and adherents of the temple, and the people bowed the head as it passed and sent up a prayer for a blessing on the campaign. The 152 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OE RELIGIONS. "immaculate conception" was accepted by the ancient Egyptians with- out a dissenting voice; for Isis was a goddess, and, therefore immacu- late, and her conception of Horus was miraculous. Many of the Mohammedan social and religious customs are decid- edly ancient Egyptian in their origin. This can easily be accounted FjJui^^ ""***' for from the fact that the prophet Mohammed had a Koptic (descended from the ancient Egyptian) scribe (the prophet himself was illiterate, for he could neither read nor write) as well as a Koptic wife, who must have exerted some influence over him; but apart from this we must not forget that after the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt a large proportion of the half-Christianized Egyptians were compelled (nolens volens) to become Moslems, and as there was no change of heart, they still clung to as many of their religious customs and super- stitious beliefs as they dared to, and in this respect the Mohammedan faith is very elastic. Much more might have been written on this subject, and by a more competent hand than mine, but sufficient, I hope, has been brought to light to show the importance of a careful study of the dead religions that probably had a revelation from God as their basis, for we believe that God never left Himself without a witness. J3 a o M U yheology of Judaism, Paper by DR. ISAAC M. WISE, of Cincinnati. Error the Canup of Fac- lionaliBin. DosinaB 84>ocified. HE theology of Judaism, jn fhe opinion of many, is a new academic discipline. They maintain Judaism is identical with legalism; it is a religion of deeds without dogmas. The- ology is a systematic treatise on the dogmas of any religion. There could be no theology of Judaism. The modern latitudinarians and syncretists on their part maintain we need more religion and less theology, or no the- ology at all, deeds and no creeds. For re- ligion is undefinable and purely subjective; theology defines and casts free sentiments into dictatorial words. Religion unites and theol- ogy divides the human family, not seldom, into hostile factions. Research and reflection antagonize these objections. They lead to conviction, both historically and psychologically. Truth unites and appeases; error begets antagonism and fanaticism. Error, whether in the spontaneous belief or in the scientific formulas of theology, is the cause of the distracting factionalism in the transcendental realm. Truth well defined is the most successful arbitrator among mental com- batants. It seems, therefore, that the best method to unite the human family in harmony, peace and good will is to construct a rational and humane system of theology as free from error as possible, clearly defined and appealing directly to the reason and conscience of all normal men. Research and reflection in the field of Israel's literature and history produce the conviction that a code of laws is no religion. Yet legalism and observances are but one form of Judaism. The underlying principles and doctrines are essentially Judaism, and these are material to the theology of Judaism, and these are essentially dogmatic. .Scriptures from the first to the last page advance the doctrine of divine inspiration and revelation. Ratiocinate this as you may, it alwajs centers in the proposition: There e.xist an inter-relation and a faculty of intercommunication in the nature of that universal, prior 154 Dr. Isaac M. Wise, Cincinnati. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 157 L a TF K i Justice and Grace. and superior being and the individualized being called man; and this also is a dogma. Scriptures teach that the Supreme Being is also Sovereign Provi- dence. He provides sustenance for all that stand in need of it. He foresees and foreordains all, shapes the destinies and disposes the affairs of man and mankind, and takes constant cognizance of their , „_ doings. He is the lawgiver, the judge and the executor of His laws. Jndge and Ex- Press all this to the ultimate abstraction and formulate it as you may, ®*'"^*""- it always centers in the proposition of "Die sittliche Weltordnung," the universal, moral, just, benevolent and beneficent theocracy, which is the cause, source and text-book of all canons of ethics; and this again is a dogma. Scriptures teach that virtue and righteousness are rewarded; vice, misdeeds, crimes, sins are punished, inasmuch as they are free-will actions of man; and adds thereto that the free and benevolent Deity under certain conditions pardons sin, iniquity and transgression. Here is an apparent contradiction between justice and grace in the Supreme Being. Press this to its ultimate abstraction, formulate it as you may, and you will always arrive at some proposition concerning atonement, and this also is a dogma. As far back into the twilight of myths, the early dawn of human reason, as the origin of religious knowledge was traced, mankind was in possession of four dogmas. They were always present in men's consciousness, although philosophy has not discovered the antece- dents of the syllogism, of which these are the conclusions. The excep- tions are only such tribes, clans orindividuals that had not yet become conscious of their own sentiments, not being crystallized into concep- tions, and in consequence thereof had no words to express them; but these are very rare exceptions. These four dogmas are: 1. There exists — in one or more forms of being — a superior being living, mightier and higher than any other being known or imagined. (Existence of God.) 2. There is in the nature of this superior being, and in the nature of man, the capacity and desire of mutual sympathy, inter-relation and inter-communication. (Revelation and worship.) 3. The good and the right, the true and the beautiful, are desir- able, the opposites thereof are detestable and repugnant to the superior being and to man. (Conscience, ethics and aesthetics.) 4. There exists for man a state of felicity or torment beyond this state of mundane life. (Immortality, reward or punishment.) These four dogmas of the human family are the postulate of all theology and theologies, and they are axiomatic. They require no proof, for what all men always knew is self-evident; and no proof can be adduced to them, for they are transcendent. Philosophy, with its apparatuses and methods of cogitation, cannot reach them, cannot expound them, cannot negate them, and none ever did prove such negation satisfactorily even to the individual reasoner himself. All systems of theology are built on these four postulates. They Postulate of all Theoloxy- 158 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. differ only in the definitions of the quiddity, the extension and expan- sion of these dogmas in accordance with the progression or retrogres- sion of different ages and countries. They differ in their derivation of doctrine or dogma from the main jiostulatcs; their reduction to prac- tice in ethics and worship, forms and formulas; their methods of application to human affairs, and their notions of obligation, account- ability, hope or fear. These accumulated differences in the various systems of theology, inasmuch as they are not logically contained in these postulates, are subject to criticism, an appeal to reason is always legitimate, a rational justification is re(iuisite. The arguments advanced in all these cases are not always apj)cals to the standard of reason — therefore the dis- agreements — they are mostly historical. "Whatever we ha\e not from the knowledge of all mankind we have from the knowledge of a very respectable portion of it in our holy books and sacred traditions" is the main argument. So each system of theology, in as far as it differs from others, relics for proof of its particular conceptions and knowl- edges on its traditions, written or unwritten, as the knowledge of a portion of mankind; so each particulai theology depends on its sources. .So also docs Judaism. It is based upon the four postulates of all theology. and in justification of its extensions and expansions, its deri- vation of doctrine and dogma from the main postulates, its entire de- velopment, it points to its sources and traditions and at various times also to the standard of reason, not, however, till the philosophers pressed it to reason in self defense, because it claimed the divine authority for its sources, higher than which there is none. And so we have arri\ed at our subject. liRious^l^ntu We know what theology is, so we must define here only what uientt). Judaism is. Judaism is the complex of Israel's religious sentiments ratiocinated to conceptions in harmony with its Jehovistic God-cogni- tion. These conceptions made permanent in the consciousness of this people are the religious knowledges which form the substratum to the theology of Judaism. The Thorah maintains that its "teaching and canon" arc divine. Man's knowledge of the true and the good comes directly to human reason and conscience (which is unconscious reason) from the sujircmc and universal reason, the absolutely true and good; or it comes to him indirectly from the same source by the manifesta- tions of nature, the facts of histor)' and man's power of induction. This principle is in conformity with the second postulate of theology, and its extension in harmony w'ith the standard of reason. All knowledge of God and His attributes, the true and the good, came to man by successive revelations, of the indirect kind first, which we may call natural revelation, and the direct kind afterward which we Natnrai and """^y ^all transcendental revelation; both these revelations concerning Transcpndent- God and His Substantial attributes, together with their historical a V auon. gQi^iegj^^ are recorded in the Thorah in the seven holy names of God, to Israel's Re- The Seveial THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 159 which neither prophet nor philosopher in Israel added even one, and all of which constantly recur in all Hebrew literature. What we call the God of revelation is actually intended to desig- nate God as made known in the transcendental revelations including the successive God-ideas of natural revelation. His attributes of rela- tion are made known only in such passages of the Thorah, in which he himself is reported to have spoken to man of himself, his name and his attributes, and not by any induction or inference from any law, story or doing ascribed to God anywhere The prophets only expand or define those conceptions of Deity which these passages of direct transcendental revelation in the Thorah contain. There exists no other source from which to derive the cognition of the God of revelation. Whatever theory or practice is contrary or contradictory to Israel's God-cognition can have no place in the theology of Judaism. It com- promises necessarily: The doctrine concerning Providence, its relations to the individual, the nations and mankind. This includes the doctrine of covenant Doctrines 'T.f* between God and man, God and the fathers ol the nation, God and " '^^^™' the people of Israel or the election of Israel. The doctrine concerning atonement. Are sins expiated, forgiven or pardoned, and which are the conditions or means for such expiation of sins? This leads us to the doctrine of divine worship generally, its oblig- atory nature, its proper means and forms, its subjective or objective import, which includes also the precepts concerning holy seasons, holy places, holy convocations and consecrated or specially appointed persons to conduct such divine worship, and the standard to distin- guish conscientiously in the Thorah, the laws, statutes and ordinances which were originally intended to be always obligatory, from those which were originally intended for a certain time and place and under special circumstances. The doctrine concerning the human wili; is it free, conditioned or controlled by reason, faith or any other agency? This includes the postulate of ethics. The duty and accountability of man in all his relations to God, man and himself, to his nation and to his government and to the whole of the human family. This includes the duty we owe to the past, to that which the process of history developed and established. This leads to the doctrine concerning the future of mankind, the ultimate of the historical process, to culminate in a higher or lower status of humanity. This includes the question of perfectibility of human nature and the possibilities it contains, which establishes a standard of duty we owe to the future. The doctrine concerning personal immortality, future reward and punishment, the means by which such immortality is attained, the con- dition on which it depends, what insures reward or punishment. The theology of Judaism as a sytematic structure must solve these problems on the basis of Israel's God cognition. This being the highest 100 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. in man's cognition, the solution of all problems upon this basis, eccle- siastical, ethical, or in eschatology, must be final in theology, provided the judgment which leads to this solution is not erroneous. An erro- neous judgment from true antecedents is possible. In such cases the first safeguard is an appeal to reason, and the second, though not sec- ondary, is an appeal to holy writ and its best commentaries. Wher- ever these two authorities agree, reason and holy writ, that the solu- Rpason and tion of any problem from the basis of Israel's God-cognition is cor- " ^ " ■ rect, certitude is established, the ultimate solution is found. This is the structure of a systematic theology, Israel's God-cog- nition is the substratum, the substance; holy writ and the standard of reason are the desiderata, and the faculty of reason is the apparatus to solve the problems which in their unity are the theology of Judaism, higher than which none can be. n &! Ideals Im- arted to oees. 'Y'he Relation of H'^^oric Judaism to the Past, and |ts puture. Paper by REV. H. PEREIRA NfENDES, of New York. UR history may be divided into three eras — the biblical, the era from the close of the Bible record to the present day, the future. The first is the era of the an- nouncement of those ideals which are essential for mankind's happiness and progress. The Bible contains for us and for humanity all ideals worthy of human effort to attain. I make no exception. The attitude of historical Judaism is to hold up these ideals for mankind's inspi- ration and for all men to pattern life accord- ingly. The first divine message to Abraham con- "" - "^ tains the ideal of righteous Altruism — "Be a source of blessing " And in the message an- nouncing the Covenant is the ideal of righteous egotism. "Walk be- fore Me and be perfect." "Recognize me, God, be a blessing to thy fellow man, be perfect thyself." Could religion ev^er be more strik- ingly summed up? The life of Abraham, as W'e have it recorded, is a logical response, despite any human feeling. Thus he refused booty he had captured. It was an ideal of warfare not yet realized — that to the victor the spoils did not necessarily belong. Childless and old, hebeliev^ed God's promise that his descendants should be numerous as the stars. It was an ideal faith; that also, and more, w'as his readiness to sacrifice Isaac — a sacrifice ordered, to make more public his God's condemnation of Canaanite child-sacrifice. It revealed an ideal God, who would not allow religion to cloak outrage upon holy sentiments of humanity. To Moses next were high ideals imparted for mankind to aim at. On the very threshold of his mission the ideal of "the Fatherhood of God" was announced — "Israel is my son, my first born," implying that 162 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, 163 other nations are also his children Then at Sinai were ^iven him those ten ideals of human conduct, which, called the "ten command- rrients," receive the allegiance of the great nations of today. Magnifi- cent ideals! Yes, but not as magnificent as the three ideals of God revealed to him — God is mercy, God is love, God is holiness. "The Lord thy God loveth thee." The echoes of this are the commands to the Hebrews and to the world. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might." "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart; ye shall lo\'e the stranger." God is holiness! "Be holy! for I am holy;" "it is God calling to man to par- ticipate in his divine nature." To the essayist on Moses belongs the setting forth of other ideals associated with him. The historian may dwell upon his "proclaim freedom throughout the land to its inhabitants." It is written on Boston's Liberty Bell, which announced "Free America." The politi- cian may ponder upon his land tenure system; his declaration that the poor have rights; his limitation of priestly wealth; his separation of church and state. The preacher may dilate upon that Mosaic ideal so bright with hope and faith — wings of the human soul as it flies forth to find God — that God is the God of the spirits of all flesh; it is a flashlight of immortality upon the storm-tossed waters of human life The physician may elaborate his dietary and health laws, designed to prolong life and render man more able to do his duty to society. The moralist may point to the ideal of personal responsibility, not even a Moses can offer himself to die to save sinners. The ex- ponent of natural law in the spiritual world is anticipated by his "Not by bread alone does man live, but by obedience to divine law." The lecturer on ethic.'^ may enlarge upon moral impulses, their co-relation, . free will and such like ideas; it is Moses who teaches the quickening of Moses, cause of all is God's revelation, "Our wisdom and our understanding," and who sets before us "Life and death, blessing and blighting," to choose either, though he advises "choose the life" Tenderness to brute creation, equality of aliens, kindness to servants, justice to the employed; what code of ethics has brighter gems of ideal than those which make glorious the law of Moses! As for our other prophets, we can only glance at their ideals of purity in social life, in business life, in personal life, in political life, and in religious life. We need no Bryce to tell us how much or how little they obtain in our commonwealth today. So, also, if we only mention the ideal relation which they hold up for ruler and the people, and the former "should be servants to the latter," it is only in view of the tremendous results in history. For these very words license the English revolution. From that very chapter of the Bible the cry, "To your tents, () Israel," was taken by the Puritans, who fought with the Bible in one hand. Child of that English revolt, which soon consummated luiglish liberty, America was born — herself the parent of the French revolution, which has made so 164 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Ideals of the Prophets. Voice of His- torical ism. many kings the servants of their peoples. English liberty, America*^ birth, French revolution! Three tremendous results truly! Let us, however, set these aside, great as they are, and mark those grand ideab which our prophets were the first to preach. 1. Universal peace, or settlement of national disputes by arbitra- tion. When Micah and Isaiah announced this ideal of universal peace it was the age of war, of despotism. They may have been regarded as lunatics. Now all true men desire it, all good men pray for it, and bright among the jewels of Chicago's coronet this year is her universal peace convention. 2. Universal brotherhood. If Israel is God's first born and other nations are therefore His children, Malachi's " Have we not all one Father?" does not surprise us. The ideal is recognized today. It is prayed for by the Catholics, by the Protestants, by Hebrews, by all men. 3. The universal happiness. This is the greatest. For the ideal of universal happiness includes both universal peace and universal brotherhood. It adds being at peace with God, for without that hap- piness is impossible Hence the prophet's bright ideal that one day "All shall know the Lord, from the greatest to the least," " Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea," and "All nations shall come and bow down before God and honor His name." Add to those prophet ideals those of our Ketubim. The "seek wisdom" of Solomon, of which the " Know thyself " of Socrates is but a partial edho; Job's " Let not the finite creature attempt to fathom the infinite Creator;" David's reachings after God! And then let it be clearly understood that these and all ideals of the Bible era are but a prelude and overture. How grand, then, must be the music of the next era which now claims our attention. The era from Bible days to these is the era of the formation of religious and philosophic systems throughout the Orient and the classic world. What grand harmonies, but what crashing discords sound through these ages! Melting and swelling in mighty diapason they come to us today as the music which once swayed men's souls, now lifting them with holy emotion, now mocking, now soothing, now jSda- exciting. For those religions, those philosophies were mighty plectra in their day to wake the human heartstrings. Above them all rang the voice of historical Judaism, clear and lasting, while other sounds blended or were lost. Sometimes the voice was in harmony; most often it was discordant as it clashed with the dominant note of the day. For it sometimes met sweet and elevating strains of morality, of beauty, but more often it met the debasing sounds of immorality and error. Thus Kuenen speaks of "the afifinity of Judaism and Zoroastrian- ism in Persia to the affinity of a common atmosphere of lofty truth, of a simultaneous sympathy in their view of earthly and heavenly things." If Max Miiller declares Zoroastrianism originally was monotheistic, so far historic Judaism could harmonize. But it would raise a voice of protest when Zoroastrianism became a dualism of Ormuzd, light or THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 165 good, and Ahrinian, darkness or evil Hence the anticipatory protest proclaimed by Isaiah in God's very message to Cyrus, king of Persia, "lam the Lord, and there is none else." "I formed the light and create darkness." " I make peace and create evil." " I am the Lord, and there is none else; that is, I do these things, not Ormuzd or Ahrimah." Interesting as would be a consideration of the mutual debt be- tween Judaism and Zoroastrianism, with the borrowed angelology and demonology of the former compared with the "ahmiyat ahmi Mazdan amma" of the latter manifestly borrowed from the "I am that I am" of the former, we cannot pause here for it. Similarly, historical Judaism would harmonize with Confucius's instance of belief in a Supreme Being, filial duty, his famous "What you do not like when done to you, do not unto others," and of in Harmony the Buddhistic teachings of universal peace. But against what is con- ligions. ^^ trary to Bible ideal it would protest, and from it it would hold separate. In 521 B. C, Zoroastrianism was revived. Confucius was then actually living. Gautama Buddha died in 543. Is the closeness of the dates mere chance? The Jews had long been in Babylon. AsGesenius and Movers observe, there was trafflc of merchants between China and India via Babylonia with Phctnicia, and not unworthy of mark is Ernest Renan's observation that Babylon had long been a focus of Buddhism and that Boudasy was a Chaldean sage. If future research should ever reveal an influence of Jewish thought on these three great oriental faiths,, all originally holding beautiful thoughts, however later ages might have obscured them, would it not be partial fulfillment of the prophecy, so far as concerns the orient, "that Israel shall blossom into bud and fill the face of the earth with fruit?" In the west as in the east, historical Judaism was in harmony with any ideals of classic philosophy which echoed those of the Bible. It protested where they failed to do so, and because it failed most often historical Judaism remained separate. Thus, as Dr. Drummond remarks, Socrates was "in a certain sense monotheistic, and in distinction from the other gods mentions Him who orders and holds together the entire Kosmos," "in whom are all things beautiful and good," "who from the beginning makes men" — historical Judaism commends. Again, Plato, his disciple, taught that God was good or that the planets rose from the reason and understanding of God. Historical Judaism is in accord with its ideal "God is good," so oft repeated and its thought hymned in the almost identical words, "Good are the lumi- naries which our God created; He formed them with knowledge, understanding and skill." But when Plato condemns studies except as mental training and desires no practical results; when he c\en rebukes Arytas for inventing machines on mathematical j)rinciples, declaring it was worthy only of carpenters and wheelwrights, and u hen his master, Socrq.tes, says to Glaucon, "It ainuses me to see how' afiaid 166 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS- Be Perfect. Hebrew Pro- test. you are lest the common herd accuse you of recommending useless studies" — the useless study in question being astronomy — historical Judaism is opposed and protests. For it holds that even Bezaleal and Aholiab is filled with the spirit of God. It bids us study astronomy to learn of God thereby. "Lift up your eyes on high and see who hath created these things, who bringeth out their host by number. He call- eth them all by name, by the greatness of His might, for He is strong in power; not one faileth." Even as later sages practically teach the dignity of labor by themselves engaging in it. And when Macaulay remarks "from the testimony of friends as well as of foes, from the confessions of Epictetus and Seneca, as well as from the sneers of Lucian and the invectives of Juvenal, it is plain that these teachers of virtue had all the vices of their neighbors with the additional one of hypocrisy," it is easy to understand the relation of historical Judaism to these with its ideal, "Be perfect." Similarly the sophist school declared "there is no truth, no virtue, no justice, no blasphemy, for there are no gods; right and wrong are conventional terms." The skeptic school proclaimed "we have no cri- terion of action or judgment; we cannot know the truth of anything; we assert nothing; not even the Epicurean school taught pleasure's pursuit. But historical Judaism solemnly protested. What are those teachings of our Pirke Avoth but protests formerly formulated by our religious heads? Said they: "TheTorah is the criterion of conduct. Worship instead of doubting. Do philanthropic acts instead of seeking only pleasure. Society's safeguards are law, worship and philanthropy." So preached Simon Hatzadik. "Love labor," preached Shcmangia to the votary of epicurean ease. "Procure thyself an instructor," was Gamaliel's advice to anyone in doubt. "The practical application, not the theory, is the essential," was the cry of Simon to Platonist or Pyrrhic. "Deed first, then creed." "Yes," added Abtalion, "Deed first, then creed, never greed." "Be not like servants who serve their master for price; be like servants who serve without thought of price — and let the fear of God be upon you." "Separation and protest" was thus the cry against these thought-vagaries. Brilliant instance of the policy of separation and protest was the glorious Maccabean effort to combat Hellenist philosophy. If but for Charles Martcl and Poicticrs. pAu-ope would long have been Mohammedan, then for but Judas Maccabeus and Bethoron or P^m- maus, Judaism would have been strangled. But no Judaism, no Chris- tianity. Take either faith out of the. world and what would our civili- zation be? Christianity w-as born, originally and as designed and declared by its founder, not to change or alter one tittle of the law of Moses. If the Nazarene teacher claimed tacitly or not the title of "Son of God" in any sense save that which Moses meant when he said, "Ye are children of your God," can we wonder that there was a Hebrew protest? Historical Judaism soon found cause to be separate and to pro- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIC lOXS. 1H7 test. For sect upon sect arose — Ebionites, Gentile Christians. Jewish Christians, Nazarenes, Gnostic Christians, Masboteans, Basilidians, Valentinians, Carpocratians, Marcionites, Balaamites, Nicolaites, Em- kratites, Cainites, Ophites or Nahasites; evangels of these and of others were multiplied, new prophets were named, such as Pachor, Barkor, Barkoph, Armagil, Abraxos, etc. At last the Christianity of Paul rose supreme, but doctrines were found to be engrafted which not only caused the famous Christian heresies of Pelagius, Nestorius, Eutyches, etc., but obliged historical Judaism to maintain its attitude of separa- tion and protest. For its Bible ideals were invaded. It could not join all the sects and all the heresies. So it joined none. Presently the Cresent of Islam rose. From Bagdad to Granada Hebrews prepared protests which the Christians carried to ferment in their distant homes. For through the Arabs and the Jews the old classics were revived and experimental science was fostered. The misuse of the former made the methods of the academicians the methods of the scholastic fathers. But it made Aristotleian philoso- phy dominant. Experiment widened men's views. The sentiment of protest was imbibed — sentiment against scholastic argument, against bidding research for practical ends, against the supposition "that syllogistic reasoning could ever conduct men to the discovery of any new principle," or that such discoveries could be made except by induction, as Aristotle held, against the official denial of ascertained truth, as, for example, earth's rotundity. This protest sentiment in time produced the reformation. Later it gave wonderful impulse to thought and effort, which has substituted modern civilization, with its glorious conquests, for medieval semi-darkness. Here the era of the past is becoming the era of the present. Still historical Judaism maintained its attitude. As the new philosophies were born, it is said, with Bacon, "Let us have fruits, practical results, not foliage or mere words." But it opposed a Voltaire and a Paine when they made their ribald attacks. It could but praise the success of a Newton as he "crowned the long labors of the astronomers and physicists by co-ordinating the phenom- ena of solar motion throughout the visible universe into one vast system." So it could only cry "Amen" to a Kepler and a Galileo. For did they not all prove the long unsuspected magnificence of the Hebrew's God, who made and who ruled the heavens and bfraven of heavens, and who presides over the circuit of the earth, as Isaiah tells us? So it cried "Amen" to a Dalton, to a Linneus; for the "atomic notation of the former was as serviceable to chemistry as the binom- inal nomenclature and the classificatory schematism of the latter were to zoology and botany." What else could historic Judaism cry when the first message to man was to subdue earth, capture its powers, har- ness them, work? True historical Judaism means progress. A word more as to the attitude of historic Judaism to modern thought. If Hegel's last work was a course of lectures on the proofs of the existence of God; if in his lectures on religion he turned his Biblo Ideas Invaded. Produced the Befurmation. MaiDtrins lU Attitode. Modern 168 THE WORLD'S CONGKESS OF RELIGIONS. weapon against the rationalistic schools which reduced religion to the modicum compatible with an ordinary, worldly mind and criticise the school of Schleirmacher, who elevated feeling to a place in religion above systematic theology, we agree with him. But when he gives successive phases of religion and concludes with Christianity, the Thought^ " "^ " highest, because reconciliation is there in open doctrine, we cry, do justice also to the Hebrew. Is not the Hebrew's ideal God a God of mercy, a God of reconciliation? It is said, "Not forever will He con- tend, neither doth He retain His anger forever." That is. He will be reconciled. We agree witb much of Compte, and with him elevate womanhood, but we do not, cannot exclude woman, as he does, from. public action; for besides the teachings of reverence-and honor for motherhood; be- sides the Bible tribute to wifehood "that a good wife is a gift of God;" besides the grand tribute to womanhood offered in the last chapter of Proverbs, we produce a Deborah or a woman-president, a Huldah as worthy to give a divine message. If Darwin and the disciples of evolution proclaim their theory, the Hebrew points to Genesis ii, 3, where it speaks of what God has created "to make," infinitive mood; "not made," as erroneously trans- lated, But historic Judaism protests when any source of life is indi- cated, save in the breath of God alone. We march in the van of progress, but our hand is always raised, pointing to God. This is the attitude of historical Judaism. And now to sum up. For the future opens before us. First. The "separatist" thought. Genesis tells us how Abraham obeyed it. Exodus illustrates it: We are "separated from all the people upon the face of the earth." Leviticus proclaims it: "I have separated you from the peoples." "I have severed you from the peo- ples." Numbers illustrates it: "Behold, the people shall dwell alone." And Deuteronomy declares it: "He hath avouched thee to be His special people." The thought began as our nation; it grew as it grew. To test its wisdom, let us ask who have survived? The 7,000 separatists who did not bend to Baal or those who did? Those who thronged Babylo- nian schools at Pumbeditha or Nahardea, or those who succumbed to Magian influence? The Maccabees, who fought to separate, or the Hellenists, who aped Greek or the Sectarians of their day? The Bnai Yisrael remnant, recently discovered in India, under the auspices of the Anglo-Jewish association, the discovery of Theaou-Kin-Keaou, or " people who cut out the sinew," in China, point in this direction of separation as a necessity for existence. And who are the Hebrews of today here and in P2urope, the descendants of those who preferred to keep separate, and therefore chose exile or death, or those who yielded and were baptized? The course of historic Judaism is clear. It is to keep separate. Second. The protest thought. We must continue to protest against social, religious or political error with the eloquence of reason. Never THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OE RELIGIONS. 1C9 by the force of violence. No error is too insignificant; none can be too stupendous for us to notice. The cruelty which shoots the inno- cent doves for sport; the crime of duelists who risk life which is not The Prot«Ht theirs to risk, for it belongs to country, wife or mother, to ciiild or Uy ThouKht. society; the militarianism of modern nations, the transformation of patriotism, politics or service of one's country into a business for per- sonal profit, until these and all wrongs be rectified, we Hebrews must keep separate, and we must protest. And keep separate and protest we will, until all error shall be cast to the moles and bats. We are told that Europe's armies amount to 22,ocxD,ooo of men. Imagine it! Are we not right to protest that arbitration and not the rule of might should decide? Yet, let me not cite instances which render protest necessary. "Time would fail, and the tale would not be told," to quote a rabbi. How far separation and protest constitute our historical Jewish policy is evident from what I have said. Apart from this, socially, we unite whole-heartedly and without reservation with our non-Jewish fellow citizens; we recognize no difference between Hebrew and non- Hebrew. We declare that the attitude of historical Judaism, and, for that matter, of the reform school also, is to serve our country as good citi- zens, to be on the side of law and order and fight anarchy. We are bound to forward every humanitarian movement; where want or pain calls there must be answer; and condemned by all true men be the Jew Marching who refuses aid because he who needs it is not a Jew. In the intrica- foinw up. cies of science, in the pursuit of all that widens human knowledge, in ward, the path of all that benefits humanity, the Jew must walk abreast with non-Jew, except he pass him in generous rivalry. With the non-Jew we must press onward, but for all men and for ourselves we must ever point upward to the Common Father of all. Marching forward, as I have said, but pointing upward, this is the attitude of historical Judaism. Religiously, the attitude of historical Judaism is expressed in the creeds formulated by Maimonides, as follows: We believe in God the Creator of all, a unity, a Spirit who never assumed corporeal form, Eternal, and He alone ought to be worshiped. We unite with Christians in the belief that revelation is inspired. We unite with the founder of Christianity that not one jot or title of the law should be changed. Hence we do not accept a First Day Sabbath, etc. We unite in believing that God is omniscient and just, good, lov- ing and merciful. We unite in the belief of a coming Messiah. We unite in our belief in immortality. In these Judaism and Christianity agree. As for the development of Judaism, we believe in change in relig- ious custom or idea only when effected in accordance with the spirit of God's law and the highest authority attainable. But no change 12 170 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Development of Judaism. 1 Legend. Fulfilling Destiny. without. Hence we cannot, and may not, recognize the authority of any conference of Jewish rabbis or ministers, unless those attending are formally empowered by their communities or congregations to represent them Needless to add, they must be sufficiently versed in Hebrew law and lore; they must live lives consistent with Bible teach- ings and they must be suf^ciently advanced in age so as not to be im- mature in thought. And we believe, heart, soul and might, in the restoration to Pales- tine, a Hebrew state, from the Nile to the Euphrates — even though as Isaiah intimates in his very song of restoration, some Hebrews remain among the Gentiles. We believe in the future establishment of a court of arbitration, above suspicion, for a settlement of nations' disputes, such as could well be in the shadow of that temple which we believe shall one day arise to be a "house of prayer for all peoples," united at last in the service of one Father. How far the restoration will solve present pressing Jewish problems, how far such spiritual organization will guarantee man against falling into error, we cannot here discuss. What if doc- trines, customs and aims separate us now? There is a legend that when Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden or earthly paradise, an angel smashed the gates and the frag- ments flying all over the earth are the precious stones. We can carry the legend further. The precious stones were picked up by the various religions and philosophers of the world. Each claimed and claims that its own fragment alone reflects the light of heaven, forgetting the settings and incrustations which time has added. Patience, my brothers. In God's own time, we shall, all of us, fit our fragments together and reconstruct the gates of paradise. There will be an era of reconcilia- tion of all living faiths and systems, the era of all being in at-one- ment, or atonement, with God. Through the gates shall all people pass to the foot of God's throne. The throne is called by us the mercy-seat. Name of happy augury, for God's mercy shall wipe out the record of mankind's errors and strayings, the sad story of our unbrotherly actions. Then shall we better know God's ways and behold His glory more clearly, as it is written, "They shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more." (Jer, xxxi, 34.) What if the deathless Jew be present then among the earth's peoples? Would ye begrudge his presence? His work in the world, the Bible he gave it, shall plead for him. And Israel, God's first born, who, as his prophets foretold, was for centuries despised and rejected of men, knowing sorrows, acquainted with grief and esteemed stricken by God for his own backslidings, wounded besides through others' transgressions, bruised through others' injuries, shall be but fulfilling his destiny to lead back his brothers to the Father. P'or that we were chosen; for that we are God's servants or ministers. Yes, the attitude THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. ni of historical Judaism to the world will be in the future, as in the past, helping mankind with His Bible, until the gates of earthly paradise shall be reconstructed by mankind's joint efforts, and all nations whom Thou, God, hast made, shall go through and worshio before Thee, O Lord, and shall glorify Thy name! 'Phe O^^'oo*^ fo^ Judaism. Paper by MISS JOSEPHINE LAZARUS. Truth Brought U) liight HE nineteenth century has had its surprises; the position of the Jews today is one of these, both for the Jew himself and for most enlight- ened Christians. There were certain facts we thought forever laid at rest, certain condi- tions and contingencies that cuciai Test fortifies us, compensates for every sacrifice, every humiliation we may be called upon to endure, so that we count it a glory, not a shame, to suffer. Will national or personal loyalty suffice for this, when our per- sonality is not touched, our nationality is merged? Will pride of family or race take away the sting, the stigma? Lo! We have turned the shield and persecution becomes our opportunity. " Those that were in darkness upon them the light hath shined." What is the meaning of this exodus from Russia, from Poland, these long black lines crossing the frontiers or crushed within the pale, the " despised and rejected of men," emerging from their Ghettos, scarcely able to bear the light of day? Many of them will never see the promised land, and for those who do, cruel will be the suffering before they enter, long and difficult will be the task and process of assimilation and regeneration. But for us, who stand upon the shore in the full blessed light of freedom and watch at last the ending of that weary pilgrimage through the centuries, how great the responsibility, how great the occasion, if only we can rise to it. Let us not think our duty ended when we have taken in the wanderers, given theni food and shelter and initiated them into the sharp daily struggle to exist, upon which we are all embarked; nor yet guarding their exclusiveness, when we leave them to their narrow rites and limiting observance, until, break- ing free from these, they find themselves, like their emancipated brethren elsewhere, adrift on a blank sea of indifference and mate- rialism. If Judaism would be anything in the world today it must be a spiritual force. Only then can it be true to its special mission, the spirit not the letter of its truth. Away, then, with all the Ghettos and with spiritual isolation in exery form, and let the "s])irit blow where it listeth." The Jew must change- his attitude before the world and come into spiritual fellowship with those around him. John, Paul, Jesus Himself, we can claim them all for our own. We do not want " missions " to convert us. We cannot become Presbyterians, Episco- palians, members of any dividing sect, " teaching for doctrines the opinions of men." Christians, as well as Jews, need the larger unity that shall embrace them all— the unity of the spirit, not of doctrine. Mankind at large may not be ready for a universal religion, but let the Jews with their prophetic instinct, their deep, sj^iritual insight, set the example and gi\e the ideal. The world has not yet fathomed (he secret of its redemption, and "sahation ma)- yet ai^ain be of the 178 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Jews." The times are full of signs. On every side there is a call, a challenge and awakening. What the world needs today, not alone the J.ews, who have borne the yoke, but the Christians who bear Christ's name and persecute and who have built up a civilization so entirely at variance with the principles He taught — what we all need. Gentiles and Jews alike, is not so much " a new body of doctrine," as Claude Mon- tefiore suggests, but a new spirit put into life which shall refashion it AUOneFather. upon a nobler plan and consecrate it anew to higher purpose and ideals. Science has done its work, clearing away the deadwood of ignorance and superstition, enlarging the vision and opening out the path. Chris- tians and Jews alike, *' have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?" Remember to what you are called, you who claim belief in a living God who is a spirit, and who, therefore, must be worshiped "in spirit and in truth," not with vain forms and with meaningless service, nor yet in the world's glittering shapes, the work of men's hands or brains, but in the ever-growing, ever-deepening love and knowledge of His truth and its showing forth to men. Once more let the Holy Spirit descend and dwell among you, in your life toda}', as it did upon your holy men, your prophets of the olden times, lighting the world as it did for them with that radiance of the skies; and so make known the faith that is in you, " For by their fruits ye shall know them." ctf 6 c< Q 4 1 he Vo'c^ of the ]V\other of Religions on the Social Question. Paper by RABBI H. BERKOWITZ, D. D,, of Philadelphia. N this assembly of so many of her spiritual chil- dren, in the midst of the religions which have received from her nurture and loving care, Ju- daism, the fond mother may well lift up her voice and be heard with reverent and affec- tionate attention. It has been asked: "What has Judaism to say on the social question?" From earliest days she has set the seal of sanctity on all that question involves. From the very first she proclaimed the dignity, nay, the duty of labor by postulating God, the Cre- ator, at work and setting forth the divine exam- ple unto all men for imitation, in the command: "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy ,ork." Industry is thus hallowed by religion, and iligion in turn is made to receive the homage of industry in the fulfillment of the ordinance of Sab- bath rest. Judaism thus came into the world to live in the world, to make the world more heavenly. Though aspiring unto the heavens she has always trod firmly upon the earth, abiding with men in their habitations, ennobling their toils, dignifying their pleasures. Through all the centuries of her sorrowful life she has steadfastly striven with her every energy to solve, according to the eternal law of the eternally righteous, every new phase of the ever recurring problems in the social relationships of men. When the son of Adam, hiding in the dismal covert of some pri- meval forest, heard the accusing voice of conscience in bitter tones up- ^,Th<>^ Social braiding him he defiantly made reply: "Am I my brother's keeper?" then the social conflict began. To the question then asked Judaism made stern reply in branding with the guilt mark of Cain ever)- trans- gression of human right. From then until now unceasingly through airthe long and trying centuries she has never wearied in lifting up 181 Conflict. 182 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, her voice to denounce wrong and plead for right, to brand the op- pressor and uplift the oppressed. Pages upon pages of her Scriptures, folio upon folio of her massive literature, are devoted to the social question in its whole broad range and full of maxims, precepts, injunc- tions, ordinances and laws aiming to secure the right adjustment of the affairs of men in the practical concerns of every day. In the family, in the community, in the state, in all the forms of social organization, inequalities between man and man have arisen which have evoked the contentions of the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the high and the low. Against the iniquity of self- seeking Judaism has ever protested most loudly and none the less so against the errors and evils of an unjust self-sacrifice. " Love thy- self," she says, "this is natural, this is axiomatic, but remember it is never of itself a moral injunction. Egoism as an exclusive motive is entirely false, but altruism is not therefore exclusively and always right. It likewise may defeat itself, may work injury and lead to crime. The worthy should never be sacrificed for the unworthy. It is a sin for you to give your hard earned money to a vagabond and thus propagate vice, as much as it is sinful to withhold your aid from the struggling genius whose opportunity may yield to the world un- dreamed-of benefits." In this reciprocal relation between the responsibility of the indi- vidual for society, and of society for the individual, lies one of Juda- Charncterietic!' ism's prime characteristics. She has pointed the ideal in the conflict of social principles by her golden precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself — I am God." (Leviticus xix, i8.) According to this precept she has so arranged the inner affairs of the family that the purity, the sweetness and tenderness of the homes of her children have become proverbial. "Honor thy father and thy mother" (Ex. xx, 12). "The widow and the orphan thou shalt not oppress" (P3x. xxii, 22). "Before the hoary head shalt thou rise and shalt revere the Lord thy God" (Lev. xix, 32). "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children" (Deut. vi, 7). These, and hundreds of like injunctions, have created the institu- tions of loving and tender care which secure the training and nurture, the education and rearing of the child, which sustain the man and the woman in rectitude in the path of life, and with the staff of a devout faith guide their downward steps in old age to the resting place "over which the star of immortality sheds its radiant light." Judaism sets education before all things else and knows but one word for charity — Zedakah,/. c, Justice. She has made the home the basis of the social structure, and has sought to supply the want of a home as a just due to every creature, guarding each with this motive, from the cradle to the grave. With her sublime maxim, " Love thy neighbor as thyself — I am God," Judaism set up the highest ideal of society as a human brotherhood under the care of a divine Fatherhood. A Prime THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 183 According to this ideal Judaism has sought, passing beyond the envi- ronments of the family.to regulate the affairs of human society at large. •"This is the book of the generations of men " — was the caption of Gen- esis, indicating as the Rabbins taught, that all men, without distinction of race, caste or other social difference, are entitled to equal rights as being equally the children of one Creator. The social ideal was accord- ingly the sanctification of men unto the noblest in the injunction to the "priest-people:" " Holy shall ye be, for I, the Lord your God, am holy." (Ex. xix, 22.) The freedom of the individual was the prime necessary conse- Freedom of quence of this precept. Grandly and majestically the Mosaic legisla- the individaai. tion swept aside all the fallacies which had given the basis to the heart- less degradation of man by his fellow man. Slavery stood forever con- demned when Israel went forth from the bondage of Egypt. Labor then for the first time asserted its freedom, and assumed the dignity which at last the present era is vindicating with such fervor and power, Judaism established the freedom to select one's own calling in life irrespective of birth or other conditions. For each one a task according to his capacities was the rule of life. The laborer was never so hon- ored as in the Hebrew commonwealth. The wage system was inaug- urated to secure to each one the fruits of his toil. It was over the work of the laboring man that the master had control, not over the man. Indeed the evils of the wage system were scrupulously guarded against in that the employer was charged by the law as by conscience to have regard for the physical, moral and spiritual well being of his employes and their families. To the solution of all the problems, which under the varying condi- tions of the different lands and different ages, always have arisen and always will arise the Jewish legislation in its inception and develop- ment affords an extraordinary contribution. It has studiously avoided the fallacies of the extremists of both the communistic and individual- istic economic doctrines. Thus it was taught: He that saith, "What is mine is thine and what is thine is mine" (communism), he is void of a moral concept. He that saith, "What is mine is mine and what is thine is thine," he has the wisdom of prudence. But some of the sages declare that this teaching too rigidly held oft leads to barbarous cruel- ties. He that saith, "What is mine is thine and what is thine shall re- main thine," he has the wisdom of the righteous. He that says that, "What is mine is mine and what is thine is also mine," he is utterly Godless. (Pirque Aboth, v, 13.) Judaism has calmly met the wild outbursts of extremists of the anti-poverty nihilistic types with the simple confession of the fact which is a resultant of the imperfections of human nature: "The needy will not be wanting in the land." (Deut. xv, 11.) The brotherly care of the needy is the common solicitude of the Jewish legislatures and people in every age. Their neglect or abuse evokes the wrath of prophet, sage and councillor with such a fury that even today none but the morally dead can withstand their eloquence. The effort of 184 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. all legislation and instruction was directed to a harmonization of these two extremes. The freedom of the individual was recognized as involving the de- velopment of unlike capacities. From this freedom all progress springs. But all progress mu.st be made, not for the selfish advantage Wei^are?™™°'^ of the individual alone, but for the common welfare, "That thy brother with thee may live." (Lev. xxv, 36.) Therefore, private property in land or other possessions was regarded as only a trust, because every- thing is God's, the Father's, to be acquired by industry and persever- ance by the individual, but to be held by him only to the advantage of all. To this end were established all the laws and institutions of trade, of industry, and of the system of inheritance, the code of rentals, the jubilee year that every fiftieth year brought back the land which had been sold into the original patrimony, the seventh or Sabbatical year, in which the lands were fallow, all produce free to the consumer, the tithings of field and flock, the loans to the brother in need without usury, and the magnificent system of obligatory charities, which still hold the germ of the wisdom of all modern scientific charity. "Let the poor glean in the fields" (Lev. xix, 10), and gather through his own efforts what he needs, i. e., give to each one not support, but the opportunity to secure his own support. A careful study of these Mosaic-Talmudic institutions and laws is bound more and more to be recognized as of untold worth to the present in the solution of the social question. True, these codes were adapted to the needs of a peculiar people, homogeneous in char- acter, living under certain conditions and environments which proba- bly do not now exist in exactly the same order anywhere. We cannot use the statutes, but their aim and spirit, their motive and method we must adopt in the solution of the social problem even today. Con- sider that the cry of woe which is ringing in our ears now was never heard in Judea. Note that in all the annals of Jewish history there are no records of the revolts of slaves such as those which afflicted the world's greatest empire, and under Spartacus threatened the national safety, nor any uprisings like those of the Plebeians of Rome, the Demoi of Athens, or the Helots of Sparta; no wild scenes like those of the Paris Commune; no procession of hungry men, women and children crying for bread, like those of London, Chicago and Denver. Pauperism, that specter of our country, never haunted the ancient land of Judea. Tramps were not known there. Because the worst evils which afflict the social body today were unknown under the Jewish legislation, we may claim that we have here the pattern of what was the most successful social system that the world has ever known. Therefore does Judaism lift up her voice and call back her spiritual children, that in her bosom they may find comfort and rest. "Come back to the cradle of the world, where wis- dom first spake," she cries, "and learn again the message of truth that for all times and unto all generations was proclaimed through Israel's THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 185 precept, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself, for I am God.'" (Lev. xix, 18.) The hotly contested social questions of our civilization are to be settled neither according to the ideas of the cai)italist nor those of the laborer; neither according to those of the socialist, the communist, the anarchist or the nihilist; but simply and only according to the eternal laws of morality of which Sinai is the loftiest symbol. The guiding principles of all true social economy are embodied in the simple lessons of Judaism. As the world has been redeemed from idolati)- and its moral corruption by the vital force of Jewish ideas so can it likeu ise be redeemed from social debasement and chaos. Character is the basic precept of Judaism. It claims as the mod- ern philosopher declares (Herbert Spencer) that there is no political BaBirPrecept*^ alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts. Whatever the social system it will fail unless the conscience of men and women are quick to heed the imperative orders of duty and to the obligations and responsibilities of power and ownership. The old truth of righteousness so emphatically and rigorously insisted on from the first by Judaism must be the new truth in every changing phase of economic and industrial life. Only thus can the social C[uestions be solved. In her insistence on this doctrine Judaism retains her place in the van of the religions of humanity. Let the voice of the mother of religions be heard in the parliament of all religions. May the voice of the mother not plead in vain. May the hearts of the nations be touched and all the unjust and cruel re- strictions of ages be removed from Israel in all lands, so that the eman- /cipated may go in increasing colonies back to the native pursuits of agriculture and the industries so long denied them. May the colonies of the United States of America, Argentine and Palestine be an earnest to the world of the purity of Israel's motives; may the agricultural and industrial schools maintained by the Alliance Israelite Universelle.the Baron de Hirsch Trust and the various Jewish organizations of the civ- ilized world from Palestine to California, prove Israel's ardor for the honors of industry; may the wisdom of her schools, the counsel of her sages, the inspiration of her lawgivers, the eloquence of her prophets, the rapture of her psalmists, the earnestness of all her advocates, in- creasingly win the reverent attention of humanity to, and fix them unswervingly upon the everlasting laws of righteousness which she has set as the only basis for the social structure. Rabbi Joseph Silverman, New York, I^rrors y\bout the Jews. Paper by RABBI JOSEPH SILVERMAN, of New York. UM AN life has often seemed to be a " Comedy of Errors." Each generation is busy cor- recting the mistakes of the previous one, and, at the same time, making others for the next generation to correct. History is onl}', as it were, a record of the world's mis- takes. There would be no science, if God had revealed the whole truth to mankind. We are constantly groping in the dark. Every doctrine which today is a fact, becomes merely a theory tomon'ow; the next day, a myth. All is mystery; there is scarcely any truth, save the false; any right, save the Knowledge is only opinionbascd about facts, and most opinions are errors, or will be tomorrow. One of the keenest and most injurious evils that can befall a man or a people is to be misunderstood, perhaps worse is to be misrepresented. The individual who has experienced both knows both the vital sufferings that were his. To worship truth and to be accused of falsehood ; to be relig- iously virtuous and be charged with vice; to aspire to heaven and, by the world, be consigned to purgatory; to be robbed of one's identity and be clad in the garb of another, of an inferior being; to see one's principles distorted, every motive questioned; one's words misquoted, every act misunderstood; one's whole life misrepresented, and made a caricature in the eyes of all men, without the power of redress, is to suffer all the unmitigated pangs of inner mortification. You breathe the air, you see the world, you live; but tlie air is poison, the world a snare, and life a delusion. Those are not the greatest martyrs who died for any cause; but those who have lived and struggled in a world which not only did not bcliexe or trust in them, but filched from them every blessed endowment and acquired virtue. If any one were to attempt to anal}'zc the character of the Jew on 187 The (irpatost Martyrs. 188 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. the basis of what has been said about him in history (so called), in fiction, or other forms of literature, both prose and poetry, he would find himself confused and baffled, and would be compelled to give uj) I'liratioxes ^^'^ task ill despair. The greatest paradoxes have been expressed About the Jew. about the Jcw. The vilest of vices and crimes, as well as the greatest of virtues have been attributed to him. Pictures of him have been painted as dark as Harabbas and as light as Mordecai, while between the two may be found every shade of wickedness and goodness. There can be no doubt but that many errors and misconceptions about the Jew can be traced to this source. The opinions of the world are to a great extent formed by what men read in history or fiction, in any form of prose or poetry. In this way so great an injus- tice has been done to the Jew that it will be impossible for mankind ever to rectify it or atone therefor. To cite but one example out of an infinite number, I refer to Shakespeare's portrayal of the Jew in his character of Shylock. This picture is untrue in every heinous detail. The Jew is not revengeful as Shylock. Our very religion is opposed to the practice of revenge, the "lex talionis" having never been taken literally, but interpreted to mean full compensation for injuries. The Jew, in all history, is never known to have exacted a pound of human flesh cut from 'the living body as forfeit for a bond. Such was an ancient Roman practice. Shylock can be nothing more than a carica- ture of the Jew, and yet the world has applauded this abortion of lit- erature, this contortion of the truth more than the ideal portrait which Lessing drew of Israel in his "Nathan, the Wise." If any one coming from another world were to inquire of the inhabitants of this world regarding the character of the Jew, their beliefs and practices, he would obtain the most incongruous mixture of opinions. A dense ignorance exists about the Jews regarding their social and domestic life, their history and literature, their achieve- ments and disappointments, their religion, ideals and hopes. And this ignorance is not confined merely to ordinary men but prevails also among scholars. Ovid, Tacitus, Shakespeare, Voltaire and Renan, most heathen and Christian writers, have been guilty of entertaining, and, what is more culpable, of disseminating erroneous ideas about the descendants .of ancient Israel. " In regard to the Jews," says George Elliot, " it would be difficult to find a form of bad reasoning about them which had not been heard in conversation or been admitted to the dignity of print, but the neg- lect of resemblances is a common property of dullness which invites all the various points of view, the prejudiced, the puerile, the spiteful and the abysmally ignorant. Our critics have always overlooked our resemblances to them (the Jews) in virtue; have, in fact, denounced in Jews the same practices which they admired in themselves." There is no doubt but that prejudice against the Jews is as much a cause of ignorance and false reasoning as a result therefrom. When I sometimes hear or read a certain class of opinions con- cerning the Jews, I am reminded of an anecdote about Bishop Brooks, THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 1S9 He attended a meeting in England, at which an Englishman declarcci, "All Americans are narrow minded and illiberal. They are in spirit, Modem Jewn just as in body, small, dwarfed and pigmy." The late Bishop Brooks Hei)r^°/c™in then arose in all the majesty of his colossal stature, and called out in ^**'*'- his stentorian voice, "And here is one ot those American dwarfs." For the sake of completeness I will speak of the error ordinarily committed of referring to the Jew as a particular race. Hebrew is the name of an ancient race from w'hich the Jew is descended, but there have been so many admixtures to the original race that scarcely a trace of it exists in the modern Jews. Intermarriage with Egyptians, the various Canaanitish nations, the Midianites, Syrians, etc., are fre- quently mentioned in the Bible. There have also been additions to the Jews by voluntary conversions such as that in the eighth centur}-, of Bulan, prince of the Chasars and his entire people. We can, therefore, not be said to be a distinct race today. We form no separate nation and no faction of any nation. Nor is there any general desire to return to Palestine and resurrect the ancient nationality. We can only look with misgiving, rather with in- difference, upon any organized effort undertaken by fanatic believers who are deeply concerned in the fulfillment of certain Biblical prophe- cies. They overlook the fact that those prophecies have either already been, or need never be, fulfilled. We form merely an independent religious community and feel keenly the injustice that is done us when the religion of the Jew is singled out for aspersion, whenever such a citizen is guilty of a misde- meanor. Jew is not to be used parallel with German, Englishman, American, but wuth Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Moham- medan or Atheist. Over fifty years ago the late Isaac D'Israeli wrote that "the Jewish people are not a nation, for they consist of many nations; they are Russian, PLnglish, French, or Italian, and, like the chameleon, reflect the color of the spot they rest on. They are like the waters running through the countries tinged in their course with all thexarie- ties of the soil where they deposit themsches." An eminent Jewish divine, in a spirit of indignation at some harsh criticism cast upon the Hebrew nation, so called, asked: "If we are a separate nation, where is our country; where, our laws; where, our armies; where, our courts of justice; where, our flag?" To this ques- tion the critic made no reply. But we, here in congress assemblctl, can unitedl}' answer: "The land of our nativit\\ or of our adoj^tion, is our country. Its laws we obey; in its armies we find our comrades; by the decision of its courts we abide; under its flag we seek protection, and for it we are ready to sacrifice our substance and our lives and to pledge our sacred honor." W'e are, furthermore, often charged with exclusiveness and clan- nishness, with having only narrow, tribal aspirations, and with being averse to breaking down social barriers. Few outside of that inner close circle that is to be met in the Jewish home, or social group, know 190 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. ■r, .. auijht of the lew's domestic liappincss and social virtues. If there is Happinpse and any clannishncss in the Jew, it is due not to any contempt tor the out- nes. ^jj^ world, but to an utter abandon to the charm of home and the fas- cination of confreres in thought and sentiment. However, if there is a remnant of exclusiveness in the Jews of today, is he to blame for it? Did he create the social barrier? We must agree with Mr. /Jangwil when he says: "People who have been living in a Ghetto for a couple of centuries are not able to step outside merely because the gates are thrown down, or to efface the brands on their souls b\' putting off the yellow badges. The isolation from with- out will have come to seem the law of their being." ( Children of the Ghetto, i, 6.) None is more desirous of fraternity than the Jew, but he will not gain it at the loss of his manhood. He will not accept fraternity^ as a patronage, but would rather claim it as a simple matter of equality. That is a point which our critics and detractors do not understand. Again, if the Jew is exclusive, it is due to the fact that while he is willing to come to any truce for brotherhood, he declines to do so and be regarded as legitimate prey for religious conquest. And that is a point which the missionaries cannot understand. The fact. that Jews are, as a rule, averse to intermarriage with non- Jews has. been quoted in evidence of Jewish exclusiveness. Two errors seem to underlie this false reasoning. The one that Judaism directly interdicts intermarriage with Christians, and the other that the Jewish church disciplines those who are guilty of such an act. The Mosaic law, at best only forbade intermarriage with the seven Canaanit- ish nations and, though the only justifiable inference would be that this interdiction applies also to heathens, still by rabbinical forms of inter- pretation it has been made to apply also to Christians. The historical fact is that the Roman Catholic council held at Orleans, in 533 A. C. E., first prohibited Christians to intermarry with Jews. This decree was later enforced by meting out the penalty of death to both parties to such a union. Jewish rabbis, then, as a matter of self-protection, interdicted the practice of intermarriage. And though today, men arc free to act according to their tastes, there exists on the part of the Jew as much repugnance to intermarriage as on the part of the Chris- tian. Such ties are, as a rule, not encouraged by the families of either side, and for very good cause. And even if there exists on the part of the Jew a greater aversion to intermarriage, this cannot and should not be charged to a desire for clannishncss or exclusiveness, but rather to those natural barriers that separate Jewish from Christian societ}'. It is not my purpose, at present, to lay the blame for the creation or continuance of such barriers, but only to submit that social ostracism, as that term is understood today, has never in any form been under- taken by Jews. A sense of just pride even constrains me from strongly protesting against the social ostracism that, at times, manifests itself against the Jew. I desire here to merely point out the error that seems to inspire it, namely, the grievous error that ostracism is sup- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 191 posed to purify the one side of all objectionable characters, and to stamp all ostracised as the outcast of the earth. We are familiar with that false logic that infers a broad generality from a few isolated par- ticulars, which imputes the sins of an individual to the class of which he may be a member, which charges the misdemeanor of one upon a whole people, which condemns a religion because of the wickedness of a few hypocrites, which punishes the guilty with the innocent. And it is such fallacious reasoning that is time and again applied to Jews, Able to Live with this exception that the virtues of a Montefiore or a Baron de Abuso.'^ * Hirsch are not generalized in the same manner. We are convinced that Jews who have outlived the terrors of the Inquisition will be able to live down all abuse, all false reasoning, and maintain the majesty of their manhood even outside the charmed circle of self-appointed censors of social life. But we must protest against the error which mistakes ostracism for exclusiveness. In this case the latter is a virtue, the former a vice, a crime. Let the verdict of history say who is guilty? We have even been charged with exclusiveness in our religion, so lit- tle is our practice known. I have myself been lately asked by a lady who makes some pretense to education, whether she could not go to the synagogue in order to see the offering of animal sacrifices and the burning of incense. She had supposed that the Jewish religion was a secret, mysterious rite, to witness which was only the privilege of the initiated. Frequently we are asked whether non-Jews are permitted to enter a Jewish house of worship. Error and misrepresentation about Judaism are common. A Christian divine once remarked that the offering of the Paschal lamb in the synagogue, at this very day, contains a sublime picture of the transfiguration of Christ. And re- cently in New York (and perhaps in other cities also), a missionary was giving performances in Christian churches, showing how the Jews still offer the Paschal lamb. If such gross errors and misrepresenta- tions are current and are taught in this country with the connivance of men in authority who know better, it is not difficult to understand how benighted peasants in Europe can be made to believe that Jews use the blood of Christian children at the Passover services, and how such •monstrous calumnies could rouse the prejudice and vengeance of the ignorant masses. So little is Judaism understood by even educated men outside of our ranks, that it is commonly believed that all Jews hold the same form of faith and practice. Here the same error of reasoning is used to which reference has already been made, in speaking of the char- acter of the Jew as an individual and as a class. Because some Jews still believe in the coming of a personal Messiah, or in bodily resurrection, or in the establishment of the Palestinian kingdom, the inference is at once drawn by many, that all Jews hold the same belief. Very little is known by the populace of the several schisms in modern Judaism denominated as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Radical. It is not my province to speak exhaustively of these sects, and it must suf- 192 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. fice to merely remark here that Orthodox Judaism believes in carry- ing out the letter of the ancient Mosaic code as expounded by the Talmudic rabbis; that Reform Judaism seeks to retain the spirit only of the ancient law, discarding the absolute authority of both Bible and Talmud, making reason and modern demands paramount; that Con- servatism is merely a moderate Reform, while Radicalism declares itself independent of established forms, clinging mainly to the ethical basis of Judaism. Reform Judaism has been the specially favored subject of mis- understanding and of ignorance. Recently an eminent Christian divine of St. Louis objected to extending an invitation to a Reform rabbi to dSm "' lecture before the Ministers' Association, on the plea that "All Reform Jews are infidels." A still grosser piece of ignorance is the identifica- tion of Reform Judaism with Unitarianism. As scholarly and finished a writer as Frances Power Cobbe, in a recent article on "Progressive Judaism," matle bold to show her extreme interest in this Reform movement, believing it to evidence a breaking up of Judaism alto- gether and a turning toward Christianit)'. Far from breaking up Judaism, Reform has strengthened it in many ways and retained in the fold those who would have gone over, not to Christianity, but to Atheism. Judaism can never tend toward Christianity, in any sense, notably to Unitarianism; the latter rather is gradually breaking away from Christianity and tending toward Jewish belief. Forthe present, however. Reform Judaism still stands opposed to ev^enthe most liberal Unitarians and protests against hero worship, against a second revela- tion and the necessity of a better code of ethics than the one pro- nounced by Moses and the prophets. To prevent the inference that Judaism is no positive quantity and that there are irreconcilable differences dividing the various sects, I will say that all Jews agree on essentials and declare their belief in the Unity and Spirituality of (jod, in the efficacy of religion for spiritual regeneration and for ethical improvement, in the uni\'ersal law of com- pensation according to which there are reward and punishment, either here (^r hereafter, in the final triumph of truth and fraternity of all men. It ma}' be briefly stated that the decalogue forms the constitu- tion of Judaism. According to Moses, the prophets and the historical interpretation of Judaism, whoc\'er believes and practices the "ten commandments'' is a Jew . Krrors about the Jew pertain not only to .questions of race and nationality, not only to his individual, domestic and social character, not only to his religion, but also to his inherent power to resist the condemnation and opposition of an evil enemy and his persistent ex-- istence in spite of the destructi\'e forces of a hostile world. The very fact that after so many fruitless efforts to destroy the Jew by persecu- tion and inquisition, similar efforts are still put forth, only proves that the invincibility of Israel has ever been, and is still underestimated. It is a fact that the cause of the Jew is strengthened in times of persecu- tion. When the hand of the oppressor is felt, the oppressed band THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, 193 together encourage one another, become more faithful to their God, firmer in their conviction and more zealous in behalf of their religion. \t has been said that martyrdom is the seed of the church. This is no less true of Judaism. The very means adopted to destroy it have only plowed up the fallow land and planted a stronger faith. Persecution against any religion is a wanton error, a monstrous blasphemy. The very traducers and persecutors of the Jews are the real ene- mies of Christianity. Russia has set Christianity one or two centuries Real En* backward. Anti-Semitic agitation in Germany will have a similar re- ™l^lt°. suit. The church is committing a monumental blunder in conniving at this nineteenth century outrage and must sooner or later be over- taken by her Nemesis. The church should in her own interest, in the name of her own principles and teachings, rise up in arms against unholy Russia and unrighteous Germany. When persecution had done its work to no avail, when inquisition failed to make any impression on the Jew in order to induce him to leave his brethren, detraction and ostracism were resorted to in order to weaken the hold of the Jew upon his co-religionists. We have already referred to some forms of this persecution and wish to add that Jews were falsely charged with having poisonous wells, with having spread contagious diseases and been the cause of the black death and every public calamity. Strenuous efforts have also been made to impair their commercial relations with the world. Jews have been condemned as a people of usurers, of avaricious money-lenders, as consumers in contradiction to producers. " In the Middle Ages," says Lady Mag- nus (Outlines of Jewish History), " ' Jezv' meant to the popular mind nothing more than money-lender. Men spoke of having their 'Jews,' as we speak of having our grocers and druggists. Each served a par- ticular purpose and was primarily regarded in connection with that service. The real reason was never recognized by popular judgment, and the rude peasant of medieval Europe firmly believed that the Jew amassed more money than those about him, not because he was more industrious or more frugal, but because he was meaner, trickier, more deceitful, and, if necessary, positively dishonest." Whatever may be the reprehensible practice of individuals, such an aspersion does not apply to the Jewish character, Jewish teachings, both in Scripture and Talmud, being opposed to usury and overreaching of whatever kind. It is malicious slander to class the Jews as consumers, as distin- guished from producers. The Jew is by birthright a tiller of the soil. Of this birthright he has been robbed by rapacious governments. Through centuries of persecution, when he was but a wandering sojourner on the earth, with no country he could call his own, no government to love, no flag to revere, he was like a tortoise that carries his house with him. The Jew was compelled to traffic in moneys and gems which he could take with him from place to place as necessity demanded. Today, however, he is found in all trades and professions; today he is agriculturist, mechanic and artist, jaartakes of all the bounties of free citizenship and must be counted among the producers of the world. 194 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. And what shall we say of the Bible, the Talmud, music and poetry, art and science, which the Jews have contributed to the intellectual and material wealth of mankind! To still repeat the old threadbare charge is worse than malicious slander, it is criminal detraction, a sub- version of all fact, a travesty upon truth. There is sufficient reason to believe that all persecution and detraction of Jews rest on the further fundamental erroneous supposi- tion that Jews can, in some way or other, be converted to Christianity. When men think they can destroy the Jew and his religion, they forget his indomitable patience, his untiring perseverance, his almost stolid obstinacy. When they endeavor to crush him, they overlook his hardened nature, steeled by trials and misfortune. When they expect to lure him from his associates, and wean him from his religion, they lose sight of his keen wit, his sense of the humorous and ridiculous. When they endeavor to punish him with ostracism, they fail to note his cheerful disposition, his happy home, and charming social in- stincts. When they endeavor to injure his influence by slander and detraction, they are blind to his utter disregard for public favors, and to his ability to rise to any emergency. When they look forward to converting him by force of persuasion.by threat or bribe, they disclose their ignorance of his deepseated conviction of the truth of his own religion. The meager results achieved by missionaries and tracts have proved how futile are all efforts to convert the Jews. And even those few who have changed their faith have done so, there is ample reason FutiieEflforte to believe, only through mercenary motives, only because abject pov- to^^onvert the ^^^^ forced them to accept the bribe that was temptingly held out toward them. I believe there are many sincere missionaries, and that, perhaps, among savages they accomplish some good as a civilizing leaven, but among the Jews their labors are uncalled for and misdirected. This whole modern system of anti-Semitic agitation, and of attempts to convert the Jews by any means, reveals to us the errone- ous impression entertained by many, it seems, that Jews have entered into a kind of secret rivalry with the rest of the world for the suprem- acy of Judaism and its followers. Nothing could be further removed from the truth. Jews do not aspire to supremacy (perhaps unfortun- ately) religiously, socially, or politically. They desire no distinction as a particular sect, apart from the rest of the world, in dress, habits, manners, social features or politics. Jews have renounced the title of " Peculiar People," and regard such a sobriquet rather as a reproach than a compliment. They claim the name of Jew merely as a term denoting their particular faith and practice. In religion only are Jews different from others, and they claim the right as free men to worship their God in peace, according to the dictates of their own and not another's conscience. The Jew is tolerant by nature, tolerant by virtue of his religious teaching. He believes in allowing every man, what he claims for him-^ THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 195 self, the right to work out his own salvation and make his own peace with God. He has only one important request to make of Christian teachers and preachers, namely, that they desist from teaching their au Ern)r the s'chool children and congregations the prevailing error that the Jews p^'udice'^"^'''' have crucified Jesus of Nazareth. Because of this great error the believing world looks upon the Jew through an imperfect medium, one that enlarges faults and minimizes virtues. It is this error which has caused so much prejudice, bitter hatred and unjust persecution. If it were once corrected the way would be opened for the correction of many other errors. Now is the great opportunity of the age for rectifying it. Let the truth be told to the world by the assembled parliament of religions, that not the Jews but the " Romans have cru- cified the great Nazarean teacher." Rt. Rev. John J. Keane, D. D. (Rector Catholic University), Washington, D. C. 'X'he Incarnation Jdea in H's^o^y ^^d in Jesus Qhrist. Paper by RT. REV. JOHN J. KEANE, D. D., of Washington, D. C. HE subject assigned to me is so vast that an hour would not suffice to do it justice. Hence, in the space of thirty minutes I can only point out certain lines of thought, trusting, however, that their truth will be so manifest and their significance so evident that the conclusion to which they lead may be clearly recognized as a demonstrated fact. Cicero has truly said that there never was a race of atheists. Cesare Balbo has noted with equal truth that there never has been a race of deists. Individual atheists and indi- vidual deists there have always been, but they have always been recognized as abnormal beings. Humanity listens to them, weighs their utterances in the scales of reason, smiles sadly at their vagaries, and holds fast the two-fold conviction that there is a Supreme J3eing, the Author of all else that is; and that man is not left to the mercy of ignorance or of guess work in regard to the purpose of his being, but has knowledge of it from the great Father. This sublime conception of the existence of God and of the exist- ence of revelation is not a spontaneous generation from the brain of man, Tyndal and Pasteur have demonstrated that there is no spon- taneous generation from the inorganic to the organic. Just as little is there, or could there be, a spontaneous generation of the idea of the Infinite from the brain of the finite. The fact, in each case, is the result of a touch from above. All humanity points back to a golden age, when man was taught of the Divine by the Divine, that in that knowledge he might know why he himself existed, and how his life was to be shaped. Curiosly, strangely, sadly as that primitive teaching of man by his Creator has been transformed in the lapse of ages, in the vicissi- 197 Exietf-nce of Revelation. 198 TBE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. tudes of distant wanderings, of varying fortunes and of changing cul- ture, still the comparative study of ancient religions shows that in them all there has existed one central, pivotal concept, dressed, indeed, in various garbs of myth and legend and philosophy, yet ever recog- nizably the same — the concept of the fallen race of man and of a future restorer, deliverer, redeemer, who, being human, should yet be different from and above the merely human. Again we ask, whence this concept? And again the sifting of AncientMem- scrious and honcst criticism demonstrates that it is not a spontaneous man^Race ^^' g^r^cration of the human brain, that it is not the outgrowth of man's contemplation of nature around him and of the sun and stars above him, although, once having the concept, he could easily find in all nature symbols and analogies of it. It is part, and the central part, of the ancient memory of the human race, telling man what he is and why he is such, and how he is to attain to something better as his heart yearns to do. Glancing now, in the light of the history of religions, at that stream of tradition as it comes down the ages, we see it divide into two clearly distinct branches — one shaping thought, or shaped by thought, in the eastern half of Asia; the other in the western half. And these two separate streams receive their distinctive character from the idea prevalent in the east and west of Asia concerning the nature of man, and, consequently, concerning his relation to God. In the west of Asia, the Semitic branch of the human family, to gether with its Aryan neighbors of Persia, considered man as a sub- stantial individuality, produced by the Infinite Being, and produced as a distinct entity, distinct from his Infinite Author in his own finite personality, and through the immortality of the soul. Eastern Asia, on the contrary, held that man had not a substan- tial individuality, but only a phenomenal individuality. There is, they said, only one substance — the Infinite; all things are but phenomena, emanations of the Infinite. "Behold," say the Laws of Manou, "how the sparks leap from the flame and fall back into it; so all things ema- nate from Brahma and again lose themselves in him." "Behold," says Buddhism, "how the dewdrop lies on the lotus leaf, a tiny particle of the stream, lifted from it by evaporation and slipping off the lotus leaf to lose itself in the stream again," Thus they distinguished between being and existence, between persisting substance, the Infinite and the evanescent phenomena emanating from it for a while. From these opposite concepts of man sprang opposite concepts of the nature of good and evil. In western Asia, good was the con- formity of the finite will with the will of the Infinite, which is wisdom and love; evil was the deviation of the finite will from the eternal norma of wisdom and love. Hence individual accountability and guilt, as long as the deviation lasted; hence the cure of evil when the finite will is brought back into conformity with the Infinite; hence the happiness of virtue and the bliss of immortality and the value of existence. Eastern Asia, per contra, considered existence as simply and THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 190 solely an evil; in fact, the sole and all-pervading evil, and the only good was deliverance from existence, the extinction of all individuality in the oblivion of the Infinite. Although existence was conceived as -the work of the Infinite — nay, as an emanation coming forth from the Infinite — yet it was considered simply a curse, and all human duty had this for its meaning and its purpose, to break loose from the fetters of existence and to help others with ourselves to reach non-existence. Hence again, in western Asia, the future redeemer was conceived as one masterful individuality, human, indeed, type and head of the race, but also pervaded by the divinity in ways and degrees more or less obscurely conceived and used by the divinity to break the chains of moral evil and guilt — nay, often, they supposed, of physical .and national evils as well — and to bring man back to happiness, to holi- nesSj to God. Thus, vaguely or more clearly, they held the idea of an incarnation of the Deity for man's good; and HiS incarnation was nat- urally looked forward to as the crowning blessing and glory of humanity. In eastern Asia, on the contrary, as man and all things were re- garded as phenomenal emanations of the Infinite, it followed that every man was an incarnation. And hence this phenomenal existence was considered a curse, which metempsychosis dragged out pitifully. And if there was room for the notion of a redeemer, he was to be one recognizing more clearly than others what a curse existence is, strug- gling more resolutely than others to get out of it, and exhorting and guiding others to escape from it with him. We pause to estimate these two systems. We easily recognize that their fundamental difference is a difference of philosophy. The touchstone of philosophy is human reason, and we have a right to Difference of apply it to all forms of philosophy. With no irreverence, therefore. Philosophy, but in all reverence and tenderness of religious sympathy, we apply to the philosophies underlying those two systems, the touchstone of reason. We ask eastern Asia, How can the phenomena of the Infinite Being be finite? For phenomena are not entities in themselves, but phases of being. We have only to look calmly in order to see here a contradiction in terms, an incompatibility in ideas, an impossibility. We ask again. How can the emanations of the Infinite Being be evil? For the Infinite Being must be essentially good. Zoroaster declared that Ahriman, the evil one, had had a beginning and would have an end, and was, therefore, not eternal nor infinite. And if there is but one substance, then the emanations, the phenomena of the Infi- nite Being are Himself; how can they be evil? How can His incarna- tion be the one great curse to get free from? Again we ask. How can this human individuality of ours, so strong, so persistent in itself-consciousness and self-assertion, be a phenome- non without a substance? Or, if it has as its substance the Infinite Being Himself, then how can it be, as it too often is, so ignorant and erring, so weak and changeful, so lying, so dishonest, so mean, so vile? 200 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. For, let us remember, that acts arc predicated not of phenomena, but of substance, of being. Once more we ask. If human existence is but a curse, and if the only blessing is to restrain, to resist, to thwart and get rid of all that constitutes it, then what a mockery and a lie is that aspiration after human progress, which spurs noble men to their noblest achievements! To these questions pantheism, emanationism, has no answer that reason can accept. It can never constitute a philosophy, because its No Answer bascs are contradictions. Shall we say that a thing may be false in c^AcceDt"*° philosophy and yet true in religion? That was said once by an inventor of paradoxes; but reason repudiates it as absurd, and the apostle of the Gentiles has well said that religion must be "ourreason- .able service." Human life, incarnation, redemption, must mean some- thing different from this. For the spirit that breathes through the tradition of the east, the spirit of profound self-annihilation in the presence of the Infinite and of ascetic self-immolation as to the things of sense, we not only may but ought to entertain the tenderest sym- pathy, nay, the sincerest reverence. Who that has looked into it but has felt the fascination of its mystic gloom? But religion means more than this; it is meant not for man's heart alone, but for his intellect also. It must have for its foundation a bed rock of solid philosophy. Turn we then and apply the touchstone to the tradition of the west. Here it needs no lengthy philosophic reflection to recognize how true it is that what is not self-existent, what has a beginning must be finite, and that the finite must be substantially distinct from the Infi- nite. We recognize that no multiplication of finite individualties can detract from the Infinite, nor could their addition add to the Infinite; for infinitude resides not in multiplication of things, but in the bound- less essence of Being, in whose simple and all-pervading immensity the multitude of finite things have their existence gladly and grate- fully. "What have you that you have not received? And if you have received it, why should" you glory as if you had not received it?" This is the keynote not only of their humble dependence, but also of their gladsome thankfulness. We recognize that man's substantial individuality, his spiritual immortality, his individual power of will and consequent moral respon- sibility, are great truths linked together in manifest logic, great facts standing together immovably. We see that natural ills are the logical result of the limitations of the finite, and that moral evil is the result of the deviation of humanity from the norma of the Infinite, in which truth and rectitude essentially reside. We see that the end and purpose and destiny, as well as the ori- gin, of the finite must be in the Infinite; not in the extinction of the finite individuality — else why should it receive existence at all— but in its perfection and beatitude. And therefore we see that man's upward aspiration for the better and the best is no illusion, but a reasonable instinct for the right guidance of his life. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, 201 All this we find explicitly stated or plainly implied in the tradi- tion of the west. Here we have a philosophy concerning God and concerning man, which may well serve as the rational basis of religion. What, then, has this tradition to tell us concerning the incarnation and the redemption? From the beginning we see every finger pointing toward "the expected of the nations, the desired of the everlasting hills." One after another the patriarchs, the pioneer fathers of the race, remind their descendants of the promise given in the beginning. Revered as they were, each of them says: "I am not the expected one; look forward and strive to be worthy to receive Him." Among all those great leaders Moses stands forth in special grand- eur and majesty. But in his sublime humility and truthfulness Moses also exclaims: "I am not the Messiah; I am only His type and figure and precursor. The Lord hath used me to deliver His people from the land of bondage, but hath not permitted me to enter the promised The Messiah, land because I trespassed against Him in the midst of the children of Israel at the waters of contradiction; I am but a figure of the sinless One who is to deliver mankind from the bondage of evil and lead them into the promised land of their eternal inheritance. Look for- ward and prepare for Him." One after another the prophets, the glorious sages of Israel, arise, and each, like Moses, points forward to Him that is to come. And each brings out in clearer light who and what He is to be, the nature of the incarnation. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son and He shall be called Emmanuel." That is God with us. "A little child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the principality is on His shoulder, and He shall be called the Wonderful, the Coun- selor, the Mighty God, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace." Outside of the land of Israel the nations of the Gentiles were stirred with similar declarations and expectancies. Soon after the time of Moses Zoroaster gives to Persia the prediction of a future Saviour and judge of the world. Greece hears the olden promise that Prometheus shall yet be de- livered from his chains re-echoed in the prayer of dear old Socrates that one would come from heaven to teach His people the truth and save them from the sensualism to which they clung so obstinately. And pagan Rome, the inheritor of all that had preceded her, hears the sibyls chanting of the Divine One that was to be given to the world by the wonderful virgin mother, and feels the thrill of that universal ex- pectancy concerning which Tacitus testifies that all were then looking for a great leader who was to arise in Judea and to rule the world. And the expectation of the world was not to be frustrated. At the very time foretold by Daniel long ages before, of the tribe ^..^ Judah, of the family of David, in the little town of Bethlehem, witii* fulfillment of all the predictions of the prophets, the Messiah appears. "Behold," says the messenger of the Most High to the Virgin of Naz- \i 202 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. areth, "thou shalt conceive In thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David, His father, and He shall reign in the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end." "How shall this be done, because I know not man?" "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; and, therefore, also the Holy One that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." "Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word. ' And what then? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and of His fullness we all have received," And concerning Him all subsequent ages were to chant the canticle of faith: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, . Creator of heaven and earth, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages; God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, consubstan- tial with the Father, through whom all things were made, who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnated by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man." But, again, to this tremendous declaration, which involves not only a religion but a philosophy also, we may, and we should, apply the touchstone of reason and ask, " Is this possible or is it impossible Reif^on'bat a t^iri^s that are here told us ? For we never can be expected to believe Philosophy. the impossible. Let us analyze the ideas comprised in it. Can God and man thus become one?" Now, first, reason testifies as to man that In him two distinct and, as It would seem, opposite substances are brought into unity, namely, spirit and matter, the one not confounded with the other yet both linked in one, thus completing the unity and harmony of created things. Next reason asks, Can the creature and the Creator, man and God, be thus united in order that the unity and the harmony may embrace all? Reason sees that the finite could not thus mount to the Infinite any more than matter of itself could mount to spirit. But could not the Infinite stoop to the finite and lift it to His bosom and unite it with Himself, with no confounding of the finite with the Infinite nor of the Infinite with the finite, yet so that they shall be linked in one? Here reason can discern no contradiction of ideas, nothing beyond the power of the Infinite. But could the Infinite stoop to this? Reason sees that to do so would cost the Infinite nothing, since He is ever His unchanging Self; it sees, moreover, that since creation Is the offspring not of His need but of His bounty, of His love, it would be most worthy of infinite love to thus perfect the creative act, to thus lift up the creature and bring all things into unity and harmony. Then must reason declare It is not only possible, but it is most fitting, that it should be so. Moreover, we see that It Is this very thing that all humanity has THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 203 been craving for, whether intelligently or not. This very thing all re- ligions have been looking forward to, or have been groping for in the dark. Turn we then to Himself and ask: "Art Thou He who is to TheExpectwi come, or look we for another?" To that question He must answer, of ^heNations. for the world needs and must have the truth. Meek and humble of heart though He be, the world has a right to know whether He be in- deed "the Expected of the Nations, the Immanuel, Lord with us." Therefore does He answer clearly and unmistakably: "Abraham rejoiced that he should see My day. He saw it and was glad." "Art Thou, then, older than Abraham?" " Before Abraham was I am." "Who art Thou, then?" " I am the beginning, who also speak to you." "Whosoever seeth Me seeth the Father; I and the Father are one." " No one cometh to the Father but by Me." " I am the way and the truth and the life." " I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life." " I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me, for without Me you can do nothing." He asks His disciples to declare who He is. Simon replies: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." He answers: "Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jona, because flesh and blood have not revealed this to thee, but My Father who is in heaven." Thomas falls on his knees before Him, exclaiming, "My Lord and my God!" He answers, "Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen and have yet believed." His enemies threaten to stone Him, "because," they said, "being man. He maketh Himself God." They demand that for this reason He shall be put to death. The high priest exclaims, "I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ, the Son of the living God." He answers, "Thou hast said it, I am; and one day you shall see Me sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming in the clouds of heaven." In fulfillment of the prophecies He is condemned to death. He declares that it is for the world's redemption: "I lay down My lite for My sheep. No one taketh My life from Me, but I lay down My life, and I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again." As proof of all He said. He foretold His resurrection from death on the third day, and in the glorious evidence of the fulfillment of the jj^^'^"^ ^'^ pledge His church has ever since been chanting the Easter anthem throughout the world. 204 The WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. To that church He gives a commission of spiritual authority ex- tending to all ages, to all nations, to every creature; a commission that would be madness in any mouth save that of God Incarnate. T stimon This is the testimony concerning Himself given to an inquiring roncerning and needy world by Him whom no one will dare accuse of lying or Himself. imposture, and the loving adoration of the ages proclaims that His testimony is true. In Him are fulfilled all the figures and predictions of Moses and the prophets; all the expectation and yearning of Israel. In Him is the fullness of grace and of truth toward which the sages of the Gen- tiles, with sad or with eager longing, stretched forth their hands. In each of them there was much that was true and good; in Him was all they had, and all the rest that they longed for; in Him alone is the fullness, and to all of them and all of their disciples we say: "Come to the fullness." Edwin Arnold, who in his "Light of Asia" has pictured in all the colors of poesy the sage of the far east, has in his later "Light of the World" brought that wisdom of the east in adoration to the feet of Jesus Christ. May his words be a prophecy. O, Father, grant that the words of Thy Son may be verified, that all, through Him, may at last be made one in Thee. Yhe Incarnation of G^d in Christ. Paper by REV. JULIAN K. SMYTH, of Boston. Presence Ood in Haman of T is related that some Greeks once came to Jerusalem and, to a fisherman of Bethsaida, they said: "Sir, we would see Jesus." Hellas came to Israel; the nation of culture approach- ed the people of revelation, and the patrons, if, indeed, we may not say the worshipers, of the Beautiful asked to look into the face of Him who "hath no form nor comeliness," whose "visage was so marred unlike to a man and His form unlike to the sons of men/' A few years later a Tarsus Jew, a messenger of Jesus of Nazareth, standing in the court of the Areopagites, said to the men of Athens who asked concerning "the new doctrine:" "Whom ye ignorantly worship Him declare I unto you." And the question of the Greeks has passed from mouth to mouth, as the story of the "man of sorrows" has been carried around the world, until now, in this gathering together of all religions, it is put forth as a question of humanity. To attempt to explain from the Christian standpoint the coming and the nature of that Person, the influence of whose life has been so creative of spiritual hope and purpose, is a responsibility, the weightiness of which is felt in proportion as it is believed that to as many as receive Him, to them gives He the power to become children of God; that He is the word made flesh, and that the glory which men behold in Him is in very truth, "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father " Christianity, in its broadest as well as its deepest sense, means the presence of God in humanity. It is the revelation of God in His world; the opening up of a straight, sure way to that God; and a new tidal flow of divine life to all the sons of men. The hope of this has, in some measure, been in every age and in every religion, stirring them with expectation. Evil might be strong; but a day would come when the seed of a woman would bruise the serpent's head, even though it should bruise the Conqueror's heel. God in His world to champion and redeem it! This is what the religions of the ages have, in some 206 Rev. Julian K. Smyth, (Church of the New Jerusalem), Boston, Mass. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 209 form and with various degrees of certainty, looked for. This is what sang itself into the songs and prophesies of Israel. "And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed; and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it." "Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come in strength, and His arm shall rule for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him and His work before Him, He shall feed His flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with His arms, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." Christianity is in the world to utter her belief that He who revealed Himself as the Good Shepherd realizes these expectations and fulfills these promises, and that in the Word made flesh the glory of Jehovah has been revealed and all flesh may see it together. Even in child- jjo^^^'^ *** ^'^ hood He bears the name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is "God with us." He explains His work and His presence by declaring that it is the coming of the kingdom — not of law, nor of earthly govern- ment, nor of ecclesiasticism — but of God. His purpose, to manifest and bring forth the love and the wisdom of God; His miracles, simply the attestations of the divine imma- nence; His supreme end, the culmination of all His labors; His suffer- ings, His victories, to become the open and glorified medium of divine life to the world. It is not another Moses, nor another Elias, but God in the world — God with us — this, the supreme announcement of Christianity, asserting his immanence, revealing God and man as intended for each other and rousing in man slumbering wants and capacities to realize the new vision of manhood that dawns upon him from this luminous figure. Christianity afiirms as a fundamental fact of the God it worships that He is a God who does not hide or withhold Himself, but who is ever going forth to man inthe effort to reveal Himself, and to be known and felt according to the degree of man's capacity and need. This self-manifestation or "forthgoing of all that is known or knowable of the divine perfections" is the Logos, or Word; and it is the very center of Christian revelation. This word is God, not withdrawn in dreary solitude, but coming into intelligible and personal manifestation. From the beginning — for so we may now read the "Golden Proem" of St. John's Gospel, with its wonderful spiritual history of the Logos — from the beginning God has this desire to go forth to something outside of Himself and be known by it. "In the beginning was the Word." Hence the creation. "All things were made by Him." Hence, too, out of this divine desire to reveal and accommodate Himself to man, His presence in various forms of religion. "He was in the world." Even in man's sin and spiritual blindness the eternal Logos seeks to bring itself to his consciousness. "The Light shineth in the darkness," But gradually through the -ages, through man's sinfulness, his spiritual perceptions become dim and he sees, as in a state of open-eyed blindness, only the forms through which the divine mind has sought to manifest Himself. "He was in 210 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. the world and the world knew Him not." What more can be done? Type, symbol, religious ceremonials, scriptures — all have been em- ployed. Has not man slipped beyond the reach of the divine endeav- ors? But the Christian history of the Logos moves on to its supreme announcement: "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Not some angel come from heaven to deliver some further message; not another prophet sprung from our bewildered race to chide, to warn or to extort, but the Logos, which in the beginning was with God and which was God; the Jehovah of the old prophecies, whose glory, it had been promised, would be revealed that all flesh might see it together. And so in the Christian view of it the story of the Logos com- pletes itself in the story of the manger. And so, too, the incarnation, instead of being exceptional, is exactly in line with what the Logos story of ttie h^s, from the beginning, been doing. God, as the Word, has ever been Manger. coming to man in a form accommodated to his need, keeping step with his steps until, in the completeness of this desire to bring Him- self to man where he is. He appears to the natural senses and in a form suitable to our natural life. In the Christian conception of God, as one who seeks to reveal himself to man, it simply is inevitable that the Word should manifest Himself on the very lowest plane of man's life, if at any time it would be true to say of his spiritual condition: "This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes they have closed." It is not extraordinary in the sense of its being a hard or an unnatural thing for God to do. He has always been approaching man, always adapting His revelations to human conditions and needs. It is this constant accommodation and manifestation that has kept man's power of spiritual thought, alive. The history of religions, together with their remains, is a proof of it. The testimony of the historic faiths presented in this parliament has confirmed it as the most self- evident thing of the divine nature in His dealings with the children of men, and the incarnation of its natural and completcst outcome. And when we begin toifoUow the life of Him whose footprints, in the light of Christian history and experience, are still looked upon as the very footprints of the Incarnate Word, the Gospel story is a stor\' of toil, of suffering, of storm and tempest; a story of sacrifice, of love so pure and holy that even now it has the power to touch, to thrill, to re-create man's selfish nature. There is an undoubted actuality in the human side of this life, but just as surely there is a certain divine something forever speaking through those human tones and reaching out through those kindly hands. The character of the Logos is never lost, sacrificed or lowered. It is always this^ divine something trying to manifest itself, trying to make itself understood, trying to redeem man from his slavery to evil and draw to itself his spiritual attach- ment. Here, plain to human sight, is part of that age-long effort of the THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 211 Strength and Comfort. Word to reveal itself to man only now through a nature formed and born for the purpose. We are reminded of it when we hear Him say: 'iBefore Abraham was, I am." We are assured of it when He declares that He came forth from the Father. And we know that He has tri- umphed when, at the last, we hear His promise, "Lo, I am with you always." It is the Logos speaking. The divine purpose has been ful- filled. The Word has come forth on this plane of human life, mani- fested Himself and established a relationship with man nearer and dearer than ever before. He has made Himself available and indis- pensable to every need or effort. "Without Me, ye can do nothing." In His divine humanity He has established a perfect medium whereby we may have free and immediate access to God's Fatherly help. "I am the Door of the sheep." "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." In this thought of the divine character of the Son of Man, the early Christians found strength and comfort. For a time they did not attempt to define this faith, theologically. It was a simple, direct, earnest faith in the goodness and redeeming power of the God-Man. whose perfect nature had inspired them to believe in the reality of His heavenly reign. They felt that the risen Lord was near them; that He was the Saviour so long promised; the world's hope, "in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." But today man claims his right to enter understandingly into the mysteries of faith, and reason asks. How could God or the divine Logos be made flesh? Yet, in seeking for an answer to such an inquiry, we are at the same time seeking to know of the origin of human life. The concep- tion and birth of Jesus Christ, as related in the Gospels, is, declares the reason, a strange fact. So, too, is the conception and birth of every human being. Neither can be explained by any principle of natural- ism, which regards the external as first and the internal as second and of comparative unimportance. Neither can be understood unless it be recognized that spiritual forces and substances are related to nat- ural forces and substances as cause and effect; and that they, the for- mer, are prior and the active formative agents, playing upon and received by the latter. We do not articulate words and then try to pack them with ideas and intentions. The process is the reverse. First, the intention, then that intention coming forth as a thought, and then the thought incar- nating itself by means of articulated sounds or written characters. By this same law man is primarily, essentially, a spiritual being. In the very form of his creation that which essentially is the man, and which in time loves, thinks, makes plans and efforts for useful life, is spiritual. In his conception, then, the human seed must not only be tiai'iTa spirit, acted upon but be derived from invisible, spiritual substances, which a*- BemK are clothed with natural substances for the sake of conveyance. That which is slowly developed into a human being or soul must be a living organism composed of spiritual substances. Gradually that primitive form becomes enveloped and protected within successive clothings, while the mother, from the substances of the natural world, silently Man E!fi~en- 212 THE WORLUS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. weaves the swathings and coverings which are to serve as a natural or f)hysical body and make possible its entrance into this outer court of ife. We do not concede, then, that there is anything impossible or con- trary to order in the declaration of the Gospel, but "that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit." It is still in line with the gen- eral law of the conception and birth of all human beings. The primitive form or nature, as in the case of man, is spiritual. But in this instance it is not derived from a human father, but is especially formed or molded by the divine creative spirit, formed as with us of spiritual substances; formed with a perfection and with infinite possibilities of development unknown to us; formed, too, for the special purpose of being the perfect instrument or medium upon and through which the divine might act as its very soul. Because that primitive form is divinely molded or begotten, in- stead of being derived from a finite paternit)', it is unique. It is divine in first principles. In the outer clothings of the natural mind and in the successive wrappings furnished by the woman nature, it shares our weakness. But primarily, essentially, it is born with the capacity of becoming divine through the removal of whatever is imperfect or limiting, and through complete union with the Divine which formed it for Himself. Very like our humanities in all that pertains to the growth of the natural body and natural mind would be this humanity of the Son of Man. The same tenderness and helplessness of its infantile body; the ^LikeOnrHa- possibility of wcariuess, hunger, thirst, pain; the same exposure, too, "°"'"°" in the lower planes of the mind, to the assaults of evil resulting in eternal struggle, temptation and anguish of spirit. And yet there is always an unlikeness. a difference, in that the very primitive, deter- mining forms and possibilities of that humanity are divinely begotten. And so we think of this humanity of Jesus Christ as so formed and born as to be able to serve as a perfect instrument whereby the eternal Logos might come and dwell among us; might so express and pour forth His love; might so accommodate and reveal His truth; might, in a word, so set Himself on all the planes of angelic and human exist- ence as to be forever after immediately present in them, and so become literally, actually God-with-us. Gradually this was done. Gradually the Divine Life of love and wisdom came into the several planes which, by incarnation, existed in this humanity, removing from them whatever was limiting or imper- fect, substituting what was divine, filling them, glorifying them, and in the end making them a very part of Himself. This brings into harmony the two elements which we are apt to look upon and keep distinct, the human and the divine. For He Himself tells us of a process, a distinct change which His humanity underwent, and which is the key to His real nature. "The Holy Spirit," says the record, "was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." Some divine operation was going on within that humanity manitiee. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 213 which was not fully accomplished. But on the eve of His crucifixion he exclaimed: "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him." It is this process of putting off what was finite and infirm in the human and the substitution of the divine from within, resulting in the formation of a divine humanity. So long as that is going on the human as the Son feels a separation from the divine as the Father and speaks of it and turns to it as though it were another person. But when the glorification is accomplished, when the divine has entirely filled the human and they act "reciprocally and unanimously as soul and body," then the declaration is: "I and the Father are one." Di- vine in origin, human in birth, divinely human through glorification. As to His soul, or immortal being, the Father; as to His human, the Son; as to the life and saving power that go forth from His glorified nature, the Holy Spirit. This story of the divine life in its descent to man, this coming or incarnation of the Logos through the humanity of Jesus Christ, is the sweet and serious privilege of Christianity to carry into the world. I try to state it; I try from a new theological standpoint to show reasons for its rational acceptance. But I know that however true and necessary explanations may be, the fact itself transcends them all. No one in this free assembly is required or expected to hide his denominationalism. And yet I love to stand with my fellow Christians and unite with them in that simplest, most comprehensive creed that was ever uttered. Credo Domino. Denominationalism, dogmatism, aside! Aside, too, all prejudices and practices. What is the simplest, the fundamental idea of the being of Jesus Christ? Brother men, are we not ready to unite in saying it is, and saying it to the whole round world? The Lord Jesus Christ is the life or the love of God, manifesting itself to man, going out into the world, awakening the capacity which is in every man for spiritual, yes, for divine life. Is not that the very heart of the Gospel, or rather, is not that the Gospel? And is it not equally true that up to this hour there is no fact so real, no fact so powerful, no fact that is working such spiritual wonders as the fact, the influence, the being of Jesus Christ? We are sitting here as the first great parliament of the religions of the world. We rightly believe, we boldly say, that from this time on the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man must mean more to us than ever before, and none can be so timid but would dare to stand here and say that in this hall the death-knell of bigotry has sounded. Yet it were a sacrilege to suppose that the large tolerance which has been shown here and which has secured for the representa- tives of every faith such a hospitable reception is the evolution of mere good nature. It is the Spirit of Him whose utterance of those simple words, which have been inscribed as the text of the Columbian Liberty Bell, are already ringing in "The Christ that is to be." "A new com- mandment I give unto you. That ye love one another." And the same lips also said: "Other sheep I have which are not of Human Divine and Ele- Love One An- other. 2U THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." Because of such words we listen with a new eagerness to all that men have to tell of their faiths; and there is no declaration of truth, however old, from whatever source, by whomsoever spoken, but has called out the heartiest tokens of approval, if only it strikes down to what we feel to be the eternal verities underlying our existence. To the surprise of many, these declarations often bear a striking similarity to some of the teachings of Christianity, when, in reality, the marvel is, that the religion of Jesus Christ should be so all-embracing and universal. Nor is it to be forgotten that the Christ not simply taught the truth. He so embodied it, so lived it, that He is the truth. And Chris- tianity is not'afraid to say that the religion which bears His name is grounded not upon truth — the abstract — nor a philosophy, nor an eccle- siasticism, nor a ritual, but upon a person; a person so true, so perfect in holiness, that we believe, nay, we feel, that He embodies the very "TruthT" life and spirit of God. And with this manifestation has come a new conception of God as one who is willing to go any length in order to seek and to save that which is lost. And it is this truth, God seeking man, man serving God; God entering into our experiences of joy or of pain, God fairly urging upon us His help and forgiveness. This is the Christian's message to all the children of men. It is not simply what Christianity has done, it is not simply what Christianity has taught; it is what Christ is, that is enduring and vital. Often it has been said that the wise men from the east came to His cradle. May there be even greater cause for thankfulness in remembering that wise men from the west started from His cross Christ the Prot Max MuUer, Oxford University. Qreek Philosophy and the Christian f^eligion. Paper by PROF. MAX MULLER, of Oxford University. HAT I have aimed at in my Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion is to show that all religions are natural, and you will see from my last volume on Theosophy or Psychological Religion that what I hope for is not simply a reform, but a complete revival of re- ligion, more particularly of the Chris- ^ ^^ W ' W L^^^^ ^^^" religion. You will hardly have ^^^1 I k \'' ^^Hfcf^ time to read the whole of my volume ■ \\ V iy gS^'''^^ before the opening of your religious congress at Chicago, but you can easily see the drift of it. I had often asked myself the question how independent thinkers and honest men, like St. Clem- ent and Origen, came to embrace Christianity and to elaborate the first system of Christian theology. There was nothing to induce them to accept Christianity or to cling to it if they had found it in any way irreconcila- ble with their philosophical convictions. They were philosophers first, Christians afterward. They had nothing to gain and much to lose by joining and remaining in this new sect of Christians. We may safely conclude, therefore, that they found their own philosophical convic- tions, the final outcome of the long preceding development of phil- osophical thought in Greece, perfectly compatible with the religious and moral doctrines of Christianity as conceived by themselves. Now, what was the highest result of Greek philosophy as it reached Alexandria, whether in its stoic or Neo-Platonic garb? It was the ineradicable conviction that there is reason or logos in the world When asked whence that reason, as seen by the eye of science in the phenomenal world, they said: " From the cause of all things which is 217 Philoaophical CoDTictions. 218 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. beyond all names and comprehension, except so far as it is manifested or revealed in the phenomenal world." What we call the different types, or ideas, or logoi in the world are the logoi or thoughts or wills of that being whom human language has called God. These thoughts, which embrace everything that is, existed at first as thoughts, as a thought-world, before by will and force they could become what we see them to be, the types or species realized in the visible world. So far, all is clear and incontrovertible, and a sharp line is drawn between this philosophy and others, likewise powerfully represented in the previous history of Greek philosophy, which denied the existence of that eternal reason, denied that the world was thought and willed, as even the Klamaths, a tribe of red Indians, * professed, and ascribed the world, as we see it as men of science, to purely mechanical causes, to what we now call uncreate protoplasm, assuming various casual forms by means of natural selection, influence of environment, survival of the fittest, and all the rest. The critical step which some of the philosophers of Alexandria step.* *^^ took, while others refused to take it, was to recognize the perfect real- ization of the divine thought or logos of manhood in Christ, as in the true sense the Son of God; not in the vulgar mythological sense, but in the deep metaphysical meaning which had long been possessed in the Greek philosophy. Those who declined to take that step, such as Celsus and his friends, did so either because they denied the possi- bility of any divine thought ever becoming fully realized in the flesh or in the phenomenal world, or because they could not bring them- selves to recognize that realization in Jesus of Nazareth. Clement's conviction that the phenomenal was a realization of the divine reason was based on purely philosophical ground, while his conviction that the ideal or the divine conception of manhood had been fully realized in Christ and in Christ only, dying on the cross for the truth as revealed to Him and by Him, could have been based on historicalgrounds only. Everything else followed. Christian morality was really in com- plete harmony with the morality of the stoic school of philosophy, though it gave to it a new life and a higher purpose. But the whole world assumed a new aspect. It was seen to be supported and per- vaded by reason or logos; it was throughout teleological, thought and willed by a rational power. The same divine presence had now been Eerceived for the first time in all its fullness and perfection in the one on of God, the pattern of the whole race of men, henceforth to be called "the sons of God." This was the groundwork of the earliest Christian theology, as presupposed by the author of the fourth Gospel, and likewise by many passages in the synoptical Gospels, though fully elaborated for the first time by such men as St Clement and Origen. If we want to be true and honest Christians, we must go back to those earliest ante- nicene authorities, the true fathers of the church. Thus only can we use the words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh," not as thoughtless repeaters, but as honest thinkers and be- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS: 219 lievers. In the first sentence, "In the beginning was the Word," requires thought and thought only; the second, "and the Logos became flesh," requires faith — faith such as those who know Jesus had in Jesus, and which we may accept, unless we have any reasons for doubting their testimony. There is nothing new in all this; it is only the earliest Christian theology restated, restored and revised. It gives us at the same time a truer conception of the history of the whole world, showing that there was a purpose in the ancient religions and philosophies of the world, and that Christianity was really from the beginning a synthesis of the best thoughts of the past, as they had been slowly elaborated by the two principal representatives of the human race, the Aryan and the Semitic. On this ancient foundation, which was strangely neglected, if not purposely rejected, at the time of the Reformation, a true revival of the Christian religion and a reunion of all its d'virions may become possible, and I have no doubt that your Congress of the Religions of the World might do excellent work for the resuscitation of pure and primitive ante-Nicene Christianity. Qhrist the §avior of the \Yorld. Paper by REV. B. FAY MILLS, of Pawtuxet, Rhode Island. No Exciue for )Sin. E are all agreed that, in its present con- dition, this is not an ideal world. We all believe that it is not what it is meant to be; we all hope that it is not what it is to become. The doctrine of Christianity cen- ters not in a theory of morals nor a creed, but in a person. Christ is the revelation of what God is and of what man must become. He revealed the character of God as love suffering for the sins of man. He showed the tri- umphant possibility of life among the hardest human conditions, when lived in fellowship with God. He taught one great object lesson of trial and triumph that there could be no excuse for sin and that there would be no escape from righteousness. His one great mission and mes- sage was that God had "sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." He was Himself the revelation of all history and mystery and prophecy concerning God and man, the origin and destinyof the race. His whole conception of Himself was summed up in these words: "Christ, the Savior of the World," and we get the full thought of His revelation by emphasizing the latter part of this supreme title and realizing that He came not to save selected individuals nor any chosen race, but to save the world — that His mission was to save humanity in all its relationships, to save individuals, indeed, but also to save society and the nations. If Christianity is not fitted and destined to be the universal life of man, it is fit for "nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under the feet of men." Christ stands or falls in connection with His claim to be the Savior of the entire world. 220 Rev. B. Fay Mills, Rhode Island. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 223 Whenever in the teachings of Christianity there has been a limita- tion of the extent of the atonement of Christ, for the saving of this world from out its present conditions of bondage and sin into the glorious liberty of redemption, there has come a deadly paralysis of His spirit and of the progress of His kingdom. There is a very real sense in which it was not necessary for Christ to come into the world in order that individuals might become ac- quainted with God. "The true light, that which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," was shining in darkness for all the ages before the shepherds ,^^ r^^^ heard the angel song, and "as many as received Him, to them gave Light He the power to become the sons of God." And then the "Word be- came flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father; full of grace and truth." The Scriptures of the Old Testament and the annals of all nations teach us that "there never was a time when a penitent and consecrated soul might not walk with God." Enoch "walked with God," "and be- fore his translation he had his testimony that he pleased God." Abra- ham was called the "friend of God." Moses was called "the man of God." Socrates was, in his light, a true prophet of the Most High and a forerunner of Jesus of Nazareth. But the mission of Jesus was to save the world itself. As a recent writer has well said, it is a deadly mistake to suppose that "Christ sim- ply came to rescue as many as possible out of the wrecked and sink- ing world." He came to give the church a "commission that includes the sav- ing of the wreck itself, the question of its confusion and struggle, the relief of its wretchedness, a deliverance from its destruction." This certainly was his own conception of his mission upon earth. The first annunciation by his immediate forerunner, when he stood in his presence, was: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." He said of Himself, "For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world." "I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give him is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." He said to His followers: "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." The mission of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world may be Mission of expressed, as has already been suggested, in four conceptions. JesusChrist. First. He has a new and complete revelation of God's eternal suffering for the redemption of humanity. He showed that God was pure and unselfish, and meek and forgiving, and that He had always been suffering for the sins of men. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." He revealed the meaning of forgiveness and of deliverance from sin. A popular writer has suggested to us the vast distinction between indifference to sin and its forgiveness, which may well be illustrated 224 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Toleration of Sin. by the experience of an individual in forgiving injury against himself. Resentment against sin is a far higher experience than that of indiffer- ence to it, but there is something far better than either, and that is to realize the enormity of the transgressor at its very worst and then to let resentment be destroyed and a self-sacrificing love fill the place that had been occupied by the resentment. It would be better for God to hate sin than to tolerate it; it would have been better to punish the most trivial sin of the most thoughtless sinner with all the excruciating tortures of the most terrible unending hell conceived by the imagination of man; but, it was infinitely better to take up into His own pure heart the blackest and deadliest sin of the lowest sinner, who should be willing to forsake it and return to God, and there let it be forever blotted out; to bind it upon the bleed- ing Lamb of God and let Him bear it away, as far as the east is from the west, into God's eternal forgetfulness of love. A tender-spirited follower of Jesus Christ said to me not long ago that it had taken him twelve years to forgive an injury that had been committed against him; and God's forgiveness of sin means something infinitely in contrast to His being able to look at it with indifference, and something even infinitely beyond the mere destruction of its grasp on man and his deliverance from its penalty and power. It meant the realizing of it in God's own soul in all its foul hideousness and deadly strength, and the consuming it in the fires of his infinite love, "He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." It has been costing God to forgive sin all that it had cost man to bear it and more. This had to be in God's thought before He made the world. In the words of a modern prophet, "The cross of Christ indicates the cost and is the pledge of God's eternal friendship for man." Jesus Christ came to show what God was. He was in no sense a shield for us from the wrath of God, but "was the effulgence of God's glory and the very image of His substance." He said to one of His disciples, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." The heart of His teaching was "that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." He taught, not that He had come to reconcile God unto the world, but that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." He said of His Father, "I delight to do Thy will, O, God, Thy law is written on My heart." He said in His prayer to His Father, "I have declared Thy name unto them; yea, and I will declare it, I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work." He came to show us that the world had never belonged to the |)owers of evil, but that, in His original thought, God had decided that Theiiedemp- ^ nioral world should be created, and that in this decision, which gave Jion,«^Part of to humanity the choice of good and evil, He had to take upon Him- ~°* " " self infinite suffering until the world should be brought back to Him. The redemption of the world by Christ is a part of the creation of the world for Christ. The cry upon the cross, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" was the exhibition of what had been in the the Creation. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 225 heart of God through the ages of the world, and was God's eternal cry of self-renunciation as He forsook Himself in order that He might forgive us. The Son of God was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the jjA'=^"^»°k ^ world." He was "foreordained before the foundation of the world, but po»eandGrHce' was manifested in these last times for us." Our hope of eternal life was promised by "God, that cannot lie, before the world began," and "God hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." This is a prodigal world, and the Father's eyes have been looking through the centuries until He should see it coming to Him from the far-off country to have its stripes healed with His love, its weakness made strength with His self-sacrificing power, its hunger appeased unto fullness in the banqueting house of love, the new robes placed upon it, the dead made alive again and the lost forever found. Our second thought, concerning the mission of Jesus, is, that His life was the expression of the origin and destiny of man. We are told that Adam was created in the image of God, and if he had been an obedient child, it may have been that he would have grown up to be a full grown son of the Eternal, but he sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. The second Adam was the son of man, revealing to us that the perfect man differs in no respect from the perfect God. He was God. He became man — not a man, but man. He was God and man, not two persons in one existence, but revealing the identity of man and God, when man should have attained unto the place that he had always occupied in the eternal thought. The marvelous counterpart of this revelation is, that when God shall have perfected His thought concerning us7that man shall have to becon\e in all things like unto Jesus Christ. Maniel says that all depends on whether we consider the first or second Adam the head of the human race. "I would have you know," says the great apostle of the Gentiles, "that the head of every man is Christ." Jesus says: "I know whence I came and whither I go," and He thereby indicates that there is, in another's words, "no power to come forth out from the beginning or the end, from the first to the last, with center'of^aU intimation of force or fear, that can claim subjection from man or as- ThingB, sert dominion over him, or can effect the subversion of the love that is at the source and center of all things, or the disruption of the unity that is in the will of God, that is manifesting itself in the reconcilia- tion of all things. Christ says: "I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end- ing; I am He that was, and is, and is to come." The blood of the world was poisoned and needed an infusion of purity for the correction of its standards and bestowal of desire and power to attain unto its high possibility. This was a partial object and result of the mission of Christ. "He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin." He said that His own body was the temple of God, and He taught His 226 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. followers that they, too, were to become temples of the living God in which God should meet with man. I le showed that the destiny of man was to be one with God, and that ^Itian °^ infinite misery would be the result of the avoidance of this great op- portunity, and that God would count nothing "dear to Himself or to man that this might be accomplished." "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus." Under the pride and vanity of the nation; under the scheming and frivolity and dishonesty and self-will of those who sit in high places in the earth; under the disregard of the law of love by the social, com- mercial and industrial organizations of the day; under every disobe- dience of the domestic and individual life is the eternal righteousness of Jesus Christ striving for manifestation and "straitened until its bap- tism is accomplished." The third great thought in connection with the salvation of Jesus Christ is, that through the completeness of His redemption there is no necessity or reason for any form of sin in the individual. " Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that wc shall also live with Him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace." A great preacher has told us that Christ is able to save "unto the uttermost ends of the earth, to the uttermost limits of time, to the uttermost period of life, to the uttermost length of depravity, to the Christ's Abii- uttcrmost depth of misery and to the uttermost measure of perfection." 1 y o ve. ^j^^ Quaker poet has beautifully written: " Through all the depths of sin and losR Drops the plummet of the cross. Never yet abyss was found, Deeper than the cross could sound." Paul says, "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new." It is wiien the soul is willing to say, "He was wounded for my transgressions," that he is in a position to realize that if he will sur- render himself unto the cross of Jesus and to the teachings of Jesus, the power of death and hell o\er him shall have forever been broken and he may live a life of freedom in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The way of salvation for the individual through Christ is the THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 227 knowledge of the love of God making atonement for the sins of the world; the discerning, the only real principle of power, in losing the life in order to save it, and the glad forsaking of all things to become way of sai- 'His disciple and to "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of ▼ation. Christ for His body's sake." It is here that the teaching and the life of Jesus are in glorious unity. The cross is not one thing and the Sermon on the Mount another. The kingdom which the Prince of Peace came to establish on earth had for its constitution those vital words which may be ex- pressed by the one word, love. God was "not willing that any should perish," and the bitterest drop in the dregs of the unrepentant sinner's cup of woe will be that it is utterly needless, and worse than needless, because of the redemp- tion of the world through Jesus Christ. But if a man "sin willfully after that he hath received the knowl- edge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin;" and to- day, in view of the infinite love and purpose of God and the great possibility and destiny of man, I do "beseech you, that you receive not the grace of God in vain." The last thought concerning the salvation of the world through Jesus Christ is, that the loving righteousness of God must be finally triumphant. We cannot conceive of a heaven in which man should not be a moral being and free to choose good or evil, as he is upon this earth; and the joy of heaven will consist largely in that glad fi.xity of will that shall eternally lose itself in God. But what a terrible conception comes to us of the lost world, when we conceive ourselves, in spite of all the loving kindness and sacrifice of the eternal God, as still choosing to go on in sin, determining to resist His love, conscious of it, and yet without the power to escape it, saying: "If I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there," and yet choosing through the ages and ages to turn away from the righteous- ness of God and to pursue a life of indifference and sin. " Though God be good and free be heaven. No force can love compel; And though the songs of sin forgiven Might sound through lowest hell; The sweet persuasion of His voice Respects thy sanctity of will. He giveth day. Thou hast thy choice To walk in darkness still." No hell can extinguish the righteousness of God, and no flames Hi? RiKht- consume His love, which is the manifestation of His righteousness, and must pursue all unrighteousness in every sinner with a "worm that dieth not and a fire that is not quenched." "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. For our God is a consuming fire." And as for our conception of heaven, when the world shall obey Jesus Christ and when all those who have surrendered unto His heart of love and have been working with Him throughout the eons, in the establishment of righteousness, shall be with Him in the new earth, no f>(>U8net>H. 228 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. other heaven can be imagined. The redeemed earth shall be at least a part of heaven, and the city which John saw, the new Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, shall be established. " The tabernacle of God shall be with men and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people; and God, Himself, shall be with them and be their God. And He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." This must be the end of the atonement of the life and the death of Jesus Christ and the keeping of His commandments, which are all summed up in the great name of God, which is Love. With shame I confess that all the disciples naming the name of Jesus Christ have not fully done His will in His spirit of self-sacrifice, Done His \;^^ill. and, indeed, have sometimes scarcely seemed to apprehend it. If we had, it is my honest conviction that we could not be gathered here to- da\- as a " Parliament of Religions," but that we would all be praising God together for His wonderful salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord. VVe have already in this Parliament been rebuked by India and Japan with the charge that Christians do not practice tne teachings of Jesus. If China has not been heard from in words of even keener cen- sure, it has not been because she has not had good cause, as she thinks of the opium curse forced upon her by the laws of Christian England and of the action of the corrupt legislatures and congresses and pres- idents who have enacted, or stood by and consented to the enacting of the unjust, selfish, unreasonable, inhuman, unchristian and barbaric anti-Chinese laws of these Christian United States. I might reply by pointing to our hospital walls and college towers and myriad missionaries of mercy, but I forbear. We have done some- thing, but with shame and tears I say it — as kingdoms and empires and republics, as states and municipalities, and in our commercial and in- dustrial organizations, and even, in a large measure, as an organized church, we have not been practicing the teachings of Jesus as He said them and meant them, as the earliest disciples understood and prac- ticed them, and as we must again submit to them if we are to be the winners of the world for Jesus Christ. It is no excuse to say that with Christians the nation is not the . church. That is a still further confession of comparative failure, for, (■'omj^^tive in so far as the Christian church and Christian state are not coincident, Failure.- j^i^g church has come short of the command of the Master: "Go ye therefore, and disciple all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." One of the local papers said the other day that perhaps the nun- Christian delegates to this Parliament might be converted to Chris- tianity if they could be taken about Chicago blindfolded. There have been, and are today, in ever>' Christian community white-souled saints of God, who are following "the Lamb whitherso- ever He goeth" and bearing His cross after Him; but let us be willing THE WORLD'S tONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 229 to say plainly, although with shame, that while wc have in the life and death and resurrection and teachings of Christ and the descent of the Holy Ghost the complete remedy for all the ills of individuals and -nations, we have lacked the power of conquest because organized Christianity has been saying, "Lord, Lord," to her Master and, as regards politics and society and property and industry, has not been doing the things that He said. Benjamin Franklin said that a generation of followers of Jesus, who practiced His teachings, would change the face of the earth. And it is true. When evil shall go forth with its deadly poison ready for dissemination, and find Christians who are meek and merciful and poor in spirit and pure in heart, and who count it all joy to be perse- cuted for righteousness' sake; when it shall dart its venomed tongue at men and women who "resist not evil," who "give to him that ask- eth" and from the borrower do not turn away; who "being struck upon one cheek turn the other also;" who love their enemies, bless those that curse them, do good to them that hate them and pray for them that despitefully use them and persecute them; who forgive their debtors because God has forgiven them; then shall the old serpent find no blood that shall be responsive to his poisonous touch, and shall sting himself unto the death, even as he did under that other cross which he looked upon as the token of the impotence of righteousness, but which was the wisdom and the power of God unto salvation and the prophecy of the triumph of eternal love And this I will say: That our brethren from across the sea have said all we need ask them to say, when, instead of attacking the life and teachings of Jesus, they show that we fail only because wc may have said, "Lord, Lord," and not done the things that He said. And this also I say: That the only hope of Asia, as of America and of Africa, as of Europe, is in the love of God and the establishment of His uni- versal kingdom of peace which must be set up on earth and which shall have no end. This, my brothers, is all that must, is all that can endure; it is the teaching of teachings and the inspiration of inspirations for the sons of men. It is of universal application. Jesus was born in tiie cast and has gained His greatest present triumphs in the west. When men shall have begun again to practice the teachings of Jesus in every walk and relationship of life, then there will be no social enigmas unsolved and no political questions unanswered; but men shall be in union with God and at peace with one another, and heaven and earth shall be one in the creation of the "new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." And there are indications of such a triumph now. Every lan- guage may be translated into every other tongue of man. The last religion of the world has been investigated and its teachings are open to the eyes of all. God today looks down upon such a spectacle of sincere desire and of honest purpose to know the truth as the groan- ing and travailing creation has never before seen, and the only solu- Univereal ElDRdom of Peacp. Indications of Such H Tri- umph, 230 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, tion of all the questionings and differences and hopes of men must be in the principles of the ruler of the kingdom of God: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength, andthy neighbor as thyself." No message of love to God and man has ever been in vain. No love of man or God has ever perished from the universe; no life of love has ever been or ever can be lost. This is the only infinite and only eternal message, and this is the reason why the mission and the message of Jesus ot Nazareth must abide. This is the reason that the life of Jesus is eternal and that all things must be subdued unto Him; for "Love never faileth; but whether there will be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face; now we know in part, but then shall we know even as also we arc known." " For, lo! the days are hastening on By prophet bards foretold, When, with the ever circling years, Comes round the age of gold; When peace shall, over all the earth, Its ancient splendor fling. And the whole world give back the song Which now the angels sing." And when, at last, we shall clearly know what we now dimly see in Jesus Christ, that " Love is righteousness in action;" that mercy is the necessary instrument of justice; that "good has been the final goal On« Body and of ill," and that through testing, innocence must have been glorified One Spirit, jj^j-q virtue; when we shall see that God is love and law is gospel, and sin has been transformed into righteousness — then shall we also see that "there is one body and one spirit, even as also we were called in one hope of our calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." Then shall we see " that unto each one of us was this grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ, and we shall all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God; unto a full grown man; unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," and "Every kindred, every tribe on this terrestia'i ball. To Him all majesty ascribe and crown Him Lord ot all.' Qhristianity in Japan; jts present Con- dition and puture Prospects. Paper by PROF. HARNICHI KOSAKI, of Japan. ROGRESS of Christianity in Japan is quite re- markable. It is only thirty-four years since the first Protestant missionary put his foot on its shore. And it is scarcely twenty years since the first Protestant church was organ- ized in Japan, Yet now there are more Christians here than in Turkey, where mis- sionaries have been A\orking- more than sev- enty years, and there are more self-support- ing churches there than in China, where double or thrice number of missionaries have been working nearly a century. In Japan, Christian papers and magazines are all edited by the natives, not only in name but in real- Christian books, which have been most influ- ential, have nearly all been written or translated by them, while in other countries it is very rare to find the native Christians writing Christian books or Only recently the Christian, the most influential Christian paper in Japan, had a symposium to name fifteen books which are most useful in leading men to Christianity, instructing Christians and giving good counsel to young people; and it is interest- ing to see that most of the books named are those written or translated by Japanese Christians. Christianity in Japan has already reached a stage that no other Loading nil missionary fields have ever attained. Their native Christians not onl\- cussions. take a part in all discussions, but they arc in fact leading all kinds of discussions, theological as well as practical. They are leading, not only in all kinds of Christian work, literary and evangelistic, educa- tional and charitable, but they are also leading Christian thought in Japan. Let me relate one or two instances. Some six or seven years ago, when we were contemplating the 231 232 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Peculiar Fea- laree. The Shizoka Ciass. union of the Itochi and Kumiai denominations, the two most powerful Christian bodies in Japan, among twenty members of a joint committee appointed by the synod of one and the general council of the other, there were only four missionaries. When a few years ago, the Kumiai denomination adopted a new confession of faith, the missionaries took almost no part. This confession was drawn up by a committee, con- sisting entirely of Japanese, and adopted in the general council, in which missionaries took very little or no part. In Japan mission- aries are really "helpers," and I should say to their credit, they, in most cases, willingly take secondary position in all Christian works. All this, I say, is not to disparage the work of missionaries, but only to show the progress of Christianity among the natives of Japan. There are now many peculiar features in Japanese Christianity which are seldom seen in other countries. One distinctive feature lies in the peculiarity of the constituency of its membership. In other countries female members always pre- dominate. For instance, in most of the churches in this country female members are almost two to one in proportion to male members. The membership of the Congregational church in 1892 stands as follows: Male members, one hundred and seventy thousand; female members, three hundred and fifty thousand. But it is quite otherwise. in Japan. Female fnembers, in relation to male members, are nearly three to four. It is almost in inverse ratio as it is in the United States. The statistics of the Kumiai churches in the last year is this: Male members, 6,087; female mem- bers, 5,087. Another fact we may notice is the predominance of young people in our churches. You may step into any of our churches in any city or village and see the audience, and you will be struck by the great preponderance of young faces. We have not yet taken any statistics of members as to their age. But anyone who has experience in Chris- tian work there notes this peculiarity. The last year when Dr. F. E. Clark, president of the Y. P. S. C. E., was in Japan, in advising the need of that society, he said that young people were hard to reach and were diffident and slow to take any part in Christian work. But the case ie different there. In many places young people are the only people who are accessible. They are most easily reached. In most of our churches young people are most active in all kinds of Christian works, while in some churches young people are so predominant and take everything into their hands that elderly people feel often quite annoyed. One more point is the predominance of the Shizoku, or military class. They have been, and still are, the very brains of the Japanese people. Though they are not usually well off m material wealth, they are superior intellectually and morally. Christians in other missionary fields are usually from the lower classes. In India the Brahmans rarely become Christians, neither do the literary class in China But in Japan the Shizoku class take a lead. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 233 These peculiarities in the constituency of the membership of Christian churches in Japan may be accounted for by the simple fact that the males, the young and the Shizoku classes are most accessible. The Shizoku class, as a body, has had hitherto almost no religion, and they have been mostly Confucianists. By the last revolution they lost their profession as well as their means of support, and thus they are all unsettled in life, and so accessible to every kind of new influence and truth. Young people have also no settled opinions and are open to new influences, and thus accessible to new truth. And so it is with men as compared with women. They are generally more progressive and, hence, more accessible. These peculiarities are of its strength as well as its weakness. As the Japanese Christian population is composed of such a constituency, the native Christians are more progressive, more active, more able to stand on their own feet, and more capable of establishing self-support- ing churches. But this strength is also their weakness. They are more liable to be drifted, more apt to be changed and more disposed to be flippant. The next peculiar feature of Japanese Christianity is lack of sec- tarian or denominational spirit. About thirty different denominations of Protestant churches, represented by about an equal number of mis- sionary boards, are on the field, each teaching its own peculiar tenets. But they are making very little impression on our Christians. In fact, denominations which have strong denominational spirit are getting fewer converts than those which have less. The broader their princi- ple or spirit the greater is the number of their converts. Any one who is at all conversant with the history of denominations knows that all over the world, other things being equal, denominations having stronger denominational spirit are making greater gains in their membership than those which have less. But in Japan it is the exception. We have been having, at first annually, but lately once in three years, what was called " Dai Shin Baku Kwai," which was afterward changed into the Evangelical Alliance, the meeting of all Christians No pistinc in Japan, irrespective of denominations or churches— the most popular and interesting meeting we have. Japanese Christians do not know any distinction in denominations or churches. But when they found out that there are many different folds, and that one belongs to his denomination not by his own choice but simply by chance or circum- stance which could in no way be controlled, there is no wonder that these Christians begin to ask: Why should not we, all Christians, unite in one church? The union movement in Japan rose at first in some such way. Though we have now lost much of this simple spirit, still Japanese Christians are essentially undenominational. You may see that the church which adopts Presbyterian forms of government refuses to be called "Presbyterian," or "Reformed," and adopted the broad name "Itschi," the "United;" but, not content even with this broad name, it has recently changed it to a still broader name, "Nippon Kinisuto Kio Kwai," "The Church of Christ in Japan." 16 tion in Denom- ioatjonp. 2S4 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The church which has adopted an Episcopal form of government lately dropped the name of Episcopacy and adopted instead the name of "The Holy Church of Japan." Kuniiai churches for along time had no name except this: "A Church of Christ." When it was found out that it is necessary to adopt some name to distinguish itself from other churches, its Christians reluctantly adopted the name of "Kumiai," which means "associated;" for at that time they happened to form an association of churches which was until then independent of each other. They always refused to be called the "Congregational churches," although they have adopted mostly Congregational policy of church government. The church union which failed lately may not be revived in any near future. But there is a hope that some day our different denom- inations may be united in some way. The third distinctive feature of Japanese Christianity is the prev- Dootrinai Mat- ^^^nce of liberal Spirit in doctrinal matters. While missionaries are tars. both preaching and teaching the orthodox doctrines, Japanese Chris- tians are eagerly studying the most liberal theology. Not only are they studying, but they are diffusing these liberal thoughts with zeal and diligence, and so I believe that, with a small exception, most of Jap- anese pastors and evangelists are more or less liberal in their theology. While the Presbyterians in the United States are persecuting Drs. Briggs and Smith, the Presbyterians of Japan are almost in a body on the side of these two professors. While the A. B. C. F. M. is strenu- ously on the watch to send no missionary who has any inclination toward the Andover theology, the pastors and evangelists of the Kumiai churches, which are in close connection with the same board, are advocating and preaching theology perhaps more liberal than the Andover theology. Just to illustrate, some years ago, in one of our councils, when we were going to install a pastor, he expressed the or- thodox belief on future life, which was a great surprise to all. Then members of the council pressed hard questions to him so as to force him to adopt the doctrine of future probation, as though it is the only doctrine which is tenable. Only recently, when a bishop of a certain church was visiting Japan, he was surprised to find that a young Japanese professor in the sem- inary connected with his own church was teaching quite a liberal the- ology, and he gave him a strong warning. As to the creeds: When the "Church of Christ in Japan" was or- ganized it adopted the Presbyterian and the Reformed standards, A to th namely, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Canon of Dort and Creeds. the Heidelberg Confession of Faith. But Christians of the same church soon found them too stiff, one sided and conservative, and thus they have lately dropped these standards as their creed altogether. They have now the "Apostles' Creed" with a short preface attached to it. When the Kumiai church was first organized it adopted the nine articles of the basis of evangelical alliance as its creed. But Christians THE WORLD'S CON.GRESS OF RELIGIONS. 235 of the same denomination became soon dissatisfied with its nar- rowness, and so, in 1890, they made their own creed, which is far simpler and broader. But even this creed is not understood as bind- ing to all, but only as a common expression of religious belief and pre- vailing among them in general. Though Japanese Christians are largely on the side of liberal the- ology, they are not in any way in favor of Unitarianism or even Uni- versalism. Some years ago there was a rumor that the Japanese were in general inclined to Unitarian Christianity. The most of our edu- cated classes have no religion. Though they favor certain kinds of Christian ethical teachings, they have no faith in any religion or super- natural truth, and thus they are seemingly in the same position as cer- tain Unitarians. But Christians are, as a whole, loyal ^o Christ, and are all to be characterized as evangelical. Often Unitarians and those who call themselves "liberal Christians' are as narrow and prejudiced as some orthodox Christians. And, moreover, their beliefs are too negative. Where there are bigoted, hard orthodox Christians they may have soil to thrive on; but in such a place like Japan they will find it hard work to keep up interest enough to have any religion. There was a time when Christianity was making such a stride in its progress that in one year it gained forty or fifty per cent increase. This was between 1882 and 1888. These years may be regarded as a flowery era in the annals of Japan. It was in 1883 that, when we were having the "Dai shin Boku Kwai" in Tokyo, perhaps the most inter- esting meeting in its history, one of the delegates expressed his firm belici that in ten years Japan would become a Christian country. This excited quite an applause, and no one felt it as in any way too extrav- agant to cherish such a hope; such was the firm belief of most Chris- tians at that time. Since then progress in our churches has not been such as was expected. Not only members have not increased in such a proportion as years before, but in some cases there can be seen a decline of religious zeal and the self-sacrificing spirit. And so in these last few years the cry heard most frequently among our churches has been, "Awake, awake, as in the days past!" To show the decline of that religious enthusiasm, I may take an illustration from statistics of the Kumiai churches as to its amount of contribution. In 1882 this amount was S6.72 per Christian; in 1888 this amount ran down to $2.15, and in the last year there has been still more decline, coming down to $1.95. In amount of increase of mem- bership there has been a proportional decline. Why there was such decline is not hard to see. Among various causes I may mention three principal ones: First. Public sentiment in Japan has been always fluctuating from one side to another. It is like a pendulum, now going to one extreme and then to another. This movement of public sentiment, within the last fifteen or twenty years, can easily be pointed out. From 1877 to 1882 I may regard as a period of reaction and that of revival of anti-foreign spirit. During this period the cry "Repel for- A Flowery Era. Public Senti- meat. 236 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. eigners," which was on the lips of every Japanese at the time of the revolution, and since then unheard, was again heard. It was at this time that Confucian teaching was revived in all the public schools, and the emperor issued a proclamation that the western ethical principles were not suitable to the Japanese, and were not to be taught in our public schools. Then the pendulum went to the other side. And now another era came in. This was a period of western ideas which covers the years between '1882 and 1888. This was the age of great interest in every- thing that came from abroad. Not only was English eagerly taught, but all sorts of foreign manners and custom were busily introduced. Foreign costumes, not only of gentlemen but of ladies, foreign diet as well as foreign liquors became most popular among all classes. Every newspaper, almost without exception, advocated the adoption of every- thing foreign, so that Japan seemed as if it would be no longer an ori- ental nation, but would become occidentalized. It was at this time that such a paper asjiji Shimpo advocated adoption of Christianity as the national religion of Japan. It was no wonder that people poured into Christian churches and that the latter made unprecedented strides in progress. But the pendulum swung to its extreme and now another move- ment came in. The sign of reactionary and anti-foreign spirit might be seen in everything — in customs, in sentiments, as well as in opinions. Then the "Japan for the Japanese" became heard in all the corners of Anti-Foreign the empire. Everything that has flavor of foreign countries has been ^'" stigmatized as unworthy of adoption by the Japanese, and, instead of it, everything native is praised as superior or worthy of preservation. Buddhism, which has been regarded for years as a religion of the ignorant and inferior classes, is now praised as a superior religion, much superior to Christianity, and many who once favored adoption of Christianity as the national religion are seen publicly in Bud- dhistic ceremonies. Christianity is denounced as antagonistic to the growth of our national spirit, in conflict with our best morality, and also as against the intent of the imperial edict which was issued two years ago as the code of morals in all our schools. Conflict between Christianity and national education has become the most popular theme among certain classes of the people. Strong sense of national feeling has been aroused among all classes of people, and now it is not strange that Christians also feel its influence. And thus the doors to Christianity seem to have been closed and we have a great decline in its growth. But now, again, the pendu- lum has reached another end and there are signs that another era is ushering in. Every movement has rhythm, says Herbert Spencer, and this is true in the progress of Christianity in Japan. One word as to the prospect in future. That Japan will not become a Christian nation in a few years is a plain- fact. But that it will become one in the course of time is almost above doubt, and it is only a question of time. Still "Rome cannot be built in a day," an^% NVOYS Extraordinary and Ministers Pleni- potentiary in the Kingdom of God, Men and women: The hour for the closing of this most extraordinary convention has come. Most extraordinary, I say, for this congress is unparalleled in its purpose — not to array sect against sect, or to exalt one form of religion at the cost of all other forms, but to unite all religion against all irreligion. Unparalleled in its composition save on the day of Pentecost, and it is Pen- tecostal day again, for here are gathered to- gether devout men from every nation under heaven — Persians and Medes and Elamites and dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and the parts of Lybia about Cyrene, and sojourners from Rome, both Jews and Pros- elytes, Cretans and Arabians, we do hear them speaking every man in his own language, and yet as though in one common vernacular, the wonderful works of God. All honor to Chicago, whose beautiful "white city" symbolizes the architectural unity of the one city of our one God. AH honor to those noble officers — this James the Just, surnamed Bonney, and this John the Beloved, whose name is Barrows — for the far-reaching sagacity with which they have conceived and the consummate skill with which they have managed this most august of human parliaments, this crown- ing glory of the earth's fairest fair. And what is the secret of this marvelous unity? Let me be as true to my own convictions as you, honored representatives of other religions, have been nobly true to your own. I believe it is Jesus of Nazareth who is the one great unifier of mankind. Jesus Christ unifies mankind by His incarnation. For when He was born into the world He was born "The Son of Man." Ponder the profound significance of this unique title. It is not "a son of men," it is not "a son of man," 241 Most Anpaat of Human Par- liamentn. 242 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, it is not "the son of men," but it is "The Son of Man." That is to say, Jesus of Nazareth is the universal Homo, the essential Vir, the son of human nature blending in Himself all races, ages, sexes, capacities, temperaments. Jesus is the archetypal man, the ideal hero, the consummate incarnation.thesymbolof perfected human nature, the sum total unfolded, fulfilled humanity, the Son of Mankind. All other religions, comparatively speaking, are more or less topo- The ReiiRion graphical. For example, there was the institute religion of Palestine; of Mankind. ^.j^^ priest religion of Egypt, the hero religion of Greece, the empire religion of Rome, the Gueber religion of Persia, the ancestor religion of China, the Vedic religion of India, the Buddha religion of Burmah, the Shinto religion of Japan, the Valhalla religion of Scandinavia, the Moslem religion of Turkey, the spirit religion of our American aborig- ines. But Christianity is the religion of mankind. Zoroaster was a Persian; Mohammed was an Arabian. But Jesus is the Son of Man. And, therefore. His religion is equally at home among black and white, red and tawny, mountaineers and lowlanders, landsmen and seamen, philosophers and journeymen, men and women, partriarchs and children. Jesus Christ is unifying mankind by His own teaching. Take, in way of illustration, His doctrine of love as set forth in His own mountain sermon. For instance, His beatitudes. His precepts of reconciliation, non-resistance, love of enemies. His bidding each of us use, although in solitary closet prayer, the plural, " Our, we, us." Or take, particu- larly, Christ's summary of His mountain teaching as set forth in His own golden rule. It is Jesus Christ's positive contribution to sociology, or the philosophy of society. Without loitering amid minute classification, it is enough to say that the various theories of society may, substantially speaking, be reduced to two. The first theory, to borrow a term from chemistry, is the atomic. It proceeds on the assumption that men are a mass of separated units or independent Adams, having no common bond of organic union or interfunctional connection. Pushing to the extreme the idea of indi- vidualism, its tendency is egotistic, disjunctive, chaotic. The second theory, to borrow again from chemistry, is the moloc- ular. It proceeds on the assumption that there is such an actuality as mankind, and this mankind is, so to speak, one colossal person ; each individual member thereof forming a vital component, a functional factor in the one great organism, so that membership in society is uni- versal, mutual, co-membership. Recognizing each individual of man- kind as a constituent member of the one great human corpus, its ten dency is altruistic, co-operative, constructive. Its motto is, " We are members one of another." It is the theory of Jesus Christ and those who are His. I say, then, that it is Jesus Christ Himself who has given us the key to that greatest of modern problems — the problem of sociology. Do you not see, then, that when every human being throughout the world THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 243 obeys our Master's golden rule, all mankind will, indeed, become one glorious unity? Or take Christ's doctrine of neighborhood, as set forth in His parable of the good Samaritan, According to this parable neighbor- hood does not consist in local nearness; it is not a matter of ward, city, state, nation, continent ; it is a matter of glad readiness to relieve distress wherever found. Jesus transfigures physical neighborhood into moral, abolishing the word "foreigner," making "the whole world kin." " Mankind," what is it but " Man-kinned? " How subtle Shakespeare's play on words when he makes Hamlet whisper aside in presence of his royal but brutal uncle : A little more than kin and less than kind. Or take Christ's doctrine of mankind as set forth in His own missionary commission. After two thousand years of an exclusively Jewish religion the risen Lord bids His countrymen go forth into all the world and preach the Gospel of reconciliation to every creature, discipling to Himself every nation under heaven. How majestically the son of Abraham dilates into the Son of Man. How heroically His great apostle to the gentiles, St. Paul, sought to carry out his Master's missionary commission. In fact, the mission of Paul was a reversal of the mission of Abraham. Great was Abraham's call ; but it was a call to become the founder of a single nationality and an isolated religion. Greater was Paul's call, for it was the call to become the founder, under the Son of Man, of a universal brotherhood and a cosmopolitan religion. He himself was the first conspicuous human illustration of his Master's parable of the good Samaritan. And so he sent forth into all the world of the vast Roman empire announcing, it might almost be said in literal truth, to every creature under heaven the glad tidings of mankind's reconciliation in Jesus Christ. In the matter of the " solidarity of the nations," Paul, the Jew apostle to the Gentiles, towers over every other human hero, being m^Hero.^"* himself the first conspicuous human deputy to the parliament of man, the federation of the world. Do you, then, not see that when every human being believes in Christ's doctrine of mankind, as set forth in His missionary commis- sion, all mankind will indeed become one blessed unity? Or take Christ's doctrine of the church, as set forth in His own parable of the sheep and the goats — a wonderful parable, the magnifi- cent catholicity of which we miss, because our commentators and the- ologians, in their anxiety for standards, insist on applying it only to the good and the bad living in Christian lands, whereas it is a parable of all nations in all times. What unspeakable catholicity on the part of the Son of Man! Oh, that His church had caught more of His spirit; even as His Apostle Peter did when, discerning the unconscious Christianity of heathen Cornelius, he exclaimed: "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but that in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to Him." Sammary of 244 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Do you see, then, that when every human being recognizes in every ministering service to others a personal ministry to Jesus Christ Himself, all mankind will indeed become one blessed unity? Once more, and in a general summary of Christ's teaching, take Chri8t'8*Teacii- His own epitomc of the law as set forth in His answer to the lawyer's *''^" question: "Master, which is the greatest of the commandments?" And the Master's answer was this: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; this is the first and great commandment. And a second like unto it is this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hangeth the whole law and the prophets." Not that these two commandments are really two; they are simply a twofold commandment ; each is the complement of the other ; both being the obverse and the reverse legends engraved on the golden medallion of God's will. In other words, there is no real difference between Christianity and morality, for Christianity is morality looking Godward ; morality is Christianity looking manward. Christianity is morality celestialized. Thus on this twofold command- ment of love to God and love to man hangs, as a mighty portal hangs on its two massive hinges, not only the whole Bible from Genesis to Apocalypse, but also all true morality, natural as well as revealed, or, to express myself in language suggested by the undulatory theory : Love is the ethereal medium pervading God's moral universe, by means of which are propagated the motions of His impulses, the heat of His grace, the light of His truth, the electricity of His activities, the mag- netism of His nature, the affinities of His character, the gravitation of His will. In brief, love is the very definition of Deity Himself: " God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God and God in him." " I'm apt to think the man That could surround the sum of things, and spy The heart of God, and secrets of His empire, Would speak but love. With him the bright result Would change the hue of intermediate scenes, And make one thing of all theology." Do you not, then, see that when every human being loves the Lord his God with all his heart, and his neighbor as his own self all mankind will indeed become one blessed unity? Jesus Christ is unifying mankind by His own death. Tasting, by the grace of God, death for every man. He became by that death the propitiation, not only for the sins of the Jew, but also for the sins of the whole world. And in thus taking away the sin of the whole world by reconciling in Himself God to man and man to God, He is also reconciling man to man. What though His reconciliation has been slow, ages have elapsed since He laid down His own life for the life of the world, and the world still rife with wars and rumors of wars, underrate not the reconciling, fusing power of our Mediator's blood. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 245 Recall the memorable prophecy of the high priest Caiaphas, when he counseled the death of Jesus on the ground of the public necessity : "Ye know nothing at all, nor do ye take account that it is expedi- ent for you, that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation perish not." But the Holy Ghost was upon the sacrilegious pontiff, though he knew it not, and so he builded larger than he knew. Meaning a nar- row Jewish policy, he pronounced a magnificently catholic prediction: Now this he said not of himself; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation; and not for the nation only, but that He might also gather together (synagogue) into one the children of God that are scattered abroad. Accordingly, the moment that the Son of Man bowed His head and gave back His spirit to His Father, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; thus signifying that the way into the true Holy of Holies was henceforth open to all mankind alike; to Roman Clement as well as to Hebrew Peter; to Greek Athanasius as well as to Hebrew John; to Indian Khrishnu Pal as well as to Hebrew Paul. For in Christ Jesus, Gentiles, who were once far off, are made nigh; for He is the world's peace, making both Jews and non-Jews one body, breaking down the middle wall of partition between them, hav- ing abolished on His own cross the enmity, that He might create in Himself of the twain, Jews and non-Jews, one new man, even mankind Christianized into one unity, so making peace. Thus the cross declares the brotherhood of man, under the Fatherhood of God, in the Son- hood of Christ. Aye, Jesus Christ is the unifier of mankind. Jesus Christ is unifying mankind by His own immortality. P'or we Christians do not worship a dead, embalmed Deity. The Son of Man ^jj^.^ ^ot has burst the bars of death and is alive for evermore, holding in His Evermore, own grasp the keys of hades. The followers of Buddha, if I mistake not, claim that Nirvana, that state of existence so nebulous that we cannot tell whether it means simple unconsciousness or total ex- tinction, is the supremest goal of aspiration; and that even Buddha himself is no longer a self-conscious person, but has himself attained Buddhahood, or Nirvana. On the other hand, the followers of Jesus claim that He is still alive, sitting at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, from henceforth expecting, till He make His foes His foot- stool. Holding personal communion with Him, His disciples feel the inspiration of His vitalizing touch, and, therefore, are ever waking to broader thoughts and diviner catholicities. As He Himself promised, He is with His followers to the end of the eon, imbuing them with his own gracious spirit; inspiring them to send forth His evangel to all nations; to soften the barbarism of the world's legislations; to abolish its cruel slaveries, its desolating wars, its murderous dramshops, its secret seraglios; to found institutes for body, and mind and heart; to rear courts of arbitration; to lift up the valleys of poverty; to cast down the mountains of opulence; to straighten the twists of wrongs; to smooth the roughness of environ- TheOneUni 246 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, ment; in brief, to uprear out of the debris of human chaos the one august temple of the new mankind in Jesus Christ. Thus the Son of Man, by His own incarnation, by His own teach- ings, by His own death, by His own immortality, is most surely unify- ing mankind. And the Son of Man is the sole unifier of mankind. Buddha was in many respects very noble, but he and his religion are Asiatic. What has Buddha done for the unity of mankind? Mohammed taught some very noble truths, but Mohammedanism is fragmental and antithetic. Why have noc his followers invited us to meet at vereSMan""' Mecca? Jesus Christ is the one universal man, and therefore it is that the first parliament of religions is meeting in a Christian land, un- der Christian auspices. Jesus Christ is the sole bond of the human race; the one nexus of the nations, the great vertebral column of the one body of mankind. He it is who by His own personality is bridg- ing the rivers of languages, tunneling the mountains of caste, disman- tling the fortresses of nations, spanning the seas of races, incorpo- rating all human varieties into one majestic temple-body of mankind. For Jesus Christ is the true center of gravity, and it is only as the forces of mankind are pivoted on Him that they are in balance. And the oscillations of mankind are perceptibly shortening as the time of the promised equilibrium draws near. There, as on a great white throne, serenely sits the swordless King of ages — Himself both the an- cient and the infant of days — calmly abiding the centuries, mendingthe bruised reed, fanning the dying wick, sending forth righteousness un- to victory; there He sits, evermore drawing mankind nearer and nearer Himself; and as they approach I see them dropping the spear, waving the olive branch, arranging themselves in symmetric, shining, raptur- ous groups around the divine Son of Man, He Himself being their ever- lasting mount of beatitudes. Down the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease; And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say "Peace." Peace, and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies; But beautiful as songs of the immoitals The holy melodies of love arise The Church of St. John the Baptist, Samaria. Reconciliation V*^^'' N^t \^icarious. Paper by REV. THEODORE F. WRIGHT, Ph. D. HERE are certain dicta of Scripture which are universal because fundamental, and fundamen- tal because universal. One of these is that saying of the Apostle John, "God is Love, and he that dwelleth in Love dvvelleth in God and God in him." Once of sympathies so narrow that he was for bringing fire from heaven down upon a village which would not receive his Lord as He journeyed, he was now so tenderly conscious of the Infinite Love which had sought him out and gathered him, that he could say: "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love; beloved, if God so love us, we also ought to love one another." John had attained to this conviction by the process of religious experience Others have seen the same infinite fact written in vernal fields and ripening harvests. Others find it in the intricate harmony of natural forces. They all see that there is as the center and source of life a fountain of fatherliness which is even begetting and nurturing, so that, indeed, we cannot conceive of the idle God, the neglectful God or the God of limited interests. Our minds will not work until we place before them the ever-creating God who neither slumbers nor sleeps; the ever pres- ent Help. "Peradventure He sleepeth" might be said of Baal, for there was no answer; but when Elijah called on the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Israel, "the fire of the Lord fell." It is in the light of this fact of the universal Divine Love that the fallen condition of man finds its remedy disclosed. There may have been a time when this light was so dim that Judaism fancied its God a partisan, and a regressive Christianity thought that it had ascer- tained the limits of the Divine care, but now we know that God is one, and that "His tender mercies are over all His works." This being so, it is true to say that fallen man was succored by the same love that created him. The father of the prodigal does not sulk in his tent while some elder brother is left to search out the wanderer and bring 24S TifE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 249 him in, pointing to the wounds he got in rescuing him as a means of softening the heart of the father; nay, the father watches the pathway with longings, and sends his love after the boy, and when the way- ward one is yet a great way off, he sees, he hath compassion, he runs, he falls on his neck, he kisses him, he bids them bring the robe, the ring, the shoes, the fatted calf, he reproves the cold vindictiveness of the elder brother, he is all shepherd-like. We need not dogmatize as to the fallen state of man. Intellect- ually man has not fallen. He is as bright as he ever was. He is grow- ing brighter. The evolution of the intellect is indisputable. But as to the will, what is man? Is he the worshiping child that he once was? Does he eagerly do the truth he learns, or does he find it necessary to compel himself to do it? There is a degree of ignorance, of illiteracy, but it is easy to find a remedy for it in the common school. There is on every side a spectacle of lust and greed and indolence and selfishness, and our schools touch it not. We are making men shrewd, but we are not making them good. The human mind wants reaching in its depths. The motives behind our thinking want renewal, else mind life is like John Randolph's mackerel in the moonlight, which stank as it shone. So was man in the sad days of Roman sensuality and Jewish hypocrisy, and so do our daily chronicles testify today. The cure for the lost sheep is, to seek for it till it is found. " All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." (Is. liii, 6.) The question is: How should the Divine Lord accomplish the purpose with which it must be teeming — the recovery of the lost state? Our answer is in general, to say that the remedy was within the keeping of the infinite love and wisdom which had so far made and conducted man, or we must hold some view which limits the Holy One of Israel. If God would come with any mercy He must descend to the place of the fallen. If He would conquer the evil with- out destroying them. He must contend with them on their own plane. To take upon Himself the nature born of woman would be His means of redemption. He must take on the office of Joshua, who led the peo- ple out of the wilderness into their inheritance. And a virgin con- ceived and bore a Son, and called His name Jesus — that is Joshua. The wisdom or word of God was made flesh, so that we behold the glory of the Father. It was the Father in the Son who did the works. How marvelously clear are the prophetic songs of Mary and Zacha- rias. She said: "My spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Saviour. He hath showed strength with His arm. He hath holpen His servant, Israel., in remembrance of His mercy, as He spake to our fathers." And the father of the forerunner said: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people; that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear all the days of our life; the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace." Therefore, John the Baptist proclaimed Him as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," and Fallen State of Man. Prophetic Songs of Mflry and Zacbarias. 250 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, The Ine/i- tablo Conflict. therefore He bade His hearers prepare the way of Jehovah and make strait His path. Born of woman, and so open to every temptation, He was early led to find the written word. His light of life. He went about His father's business by expounding it. Tried in the wilderness, He made no other answer than the law. Going about doing good. He healed the sick and gave sight to the blind and brought good tidings to the meek. At Jerusalem He cleansed the temple of its corruption, even as He was daily rendering His own nature the temple of God. The inevitable conflict was not shunned. The perceived unfaithfulness of many did not provoke a word of resentment. The attempts of habit- ual sinners of this world and the other to overthrow Him failed again and again, but it was inevitable that there must be a last and most direful assault. He foresaw it, but behold the conduct of infinite love. He bathed His disciples' feet in order to teach them the new com- mandment of love to one another. He bade them be not troubled, and spoke of the peace He had to give to them. He chastened Him- self in the garden. On His way to the cross He asked them to weep rather for themselves than for Him. He gave the mother a son to care for her old age. To perjured Peter His answer had been but a look. To the false accusations He had been dumb. For His love they were His adversaries, but He gave Himself unto prayer. Rising again He came with indescribable gentleness to the rec- ognition of Mary Magdalene. To the two discouraged disciples He was all patience. To doubting Thomas He was infinitely condescend- ing. As He stood there for the time made visible to their spiritual sight, having entored where the doors were shut, He was the embod- iment of prophecy fulfilled, of divine love triumphant. He was. He is "Our Lord and our God," "the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person." This is no merely vicarious act of a subordinate or additional per- son of God. It was the act of God Himself to restore the vital union between man and Himself, that union which man had severed by in- creasing self-assertion, waywardness and wickedness, and which could only be renewed by contrition and return and reconciliation. In the case of the man healed of his blindness, in the ninth chapter of John, we have first the evil condition, then the remedy offered, next the remedy accepted, at once the cure effected, and finally a vital union Vital Union of safety for him established with the Lord, as shown by his saying, wttdclod **"* " Lord, I believe," and by his worshiping Him. In more difficult cases, as we know by some experience, the knowledge of the remedy may be cold and unfruitful in the memory until in seeking to lead a less selfish life, to be worthy of a loving wife or a trusting child, or to consecrate our lives in full to the Lord's service, we begin to form new motives with the divine aid, to hate what we once wickedly loved, and to love what we once wickedly hated, and so, little by little, born from above, a new heart is formed within us, and we come to act as faithful rather than as unfaithful servants of the Lord, as friends rather than as THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 251 enemies. So do we cease to do evil and learn to do well, if we will. Thus we may see that the will and the power to rescue and to reconcile wayward souls sprang from the infinite love; that the method is that of the divine order, and that the result in the individual re- deemed through repentance and regeneration is just what man's fallen state required and requires. It is precisely as Paul said: " God was in the Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." (2 Cor., v, 19.) And again He said: " In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Col., xi, 9) "We dwell in Him," said John once more, " and He in us; we love Him because He first loved us." " This is the true God and eternal life." That uncreated beauty which has gained My raptured heart, has all my glory stained; His loveliness my soul has prepossessed, And left no room for any other guest. The Gate of Jerusalem. Xhe O^ly Possible ]\/\ethod of f^eligious {Jnification of the H^^^^ Race. Paper by REV. WILLIAM R. ALGER, of New York. K N considering the subject that now asks your attention, "The Only Possible Method of Relig- ious Unification," we must work our way to the solution of the problems by defining our terms and distinguishing the steps. What is unity? The most authoritative speculative thinker that t WK^SMrii WM ever lived has given the only possible defini- \ ^SK31' ni'. tion of unity that ever has or ever can be given: "Unity is the measure of genus and the head or principle." Unity, therefore, is not oneness within itself, a series of self-distinction in a free whole. No unity can be divided, but every unity can be indefinitely multiplied. There is no real unity except a person, a free spirit, and the genus of that order of individu- als is God. God is the measure of all person- alities. God is Himself an absolute, self-determined and free self- consciousness; that is, the measure of genus and the head of the innumerable number of its representatives. Unification is the taking up of many into an already existing unity and the pervasion of the um«c8.^° many by the one. All unities are derived from God, the absolute unity. Fourteen hundred million human beings represent a generic unity of mankind. How can they be unified? Never by any mere struggles of their own, but just in proportion as they face their egoistic wills and replace them with the divine will they become unified. The ideal unity of the human race already exists in the mind and purpose of God and in the developing destiny of the human race; but, alas! it is not con- sciously recognized by the component individuals who rej)rcscnt it, and is not manifested by them in their own voluntary activity. Why? The reason why is this cosmic spirit, of which Professor Huxley has so recently spoken, the insurrectionary spirit of the parts, the rebellion 253 cation. 254 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. of the parts against the whole. This insurrectionary spirit is a personi- fication, a collectivity in a person, an act of sin-guilt. It is evil, but not guilt. Guilt comes in with the voluntary rebellion of the individual free spirit. Liberals have rebelled, but they simply blink the whole problem of evil and assert "there is no evil, man is divine." Man is not divine in actuality; he is in potentiality. Man is a rational animal. He is a divine animal. The animality is actual, until he develops the potentiality by voluntary co-operation with divine grace. The first form of partial unification of the human race is the aes- thetic unification. The second step is the scientific unification; the third is the essential; the fourth is the political unification by the es- tablishment of an international code for the settlement of ail disputes by reason. The fifth will be the commercial and social, the free cir- culation of all the component items of humanity through the whole of humanity. Our commerce, steamships, telegraphs and telephone. The Several ^"^ ^^ forth; the ever increasing travel is rapidly bringing that about, steps in Uiiifi- but the Commercial spirit, as such, is cosmic, is selfish. They seek to make money out of others by the prmciple of profit, gettmg more than they should. The next partial form of unification is the economic. The economic unification of the human race will be what? The trans- fer of civilization from its pecuniary basis to the basis of labor. The whole effort of the human race must not be to purchase goods and sell them in order to make money. It must be to produce goods and distribute them on the principles of justice for the supply of human wants, without any profit. The pursuit of money is cosmic and hos- tile. The money I get nobody else can have, but the spirit of co- operation is unifying and universal, because in the spiritual order there is no division; there is nothing but wholes. The knowledge I have all may have, without division. And when we w^ork in co-operation, in- stead of antagonism, in producing and distributing the goods of this life, the interest of all men will be one, namely, to reduce cost to the minimum and increase product to the maximum. That will abolish waste and make the whole earth one in interest, while now they are bristling with hos'tility. There are three in unity, if I may so speak, unification of the whole race, for which sev'en is whole, the whole made up of six preceding distinctions. Now the seventh is a trinity. Let us see what are the three. VVe have the philosophical unification and the theological uni- fication, and the unity of those is the religious unification. Let mc define. Philosophy is the science of ultimate ground. Theology is the science of the first principle. The unity of those two. transfused through the whole personality and applied as the dominant spirit of life in the regulation of conduct through all its demands, is religion. That is the pure, absolute, universal religion in which all can agree. The first great obstacle to overcome is our environment — our so- cial environment. Our social environment, instead of being redeemed, instead of representing the archetype mind of God, -the redemptive, is cosmic, and it is utterly vain (or us to go and preach Christianity, Obstacles to THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 255 when just as fast as we utter these precepts they are neutralized by the atmospheric environments in which they pass. The great anti-Christ of the world is the unchristian character and conduct of Christendom. 'All through Christendom we preach and profess one set of precepts and practice the opposite. We say, " Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and righteousness, and all else shall be added unto us." We put the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness in the background and work like so many incarnate devils for every form of self-gratifi- cation. The great obstacle to the religious unification of the human race is the irreligious always associated and often identified with the relig- Religion.' ious. There are three great specifications of that. First, hatred is a made religion. Did not the Brahmans and the Mohammedans slaugh- ter each other in the streets of Bombay a few days ago, hating each other more than they loved the generic humanity or God? Did not the Catholics and Protestants struggle together furiously and come near committing murder in Montreal and Toronto a few days ago? All over the world the hatred of the professors of religion for one an- other is irreligion injected into the very core of religion. That is fatal. Rites and ceremonies are not religion. A man may repeat the soundest creed verbally a hundred times a day for twenty years. He may cross himself three times and bend his knee and bow his head, and still be full of pride and vanity; or he may omit those ceremonies and retreat to himself into his closet and shut the door, and in strug- gle with God efface his egoism and receive the divine spirit. That is religion, and so on through other manifestations. We must arrive at pure, rational, universal interpretations of all the dogmas of theology. We must interpret every dogma in such a way that it will agree with all other dogmas in a free circulation of the distinctions through the unity. Then the human race can be united on that. They never can on the other. We must put the preponderating emphasis, without any division, on the ethical aspects of religion instead of on the spec- ulative. Formerly, it was just the other way. We are rapidly coming to that. The liberalists began their protests against the Catholic and evangelical theology by supporting the ethical, emphasizing charac- ter and conduct. But all the churches now recognize that a man must have a good character, that he must behave himself properly, morally. There is not one that doubts or questions it. These have become commonplaces, and yet the liberals stay right there and don't move a step. Liberalism thus far has been ethical and shallow. Ev^angelicanism has been dogmatic, tyrannical and cruel, to some extent irrational, but it has always been profound. It has battled with the real problems which the liberalists have simply blinked at, and settled these prob- lems in universal agreement. For example, the doctrine of the fall of Adam. There was a real problem. The world is full of evil; God is perfect; he could not create imperfections, How happened it? Why, 256 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. man was created all right, but he fell. It was an amazingly original, subtle and profound stroke to settle a real problem. The liberals came up and, saying it was not the true solution, they blinked at the prob- lem and denied that it existed. Now the real solution seems to me is not that the evils in the universe have come from a fall. The fall of an archdemoniac spirit in heaven does not settle the problem; it only moves it back one step. How did he fall? Why did he fall? There can be no fall in the archetypal of God. Creatures were created in freedom to choose between good and evil in order that through their freedom and the discipline of struggle with evil they might become the perfected and redeemed images of God. That set- tles the problem and we can all agree on that. Of course you want an hour to expound it. This hint may seem absurd, but there is more in it. Finally, I want to say we must change the emphasis, from the Redemption world of death to this world. Redemption must not be postponed to 'i^^Pli-o^^' the future. It must be realized on the earth. I don't think it is heresy to say that we must not confine the idea of Christ to the mere historic individual, Jesus of Nazareth; but we must consider that Christ is not merely the individual. He is the completed genus incarnate. He is the absolute generic unity of the human race in manifestation. Therefore, he is not the follower of other men, but their divine exem- plar. We must not limit our worship of Christ to the mere historic person, but must see in the individual person the perfected genus of the divine humanity which is God Himself, and realize that that is to be multiplied. It cannot be divided, but it may be multiplied commen- surately with the dimensions of the whole human race. Must Be ized OQ Earth. Yhe Need of a \Yider Qonception of f^evelation, or Lessons from the Sacred B^o^s of the ^^orld. Paper by PROF. J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, of Oxford. HE congress which I have the honor to address in this paper is a unique assemblage. It could not have met before the nineteenth century, and no country in the world possesses the needful boldness of conception and organiz- ing energy save the United States of America. History does indeed record other endeavors to bring the religions of the world into line. The Christian fathers of the fourth century credited Demetrius Phalereus, the large- minded librarian of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about 250 B. C, with the attempt to procure the sacred books, not only of the Jews, but also of the Ethiopians, Indians, Persians, Elamites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Romans, Phoenicians, Syrians and Greeks. The great Emperor Akbar (the contemporary of Queen Elizabeth) invited to his court Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, Brahmans and Zoroastrians. He listened to their discussions, he weighed their arguments, until (says one of the native historians) there grew gradually as the outline on a stone the conviction in his heart that there were sensible men in all relig- ions. Different indeed is this from the court condemnation by the English lexicographer, Samuel Johnson, who said a hundred years ago: "There are two objects of curiosity — the Christian world and the Mohammedan world; all the rest maybe considered barbarous." This congress meets, I trust, in the spirit of that wise old man who wrote: "One is born a Pagan, another a Jew, a third a Mussulman. The true philosopher sees in each a fellow seeking after God." With this con- viction of the sympathy of religions, I offer some remarks founded on the study of the world's sacred books. 17 257 Sympathy of Keligious. 258 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. I will not stop to define a sacred book, or distinguish it from those which, like the "Imitatio Christi," the "Theologia Germanica," or "Pilgrim's Progress," have deeply influenced Christian thought or feeling. It is enough to observe that the significance of great collec- tions of religious literature cannot be overestimated. As soon as a faith produces a scripture, i. e., a book invested with legal or other authority, no matter on how lowly a scale, it at once acquires an ele- ment of permanence. Such permanence has both advantages and dan- gers. First of all, it provides the great sustenance for religious affec- tion; it protects a young and growing religion from too rapid change through contact with foreign influences; it settles a base for future in- ternal development; it secures a certain stability; it fixes a standard of belief, consolidates the moral type. It has been sometimes argued that if the Gospels had never been written, the Christian church which existed for a generation ere they were composed, would still have transmitted its orders and administered its sacraments, and lived on by its great tradition. But where would have been the image of Jesus enshrined in these brief records? How could it have sunk into the heart of nations and served as the impulse and the goal of endeavor, unexhausted in Christendom after eighteen A Nation centurics? The diversity of the religions of Greece, their tendency to without Scrip- p^gg jj^^q q^xq another, the ease with which new cults obtained a foot- ing in Rome, the decline of any vital faith during the last days of the republic, supply abundant illustrations of the religious weakness of a nation without scriptures. On the other hand, the dangers are obvious. The letter takes the place of the spirit, the transitory is confused with the permanent, the occasional is made universal, the local and tem- poral is erected into the everlasting and absolute. The sacred book is indispensable for the missionary religion. Even Judaism, imperfect as was its development in this direction, dis- covered this as the Greek version of the seventy made its way along the Mediterranean. Take the Koran from Islam, and where would have been its conquering power? Read the records of the heroic H 1 B k labors of the Buddhist missionaries and of the devoted toil of BroadestEJe- the Chinese pilgrims to India in search of copies of the holy books; Reve- y^y may be at a loss to understand the enthusiasm with which they gave their lives to the reproduction of the teachings of the Great Mas- ter; you will see how clear and immediate was the perception that the diffusion of the new religion depended on the translation of its scriptures. And now, one after another, our age has witnessed the resurrection of ancient literatures. Philology has put the key of language into our hands. Shrine after shrine in the world's great temple has been entered; the songs of praise, the commands of law, the litanies of peni- tence, have been fetched from the tombs of the Nile or the mounds of Mesopotamia, or the sanctuaries of the Ganges. The Bible of hu- manity has been recorded. What will it teach us? I desire to suggest to this congress that it brings home the need of a conception of revel- ation unconfined to any particular religion, but capable of application meat ot lation. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 259 in diverse modes to all. Suffer me to illustrate this very briefly under three heads: First, ideas of ethics; second, ideas of inspiration; third, ideas of incarnation. The sacred books of the world are necessarily varied in character and contents. Yet no group of scriptures fails to recognize, in the long run, the supreme importance of conduct. Here is that which, in the control of action, speech and thought, is of the highest signifi- cance for life. This consciousness sometimes lights up even the most arid wastes of sacrificial detail. All nations do not pass through the same stages of moral evolu- tion within the same periods, or mark them by the same crises. The TheDeveiop- II i. £ -1 £4.1 Ci. f^ 1 ment of moral development of one is slower, or another more swirt. One people evolution, seems to remain stationary for millenniums, another advances with each century But in so far as they have both consciously reached the same moral relations and attained the same insight, the ethical truth which they have gained has the same validity. Enter an Egyptian tomb of the century of Moses' birth and you will find that the soul, as it came before the judges in the other world, was summoned to declare its in- nocence in such words as these: *T am not a doer of what is wrong, 1 am not a robber, I am not a murderer, I am not a liar, I am not un- chaste, I am not the causer of others' tears." Is the standard of duty here implied less noble than that of the decalogue? Are we to depress the one as human and exalt the other as divine? More than five hun- dred years before Christ the Chinese sage, Lao Tsze, bade his disciples, "Recompense injury with kindness," and at the same great era, faithful in noble utterance, Gautama, the Buddha, said, "Let man overcome anger by liberality and the liar by truth." Is this less a revelation of a higher ideal than the injunction of Jesus, "Resist not evil, but who- soever smitcth thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also?" The fact surely is that we cannot draw any partition line through the phenomena of the moral life and affirm that on one side lie the gen- eralizations of earthly reasons and on the other the declarations of heavenly truth. The utterances in which the heart of man has em- bodied its glimpses of the higher vision are not all of equal merit, but they must be explained in the same way. The moralists of the flowery land, even before Confucius, were not slow to perceive this, though they could not apply it over so wide a range as that now open to us. Heaven in giving birth to the multitudes of the people to every faculty and relationship affixed its law. The people possess this normal virtue. In the ancient records gathered up in the Shu King, the Duke of Chow related how Hea would not follow the leading of Shang Ti, supreme ruler of God. "In the daily business of life and the most common actions," wrote the commentator, "we feel, as it were, an influence exerted on the intelligence, the emotions and the heart. Even the most stupid are not without their gleams of light." This is the leading idea of Ti, and there is no place where it is not felt. Modern ethical theory, in the forms which it has assumed at the hands of liutler, Kant and Martineau, recognizes this element. Its relation 260 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. to the whole philosophy of religion will no doubt be discussed by other speakers at this congress. Suffer me in brief to state my conviction that the authority of con- science only receives its full explanation when it is admitted that that difference which we designate in forms of "higher" and "lower" is not of our own making. It issues forth from our own nature because it has been first implanted within it. It is a speech to our souls of a loftier voice, growing clearer and more articulate as thought grows wider and feeling more pure. It is, in fact, the witness of God within us; it is the self-manifestation of His righteousness, so that in the com- mon terms of universal moral experience lies the first and broadest ele- ment of Revelation. But may we not applj'the same tests, the worth of belief, the genuineness of feeling, to more special cases? If the divine life shows itself forth in the development of conscience, may it not be traced also in the slow rise of a nation's thought of God, or in the swifter response of nobler minds to the appeal of heaven? The fact is, that man is so conscious of his weakness that in his earlier da)'s all higher knowledge, the gifts of language and letters, the discovery of the crafts, the inventions of civilization, poetry and song, art, law, phi- losophy, bear about them the stamp of the superhuman. "From thee," sang Pindar (nearest of Greeks to Hebrew prophecy), "cometh all high excellence to mortals." Such love is, in fact, the teaching of the unseen, the manifestation of the infinite in our mortal ken. If this conception of providential guidance be true in the broad sphere of human intelligence, does it cease to be true in the realm of religious thought? Read one of the Egyptian hymns laid in the believer's cof- fin ere Moses was born: " Praise to Amen-Ra, the good God beloved, the ancient of heavens, the oldest of the earth. Lord of Eternity, Maker Everlasting. He is the Causer of pleasure and light. Maker of grass for the cattle and of fruitful trees for man, causing the fish to live in the river and the birds to fill the air, lying awake when all men sleep to seek out the good of His creatures. W'e worship Thy spirit whoaione hast made us; we, whom Thou has made, thank Thee that Thou hast given us birth ; we give Thee praises for Thy mercy to us." Is this less inspired than a Hebrew psalm? Study that antique record of all the Zarathustra in the Gathas, which all scholars receive as the oldest part of the Zend Avesta. Does it not rest on a religious experience similar in kind to that of Isaiah? Theologies may be many, but religion is but one. It was after this that the Vedic seers were groping when they looked at the varied wor- ship around them and cried: "They call Him India, Mitra, Varuna, TheoioKies Agui; sagcs name variously Him who is but one;" or again, "the sages liKiun One. in their hymns give many forms to Him who is but one." It was this essential fact with which the early Christians were confronted as they saw that the (ircck poets and philosophers hatl reached truths about the being of Ciod not at all unlike those of Moses and the prophets. Their solution was worthy ot the freedom and universality of the spirit of THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 261 Jesus; They were for recognizing and welcoming truth wherever they found it, and they referred it without hesitation to the ultimate source of wisdom and knowledge, the Logos, at once the minor thought and -the uttered word of God. The martyr Justin affirmed that the Logos had worked through Socrates, as it had been present in Jesus; nay, with a wider outlook he spoke of the seed of the Logos implanted in every race of man. In virtue of this fellowship, therefore, all truth was rev- elation and akin to Christ Himself. "Whatsoever things were said among all men are the property of us Christians." The Alexandrian teachers shared the same conception. The divine intelligence per- vaded human life and history and showed itself in all that was best in beauty, goodness, truth. The way of truth was like a mighty river ever flowing, and as it passed it was ever receiving fresh streams on this side and that. Nay, so clear in Clement's view was the work of Greek phi- losophy that he not only regarded it like Law and Gospel as a gift of God, it was an actual covenant as much as that of Sinai, possessed of its own justifying power, or following the great generalization of St. Paul. The law was a tutor to bring the Jews to Christ. Clement added that philosophy wrought the same heaven-appointed service for the Greeks. May we not use the same great conception over other fields of the history of religion? "In all ages," affirmed the author of the wisdom of Solomon, "wisdom entering into holy souls maketh them friends of God and prophets." So we may claim in its widest applica- tion the saying of Mohammed: "Every nation has a creator of the heav^ens — to which they turn in prayer — it is God who turneth them toward it. Hasten, then, emulously after good wheresoever ye be. God will one day bring }'ou all together." We shall no longer, then, speak like a distinguished Oxford pro- fessor of the three chief false religions — Brahmanism, Buddhism, Islam. Insofar as the soul discerns God, the reverence, adoration, AdorHtion,' trust, which constitute the moral and spiritual elements of its faith, Traet, are in fact identical through every variety of creed. They may be more or less clearly articulate, less or more crude and confused, or pure and elevated, but they are in substance the same. "In the adoration and benedictions of righteous men," said the poet of the Masnavi-i-Manavi, "the praises are mingled into one stream; all the vessels are emptied into one ewer; because He that is praised is in fact only one. In this respect all religions are only one religion. Can the same thought be carried one step farther? If in- spiration be a world-wide process unconfincd by specific limits of one people, or one book, may the same be said of the idea of incarnation? The conception of incarnation has many forms, and in different theol- ogies serves various ends. Butthey all possess one feature in common. Among the functions of the manifestation of the divine man is instruc- tion; his life is in some sense or other a mode of re\elation. Study the various legends belonging to Central America, of which the beautiful story of the Mexican Quetzalcoatl may be taken as a t)'pe — the virgin born who inaugurates a reign of peace, who establishes arts, institutes Reverence, fJoal of th'^ 262 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. beneficent laws, abolishes all human and animal sacrifices and sup- presses war — they all revolve around the idea of disclosing among men a higher life of wisdom and righteousness and love, which is in truth an unveiling of heaven. Or, consider a much more highly developed type, that of the Buddhas in theistic Buddhism, as the manifestation of the self-existent, everlasting God. Not once only did He leave His heavenly home to become incarnate in His mother's womb, *' Repeatedly am I born in the land of the living. And what reason should I have to manifest myself? When men have become unwise, unbelieving, ignorant, careless, then I, who know the course of the world, declare, 'I am so-and-so,' and consider how I can incline them to enlightenment, how they can become partakers of the Buddha nature." To become partakers of the divine nature is the goal also of the Christian believer. But may it not be stated as already implicitly a present fact? When St. Paul quoted the words of Aratus on Mars Hill, " For we also are His offspring," did he not recognize the sonship rhrVst'iaii" ito- of man to God as a universal truth? Was not this the meaning of ''^^"" Jesus when He bade His followers pray, "Our Father who art in heaven?" Once more Greek wisdom may supply us with a form for our thought. The Logos of God which became flesh and dwelt in Christ, wrought, so Justin tells us, in Socrates as well. W^as its purpose or effect limited to those two? Is there not a sense in which it appears in all men? If there is a true light which lighteneth every man that Cometh into the world, will not every man, as he lives by the light, himself also show forth God? The Word of God is not of single ap- plication. It is boundless, unlimited. For each man as he enters into being, there is an idea in the divine mind — may we not say in our poor human fashion? — of what God means him to be; that dwells in every soul, and realizing itself, not in conduct only, but in each several high- ■ est forms of human endeavor. It is the fountain of all lofty thought, it utters itself through the creations of beauty in poetry and art, it prompts the investigation of science, it guides the inquiries of phi- losophy. There are so many kinds of voices in the world, and no kind ^'■'if'^'ri •"'^ is without signification. So many voices! So many words! Each soul Thonght. a fresh word with a new destiny conceived for it by God, to be some- thing which none that has preceded has ever been before; to show forth some purpose of the divine Being just then and there which none else could make known. Thus conceived, the history of religion gathers up into itself the history of human thought and life. It becomes the story of God's continual revelation to our race. However much we may mar or frus- trate it, in this revelation each one of us may have part. Its forms may change from age to age; its institutions may rise and fall; its rights and usages may grow and decline. These are the temporarj^ the local, the accidental; they are not the essence which abides. To realize the sympathy of religions is the first step toward grasping this great thought. May this congress, with its noble representation of so many faiths, hasten the day of mutual understanding when God, by whatever name we hallow Him, shall be all in all. African Mission Children of the Upper Congo. By permission of Mr- Wm. S. Cherry. Founded on Reli^ooB Tol« eration. The Sy^'^P^thy of Religions. Address by COL. T. W. HIGGINSON, of Cambridge. t AM sorry to see that our chairman keeps up a practice, in the introduction of many gentle- men with long names from many other coun- tries, of heapinginjudicious epithets upon them with a result that could silence anybody but an American. [Laughter.] It is interesting to think, as a result of his great labors and your sympathy, that all over this land probably hundreds of pulpits were making this parlia- ment of religions their topic for discussion yes- terday. All over this land there were discus- sions varying in a range only to be equaled by the range of the parliament itself. Some of those discussions had a breadth and grasp, no doubt, worthy of their subject; others among those discussions had a concentrated narrowness and pettiness which could only be illustrated by what a Washington lady said about the English statesman, Mr. Chamberlain, after his residence there. "He is a nice man," she said, "but he doesn't know how to dance. He takes steps so small that you'd think he had practiced on a postage stamp." [Laughter.] Amid all that range of discussion, how few there probably were who recognized that this is, after all, not the first American parliament of religions, but that the first parliament was coincident with the very foundation of this government and was accepted in illustration of its workings. When in 1788 the constitution of the United States was adopted and a commemorative procession of 5,(X)0 people took place in Phila- delphia, then the seat of government, a place in the triumphal march was assigned to the clergy, and the Jewish rabbi of the city walked between two Christian ministers, to show that the new republic was founded on religious toleration It seems strange that no historical fainter, up to this time, has selected for his theme that fine incident, t should have been perpetuated in art, like the landing of the Pilgrims or Washington crossing the Delaware. And side by side with it might well be painted the twin event which occurred nearly a hundred years 264 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 265 later, in a Mohammedan country, when in 1875 Ismael Pasha, then khedive of Egypt, celebrating by a procession of two hundred thous- and people the obsequies of his beloved and only daughter, placed the Mohammedan priests and Christian missionaries together in the pro- cession, on the avowed ground that they served the same God, and that he desired for his daughter's soul the prayers of all. During the interval between these two great symbolic acts, the world of thought was revolutionized by modern science, and the very fact of religion, the very existence of a divine power, was for a time Modem questioned. Science rose, like the caged Afreet in the Arabian story. Science, and filled the sky. Then more powerful than the Afreet, it accepted its own limitations and achieved its greatest triumph in voluntarily reducing its claims. Supposed by many to have dethroned religion forever, it now offers to dethrone itself and to yield place to imagina- tive aspiration, a world outside of science, as its superior. This was done most conclusively when Professor Tyndall, at the close of his Belfast address, uttered that fine statement, by which he will perhaps be longest remembered, that religion belongs not to the knowing pow- ers of man, but to his creative powers. It was an epoch-making sen- tence. If knowing is to be the only religious standard, there is no middle ground between the spiritual despair of the mere agnostic and the utter merging of one's individual reason in some great organized church — the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, the Mohammedan, tiic Buddhist. But if human aspiration, or in other words, man's creative imagination, is to be the standard, the humblest individual thinker may retain the essence of religion and may, moreover, have not only one of these vast faiths but all of them at his side. Each of them alone is partial, limited, unsatisfying. Among all these vast structures of spiritual organization there is sympathy. It lies not in what they know, for they are alike, in a scientific sense, in knowing nothing. Their point of sympathy lies in what they have sublimely created through longing imagination. In all these faiths is the same alloy of human superstition, the same fables of miracle and prophecy, the same signs and wonders, the same perpetual births and resurrections. In point of knowledge all are help- less; in point of credulity, all puerile; in point of aspiration, all sub- lime. All seek after God, if haply they might find Him. All, more- over, look around for some human life, more exalted than the rest, which may be taken as God's highest reflection. Terror leads them to imagine demons, hungry to destroy, but hope creates for them redeem- ers mighty to save. Buddha, the prince, steps from his station; Jesus, the carpenter's Son, from His, and both give their lives for the service of man. That the good thus prevails above the evil is what makes religion — even the conventional and established religion — a step for- ward, not backward, in the history of man. Every great medieval structure in Christian P^urope recalls in its architecture the extremes of hope and fear. Above the main doors of 18 2C6 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. the cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, strange figures, imprisoned by one arm in the stone, strive with agonized faces to get out; devils sit upon wicked kings and priests; after the last judgment demons, like monkeys, hurry the troop of the condemned, still including kings and priests, away. Yet nature triumphed over all these terrors, and I remember that between the horns of one of the chief devils, while I observed it, a swallow had built its nest and twittered securely. And not only did humbler nature thus triumph beneath the free air, but within the church the beautiful face of Jesus showed the victory of man over his fears. In the same way a recent English traveler in Thibet, after describ- ing an idol room filled with pictures of battles between hideous fiends and equally hideous gods, many-headed and many-armed, says: "But among all these repulsive faces of degraded type, distorted with evil passions, we saw in striking contrast here and there an image of the contemplative Buddha, with beautiful, calm features, pure and pitiful, such as they have been handed down by painting and sculpture for two thousand years, and which the Lamas (priests), with all their perverted imagination, have never ventured to change when designing an idol of the Great Incarnation." The need of this high exercise of the imagination is shown even by the regrets of those who, in their devotion to pure science, are least willing to share it. The penalties of a total alienation from the relig- ious life of the world are perhaps severer than even those of super- stition. I know a woman who, passing in early childhood from the gentle- ness of a Roman Catholic convent to a severely evangelical boarding- school, recalls distinctly how she used in her own room to light matches and smell of the sulphur, in order to get used to what she supposed to be her doom. Time and the grace of God, as she thought, saved her from such terrors at last; but what chance of removal has the gloom of the sincere agnostic of the Clifford or Amberley type, who looks out upon a universe impoverished by the death of Deity? The pure and high-minded Clifford said: "We have seen the spring sun shine out of an empty heaven upon a soulless earth, and we have felt with utter loneliness that the Great Companion was dead." "In giving it up" (the belief in God and immortality), wrote Viscount Amberley, whom I knew in his generous and enthusiastic youth, with that equally high-minded and more gifted wife, both so soon to be re- moved by death, "We are resigning a balm for the wounded spirit, for which it would be hard to find an equivalent in all the repertories of science and in all the treasures of philosophy." It is in escaping this dire tragedy — in believing that what we cease to hold by knowledge we can at least retain by aspiration — that the sympathy of religions comes in to help us. That sympathy unites the kindred aspirations of the human race. No man knows God; all strive with their highest powers to create Him by aspiration; and we THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 207 leed, in this vast effort, not the support of some single sect alone, like Roman Catholics or Buddhists, but the strength and sympathy of the human race. What brings us here today? What unites us? but that we arc altogether seeking after God, if haply we may find Him. We shall find Him, if we find Him at all, individually; by opening each for himself the barrier between the created and the Creator. If supernatural infallibility is gone forever, there remain what Stuart Mill called with grander baptism, supernatural hopes. It is the essence of a hope that it cannot be formulated or organized or made subject or Ho?«>!^' ""* conditional, on the hope of another All the \ast mechanism of any scheme of salvation or religious hierarchy becomes powerless and insignificant beside the hope in a single human soul. Losing the sup- port of any organized human faith we become possessed of that which all faiths collectively seek. Their joint fellowship gives more than the loss of any single fellowship takes away. We are all engaged in that magnificent work described in the Buddhist "Dhammapada," or, "Path of Light." "Make thyself an island; work hard, be wise." If each could but make himself an island, there would yet appear at last above these waves of despair or doubt a continent fairer than Columbus won. Rt. Rev. Bishop C. E. Cheney, (Member General Committee.) \Yhat the J^ead f^eligions H^^^ B^"' queathed to the Living. Paper by PROF. G. S. GOODSPEED, of Chicago University. E come for the first time in this parlia- ment to the consideration of the dead religions. Naturally they do not claim our interest to such a degree as do the living. We come, as it were, to the threshold of the tomb. The air is likely to be a little musty and the passages somewhat dark. There- fore, if this paper shall, in some of its ^^^l 1' V y^^'^HHk details, seem a little intricate, I beg ''^^^V^ Y i >^ JB^^ your consideration as I read it, and I .^fli^ fg^j certain that I shall have it by reason of the fact that my observation during the few days of these meetings has shown me how kind you are to the speakers. The form in which the theme as- signed to me is stated is suggestive. It implies that the religions of the world are not isolated or independent. They are related to one another, and so related that their attitude is not one of hos- tility. Even the dead religions have left bequests to the living. The subject also implies that these bequests are positive. It is not worth our while to consider the topic if we are convinced beforehand that the dead religions have left behind them only "bones and a bad odor." We are invited to recognize the fact that a knowledge of them serves a somewhat higher purpose than "to j^oint a moral and adorn a tale;" to see in them stages in the religious historx' of humanity, and to ac- knowledge that a study of them is important, yes, indispensable, to adequate understanding of present systems. If the\' ha\e sometimes seemed to show "what fcjols these mortals be" when they seek after God, the^ aLso indicate how lie has made man for himself and how 269 270 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. human hearts arc restless till they rest in Him. Though dead, thej' yet speak, and among their words are some which form a part of our inheritance of truth. These dead religions may be roughly summed up in several groups: 1. Prehistoric cults, which remain only as they have been taken up into more developed systems, and the faiths of half-civilized peoples like those ot Central America and Peru. 2. The dead religions of Semitic Antiquity; that is, those of Phcenicia and Syria, of Babylonia and of Assyria. _ Dead Kelig- 3. The religion of Egypt. Up!* '*""™®*^ 4. The religions of Celtic Heathendom. 5. The religions of Teutonic Heathendom. 6. The religion of Greece. 7. The religion of Rome. It would be manifestly impossible in the brief limits of this paper adequately to present the material which these seven groups offer toward the discussion of this question. Even with a selection of the most important systems the material is too extensive. Our effort, therefore, will be directed, not toward a presentation of the material exhaustively or otherwise, but merely toward a suggestion of the pos- sible ways in which the achievements of these "dead" systems may contribute to a knowledge of the living religious facts in general, with some illustrations from the immense field which the above groups cover. There are three general lines along which the dead religions may be questioned as to their contributions to the living: 1. What are the leading religious ideas around which they have centered or which they have most fully illustrated? ; 2. \Vhat are their actual material contributions, of ideas or usages, to other systems? 3. In the history of their development, decay and death, how do they afford instruction, stimulus or warning? All religious systems represent some fundamental truth or ele- ments of truth. They center about some eternal idea. Otherwise, they would have no claiins upon humanity and gain no lasting accept- ance with men. The religions of antiquity are no exceptions to this principle. They have emiihasized certain phases of the religious sen- timent, grasped certain elements of the divine nature, elucidated cer- tain sides of the problem of existence, before which man cries out Sp^tTorError^ after God. It is not necessary to repeat that these truths and clear perceptions are often mingled with false views and pressed to e.xtrav^- agant and harmful lengths. But progress through the ages has been made, in spite t)f these errors, by means of the fundamental elements of truth, to which the very errors bear witness. These are the bequests of the dead religions to the world. They enrich the sum total of right thoughts, noble aspirations, worthy purposes. When patient and ana- lytic study of the facts of. religious history has borne in upon one the validity of the principles of development in this field, these religions THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 271 appear as parts of the complex whole, and the truths they embody enter into the sphere of religious knowledge as elements in its ever- increasing store. And not merely as units in the whole are these truths part of the possession of living faiths, but since that whole is a development in a real sense, they enter into the groundwork of existing religions. We do not deny that present life would not be what it is if Egypt and As- syria had not played their part in history; so correlated in all history. Can we then deny that present religion would not be what it is without their religions ? An idea once wrought out and applied in social life becomes not only a part of the world's truth, but also a basis for larger insight and wider application. Thus the great and fruitful prin- ciples which these dead faiths embodied and enunciated, have been handed down by them to be absorbed into larger and higher faiths, whose superiority they themselves have had a share in making possi- ble. How important and stimulating, therefore, is an investigation of them. As illustration may be drawn from the religions of two ancient nations, Egypt and Babylonia, which gave two highly influential relig- ious ideas to the world. There is the religion of Egypt, that land of contradiction and mystery, where men thought deep things, yet wor- Egypt and shiped bats and cranes, were the most joyous of creatures, and yet Babylonia, seemed to have devoted themselves to building tombs; explored many fields of natural science and practical art, yet give us the height of their achievements, a human mummy. One central religious notion of Egypt was the nearness of the divine. It was closely connected with a funda- mental social idea of the Egyptians. The man of Egypt never looked outside of his own land without disdain. It contained for him thefullness of all that heart could wish. He was a thoroughly contented and joyous creature, and the favorite picture which he formed of the future life was only that of another Egypt like the present. What caused him the most thought was how to maintain the conditions of the present in the passage through the vale of death. The body, for example, indispensable to the present, was equally required in the future and must be preserved. Thus it came to pass that the Egyptian, happiest and most contented of all men in this life, has left behind him tombs, mummies and the book of the dead. Now in this favored land the Egyptian must have his gods. Deity must be near at hand. What was nearer than His presence and manifestation in the animal life most characteristic of each district? Thus was wrought into shape, founded on the idea of the divine nearness, that bizarre worship of animals, the wonder and the con- tempt of the ancient world. This idea, which underlay that animal worship, though so crudely conceived, was deeply significant and con- stituted a most important contribution to the world. Another great religion of ancient times— the Babylonian-Assyrian, contributed quite a different truth. Living in a land open on every side to the assaults of nature and man, and having no occasion to 272 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. glorify Babylonia as the Egyptian exalted his native land, the Baby- lonian found his worthiest conception of the divine in an exalted deity who, from the heights of heaven and the stars, rained influence. He emphasized the transcendence of the divine. Time does not permit me to gi\'c the fuller explanation of the origin of this idea or to trace its growth. Surrounded by a crowd of indifferent or malevolent spirits, who must be controlled by a debasing system of magic, these men looked above and found deliverance in the favor of the divine beings who gave help from the skies. Their literature gives evidence of how they rose by slow degrees to this higher plane of thought in the con- stant appeal from the earth to heaven, from the power of the spirits to the grace of the gods. Whatever was its origin, it is noticeable that this idea of the eleva- tion, separateness, transcendence of deity is a fruitful basis of morality. Put one's self under the protection of a Lord implies acknowledgment T'pnitcniiai ^^ ^ standard of obedience. At first purely ritual or even physical in rBHinie. its requirements, this standard becomes gradually suffused with ethical elements. The process is traced in the so-called Babylonian peniten- tial psalms, which, indeed, do not contain very clear traces, if any, of purely ethical ideas. But the fact remains that the Babylonian doctrine of the transcendence of deity thus developed out of the antagonism of natural forces is a starting point for the ethical reconstruction of relig- ion. Egypt never could accomplish this with her religion. She has nothing corresponding to the penitential psalms. These two primitive religious systems gave to the world these two fundamental ideas. These two earliest empires carried these ideas with their armies to all their scenes of conquest and their merchants bore them to lands whither their warriors never went. The significance of this is not always grasped; nor is it easy to trace the results of the diffusion of these conceptions. Standing among the earliest religious thoughts, which man systematically developed, they had a wonderful opportunity, and we shall see that the opportunity was not neglected. 2. In considering the extent and character of the influence exer- cised by these religious ruling ideas of Egypt and Babylonia, we pass over to the second element in the bequest of the dead religions to the living, the direct contributions made by the former to the latter. The subject requires careful discrimination. Not a few scholars have gone far astray at this point in their treatment of religious systems. Formerly it was customary to find little that was original in any religion. All was borrowed. The tendency today is reactionary, and the originality of the great systems is exaggerated. There is no question as to the fact of the dependence of religions upon one another. The danger is, lest it be overlooked, that similar conditions in two religions may produce independently the same results. It must be recognized also that ancient nations held themselves more aloof from one another, and especially that religion as a matter of national tradition was much more conservative both in revealing itself to strangers and in accepting contributions from without. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 273 Yet the student of religion knows how, in one sense, every faith in the world has absorbed the life of a multitude of other local and limited cults. This is true of the sectarian religions of India. Islam swallowed the heathen worships of ancient Arabia. Many a shrine of Christianity is a transformation of a local altar of heathendom. There is no more important and no more intricate work lying in the sphere of comparative religion than an analysis of existing faiths with a view to the recovery of the bequests of preceding systems. While much has been done the errors and extravagances of scholars in many instances should teach caution. We must pass over a large portion of this great field. Attention should be called to the wide range of materials in the realm of Chris- tianity alone. To her treasury the bequests of usage and ritual have come from all the dead past. From Teutonic and Celtic faiths, from the cultus of Rome and the worship and thought of Greece contributions can still be pointed out in the complex structure. Christian scholars have done splendid work in tracing out these remains. I need but refer to the labors of Dr. Hatch and Professor Harnack upon the relations of Christianity to Greece and those of the eminent French scholar, the late Ernest Renan, in the investigation of Christianity's debt to Rome, as instances of the richness of the field and the importance of the results. A more limited illustration which is also in continuation of the line of thought already followed may be shown in the in- fluence of the religions of Egypt and Assyrio. Babylonia upon living faiths, or more exactly the connection of their leading ideas with the doctrines of Judaism and Christianity. The religious ideas of Egypt seem to have spread westward and to have had their greatest influence upon Greece. It has been the fashion to deny utterly the dependence of Greece upon Egypt in re- influence spect to religion, but it cannot be denied that the trend of recent dis- coveries in archaeology leads to the opposite conclusion. We must emphasize the fact that every people contributes far more to its own system of religious belief than it borrows from without. Yet Greece herself acknowledged her debt in this matter to the land of the Nile and there is no real reason to deny her own testimony. It is striking to observe how the fundamental Egyptian notions of the sufficiency of the present life and the nearness of the divine reveal themselves in Hellas. The Greek conceived these ideas, indeed, in a far higher fashion. Harmony and beauty were the touchstones by which he tested the world and found it good. The grotesqucness of the Egyptian forms yielded to the grace of the Athenian creations of art and religion, but beneath them was the same thought. In man and his works the Greek found the ideal of the dixine, and to him we owe the transformation of the doctrine of the di\ine nearness into that of God's immanence. Egypt's influence in the east was cut off early after her period of conquest by the rise of the Hittite empire. It is difficult to see an\- traces of her doctrine in the religions of western Asia, unless it be uiwn Greece. 274 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. that of Phoenicia. But with one people, at a later period, it would seem probable that her religious ideas would find lodgment. For a number of years, if Israelitish traditions are to be trusted, the Hebrews were under Egyptian domination, and the formation of their nation and their religious system dates from their deliverance from this bond- age. Did they not borrow from the well-organized and imposing religious system of their captors? Could they avoid doing so? The evidences of any such borrowing are not easy to discover. Either they have been carefully removed by later ages or another and more powerful influence has obliterated them. It is also to be remembered that the feeling excited in Israel by the rigors of Egyptian slavery was one of repulsion and abhorrence of everything Egyptian. It is more probable, therefore, that the influence of the religion of Egypt upon Israel was a negative one and that the foundations of her social and religious institutions were laid in a spirit of separation from wliat was characteristic of her oppressor. This negative influence, beginning thus in the birth of the nation and continuing through several centuries in the relations of the two peoples, was in its formative power over Hebrew religion second only to that which was positively exercised by another religious system, viz., that of Assyrio-Babylonia, to which we now turn. There were three great periods in which the Hebrews came into close relations with their neighbor on the Tigris and Euphrates. The first was that represented by the tradition respecting Abraham. He came from Ur of the Chaldees with the doctrine of the true God. The circumstances which moved him to depart from that center of the i«raei's De- world's civilization are not clear to us, but the tradition gives no hint of E*'^-"r *'"**™ hostile relations such as occasioned Israel's departure from Egypt, It was here, therefore, that he came in contact with those elevated ideas of the divine transcendence which are characteristic alike of the relig- ion of Babylonia and in a higher and purer degree of the religion of Israel. Can he have gained his first perception of this truth from the Babylonians? It is not improbable. It is certainly true that a mighty impetus was given to this doctrine in Israel by this earliest contact with Babylonian life. The third of these periods was the Babylonian captivity. Many scholars are inclined to assign to this time a large number of acquisi- tions by Israel in the field of Babylonian religion, such as the early traditions of the creation and the deluge. But they forget that the same feeling which led Israel to reject all the attractions of Egypt would be equally aroused against Babylon, in whose cruel grasp they found thcmscKes held fast. It is in the second period, that of the Assyrian conquest of west- ern Asia, that Israel came most fully under the influence of the relig- ion and the religious ideas of the Babylonians. Both Israel and Assyria had developed a religious system, though Assyria was far in advance of Israel in this respect. Heir of Babylon's civilization and religion Assyria had advanced a step beyond her ancestral faith. In THE WORLD'S^ CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 275 the God Ashur the nation worked out a conception of a national God, before whom the other deities of the pantheon took subordinate posi- tions. Without denying the divine transcendence, Assyria moved in the direction of monotheism. A God of majesty, he was also con- ceived in the Assyrian style as a God of justice, whose law, though but slightly tinged with ethical ideas as we hold them, must be obeyed. The Hebrew conception of Jahvch had also been fashioned in the struggle after nationality. It was a conception born out of the very heart of the nation divinely moved upon by the true God. It did not owe its origin to Egypt or Assyrio-Babylonia. But we cannot fail to observe how the note of divine transcendence, the majesty of Jehovah, was ever kept clear in the minds of the Hebrew nation from the two opposite influences — the negative force of Egypt's contrary doctrine and the positive power of the Assyrio-Babylonian religious system as conceived by the Assyrian empire. They were ever present and im- pressive examples throughout the centuries of Israelitish history. Under this supporting influence Israel took the one higher step which remained to be taken. Moved forward by the irresistible im- pulse thus outwardly and inwardly felt, the prophets released Israel's God from the fetters of nationality and from the bonds of a selfish morality and preached the doctrine of a transcendent righteous God of all the earth. Thus these two elemental truths about God have been conveyed from Egypt and from Babylonia to the nations of men. They have come to be together the possession of Christianity. The doctrine of the divine transcendence is the gift of Judaism to the Christian church, and Christian theology has wrought it out into complex and impress- ive systems of truth. The truth of the divine immanence early found its place in the hearts and minds of the believers. It is noticeable that the scene of its sway, if not of its Christian origin, was the city of Alexandria. The place where Greek and Egyptian met was the home of this Graeco-Egyptian doctrine which the Alexandrian fathers wrought into the Christian system, and which is today beginning to claim that share in the system which its complementary truth has seemed to usurp. The religions which flourished and passed away have in this way contributed to the fundamentals of Christian theism. The preceding discussion has unavoidably encroached upon the ground of the third line of inquiry, namely, What have the dead religions afforded to the living in their history? What instruction do their life and death give as to the success or failure of religious s}s- tems? Two a-priori theories occupy the field as explanations of these religions. First, they are regarded as teaching the blindness of man in his search after God, and the falsitv of humanly constructed sNstcms Perished Be- c . , ,. . , . ' „,, . ^ . ■• • ' • , cause they were apart from special clix'ine revelation, liie dead religions perished False, because they were false, the production either of Satan or of deluded or designing men. The second theory holds these religions to be steps in the progressive evolution of the religious life of humanit}-, passing through well-defined and philosophically arranged stages. 276 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Value of the Dnad Relig- ions. each justifiable in its own circumstances, each a preparation for some- thing higher. Both views are inadequate because they do not include all the facts. What is needed in the study of religion today more than any- thing else is a study of the manifold facts which religions present and a rigid abstinence from philosophical theories which find facts to suit themselves. One great excellence of this parliament is that it brings us face to face with these facts. These brief sessions will do more for the study of religion than the philosophizing of a score of years. No religion in the totality and complexity of its phenomena is wholly false or wholly true. The death of a religion is not always an evidence of its decay and corruption, its inadequacy to meet the wants of men. There are certain phases of living religious life which every sane man would prefer to see removed and their place supplied by the doctrine anci practice of some dead religions. In the search for the laws of relig- ious life and the results of religious activity, the dead religions arc particularly valuable because of what these laws and forces have in them worked out to the end. They have formed a completed struc- ture or produced a ruin, both of which disclose with equal fidelity and equal adequacy the working of invariable and irresistible law. Generalization on these phenomena, if correctly made, have a satisfying quality and a validity which afford a basis for instruction and guidance. Thus these religions themselves constitute what may be after all their most valuable bequest, and as such they have a peculiar interest for the student of religion. The proofs of this statement throng in upon us and we can select but a few. Among the problems of present religious life, that of the relations of church and state receive light from these dead religions. In antiquity these relations consisted in almost complete identification of the two organisms. Most frequently the church existed for the state, its servant, its slave. The results were most disastrous to both parties, but religion especially suffered. Its priesthoods either became filled with ambitious designs upon the state as in Egypt, or fell into the position of subserviency and weakness as in Babylon and Assyria, Rome and Greece. The aims and ends of truth were narrowed and trimmed to fit Ainu of Truth, imperfect social conditions, and the fate of religion was bound up with the success or failure or a political policy. The destruction of the nation meant the disappearance of the religion. Assyria dragged into her grave the religion which she i)rofessed. A similar fate attended many of the cults of Semitic anticiuity through the conquests of the great world em{)ires which dominated western Asia. The finished e.xperiencc of these dead faiths, therefore, speaks clearly in favor of the separation of religion from the state. Another problem which they enlighten is that of religious unity and the consequent future of religious .systems, the ultimate religion. Where these systems survived the ruin of the nationality on which Ends and THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 277 they depended, they met their death through a mightier religious force. The most brilliant example of this phenomenon is the conflict of Christianity with the religions of the ancient world. Christianity's victory was achieved without force of arms. Was it merely that its foes were moribund that the religious forces of antiquity had all but lost their power? This is not by any means all the truth. I cannot glory in the victory of a Christianity over decaying religions that would have died of themselves if only left alone, but I am proud 6. combat it and to point out that it differed little or nothing from all fine«i charac- the superstitions one was now getting acquainted with, or by the apologists in order to defend it against these attacks and to prove its higher excellence when compared with all other religions. The impulse came from two sides. On one side it was due to philosophy. Philosophy had for centuries past been speculating on religion, but only about the beginning of our century it had become aware of the fact that the great religious problems cannot be solvx'd without the aid of history; that in order to define the nature and the origin of religion one must first of all know its development. Already before Benjamin Constant this was felt by others, of whom we will only mention llcgel and Schelling It may even be said that the right method for the philosophical inquiry into religion was defined by Sciielling, at least from a theoretical point of view, more accurately than by anyone else; though we should add that he, more than anyone else, fell short in the applying of it. Hegel even endeavored to give a classification, which, it is proved, hits the right nail on the head here and there, but, as a whole, distinctly jjroves that he lacked a clear conception of the real historical development of religion. Nor could this be otherwise. Even if the one had not been confined within the narrow bounds of an a-prioristic system of the historical data which were at his disposal, even if the other had not been led astray by his unbridled fancy, both wanted the means to trace religion in the course of its developments. Most of the religions of antiquity, especially those of the east, were at that time known but superficially, and the critical research into the newer forms of religion had as yet hardly been entered upon One instance out of many. Hegel characterized the so-called Syriac religions as ''die Religion dcs Sehuicrzens' (religion of suffering). In doing this, he of course thought of the myth and the worship of Thammu7.-Adonis. He did not know that these are by no means of Aryanaic origin, but were borrowed by the people of western Asia from their eastern neighbors, and are, in fact, a survival of an older, highly sensual naturism. Even at the time he might have known that Adonis was far from being an ethical ideal, that his worship was far from being the glorification of a voluntarily suffering deity. In short, it was known that only the comparative method could conduce to the desired end, but the means of comparing, though not wholly wanting, were inadequate 282 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Meanwhile, material was being supplied from another quarter. Philogical and historical science, cultivated after strict methods, arch- aeology, anthropology, ethnology, no longer a prey to superficial the- orists and fashionable dilettanti only, but also subjected to the laws of the critical research, began to yield a rich harvest. I need but hint at the many important discoveries of the last hundred years, the num- ber of which is continually increasing You know them full well, and you also know that they are not confined to a single province nor to a single period. They reach back as far as the remotest antiquity and show us, in those ages long gone by, a civilization postulating a long previous development, but also draw our attention to many concep- tions, manners and customs among several backward or degenerate tribes of our own time, giving evidence of the greatest rudeness and barbarousness. They thus enable us to study religion as it appears among all sorts of people and in the most diversified degrees of devel- opment. They have at least supplied the sources to draw from, among which are the original records of religion concerning which people formerly had to be content with very scanty, very recent and very untrustworthy information. You will not expect me to give you an enumeration of them. Let me mention only Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, India and Persia, and of their sacred books, the " Book of the Dead," the so-called " Chaldean Genesis," the " Cabylonia," the "pen- itential psalms" and mythological texts, the "Veda" and the "Avesta." These form but a small part of the acquired treasures, but though we had nothing else it would be much. I know quite well that at first, even after having deciphered the writing of the first two named, and having learned in some degree to understand the languages of all, people seemed not to be fully aware of what was to be done with these treasures, and that the translations hurriedly put together failed to lead to an adequate perception of the contents. I know also that even now, after we have learned how to apply to the study of these records the universally admitted, sound philological principles, much of what we believe to be known has been rejected as being valueless, and that the questions and problems which have to be solved have not decreased in number, but are daily increas- ing. I cannot deny that scholars of high repute and indisjjutable authority are much divided in opinion concerning the explanation of those texts, and that it is not easy to make a choice out of so many conflicting opinions. How much docs Brugsch differ in his represen- tation of the Egyptian mythology from Edward Meyer and Ermann! How great a division among the Assyriologists between the Accadists, or Sumerists and the anti-Sumerists or- anti- Accadists! How much differs the explanation of the Veda by Roth, Miiller and Grassman, from that of Ludwig,and how different is Barth's explanation from Ber- gaigne's and Regnaud s! How violent was the controversy between Speigel and Haupt about the explanation of the most ancient pieces in the Avesta; and now in this year of grace, while the younger gener- ation, Bartholomae and Geldner on the one hand, Geiger, Wilhelm, THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 283 Hubschmann, Mills on the other hand, are following different roads, there has come a scholar and a man of genius, who is, however, par- t'icularly fond of paradoxes, James Darmsteter, to overthrow all that was considered up to his time as being all but stable, nay, even to undermine the foundations, which were believed safe enough to be built upon. But all this cannot do away with the fact that we are following the right path, that much has already been obtained, and much light has been shed on what was dark. Of not a few of these new fangled theories itmaybe said they are atleast useful in compelling us once more to put to a severe test the results obtained. So we see that the modern science of religion, comparative theology, has sprung from these two theRightl>ath^ sources; the want of a firmer empirical base of operations, felt by the philosophy of religion, and the great discoveries on the domain of his- tory, archaeology and anthropology. These discoveries have revealed a great number of forms of relig- ion and religious phenomena which, until now, were known imperfectly or not at all; and it stands to reason that these have been compared with these already known and that inferences have been drawn from this comparison. Can anyone be said to be the founder of the young science? Many have conferred this title upon the famous Oxford pro- fessor, F. Max Muller; others, among them his great American oppo- nent, the no less famous professor of Yale college, W. Dwight Whitney, have denied it to him. We may leave this decision to posterity. I, for one, may rather be said to side with Whitney than with Muller. Though I have frequently contended the latter's speculations and theories, I would not close my eyes to the great credit he has gained by what he has done for the science of religion, nor would I gainsay the fact that he has given a mighty impulse to the study of it, espe- cially in England and in France. But a new branch of .study can hardly be said to be founded. Like others, this was called into being by a generally felt want, in different countries at the same time and as a matter of course. The number of those applying themselves to it has been gradually in- creasing, and for years it has been gaining chairs at universities, first in Holland, afterward also in France and elsewhere, now also in Amer- ica, It has already a rich literature, even periodicals of its own. Though at one time the brilliant talents of some writers threatened to bring it into fashion and to cause it to fall a prey to dilettanti— a state of things that is to be considered most fatal to any science, but especially to one that is still in its infancy — this danger has fortunately been warded off, and it is once more pursuing the noiseless tenor of its way, profiting by the fell criticism of those who hate it. I shall not attempt to write its history. The time for it has not yet come. The rise of this new science, the comparative research of new religions, is as yet too little a feature of the past to be surveyed from an impartial standpoint. Moreover, the writer of this paper himself has been one of the laborers in this field for more than thirty 284 THE. WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. years past, and so he is, to some extent, a party to the conflict of opinions. His views would be apt to be too subjective, and could be justified only by an exhaustive criticism which would be misplaced New^cience*^* here, and the writing of which would require a longer time of prepara- tion than has now been allowed to him. A dry enumeration of the names of the principal writers, and the titles of their works, would be of little use, and would prove very little attractive to you. There- fore, let me add some words on the study of comparative theology. The first, the predominating question is: Is this study possible? In other words, what man, however talented and learned he may be, is able to command this immense field of inquiry, and what lifetime is long enough for the acquiring of an expansive knowledge of all religion? It is not even within the bounds of possibility that a man should master all languages, to study in the vernacular the religious records of all nations, not only recognize sacred writings, but also those of dis- senting sects and the songs and sagas of uncivilized people. So one will have to put up with the translations, and everybody knows that mean- ing of the original is but poorly rendered even by the best transla- tions. One will have to take upon trust what may be called second- hand information, without being able to test it, especially where the re- ligions of the so-called primitive peoples are concerned. All these ob- jections have been made by me for having the pleasure of setting them aside; they have frequently been raised against the new study and have already dissuaded many from devoting themselves to it. Nor can it be denied that they contain at least some truth. But if, on account of these objections, the comparative study of religions were to be esteemed impossible, the same judgment would have to be pronounced upon many other sciences. I am not competent to pass an opinion concerning the physical and biological sciences. I am alluding only to anthropology and eth- nology, history, the history of civilization, archc'Eology, comparative philology, comparative literature, ethics, philosophy. Is the inde- pendent study of all these sciences to be relinquished because no one can be required to be versed in each of their details equally well, to have acquired an exhaustive knowledge, got at the mainspring of every people, every language, every literature,every civilization, every group of records, every period, every system? There is nobody who will think of insisting upon this. Every science, even the most compre- hensive one, every theory must rest on an empirical basis, must start from an "unbiased ascertaining of facts;" but it does not follow that the tracing, the collecting, the sorting and the elaborating of these facts and the building up of a whole out of these materials must needs be consigned to the same hands. The flimsily constructed speculative systems, pasteboard buildings all of them, we have done away with for good and all. But a science is not a system, not a well-arranged storehouse of things that are known, but an aggregate of researches all tending to the same purpose, though independent yet mutually connected, and AgRT^^Kate of THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 285 each in particular connected with similar researches in other domain,s which serve thus as auxiliary sciences. Now the science of religion has no other purpose than to lead to the knowledge of religion in its nature and in its origin. And this knowledge is not to be acquired, at least if it is to be a sound, not a would-be knowledge, but by an Re^art-r.^H" unprejudiced historical-psychological research. What should be done first of all is to trace religion in the course of its development, that is to say in its life, to inquire what every family of religions, as for instance the Aryan and Semitic, what every particular religion, what the great religious persons have contributed to this development, to what laws and conditions this development is subjected, and in what it really consists? Next the religious phenomena, ideas and dogmas, feelings and inclinations, forms of worship and religious acts arc to be examined, to know from wdiat wants of the soul they have sprung and of what aspirations they are the expression, l^ut these researches, without which one cannot penetrate into the nature of religion nor form a conception of its origin, cannot bear lasting fruit, unless the comparative study of religious individualities lie at the root of them. Only to a few it has been given to institute this most comprehensive mquiry, to follow to the end this long way. He who ventures upon it cannot think of examining closely all the particulars himself; he has to avail himself of what the students of special branches have brought to light and have corroborated with sound evidence. It is not required of every student of the science of religion that he should be an architect; yet, though his study may be confined within the narrow bounds of a small section, if he does not lose sight of the chief purpose, and if he applies the right method, he, too, will contribute not unworthily to the great common work. So a search after the solution ot the abstruse fundamental ques- tions had better be left to those few who add a great wealth of knowl- edge to philosophical talents. What should be considered most need- ful, with a view to the present standpoint of comparative theology, is this: Learning how to put the right use to the new sources that have been opened up; studying thoroughly and penetrating into the sense of records that on many points still leave us in the dark; subjecting to a close examination particular religions and important periods about which we possess but scanty information; searching for the religious meaning of myths, tracing prominent deities in their rise and develop- ment, and forms of worship through all the important changes of meaning they have undergone; after this the things thus found have to be compared with those already known. Two things must be required of the student of the science of religion. He must be thoroughly acquainted with the present state of the research, he must know what has already been got, but also what questions are still unanswered; he must have walked, though it be quick in time, about the whole domain of his science; in short, lie must possess a general knowledge of religions and religious phe- nomena. But he should not be satisfied with this. He should then 286 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. select a field of his own, larger or smaller, according to his capacities Require- and the time at his disposal; a field where he is quite at home, where Studente.' ^*' he himself probes to the bottom of everything of which he knows all that is to be known about it, and the science of which he then must try to give a fresh impulse to. Both requirements he has to fulfill. Meeting only one of them will lead cither to the superficial dillettan- teism which has already been alluded to, or the trifling of those Philis- tines of science, who like nothing better than occupying our attention longest of all with such things as lie beyond the bounds of what is worth knowing. Hut the last-named danger does not need to be especially cautioned against, at least in America. I must not conclude without expressing my joy at the great interest in this new branch of science, which of late years has been revealing itself in the new world. Mrs. Eliza R. Sunderland, Ph. D., Ann Arbor, Mich. Importance of the §tudy of Qomparative f^eligions. Paper by MRS. ELIZA R. SUNDERLAND, PH. D., of Ann Arbor, Mich. Y theme bears the impress of the nine- teenth century-^the century par ex- cellence in scientific research and clas- sification, which has given us the new heavens of the telescope, the spectro- scope and stellar photography; the new earth of geology, chemistry, mineral- ogy, botany and zoology, and the new humanity of ethnology, philology, psychology and hierology. Butthe nineteenth century isonly the high tide of that medieval renaissance which aroused the mind of Europe from its long slumber, hanging in its sky a banner bearing only a mighty in- terrogation point with the words "By this sign conquer." Under the lead of this banner the medieval church was challenged to give reason why each individual soul should not inquire and decide freely for itself in matters of religion, and the Protestant reformation resulted. The old established mon- archies of Europe were asked to give reason why the many should live and toil and die for the few, and modern republicanism was born. Earth, and air and sea were asked to give reason why man should not enter into his birthright of ownership of all physical nature, and steamship and steam car, telegraph and telephone came as title deeds to man's sovereignty. Onward moves the victorious banner, and collective humanity is asked to show its face and give reason why it is black, and brown, and white; to produce its languages and give reasons for such infinite variety; to draw aside the curtain from its holy of holies, pronounce its most sacred names, recount its myths, recite its mythologies, cx- 19 289 Man's Sover eignty. Talue and 290 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. plain its symbols, describe its rites, sing its hymns, pray its prayers and, finally, give up its life history of origins and transformations. Such in brief is the work of the nineteenth century. What is the value of this work? I am asked to respond only for one department of it, namely, that of hierology, or the comparative study of religions. What is the Value and importance of a comparative study of relig- ions? What lessons has it to teach? I may answer, first, that the results of hierology form part of the great body of scientific truth, and as such ,^^^ oxxv. ^^^^^ ^ recognized scientific value as helping to complete a knowledge importonce." " of man and his environment; and I shall attempt to show that a seri- ous study by an intelligent public of the great mass of facts already gathered concerning most of the religions of the world will prove of great value in at least two directions — first, as a means of general, second, as a means of religious culture. Matthew Arnold defines cult- ure as "the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world and thus with the history of the human spirit." This is a nineteenth century use of the word. The Romans would have used instead "humanitas," or, with an English plural, "the humanities," to express a corresponding thought. The schoolmen, adopting the Latin term, limited its application to the languages, literature, history, art and archaeology of Greece and Rome, assuming that thither the world must look for the most enlightening and humanizing influences, and, in their use of the word, contrasting these as human products with "divinity" which completed the circle of scholastic knowledge. But the world of the nineteenth century is larger than that of medieval Europe, and we may well thank Mr. Arnold for a new word suited to the new times. Culture — acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world and thus with the history of the human spirit This will require us to know a great body of literature; but when we inquire for the best we shall find our- sel\es confronted by a vast mass of religious literature. Homer was a great religious poet; Hesiod, also. The central idea in all the great dramas of iEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides was religious, and no one need hope to penetrate beneath the surface of any of tliese.who lacks a sympathetic acquaintance with the religious ideas, myths and mythol- ogies of the Greeks. Dante's "Divine Comedy," MUton's "J^aradise Lost" and Goethe's "Eaust" are religious poems, to read which intelli- gently one must have an acquaintance with medieval mythology and modern Protestant theology. Then there are the great Bibles of the world, the Christian and Jewish, the Mohammedan and Zoroastrian, the Brahman and Buddhist and the two Chinese sacred books. It is of these books that Emerson, sings: Out of the heart of nature rolled The burden of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's tongue of flame. Up ixom the burninj^ core below, r- - - The canticles of love and woe. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 291 He who would be cultured in Matthew Arnold's sense of being acquainted with the history of the human spirit must know these books, and this means a patient, careful study of the growth and de- ' \'elopment of rites, symbols, myths and mythologies, traditions, creeds and priestly orciers through long centuries of time, from far away primitive nature worship up to the elaborate ritual and developed lit- urgy which demanded the written book. But religion is a living power and not, therefore, to be confined to book or creed or ritual. AH these, religion called into being, and is itself, therefore, greater than any or all of them. So far from being confined to book and creed and ritual, religion has proved, in the words of Dr. C. P. Tiele**one of the most potent factors in human history; Power.^'^'*^ it has founded and overthrown nations, united and divided empires; has sanctioned the most atrocious deeds and the most cruel customs; has inspired beautiful acts of heroism, self-renunciation and devotion, and has occasioned the most sanguinary wars, rebellions and persecu- tions. It has brought freedom, happiness and peace to nations, and, anon, has proved a partisan of tyranny; now calling into existence a brilliant civilization, then the deadly foe to progress, science and art." All this is a part of world history, and the student who ignores it or passes over lightly the religious motive underlying it is thereby ob- scuring the hidden causes which alone can explain the outer facts of history. Again, the human spirit has ever delighted to express itself in art. True culture, therefore, requires a knowledge of art. But to know the world's art without first knowing the world's religions would be to read Homer in the original before knowing the Greek alphabet. Why the vastness and gloom of the Egyptian temples? the approaches to them through long rows of sphinxes? What mean these sphinxes and the pyramids, the rock-hewn temple tombs and the obelisks of ancient Egyptian art? Why the low, earth-loving Greek temple, with all its beauty and external adornment? What is the central thought in Greek sculpture? Why does the medieval cathedral climb heaven- ward, with its massive towers and turrets? What is the meaning of the tower temples of ancient Assyria and Babylon and the mosques and minarets of western Asia? All are symbols of religious life, and are blind and meaningless without an understanding of that life. Blot out the architecture and sculpture whose motive is strictly religious, and how great a blank remains? Painting and music, too, have been the handmaidens of religion, and cannot be mastered in their full depths of meaning save by one who knows something of the religious ideas and sentiments which ga\ e them birth; eloquence has found its deepest inspiration in sacred themes; and philosophy is only the attempt of the intellect to formu- late what the heart of man has striven after and felt. Let a student set himself the task of becoming intelligent con- cerning the philosophic speculations of the world, and he will s(H)n find that among all peoples the earliest speculations have been of a 292 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. religious nature, and that out of these, philosophy arose. If, then, he would understand the development of philosophy, he must begin Earliest Spec- with the development of the religious consciousness in its beginnings uiations. in the Indo-Gcrmanic racc, the Semitic racc, and in Christianity. As Dr. Pfleiderer shows in his "Philosophy of Religion on the Basis of Its History:" " There could have been no distinct philosophy of religion in the ancient world, because nowhere did religion appear as an independent fact, clearly distinguished alike from politics, art and science. This condition was first fulfilled in Christianity. But no philosophy of religion was possible in medieval Christianity, because independent scientific investigation was impossible. All thinking was dominated either by dogmatism or by an undefined faith." If the germs of a philosophy of religion may be found in the thcosophic mysticism and the anti-scholastic philosophy of the renais- sance, its real beginnings are to be found not earlier than the eight- eenth century. But what a magnificent array of names in the two and a quarter centuries since Spinoza wrote his theologico-political treatise in 1670. Spinoza, Leibnitz, Lessing, Kant, Herder, Goethe, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Schelling, Hegel, and, if we would follow the tendencies of philosophic religious thought in the present day, Feuerbach, Comte, Strauss, Mill, Spencer, Matthew Arnold, Hermann, Schopenhauer, Von I lartmann, Lotze, Edward Caird.JohnCaird and Martineau. No student, who aspires to an acquaintance with philosophy, can afford to be ignorant of these thinkers and their thoughts; but to follow most intelligently the thought of any one of them he will need a prelimi- nary acquaintance with hierology through such careful, painstaking conscientious work in the study of different religions as has been made by such scholars as Max Miiller, C. P. Tiele, Keunen, Ernest Renan, Albert Reville, Prof. Robertson Smith, Renouf, La Saus saye and Sayce. If religious thought and feeling is thus bound up with the litera- ture, art and philosophy of the world, not less close is its relation to the language, social and political institutions and morals of humanity. It is sacred names quite as often as any other words which furnish the philologist his links in the chain of proofs of relationship between languages. It docs not need a Herbert Spencer to point out that political institutions and offices arc frequently related to religion as effect to cause; the king's touch and the doctrine of divine right of kings are only survivals from the days of the medicine man and heaven-born chief. The question concerning the relations of religion to ethics is a living one in modern thought. One class of thinkers insists, that ethics is all there is of religion that can be known or can be of value to man; another, that ethics, if lived, will of necessity blossom out into religion, since religion is only ethics touched with emotion; another, that religion and ethics are two distinct things which Jiave no neces- sary relation to each other; and still others maintain that there is THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 293 no high and persistent moral life possible without the sanctions of religion, and no high and worthy religion possible without an accom- panying high morality; that whatever may be true in low conditions of civilization, any religion adapted to high civilizations must be eth- ical, and any ethical precepts or principles which are to helpfully con- trol men's lives must be rooted in faith, A wide and careful study of the world's religions ought to throw light upon the problem. Such a study would point to the conclusion that, though differing greatly among themselves in other ways, all religions, even the oldest and poorest, must have shown some faint traces at least of awakening moral feeling. From an early period moral ideas are combined wi*h religious doctrines, and the old mythologies are modified by them. Ethical attributes are ascribed to the gods, especially the highest. Later, but only in the higher nature religions, ethical as well as intel- lectual abstractions are personified and worshiped as divine beings. What are the historic facts in the case? Have religion and mor- ality had a contemporaneous development, and in conjunction? or has the history of the two run on distinct and divergent lines? Who shall answer authoritatively save the student of the history of religions? Let us question some such, "All religions," says C, P, Tiele, "are either race religious or religions proceeding from an individual founder; the former are nature religions; the latter ethical religions. In the nature religions the supreme gods are the mighty powers of nature, and though there are great mutual differences between them, some standing on a much higher plane than others, the oldest and poorest must have shown some faint traces, at least, of awakening moral feeling. In some a constant and remarkable progress is also to be noticed, Gods are more and more anthropomorphized, rites humanized. From an early period moral ideas are combined with religious doctrines and the old mythologies are modified by them. Ethical attributes are ascribed to the gods, especially to the highest. Nay, ethical as well as intellectual abstractions are personified and worshiped as divine beings. But, as a rule, this happens only in the most advanced stages of nature worship. Nature religions can for a long time bear the introduction into their mythologies of moral as well as aesthetic, scientific and philosophical notions; and they are un- able to shut them out, for if they did so they would lose their hold upon the leading classes among the more civilized nations. " If, however, the ethical elements acquire the upper hand so that they become the predominating principle, then the old forms break in twain by the too heavy burden of new ideas, and the old rites being useless, become obsolete. Then nature religion inevitably dies of inanition. When this culminating point has been reached the way is prepared for the preaching of an ethical religious doctrine. " Ethical religions ai e communities brought together, not by a com- mon belief in national traditions, but by the common belief in a doc- trine of salvation, and organized with the aim of maintaining, fostering, SalTatfonT propagating and practicing that doctrine. This fundamental doctrine 294 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. is considered by its adherents in each case as a divine revelation, and he who revealed it, an inspired prophet or son of God." The ethical religions Tiele divides into national, or particularistic and universalistic. The latter, three in number, are the dominant re- ligions in the world today. Of these, Islamism has emphasized the religious side, the absolute sovereignty of God, opposing to it the nothingness of man, and has thus neglected to develop morals. Bud- dhism, on the contrary, neglects the divine, preaches the final salvation of man from the miseries of existence through the power of his own self-renunciation, and as it was atheistic in its origin it soon becomes infected by the most fantastic mythology and the most childish super- stitions. Christianity in its founder did full justice to both the divine and human sides; if the greatest commandment was love to God, the second was like unto it, viz., love to man. Such is a brief resume of C. P. Tide's account of the mutual historical relations of ethics and religion. Albert Reville devotes a chapter of his "Prolegomena to the His- tory of Religions" to the same question. He finds that morality, like religion, began very low down and rose very high; that with morality, as with religion, we must recognize in the human mind a spontaneous disposition S7ii generis y arising from its natural constitution, destined to expand in the school of experience, but which that school can never create. With the entrance of moral prepossessions into religion, life be- yond the tomb becomes a place of divine rewards, and thus originates a new chapter of religious history. Under monotheism the connection between religion and morality becomes still closer. Here everything, the physical world, human society, human personality, has but one all- powerful master. Moral order is his work by the same right and as Duiy.^^'^'°'" completely as physical order. Obedience to the moral law. becomes then essentially a religious duty. Consequently, the religious ideal rises and becomes purified at the same time as the moral ideal. VVc may even say that, in the Gospel, religion and morality are no longer easily to be distinguished; upon the basis of the monotheistic princi- ple and the affinity of nature between man and God, the religion of Jesus moves on independently of dogma and of rite, consisting essen- tially of strictly moral provisions and applications. "Has morality gained or lost by this close alliance with religion?" asks Reville; and answers: "In a general way we may say that the characteristic of the religious sentiment, when it is associated with another element of human life, is to render this element much more intense and more powerful. P'rom this simple observance we have the right to conclude that as a general rule morality gains in attractive- ness, in power and in strength by its alliance with religion." True, unenlightened religion has sometimes perverted the moral sense and reduced morality to a utilitarian calculation. Most of the religions which have assigned a large place to morality have found- ered on the rock of asceticism, especially Brahmanism, Buddhism and The WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 295 the Christianity of the Middle Ages. Religion has sometimes failed to distinguish between morality and ritual, or morality and occult belief, and we have the spectacle of a punctilious observer of rites consid- ered to be more nearly united to God, notwithstanding terrible viola- tions of the moral law, than is the good man who fails in ritual or creed. And yet, Reville concludes from the individual point of view: "The question which the spiritual tribunal of each of us is alone quali- fied to decide is, whether we ought not to congratulate the map who derives from his religious convictions, freed from narrowness, from utilitarianism and from superstition, the source, the charm and the vigor of his moral life. Persuaded that for most men the alliance be- tween religion and morality cannot but be salutary, I must pronounce in the affirmative." If the conclusions of all students of hierology shall prove in har- mony with the views here expressed as to the close connection in origin and in history, between morality and religion, a connection growing closer as each rises in the scale of worth, until we find in the very highest the two indissolubly united, may we not conclude a wise dictum for our modern life to be "what God in history has joined together let not man in practice put asunder?" Rather let him who would lift the world morally avail himself of the motor power of re- ligion; let him who would erect a temple of religion see to it that its foundations are laid in the enduring granite of character. I come now to the second division of my subject, namely, the value of hierology as a means of religious culture. What is religion? Ask the question of an ordinary communicant of any religious order and the answer will in all probability, as a rule, emphasize some surface characteristic. The orthodox Protestant defines it as a creed; the Catholic, a creed plus a ritual — believe the doctrines and observe the sacraments; the Mohammedan as a dogma; the Buddhist as an ethical system; the '^^^'^' Brahmin as caste; the Confucian as a system of statecraft. But let the earnest student ask further for the real meaning to the worshiper, of his ritual, creed, dogma, ethics, caste and ethics-political, and he will find each system to be a feeling out after a bond of union between the human and the divine; each implies a mode of activity, a process by which the individual spirit strives to bring itself into harmonious re- lations with the highest power, will, or intelligence. Each is of value in just so far as it is able to inaugurate some felt relation between the worshiper and the superhuman powers in which he believes. In the language of philosophy, each is a seeking for a reconciliation of the ego and the non-ego. The earnest student will find many resemblances between all these communions; his own included. They all started from the same sim- ple germ; they have all had a life history which can be traced, which is in a true sense a development, and whose laws can be formulated; they all have sought outward expression for the religious yearning and have all found it in symbol, rite, myth, tradition, creed. The result Observer Rites. of What ie Re- 296 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. An Attribute of Hnmanity. Study of All Religiuna. of such a study must be to reveal man to himself in his deepest nature; it enables the individual to trace his own lineaments in the mirror and see himself in the perspective of humanity. Prior to such study, religion is an accident of time and place and nationality; a particular revelation to his particular nation or age, which might have been with- held from him and his, as it was withheld from the rest of the world, but for the distinguishing favor of the Divine Sovereign of the universe in choosing out one favored people and sendmg to that one a special revelation of His will. After such study religion is an attribute of humanity, as reason and language and tool-making arc; needing only a human being placed in a physical universe which dominates his own physical life, which cribs and cabins him by its inexorable laws, and, lo! defying those laws he steps out into the infinite world of faith, of hope, of aspiration, of God. The petty distinctions of savage, barbarian, civilized and en- lightened sink into the background. He is a man, and by virtue of his manhood, his human nature, he worships and aspires. A compara- tive study of religions furnishes the only basis for estimating the relative worth of any religion. Many of you saw and perhaps shared the smile and exclamation of incredulous amusement over the paragraph which went the rounds of the papers some months ago to the effect that the Mohammedans were preparing to send missionaries and establish a Mc) ammedan mission in New York City. But why the smile and exclamation ? Be- cause of our sense of the superiority of ourovvn form of religious faith. Yet Christianity has utterly failed to control the vice of drunkenness. Chicago today is dominated by the saloons. Nor is it alone in this respect. Christian lands everywhere are dotted with poorhouses, asy lums, jails, penitentiaries, reformatories, built to try to rerriedy evils, nine-tenths of which were caused, directly or indirectly, by the drink habit which Christendom fails to control and is powerless to uproot. But Mohammedanism does control it in oriental lands. Says Isaac Taylor. "Mohammedanism stands in fierce opposition to gambling: a gambler's testimony is invalid in law." And further: "Islam is the most powerful total abstinence association in the world." This testi- mony is confirmed by other writers and by illustration. If it can do so on the western continent as well, then what better thing could hap- pen to New York, or to Chicago even, than the establishment of some vigorous Mohammedan missions? And for the best good of Chicago it might be well that Mayor Harrison instruct the police that the mis- sionaries are not to be arrested for obstructing the highway if they should venture to preach their temperance gospel in the saloon quarters. But if a study of all religions is the only road to a true definition of religion and classification of religions, it is quite as necessary to the intelligent comprehension of any one religion. Goethe declared long ago that he who knows but one language knows none, and Max Miiller applies the adage to religion. A very little thought will show the THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS 297 truth of the application in either case. On the old time supposition that religion and language alike came down ready formed from heaven, a divine gift or revelation to man, this would not be true. Complete in itself, with no earthly relationships, why should it need anything but itself for its comprehension. But modern scientific inquiry soon dispels any such theories of the origin of language and religion alike. If the absolute origin of each is lost in prehistoric shadows, the light of history shows each as a gradual evolution or development, whose laws of development can to some extent be traced, whose history can be, partially at least, deciphered. But if an evolution, a development, then are both religion and language in the chain of cause and effect, and no single link of that chain can by any possibility be compre- hended alone and out of relation to the links preceding and following. Allow me to illustrate this proposition at some length. I am a Christian. I want to know the nature, meaning and import of the Christian religion. I find myself in the midst of a great army of sects all calling themselves Christians. I must either admit the claim of all, or I must prove that only one has right to the name, and to do either rationally I must become acquainted with all. But they absolutely contradict each other and some of them, at least, the original records of Christianity, in both their creed and ritual. Here is one sect that holds to the unity of God; here another that contends earnestly for a Trinity; here one that worships at high altars with burning candles, processions of robed priests, elevation of the host, holy water, adoration of the Virgin Mother, and humble con- fessional, all in stately cathedrals, with stained-glass windows, pealing organ and surpliced choir; there another, which deems that Christian- ity is foreign to all such ritual, and whose worship consists in waiting quietly for an hour within the four bare walls of the quaker meeting- house to see if the inner voice hath ought of message from the great enlightening spirit. How account for such differences when all claim a common source? Only by tracing back the stream of Christian history to its 'common source and following each tributary to its source, thus, if possible, to Wonrce, discover the origin of elements so dissimilar. Seriously entered upon the quest, we discover here a stream of influence from ancient Egypt, "through Greece and Rome, bringing to Roman Catholic Chris- tendom," so says Tiele, "the germs of the worship of the virgin, the doctrine of the immaculate conception and the type of its theocracy." Another tributary brings in a stream of Neo-Platonism with its doctrine of the Word, or Logos; there a stream of Graeco-Roman mythology with a deifying tendency so strongly developed that it will fall in adoration equally before a Roman emperor or a Paul and Cephas, whose deeds seem marvelous. Another stream from imperial Rome brings its gift of hierarchical organization, and here a tributary comes in from the German forests bringing the festivals of the sun god and the e.^% god of the newly developing life of spring. Christianity cannot banish these festivals; too long have they held place in the 20 298 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, religious consciousness of the people. She can, however, and does adopt and baptize them, and we have the gorgeous Catholic festivals of Christmas and Easter, Christianity itself sends its roots back into Judaism; hence, to know it really in its deepest nature, we must apply to it the laws of heredity, i. e., we must study Judaism. Judaism has its sacred book, and our task will be easy, so we think. But a very little unbiased study will show us that Judaism is not one, but many. There is the Judaism which talks freely of angels and devils and the future life, happiness or misery, and there is the earlier Mosaism which knows nothing of angels or devils and of no future life save that of sheol, in which, as David declares, there is no service of God possible. Would we understand this difference we must note a tributary stream flowing in from Babylonia, and if we will trace this to its source we shall find its fountain head in the Persian dualism of Ormuzd and Ahriman, the god of light and the god of darkness, with their attendant angels. Only after the Babylonish captivity do we find in Judaism angels and a hierarchy of devils. Pass back through the Jewish sacred books, and strange things will meet us. Here a "Thus saith the Lord" to Joshua; "Slay all the Canaanites, men, women and helpless children; I suffer not one to live;" "Sell the animal that has died of itself to the stranger within your gate, but not to those of your own flesh and blood." The Lord comes to dine with Abraham under the oak at Mamre on his way down to Sodom to see if the reports of its great wickedness be true, and discusses his plans with his host. Naaman must carry home with him loads of Palestinian earth if he would build an altar to the god of the Hebrews whose prophet has cured his leprosy. The Lord guides the Israelites through the wilderness by a pillar of fire by night and of smoke by day, lives in the ark, and in it goes before the Israelites into battle; is captured in the ark and punishes the Philistines till they send Him back to His people. The Lord makes a covenant with Abraham, and it is confirmed according to divine command by Abraham slaying and dividing animals and the Lord passing between the parts, thus affirming His share in the covenant. Is this the same God of whom Jesus taught? This the religion out of which sprang Christianity? How, then, account for the immense distance between the two? To do this we must trace the early Hebrew religion to its source and then follow the stream to the rise of Chris- tianity, seeking earnestly for the causes of the transformation. What „ ,. . , was the early Hebrew religion? A branch of the great Semitic family theHemitee. ° of religions. What was the religion of the Semites and who were the Semites? These questions have been answered in an exhaustive and scholarly manner, so far as he goes, by Prof. Robertson Smith in the volume entitled, "The Religion of the Semites," a volume to which no student of the Old Testament, who wishes to understand that rich treasury of oriental and ancient sacred literature, can afford not to ofive a serious study. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 299 The Semites occupied all the lands of western Asia from the Tigro-Euphrates valley to the Mediterranean Sea. They included the Arabs, Hebrews and Phoenicians, the Aramaeans, Babylonians and Assyrians. A comparative study of the religions of all these peoples has convinced scholars that all were developments from a common primitive source, the early religion of the Semites. This religion was first nature worship of the personified heavenly bodies, especially the sun and moon. Among the Arabs this early religion developed into animistic polydemonism, and never rose much higher than this; but among the Mesopotamian Semites the nature beings rise above nature and rule it, and one among them rises above all the others as the head of an unlimited theocracy. If magic and augury remained prominent constituents of their ceremonial religion, they practiced, besides, a real worship and gave utterance to a vivid sense of sin, a deep feeling of man's dependence, even of his nothingness, before God, in prayers and hymns hardly less Magic and fervent than those of the pious souls of Israel. Among the western Aagar>. Semites, the Aramaeans, Canaanites, Phoenicians seem to have so- journed in Mesopotamia before moving westward, and they brought with them the names of the early Mesopotamian Semitic gods, with the cruel and unchaste worship of a non-Semitic people, the Akkad- ians, which henceforth distinguished them from the other Semites. From the Akkadians, too, was probably derived the consecration of the seventh day as a Sabbath or day of rest, afterward shared by the Hebrews, The last of the Semitic peoples, the Hebrews, seem to be more closely related to the Arabs than to the northern or eastern Semites. They entered and gradually conquered most of Canaan during the thirteenth century, B. C, bringing with them a religion of extreme simplicity, though not monotheistic, and not differing greatly in char- acter from that of the Arabs. Their ancient national god bore the name El-Shaddai, but his worship had given place under their great leader, Moses, to a new cult, the worship of Yahveh, the dreadful and stern god of thunder, who first appeared to Moses at the bush under the name " I am that I am," worshiped according to a new funda- mental religious and moral law, the so-called Ten Words. Were this name and this law indigenous to Arabia or a special revelation, de novo, to Moses? But whence had Moses the moral culture adequate to the comprehension and appropriation of a moral system so far in advance of anything which we find among other early Semites? Nineteenth century research has discovered an equally high moral code in Egypt, and the very name "Nukpu Nuk," "1 am that I am," is found among old Egyptian inscriptions. Whatever its origin, this new religion the Hebrews did not aban- don in their new home, although they placed their national god, Yah- TheirNati n- veh, by the side of the deity of the country, whom they called briefly *^ *•"•'• "the Baal," and whom most of them worshiped together with Ashcra, the goddess of fertility. After they had left their wandering life and 300 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. settled down to agriculture, Yahveh, however, as the God of the con- querors, was commonly placed above the others, though his stern char- acter was softened by that of the [gentler Baal. Well for Israel and well for the world that these two conceptions of deity came together in Judea twelve centuries before Christ. If the worship of the jeal- ous god Yahveh made the Jew stern and uncompromising, it also girded liim with a high moral sense whose legitimate outcome was Israel's great prophets, while the fierceness itself, as gradually trans- formed by the gentler Baal conception of deity, gives us in the final outcome, the holy God who cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance and yet pitieth the sinner even as a father pitieth his children. If any have been perplexed over a religion of love such as Christianity claims to be, proving a religion of bloody wars, persecu- tions, inquisitions, martyrdoms, mayhap its Hebrew origin may throw light upon the mystery. Jesus' thought of a God, a Father, could not wholly displace at once the old Hebrew Yahveh, the jealous God. All the Semitic religions, while differing among themselves in the names and certain characteristics of their deities, had much in com- mon. Their gods were all tribal or national gods, limited to particular countries, choosing for themselves special dwelling places, which thus became holy places, usually near celebrated trees or living water, the tree, rock or water often coming to be regarded not simply as the abode, but as in some sense, the divine embodiment or representative of the god, and hence these places were chosen as sanctuaries and places of worship; though the northern Semitic worshiped on hills also, the worship consisted, during the nomadic period, in sacrifices of animals sacred alike to the god and his worshipers, because sharing the common life of both, and to some extent of human sacrifices as well. The skin of the animal sacrificed is the oldest form, says Rob- ertson-Smith, of a sacred garment appropriate to the performance of holy function, and was the origin of the expression "robe of righteous- ness," Is this the far-away origin of the scarlet robe of office? All life, whether the life of man or beast, within the limits of the All Life 8a- ^^ibe, was sacred, being held in common with the tribal god, who was cred. the progenitor of the whole tribal life; hence, no life could be taken, save in sacrifice to the god, without calling down thewTath of thegod. Sacrifices thus became tribal feasts, shared between the god and his worshipers, the god receiving the blood poured upon the altar, the worshipers eating the flesh in a joyful tribal feast. Here, then, was the origin of the Hebrew religion. It was not monotheistic, but what scholars designated as henotheistic. a belief in the existence of many gods, tiiough worshiping only the national god. Thus, a man was born into his religion as he was born into his tribe, and he could only change his religion by changing his tribe. This explains Ruth's impassioned words to Naomi, "Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God." This idea of the tribal god, who is a friend to his own people but an enemy to all others, added to the belief in the inviolability of all life save when offered in sacrifice, THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OE RELIGIONS. 301 explains the decree that an animal dying of itself might not be eaten by a tribesman, but might be sold to a stranger. A tribal god, too, might rightfully enough order the slaughter of the men, women and children of another tribe whose god had proved too weak to defend them. Life was sacred only because shared with the god, and this sharing was limited to the tribe. The Hebrew people moved onward and upward from this early Semitic stage and have left invaluable landmarks of their progress in their sacred books. The story of the sacrifice of Isaac tells of the time when human sacrifices were outgrown. Perhaps circumcision does the same. The story of Cain and Abel dates from the time'when agricult- ure was beginning to take the place of the old nomadic shepherd life. The men of the new calling were still worshipers of the old gods, and would gladly share with them what they had to give — the fruits of the earth. But the dingers to the old life could see nothing sacred in this new thing, and were sure that only the old could be well pleasing to their god. The god who dined with Abraham under the terebinth tree, at Mamre, was the early tribal god, El-Shaddai. Naaman was cured of his leprosy because the Jordan was sacred to the deity. It was the thunder god, Yahveh, whom the people worshiped on Sinai and who still bore traces of the earlier sun god as he guided the people in a pillar of fire. The ark is a remnant of fetichism, i. e., a means of putting the deity under control of his worshipers. They can compel his presence on the battlefield by carrying the ark thither, and if the ark is captured the god is captured also. A powerful element in the upward development of Mosaism was prophecy. The eighth century prophets had moved far on beyond the whole sacrificial system, when, as spokesman for the Lord, Isaiah ex- claims: "I am tired of your burnt sacrifices and your oblations. What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God." Jesus condemns the whole theory of holy places vrhen he declares: "Neither in this holy mountain nor yet in Jerusalem shall men think to worship God most acceptably." God is a spirit unlimited by time or place, and they who would worship accept- ably must worship in spirit and in truth. How long the journey from the early tribal sacrificial, magical, unmoral, fetich, holy place, human sacrifice worship of the early Semites, including the HelDrews, to the universal fatherhood and brotherhood religion of the Sermon on the Mount and the golden rule, only those can understand who are willing to give serious study not to the latter alone, but to the former as well. To such earnest student there will probably come another revelation, namely, that there is need of no miracle to account for this religious transformation more than for the physical transformation from the frozen snows of December to the palpitating life of June. They are both all miracle or none. The jn^nite Life great infinite life and love was hidden alike in the winter clod and the and Love, human sacrifice. Given the necessary conditions and the frozen clod S02 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. has "climbed to a soul in grass and flowers," the tribal god and the tribal blood bond are seen in their real character as the universal God Fatherhood and man brotherhood. What the necessary conditions were, only those shall know who are ready to read God's thoughts after Him in the patient researches of scientific investigation. What is to be the future of this religion which has had so long and varied a history from far away Akkad even to this center of the west- ern hemisphere, and from twenty centuries before Christ to this last decade of the nineteenth century after Christ? One contribution made by the Hebrew to the Christian Scriptures demands special notice because it occupies so central a place in the development of the Christian system. I refer to the record of a first man, Adam, a Garden of Eden, a fall, an utter depravity resulting, and ending in a universal flood; a re-beginning and another fall and con- founding of speech at Babel. The founder of Christianity never refers to these events and the Gospels are silent concerning them. Paul first alludes to them, but in his hands and those of his successors they have become central in the theology of Christendom. Whence came this record of these real or supposed events? Genesis is silent con- cerning its origin. The antiquary delving among the ruins of ancient Chaldea finds almost the identical record of the same series of events upon clay tablets which are referred to an Akkadian people, the founders of the earliest civilization of the Tigro-Euphrates valley, a people not Semitic, but Turanian, related, therefore, to the great Tu- ranian peoples represented by the Chinese, Japanese and Fins. We started out to make an exhaustive study of Christianity, an Aryan religion if named from its adherents; Semitic from its origin. We found it receiving tributary streams from three Arj-^an sources, namely, Alexandrian Neo-Platonism, Pagan Rome and Teutonic-Ger- many; its roots were nurtured in Semitic Hebrew soil which had been enriched from Semitic Assyria, Aryan Persia, Turanian Akkadia and Hematic Egypt. Its parent was Judaism, a national religion, limited by the bound- aries of one nation. It is itself a universal religion, having transcended all national boundaries. How was this transformation effected? For answer go to Kuenen's masterly handling of the subject, '* National Religions and Universal Religions." If our study has been wide we have learned that religions, like languages, have a life histor>' of birth, development, transformation, death, following certain definite laws. Moreover, the law of life for all organisms is the same, and may, per- haps, be formulated as the power of adjustment to environment; the greater the adjustability the greater the vitality, capacity t3 ^"^ ^^'^ means capacity to change. "That which is no longer fhanKP. susceptible of change," says Kuenen, "may continue to exist, but it has ceased to live. And religion must live, must enter into new combina- tions and bear fresh fruit if it is to answer to its destiny; if refusing to crystallize into formulne and usages it is to work like the leaven, is to console, to inspire and to strengthen." Has Christianity this vital THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 303 power? "Yes," again answers Kucncn, and quotes approvingly a say- ing of Richard Rothe: "Christianity is the most mutable of all things. That is its special glory." And why should this not be so? Chris- tianity has gathered contributions from many lands and woven them into one ideal large enough to include all peoples, tender enough to comfort all, lofty enough to inspire all — the ideal of a universal human brotherhood bound together under a common Divine Fatherhood. Final Happi- aess of Man. "Xhe Comparative §tudy of the \Yorld's Religions. Paper by MGR. C. D. D'HARLEZ, Louvain University. T is not without profound emotion that I address myself to an assemblage of men, the most dis- tinguished, come together from all parts of the world and who, despite essential divergences of opinion, are nevertheless united in this vast edifice, pursuing one purpose, animated with one thought, the most noble that may occupy the human mind, the seeking out of religious truth. I have under my eyes this unprece- dented spectacle, until now unheard of, of dis- ciples of Kong-fu-tse, of Buddha, of Brahma, of Ahura Majda, of Arah, of Zoroaster, of Mo- hammed, of Naka-nusi, of Laotze, not less than those of Moses and of the divine Christ, gath- ered together, not to engage in the struggle of hos- l ' tility, of animosity, sources of sorrow and griefs, but to hold up before the eyes of the world the beliefs which they profess and which they have received from their fathers and their religion. Religion! Word sublime. Full of harmony to the ear of man, penetrating on through the depths of his heart and stirring into v^ibra- tion its profoundest chords. How goodly the title of our programme — World's Parliament of Religions. How true the thought put forth by one who took part in its production: "Comparison, not controversy, will best serve the most wholesome and therefore the most divine truth." Parliament. It is in such an assembly that the most weighty interests of humanity are discussed, that their most accredited representatives come to set forth what they believe to be most favorable to their development, to their legitimate satisfaction. But in this parliament of religions it is not the world that is the question, but heaven — the final happiness of man. 304 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 305 Let me speak of the importance of a serious study of all systems of religion. But first let us ask if it is useful, if it is good, to give one's self to this study. This is in effect the question which in Europe men of faith put themselves when this new branch suddenly sprouted forth from the trunk of the tree of science. At first it inspired only repug- nance, or at least great distrust, and this was not without reason. The opinions, the designs of those who made themselves its promoters in- spired very legitimate suspicions. It was evident that the end pursued was to confound all religions as works of human invention, to put them all upon a common level, in order to bring them all into common contempt. The comparative history of religions in the minds of their orig- inators was to be an exposition of all the vicissitudes of human thought, imagination, and, to say the real word, folly. It was to be Darwinism, evolution applied to religious conditions that were generally held as coming from God. Naturally, then, a large number of the enlightened faithful, some of them eminent minds, saw only evil and danger in the new science. Others, clearer of sight, better informed on prevailing ideas, on the needs of the situation, convinced, besides, that a divine work cannot perish, and that providence disposes of things for the greater good of humanity, welcomed without reserve this new child of science, and by their example, as by their words, drew with them into this new field of research even the hesitating and trembling. They thought, besides, that no field of science should, or could, be interdicted to men of faith without placing them and their belief in a state of in- feriority the most fatal, and that to abandon any one of them whatever Eternal Truth, would be to hand it over to the spirit of system and to all sorts of errors. They judged that any science, seriously controlled in its methods, can only concur in bringing about the triumph of the truth, and that eternal truth must come forth victorious from every scientific discussion, unless its defenders, from a fear and mistrust injurious alike for it and its divine author, abandon it and desert its cause. Today the most timid Christian, be he ever so little in touch with the circumstances of the times, no longer dreads in the least the chi- merical monsters pictured to his imagination at the dawn of these new studies, and follows, with as much interest as he formerly feared, the discoveries which the savants lay before him What study today excites more attention and interest than the comparative study of religions? What object more pre-occupies the mind of men than the one contained in that magic word? Religion! In Christian countries — and this qualification embraces the whole of Europe, with the exception of Turkey and all of Amer- ica — three classes of men may be distinguished by their dispositions and attitudes toward religious questions. Some possess the truth descended from on high, study it, search into its depths with loxc and respect; others, at the very opposite pole, animated by I do not know what spirit, wage against it an incessant warfare and do their utmost to stifle it; others, in fine, ranged between these two extremes, plunged .W) THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS into doubt, ask themselves, thanklessly, what there is in these truths which they see on the one hand exalted with enthusiasm and on the other attacked with fury. In no way formed by education to submit their intelligence to dogmas which they cannot understand nor to reg- ulate their conduct by inflexible moral precepts, hearing, however, within them a voice which calls upon them to rise above themselves, they are cast about upon the sea of doubt and anguish in vain demand- ing of the earth the bond to cure the evil from which their hearts suffer. Yes, this voice whispers to their ears the most redoubtable prob- lems that ever man proposed. Whence comes he? Who has placed him upon this earth? Whither does he go? What is his end? What must he do to secure it? Immense horizons of happiness or of misery open out before him. How manage to avoid the one and reach the other? Long did men seek to stifle the whispered murmurings of con- science. It has triumphed over all resistance. Today more than ever, as it has been so energetically said, "Man is homesick for the divine." The divine! The unbeliever has sought to drive it out through every pass. It has come back more triumphant than ever. So today souls, not enlightened by the divine light, feel an indefinable uneasiness such Somethin '^^ that experienced by the aeronaut in the superterrestrial region of Viii vvantinK. rarified atmosphere, such as that of the heart when air and blood fail. Those who confine themselves to earthly pursuits feel even in the midst of success that something is still wanting; that is, whatever they say and whatever they do man has not only a body to nourish and an intelligence to cultivate and develop, but he has, I emphatically affirm, a soul to satisfy. This soul, too, is in incessant travail, in continual evo- lution toward the light and the truth. As long as she has not received all light and conquered all truth, so long will she torment man. Those aspirations, those indefinable states of the soul in the pres- ence of the dreaded unknown, today so common in our midst, are without doubt not unknown in the regions of Asia and Africa. There, too, rationalism, agnosticism, imported from Europe, has made its in- roads. But on the other hand, such incertitude is not entirely new Twenty-five centuries ago the Vidist poet proposed the very problems which today perplex the unbeliever, as we see in the celebrated hymn thought to be addressed to a god, Ka, the fruit of the imagination of interpreters, since this word, Ka, was merely an interrogative used by the singer of the Ganges in asking what hand had laid the foundation of the world, upon whom depended life and death, who upheld the earth and the stars, etc., questions to which the poet could give only this reply, sad avowal of impotence: Kavais Ko Viveda. *' Sacred chant- ers, who knows." We see from these short extracts to what a height the reformer of Evan had already raised himself, and how his ey'e had already caught a glimpse of many of the mysteries of the metaphysical and moral world; how, besides, his soul was agitated and troubled, looking THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 307 up to that heaven which sent him no light. At the other extremity of the world the greatest philosopher that China has produced, or rather the greatest moralist, whose lessons she has preserved, Kong- fu-tze, or, as we call him, Confucius was bearing witness to the impo- tence of the mind of man to penetrate the secrets of heaven. To the question which his disciples proposed as to the condition of the soul on leaving this world, he replied by this despairing evasion: "We do not even know life; how can we know death?" How many souls at all times, and in all parts of the world, have been tortured by the same perplexities. "What age has ever counted more than ours? It has been said with incontestible truth that history is the great teacher of peoples and of kings; religious principles the most. assured cannot guide us in all the acts of national life, many of which lie be- Great^rLche* yond religious control. But history is not composed of a series of facts succeeding one another at hazard. It is the work, direct or in- direct, of God, and according to the divine purpose ought certainly to serve for the instruction of humanity. Now, among all the matters of which history treats, is there a single one which, I will not say sur- passes, but equals, yes, even approaches, by the elevation of its object and the importance of its results, the history of religious opinions and precepts along through the ages? If, then, the facts of the earthly temporal life of humanity teach it lessons which it ought to store by with care in order to profit by them and direct its actions, what fruits will it not have to gather in from the happenings of its supernatural and immortal life? What dangers it will escape, remembering the faults and errors of former generations whose fatal consequences have been evils innumerable! Does not man there learn only to resist that fever of ambition, source of so many innovations, useless or hurtful to the peace of the world, that pride which thinks to have found the solution of prob- lems the most abstruse, the key to unlock the very heavens, if I may so speak, and which burns to propagate mere fruits of the imagina- tion at the risk of seeing the world ablaze, does not man, I say, reach but this one conclusion, that the fruits of our studies ought to be held at just so much value as they are prolific in beneficial results. Besides, nothing is more proper to enlarge the intellectual hori- zon, to give of every matter a just appreciation, which cuts off irre- flective enthusiasm as well as unjustifiable prejudices. It teaches not to attribute to one's self the monopoly of what others equally possess and thus to employ argument whose recognized fallacy injures enor- mously the cause one would defend. From history, too, each one re- quires a more reasonable and scientific knowledge of his own belief. What unlimited horizons these studies unfold before our eyes! Where better learn to know the nature of the human mind, its powers and their limitations, its weaknesses, with their varied causes, than in this great book of the history of religions? What could better un- veil to Ihe eyes of the man of faith the action of that i:)rovi(lence w liich leads him in the midst of continual agitations and disposes of what he 308 THE vy-ORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. has proposed, the power of the arm invisible and invincible which chastises him for his faults by his own mistakes and lifts him up, saves him from the perils which he has brought upon himself when he rec- ognizes his weakness and his frailty? Problem admirable and fearful, this providential commission of the strangest intellectual adorations! What a spectacle, that of man plunging into an abyss of error and misery because he has wished to march alone to the conquest of truths beyond his reach! When we see a whole people prostrating themselves before the statue of a monarch whose mortal remains will be soon under ground, the prey of the worms or enveloping with the fumes of their incense, honoring with their homages the figure of a low animal which has to attract notice only its brutal instincts, its strength and cruelty, who would not implore of heaven delivering light to save humanity from degradation so profound and so entirely debasing? True, it is often most difficult to follow the designs of Providence in their execution throughout the ages, but it is not always impossible to divine, to guess at the secret. Have not the excesses of Greco- tion^Be°fef!*" Roman polytheism, for example, been committed in order to lead man to a clearer and more rational belief? Its shameless immorality to make him desire a higher life? It is evident, on the other hand,. that in this kind of appreciation it is necessary to take special count of civilized peoples, of those whose intelligence has attained a certain degree of development, and only very little of those unfortunate tribes which have hardly anything more of man than the bodily form. I come, then, to consider the im- portant side of the study of religion, that is to say, the results it has to the present day produced, and what it is called upon to produce in the future. How many points cleared up in a few years, thanks to the control exercised upon the first explorers in this field by those who came after them, and who had no ready-made system to defend! This is spe- cially true for two concepts, upon which we shall principally dwell, the nature of religion and its origin. What is it that has not been said upOn these great questions? It has, in fact, been demonstrated that religion is not a creation of the mind of man, still less of a wandering imagination deceived by phantoms, but that it is a principle which im- poses itself upon him everywhere and always and in spite of himself, which comes back again violently into life at the moment it was thought to be stifled, which, try as one may to cast it off from him. enters again as it were into man by his every pore. There is no people without a religion, how low soever it may be in the scale of civilization. If there be any in whom the religious idea seems extinct, though this cannot be certainly shown, it is because their intelligence has come to that degree of degradation in which it has no longer anything human save the capacity of being lifted to something higher. The explanations that have been offered of the religious sentiment inborn in man might be qualified as "truly curious and amusing were it not a question of matters so grave." THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 309 . For some it is unreflecting instinct. Be it so; but wherever came this instinct? Doubtless from nature. And nature, what is it? It is reality, as we have said. True instinct does not decei\'c. For others, reliijion arises from the need man experiences of relationshii) with u i ■ • superior beings. Correct again; but how has man conceixed the notion sentiment in- of beings superior to himself if there are none, and whence arises that "imMan. natural need which his heart feels, if it has its roots in nothing, a non- entity E.x nihilo^ nihil, from nothing, nothing comes. Shall I speak of the "celestial harmony which charms the soul and lifts it into an ideal world," of "those visions which float through the imagination of man," and of other like fancies? No, it would be to waste incon- siderately the time of my honored hearers too precious to be taken up by such trifles. Let us merely note this fact fully attested today. Religious sentiments and concepts are innate in man They enter into the constitution of his nature, which itself comes from its author and master; they impose themselves as a duty upon man, as the declara- tion of universal conscience attests. The idea of a being superior to humanity, its master, comes from the very depths of human nature and is rendered sensible to the intellect by the spectacle of the universe. Xo reasonable mind can suppose that this vast world has of itself cre- ated or formed itself. This is so true that men of science, the most hostile to religion, the moment they perceive some evidence of design upon a stone, however deeply imbedded in the earth, themselves pro- claim that man has passed here. "It is fear that hath made the gods," said a Latin poet, already two thousand years ago. No, say others, it is a mere tendency to at- tribute a soul to whatever moves itself. You are mistaken, says a third; it is reverence for deceased ancestors which caused their descendants yet remaining upon earth to regard them as superior beings. You are all astray, exclaims a fourth voice; a religion does not arise from any one or other of these or like causes in particular, but from all taken to- gether Fear, joy, illusions, nocturnal visions, the movements of the stars, etc., have all contributed something, each its own part. It is not our task to set forth these different opinions, still less to criticise them We cannot, however, pass in silence, till of late uni- versally in vogue in the free-thinking camp, a system whose founda- uprooted by tions historical studies have uprooted. I speak of the theory which s^jj^ "" ' "^ * ^ has borrowed its process from the Darwinian system of evolution, the s)'stem of perpetual progress. If you would believe its authors and defenders, primitive humanity ha\e no religious sentiment, not the least notion that raised it above material nature. Hut, feeling in him- self a living principle, man attributed the same to whatever moved about him, and thence arose fetichism and animism. After the first stage of fetichism and animism man would have considered separately the living principles of the beings to which he had attributed it, and this separation would have given rise to the be- lief in spirits. These spirits, growing upon the popular imagination, would have become gods, to whom, ultimately, after the fashion of 310 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. earthly empires, they would have given a head These gods would have at first been exclusively national, then a universal empire would have been imagined, and national religions would have at length ended as a last effort of the human mind in universal religions. Here, indeed, we have an edifice wonderfully planned and per- fectly constructed. This would appear still more plainly were we to rAth^'wan't^ describe in detail all its parts. Unfortunately, one thing is wanting — ing. one thing only, but essential — that is a little grain of truth. Not only is the whole of it the fruit of hypothesis without foundation in facts, but religious studies have demonstrated all and each of its details to •be false. The examples of Egypt, of India and of China, especially, have demonstrated that rrionotheism real, though imperfect, preceded the luxuriant mythologies whose development astonishes, but is only too easily explained. In Egypt the divinity was first represented by the sun; the different phases of the great luminary were personified and deified. In the most ancient portions of Aryan India the personality of Varuna, with his immutable laws, soars above the figures of India and the other devas who have in great part dethroned him, just as the Jupiter of Greece supplanted the more ancient Pelagian Ouranas. Among these two last people, it is true, monotheism is at its lowest degree; but in China, on the contrary, it shows itself much less imper- fect than elsewhere and even with relative purity. Shang-ti is almost the God of the spiritualist philosophy. These facts, we may easily con- ceive, are exceedingly embarrassing for the adherent of the evolutionary theory, but they worm out of the difficulty in a manner that provokes both sadness and a smile. The thesis of national divinities everywhere preceding the universal divinities is not more solidly grounded. For neither. Varuna nor Brahma nor Shang-ti nor Tengri ever saw their power limited by their devotees to a single country. The theory that fear or ancestral worship gave birth to the gods received in China the most formal contradiction. In fact, at the very first appearance of this first great empire upon the scene of history, the supreme deity was already considered as the father, the mother, not only of the faithful, but of the entire human race, and the first to receive worship among the dead were not departed relatives but kings and ministers, bene- factors of the people. That it is gratitude which has inspired this worship is expressly affirmed in the Chinese ritual. It remains for us to say a few words about these conditions. The first is clearly that enunciated in our program. These studies ought to be serious and strictly scientific. They should be based upon strict logic and a thorough knowledge of the original sources^ Too long have would-be adepts been given over to fantastic speculations, every- where seeking an apology for either faith or incredulity. Too long have they limited themselves to superficial views, to summary glimpses, dwelling with complacency upon whatever might favor a pet system. Or else they have been content with documents of second hand whose authors themselves had but an imperfect knowledge of who they pre- tended to treat as mastcis> THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 311 We may easily understand that in order to be able to choose among them all, and to distinguish the sources, it is necessary to know thoroughly the language and the history, both political and literary, • t)f the people whose religions one would investigate and expose. It is necessary to be a specialist and a specialist competent in this special matter. It is only when the work of such authorized and impartial specialist has been done, the others will be able to draw from the waters which they have collected. How many errors fatal to true science have been propagated by men too prone to generalize? This leads us to consider the second condition for the serious study of the comparative history of religion. It is the necessity of penetrating one's self with the spirit of the people who form the object of particular research. It is necessary, as it were, to think with their J.? W^^.^ . ^, , .... ,-'. . , . r . ^■'"' Their mmds and to see with their eyes, making entire abstraction of one s Minds, own ideas, under pain of seeing everything in a false light as one sees nature through a colored glass and of forming of foreign religious ideas the most erroneous and often even the most unjust. o u o • 5wedenborg and the H^^^o^Y of Religions. Paper by REV. L. P. MERCER, of Chicago. EFORE the closing of this grand historic as- ' sembly with its witness to the worth of every form of faith by which men worship God and seek communion with Him, one word more needs be spoken, one more testimony defined, one more hope recorded. Every voice has witnessed to the recogni- tion of a new age. An age of inquiry, expec- tation and experiment has dawned. New in- ventions are stirring men's hearts, new ideals inspire their arts, new physical achievements beckon them on to one marvelous mastery after another of the universe. And now we see that the new freedom of "willing and thinking" has entered the realm of religion, and the faiths of the world are summoned to declare and compare not only the formulas of the past but the movements of the present and the forecasts of the future. One religious teacher, who explicitly heralded the new age, be- fore men had yet dreamed of its possibility, and referred its causes to great movements in the centers of influx in the spiritual world, and described it as incidental to great purposes in the providence of God, needs to be named from this platform — one who ranks with prophets n^u ^^Tf '**"■■ and seers rather than with mquirers and speculators; a revelator rather Preacher than a preacher and interpreter; one whose exalted personal character and transcendent learning are eclipsed in the fruits of his mission as • a herald of a new dispensation in religion, as the revealer of heavenly arcana, and " restorer of the foundations of many generations;" who, ignored by his own generation, and assaulted by its successor, is hon- ored and respected in the present, and awaits the thoughtful study, which the expansion and culmination of the truth and the organic course of events, will bring with tomorrow; "the permeating and formative influence" of whose teachings in the religious belief and life of today, in Christendom, is commonly admitted; who subscribed 313 314 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIOIONS. with his name on the last of his Latin quartos — Emanuel Swedenborg, " servant of the Lord Jesus Christ." That Swedenborg was the son of a Swedish bishop, a scholar, a practical engineer, a man of science, a philosopher and a seer, who lived between 1683 ^"cl 1772, is generally known. That the first fifty years of his remarkable life, devoted to the pursuit of natural learning and independent investigation in science and philosophy, illustrates the type of man in which our age believes is generally con- ceded. Learned, standing far ahead of his generation; exact, trained Ahead of Hi8 '" mathematical accuracy and schooled to observation; practical, see- Generation, ing at once some useful application of every new discovery; a man of affairs, able to take care of his own and bear his part in the nation's councils; aspiring, ignoring no useful application, but content with no achievement short of a final philosophy of causes; inductive, taking nothing for granted but facts of experiment, and seeking to ascend therefrom to a generalization which shall explain them — this is the sort of man which in our own day we consider sound and useful. Such was the man who, at the age of fifty-six, in the full maturity of his powers, declares that " he was called to a holy office by the Lord, who most graciously manifested himself to me in person, and opened my sight to a view of the spiritual world and granted me the privilege of conversing with spirits and angels." "From that day forth," he says, •' I gave up all worldly learning, and labored only in spiritual things according to what the Lord commanded me to write." He tells us that, while in the body, yet in a state of seership, and thus able to note the course of events in both worlds, and locate the stupendous transactions in the spiritual world in earthly time, he wit- nessed a last judgment in the world of spirits in 1757, fulfilling in every respect the predictions in the Gospel and in the Apocalypse; that he beheld the Lord open in all the Scriptures the things concerning Him- self, revealing in their eternal sense the divine meaning, the whole course and purpose of His providence, organizing a new heaven of angels out of every nation and kindred and tongue, and co-ordinating it with the ancient and most ancient heavens for the inauguration of a new dispensation of religion, and of the church universal; and that this new dispensation began in the spiritual world, is carried down and inaugurated among men by the revelation of the spiritual sense and . divine meaning of the sacred Scriptures, in and by means of which he makes his promised second advent, which is spiritual and universal, to gather up and complete all past and partial revelations, to consummate and crown the dispensations and churches which have been upon the earth. The Christian world is incredulous of such an event, and for the most part heedless of its announcement. But that does not much signify, except as it makes one with the whole course of history, as to the reception of divine announcements. What prophet was ever welcomed until the event had proved his message? The question is not whether it meets the expectation of men; not whether it is what Teacbingb. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 315 human prudence would forecast, but whether it reveals and meets the needs and necessities of the nations of the earth. "My thoughts are not your thoughts," saith the Lord, "neither are your ways my ways." The great movements of divine Providence are never what men antici- pate, but they always provide what men need. And the appeal to the Parliament of Religions, in behalf of the revelation announced from heaven, is in its ability to prove its divinity by outreaching abundantly all human forecast whatsoever. Does it throw its light over the past, and into the present, and project its promise into the future? Does it illuminate and unify history, elucidate the conflicting movements of today, and explain the hopes and yearnings of the heart in every age and clime? There is not time at this hour for exposition and illustration, only to indicate the catholicity of Swedenborg's teachings in its spirit, scope and purpose. There is one God and one church. As God is one, the human race, in the complex movements of its growth and history, is cathoiicit of before Him as one greatest man. It has had its ages in their order cor- SwedenborKs responding to infancy, childhood, youth and manhood in the individ- ual. As the one God is the Father of all, He has witnessed Himself in every age according to its state and necessities. The divine care has not been confined to one line of human descent, nor the revelation of God's will to one set of miraculously given Scriptures. The great religions of the world have their origin in that same word or mind of God which wrote itself through Hebrew lawgiver and prophet, and became incarnate in Jesus Christ. He, as "the word which was in the beginning with God and was God," was the light of every age in the spiritual development of mankind, preserving and carrying over the life of each into the several streams of tradition in the religions of men concerning and embodying all in the Hebrew Scriptures, fulfilling that in His own person, and now opening His divine mind in all that Scripture, the religions of the world are to be restored to unity, purified and perfected in Him. Nor is this word Swedenborgian, the liberal sentiment of good will and the enthusiasm of hope, but the discovery of divine fact and the rational insight of spiritual understanding. He has shown that the -sacred Scriptures are written according to the correspondence of natural with spiritual things, and that they contain an internal spirit- ual sense treating of the providence of God in the dispensations of the church and of the regeneration and spiritual life of the soul. Be- fore Abraham there was the church of Noah, and before the word of Moses there was an ancient word, written in allegory and correspond- ences, which the ancients understood and loved, but in process of time turned into magic and idolatry. The ancient church, scattered into Egypt and Asia, carried fragments of that ancient word and preserved something of its representatives and allegories, in Scriptures and my- thologies, from which have come the truths and fables of the oriental religions, modified according to nations and peoples, and revived from time to time in the teachings of leaders and prophets. 31() THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. From the same ancient word Moses derived, under divine direc- tion, the early chapters of Genesis, and to this in the order of Provi- dence was added the Law and the Prophets. The history of the in- carnation and the prophecy of a final judgment of God, all so written as to contain an integral spiritual sense, corresponding with the latter, but distinct from it as the soul corresponds with the body, and is dis- tinct and transcends it. It is the opening of this internal sense in all the Holy Scriptures and not any addition to their final letter which constitutes the new and needed revelation of our day. The science of correspondences is the key which unlocks the Scriptures and dis- closes their internal contents. The same key opens the Scriptures of the orient and traces them back to their source in primitive revela- tion, ■ If it shows that their myths and representatives have been mis- understood, misrepresented and misapplied, it shows, also, that the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures have been likewise perverted and falsified. It is that very fact which necessitates the revelation of their internal meaning, in which resides their divine inspiration and the life of rational understanding for the separation of truth from error. The same rational life and science of interpretation separates the great primitive truths from the corrupting speculations and traditions in all and'symi^oJ^'^^ the aucicnt religions, and furnishes the key to unlock the myths and symbols in ancient Scriptures and worship. If Swedenborg reveals errors and supersitions in the religions out of Christendom, so does he also show that the current Christian faith and worship is largely the invention of men and falsifying of the Christian's Bible. If he promises and shows true faith and life to the Christian from the Scriptures, so does he also to the Gentiles in leading them back to primitive revelation and showing them the meaning of their own aspirations for the light of life. If he sets the Hebrew and Christian word above all other sacred Scripture, it is because it brings, as now opened in its Scriptural depths, the divine sanction to all the rest and gathers their strains into its sublime symphony of revela- tion. So much as the indication of what Swedenborg does for catholic enlightenment in spiritual wisdom. As for salvation, he teaches that God has provided with every nation a witness of Himself and means of eternal life. He is present by His spirit with all. He gives the good of His love, which is life, internally and impartially to all. All know that there is a God, and that He is to be loved and obeyed; that there is a life after death, and that there are evils which are to be shunned as sins against God. So far as anyone so believes and so lives from a principle of religion he receives eternal life in his soul, and after death instruction and perfection according to the sincerity of his life. No teaching could be more catholic than this, showing that "whom- soever in any nation feareth God and worketh righteousness is ac- cepted of Him." If he sets forth Jesus Christ as the only wi.se God, in THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 317 whom, is the fullness of the Godhead, it is Christ glorified, and realizing to the mind the infinite and eternal lover, and thinker, and doer, a real and personal God, our Father and Saviour. If he sum- mons all prophets and teachers to bring their honor and glory unto Him it is not as to a conquering rival, but as to their inspiring life, whose word they have spoken and whose work they have wrought out. If he brings all good spirits in the other life to the acknowledgment of the glorified Christ as the only God, it is because they have in heart and essential faith, believed in Him and lived for Him, in living ac- cording to precepts of their religion. He calls him a Christian who lives as a Christian; and he lives as a Christian who looks to the one God and does what He teaches, as he is able to know it. If he denies reincarnation, so also does he deny sleep in the grave and the resur- rection of the material body. If he teaches the necessity of regeneration and union with God, so also docs he show that the subjugation and quiesence of self is the true "Nirvana," opening consciousness to the divine life and confer- ring the peace of harmony with God. If he teaches that man needs the spirit of God for the subjugation of self, he teaches that the spirit is freely imparted to whosoever will look to the Lord and shun selfishness as sin. If he teaches thus, that faith is necessary to salvation, he teaches that faith alone is not suffi- cient, but faith which worketh by love. If he denies that salvation is of favor, or immediate mercy, and affirms that it is vital and the effect of righteousness, he also teaches that the divine righteousness is imparted vitally to him that seeks it first and above all; and if he denies that several probations on earth are necessary to the working out of the issues of righteousness, it is be- cause man enters a spiritual world after death, in a spiritual body and personality, and in an environment in which his ruling love is devel- oped, his ignorance enlightened, his imperfections removed, his good beginnings perfected, until he is ready to be incorporated in the grand Man of heaven, to receive and functionate his measure of the divine life and participate in the divine joy. And so I might go on. My purpose is accomplished if I have won your respect and inter- est in the teachings of this great apostle, who, claiming to be called of the Lord to open the Scriptures, presents a harmony of truths that would gather into its embrace all that is of value in every religion and ,.'\iit.hat is of ^, . . £ -ii- -i ui • -i. 1 \ alao in KeliK- open out mto a career of illimitable spiritual progress. i<,n. The most unimpassioned of men, perhaps because he so well un- derstood that his mission was not his own, but the concern of Him who builds through the ages, Swedenborg wrote and published. The result is a liberty that calmly awaits the truth-seekers. If the re- ligions of the world become disciples then, it will not be prosclytism that will take them there, but the organic course of events in that providence which works on, silent but mighty, like the forces that poise planets and gravitate among the stars. Present history shows the effect of unsuspected causes. This par- 318 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. liament of religions is itself a testimony to unseen spiritual causes, and should at least incline to belief in Swedenborg's testimony, that a way is open, both in the spiritual world and on earth, for a universal church in the faith of one visible God in Whom is the invisible, imparting eternal life and enlightenment to all from every nation who believe in Him and work righteousness. Harmonies and Oistinctions in the 1 he- istic 1 eachings of the Various Historic Faiths. Paper by PROF. M. VALENTINE. N calling attention to the "Harmonies and Dis-' tinctions in the Theistic Teachings of the Vari-' oils Historic Faiths," I must, by very neces- sity of the case, speak from the Christian stand- point. This standpoint is to me s\'nonymous with the very truth itself I cannot speak as free from prepossessions. This, however, does not mean any unwillingness nor, I trust, in- ability to see and treat with sincerest candor and genuine appreciation the truth that may be found in each and all of the various theistic conceptions which reason and Providence may have enabled men anywhere to reach. Un- doubtedly, some rays from the true di\inc "Light of theWorld"have been shiningthrough reason, and reflected from "the things that are made" everywhere and at all times, God never nor in any place leaving Himself wholly without witness. And though we now and here stand in the midst of the high illumination of what we accept as supernatural revelation, we rejoice to recognize thetruth which may have come into view from other openings, blending with the light of God's redemptive self-manifestation in Christianity, It is not necessary prejudice to truth anywhere when from this standpoint I am further necessitated, in this comparative view, to take the Christian conception as the standard of comparison and measure- ment. We must use some standard if we are to proceed discriminat- ingly or reach any well defined and consistent conclusions. Simply to compare different conceptions with one another, without the unifying light of some accepted rule of judging, or at least of reference, can pever lift the impression put of confusion or fix ^ny valuable points of 319 Standaid f'>i '."onsiHtfntCuu clu^ioas. 320 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The Troth Clearly Seen. Thcistic Faiths of Men. truth. Only to hold our eye to the varied .shifting colors and combina- tions of the kaleidoscope can bring no satisfactory or edifying conclu- sion. To the Christian's comparative view of the " historic faiths " other than his own ncces.sarily thus ranges them under his own Christian canons of judgment, means no exclusion or obscuration of the light, but merely fixes the leading parallelism of its fall, securing consistency and clearness of presentation, a presentation under which not only the harmonies and distinctions, but the actual truth, may be most clearly and fairly seen. The phrase "theistic teaching, ' in the statement of the subject of this paper, I understand, in its broadest sense, as referring to the whole conception concerning God, including the very question of His being, and therefore applicable to systems of thought, if any such there be, that in philosophic reality are atheistic. In this sense teachings on the subject of Deity or " the divine " are " theistic," though they negative the reality of God, and so may come legitimately into our comparative view. And yet, we are to bear in mind, it is only the "theistic" teach- ing of the historic faiths, not their whole religious view, that falls under the intention of this paper. The subject is special, restricting us spe- cifically to their ideas about God. At the outset we need to remind ourselves of the exceeding diffi- culty of the comparison, or of precise and firm classification of the theistic faiths of mankind. They are all, at least all the ethnic faiths, developments or evolutions, having undergone various and immense changes. Their evolutions amount to revolutions in some cases. They are not permanently marked by the same features, and will not admit the same predicates at different times. Some are found to differ more from themselves in their history than from one another. There is such an inter-crossing of principles and manifold forms of representation as to lead the most learned specialists into disputes and opposing con- clusions, and render a scientific characterization and classification im- possible. The most and best that can be done is to bring the teach- ings of the historic religions in this particular into comparison as to five or six of the fundamental and most distinctiv^e features of theistic conception. Their most vital points of likeness and difference will thus appear. It will be enough to include in the comparison, besides Christianity, the religions of ancient Greece and Rome, of old Egypt, Indian Hinduism or more exactly Brahmanism, Persian Parseeism or Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Chinese Confucianism, Celtic Druidism, the Norse or Teutonic mythology and Mahommedanism, with incidental reference to some less prominent religions. I class Judaism as the early stage of unfolding Christianity. Adopting this method, therefore, of comparing them under the light of a few leading features or elements of the theistic view, we begin with that which is most fundamental — belief in the existence of God, or of what we call "the divine," Deity, some higher power to which or to whom men sustain relations of dependence, obligation and hope. This is the bottom point* the question underlying all other questions THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 821 in religious belief: Does a God exist? And here it is assurinij; a wonderful hannony is found. All the historic faiths, save perhaps one, rest on belief of some divine existence or existences to be acknowl- edged, feared or pleased. It seems to be part of the religious instinct of the race. And the intellect concurs in fostering and developing the belief. History, ethnology and philology not only suggest, but amply prove, that the idea of God, of some power or powers above, upon whom man depends and to whom he must answer, is so normal to human reason in the presence and experience of the phenomena of nature and life, that it is developed wherever man's condition is high enough for the action of his religious nature at all. '*God" is the fundamental and constructive idea, and it is the greatest and most vital idea of humanity. But the harmony of the world's religious faiths in this positive theistic teaching is, according to prevailing interpretation, broken in the case of Buddhism. This appears to be atheistic, a religion, or rather a philosophy, of life, with- out a deity or even the apotheosis of nature. Many things, however. The Fun.ia- incline me to the view of those interpreters who deny, or at least doubt, Constructive the totally atheistic character of Buddhism. For instance, it is rooted ^^^'^' in the earlier pantheistic Hindu faith, and has historically dexeloped a cult with temples and prayers. In the face of these and other things, only the most positive evidence can put its total atheism beyond ques- tion. Gautama's work of reform, which swept away the multitudinous divinities of the popular theology, may not have been a denial of God, even as Socrates alleged atheism was not, but rather an overthrow of the prevalent gross polytheism in the interest of a truer and more spiritual conception, though it may have been a less definite one of the divine being. And may we not justly distinguish between Buddhism as a mere philosophy of life or conduct and Buddhism as a religion, with its former nature-gods swept away, and the replacing better conception only obscurely and inadequately brought out? At least it is certain that its teaching was not dogmatic atheism, a formal denial of God, but marked rather by the negative attitude of failing positively to recognize and affirm the divine existence. The divergence in this case is undoubtedly less of a discord than has often been supposed. There are cases of atheism in the midst of Christian lands, the out- come of bewilderment through speculative philosophies. They may even spread widely and last long. They, however, count but little against the great heart and intellect of mankind, or even as giving a definite characteristic to the religion in the midst of which they appear. And they lose sway, even as the Buddhist philosophy, in becoming a religion that has had to resume recognition of deity. And it is some- thing grand and inspiring that the testimony of the world's religions from all around the horizon and down the centuries is virtually unan- imous as to this first great principle in theistic teaching. It is the strong and ceaseless testimony of the great deep heart and reason of mankind. Nay, it is God's own testimony to His being, voiced through the religious nature and life made in His image, r, 21 "^ ^^ 822 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. But let these various religions be compared in the light of a second principle in theistic teaching — that of monotheism. Here it is start- Discordantiy ling to find how terribly the idea of God, whose existence is so unan- Poiytheistic. imously ovvned, has been misconceived and distorted. For, taking the historic faiths in their fully developed form, only two, Christianity and Mohammedanism, present a pure and maintained monotheism. Zoro- astrianism cannot be counted in here, though at first its Ahriman, or evil spirit, was not conceived of as a God, it afterward lapsed into theological dualism and practical polytheism. All the rest are pre- vailingly and discordantly polytheistic. They move off into endless multiplicity of divinities and grotesque degradations of their char- acter. This fact does not speak well for the ability of the human mind without supernatural help, to formulate and maintain the necessary idea of God worthily. This dark and regretful phenomenon is, however, much relieved by several modifying facts. One is, that the search-lights of history and philology reveal for the principal historic faiths back of their .stages and conditions of luxuriantly developed polytheism the existence of an early or possibly, though not certainly, primitive monotheism. This point, I know, is strongly contested, especially by many whose views are determined by acceptance of the evolutionist hypothesis of the derivative origin of the human race. But it seems to me that the evidence, as made clear through the true historical method of investi- gation, is decisive for monotheism as the earliest known form of theistic conception in the religions of Egypt, China, India and the original Druidism, as well as of the two faiths already classed as asserting the divine unity. Polytheisms are found to be actual growths. Tracing them back they become simpler and simpler. "The younger the polytheism the fewer the gods," until a stage is reached where God is conceived of as one alone. This accords, too, as has been well pointed out, with the psychological genesis of ideas — the singular number preceding the plural, the idea of a god preceding the idea of gods, the affirmation, "There is a God," going before the affirmation there are two or many gods. Another fact of belief is. that the polytheisms have not held their fields without dissent and revolt. Over against the tendency of de- praved humanity to corrupt the idea oi God and multiply imaginary and false divinities, there are forces that act for correction and im- provement. Thcjiuman soul has been formed for the one true and only God. Where reason is highly developed and the testing powers of the intellect and conscience are earnestly applied to the problems of existence and duty, these grotesque and gross polytheisms prove unsatisfactory. In the higher ascents of civilization faith in the mythologic divinities is undermined and weakened. Men of lofty genius arise, men of finer ethical intuitions and higher religious sense and aspira- tion and better conceptions of the power by and in which men live and THE WORLDS CONGRESS OE RELTGIUNS. %^% move arc reached and a reformation comes. This is ilhistrated in the epoch-making teachings of Confucius in China, of Zoroaster in Persia, of Gautama in India and of Socrates, Phito, Cicero and kindred spirits in ancient Greece and Rome. In their profounder and more rational inquiries these, and such as these, have pierced the darkness and confusion and caught sure vision of the one true eternal (iod above all gods, at once explaining the significance of them all and reducing all but the one to myths or symbols. Polytheism, which has put its stamp so generally on the historic faiths, has not held them in undisputed, full, unbroken sway. Taking these modifying facts into account, the testimony of these faiths to the unity of God is found to be far larger and stronger than at first view it seemed. For neither Christianity, with its Old Testa- ment beginning, nor Mohammedanism, has been a small thing in the world. They have spoken for the divine unity for ages, and voiced it far through the earth. And unquestionably the faith of the few grand sages, the great thinkers of the race, who, by "The world's great altar stairs that slope through darkness up to God," have risen to clear views of the sublime, eternal truth of the divine unity, is worth ten thousand times more, as an illumination and authority for correct faith, than the ideas and practice of the ignorant and unthinking millions that ha\'e crowded the polytheistic worships. But of the two found, purely monotheistic Christianity has unique characteristics. Its witness is original and independent, not derived as that of Islam, which adopted it from Judaic and Christian teaching, uniqnec^har. It is trinitarian, teaching a triune mystery of life in the one infinite act<>ri8ticB. and eternal God, as over against Islam's repudiation of this mystery. The trinities detected in the other religions have nothing in common with the Christian teaching save the use of the number three. And it stands accredited, not as a mere evolution of rational knowledge, a scientific discovery, but as a supernatural revelation, in which the Eternal One Himself says to the world: "I am God, and beside Me there is none." But we pass to another point of comparison in the principle of personality. Under this principle the religions of the world fall into two classes — those which conceive of God as an intelligent be- ing, acting in freedom, and those that conceive of Him pantheistically as the sum of nature or the impersonal energy or soul of all things. In Christian teaching God is a personal being with all the attributes or predicates that enter into the concept of such being. In the Christian Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments this conception is never for a moment lowered or obscured. God, though immanent in nature, filling it with His presence and power, is yet its creator and preserver, keeping it subject to His will and purposes, never confounded or identi- fied with it. He is the infinite, absolute personality. The finding of this feature of teaching in the other historic religions depends on the period or stage of development at which we take them. In the polytheistic forms of all grades of development we are bewii- H2i TH£ WORLD'S CONGkESS OP REUCtONS. dcied by the immense diversity iti which, in this i)articular, the objects of worship are conceixed, from the intense antliropomorphism that makes the ^ods but mighty men or apotheosized ancestors, down through endless personifications of the powers and opQrations to the lowest forms of fetichism. Largely, however, their theistic thought includes the notion of personality, and so a point of fellowship is established between the worshiper and his gods. But we have to do mainly with the monotheistic faiths or periods of faith. In the early belief of Egypt, of China, of India, in the teaching of Zoroaster, of Celtic Dru- idism, of Assyrian and Babylonian faith, and in the best intuition of the Greek and Roman philosophers, without doubt, God was appre- hended as a personal God Indeed, in almost the whole world's relig- ious thinking this element of true theistic conception has had more or less positive recognition and maintenance. It seems to have been spontaneously and necessarily demanded bv the religious sense and life. The human feeling of helplessness and need called for a God who could hear and understand, feel and act. And whenever thought rose beyonci the many pseudo-gods to the existence of the one true God, as a Creator and Ruler of the world, the ten thousand marks of order, plan and purpose in nature speaking to men's hearts and reason led up to the grand truth that the Maker of all is a Thinker, and both knows and wills. And so a relation of trust, fellowship and intercourse was found and recognized. None of the real feelings of worship, love, de- votion, gratitude, consecration, could live and act simply in the pres- ence of an impersonal, unconscious, fateful energy or order of nature. No consistent hope of a conscious personal future life can be estab- lished excejjt as it is rooted in faith in a personal God. And )'et the personality of God has often been much obscured in the historic faiths. The observation has not come as a natural and spontaneous product of the religious impulse or consciousness, but of mystic speculative philosophies. The phenomenon presented by Spinozism and later pantheisms, in the presence of Christianity, was substantially anticipated again and again, ages ago, in the midst of various religious faiths, despite their own truer visions of the eternal God. As we understand it, the philosophy of religion with Hinduism, the later Confucianism, developed Parseeism and Druidism is substan- tially pantheistic, reducing God to impersonal existence or the con- scious factors and forces of cosmic order. It marks some of these more strongly and injuriously than others. How far do the religions harmonize in including creational relation and activity in their conception of God? In Christianity, as you know, the notion of creatorship is inseparable from the divine idea. "In the beginning God created." Creator is another name for Him. How is it in the polytheistic mythologies? The conception is thrown into inextricable confusion. In some, as in the early Greek and Roman, the heavens and the earth are eternal, and the gods, even the highest, are their offspring. In advancing stages and fuller pantheons, THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 3^5 almost everywhere, the notion of creatorship emerges in connection with the mythologic divinities. In the monotheisms, whether the earlier or those reached in philosophic periods, it is clear and unequiv- ocal — in China, India, Egypt, Persia and the Druidic teaching. Pantheistic thought, however, while it offers accounts of world origins, confuses or overthrows real creational action by various pro- cesses of divine and self-unfolding, in which God and the universe arc identified and either the divine is lost in the natural, or nature itself is God. The pantheism seems to resolve itself sometimes into atheism; sometimes into acosmism. But while the creative attribute seems to appear in some way and measure in all the historic religions, I have found no instance apart from Christianity and its derivatives in which creatio ex nihilo, or absolute creation, is taught. This is a distinction in which Christianity must be counted as fairly standing alone. A point of high importance respects the inclusion of the ethical attribute in the notion of God and the divine government. To what extent do they hold Him, not only a governor, but a moral governor, whose will enthrones righteousness and whose administration aims at moral character and the blessedness of ethical order and excellence? The comparison on this point reveals some strange phenomena. In the nature-worships and polytheistic conditions there is found an almost complete disconnection between religion and morality, the rituals of worship not being at all adjusted to the idea that the gods were holy, sin-hating, pure and righteous. The grossest anthropomorphisms have prevailed, and almost every passion, vice, meanness and wrong found among men were paralleled in the nature and actions of the gods. Often their very worship has been marked by horril^le and degrading rites. But as human nature carries in itself a moral constitution and the reason spontaneously acts in the way of moral distinctions, judg- ments and demands, it necessarily, as it advanced in knowledge, cred- ited the objects of its worship with more or less of the moral qualities it required in men. The moral institutions and demands could not act with clearness and force in rude and uncivilized men and peoples. The degrees of ethical elements in their conception of the gods reflected the less or greater development of the moral life that evohed the theistic ideas. But whenever the religious faith was monotheistic, and especially in its more positive and clearer forms, the logic of reason and con- science lifted thought into clear and unequivocal apprehension of the Supreme Being as the power whose government makes for righteous- ness. F'inely and impressively does this attribute come to view in the teachings of the faith of the ancient Egyptians, of Confucianism, of Zoroastrianism, of Druidism, and of the theism of the Greek and Roman sages. But Brahmanism, that mighty power of the east, though it abounds in moral precepts and virtuous ma.xims and rules of life, fails to give these a truly religious or theistic sanction by any clear assurance that the advancement or triumph of the right and good is the aim of the divine government. Indeed, the pantheistic thought of 320 THE WORLUS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. that system obliterating the divine personality leaves scarcely any room for a moral purpose, or any other purpose, in the cosmic energy. And Buddhism, though largely a philosophical ethic only — however, of the "good" sort — yet by its failure to make positive assertion of a Su- preme Being, save simply as the infinite unknown behind nature, of which (Brahma) nothing may be predicted except that it is, perceives and is blessed, fails also, of course, to affirm any moral predicates for its nature or movement. The ethics of life, divorced from religious sanction, stand apart from thcistical dynamics. Christianity makes the moral attributes of God fundamental. His government and providence have a supreme ethical aim, the over- throw of sin with its disorder and misery, and the making of all things new in a kingdom in which righteousness shall dwell. And we rejoice to trace from the great natural religions round the globe how generally, and sometimes inspiringly, this grand feature of true theism has been discerned and used for the uplifting of character and life, furnishing a testimony obscured or broken only by the crudest fetichisms, or low- est polytheisms, or by pantheistic teachings that reduce God to imper- sonality where the concept of moral character becomes inapplicable. But a single additional feature of theistic teaching can be brought into this comparative view. How far do the various religions include in their idea of God redemptive relation and administration? Some comparativists, as you are aware, class two of them as religions of re- demption or deliverance — Buddhism and Christianity. But if Bud- dhism is to be so classed, there ia no reason for not including Brahmanism. For, as Prof. Max Miiller has so clearly shown. Buddhism rests upon and carries forward the same fundamental conceptions of the world and human destiny and the way of its attainment. They both start with the fact that the condition of man is unhappy through his own errors, and set forth a way of deliveiance or salvation. Both connect this state of misery with the fundamental doctrine of metempsychosis, innumerably repeated incarnations, or births and deaths, with a possi- ble deliverance in a final absorption into the repose of absolute exist- ence or cessation of conscious individuality — Nirvana. It is connected, too^ in both, with a philosophy of the world that pantheistically reduces God into impersonality, making the divine but the ever-moving course of nature. And the deliverance comes as no free gift, gracious help or accomplishment of God, but an issue that a man wins for himself by knowledge, ascetic repression of desire and self-reduction out of conscious individuality, re-absorption into primal being. God is not conceived of as a being of redeeming love and loving activity. A philosophy of self-redemption is substituted for faith and surrender to a redeeming god. As I understand it, it is a philosophy that pessimistically condemns lite itself as an evil and misfortune to be escaped from and to be escaped by self-redemption, because life finds no saving in God. And so these faiths cannot fairly be said to attribute to God redemptive character and administration. Christianity stands, therefore, as the only faith that truly and THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 327 fully conceives of God in redemptory rulership and activity. In this faith "God is love," in deepest and most active sympathy with man. While He rules for the maintenance and victory of righteousness, He uses, also, redeeming action for the same high ends — recovering the lost to holiness. In this comes in the unique supernatural character of Christianity. It is not a mere evolution of natural religious intuitions. Even as a revelation, it is not simply an ethic or a philosophy of happy life. Christianity stands fundamentally and essentially for a course of divine redemptive action, the incoming presence and activity of th'e supernatural in the world and time. Let us fix this clearly in mind, as its distinction among all relig- ions, causing it to stand apart and alone. From the beginning of the Old Testament to the end of the New it is a disclosure in record of what God in grace has done, is doing, and will do, for the deliverance, recovery and eternal salvation from sin of lapsed, sin-enslaved human- ity. It is a supernatural redemptory work and provision with an in- spired instruction as to the way and duty of life. If Christianity be not this, Christendom has been deluded. It is the religion of the divine love and help which the race needs and only God could give. Let us sum up the results of this hurried comparison. On the fundamental point of affirming or implying the existence of God the testimony is a rich harmony. To the monotheistic conception there is strong witness from the chief earliest great historical religions — the Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, original Zoroastrianism and Druidism, obscured and almost lost in later growths of enorrnous polytheisms, till restored there and elsewhere in greater or less degree under the better intuitions of sages, including those of Greece and Rome. The divine personalit}^ is witnessed to, though often under the rudest and most distorted notions, by almost all religions, biit darkened out of sight by pantheistic developments in India, China, Druidism and among the Greeks. Creational activity in some sense and measure has been almost easy where included in the idea of God; but creatio ex nihilo seems peculiar to Christianity. The attribution of ethical attributes to God has varied in degrees according to the civilization and culture of the tribes and nations or their religious leaders made inconsistent hefe and there by pantheistic theories — Christianity, however, giving the moral idea supreme emphasis. And finally, redeeming love and effort in redemp- tion from moral evil is clearly asserted only in the Christian teaching. The other historic faiths have grasped some of the great essential elements of theistic truth. We rejoice to trace and recognize them. But they all shine forth in Christian revelation. As I see it, the other his- toric beliefs have no elements of true theistic conception to give to Christianity that it has not, but Christianity has much to give to the others. It unites and consummates out of its own given light all the theistic truth that has been sought and seen in partial vision b)- sincere souls along the ages and round the world. And more, it gives what they have not — a disclosure of God's redeeming love and action, pre- senting to mankind the way, the truth and the life. And we joy to hold it and offer it as the hope of the world. Supernatura Character o f Christianity. A Rich Har- mony. 69bbi E. G. Hirsch, Chicago. Elements of (Jniversal Religion. Paper by DR. EMIL G. HIRSCH, of Chicago. HE dominion of religion is co-extensive with the confines of humanity. For man is by nature not only, as Aristotle puts the case, the politi- cal — he is as clearly the religious creature. Religion is one of the natural functions of the human soul; it is one of the natural conditions of human, as distinct from mere animal life. To this proposition ethnology and sociology bear abundant testimony. Man alone in the wide sweep of creation builds altars. And wherever man may tent there also will curve upward the burning incense of his sacrifice or the sweeter savor of his aspirations after the better, the diviner light. However rude the form of society in which he moves, or however refined and complex the social organism, re- ligion never fails to be among the determining forces one of the most potent. It, under all types of social architecture, will be active as one of the decisive influences rounding out individual life and lifting it into significance for and under the swifter and stronger current of the social relations. Climatic and historical accidents may modify, and do, the action of this all-pervading energy. But under every sky it is vital and under all temporary conjunctures it is quick. A man without religion is not normal. There may be those in whom this function approaches atrophy. But they are undeveloped or crippled specimens of the completer type. Their condition recalls that of the color blind or the deaf. Can they contend that their defect is proof of superiority? As well might those bereft of the sense of hearing insist that because to them the reception of sound is denied the universe around them is a vast ocean of unbroken silence. A society without religion has nowhere yet been discovered. Religion may then in very truth be said to be the universal distinction of man. Still the universal religion has as yet not been evolved in the pro- cession of the suns. It is one of the blessings yet to come. There are now even known to men and revered by them great religious systems Vital ander every Sky. 22 329 mo THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. which pretend to universality. And who would deny that Buddhism, Christianity and the faith of Islam present many of the characteristic elements of the universal faith? In its ideas and ideals the religion of the prophets, notably as enlarged by those of the Babylonian exile, also deserves to be numbered among the proclamations of a wider out- look and a higher uplook. These systems are no longer ethnic. They thus, the three in full practice and the last mentioned in spiritual inten- tion, have passed beyond some of the most notable limitations which are fundamental in other forms created by the religious needs of man. They have advanced far on the road leading to the ideal goal; and modern man, in his quest for the elements of the still broader univer- sal faith, will never again retrace his steps to go back to the mile-posts these have left behind on their climb up the heights. The three great religions have emancipated themselves from the bondage of racial tests and national divisions. Race and nationality cannot cir- cumscribe the fellowship of the larger communion of the faithful, a communion destined to embrace in one covenant all the children of man. Race is accidental, not essential in manhood. Color is indeed Race Acci- only skin deep. No caste or tribe, even were we to concede the ®°** ■ absolute purity of the blood flowing in their arteries, an assump- tion which could in no case be verified by actual facts of the case, can lay claim to superior sanctity. None is nearer the heart of God than another. He certainly who takes his survey of human- ity from the outlook of religion and from this point of view remembers the serious possibilities and the sacred obligations of human life cannot adopt the theory that spirit is the exponent of animal nature. Yet such would be the conclusion if the doctrine of chosen races and tribes is at all to be urged. The racial ele- ment is merely the animal substratum of our being. Brain and blood may be crutches which the mind must use. But mind is always more than the brain with which it works, and the soul's equation cannot be solved in terms of the blood corpuscles or the pigment of the skin or the shape of the nose or the curl of the hair. Ezra with his insistence that citizenship in God's people is depend- ent on Abrahamitic pedigree, and therefore on the superior sanctity which by very birth the seed of the patriarch enjoys as Zea Kodesh, does not voice the broader and truer views of those that would proph- esy of the universal faith Indeed, the apostles of Christianity after Paul, the Pundits of Buddhism, the Imams of Islam and last, though not least, the rabbis of modern Judaism, have abandoned the narrow prejudice of the scribe. God is no respecter of persons. In His sight it is the black heart and not the black skin, the crooked deed and not the curved nose which excludes. National afii.nities and memories, however potent for good and though more spiritual than racial bonds, are still too narrow to serve as foundation stones for the temple of all humanity. The day of national religions is past. The God of the universe THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 331 speaks to all mankind. He is not the God of Israel alone, not that of Moab, of Egypt, Greece or America. He is not domiciled in Pales- tine. The Jordan and the Ganges, the Tiber and the Euphrates hold water wherewith the devout may be baptized unto His service and re- demption. "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Whither flee from thy presence?". exclaims the old Hebrew bard. And before his won- dering gaze unrolled itself the awful certainty that the heavenly divis- ions of morning and night were obliterated in the all-embracing sweep of divine law and love. If the wide expanses of the skies and the abysses of the deep cannot shut out from the divine presence, can the pigmy barriers erected by man and preserved by political intrigues and national pride dam in the mighty stream of divine love? The prophet of Islam repeats the old Hebrew singer's joy when he says: "The East is God's and the West is His," as indeed the apostle true to the spirit of the prophetic message of Messianic Judaism refused to tolerate the line of cleavage marked by language or national afifinity. Greek and Jew are invited by him to the citizenship of kingdom come. The church universal must have the pentecostal gift of the many The Charch flaming tongues in it, as the rabbis say was the case at Sinai. God's Universal, revelation must be sounded in every language to every land. But, and this is essential as marking a new advance, the universal religion for all the children of Adam will not palisade its courts by the pointed and forbidding stakes of a creed. Creeds in time to come will be rec- ognized to be indeed cruel barbed wire fences, wounding those that would stray to broader pastures and hurting others who would come in. Will it for this be a Godless church? Ah, no! it will have much more of God than the churches and synagogues with their dogmatic definitions now possess. Coming man will not be ready to resign the crown of his glory which is his by virtue of his feeling himself to be the son of God. He will not exchange the church's creed for that still more presumptuous and deadening one of materialism which would ask his acceptance of the hopeless perversion that the world which sweeps by us in such sublime harmony and order is not cosmos but chaos — is the fortuitous outcome of the chance play of atoms produc- ing consciousness by the interaction of their own unconsciousness. Man will not extinguish the light of his own higher life by shutting his eyes to the telling indications of purpose in history, a purpose which when revealed to him in the outcome of his own career, he may well find reflected also in the interrelated life of nature. But for all this man will learn a new modesty now woefully lacking to so many who honestly deem themselves religious. His God will not be a figment, cold and distant, of metaphysics, nor a distorted caricature of embit- tered theology. "Can man by searching find out God?" asks the old Hebrew poet. And the ages so flooded with religious strife are vocal with the stinging rebuke to all creed-builders that man cannot. Man grows unto the knowledge of God, but not to him is vouchsafed that fullness of knowledge which would warrant his arrogance to hold that his blurred vision is the full light and that there can be none other might which report truth as does his. 332 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Says Maimonicles, greatest thinker of the many Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages: "Of God we may merely assert that He is; what He is in Himself we cannot know. 'My thoughts are not yourthoughts A Prophetic and My ways are not your ways,'" This prophetic caution will re- sound in clear notes in the ears of all who will worship in the days to come at the universal shrine. They will cease their, futile efforts to give a definition of Him who cannot be defined in human symbols. They will certainly be astonished at our persistence — in their eyes very blasphemy — to describe by article of faith God, as though He were a fugitive from justice and a Pinkerton detective should be enabled to capture Him by the identification laid down in the catalogue of His at- tributes. The religion universal will not presume to regulate God's government of this world by circumscribing the sphere of His possible salvation, and declaring as though He had taken us into His counsel whom He must save and whom He may not save. The universal re- ligion will once more make the God idea a vital principle of human life. It will teach men to find Him in their own heart and to have Him with them in whatever they may do. No mortal has seen God's face, but he who opens his heart to the message will, like Moses on the lonely rock, behold Him pass and hear the solemn proclamation. It is not in the storm of fanaticism nor in the fire of prejudice, but in the still small voice of conscience that God speaks and is to be found. He believes in God who lives a Godlike, i. c, a goodly life. Not he who mumbles his credo, but he who lives it, is accepted. Were those marked for glory by the great teacher of Nazareth who wore the largest phylacteries? Is the Sermon on the Mount a creed? Was the Decalogue a creed? Character and conduct, not creed, will be the key- note of the Gospel in the Church of Humanity Universal. But what then about sin? Sin as a theological imputation will perhaps drop out of the vocabulary of this larger communion of the righteous. But as a weakness to be overcome, an imperfection to be laid aside, man will be as potently reminded of his natural shortcom- ings as he is now of that of his first progenitor over whose conduct he certainly had no control and for whose misdeed he should not be held accountable. Religion will then as now lift man above his weaknesses by reminding him of his responsibilities. The goal before is paradise. Eden is to come. It has not yet been. And the life of the great and good and saintly, who went about doing good in their generations, and who died that others might live, will for very truth be pointed out as the spring from which have flown the waters of salvation by whose magic efficacy all men may be washed clean, if baptized in the spirit which was living within these God-appointed redeemers of their in- firmities. This religion will indeed be for man to lead him to God. Its sacramental word will be duty. Labor is not the curse but the bless- ing of human life. For as man was made in' the image of the Creator, it is his to create. Earth was given him for his habitation. He changed it from chaos into his home. A theology and a Monotheism, THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 333 which will not leave room in this world for man's free activity and dooms him to passive inactivity, will not harmonize with the truer , recognition that man and God arc the co-relates of a working plan of life. Sympathy and resignation are indeed beautiful flowers grown in the garden of many a tender and noble human heart. But it is active love and energy which alone can push on the chariot of human prog- ress, and progress is the gradual realization of the divine spirit which is incarnate in every human being. This principle will assign to relig- ion once more the place of honor among the redeeming agencies of society from the bondage of selfishness. On this basis every man is every other man's brother, not merely in misery, but in active work. " As you have done to the least of these you ha\e unto Me," will be the guiding principle of human conduct in all the relations into \\ hich human life enters. No longer shall we hear Cain's enormous excuse, a scathing accusation of himself, "Am I my brother's keeper?" no longer will be tolerated or condoned the double standard of morality, one for Sunday and the church and another diametrically opposed for weekdays and the counting-room. Not as now will be heard the cynic insistence that "business is business" and has as business no connection with the Decalogue or the Sermon on the Mount. Religion will, as it did in Jesus, penetrate into all the relations of human society. Not then will men be rated as so many hands to be bought at the lowest possible price, in accordance with a deified law of supply and demand, which cannot stop to consider such sentimentalities, as the fact that these hands stand for soul and hearts An invidious distinction obtains now between secular and sacred. It will be wiped away. Every thought and every deed of man must be holy or it is unworthy of men. Did Jesus merely regard the temple as holy? Did Buddha merely have religion on one or two hours of the Sabbath? Did not an earlier prophet deride and con- demn all ritual religion? "Wash ye, make ye clean." Was this not the burden of Isaiah's religion? The religion universal will be true to these, its forerunners. But what about death and hereafter? This religion will not dim Dc^wy the hope which has been man's since the first day of his stay on earth. Hereaftei But it will be most emphatic in winning men to the conviction that a life worthily spent here on earth is the best, is the only preparation for heaven. Said the old rabbis: "One hour spent here in truly good works and in the true intimacy with God is more precious than all life to be." The egotism which now mars so often the aspirations of our souls, the scramble for glory which comes while we forget duty, will be replaced by a serene trust in the eternal justice of Him "in Whom we live and move and have our being." To have done religiously will be a reward sweeter than which none can be offered. Yea, the relig- ion of the future will be impatient of men who claim that the)- haxe the right to be saved, while they are perfectly content that others shall not be saved, and while not stirring a foot or lifting a hand to redeem brother men from hunger and wretchedness, in the cool assur- 334 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. ance that this life is destined or doomed to be a free race of haggling, snarling competitors in which, by some mysterious will of providence, the devil takes the hindmost. Will there be prayer in the universal religion? Man will worship, but in the beauty of holiness his prayer will be the prelude to his prayerful action. Silence is more reverential and worshipful than a wild torrent of words breathing forth not adoration, but greedy re- quests for favors to self. Can an unforgiving heart pray "forgive as wc forgive?" Can one ask for daily bread when he refuses to break his bread with the hungry? Did not the prayer of the Great Master of Nazareth thus teach all men and all ages that prayer must be the stirring to love? Had not that little waif caught the inspiration of our universal prayer who, when first taught its sublime phrases, persisted in chang- ing the opening words to "Your Father which is in heaven ?" Rebuked time and again by the teacher, he finally broke out, "VVell, if it is our Father, why, I am your brother." Yea, the gates of prayer in the church to rise will lead to the recognition of the universal brother- hood of men. Will this new faith have its Bible? It will. It retains the old Bibles of mankind, but gives them a new luster by remembering that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." Religion is not a ques- tion of literature, but of life. God's revelation is continuous, not con- tained in tablets of stone or sacred parchment. He speaks today yet to those that would hear Him. A book is inspired when it inspires. Religion made the Bible, not the book religion. And what will be the name of this church? It will be known not by its founders, but by its fruits. God replies to him who insists upon knowing His name: "I am He who I am." The church will be. If any name it will have, it will be "the church of God," because it will be the church of man. When Jacob, so runs an old rabbinical legend, weary and footsore the first night of his sojourn away from home, would lay him down to sleep under the canopy of the starset skies, all the stones of the field exclaimed: "Take me for thy pillow." And because all were ready to serve him all were miraculously turned into one stone. This became Beth El, the gate of heaven. So will all religions, because eager to become the pillow of man, dreaming of God and beholding the ladder joining earth to heaven, be transformed into one great rock which the ages cannot move, a foundation stone for the all-embracing temple of humanity united to do God's will with one accord. interior of the Church of Ecce Homo, Jerusalem. The Whence of Kthical Sense. [he essential Qn^^^ss of ^thical jdeas Among A" Men. Paper by REV. IDA C. HULTIN. 'IT ^ F ethical ideas, not of ethical systems or doctrines, am I bidden to speak today.. Let me say ethical sense. It will mean the same and be more simple. The uni- versality of the ethical sense. Gravitation is not more surely a fact, it seems to us, than is the unity of all life. If life is a whole, then that which is an essential quality of one part must be common to the whole. Throu^rh all life not only an eternal purpose runs, but an eternal moral purpose. Human history has been a strug- gle of man to understand himself and the other selves, and beyond that the infinite self. The laws which, with unswerving fidelity, the stars obey in their eternal sweep through space, that the dewdrop responds to when it becomes an ocean to mir- ror back the world, that chisels the lichen's circle and paints the sun- set, that draws the lily from the black ooze of the pond and calls the atoms to their foreordained places in the crystal — this law is inerad- icably written in the nature of man and issues as ethical sense. Of course, we understand that with some the experiences of animal and' human life in the long eons of their existence is the explanation of the existence of this sense. Add to the experience of individuals the hereditary tendency which accumulates and passes on in increasing power from generation to generation, the results of all struggle, and you have an all-sufficient answer about the whence of this ethical sense. We do not deny the truth of the cumulative tendency of ex- perience, but we do deny that it solves all the probjem. Would this not be evolution, doing that which it claims cannot be done, creating something out of nothing? If the fittest, morally as well as physically, is to survive, then there must have been something that had the clc- 330 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 387 ment of fitness to start with. In the fire-mist and world-stuff of our solar system's beginning there were the elements, or element, from which, through change and growth, has come the multiplicity of the life of our world. What is the meaning of all this varied life? It is not real. It is not stable. To what is it passing? From whence does it come? Is there no infinite fact to match the finite fact, or the hu- man mind and soul? Is there no invisible real to which the visible passing stands related? The old oak tree, we say, is what it is because it has grown through years and storms, through heat and cold, withstanding and outliving them all. What made it to be an oak tree? It will not always be so, and what will the life of it be when it is not oak tree? Did sun and rain and storm and seasons create the oak? Then plant a i)iece from your polished oak table, give it to the earth and the sun and rain and storms and ask them to make it grow. Will it? What is in the acorn that answers back to the call of the voices of the earth and air, and draws from the invisible places of the universe the atoms that come trooping to take their places in root and trunk and limb and leaf and blossom and fruit? Is it not God in the acorn? And could it grow without its God? I ask this question reverentially, and when I say God, friends, I mean the same invisible spirit that you mean when you pronounce another name. We each know that the other is but naming his or her best conception of the Infinite, and if we should put all of these words together, we would not have the whole name, for the secret of its pronunciation lieth with Him, whose children we all are. This all-pervading principle — this sense of right, of good that we find to be the possession of all peoples, of life, is it not God in us? You may call it a categorical imperative, a primitive element in the soul, a sense rooted in the nature of things, the moral sense of the universe, what you will, it is the sign and seal of our heredity from God. Mine, yours, ours, humanity's. Humanity is not God-touched in spots, with primitive exterior revelations on mountain tops for a chosen few. He is the Divine Immanence, the source of all — revealing Himself to all; recognized just so fast as His children grow able to discover Him. It is an infinite revelation — an eternal discover)'. Hunger is the goad to growth; hunger for protoplasm, and then — Oh, the weary way that stretches between! — hunger for righteousness. An eternal search — an eternal finding. The resistless sweep of the divine forces bears man on to newer and ever newer births. We find that we cannot speak of ethical principles without touch- ing religious realities. Let us identify morals with religion. Is it not time? I do not mean by religion theological formulas, creeds, doc- trines. I do not mean a religion. I mean religion. The science of Irian's highest development, physical, mental, moral development. There is no part of life that may not, ought not to be religious. You cannot make one part of your nature religious, as though it were a side issue of real living. In the last analysis it becomes correlated with the nature of things, with God. Not simj^Iy dependence on, as God In Up. 338 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. though there was a full sway from Him, but consciousness of unity, and as if we craved the unity as if He needed us and we were hasten- ing to do His will and ours. The doing of the will is ethical action. It is man at work on the problem, che making of religious conditions. It is humanity on the road toward God. How rarely do we enter into the full possibilities of our high her- itage. They who have learned to live on the heights have been the Oar Higher prophet souls of all ages and all races. The multitudinous voice of *^* humanity ha's uttered itself through them. I know that there are sore souls, but if we would know humanity we must interpret it at its best. What these are, all humanity may be. The ideal man is the actual man. It is what all men may become. The ought that moves one man to deeds that thrill a nation is essentially the same in kind with the ought that impels the lowliest deed in the obscurest corner of the world. If one human soul has come into being without a tendenc\- toward goodness, toward the right, the true, and with hope to at length reach a divine destiny, then the universe is a failure. There is a place where God is not, and infinite goodness, infinite justice, is a myth. Morality may not be possible in ant and bee and beaver and dog. but ethical principle is there. Striving to be man, the worm struggles through all the spheres of form. Not that man is recognized and there is a conscious reach toward him, but because back of worm and clod there is the same persuasive power that impelled man to be man, that led him to lay hold of the forces of the universe and compel them to serve him. Through the realization of the divine potency of the ethical sense in the experiences of his own life, man becomes con Explanation scious of God, of God as good. Rising to this higher realization taiie^'^^ ** ^^* through the lesser, the lesser takes on new meaning. Our relations to tree, to dog, to man, assume new dignity. We find the ultimate mean- ing of these common relationships. Here is the explanation of life's details. They are all manifestations of God. He is Lord of these hosts. He is all. And ue find Him only as we tread loyally the path way of the common place. Relationship to Him is the culmination of all these lesser relationships. And " We turn from seeking Thee afar And in unwonted ways, To build from out our daily lives The temples of Thy praise." Humanity does not reach its best life through any scheme of re- demption, but through an age-long struggle w ith God. It is not "What shall I do to be saved?" but "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" The moral man is obeying the God-voice, whether he knows to call it that or not. Is he denied theological classification? Well, it will not be surprising if he enters heaven without a label. He who cannot hear God, see God, feel God in the living, potent things of the e\ery day must buy a book and find God and His law there. But if the church disband or his book is burned, where shall he turn for authority? May he steal now with impunity? Pity the man whose moral nature is net THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 839 a law unto himself. Shrink from it though we may, the truth appears, when we are honest with ourselves, that churches and creeds have never done the world's best work. The church has never freed the slave of any land. In this country, even while the armies were gath- ering, which eventually freed the slave, ministers were preaching that slavery was divinely ordained and right according to the word of God. But the spirit of eternal justice, revealing itself in the ethical sense of thousands of men and women, ignoring the dogma and its expounders, Spirit of moved against the wrong and overcame it. There were those wiio E^<^'"'i«*^''"'»^»<^« could read but one page of God's Word, but in the "terrible swift light- ning" of that judgment day men read the law written by human hearts. Try to evade the truth if you will; you must face it at last. No creedal church and no form of ecclcsiasticism has ever lent itself to the emancipation of the woman half of humanity. .She has suffered and still suffers because of the results of dogmatic beliefs and theological traditions, but the ethical senseof the humanity of which she is a part is lifting her out into the fullness of religious liberty. She does not come into the fellowship to write creeds nor to impose dogmas, but to co-operate in such high living as shall make possible religiousness. She comes to help do away with false standards of conduct by demand- ing morality for morality, purity for purity, self-respecting manhood for self-respecting womanhood. .She will help remove odious distinc- tions on account of se.x and make one code of morals do for both men and women. This not alone in the western \\orld, where circumstances have been more propitious for woman's advancement, but in all parts of the world. Churches as a whole do not feed the hungry, clothe the sick, turn prisons into reformatories and unite to stay the atrocities of legalized cruelties. If churches were doing the humane work of the world there would not be needed so many clubs and associations and institutions for philanthropic work. Men and women in the churches and out of ^'aith witi'- them do this work. While theologians are busy with each other and Dead, the creeds, these men and women, belonging to all countries and all races, who perhaps have not had time to formulate their beliefs about humanity, are busy working for it. Those who have never known how to define God are finding Him in their daily lives. Faith? Yes, but faith without works is dead. When the ethical intent has been removed from a theological system it is a dead faith. Interesting is the history of a religious con\ention. and not to be lightly estimated; but as a working force in spiritual advancement it is useless. It was well said from this platform a few da)s ago, not Chris- tianity, but Christ, I plead. Many of us are not particular about the Christian name, but we "do care about the Christ spirit; that same spirit that has been the animating force in every prophet life. The re- ligious aspirations that gave birth to the ethical science, tliat made to be alive old forms, have passed on to \'i\'ify now forms and s}-stcms that yet shall have a day and give place to others, "It is the spirit that gives it life; the letter kills it." 340 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. When you remember some of the things that have been taught and have been done in the name of Christ, do you wonder that our brother said, "If such be the Christian ethics, well, we are perfectly satisfied to be heathen?" Do )ou wonder that the calm-souled prophet from India pleads with us for a manifestation of the spirit that was in meseinKT/' ' Jesus? Do wc need assurance that boasting of our religion will not prove us to be a religious people? This pentecostal session is rich with blessing if we are able to bear it. May it help us to help each other, to understand each other, to believe in each other; and out of the fellowship of this time may there grow a diviner love for all that is human, a deeper reverence and braver faith in its possibility, a surer knowledge of this essential oneness. Learning to love each other, may we abide in the measureless, matchless love which, because we know no better naming, we call our Father, Mother, God. (Concessions to jS^ative Peligious jdeas, p^aving gpecial [Reference to p^induism. Paper by REV. L. E. SLATER, of Bungalore, India. HE Hindus by instinct and tradition are the most religious people in the world. They arc born religiously, they eat, bathe, shave and write religiously, they die and are cremated or buried religiously, and for years afterward are devoutly remembered religiously They will not take a house or open a shop or office, they will not go on a journey or engage in any enter- prise without some religious obser\'ance. We thus appeal in our missionary effort to a deeply religious nature; we sow the gospel seed in a religious soil. The religion of a nation is its sacred impulse toward an ideal, however imperfectly appre- hended and realized it may be. The spirit of India's religions has been a reflective spirit, hence its philosophical character, and to understand and appreciate them, we must look beyond the barbaric shows and feasts and cere- monies, and get to the undercurrents of native thought. Hinduism is a growth from within; and to study it we have to lay bare that ii\ ward, subtle soul which, strangely enough, explains the outward form with all its extravagances; for India's gross idolatry is connected with her ancient systems of speculatixe philosophy; and w ith an extensi\e literature in the Sanskrit language; her Epic, Puranic and Tantrika mythologies and cosmogonies have a theosophic basis. India, whose worship was the probable cradle of all other similar worships, is the richest mine of religious ideas; \ct we cannot speak of the religion of India What is styled "Hinduism" is a vague eclcc ticism, the sum total of several shades of belief, of divergent s\stems, of various types and characters of the outward life, each of which at one time or another calls itself Hinduism, but which, apparently, bears little resemblance to the other beliefs. Every phase of religious 341 Himluisin Not One 342 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. thought and philo.so[)hic speculation has been represented in India. Some of the Hindu doctrines arc theistic, some atheistic and material- istic, others pantheistic — the extreme development of idealism. Some of the sects hold that salvation is obtained by practicing austerities and by self-devotion and prayer; some that faith and love (bhakti) form the ruling principle; others that sacrificial observances are the only means. Some teach the doctrine of predestination; others that of free grace. It is hard for foreigners to understand the habits of thought and life that prevail in a strange country, as well as all the changes and sacrifices that conversion entails; and, with our brusque, matter-of-fact western instincts and our lack of spiritual and philosophic insight, Thouglit* ^ ami ^ve too often go forth denouncing the traditions and worship of the Liife. l)cople, and, in so doing, are apt, with our heavy heels, to trample on beliefs and sentiments that have a deep and sacred root. A knowl- edge of the material on which we work is quite as important as deft- ness in handling our tools; a knowledge of the soil as necessary as the conviction that the seed is good. Let us glance now, in the briefest manner, at some of the funda- mental ideas and aspects of Brahmanical Hinduism, that may be re- garded as a preparation for the Gospel, and links by which a Christian advocate may connect the religion of the incarnation and the cross with the higher phases of religious thought and life in India. It should be borne in mind, however, throughout, that this foreshadowing relation between Hinduism and Christianity is ancient rather than modern, that these "foreshadowings"of the Gospel are unsuspected by the masses of the people; ancj, further, that the points of similarity be- tween the two faiths are sometimes apparent rather than real, and that the whole inquiry becomes clear only as we realize that Hinduism has been a keen and pathetic search after a salvation to be wrought by man rather than a restful satisfaction in a redemption designed and offered by God. The underlying element of all religions, without which there can be no spiritual worship, is the belief that the human worshiper is somehow made in the likeness of the divine. And the central thought of India, which binds together all its conflicting elements, is the reve- lation of life, the progress of the pilgrim soul through all definite ex- istences to reunion with the infinite. From the opening j-outhfulness, hopefulness and sclf-suflficiency depicted in the songs of the Rig-veda, where the spirit is bright and joyous and homage is given to the forms and powers of nature — the mirror of man's own life and freedom — on through the dreary stage, where " the weary weight of this unintelligi- ble world " and the soul wakes from the illusive dream of childhood to experience a bitter disappointment, to realize that the search for individual happiness in the infinite or phenomenal is a futile one, to find that the world is a vain shadow, an empty show, the reverence of the Indian has not been for the material form, but for pure spirit — for his own conscious soul — whose essential unity with the divine is an THE WORLD'S CO.VGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 348 axiomatic truth, and whose power to abide in the midst of all changes is the test of its everlasting being, the proof of its immortality. The ideal, then, before which the Indian Gnostic bows, is the spirit of man. The soul retires within itself, in a state of ecstatic reverie, the highest form of which is called Yoga, and meditates on the secret of its own nature; and having made the discovery, which comes sooner or later to all, that the world, instead of being an cly- sium, is an illusion, a vexation of spirit, the speculative problem of Indian philosophy and the actual struggle of the religious man have ideal of the been how to break the dream, get rid of the impostures of sense and \f^^^^ ^''***' time, emancipate the self from the bondage of the fleeting world and attain the one reality — the invisible, the divine. This can onh- be achieved by becoming detached from material thinirs, by ceasing to love the world, by the mortification of desire. And though this "love of the world" may have little in common with the idea of the Apostle John, yet have we not here an affinity with the affirmation of Chris- tianity, that "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor., iv., 18); that "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof" (i John, ii., 17); though the Christian completion of that verse, "but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever," marks the fundamental defect of pantheistic India and its striking contrast to the Gospel. For the God of Hinduism is a pure Intelligence, a Thinker; not a Sovereign Will as in Islam, nor the Lord of Light and Right as in Parsiism, still less having any paternal or providential character. Nothing is created by His power, but all is evolved by emanation, from the one eternal Entity, like sparks from fire. No commands come from such a Being, but all things flow from Him, as light from the sun, or thoughts from a musing man. Hence, while between God and the worshiper there is the most direct affinity, which may become identity, there exists no bond of sympathy, no active and intelligent co-operation, and no quickening power being exercised on the human will, and in the formation of character, the fatal and fatalistic weak- ness of Hindu life appears, which renders the Gospel appeal so often powerless; the lost sense of practical moral distinction, of the require- ments of conscience, of any necessary connection between thought and action, convictions and conduct, of divine authority over the soul, of personal responsibility, of the duty of the soul to love and honor God, and to love one's neighbor as oner's self. Idolatry itself, foolish and degrading as it is, seeks to realize to the senses what otherwise is only an idea; it witnesses, as all great errors do, to a great truth; and it is only by distinctly recognizing and liberating the truth that underlies the error, and of which the error is the counterpart, that the error can be successfully combated and slain. Every error will live as long, and only as long, as its share of truth re- mains unrecognized. Adapting words that Archdeacon Hare wrote of Dr. Arnold: "We must be iconoclasts, at once zealous and fear- less in demolishing the reigning idols, and at the same time animated Gotl of thfi Hindus a Thinker. «T: nith. 344 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. with a reverent love for the ideas that the idols carnalize and stifle." Idolatry is astroni^ human protest against pantheism, which denies the personality of God, and atheism, which denies God altogether; it tes- tifies to the natural craxing of the heart to have before it some mani- festation of the Unseen -to behold a humanized god. It is not, at bot- tom, an effort to get away from God, but to bring God near. Once more. The idea of the need of sacrificial acts, "the first and primary rites" — eucharistic, sacramental and propitiatory — bearing the closest parallelism to the provisions of the Mosaic economy and prompted by a sense of personal unworthiness, guilt and misery — that life is to be forfeited to the Divine Proprietor — is ingrained in the whole system of Vedic Hinduism. A sense of original corruption has been felt by all classes of Hindus, as indicated in the prayer: "I am sinful; I commit sin; my nature is sinful. Save me, O thou lotus-eyed Hari, the remover of sin. The first man, after the deluge, whom the Hindus called Manu and the Hebrews Noah, offered a burnt offering. No literature, not even the Jewish, contains so many words relating to sacrifice as Sanskrit. The land has been saturated with blood." The secret of this great importance attached to sacrifice is to be found in the remarkable fact that the authorship of the institution is attributed to " Creation's Lord '' himself and its date is reckoned as coeval with the creation. The idea e.xists in the three chief Vedas and in the Brahmanas and Upanishads that Prajapati, "the lord and sup- porter of his creatures" — the Purusha (primeval male) — begotten before the world, becoming half immortal and half mortal in a body- fit for sacrifice, offered himself for the devas ( emancipated mortals \ Sacrifice Co- ^^^'^ ^^^ ^^^^ benefit of the world; thereby making all subsequent sacri- evii with Crea- fice a reflection or figure of himself. The ideal of the Vedic Prajapati, mortal and yet divine, himself both priest and victim, who b)' death overcame death, has long since been lost in India. Among the many gods of the Hindu pantheon none has ever come forward to claim the vacant throne once reverenced by Indian rishis. No other than the Jesus of the Gospels "'the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world " — has ever ap[)eared to fulfill this primiti\e idea of redemption by the efficacy of sacrifice; and when this Christian truth is preached it ought not to sound strange to Indian ears. An eminent Hindu preacher has said that no one can be a true Hindu without being a true Christian. Hut one of the saddest and most disastrous facts of the India of today is that modern Hrahmanism, like modern Parsiism, is fast losing its old ideas, relaxing its hold on the more spiritual portions, the dis- tinctive tenets, of the ancient faith. Happih". however, a reaction has set in, mainly through the exertions of these scholars and of the Arya .Somaj; and the more thoughtful minds are earnestly seeking to recover from their sacred books some of the buried treasures of the past. P'or ideas of a divine revelation, "Word of God," communicated directly to inspired sages or rishis, according to a theory of inspiration tion Idea (»f ft Di- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF REUGIONS, 345 higher than that of any other religion in the world, is perfectly familiar to Hindus, and is, indeed, universally entertained. Yet the conclusion reachied is this: That a careful comparison of religions brings out this striking contrast between the Bible and all other scriptures; it estab- lishes its satisfying character in distinction from the seeking spirit of other faiths. The Bible shows God in quest of man rather than man vine*^ Uevdal in quest of God. It meets the questions raised in the philosophies of ^'""" the east, and supplies their only true solution. The Vcdas present " a shifting play of lights and shadows; some- times the light seems to grow brighter, but the day never comes." For, on examining them, we note a remarkable fact. While they show that the spiritual needs and aspirations of humanity are the same — the same travail of the soul as it bears the burdens of existence — and con- tain many beautiful prayers for mercy and help, we fail to find a single text that purports to be a divine answer to prayer, an explicit promise of divine forgiveness, an expression of experienced peace and delight in God, as the result of assured pardon and reconciliation. There is no realization of ideas. The Bible alone is the Book of Divine Promise — the revelation of the "exceeding riches of God's grace — " shining with increasing brightness till the dawn of perfect day. And for this reason it is unique, not so much in its ideas, as in its vitality; a living and regulating force, embodied in a personal, lustoric Christ, and charged with unfailing inspiration. o o 6 o "o U 9 •S X Hinduism. Paper by MANILAL N. DVIVEDI, of Bombay, India. INDUISM is a wide term, but at the same time a vague term. The word Hindu was invented by the Mohammedan conquerors of Aryavata, the historical name of India, and it denotes all who reside beyond the Indus. Hinduism, therefore, correctly speak- ing is no religion at all. It embraces within its wide intention all shades of thought, from the atheistic Jainas and Bauddhas to the theisticSampradaikas and Samajists and ' the rationalistic Advaytins. But we may agree to use the term in the sense of that body of philosophical and religious princi- ples which are professed in part or whole by the inhabitants of India. I shall confine myself in this short address to unfolding the meaning of this term, and shall try to show the connection of this meaning with the ancient records of India, the Vedas. Before entering upon this task permit me, however, to make a few preliminary observations. And first it would greatly help us on if we had settled a few points, chief among them the meaning of the word religion. Religion is defined by Webster generally as any system of worship. This is, however, not in the sense in which the word is understood in India. The word has a threefold connotation. Religion divides itself into physices, ontology and ethics, and without being that vague something which is set up to satisfy the requirements of the emotional side of human nature, it resolves itself into that rational demonstration of the universe which serves as the basis of a practical system of ethical rules. Every Indian religion — for let it be under- stood there is quite a number of them— has therefore some theory of the physical universe, complemented by some sort of spiritual go\ern- mcnt, and a code of ethics consistent with that theory and that goxcrn- ment. So, then, it would be a mistake to take away an)' one phase of any Indian religion and pronounce upon its merits on a partial sur\cy. 347 What Hindu, iem Enibracett, 348 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The next point I wish to clear is the chronology of the Puranas. I mean the chronology given in the Puranas. Whereas the Indian religion claims extravagant antiquity for its teachings, the tendency of Christian writers has been to cramp everything within the narrow period of 6,ooo years. But for the numerous vagaries and fanciful theo- Thwries. rics these extremes give birth to, this point would have no interest for us at die present moment. With the rapid advance made by physical science in the west, numerous testimonies ha\e been unearthed to show the untcnablcncss of Biblical chronology, and it would be safe to hold the mind in mental suspense in regard to this matter. The third point is closely connected with the second. P2very one has a natural inclination toward his native land and language, and particu- larly toward the religion in which he is brought up. It, however, behooves men of impartial judgment to look upon all religions as so many different explanations of the dealings of the Supreme with men of varying culture and nationality. It is impossible to do justice to these themes in this place, but we will start with these necessary pre- cautions that the following pages may not appear to make any extra- ordinary demands upon the intelligence of those brought up in the atmosphere of the so-called "Oriental research" in the west. Indian Phiios- We may now address ourselves to the subject before us. At least opiucTiiought gjj^ different and well marked stages are visible in the history of Indian philosophic thought, and each stage appears to have left its impress upon the meaning of the word Hinduism. The six stages may be enumerated thus: (i) the Vedas* (2) the .Sutra; (^3) the Dar- sana; (4) the Purana; (5) the Samapradaya; (6) the Samaja. P^ach of these is enough to fill several volumes, and all I can attempt here is a cursory survey of " Hinduism," in the religious sense of the word. I. Let us begin with the Vedas. The oldest of the four Vedas is admittedly the Rigveda. It is the most ancient record of the Aryan nation, nay, of the first humanity our earth knows of. Traces of a very superior degree of civilization and art, found at every page, pre- vent us from regarding these records as containing only the outpoir- ings of the minds of pastoral tribes ignorantly wondering at the grand phenomena of nature. We find in the Vedas a highly superior order of rationalistic thought pervading all the h)'mns, and we have ample reasons to conclude that the childish poetry of primitive hearts, Agni and Vishne and Indra and Rudra, are indeed so many names of differ- ent gods, but each of them had really a threefold aspect. Vishne, for example, in his terrestrial or temporal aspect, is the physical sun; in his corporal aspect he is the soul of every being, aiitl in his spiritual aspect he is the all-pervading essence of the cosmos. In their spiritual aspect all Gods are one, for well says the well-known text, "only one essence the wise declare in many ways." And this con- ception of the spiritual unit}' of the cosmos as found in the Vedas is the cru.x of western oriental research. The learned doctors are unwill- ing to see more than the slightest trace of this conception in the Veda, for, sa)' they, it is all nature worship, the invocation of different inde- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OE RELIGIONS. U^ pendent powers which held llie wonderini^ mind of this section of primitive humanity in submissive admiration and praise. However well this may accord with the psycholojjfical development of the human mind, there is not the sli<^htest semblance of exidence in the Vedas to show that these records belong to that hypothetical period of human progress. In the Vedas there are marks everywhere of the recognition of the idea of one God. the God of nature, manifesting Himself in man\' forms. This word "God" is one of those which have been the stumbling block of philosophy. God, in the sense of a personal Creator of the universe, is not known in the Veda, and the highest effort of rationalistic thought in India has been to see God in the totality of all that is. And, indeed, it is doubtful whether philosophy, be it that of a Kant or a Hegel, has ever accomplished anything more. It hereby stands to reason that men who are so far admitted to be Kants and Hegels should, in other respects, be only in a state of childish wonderment at the phenomena of nature. I humbly beg to differ from those who see in monotheism, in the recognition of a personal God apart from nature, the acme of intellect- ual development. I believe that is only a kind of anthropomorphism which the human mind stumbles upon in its first efforts to understand the unknown. The ultimate satisfaction of human reason and emotion lies in the realization of that universal essence which is the all. And I hold an irrefragable evidence that this idea is present in the Veda, the • numerous gods their invocations notwithstanding. This idea of the formless all, the Sat—/, e., esse-being — called Atman and Brahman in the Upanishads, and further explained in the Darsanas, is the central idea of the Veda, nay, the root idea of the Hindu religion in general. There are several reasons for the opposite error of finding nothing more than the worship of many gods in the Vedas. In the first place, western scholars are not quite clear as to the meaning of the word Veda. Native commentators have always insisted that the word Veda . Understami- does not mean the Samhita only, but the Brahmanas and the Upani- vtHia. '"" '^" shads as well; whereas, oriental scholars have persisted in understand- ing the word in the first sense alone. The Samhita is no doubt a col- lection of hymns to different powers and, taken by itself, it is most likely to produce the impression that monotheism was not understood at the time. Apart, however, from clear cases to the contrary observ- able by any one who can read between the lines, even in the Samhita, a consideration of that portion along with the other two parts of the Veda will clearly show the untenableness of the Orientalist position. The second source of error, if I may be allowed the libert\' to refer to it, is the religious bias already touched ui)on at the outset. If. then, we grasp the central idea of the Vedas we shall understand the real meaning of Hinduism as such. The other conditions of the word will unfold themselves, by and by, as we proceed. We need not go into any further analysis of the Veda, and may come at once to the second phase of religious thought, Peritnl, 850 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. the Sutras and Smritis, based on the ritualistic portion of \'edic litera- ture. 2. Sutra means an aphorism. In this period wc have aphoristic works bearing upon ritual, philosophy, morals, grammar and other subjects. Though this period is distinct from the Vedic and subse- quent periods, it is entirely unsafe to assume that this or any other period occurred historically in the order of succession adopted for the TheSutra purpose of this essay. Between tiie Veda and Sutra lie the Brah- manas, with the Upanishads and Aryanakas and the Smritis. The books called Brahmanas and Upanishads form part of the Veda, as explained before; the former explaining the ritualistic use and appli- cation of Vedic hymns, the latter systematizing the unique philosophy contained in them. What the Brahmanas explained allegorically, and in the quaint phraseology of the Veda, the Smritis, which followed them, explained in plain, systematic, modern Sanskrit. As the Veda is called Siruti, or something handed down orally from teacher to pupil, these later works are called Smritis, something remembered and recorded after the Smritis. The Sutras deal with the Brahmanas and Smritis on the one hand, and with the Upanishads on the other. These latter we shall reserve for consideration in the next stag'e of religious development, but it should never be supposed that the cen- tral idea of the All as set forth in the Upanishads had at this period, or indeed at any period, ceased to govern the whole of the religious activity of India. The Sutras are divided principally into the Grhva, Sranta and Dharma Sutras. The first deals with the Smritis, the second with the Brahmanas, and the third with the law as administered by Smritis. The first set of Sutras deals with the institution of Varnas and Asramas and with the various rites and duties belonging to them. The second class of Sutras deals with the larger Vedic sacrifices, and those of the third deals with that special law subsequently known as Hindu law. It will be interesting to deal "en masse" with these sub- jects in this place — leaving the subject of law out of consideration. And first let us say a few words about caste. In Vedic times the whole Indian people is spoken of broadly as the Aryas and the Anar- yas. Arya means respectable and fit to be gone, from the root R "to go," and not an agriculturist, as the orientalist would have it, from a fanciful root ar, to till. The Aryas are divided into four sections called Varnas, men of white color, the others being Avarnas. These four sections comprise, respectively, priests, warriors, merchants and cultivators, artisans and menials, called Brahmanas, Ksatrivas and Sudras. These divisions, however, are not at all mutually exclusive in the taking of food or the giving in marriage of sons and daughters. Nay, men used to be promoted or degraded to superior or inferior Varnas according to individual deserts. In the Sutra period we find all this considerably altered. Manis speaks of promiscuous intercourse among Varnas and Avarnas leading to the creation of several jatis, sections known by the incident of birth, instead of by color as before. This is the beginning of that exclusive system of castes which has THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. '}')( proved the bane of India's welfare. Varna and Jati are foremost among many other important features which we find grafted on Hin- duism in this period. We find in works of this period that the life of every man is distributed into four periods — student life, family life, forest life and life of complete renunciation. This institution, too, has become a part of the meaning of the word Hinduism. The duties and relations of Varnas, Jatis and Asrarnas are clearly defined in the Sutras and Smritis, but with these we need not concern ourselves except in this general manner. I can, however, not pass over the well-known subject of the Samskaras, certain rites which under the Sutras every Piindu is bound to perform if he professes to be a Hindu. Those rites, twenty-five in all, may be divided into three groups — rites incum- bent, rites optional and rites incidental. The incumbent rites are such as every householder is bound to observe for securing immu- nity from sin. Every householder must rise early in the morning, wash himself, revise what he has learned and teach it to others without remuneration. In the next place he must worship the family gods and spend some time in silent communion with whatever power he adores. He should then satisfy his prototypes in heaven — the lunar Pitris — by offerings of water and seamen seeds. Then he should reconcile the powers of the air by suitable oblations, ending by inviting some stray comer to dinner with him. Before the householder has thus done his duty by his teachers, gods and Pitris and men, he cannot go about his business without incurring the deadliest guilt. The optional rites refer to certain ceremonies in connection with the dead, whose souls are supposed to rest with the lunar Pitris for about a thousand years or more before reincarnation. These are called sraddhas, ceremonies, whose essence is sraddha, faith. There are a few other ceremonies in connection with the commencement or suspension of studies, and these, together with the sraddhas, just re- ferred to, make up the four optional Samskaras, which the Smritis allow every one to perform according to his means. By far the most important are the sixteen incidental Samskaras. I shall, however, dismiss the first nine of these with simple enumera- tion. Four of the nine refer, respectively, to the time of first cohab- itation, conception, quickening and certain sacrifices, etc., performed with the last. The other five refer to rites performed at the birth of a child and subsequently at the time of giving it a name, of giving it food, of taking it out of doors, and at the time of shaving its head in some sacred place on an auspicious day. The tenth, with the four subsidiary rites connected with it, is the most important of all. It is called Upanavana, the " taking to the gurnu," but it may yet better be tsS.mskaraB! described as initiation. The four subsidiary rites make up the four pledges which the neophyte takes on initiati(Mi. This rite is performed on male children alone at the age of from five to eight in the case of Brah- manas, and a year or two later in the case of others, except .Sudras, who have nothing to do with any of the rites save marriage. The young boy is given a peculiarly prepared thread of cotton to wear con Incidental 352 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIC 10 XS. stantly on the body, passing it crossways over the left shoulder and under the right arm. It is a mark of initiation which consists in the imparting of the sacred secret of the family and the order to the boy, by his father and the family gurnu. The boy pledges himself to his teacher, under whose protection he henceforth begins to reside, to carr)- out faithfully the four vows he has taken, viz., study, observance of religion, complete celibacy and truthfulness. This period of pupilage ends after nine years at the shortest, and thirty-six )'ears at the longest period. The boy then re- turns home, after duly rewarding his teacher, and finds out some suita- ble girl for his wife. This return in itself makes up the fifteen Samskars. The last, but not the least, is the vivaha — matrimony. The sutras and smritis are most clear on the injunctions about the health, learning, competency, family connections, beauty, and above all, personal liking of principal parties to a marriage. Marriages between -children of the same blood or family are prohibited. As to age, the books are very clear in orc"'ain- ing that there must be a distance of at least ten years between the respectiv'e ages of wife and husband, and that the girl may be married at any age before attaining puberty, preferably at ten or eleven, though she may be affianced at about eight or nine. Be it remembered that mar- riage and consummation of marriage are two different things in India, as a consideration of this Samskara, in connection with the first of the nine enumerated at the beginning of this group, will amply show, several kinds of marriage are enumerated, and among the eight gener- ally given we find marriage by courting as well. The Marriase The marriage ceremony is performed in the presence of priests Oremony. ;in[i gods represented by fire on the altar, and the tie of love is sanc- tified by Vedic mantras, repetition of which forms indeed an indispen- sable part of every rite and ceremony. The pair exchanges vows of fidelity and indissoluble love and bind themselves never to separate even after death. The wife is supposed henceforth to be as much dependent on her husband as he on her, for as the wife has to com- plete the fulfillment of love as her principal duty, the husband has, in return, the entire maintenance of the wife, temporally and spiritualh', as his principal duty. When the love thus fostered has sufticientl)' educated the man into entire forgetfulness of self, he may retire, either alone or with his wife, into some secluded forest and prepare himself for the last period of life, complete renunciation, i. e., renunciation of all individual attachment, of personal likes and dislikes, and realiza- tion of the All in the eternal self-sacrifice of universal love. It goes without saying that widow remarriage as such is unknown in this system of life, and the liberty of woman is more a sentiment than something practically wanting in this careful arrangement. Woman as woman has her place in nature quite as much as man as man, and if there is nothing to hamper the one or the other in the dis- charge of his or her functions as marked out by nature, liberty beyond this limit means shadows, di.sorder and irresponsible license. And THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 358 indeed nature never meant her living embodiment of lone woman to be degraded to a footing of equality with her partner, to fight the hard struggle for existence, or to allow love's pure stream to be defiled by- being led into channels other than those marked out for it. This is in substance the spirit of the ancient Sastras when they limit the sphere " of woman's action to the house, and the flow of her heart to one and one channel alone. 3. We arrive thus in natural succession to the third period of Aryan religion, the Darsanas, which enlarge upon the central idea of Atman, or Brahma, enunciated in the Veda and developed in the Upanishads. It is interesting to allude to the Charvakas, the material- ists of Indian philosophy, and to the Jainas and the Buddhas, who, though opposed to the Charvakas, are anti-Brahmanical, in that they do not recognize the authority of the Veda and preach an independ- ent gospel of love and mercy. These schisms, however, had an in- different effect in imparting fresh activity to the rationalistic spirit of the Aryan sages, lying dormant under the growing incumbrances of the ritualism of the .Sutras. The central idea of the All as we found it in the Veda is further developed in the Upanishads, In the Sutra period several sutra works were composed setting forth in a systematic manner the main teach- ing of the Upanishads. Several works came to be written in imitation schools oi of these subjects closely connected with the main issues of philosophy Philosophy, and metaphysics. This spirit of philosophic activity gave rise to the six well known Darsanas, or schools of philosophy. Here again it is necessary to enter the caution that the Darsanas do not historically belong to this period, for, notwithstanding this, their place in the general development of thought and the teachings they embody are as old as the Veda, or even older. The six Darsanas are Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Sankhya, Xoga, Mimansaand Vedanta, more conveniently grouped as the two Nyayas, the two Sankhyas and the two Mimansas Each of these must require at least a volume to itself, and all I can do in this place is to give the merest outline of the conclusions maintained in each. Each of the Darsanas has that triple aspect which we found at the outset in the meaning of the word religion, and it will be convenient to state the several conclusions in that order. The Nyaya then is exclusively con- cerned with the nature of knowledge and the instruments of knowl- edge, and while discussing these it sets forth a system of logic not yet surpassed by any existing system in the west. The Vaiseshika is a complement of the Nyaya, and while the latter discusses the meta- physical aspect of the universe, the former works out the atomic theory and resolves the whole of the namable world into seven categories. So, then, physically, the two Nyayas advocate the atomic theory of the universe. Ontologically they believe that these atoms move in accordance with the will of an extra-cosmic personal creature called Isvara. Every being has a soul called liva, whose attributes are de- 23 ^ of Souls. 354 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. sire, intelligence, pleasure, pain, merit, demerit, etc. Knowledge arises from the union of Jiva and mind, the atomic manas. The high- est happiness lies in Jiva's becoming permanently free from its attri- bute of misery. This freedom can be obtained by the grace of Isvvara, pleased with the complete devotion of the Jiva. The Veda and the Upanishad are recognized as authority, in so far as they are the word of this Iswara. The Sankhyas differed entirely from the Naiyayikas in that they repudiated the idea of a personal creator of the universe. They ar- gued that if the atoms were in themselves sufficiently capable of form- ing themselves into the universe, the idea of a God was quite super- fluous. And as to intelligence the Sankhyas maintained that it is inher- ent in nature. These philosophers, therefore, hold that the whole ^Multiplicity universe is evolved by slow degrees, in a natural manner, from one primordial matter called mulaprakriti, and that purusa, the principlp of intelligence, is always co-ordinate with, though ever apart from, mulaprakriti. Like the Naiyayikas, they believe in the multiplicity of purusas — souls; but unlike them they deny the necessity, as well as the existence, of an extra-cosmic God. Whence, they have earned for themselves the name of atheistic Sankhyas. They resort to the Vedas and Upanishads for support so far as jt may serve their purpose, and otherwise accept in general the logic of the ten Naiyayikas. The Sankhyas place the summum bonum in "life according to nature." They endow primordial matter with three attributes — pas- sivity, restlessness and crossness. Prakriti continues in endless evolu- tion under the influence of the second of these attributes, and the purusa falsely takes the action on himself and feels happy or miserable. When a purusa has his prakriti brought to the state of passivity by analytical knowledge (which is the meaning of tRc word sankhya), he ceases to feel himself happy or miserable and remains in native peace. This is the sense in which those philosophers understand the phrase "life according to nature." The other Sankhya, more popularly known as the Yogo-Darsana, accepts the whole of the cosmology of the first Sankhya, but only adds to it a hypothetical Isvara and largely expands the ethical side of the teaching by setting forth several physical and psychological rules and exercises capable of leading to the last state of happiness called Kanivalya— life according to nature. This is theistic Sankhya. The two Mimansas next call our attention. These are the ortho- dox Darsanas par excellence, and as such are in direct touch with the Veda and the Upanishads, which continue to govern them from beginning to end. Mimansa means inquiry, and the first preliminary is called Purva-Mimansa, the second Uttara-Mimansa. The object of the first is to determine the exact meaning and value of the injunctions and prohibitions given out in the Veda, and that of the second is to explain the esoteric teachings of the Upanishads. The former, there- fore, does not trouble itself about the nature of the universe or about the ideas of God and soul. It tells only of Dharma, religious merit, THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 855 which, according to its teaching, arises in the next world from strict observance of Vedic duties. This Mimansa, fitly called the purva, a preliminary Mimansa, we may thus pass over without any further remark. The most important Darsana of all is by far the Utara, or final Mimansa, popularly known as the Vedanta, the philosophy taught in the Upanishads as the end of the Veda. The Vedanta emphasizes the idea of the Ail, the universal Atman or Brahman, set forth in the Upamshads, and maintains the unity not only of the Cosmos but of all intelligence in general. The All is self- illumined, all thought (gnosis), the very being of the universe. Being implies thought, and the AH may in Venuanta phraseology be aptly described as the essence of thought and being. The Vedanta is a system of absolute idealism in which subject and object are rolled into one unique consciousness, the realization whereof is the end and aim of existence, the highest bliss — Moksa. This state of Moksa is not anything to be accomplished or brought about — it is in fact the very being of all existence; but experience stands in the way of com- plete realization by creating imaginary distinctions of subject and object. This system, besides being the orthodox Darsana, is philo- sophically an improvement upon all previous speculations. The Nyaya is superseded by the Sankya, whose distinction of matter and intelligence is done av/ay with in this philosophy of abso- lute idealism, which has endowed the phrase "life according to nature" with an entirely new and more rational meaning. For, in its ethics, this system teaches not only the brotherhood, but the Atma-hood Ab- heda, oneness, of not only man but of all beings, of the whole uni- verse. The light of the other Darsanas pales before the blaze of unity and love lighted at the altar of the Veda by this sublime philosophy, the shelter of minds like Plato, Pythagoras, Bruno, Spinoza, Hagel, Schopenhauer in the west, and Krisna, Vyasa, Sankara and others in the east. We cannot but sum up at this point. Hinduism adds one more attribute to its connotation in this period, viz., that of being a believer in the truths of one or other of these Uarsanas, or of one or other of the three anti-Brahmanical schisms. And with this we must take leave of the great Darsana sages and come to the period of the Puranas. 4. The subtleties of the Darsanas were certainly too hard for ordinary minds, and some popular exposition of the basic ide^s of philosophy and religion was indeed very urgently required. And this period of the necessity began to be felt the more keenly as .Sanskrit began to die Puraimn. out as a speaking language and the people to decline in intelligence, in consequence of frequent inroads from abroad. No idea more happy could have been conceived at this stage than that of devising certain tales and fables calculated at once to catch the imagination and enlist the faith of even the most ignorant, and at the same time to suggest to the initiated a clear outline of the secret doctrine of old. It is exactly because Orientalists don't understand this double aspect of Pauranika 356 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. myths that they amuse themselves with*- philogical quibbles and talk of the rcligiDn of the Puranas as something entirely puerile and not deserving tiie name of religion. We ought, however, to bear in mind that the Puranas are closely connected with the Vedas, the Sutras and the Darsanas, and all they claim to accomplish is a popular exposition of the basic ideas of philosophy, religion and morality set forth in them. In other words, the Puranas arc nothing more nor less than broad, clear commentaries on the ancient teaching of the Vedas. I''or exam- ple, it is not because Vyasa, the author of the Puranas, forgot that Vishnu was the name of the sun in the Veda that he talked of a sepa- rate god of that name in the Puranas, endowing him with all mortal attributes. This is how the orientalist method of interpretation would dispose of the question. The Hindus have better confidence in the insight of Vyasa, and could at once see that inasmuch as he knew per- fectly well what part the sun plays in the evolution, maintenance and dissolution of the world, he represented him symbolically as God Vishnu, the all-pervading, with Laksmi, a personification of the life and prosperity which emanate from the sun for his consort, with the anauta — popularly the snake of that name, but esoterically the endless circle of eternity — for his couch, and with the eagle representing the many antaric cycle for his vehicle. There is in this one symbol suffi- cient material for the ignorant to build their faith upon and nourish the religious sentiment, and for the initiate to see in it the true secret of Vedic religion. And this nature of the Puranas is an indirect proof that the Vedas are not mere poetical effusions of primitive man nor a conglomeration of solar myths disguised in different shapes. The cycles just referred to put me in mind of another aspect of Theorvofc- i^^rauika mythology. The theory of cycles known as Kalpas, Man- cie«. vantaras and Yugas is clearly set forth in the Puranas and appears to make exorbitant demands upon our credulity. The Kalpa of the Puranas is a cycle of 4,320,000,000 years and the world continues in activity for one Kalpa, after which it goes into dissolution and remains in that condition for another Kalpa, to be followed by a fresh period of activity, l^ach Kalpa has fourteen well-marked subcycles called Manvantaras, each of which is again made up of four periods called Yugas. The name Manvantara means time between the Manus, and Manu means "with one mind," that is to sa}', humanity, the whole sug- gesting that a Manvantara is the period between one humanity and another on this globe. Whence it will also be clear why the present Manvantara is called Vaivasvata, "belonging to the sun," for, as is well established, on that luminary depends the life and being of man on this earth. This theory of cycles and subcycles is amply corroborated by modern geological and astronomical researches, and considerable light may be thrown on the evolution of man if with reason as our guide we study the aspect of the Puranas. The theory of Simian descent is con- fronted in the Puranas with a theory more in accord with reason and THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, 357 experience. But I have no time to go into the details of each and every f uranika myth. I can only assure you, gentlemen, that all that is taught in the Puranas is capable of being explained consistently in accord with the main body of ancient theosophy expounded in the Vedas, the Sutras and the Darsanas. We must only free ourselves from what Herbert Spencer calls the religious bias and learn to look facts honestly in the face. I must say a word here about idol worship, for it is exactly in or after the Pauranika period that idols came to be used in India. It may be said without the least fear of contradiction that no Indian idolater idoiWorshij as such believes the piece of stone, metal or wood before his eyes to be his God in any sense of the word. He takes it only as a symbol of the all-pervading and uses it as a convenient object for purposes of concentration, which, being accomplished, he does not hesitate to throw it away. The religion of the Tantras, which plays an important part in this period, has considerable influence on this question, and the symbology they taught as tyjjical of several important processes of evolution has been made the basic idea in the formation of idols. Idols, too, have, therefore, a double purpose — that of perpetuating a teaching as old as the world and that of serving as convenient aids to concentration. These interpretations of Puranika myths find ample corroboration in the myths that arc met with in all ancient religions of the world; and these explanations of idol worship have an exact parallel applica- tion to the worship of the Tau in P2gypt, of the cross in Christendom, of fire in Zoroastrianism, and of the Kaba in Mohammedanism. With these necessarily brief explanations we may try to see what influence the Puranas have had on Hinduism in general. It is true the Puranas have added no new connotation to the name, but the one very important lesson they have taught the Hindu is the principle of uni- versal toleration. The Puranas have distinctly taught the unity of the All, and satisfactorily demonstrated that every creed and worship is but one of the many ways to the realization of the All. A Hindu would not condemn any man for his religion, for he has well laid to heart the celebrated couplet of the Bhagavate: "Worship, in whatever form, rendered to whatever God, reaches the Supreme, as rivers, rising from whatever source, all flow into the ocean." 5. And thus, gentlemen, we come to the fifth period, the Sam- pradayas. The word sampradaya means tradition, the teaching handed down from teacher to pupil. The whole Hindu religion considered from the beginning to the present time is one vast field of thought, capable of nourishing every intellectual plant of whatever degree of vigor and luxuriance. The one old teaching was the idea of the All, usually known as the Advaita or the Vedanta. In the ethical aspect of this philosophy stress has been laid on knowledge (gnosis ) and free action. Under the debasing influence of a foreign yoke these sober paths of knowledge and action had to make room for devotion and grace. On devotion and grace rest their principal ethical tenets. TlipSamprad- ayas Period. 358 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Three important schools of philosophy arose in the period after the Puranas. Besides the ancient Advaita we have the Dvaita, the Visud- dhadvaita and the Visishthadvaita schools of i)hilosophy in this period. The first is purely dualistic postiilation, the separate yet co- ordinate existence of mind and matter. The second and third profess to be Unitarian, but in a considerably modified sense of the word. The V'isuddhadvaita teaches the unity of the cosmos, but it insists on the All having certain attributes which endow it with the desire to manifest itself as the cosmos. The third system is purely dualistic, though it goes by the name of modified Unitarianism. It maintains the unity of chit (soul), achet (matter) and Isvara (God), each in its own sphere, the third number of this trinity governing all and pervad- ing the whole, though not apart from the cosmos. Thus widely differ- ing in their philosophy from the Advaita, these three Sampradayas teach a .system of ethics entirely opposed to the one taught in that ancient school called Dharma in the Advaita. They displaced Jnana by Bhakti, and Karma by Prasada; that is to say, in other words, they placed the highest happiness in obtaining the grace of God by entire devotion, physical, mental, moral and spiritual. The teachers of each of these Sampradayas are known as Acharyas, like .Sankara, the first great Acharya of the ancient Advaita. The Acharyas of the new Sampradayas belong all to the eleventh and twelfth centuries of the Christian era. PvVery Acharya develops his school of thought from the Upani- shads, the Vcdanta Sutras, and from that sub-sublime poem, "The lihagvadgita," the crest jewel of the Maha Bharata. The new Achar- yas, following the example of Sankara, have commented upon these works. And have thus applied each his own system to the Veda. In the .Sampradayas we see the last of the pure Hinduism, for the sacred Devanagari ceases henceforth to be the medium even of relig- ious thought. The four principal Sampradayas have found numerous imitators, and we have the Saktas, the Saivas, the Pasupatas and many others, all deriving their teaching from the Vedas, the Darsanas, the Puranas and the Tantras But beyond this we find quite a lot of teachers: Ramananda, Kabira, Dadu, Nanaka, Chaitanya, Sahajananda and many others holding influence over small tracts over all India. None of these have a claim to the title of Acharya or the founders of a new school of thought, for all that these noble souls did was to exj)lain one or another of the Sampradayas in the current vernacular of the people. The teachings of these men are called Panthas — mere ways to religion as opposed to the traditional teachings of the Samp- rada}as. The bearing of these .Sampradayas and Panthas, the fifth edition, as it were, of the ancient faith on Hinduism in general, is not worthy of note except in the particular that henceforth every Hindu must belong to one of the Sampradayas or Panthas. 6. This brings us face to face with the India of today and Hin- duism as it stands at present. It is necessary at the outset to under- THE WORLD'S COA'GRESS OF RELIGIONS. 359 stand the principal forces at work in bringing about the change we are goin<:j to describe. In tlie ordinary course of events one would naturally expect to stop at the religion of the Sampradayas and Panthas. The advent of the English followed by the educational policy they have maintained for half a century has, however, worked several important changes in the midst of the people, not the least important of which are those which affect religion. Before the establishment of British rule and the peace and security that followed in its train, peo- ple had forgotten the ancient religion and Hinduism had dwindled down into a mass of irrational superstition reared on ill understood Pauranika myths. The spread of education set people to thinking and a spirit of "reformation" swayed the minds of all active-minded men. The chance work was, however, no reformation at all Under the auspices of materialistic science, and education guided by materialistic principles, the mass of superstition then known as Hinduism was scattered to the winds, and atheism and skepticism ruled supreme. But this state of things was not destined to endure in religious India. The revival of Sanskrit learning brought to light the immortal treasures of things buried in the Vedas, Upanishads, Sutras, Darsanas and Puranas, and the true work of reformation commenced with the revival of Sanskrit. Several pledged their allegiance to their time-honored philosophy. But there remained many bright intellects given over to material- istic thought and civilization. These could not help thinking that the religion of those whose civilization they admired must be the only true religion. Thus they began to read their own notions in texts of the Upanishads and the Vedas. They set up an extra-cosmic yet all- pervading and formless creature, whose grace every soul desirous of liberation must attract by complete devotion. This sounds like the teaching of the VisishthadvaitaSampradaya, but it may safely be said that the idea of an extra-cosmic personal creation without form is an un-Hindu idea. And so also is the belief of these innovators in regard to their negation of the principle of reincarnation. The body of this teaching goes by the name of the Brahmo-Somaj, which has drawn itself still further away from Hinduism by renouncing the institutions of Varnas and the established law of marriage, etc. The society which next calls our attention is the Arya-Samaja of Swami Dayananda. This society subscribes to the teaching of the Nyaya-Darsana and professes to revive the religion of the Sutras in all social rites and observances. This Somaj claims to have found out the true religion of the Aryas, and it is of course within the pale of Hinduism, though the merit of their claim yet remains to be seen. The third influence at work is that of the Theosophical society. TheTheophi- T" 11 1 1** ■ !• 1 TT '11 fTl* :nl S*r»/»iotw It IS pledged to a religion contauied in the upanishads or India, in the book of the Dead of Egypt, in the teachings of Confucius and Lao Tse in China, and of Buddha and Zoroaster in Thibet and Persia, in the Kabala of the Jews and in the Sufism of the Mohammedans; and nl Society. 300 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Hindninm Bammed UP' PrincipleHfor Consideration. it appears to be full of principles contained in the Advaita and Yoga philosophies. It cannot be gainsaid that this society has created much interest in religious studies all over India and has set earnest students to studying their ancient books with better lights and fresher spirits than before. Time alone can test the outcome of this or any other movement. The term Hinduism, then, has nothing to add to its meaning from this period of the Samajas. The Brahmo-Somaj widely differs from Hinduism and the Aryasamaja, or Theosophical society does not profess anything new. To sum up, then, Hinduism may in general be understood to connote the following principal attributes: (i) Belief in the exist- ence of a spiritual principle in nature and in the principle of reincar- nation. (2) Observance of a complete tolerance and of the Sams- karas, being in one of the Varnas and Asramas, and being bound by the Hindu law. This is the general meaning of the term, but in its particular bearing it implies: (3) Belonging to one of the Darsanas, Sampradayas or Panthas, or to one of the anti-lSrahmanical schisms. Having ascertained the general and particular scope and meaning of Hinduism, I would ask you, gentlemen of this august parliament, whether there is not in Hinduism material sufficient to allow of its being brought in contact with the other great religions of the world by subsuming them all under one common genus? In other words, is it not possible to enunciate a few principles of universal religion which every man who professes to be religious must accept, apart from his being a Hindu or a Buddhist, a Mohammedan or a Parsee, a Christian or a Jew? If religion is not wholly that something which satisfies the crav- ings of the emotional nature of man, but is that rational demonstration of the cosmos, which shows at once the why and wherefore of exist- ence, provides the eternal and all-embracing foundation of natural ethics and by showing to humanity the highest ideal of happiness realizable, excites and shows the means of satisfying the emotional part of man; if, I say, religion is all this, all questions of particular religious professions and their comparative value must resolve them- selves into simple problems workable with the help of unprejudiced reason and intelligence. In other words, religion, instead of being a mere matter of faith, might well become the solid province of reason, and a science of religion may not be so much a dream as is imagined by persons pledged to certain conclusions. Holding, therefore, these views on the nature of religion, and having at heart the great benefit of a common basis of religion for all men, I would submit the follow- ing simple principles for your consideration: iMrst. Belief in the existence of an ultramaterial principle in nature and in the unity of the All. Second. Belief in reincarnation and salvation by action. These two principles of a possible universal religion might stand or fall on their merits apart from the consideration of any philosophy or revelation that upholds them. I have every confidence no philos- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 361 ophy would reject them, no science would gainsay them, no system of ethics would deny them, no religion which professes to be philosophic, scientific and ethical ought to shrink back from them. In them I see -the salvation of man and the possibility of that universal love, which the world is so much in need of at the present moment. 24 a O >, u .** 'u 3 m i f« w 3 a c« ii 3 C K to l« JQ O ho Q Xhe Qontact of Qhristian and H'^du Xhought; Points of Likeness and of Qontrast. Paper by REV. R. A. HUME, of New Haven, Conn. HEN Christian and Hindu thought first came into contact in India neither un- derstood the other. This was for two reasons, one outward, the other in- ward. The outward reason was this. The Christirn saw Hinduism at its worst. Polytheism, idolatry, a mythol- ogy explained by the Hindus them- selves as teaching puerilities and sen- sualities in its many deities, caste ram- pant, ignorance widespread and pro- found; these arc what the Christian first saw and supposed to be all of Hinduism. Naturally he saw little except evil in it. The outward reason why the Hin- du, at first contact with Christianity, failed tounderstand it wasthis: Speak- ing generally, every child of Hindu parents is of course a Hindu in religion, whatever his inmost thoughts or conduct. The Hindu had never conceived of such an anomaly as an un-Hindu child of Hindu parents. Much less had they conceived of an unchristian man from a country where Christianity was the religion. Seeing the early comers from the West killing the cow, eating beef, drinking wine, sometimes impure, sometimes bullying the wild Indian, the Hindu easily supposed that these men, from a country v/here Christianity was the religion, were Christians. In consequence they despised what they sui)posed was the Christian religion. They did not know that in truth it was the lack 363 364 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. of Christianity which they were despising. Even in truly Christian men they saw things which seemed to them unlovely. Moreover, Christianity was to the Hindu the religion of the conquerors of his country. For this outward reason at the first con- tact of Christianity and Hindu thought neither understood the other. But there was an additional, an inward reason, why neither under- stood the other. It was the very diverse natures of the Hindu and the western mind. The Hindu mind is supremely introspective. It is an ever active mind which has thought about most things in "the three worlds," heaven, earth and the nether world. But it has seen them through the eye turned inwardly. The faculties of imagination and of abstract thought, the faculties which depend least on external tests of validity, are the strongest of the mental powers of the Hindu. The Hindu mind has well been likened to the game of chess, The Hinda where there is the combination of an active mind and a passive body. Mind. A man may be strong at chess while not strong in meeting the prob- lems of life. The Hindu mind cares little for facts, except inward ideal ones. When other facts conflict with such conceptions the Hindu disposes of them by calling them illusions. A second characteristic of the Hindu mind is its intense longing for comprehensiveness. " Ekam eva advitiya," /. e., " There is but one and no second," is the most cardinal doctrine of philosophical Hindu- ism. So controlling is the Hindu's longing for unity that he places contradictory things side by side and serenely calls them alike or the same. To it, spirit and matter are essentially the same. In short, it satisfies its craving for unity by syncretism, i. e., by attempts to unify irreconcilable matters. In marked contrast the western mind is practical and logical. First and foremost it cares for external and historical facts. It needs to cultivate the imagination. It naturally dwells on individuality and differences which it knows. It has to work for comprehension and unity. Above all, it recognizes that it should act as it thinks and believes. This extreme unlikeness between the Hindu and the western mind was the inward reason why, at the first contact of Christian and Hindu thought, neither understood the other. But in the providence of God, the Father of both Christian and Hindu, these two diverse minds came into contact. Let us briefly trace the result. Apart from the disgust at the unchristian conduct of some men from Christendom, when the Hindu thinker first looked at Christian thought he viewed with lofty contempt its pretensions and proposals. Similarly, in its first contact with Hinduism the western mind saw- only that which awakened contempt and pity. The Christian naturally supposed the popular Hinduism which he saw to be the whole of Hinduism, a system of many gods, of idols, of puerile and sometimes immoral mythologies, of mechanical and endless rites, of thorough- going caste, and often cruel caste. The Christian reported what he saw and many Christians felt pity. In accordance with the genius of the THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 365 western mind to act as it thinks, and under the inspiration of Christian motive, Christians began efforts to give Christian thought and life to India. Longer and fuller contact between Christian and Hindu thought has caused a modification of first impressions. Both Christian and Hindu thought recognize an infinite being with whom is bound up man's rational and spiritual life. Both magnify the indwelling of this infinite being in every part of the universe. Both teach that this great being is ever revealing itself ; that the universe is a unit, and that all things come under the universal laws of the infinite. To Christianity God is the Heavenly Father, always and infinitely good ; God is love. To philosophical Hinduism, man is an emanation from the infinite, which, in the present stage of existence, is the exact result of this emanation in previous stages of existence. His moral sense is an illusion, for he cannot sin. To popular Hinduism, man is partially what he is to philosophical Hinduism, determined by fate ; partially he is thought of as a created being more or less sinful, dependent on God for favor or disfavor. To Christianity, man is the child of his Heavenly Father, sinful and often erring, yet longed for and sought after by the Father. To Christianity, caste, which teaches that a pure and learned man of humble origin is lower than an ignorant, proud man of higher origin, and that the shadow of the former could defile the latter, and that eat- ing the same food together is a sin, is a disobedience to God. To popular Hinduism, caste is ordained of God, and is the chief thing in religion. Says Sir Monier Williams: "The distinction of caste and the inherent superiority of one class over the three others were thought to be as much a law of nature and a matter of divine appointment as the creation of separate classes of animals with insur- mountable differences of physical constitution, such as elephants, lions, horses and dogs." Pre-eminently does the contrast between Christian and Hindu thought appear in God's relation to sin and the sinner. According to philosophical Hinduism there is no sin or sinner, or Saviour. According to popular Hinduism sin is mainly a matter of fate. According to Christianity sin is the only evil in the universe. But it is so evil that God grieves over it, suffers to put it away, and will suffer till it is put away. The revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ was pre-eminently of this character and to this end. To philosophical Hinduism (mukti), salvation is passing from the ignorance and illusion of conscious existence through unconsciousness into the infinite. To popular Hinduism, salvation is getting out of trouble into some safe place through merit somehow acquired. To Christianity. saU'ation is present deliverance from sin and moral union with God. begun here and to go on forever [-^induism as a {Religion. Paper by SWAMI VIVEKANANDA, of India. HREE religions now stand in the world which have come down to us from time prehistoric — Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Indaism. These all have received tremendous shocks and all of them prove by their revival their internal strength, but Indaism failed to absorb Chris- tianity and was driven out of its place of birth by its all-conquering daughter. Sect after sect has arisen in India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very foundations; but, like the waters of the seashore in a tre- mendous earthquake, it has receded only for a while, only to return in an all-absorbing flood, and when the tumult of the rush was over these sects had been all sucked in, absorbed and assimilated in the immense body of another faith. From the high spiritual flights of philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, from the atheism of the Jains to the low ideas of idolatry and the multifarious mythologies, each and all have a place in the Hindu's religion. Where then, the question arises, where then the common center to which all these widely diverging radii converge? Where is the common basis upon which all these seemingly hopeless contradictions rest? And this is the question which I shall attempt to answer The Hindus have received their religion through the revelation of the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and with- out end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience — how a book can be without beginning or end. But b}' the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gra\'itation ex- isted before its discovery and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so with the laws that govern the spiritual world; the moral, ethical and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the father of all spirits were there before their discovery and would remain even if we forgot them. 366 S O CQ > a, at B u a Q E c« 2; THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 369 The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis and we honor them as perfected beings, and I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very best of them were women. without Be- Here it may be said, that the laws as laws may be without end, fnj"^'"^ '"" but they must have had a beginning. The Vedas teach us that crea- tion is without beginning or end. Science has proved to us that the sum total of the cosmic energy is the same throughout all time. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form in God. But then God is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which would make him mutable, and everything mutable is a compound, and everything com- pound must undergo that change which is called destruction. There- fore God would die. Therefore there never was a time when there was no creation. Here I stand, and if I shut my eyes and try to conceive my existence, " I," " I," " I," what is the idea before me? The idea of a body. Am I, then, nothing but a combination of matter and material substances? The Vedas declare, " No." I am a spirit living in a body. I am not the body. The body will die, but I will not die. Here am I in this body, and when it will fail, still I will go on living. Also I had a past. The soul was not created from nothing, for creation means a combination, and that means a certain future dissolution. If, then, the soul was created, it must die. Therefore, it was not created. Some are born happy, enjoying perfect health, beautiful body, mental vigor, and with all wants supplied. Others are born miserable. Some are without hands or feet, some idiots, and only drag out a miserable existence. Why, if they are all created, why does a just and merciful God create one happy and the other unhappy? Why is He so partial? Nor would it mend matters in the least to hold that those who are mis- erable in this life will be perfect in a future life. Why should a man be miserable here in the reign of a just and merciful God? In the second place, it does not give us any cause, but simply a cruel act of an all-powerful being, and therefore it is unscientific. There must have been causes, then, to make a man miserable or happy before his birth, and those were his past actions. Why may not all the tendencies of the mind and body be answered for by inherited aptitude from parents? Here are the two parallel lines of existence- one that of the mind, the other that of matter. If matter and its transformation answer for all that we have, there is no necessity of supposing the existence of a soul. But it cannot be proved that thought has been evolved out of matter. We cannot deny that bodies inherit certain tendencies, but those tendencies only mean the physical configuration through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way. Those peculiar tendencies in that soul have been caused by past actions. A soul with a certain tendency will take birth in a body which is the fittest instrument of the display of that tendency, by the laws of affinity. And this is in perfect accord with science, for science wants to explain everything by habit, and habit is Mind and Matter. 370 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, got through repetitions. So these repetitions are also necessary to explain the natural habits of a new-born soul. They were not got in Tho Ocean of this present life; therefore, they must have comtj down from past lives. Memory. guj- there is another suggestion, taking all these for granted. How is it that I do not remember anything of my past life? This can be easily explained. I am now speaking English. It is not my mother tongue; in fact, not a word of my mother tongue is present in my con- sciousness; but, let me try to bring such words up, they rush into my consciousness. That shows that consciousness is the name only of the surface of the mental ocean, and within its depths are stored up all our experiences. Try and struggle and they will come up and you will be conscious. This is the direct and demonstrative evidence. Verification is the perfect proof of a theory, and here is the challenge thrown to the world by Rishis. We have discovered precepts by which the very depths of the ocean of memory can be stirred up; follow them and you will get a complete reminiscence of your past life. So then the Hindu believes that he is a spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce, him the fire cannot burn, him the water cannot melt, him the air cannot dry.. He believes every soul is a circle whose cir- cumference is nowhere, but whose center is located in a body, and death means the change of this center from Ijody to body. Nor is the soul bound by the condition oi matter. In its very essence it is free, unbound, holy and pure and perfect. But somehow or other it has got itself bound down by matter, and thinks of itself as matter. Why should the free, perfect and pure being be under the thral- dom of matter? How can the perfect be deluded into the belief that Thraldom of ^^^ '^ imperfect? We have been told that the Hindus shirk the ques- Matter. tiou and say that no such question can be there, and some thinkers want to answer it by the sup{)osing of one or more quasi perfect beings, and use big scientific names to fill up the gap. But naming is not explaining. The question remains the same. How can the perfect become the quasi perfect; how can the pure, the absolute, change even a microscopic particle of its nature? The Hindu is sincere. He does not want to take shelter under sophistr)'. He is brave enough to face the question in a manly fashion. And his answer is, "I do not know." I do not know how the perfect being, the soul, came to think of itself as imperfect, as joined and conditioned by matter. But the fact is a fact for all that. It is a fact in everybod\''s consciousness that he thinks of himself as the body. We will not attempt to explain why I am in this botly. Well, then, the human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and The Human infinite, and death means only a change of center from one body to another. The present is determined by our past actions, and the future will be by the present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and death to death like a tiny boat in a tem- pest, raised one moment on the foaming crest of a billow and dashed down into a yawning chasm the next, rolling to and fro at the mercy THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 371 of good and bad actions — a powerless, helpless wreck in an ever raging, ever rushing, uncompromising current of cause and effect. A little moth placed under the wheel of causation which rolls on, crushing everything in its way and waits not for the widow's tears or the orphan's cry. The heart sinks at the idea, yet this is the law of nature. Is there no hope? Is there no escape? The cry that went up from the bottom of the heart of despair reached the throne of mercy, and words of hope and consolation came down and inspired a Vedic sage and he stood up The Law of before the world and in trumpet voice proclaimed the glad tidings to Nature. the world, "Hear, ye children of immortal bliss, even ye that resisted in higher spheres. I have found the ancient one, who is beyond all darkness, all delusion, and knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death again." "Children of immortal bliss," what a sweet, what a hopeful name. Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name, heirs of immortal bliss; yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the children of God. The sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth, sinners? It is a sin to call a man so. It is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, live and shake off the delusion that you are sheep — you are souls immortal, spirits free and blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies. Matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter. Thus it is the Vedas proclaim, not a dreadful combination of unfor- giving laws, not an endless prison of cause and effect, but that, at the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of matter and force, stands One "through whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain, and death stalks upon the earth." And what is His nature? He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All-merciful. "Thou art our Father, Thou art our Mother, Thou art our beloved Friend, Thou art the source of all strength. Thou art He that bearest the burdens of the universe; help me to bear the little burden of this life." Thus sang the Rishis of the Veda. And ho v to worship Him? Through love. "He is to be worshiped as the One beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life." This is the doctrine of love preached in the Vedas, and let us see how it is fully developed and preached by Krishna, whom the Hindus believe to have been God incarnate on earth. He taught that a man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water, but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in this world, his heart for God and his hands for work. It is good to love God for hope of reward in this or the next world, but it is better to love God for love's sake, and the prayer goes, "Lord, I do not want wealth, nor children, nor learning. If it be Thy will I will go to a hundred hells, but grant me this, that I may love Thee without the hope of reward — unselfishly love for love's sake.", (^nc of the disciples of Krishna, the then emperor of India, was driven from his throne by his enemies and had to take shelter in a forest in the Mercy vi72 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Himalayas with his queen, and there one day the queen was asking him how it was that he, the most virtuous of men, should suffer so much miser}', and Vuchistera answered, "Behold, my queen, the Himalayas, how grand and beautiful they are! I love them. They do not give ipe anything, but my nature is to love the grand, the beautiful; there- fore, I love them. Similarly, I love the Lord. He is the source of all beauty, of all sublimity. He is the only object to be loved. My nature is to love Him, and therefore I love. I do not pray for any- thing. I do not ask for anything. Let Him place me wherever He likes. I must love Him for love's sake. I cannot trade in love." The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held under bondage of matter, and perfection will be reached when the bond shall burst, and the word they use is, therefore, Mukto— freedom — freedom from the bonds of imperfection; freedom from death and misery. And they teach that this bondage can only fall off through the Pnritydip. nicrcy of God, and this mercy comes to the pure. So purity is the ComUtion of condition of His mercy. How that mercy acts! He reveals Himself '"^" to the pure heart, and the pure and stainless man sees God; yea, even in this life, and then, and then only. All the crookedness of the heart is made straight. Then all doubt ceases. Man is no more the freak of a terrible law of causation. So this is the very center, the very vital conception of Hinduism. The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories; if there are existences beyond the ordinary sen- sual existence, he wants to come face to face with them. If there is a soul in him which is not matter, if there is an all-merciful universal soul, he will go to Him direct. He must see Him, and that alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu sage gives about the soul, about God, is, "I have seen the soul, I have seen God." And that is the only condition of perfection. The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing; not in believing, but in being and becoming. So the whole struggle in their system is a constant struggle to be- come perfect, to become divine, to reach God and see God, and in this reaching God, seeing God, becoming perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect, consists the religion of the Hindus. And what becomes of man when he becomes perfect? He lives a life of bliss, infinite. He enjoys infinite and perfect bliss, having ob- tained the only thing in which man ought to have pleasure — God — and enjoys the bliss with (iod. So far all the Hindus are agreed. This is the common religion of all the sects of India, but then the question comes— perfection is absolute, and the absolute cannot be two or three. It cannot have any qualities. It cannot be an individual. And so when a soul be- comes perfect and absolute, it must become one with the Hrahman. and he would onl\- realize the Lord as the perfection, the reality of his own nature and existence existence absolute; knowledge absolute, and life absolute. We have often and often read about this being called the losing of individuality as in becoming a stock or a stone. "He jests at scars that never felt a wound." THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIC TONS 373 I tell you it is nothing of the kind. If it is happiness to enjoy the consciousness of this small body, it must be more happiness to en- joy the consciousness of two bodies, or. three, four, five; and the ulti- -mate of happiness would be reached when it would become a univer sal consciousness. Therefore, to gain this infinite, universal individuality, this miser- able little individuality must go. Then alone can death cease, when I am one with life. Then alone can misery cease, when I am with hap- piness itself. Then alone can all errors cease, when I am one with knowledge itself. And this is the necessary scientific conclusion. Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little, continuously changing body in an un- broken ocean of matter, and the Adwaitam is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, mind Science is nothing but the finding of unity, and as soon as any science can reach the perfect unity it w'ill stop from further progress, because it will then have reached the goal. Thus, chemistry cannot progress further, when it shall have discovered one element out of which all others could be made. Physics will stoj) when it shall be able to discover one energy of which all others are but manifestations. The science of religion will become perfect when it discovers Him who is the one life in a universe of death, who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world, who is the only soul of which all souls are but manifestations. Thus, through multiplicity and duality the ulti- mate unity is reached, and religion can go no further. This is the goal of all — again and again, science after science, again and again. And all science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run Manifestation and not creation is the word of science of today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has cherished in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language and with fur- ther light by the latest conclusions of science. Descend we now from the aspirations of philosophy to the relig- ion of the ignorant. At the v^ery outset, I may tell you that there is no polytheism in India. In every temple, if one stands by and listens, he will find the worshipers apply all the attributes of God, including omnipresence, to these images. It is not polytheism. "The rose called by any other name would smell as sweet." Names are not ex- planations. I remember, when a boy, a Christian man was preaching to a crowd in India. Among other sw^et things, he was asking the people, if he gave a blow to their idol with his stick, what could it do?" One of his hearers sharply answered: "If I abuse your God what can He do?" "You would be punished," said the preacher, "when you die." "So my idol will punish you when you die," said the villager. The tree is known by its fruits, and when I have been amongst them that are called idolatrous men, the like of whose morality and spirituality and love I have never seen anywhere, I stop aiul ask my- self, "Can sin beget holiness?" ImliTiduality .Mnet Go. ReliKion of the Ignontnt. 374 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Su(>erBtition und Bigotry. ImaKes and Form. Superstition is the enemy of man, but bigotry is worse. Why does a Christian go to church? Why is the cross holy? Why is the face turned toward the sky in prayer? Why are there so many images in the Catholic church? Why are there so many images in the minds of Protestants when they pray? My brethren, we can no more think about anything without a material image than we can live without breathing. And by the law of association the material image calls the mental idea up and vice versa. Omnipresence, to almost the whole world, means nothing. Has God superacid area? If not, when we repeat the word we think of the extended earth, that is all. As we find that somehow or other, by the laws of our constitution, we have got to associate our ideas of infinity with the image of a blue sky, or a sea, some cover the idea of holiness with an image of a church, or a mosque, or a cross. The Hindus have associated the ideas of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and all other ideas with dif- ferent images and forms. But with this difference: Some devote their whole lives to their idol of a church and never rise higher, because with them religion means an intellectual assent to certain doctrines and doing good to their fellows. The whole religion of the Hindu is centered in realization. Man is to become divine, realizing the divine, and, therefore, idol, or temple, or church, or books, are only the supports, the helps, of his spiritual childhood; but on and on man must progress. He must not stop anywhere. " External worship, material wor- ship," says the Vedas, " is the lowest stage, struggling to rise high; mental prayer is the next stage, but the highest stage is when the Lord has been realized." Mark the same earnest man who was kneeling before the idol tell you, " Him the sun cannot express, nor the moon nor the stars, the lightning cannot express him, nor the fire; through Him they all shine." He does not abuse the image or call it sinful. He recognizes in it a necessary stage of His life. "The child is father of the man." Would it be right for the old man to say that childhood is a sin or youth a sin? Nor is it compulsory in Hinduism. If a man can realize his divine nature with the help of an image, would it be right to call it a sin? Nor, even when he has passed that stage, should he call it an error? To the Hindu, man is not traveling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. To him all the religions, from the lowest fetichism to the highest abso- lutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realize the infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and associa- tion, and each of these mark a stage of progress, and every soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and more strength till it reaches the glorious sun. Unity and variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recog- nized it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adopt them. They lay down before society one coat which must fit Jack and Job and Henry, all alike. If it does not fit John or Henry he must go without a coat to cover his body THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 37? The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realized or thought of or stated through the relative, and the images, cross or cres- cent, are simply so many centers, so many pegs to hang the spiritual ideas on. It is not that this help is necessary for every one, but for many, and those that do not need it have no right to say that it is wrong One thing I must tell you. Idolatry in India does not mean any- thing horrible. It is not the mother of harlots. On the other hand, it is the attempt of undeveloped minds to grasp high spiritual truths. The Hindus have their faults; but mark this, they are always toward punishing their own bodies and never toward cutting the throats of their neighbors. If the Hindu fanatic burns himself on the pyre, he never lights the fire of inquisition. And even this cannot be laid at the door of religion any more than the burning of witches can be laid at the door of Christianity. To the Hindu, then, the whole world of religion is only a travel- ing, a coming up, of different men and women, through various condi- tions and circumstances, to the same goal. Every religion is only an evolution out of the material man, a God — and the same God is the in- spirer of all of them Why, then, are there so many contradictions? They are only apparent, says the Hindu. The contradictions come from the same truth adapting itself to the different circumstances of different naturcst It is the same light coming through different colors. And these little variations are necessary for that adaptation. But in the heart of everything the same truth reigns. The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as Krishna, "I am in every region as the thread through a string of pearls. And wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know ye, that I am there." And what was the result? Through the whole order of Sanskrit philosophy, I challenge anybody to find any such expression as that the Hindu only would be saved, not others. Says Vyas, " We find perfect men even beyond the pale of our caste and creed." How, then, can the Hindu, whose whole idea centors in God, believe in the Buddhism which is agnostic, or the jainism which is atheist? The whole force of Hindu religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion, to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father. This, brethren, is a short sketch of the ideas of the Hindus. The Hindu might have failed to carry out all his plans. But if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will hold no loca tion in place or time; which will be infinite, like the God it will preach; whose Son shines upon the followers of Krishna or Christ, saints or sinners, alike; which will not be the Brahman or Buddhist, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development; which in its Catholicity will embrace in its _ Contradic- tions only Ap- parent. Ueiiairements of II Universal IteliKion. 376 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. infinite arms and find a place for every human being, from the lowest groveling man, from the brute, to the highest mind towering almost above humanity and making society stand in awe and doubt His human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize a divinity in every man or woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be cen- tered in aiding humanity to realize its divine nature. Aseka's council was a council of the Buddhist faith. Akbar's, though more to the purpose, was only a parlor meeting/ It was reserved for America to proclaim to all quarters of the globe that the Lord is in every religion. May He who is the Brahma of the Hindus, the Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in heaven of the Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble idea. , The star arose in the east; it traveled steadily toward the west, bjB." ' **"™' sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent, till it made a circuit of the world, and now it is again rising on the very horizon of the east, the borders of the Tasifu, a thousand fold more effulgent than it ever was before. Hail, Columbia, motherland of liberty! It has been given to thee, who never dipped hand in neighbor's blood, who never found out that shortest way of becoming rich by robbing one's neighbors — it has been given to thee to march on in the vanguard of civilization with the flag of harmony. The World's Debt to Buddha. Paper by H. DHARMAPALA, of India. F I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of them which well deserve the attention of those who have studied Plato and Kant, I should point to India. If I were to ask myself from what literature we here in Europe may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more com- prehensive, more universal, and in fact more truly human a life, not for this life only, but for a transfigured and eternal life, again I should point to India. Ancient India twenty-five centuries ago was the scene of a religious revolution the greatest the world has ever seen. Indian society at that time had two large and distinguished religious foundations —the Szmanas and the Brahmanas. Famous teachers arose and, with their disciples, went among the peo- ple preaching and converting them to their respective views. Chief of them were Purana Kassapa, Makkhali. Cihosala, Ajita Kesahambala, Pakudha Kacckagara. Sanjaya Bclattiputta and Niganta Nathaputta. Amidst the galaxy of these bright luminaries there apj)eared other thinkers and philosophers who, though they abstained from a higher claim of religious reformers, yet appeared as scholars of independent thought. Such were Bavari, Pissa Metteyya, Mettagua, Dunnaka, Dkotaka, Upasiva, Henaka, Todeyya, .Sela Parukkha, Pokkharad.sati, Maggadessakes. Maggajivins These were all noted for their learning in their sacred Scriptures, in grammar, history, philosophy, etc. The air was full of a coming spiritual struggle. Hundreds of the most scholarly young men of noble families (Kulaputta) were leaving their homes in quest of truth; ascetics were undergoing the severest mortifications to discover the panacea for the evils of suffering. Young dialecticians were wandering from place to place engaged in disputa- tions, some advocating skepticism as the best weapon to fight against 377 378 . THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. the realistic doctrines of the clay, some a sort of life which was the nearest way to gettinj^ rid of existence, some denying a future life. It was a time deep and many sided in intellectual movements. The sacrificial priest was powerful then as he is now. He was the mediator between God and man. Monotheism of the most crude type, AppearetL fctichism from anthropomorphtc deism to transcendental dualism was rampant. So was materialism from sensual epicureanism to trans- cendental nihilism. In the words of Dr. Oldenberg: "When the dialectic skepticism began to attach moral ideas, when a painful long- ing for deliverance from the burden of being was met by the first signs of moral decay, Buddha appeared." " The Saviour of the world, Prince Siddhartha styled on earth. In earth on heavens and hells imcomparable. All honored, wisest, best, most pitiful. The teacher of Nirvana and the law." Oriental scholars, who had begun their researches in the domain of Indian literature at the beginning of this century, were put to great perplexity of thought at the discovery of the existence of a religion called after Buddha in the' Indian philosophical books. Sir William Jones, H. H. Wilson and Mr. Colbrooke were embarrassed in being unable to identify him. Dr. Marshman, in 1824, said that Buddha was the Egyptian Apis, and Sir William Jones solved the problem by say- ing that he was no other than the Scandinavian Woden. The barge of the early orientals was drifting into the sand banks of Sanskrit literature, when in June, 1837, ^^^ whole of the obscure history of India and Buddhism was made clear by the deciphering of the rock- cut edicts of Asoka the Great in Garnar, and Kapur-da-gini by that lamented archaeologist, James Pramsep, by the translation of the Pali Ceylon history into English by Turner, and by the discovery of Bud- dhist manuscripts in the temples of Mepal Ceylon and other Buddhist countries. In 1844 the first rational scientific and comprehensive account of the Buddhist religion was published by the eminent scholar, Eugene Purnouf. The key to the archives of this great relig- ion was also presented to the thoughtful people of Europe by this great scholar. With due gratitude I mention the names of the scholars to whose labors the present increasing popularity of the Buddha religion is due: Spence, Hardy, Gogerly, Turner, Professor Childers, Dr. Davids, Dr. Oldenberg, Max Miiller, Professor Jansboll and others. Pali scholar- ship began with the labors of the late Dr. Childers, and the western world is indebted to Dr. Davids, who is indefatigable in his labors in bringing the rich stores of hidden wisdom from the minds of Pali lit- erature. To two agencies the present popularity of Buddhism is due: Sir Pvdwin Arnold's incomparable epic, "The Light of Asia," and the theosophical society. "The irresistible charm which influences the thinking world to Study Buddhism, is the unparalleled life of its glorified founder. His THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS 379 teaching has found favor with every one who has studied his history. His doctrines are the embodiment of universal love. Not only our philologists, but even those who are prepossessed against his faith, have ever found but words of praise," says H. G. Blavatsky. "Noth- ing can be higher and purer than his social and moral code." "That moral code," says Max Miiller, "taken by itself is one of the most per- fect which the world has ever known." "The more I learn to know Buddha," says Professor Jansboll, "the more I admire him." "We must," says Professor Barth, "set clearly before us the admirable figure which detaches itself from it, that finished model of calm and sweet majesty, of infinite tenderness for all that breathes, and compassion for all that suffers, of perfect moral freedom and exemption from every prejudice. It was to save others that he who was one day to be Gautama disdained to tread sooner in the way of Nirvana, and that he chose to become Buddha at the cost of countless numbers of supple- mentary existences." "The singular force," says Professor Bloomfield, "of the great teacher's personality is unquestioned. The sweetness of his character and the majesty of his personality stand forth upon the background of India's religious history with a degree of vividness which is strongly enhanced by the absence of other religions of any great importance." And even Bartholemy St. Hilaire, misjudging Buddhism as he does, says: "I do not hesitate to say that there is not among the founders of religions a figure either more pure or more touching than that of Buddha. He is the perfect model of all the virtues he preaches; his self-abnegation, his charity, his unalterable sweetness of disposition do not fail him for one instant." That poet of Buddhism, the sweet singer of the "Light of Asia," Sir Edwin Arnold, thus estimates the place of Buddhism and Buddha in history: "In point of age most other creeds are youthful compared with this venerable religion, which has in it the eternity of a universal hope, the immortality of a bound- less love, an indestructible element of faith in the final good and the proudest assertion ever made of human freedom." "Infinite is the wisdom of the Buddha. Boundless is the love of Buddha to all that live." So say the Buddhist scriptures. Buddha is called the Mahamah Karumika, which means the all merciful Lord who has compassion on all that live. To the human mind Buddha's wisdom and mercy is incomprehensible. The foremost and greatest of his disciples, the blessed Sariputta, even he has acknowledged that he could not gauge the Buddha's wisdom and mercy. Already the thinking minds of Europe and America have offered their tribute of admiration to his divine memory. Professor Huxley says: "Gautama got rid of even that shade of a shadow of permanent existence by a metaphysical tour de force of great interest to the stu- dent of philosophy, seeing that it supplies the wanting half of Bishop Berkeley's well-known idealist argument. It is a remarkable indication of the subtlety of Indian speculation that Gautama should have seen deeper than the greatest of modern idealists." His Social and Moral Code. BoundlessLove 380 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. TIiBtory I>eatiiig Itself Re- (onHicting Opiuions. The tendency of enlightened thought of the day, all the >^urld over, is not toward theology, but philosophy and psychology. The bark of theological dualism is drifting into danger. The fundan\ental principles of evolution and monism are being accepted by the thought- ful. The crude conceptions of anthropomorphic deism are being rel- egated into the limbo of oblivion Lip service of prayer is giving place to a life of altruism. Personal self-sacrifice is gaining the place of a vicarious sacrifice. History is repeating itself. Twenty-five centuries ago India witnessed an intellectual and religious revolution which cul- minated in the overthrow of monotheism and priestly selfishness, and the establishment of a synthetic religion. This was accomplished through Sakya Muni. Today the Christian world is going through the same process. It is difficult to properly comprehend the system of Buddha by a spiritual study of its doctrines. And especially by those who have been trained to think that there is no truth in other religions. When the scholar Vachcha, approaching Buddha, demanded a complete elucidation of his doctrines, he said: "This doctrine is hard to see, hard to understand, solemn and sublime, not resting on dialectic, sub- tle, and perceived only by the wise. It is hard for you to learn who are of different views, different ideas of fitness, different choice, trained and taught in another school." A systematic study of Buddha's doctrine has not yet been made by the western scholars, hence the conflicting opinions expressed by them at various times. The notion once held by the scholars that it is a system of materialism has been exploded. The positivists of France found it a positivism. Buckner and his school of material- ists thought it was a materialistic system. Agnostics found in Buddha an agnostic, and Dr Rhys Davids, the eminent Pali scholar, used to call him the "agnostic philosopher of India." Some scholars have found an expressed monotheism therein. Arthur Lillie, another stu- dent of Buddhism, thinks it a theistic system. Pessimists identify it with .Schopcnhaur's pessimism. The late Mr. Buckle identified it with the pantheism of India. Some have found in it a monoism, and the latest dictum is Professor Huxley's, that it is an idealism supplying "the wanting half of Bishop Buckley's well-known idealist argument." Dr. Kikl says that " Buddhism is a system of vast magnitude, for it embraces all the various branches of science, which our western nations have been long accustomed to divide for separate study. It embodies, in one living structure, grand and peculiar views of physical science, refined and subtle theories on abstract metaphj'sics. an edifice of fanciful mysticism, a most elaborate and far reaching system of practical morality, and, finally, a church organization as broad in its principles and as finely wrought in its most intricate network as any in the world. All this is, moreover, confined in such a manner that the essence and substance of the whole may be compressed into a few formulas and symbols plain and suggestive enougn to be grasped by the most simple-minded ascetic, and yet so full of philosophic depths THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 381 as to provide rich food for years of meditation to the metaphysician, the poet, the mystic, and pleasant pasturage for the most fiery imag- ination of any poetical dreamer." In the religion of Buddha is found a comprehensive system of a Sublime ethics, and a transcendental metaphysic embracing a sublime psychol- Psychology, ogy. To the simple minded it offers a code of morality, to the earnest student a system of pure thought. But the basic doctrine is the self- purification of man. Spiritual progress is impossible for him who does not lead a life of purity and compassion. The superstructure has to be built on the basis of a pure life. So long as one is fettered by selfishness, passion, prejudice, fear, so long the doors of his higher nature are closed against the truth. The rays of the sunlight of truth enter the mind of hiin who is fearless to examine truth, who is free from prejudice, who is not tied by the sensual passion, and who has reasoning faculties to think. One has to be an atheist in the sense employed by Max Miiller: "There is an atheism which is not death; there is another which is the very life blood of all true faith. It is the power of giving up what, in our best, our most honest movements, we know to be no longer true. It is the readiness to replace the less perfect, howcx'cr dear, however sacred it may have been to us, by the more perfect, however much it may be detested as yet by the world. It is the true self-sur- render, the true self-sacrifice, the truest trust in truth, the truest faith." Without that atheism no new religion, no reform, no reformation, no resuscitation would ever have been possible; without that atheism no new life is possible for any one of us. The strongest emphasis has been put by Buddha on the supreme importance of having an un- prejudiced mind before we start on the road of investigation of truth. The least attachment of the mind to preconceived ideas is a positixe . hindrance to the acceptance of truth. Prejudice, passion, fear of ex- ideal of Mhh- pression of one's convictions and ignorance are the four biases that *'"'^' have to be sacrificed at the threshold. To be born as a human being is a glorious privilege. Man's dignity consists in his capability to reason and think and to live up to the highest ideal of pure life, of calm thought, of wisdom, without extraneous interventions. Buddha says that man can enjoy in this life a glorious existence, a life of indi- vidual freedom, of fearlessness and compassionateness. This dignified ideal of manhood may be attained by the humblest, and this consum- mation raises him above wealth and royalty. "He that is comjiassion- ate and observes the law is My disciple." Human brotherhood forms the fundamental teaching of Buddha — universal love and sympathy with all mankind and with animal life. F^very one is enjoined to love all beings as a mother loves her only child and takes care of it even at the risk of her life. The realization of the ideal of brotherhood is obtained when the first stage of holi- ness is realized. The idea of separation is destroyed and the oneness of life is recognized. There is no pessimism in the teachings of Buddha, for he strictly enjoins on his holy disciples not even to sug- 382 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. gest to others that life is not worth living. On the contrary, the use- fulness of life is emphasized for the sake of doing good to self and humanity. From the fetich worshiping savage to the highest type of hu- manity man naturally yearns for something higher. And it is for this reason that Buddha inculcated the necessity for self-reliance and inde- pentletit thought. To guide humanity in the right path, a Tathagata (Messiah) appears from time to time. In the sense of a supreme Creator, Buddha says that there is no such being, accepting the doctrine of evolution as the only true one, Ev«Sationf* °° with corollary, the law of cause and effect. He condemns the idea of a Creator, but the supreme God of the Brahmans and minor gods are accepted. But they are subject to the law of cause and effect. This supreme God is all love, all merciful, all gentle, and looks upon all beings with equanimity. Buddha teaches men to practice these four supreme virtues. But there is no difference between the perfect man and this supreme God of the present world. The teachings of the Buddha on evolution are clear and expansive. We are asked to look upon the cosmos " as a continuous process un- folding itself in regular order in obedience to natural laws. We see in it all not a yawning chaos* restrained by the constant interference from without of a wise and beneficent external power, but a vast aggregate of original elements perpetually working out their own fresh redistribu- tion m accordance with their own inherent energies. He regards the cosmos as an almost infinite collection of material, animated by an almo.st infinite sum total of energy," which is called Akasa. I have used the above definition of evolution, as given by Grant Allen in his " Life of Darwin," as it beautifully expresses the generalized idea of Buddhism. We do not postulate that man's evolution began from the protoplasmic stage, but we are asked not to speculate on the origin of life, on the origin of the law of cause and effect, etc. So far as this great law is concerned we say that it controls the phenomena of human life as Well as those of external nature, the whole knowable universe forms one undivided whole. Buddha promulgated his system of philosophy after having studied all religions. And in the Brahma-jola sutta sixty-two creeds are dis- cussed. In the Kalama, the sutta, Buddha says: "Do not believe in what ye have heard. Do not believe in tradi- tions, because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything because it is renowned and spoken of by many. Do not believe merely because the written statement of some old sage is produced. Do not believe in conjectures. Do not believe in that as truth to which you have become attached by habit. Do not believe merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Often observa- tion and analysis, when the result agrees with reason, is conducive to the good and gain of one and all. Accept and live up to it." To the ordinary householder, whose highest happiness consists in being wealthy here and in heaven hereafter, Buddha inculcated a sim- Buddhist Priest, Siam. 384 THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. pie code of morality. The student of Buddha's religion from destroy- ing life, lays aside the club and weapon. He is modest and full of pity. He is compassionate to all creatures that have life. He abstains from theft, and he passes his life in honesty and purity of heart. He lives a life of chastity and purity. He abstains from falsehood and injures not his fellovvman by deceit. Putting away slander he abstains from calunmy. He is a peacemaker, a speaker of words that make for peace. Whatever word is humane, pleasant to the ear, lovely, reaching to the heart, such are the words he speaks. He abstains from harsh language He abstains from foolish talk, he abstains from intoxicants and stupifying drugs. The advance student of the religion of Buddha, when he has faith in him, thinks "full of hindrances in household life is a path defiled by passion. Pure as the air is the life of him who has renounced all Uprightness Worldly things How difficult it is for the man who dvvells at home his Object. ^^ ijyg ^hc higher life in all its fullness, in all its purity, in all its freedom. Let me then cut off my hair and beard, let me clothe myself in orange-colored robes, let me go forth from a household life into the homeless state." Then before long, forsaking his portion of wealth, forsaking his circle of relatives, he cuts off his hair and beard, he clothes himself in the orange-colored robes and he goes into the homeless state, and then he passes a life of self-restraint, according to tiie rules of the order of the blessed one. Uprightness is his object and he sees danger in the least of those things he should avoid. He encompasses himself with holiness, in word and deed. He sustains his life by means that arc quite pure. Good is his conduct, guarded the door of his senses, mindful and self-possessed, he is altogether happy. The student of pure religion abstains from earning a livelihood by the practice of low and lying arts, viz., all divination, interpreta- tion of dreams, palmistry, astrology, crystal prophesying, charms of all sorts. Buddha also says: «*Just as a mighty trumpeter makes himself heard in all the four directions without diflficulty, even so of all things that have life, there is not one that the student passes by or leaves aside, but regards them all with mind set free and deep-felt pity, sympathy and equanimity. He lets his mind pervade the whole world with thoughts of love." To realize the unseen is the goal of the student of Buddha's teach- ings, and sucli a one has to lead an absolutely pure life. Buddha says : •'Let him fulfill all righteousness, let him be devoted to that quietude of heart which springs from within, let him not drive back the ecstasy of contemplation, let him look through things, let him be much alone. Fulfill all righteousness for the sake of the living, and for the sake of the blessed ones that are dead and gone." Thought transference, thought reading, clairvoyance, projection the sub-conscious sel^and all the higher branches of psychical science that just now engage the thoughtful attention of psychical researchers THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 385 are within the reach of him who fulfills all righteousness, who is de- voted to solitude and to contemplation. Charity, observance of moral rules, purifying the mind, making others participate in the good work that one is doing, co-operating with others in doing good, nursing the sick, giving gifts to the deserving ones, hearing all that is good and beautiful, making others learn the rules of morality, accepting the laws of cause and effect are the com- mon appanage of all good men. Prohibited employments include slave dealing, sale of weapons of warfare, sale of poisons, sale of intoxicants, sale of flesh— all deemed the lowest of professions. The five kinds of wealth are: Faith, pure life, receptivity of the mind to all that is good and beautiful, liberality and wisdom. Those who possess these five kinds of wealth in their past incarnations are influenced by the teachings of Buddha. Besides these, Buddha says in his universal precepts: "He who is faithful, and leads the life of a householder, and possesses the follow- ^"^^ce^^ ^^^ ing four (Dhammas) virtues, truth, justice, firmness and liberality — such a one does not grieve when passing away. Pray ask other teachers and philosophers far and wide, whether there is found anything greater than truth, self-restraint, liberality and forbearance." The pupil should minister to his teacher; he should rise up in his presence, wait upon him, listen to all that he says with respectful attention, perform the duties necessary for his personal comfort, and carefully attend to his instruction. The teacher should show affection for his pupil. He trains him in virtue and good manners, carefully instructs him, imparts to him a knowledge of the sciences and wisdom of the ancients, speaks well of him to relatives and guards him from danger. The honorable man ministers to his friends and relatives by pre- senting gifts, by courteous language, by promoting as his equals and by sharing with them his prosperity. They should watch over him when he has negligently exposed himself, guard his property when he is careless, assist him in difficulties, stand by him and help to provide for his family. The master should minister to the wants of his servants, as depend- ents; he assigns them labor suitable to their strength, provides for their comfortable support; he attends them in sickness, causes them to partake of any extraordinary delicacy he may obtain and makes them occasional presents. The servants should manifest their attach- ment to the master; they rise before him in the morning and retire later to rest; they do not purloin his property, do their work cheer- fully and actively and are respectful in their behavior toward him. The religious teachers should manifest their kind feelings toward lawyers. They should dissuade them from vice, excite them to virtu- ous acts — being desirous of promoting the welfare of all. They should instruct them in the things they had not previously learned, confirm them in the truths and point out to them the wa}- to heaven. The A TathagHta 386 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. lawyers should minister to the teachers by respectful attention mani- fested in their words, actions and thoughts, and by supplying them their temporal wants and by allowing them constant access to them. The wise, virtuous, prudent, intelligent, teachable, docile man will become eminent. The persevering, diligent man, unshaken in adver- sity and of inflexible determination will become eminent. The well- informed, friendly-disposed, prudent-speaking, generous-minded, self- controlled, self-possessed man will become eminent. In this world generosity, mildness of speech, public spirit and courteous behavior are worthy of respect under all circumstances and will be valuable in all places. If these be not possessed the mother will receive neither honor nor support from the son, neither will the father receive respect nor honor. Buddha also says: " Know that from time to time a Tathagata is born into the world, fully enlightened, blessed and w'orthy, abounding in wisdom and good- ness, happy with knowledge of the world, unsurpassed as a guide to Born^nto"the erring mortal, a teacher of gods and men, a blessed Buddha. He, by World. himself, thoroughly understands and sees, as it were face to face, this universe, the world below with all its spirits and the worlds above, and all creatures, all religious teachers, gods and men, and he then makes his knowledge known to others. The truth doth he proclaim, both in its letter and- its spirit, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation; the higher life doth he proclaim in all its purity and in all its perfectness. First. He is absolutely free from all passions, commits no evil even in secrecy and is the embodiment of perfection. He is above doing anything wrong. Second, Self-introspection — by this has he reached the state of supreme enlightenm.ent. Third. By means of his divine eye he looks back to the remotest past and future. Knows the way of emancipation, and is accomplished in the three great branches of divine knowledge, and has gained per- fect wisdom. He is in possession of all psychic powers, always will- ing to listen, full of energy, wisdom and dhyana. Fourth. He has realized eternal peace and walks in the perfect path of virtue. Fifth. He knows three states of existence. Sixth. He is incomparable in purity and holiness. Seventh. He is teacher of gods and men. Eighth. He exhorts gods and men at the proper time, according to their individual temperaments. Ninth. He is the supremely enlightened teacher and the perfect embodiment of all the virtues he teaches. The two characteristics of Buddha are wisdom and compassion." Buddha also gave a warning to his followers when he said: "He who is not generous, who is fond of sensuality, who is disturbed A Warning. at heart, who is of uneven mind, who is not reflective, who is not of calm mind, who is discontentctl at heart, who has no control over his senses— such a disciple is far from me, though he is in body near me." THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 387 The attainment of salvation is by the perception of self through Attainment charity, purity, self-sacrifice, self-knowledge, dauntless energy, pa- °* Sairation. tience, truth, resolution, love and equanimity. The last words of Buddha were these: " Be ye lamps unto yourselves; be ye a refuge to yourselves; betake yourself to an eternal voyage; hold fast to the truth as a lamp; hold fast as a refuge to the truth; look not for refuge to any one besides yourselves. Learn ye, then, that knowledge which I have attained and. have declared unto you and walk ye in it, practice and increase in order that the path of holiness may last and long endure for the bless- ing of many people, to the relief of the world, to the welfare, the blessing, the joy of gods and men." Xhe Law of (gause and ^ffect, as X^ught by 3^ddha. Paper by SHAKU SOYEN, of Japan. Natare of Caaee. F we open our eyes and look at the universe we observe the sun and moon and the stars on the sky; mountains, rivers, plants, animals, fishes and birds on the earth. Cold and warmth come alternately; shine and rain change from time to time without ever reaching an end. f-W^^^Si ny Again let us close our eyes and camly reflect ^^BS^KRi- wtf upon ourselves. From morning to evening we ^*^pBnHS^ ■^•^ ^^^ agitated by the feelings of pleasure and 1 F ^ H l ^S^ jSW^ pain, love and hate; sometimes full of ambition and desire, sometimes called to the utmost ex- citement of reason and will. Thus the action of mind is like an endless issue of a spring of water. As the phenomena of the external ^- ' I world are various and marvelous, so is the internal i attitude of human mind. Shall we ask for the explanation of these marvelous phenomena? Why is the universe in a constant flux? Why do things change? Why is the mind subjected to a constant agitation? For these Byddhism offers only one explana- tion, namely, the law of cause and effect. Now let us proceed to understand the nature of this law, as taught by Buddha himself: First. The complex nature of cause. Second. An endless progression of the causal law. Third. The causal law in terms of the three worlds. Fourth. Self-formation of cause and effect. Fifth. Cause and effect as the law of nature. First. The complex nature of cause. Acertain phenomenon cannot arise from a single cause, but it must have several conditions; in other words, no effect can arise unless several causes combine together. Take for example a case of fire. You may say its cause is oil or fuel; but neither oil nor fuel alone can give rise to a flame. Atmosphere, 388 IHE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 389 space and several other conditions, physical or mechanical, are neces- sary for the rise of a flame. All these necessary conditions combined together can be called the cause of a flame. This is only an example for the explanation of the complex nature of cause, but the rest may be interred. Second. An endless progression of the causal law. A cause must be preceded by another cause, and an effect must be followed by an- other effect. Thus, if we investigate the cause of a cause, the past of a past, by tracing back even to an eternity, we shall never reach the first cause. The assertion that there is the first cause is contrary to the fundamental principle of nature, since a certain cause must have an origin in some preceding cause or causes, and there is no cause which is not an effect. From the assumption that a cause is an effect of a preceding cause, which is also preceded by another, thus, ad infinitum, we infer that there is no beginning in the universe. As there is no effect which is not a cause, so there is no cause which is not an effect. Buddhism considers the universe has no beginning, no end. Since, even if we trace back to an eternity, absolute cause cannot be found, so we come to the conciusion that there is no end in the universe. Like as the waters of rivers evaporate and form clouds, and the latter changes its form into rain, thus returning once more into the original form of waters, the causal law is in a logical circle changing from cause to effect, effect to cause. Third. The causal law in terms of three worlds, namely, past, present and future. All the religions apply more or less the causal law in the sphere of human conduct, and remark that the pleasure and happiness of one's future lite depend upon the purity of his present life. But what is peculiar to Buddhism is, it applies the law not only to the relation of present and future life, but also past and present. As the facial expressions of each individual are different from those of others, men are graded by the different degrees of wisdom, talent, wealth and birth. It is not education nor experience alone that can make a man wise, intelligent and wealthy, but it depends upon one's past life. What are the causes or conditions which produce such a difference? To explain it in a few words, I say, it owes its origin to the different qual- ity of actions which we have done in our past life, namely, we are here enjoying or suffering the effect of what we have done in our past life. If you closely observe the conduct of your fellow beings, you will notice that each individual acts different from the others. From this we can infer that in future life each one will also enjoy or suffer the result of his own actions done in this existence. As the pleasure and pain of one's present actions, so the happiness or misery of our future world will be the result of our present action. Fourth. Self-formation of cause and effect. We enjoy happiness and suffer misery, our own actions being causes; in other words, there is no other cause than our own actions which make us happy or un- happy. Now let us observe the different attitudes of human life; one is happy and others feel unhappy. Indeed, even among the members Progress i o n of the Casual Law. Past, Present and Future. Self- forma- tion of Cauae and Effect. 390 . THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. of the same family, wc often notice a j^reat diversity in wealth and fort- une. Thus various attitudes of human life can be explained by the self-formation of cause and effect. There is no one in the universe but one's self who rewards or punishes him. The diversity in future stages will be explained by the same doctrine. This is termed in Buddhism the "self-deed and self-gain," or "self-make and self-receive." Heaven and hell are self-made. God did not provide you with a hell, but you yourself. The glorious happiness of future life will be the effect of present virtuous actions. Fifth. Cause and effect as the law of nature. According to the different sects of Buddhism, more or less, different views are entertained in regard to the law of causality, but so far they agree in regarding it j.The^Law of ^s the law of nature, independent of the will of Buddha, and much less of the will of human beings. The law exists for an eternity, without beginning, without end. Things grow and decay, and this is caused, not by an external power, but by an internal force which is in things themselves as an innate attribute. This internal law acts in accordance with the law of cause and effect, and thus appear immense phenomena of the universe. Just as the clock moves by itself without any inter- vention of any external force, so is the progress of the universe. We are born in the world of variety; some are poor and unfortu- nate, others are wealthy and happy. The state of variety will be repeated again and again in our future lives. But to whom shall we complain of our misery? To none but ourselves. VV^e reward our- selves; so shall we do in our future life. If you ask me who deter- mined the length of our life, I say, the law of causality. Who made him happy and made me miserable? The law of causality. Bodily health, material wealth, wonderful genius, unnatural suffering are the infallible expressions of the law of causality which governs every particle of the universe, every portion of human conduct. Would you ask me about the Buddhist morality? I reply, in Buddhism the source of moral authority is the causal law. Be kind, be just, be humane, be honest, if you desire to crown your future. Dishonesty, cruelty, inhumanity, will condemn you to a miserable fall. As I have already explained to you, our sacred Buddha is not the creator of this law of nature, but he is the first discoverer of the law who led thus his followers to the height of moral perfection. Who First Discov- shall uttcr a word against him? Who discovered the first truth of the erero e w. m^jyerse? Who has saved and will save by his noble teachings the millions and millions of the falling human beings? Indeed, too much approbation could not be uttered to honor his sacred name. a Id J3 •a a Tfhe f^eligion of the VV^i'ld. Paper by ZENSHORI NOGUCHI, Interpreter for the Japanese Buddhist Priests. BrinKS his Buddhist Faith. TAKE much pleasure in addressing you, my brothers, on the occasion of the first world's religious congress, by your kind indulgence, with what comes to my mind today without any preliminary preparation, for I have been entirely occupied in interpreting for the four Hijiris who came with me to attend this con- gress. As you remembered Columbus for his dis- covery, and as you brought to completion the wonderful enterprise of the world's fair, I also have to remember one whose knocks at the long-closed door of my country awakened us from our long and undisturbed slumber and led us to open our eyes to the condition of other civilized countries, including that in which I now am wondering at its greatness and beauty, especially as it is epito- mized in the World's Fair. I refer to the famous Commodore Perry. I must do for him what Americans have done and do for Columbus. With him I have one, too, to remember, whose statue you have doubt- less seen at the world's fair. His name was Naosuke jl, the Lord of Hikone and the great Chancellor of Bakufu. He was unfortunately assassinated by the hands of the conservative party, which proclaimed him a traitor because he opened the door to the stranger without waiting for the permission of his master the emperor. Since we opened the door about thirty-six years have passed, dur- ing which time wonderful changes and progress have taken place in my country, so that now, in the midst of the White City and the World's P'air, I do not find myself wondering so much as a barbarian would do. Who made my country so civilized? He was the knocker, as I called him, Commodore Perry. So my people owe a great deal to him and to the America who gave him to us. I must therefore make some return to him for his kindness, as you are doing in the World's Fair to Columbus for his discovery Shall I offer to you, who represent him, Japanese teapots and teacups? No. 302 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 8JKj Then what is to be done? These things that we have just laid aside as inadequate are only materials, which fire and water can destroy. In their stead I bring something that the elements cannot destroy, and -it is the best of all my possessions. What is that? Buddhism! As you see. I am simply a layman, and do not belong to any sect of Buddhism at all. So 1 present to you four Buddhist sorios, who will give their addresses before you and place in your hands many thousand copies of English translations of Buddhist works, such as "Outlines of the Mahayana, as Taught by Buddha;" "A Brief Account of the Shin-shu;" "A Shin-shu Catechism," and "The Sutra of Forty-two Sections and Two Other Short Sutras," etc. Besides these 400 volumes of the complete Buddha Shaka's "Sutra" are imported for the first time to this country as a present to the chairman of this congress by the four Buddhist sorios. These three Chinese translations, which, of course, Japanese can read, arc made from the original Sanskrit by many Chinese sorios in ancient times. I hope they will be translated into English, which can be understood by almost all the people of the world. I regret to say that there is probably no Mahayana doctrine, which is the highest order of Buddhist teaching, translated into En- glish If you wish to know what the ^Mahayana doctrine is, you must learn to read Chinese or Japanese, as you are doing in the Chatauqua system of education, otherwise Chinese or Japanese must learn English ^Mahayann enough to translate them for English reading people. Whichever way it be, we religionists must do this, for the sake of the world. I have devoted some years and am now devoting more years to learning English, for the purpose of doing this in my private capacity. But the work is too hard for me. For example, I have translated Rev Pro- fessor Tokunaga's work, without any help from foreigners, on account of the want of time. I am very sorry that I have not enough copies of that book to distribute them to you all, for 1. almost used them up in presents on my way to this city. Permit me to distribute the ten last copies that still remain in my trunk to those who happened to take the seats nearest me. How many religions and their sects are there in the v.orld? Thousands. Is it to be hoped that the number of religions in the world will be increased by thousands more? No. Why? If such were our hope we ought to finally bring the number of religions to as great a figure as that of the population of the world, and the priests of the various religions should not be allowed to preach for the purpose of bringing the people into their respective sects. In that case they should rather say: "Don't believe whatever we preach; get away from the church and make your own sect as we do." Is it right for the priest to say so? No. Then, is there a hope of decreasing the number of religions? Yes. How far? To one. Why? Because the truth is only one. Each sect or religion, as its ultimate object, aims to attain truth. Geometry teaches us that the shortest line between two ])oints is lini- 25 Doctrine. 394 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. itcd to only one; so we must find out that one way of attaining the truth among the thousands of ways to which the rival religions point us, and if we cannot find out that one way among the already estab- lished religions we must seek it in a new one. So long as we have thousands of religions the religion of the world has not yet attained ReUgion of its full development in all respects. If the thousands of religions do the World. continue to develop and reach the state of full development there will be no more any distinction between them, or any difference between faith and reason, religion and science. This is the end at which we aim and to which we believe that we know the shortest way. I greet you, ladies and gentlemen of the World's Parliament of Religions, the gathering together of which is an important step in that direction. \Yhat Buddhism "yeaches of fv\an's Rela- tion to Qod, and jts Influence on yhose\^ho H^^^ Received jt. Paper by KINZA RIUGE HIRAI, of Japan. HERE are very few countries in the world so misunderstood as Japan. Among the innu- merable unfair judgments, the religious thought of my countrymen is especially mis- represented, and the whole nation is con- demned as heathen Be they heathen, pagan, or something else, it is a fact that from the beginning of our history Japan has received all teachings with open mind; and also that the instructions which came from outside have commingled with the native religion in entire harmony, as is seen by so many temples built in the name of truth with a mixed appellation of Buddhism and Shintoism; as is seen by the affinity among the teachers of Confucianism and Taoism, or other isms, and the Buddhists and Shinto priests; as is seen by the individual Japanese, who pays his other respects to all teachings mentioned above; as is seen by the peculiar construction of the Japanese houses, which have generally two rooms, one for a miniature Buddhist temple and the other for a small Shinto shrine, before which the family study the respective scriptures of the two religions; as is seen by the popular o«^«, Wake noboru Fumoto no michi oa Ooke redo, Ona ji takane no Tsuki wo miru Kana, which translated means: "Though there are many roads at the foot of the mountains, yet if the top is reached the same moon is seen," and 31).') Unfair Jadg. meat« of Japan. 1858, 396 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. other similar odes and mottoes, which are put in the mouth of the ignorant country old woman, when she decides the case of bigoted religious contention among young girls. In reality Synthetic religion, or Entitism, is the Japanese specialty, and I will not hesitate to call it Japanism. But you will protest and say: "Why, then, is Christianity not so warmly accepted by your nation as other religions?" This is the point which I wish especially to present before you. There are two causes why Christianity is not so cordially received. This great relig- ion was widely spread in my country, but in 1637 ^^e Christian mis- sionaries, combined with the converts, caused a tragic and bloody rebell- ion against the country, and it is understood that those missionaries in- tended to subjugate Japan to their own mother country.- This shocked all Japan, and it took the government of the Shogun a year to suppress this terrible and intrusive commotion. To those who accuse us that our mother country prohibited Christianity, not now, but in a past age, I will reply that it was not from religious or racial antipathy, but to prevent such another insurrection; and to protect our independence we were obliged to prohibit the promulgation of the Gospels. If our history had had no such record of foreign devastation under the disguise of religion, and if our people had had no hereditary horror and prejudice against the name of Christianity, it might have been eagerly embraced by the whole nation. But this incident has passed and we may forget it. Yet it is not entirely unreasonable that the terrified suspicion, or you may say superstition, that Christanity is the instrument of depredation should have been avoidably or unavoidably aroused in the oriental mind, when it is an admitted fact that some of the powerful nations of Christendom are gradually encroaching upon the orient and when the following circumstance is daily impressed upon our minds, reviving a vivid memory of the past historical occur- rence. The circumstances of which I am about to speak is the present experience of ourselves, to which I especially call the attention of this parliament, and not only this Parliament, but also the whole of Chris- tendom. Since 1853, when Commodore Perry came to Japan as the ambas- sador of the President of the United States of America, our country began to be better known by all western nations and the new ports were widely opened and the prohibition of the Gospels was abolished, Treaty of as it was bcforc the Christian rebellion. By the convention at Yeddo, now Tokio, in 1858, the treaty was stipulated between America and Japan, and also with the European powers. It was the time when our country was yet under the feudal government; and on account of our having been secluded for over two centuries since the Christian rebell- ion of 1637, diplomacy was quite a new experience to the feudal offi- cers, who put their full confidence upon western nations, and, without any alteration, accepted every article of the treaty pre cnted from the foreign governments. According to the treaty we are in a very disad- vantageous situation; anil amongst the others there are two prominent THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 897 articles, which deprive us of our rights and advantages. One is the exterritoriality of western nations in Japan, by which all cases in regard to right, whether of property or person, arising between the subjects of the western nations in my country as well as between them and the Japanese, are subjected to the jurisdiction of the authorities of the western nations. Another regards the tariff, which, with the excep- tion of five per cent ad valorum, we have no right to impose where it might properly be done. It is also stipulated that either of the contracting parties to this treaty, on giving one year's previous notice to the other, may demand a revision thereof on or after the ist of July, 1872. Therefore, in 1871, our government demanded a revision, and since then we have been constantly requesting it, but foreign governments have simply ignored our requests, making many excuses. One part of the treaty between the United States of America and Japan concernmg the tariff was annulled, for which we thank with sincere gratitude the kind-hearted American nation; but I am sorry to say that, as no European power has followed in the wake of America, in this respect our tariff right remains in the same condition as it was before. We have no judicial power over the foreigners in Japan, and as a natural consequence we are receiving injuries, legal and moral, the accounts of which are seen constantly in our native newspapers. As the western people live far from us they do not know the exact cir- cumstances. Probably they hear now and then the reports from the missionaries and their friends in Japan. I do not deny that their Foreignerein reports are true; but it a person wants to obtam any unmistakable information in regard to his friend he ought to hear the opinions about him from many sides. If you closely examine with your unbiased mind what injuries we receive you will be astonished. Among many kinds of wrongs there are some which were utterly unknown before and entirely new to us— heathen, none of whom would dare to speak of them even in private conversation. One of the excuses offered by foreign nations is that our country is not yet civilized. Is it the principle of civilized law that the rights and profits of the so-called uncivilized or the weaker should be sacri- ficed? As 1 understand it, the spirit and the necessity of law is to protect the rights and welfare of the weaker against the aggression of the stronger; but 1 have never learned in my shallow studies of law that the weaker should be sacrificed for the stronger. Another kind of apology comes from the religious source, and the claim is made that the Japanese are idolaters and heathen. Whether our people are idolaters or not you will know at once if you will investigate our relig- ious views without prejudice from authentic Japanese sources. Rut admitting, for the sake of argument, that we are idolaters and heathen, is it Christian morality to trample upon the rights and advan- tages of a non-Christian nation, coloring all their natural happiness with the dark stain of injustice? I read in the Bible, "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also;" but I 398 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. cannot discover there any passage which says, "Whosoever shall demand justice of thee smite his right cheek, and when he turns smite In Doabt the Other also." Again, I read in the Bible, "If any man will sue thee About Advice, at law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also;" but I cannot discover there any passage which says, "If thou shalt sue any man at the law, and take away his coat, let him give thee his cloak also." You send your missionaries to Japan and they advise us to be moral and believe Christianity. We like to be moral; we know that Christianity is good, and we are very thankful for this kindness. But at the same time our people are rather perplexed and very much in doubt about this advice. For we think that the treaty stipulated in the time of feudalism, when we were yet in our youth, is still clung to by the powerful nations of Christendom; when we find that every year a good many western vessels engaged in the seal fishery are smuggled into our seas; when legal cases are always decided by the foreign authorities in Japan unfavorably to us; when some years ago a Japanese was not allowed to enter a university on the Pacific coast of America because of his being of a different race; when a few months ago the school board in San Francisco enacted a regulation that no Japanese should be allowed to enter the public school there; when last year the Japanese were driven out in wholesale from one of the territories of the United States of America; when our business men in San PVan- cisco were compelled by some union not to employ the Japanese assistants or laborers, but the Americans; when there are some in the same city who speak on the platforms against those of us who are already here; when there are many men who go in processions hoist- ing lanterns marked "Jap must go;" when the Japanese in the Hawaiian islands are deprived of their suffrage; when we see some western people in Japan who erect before the entrance of their houses a special post, upon which is the notice, "No Japanese is allowed to enter here," just like a board upon which is written, "No dogs allowed;" when we are in such a situation is it unreasonable — notwithstanding the kind- ness of the western nations, from one point of view, who send their missionaries to us — for us intelligent heathen to be embarrassed and hesitate to swallow the sweet and warm liquid of the heaven of Chris- tianity? If such be the Christian ethics, well, we are perfectly satis- fied to be heathen. If any person should claim that there are many people in Japan who speak ai\d write against Christianity, I am not a hypocrite and I will frankly state that I was the first in my country who ever publicly tiiuTit^ ^a"*I attacked Christianity; no, not real Christianity, but false Christianity, uaUed. x.\\c wrongs donc toward us by the people of Christendom. If any reprove the Japanese because they have had strong anti-Christian soci- eties, I will honestly declare that I was the first in Japan who ever organized a society against Christianity; no, not against real Chris- tianity, but to protect ourselves from false Christianity and the injustice which we receive from the people of Christendom. Do not think that THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 399 I took such a stand on account of my being a Buddhist, for this was my position many years before I entered the Buddhist temple. But, at the same time, I will proudly state that if any one discussed the affinity of all religions before the public, under the title of Synthetic religion, it was I. I say this to you because I do not wish to be under- stood as a bigoted Buddhist sectarian. Really, there is no sectarian in my country. Our people well know what abstract truth is in Christianity, and we, or at least I, do not care about the names if I speak from the point of teaching. Whether Buddhism is called Christianity or Christianity is named Buddhism, whether we are called Confucianists or Shintoists, we are not particu- lar; but we are very particular about the truth taught and its consistent application. Whether Christ saves us or drives us into hell, whether Gautama Buddha was a real person or there never was such a man, it is not a matter of consideration to us; but the consistency of doctrine and conduct is the point on which we put the greater importance. Therefore, unless the inconsistency which we observe is renounced, and especially the unjust treaty by which we are entailed is revised upon an equitable basis, our people will never cast away their prejudice about Chrfstianity, in spite of the eloquent orator who speaks its truth from the pulpit. We are very often called barbarians, and I have heard and read that Japanese are stubborn and cannot understand the truth of the Bible. I will admit that this is true in some sense, for, though they admire the eloquence of the orator and wonder at his courage, though they approve his logical argument, yet they are very stubborn and will not join Christianity as long as they think it is a western morality to preach one thing and practice another. But I know this is not the morality of the civilized west, and I have the firm belief in the highest humanity and noblest generosity of the occidental nations toward us. Especially as to the American Anieric^**' nation, I know their sympathy and integrity. I know their sympathy by their emancipation of the colored people from slavery. I know their integrity by the patriotic spirit which established the independ- ence of the United States of America. And I feel sure that the cir- cumstances which made the American people declare independence are in some sense comparable to the present state of my country. I cannot refrain my thrilling emotion and sympathetic tears whenever I read the Declaration of Independence. You, citizens of this glorious free United States, who struck when the right time came, struck for "Liberty or Death;" you, who waded through blood that you might fasten to the mast your banner of the stripes and stars upon the land and sea; you, who enjoy the fruition of your liberty through your struggle for it; you, I say, may understand somewhat our position, and as you asked for justice from your mother country, we, too, ask justice from these foreign powers. Buddhist Temple, Bangkok, Siam. \Yhat 3^ddhism H^s £)one for Japan. Paper by HORIN TOKI, of Japan. HAVE had the pleasure of speaking something about Buddhism, and I now again take the liberty of speaking something further about Buddhism,sothatyou may understand that reli- gion, as well as its relation to our sunrise land of Japan, much better. In "chidown," which means, translated into English, "degrees of wisdom," it is said that all Buddhas teach in two ways. One is to teach the truth of doc- trine; the other is to guide the goodness and righteousness of mankind. The former teaches us that our body and spirit are always in con- stant connection with the outside world and regulated by the absolute truth, which, having no beginning or no end, fills the universe and yet performs the endless action of cause and effect as in a circle. For instance, God in Chris- tianity, the absolute extremity in Confucianism, Ameno Minaka nushi no mikoto in Shintoism, Borankamma in Brahmism, are estab- lished in order to show the truth of the universe. The latter — that is to guide the goodness and righteousnesss of mankind — inspires us with purity and righteousness in our body and mind. In other words, it teaches us that absolute truth is constantly acting to make a man on the surface of the earth complete his purity and goodness. Therefore, should I speak from the side of goodness, I should say that Buddhism teaches ten commandments, such as not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to tell a falsehood, not to joke, not to speak evil of others, not to use double tongue, not to be greedy, neither be stingy, not to be cruel. Such commandments guide us into morality and goodness kindly and minutely by regulating our everyday personal action. Such commandments, by pacifying, puri- fying and enlightening our passions, as well as our wisdom, shall in the run of its course make the present society, which is full of vice, hatred and struggles of race, just like hungry dogs or wolves, a holy paradise of purity, peace and love- The regulating power of such command- 401 402 . THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. ments shall turn this troublesome world into the spiritual kingdom of fraternity and humanity. This is only one illustration of Buddhist preaching; therefore, you see that Buddhism does not quarrel with other religions about the truth. If there were a religion which teaches the truth in the same way Bud- dhism regards it as the truth of Buddhism disguised under the garment of other religion. Buddhism never cares what the outside garment might do. It only aims to promote the purity and morality of man- kind. It never asks who discovered it? It only appreciates the good- ness and righteousness. It helps the others in the purification of man- kind. Buddha himself called Buddhism *' a round, circulating relig- ion," which means the truth common to every religion, regardless of the outside garment. The absolute truth must not be regarded as the monopolization of one religion of another. The truth is the broadest and widest. In short, Buddhism teaches us that the Buddhism is truth, the goddess of truth who is common to every religion, but who showed her true phase to us through the Buddhism. And now let me tell you that this Buddhism has been a living 8 ^rit^\^nd spirit and nationality of our beloved Japan for so many years and will Nationality. be forcvcr. Consequently, the Japanese people, who have been con- stantly guided by this beautiful star of truth of Buddha's, are very hos- pitable for other religions and countries, and are entirely different from some other obstinate nations. I say this without the least boast. Nay, I say this from simplicity and purity of mind. The Japanese of thirty years since — that is since we opened our country for foreigners — will prove to you that our country is quite unequaled on the way of pick- ing up what is good and right, even done by others. We never say who invented this? which country brought that? The things of good nature have been most heartily accepted by us, regardless of race and nationality. Is this not the precious gift of the truth of Buddhism, the spirit of our country? But don't too hastily conclude that we are only blind in imitating others. We have our own nationality ; let me assure you that we have our own spirit. But we are not so obstinate to deny even what is good. So we trust in the unity of truth, but do not believe in the Creator fancied out by the imperfect brain of human beings. We also firmly reserve our own nationality as to manner, customs, arts, literature, benevolence, architecture and language. We have a charming and lovely nationality which characterizes all customs and relation between the sexes, between old and young and so on with peace and gentleness. You may think me too boastful, but allow me to warrant you that in traveling into the interior of Japan you will never be received with the salutation of " Hello, John." You will never be received with the salutation, " Hello, Jack." Nay, our people are not so impolite — none of them. Everywhere you go you will receive hearty welcome and kind hospitality. Not only this, you are well aware of the fact that Japan has her own originality in fine arts, sculpture, painting, architecture, etc. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 403 Should you doubt me, please trouble yourself to come over to Japan, where the beautiful mountains and clear streams will welcome you with smiles and open heart. Japan, though small in area, with the glorious rising as well as the setting sun, which shines over the beautiful cherry tree flowers, will do her very best to please you. The Japanese fine arts productions, which abound in all the cities of Japan, will tell you their own history. Not only is there the beautiful climate, which will tempt you to forget the departure from Japan, but I say that you ladies and gentlemen are not so weak as to be tempted by climate or the other things so far as to forget your country; but the respect, courtesy, kindness and hospitality you will constantly receive there might, perhaps, make it too hard for you to leave Japan without shedding tears. You must not think that this is spoken by one mortal Horin Toki, of Japan, but it is spoken to you by the truth, who borrowed my tongue. Truly, it is. And let me ask you, who do you think originated such beautiful originator of customs and the fine arts of worldwide reputation in Japan? Allow Fine Arts, me to assure you that it was Buddhism. I have no time to count, one by one, what Buddhism has wrought out in Japan during the past eleven hundred years. But one word is enough — Buddhism is the spirit of Japan; her nationality is Buddhism. This is the true state of Japan. But it is a pity that we see some false and obstinate religionists, who, comparing these promising Japanese with the South Islanders, have been so carelessly trying to introduce some false religion into our country. As I said before, we Buddhists welcome any who are earnest seekers after the truth, but can we keep silent to see the falsehood disturbing the peace and nationality of our country? The hateful rumor of the collision taking place between the two parties is some- times spread abroad. We, from the standpoint of love to our country, cannot overlook this falsehood and violation of peace and fraternity. Do you think it is right for one to urge upon a stranger to believe what he does not like and call that stranger foolish, barbarous, igno- rant and obstinate on account of the latter's denying the proposition made by the former? Do you think it is right for the former to excite the latter by calling so many names and producing social disorder? I should say that such a one as that is against peace, love and order, fraternity and humanity. I should say that such a one as that is against the truth. He who is against the truth had better die. Justice docs conquer injustice, and we are glad to see that the cloud of falsehood is gradually disappearing before the light of truth. Also, you ladies and gentlemen who are assembled now here are the friends of truth. Nay, you are amidst the truth. You breathe the truth as you do the air. And you surely indorse my opinion, because it is nothing but the truth. 3uddhism as Jt ^xists in §iam. Paper by H. R. H. PRINCE CHANDRADAT CHUDHADHARN, of Siam. UDDHISM, as it exists in Siam, teaches tkit all things are made up from the Dharma, a Sanscrit term meaning the "essence of nat- ure." The Dharma presents the three fol- lowing phenomena, which generally exist in every being: i. The accomplishment of eter- nal evolution. 2. Sorrow and suffering, ac- cording to human ideas. 3. A separate power, uncontrollable by the desire of man, and not belonging to man. The Dharma is formed of two essences, one known as matter, the other known as spirit. These essences exist for eternity; they are without beginning and without end; the one represents the world and the corpo- parts of man, and the other the mind of man. The three phenomena combined are the factors for molding forms and creating sensations. The waves of the ocean are formed but of water, and the various shapes they take are dependent upon the degree of motion in the water; in similar man- ner the Dharma represents the universe, and varies according to the degree of evolution accomplished within it. Matter is called in the Pali "Rupa," and spirit "Nama." Everything in the universe is made up of Rupa and Nama, or matter and spirit, as already stated. The difference between all material things, as seen outwardly, depends upon the degree of evolution that is inherent to matter; and the dif- crence between all spirits depends upon the degree of will, which is the evolution of spirit. These differences, however, are only apparent; in reality, all is one and the same essence, merely a modification of the one great eternal truth, Dharma. j^Etemai Evo- Man, who is an aggregate of Dharma, is, however, unconscious of the fact, because his will either receives impressions and becomes modified by mere visible things, or because his spirit has become identified with appearances, such as man, animal, deva or any other beings that are also but modified spirits and matter. Man becomes, 404 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 405 therefore, conscious of separate existence. But all outward forms, man himself included, are made to live or to last for a short space of time only. They are soon to be destroyed and recreated again and again by an eternal evolution. He is first body and spirit, but, through ignorance of the fact that all is Dharma and of that which is good and evil, his spirit may become impressed with evil temptation. Thus, for instance, he may desire certain things with that force peculiar to a tiger, whose spirit is modified by craving for lust and anger. In such a case he will be continually adopting, directly or indirectly, in his own life, the wills and acts of that tiger, and thereby is himself that animal in spirit and soul. Yet outwardly he appears to be a man, and is as yet unconscious of the fact that his spirit has become endowed with the cruelties of the tiger. If this state continues until the body be dissolved or changed into other matter, be dead, as we say, that same spirit which has been endowed with the cravings of lust and anger of a tiger, of exactly the same nature and feelings as those that have appeared in the body of the man before his death, may reappear now to find itself in the body of a tiger suitable to its nature. Thus, so long as man is ignorant of that nature of Dharma and fails to identify that nature, he continues to receive diffei'ent impressions from beings around him in this uni- verse, thereby sufferings, pains, sorrows, disappointments of all kinds, death. If, however, his spirit be impressed with the good qualities that are found in a superior being, such as the deva, for instance, by adopt- ing in his own life the acts and wills of that superior being, man becomes spiritually that superior being himself, both in nature and soul, even while in his present form. When death puts an end to his physical body, a spirit of the very same nature and quality may reap- pear in the new body of a deva to enjoy a life of happiness, not to be compared to anything that is known in this world. However, to all beings alike, whether superior or inferior to our- selves, death is a suffering. It is, therefore, undesirable to be born into any being that is a modification of Dharma, to be sooner or later, again and again, dissolved by the eternal phenomenon of evolution. The only means by which w^e are able to free ourselves from sufferings and death is therefore to possess a perfect knowledge of Dharma, and Death a Suf- to realize by will and acts that nature only obtainable by adhering to the precepts given by Lord Buddha in the four noble truths. The consciousness of self-being is a delusion, so that, until we are con- vinced that we ourselves and whatever belongs to ourselves is a mere nothingness, until we have lost the idea or impression that we arc men, until that idea be completely annihilated and we have become united to Dharma, we are unable to reach spiritually the state of Nirvana, and that is only attained when the bodies dissolve both spiritually and physically So that one should cease all petty long- ing for personal happiness, and remember that one life is as hollov.'as the other, that all is transitory and unreal. 406 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The true Buddhist does not mar the purity of his self-denial by lusting after a positive happiness which he himself shall enjoy here or hereafter. Ignorance of Dharma leads to sin, which leads to sorrow; and under these conditions of existence each new birth leaves man ignorant and finite still. What is to be hoped for is the absolute re- pose of Nirvana, the extinction of our being nothingness. Allow me to give an illustration: A piece of rope is thrown in a dark road; a silly man passing by cannot make out what it is. In his natural ignor- ance the rope appears to be a horrible snake and immediately creates in him alarm, fright and suffering. Soon light dwells upon him; he now realizes that what he took to be a snake is but a piece of rope; his alarm and fright are suddenly at an end; they are annihilated, as it were; the man now becomes happy and free from the suffering he has just experienced through his own folly. It is precisely the same with ourselves, our lives, our deaths, our alarms, our cries, our lamentations, our disappointments, and all other sufferings. They are created by our own ignorance of ctcrnit)', of the knowledge of Dharma to do away with and annihilate all of them. I shall now refer to the four noble truths as taught by our Merci- ful and Omniscient Lord Buddha; they point out the path that leads to Nirvana, or to the desirable extinction of self. The first noble truth is suffering; it arises from birth, old age, ill- ness, sorrow, death, separation and from what is loved, association Truthl ^^^* with what is hateful, and, in short, the very idea of self in spirit and matters that constitute Dharma The second noble truth is the cause of suffering which results from ignorance, creating lust for objects of perishable nature. If the lust be for sensual objects it is called, in Pali, Kama Tanha. If it be for supersensual objects, belongmg to the mind but still possessing a form in the mind, it is called Bhava Tanha. If the lust be pure for super- sensual objects that belong to the mind but are devoid of all form whatever, it is called Wibhava Tanha. The third noble truth is the extinction of sufferings, which is brought about by the cessation of the three kinds of lust, together with their accompanying evils, which all result directly from ignorance. The fourth noble truth is the means of paths that lead to the cessa- tion of lusts and other evils. This noble truth is divided into the fol- lowing eight paths: Right understanding, right resolutions, right speech, right acts, right way of earning a livelihood, right efforts, right meditation, right state of mind. A few words of explanation on these paths may not be found out of place. By right understanding is meant proper comprehension, especially in regard to what we call sufferings. We should strive to learn the cause of our sufferings and the manner to alleviate and even to sup- press them. We are not to forget that we are in this world to suffer; that wherever there is pleasure there is pain, and that, after all, pain and pleasure only exist according to human ideas. By right resolutions is meant that it is our imperative duty lo act THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 407 kindly to our fellow creatures. We are to bear no malice against any- body and never to seek revenge. We are to understand that in reality we exist in flesh and blood only for a short time and that happiness and sufferings are transient or idealistic, and therefore we should try to control our desires and cravings and endeavor to be good and kind toward our fellow creatures. By right speech is meant that we arc always to speak the truth, never to incite one's anger toward others, but always to speak of things useful and never use harsh words destined to hurt the feelings of others. By right acts is meant that we should never harm our fellow creatures, neither steal, take life nor commit adultery. Temperance and celibacy are also enjoined. By right way of earning a livelihood is meant that we are always to be honest and never to use wrongful or guilty means to attain an end. By right efforts is meant that we are to persevere in our endeavors to do good and to mend our conduct should we ever have strayed from the path of virtue. By right meditation is meant that we should always look upon life as being temporary, consider our existence as a source of suffering, and therefore endeavor always to calm our minds that may be excited by the sense of pleasure or pain. Right state of mind is meant that we should be firm in our belief and be strictly indifferent, both to the sense or feeling of pleasure and pain It would be out of place here to enter into further details on the four noble truths; it would require too much time. I will, therefore, merely summarize their meanings and say that sorrow and sufferings are mainly due to ignorance, which creates in our minds lust, anger ranee! ^'^ ^*°*^ and other evils The extermination of all sorrow and suffering and of all happiness is attained by the eradication of ignorance and its evil consequences, and by replacing it with cultivation, knowledge, con- tentment and love. Now comes the question. What is good and what is evil? Every act, speech or thought derived from falsehood, or that which is injuri- ous to others is evil. Every act, speech or thought derived from truth and that which is not injurious to others is good. Buddhism teaches that lust prompts avarice; anger creates animosity; ignorance produces false ideas These are called evils because they cause pain. On the other hand, contentment prompts charity, love creates kindness, knowl- edge produces progressive ideas. These are called good because they give pleasure. The teachings of Buddhism on morals are numerous, and arc di- vided mto three groups of advantages — the advantage to be obtained in the present life, the advantage to be obtained in the future life, and the advantage to be obtained in all eternity. For each of these ad- vantages there are recommended numerous paths to be followed by in the Present Life. 408 THE WORLD'S COA'GRESS OF RELIGIONS. those who aspire to any one of theni. I will only quote a few exam- ples: To those who aspire to advantages in the present life Buddhism recommends diligence, economy, expenditure suitable to one's income, and association with the good. To those who aspire to the advantages of the future life are rec- ommended charity, kindness, knowledge of right and wrong. To those who wish to enjoy the everlasting advantages in all Advanta»jee eternity are recommended purity of conduct, of mind and of knowl- edge. Allow me now to say a few words on the duties of man toward his wife and family as preached by the Lord Buddha himself to the lay disciples in different discourses, or suttas, as they are called in Pali. They belong to the group of advantages of the present life. A good man is characterised by seven qualities: He should not be loaded with faults, he should bo free from laziness, he should not boast of his knowledge, he should be truthful, benevolent, content and should aspire to all that is useful. A husband should honor his wife, never insult her, never displease her, make her mistress of the house, and provide for her. On her part, a wife ought to be cheerful toward him when he works, entertain his friends and care for his dependents, to never do anything he does not wish, to take good care of the wealth he has accumulated, not to be idle but always cheerful when at work herself. Parents in old age expect their children to take care of them, to do all their work and business, to maintain the household, and, after death, to do honor to their remains by being charitable. Parents help their children by preventing them from doing sinful acts, by guiding them in the path of virtue, by educating them, by providing them with husbands and wives suitable to them, by leaving them legacies. When poverty, accident or misfortune befalls man, the liuddhist is taught to bear it with patience, and if these are brought on by him- self it is his duty to discover their causes and try, if possible, to rem- edy them If the causes, however, are not to be found here in this life he must account for them by the wrongs done in his former existence. Temperance is enjoined upon all Buddhists for the reason that the habit of using intoxicating things tends to lower the mind to the level of that of an idiot, a mad man or an evil spirit. These are some of the doctrines and moralities taught by Bud- dhism, which I hope will give you an idea of the scope of the Lord Buddha's teachings. In closing this brief paper, I earnestly wish you all, my brother religionists, the enjoyment of long life, happiness and prosperity. 3uddhism. Paper by BANRIEU YATSUBUCHI, of Japan. HE radiating light of the civilization of the present century, to be seen in Europe and America, is reflected on all corners of the earth. My country has already opened inter- national intercourse and made rapid progress, owing to Anierica, for which I return many thanks. The present state of the world's civilization, however, is limited always to the near material world, and it has not yet set forth the best, most beautiful and most truth- ful spiritual world. It is because every relig- ion, stooping in each corner, neglects its duty of universal love and brotherhood. But, at last, the day came fortunately that all religions sent their members to attend the world's relig- ious congress in connection with the Columbian exposition of 1893. Buddhism is the doctrine taught by Buddha Shakyamuni. The word Buddha is Sanscrit and in Japanese it is Satorim, which means understanding or comprehension. It has three meanings — self com- prehension, to let others comprehend and perfect comprehension. When wisdom and humanity are attained thoroughly by one he may be called Buddha, which means perfect comprehension. In Buddhism we have Buddha as our saviour, the spirit incarnate of perfect self-sac- rifice and divine compassion, and the embodiment of all that is pure and good. Although Buddha was not a creator and had no power to destroy the law of the universe, he had the power of knowledge to know the origin of nature and end of each revolving manifestation of the universal phenomena. He suppressed the craving and passions of his mind until he could reach no higher spiritual and moral plane. As every object of the universe is one part of the truth, of course it may become Buddha, according to a natural reason. The only difference between Buddha and all other beings is in point of supreme enlightenment. Kegon Sutra teaches us that there is no distinction between Mind, Buddha and Beings, and Nirvana Su- 409 HuddhH De- fined. 410 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. tra also teaches us that all beings have the nature of Buddahood. If one does not neglect to purify his mind and to increase his power of religion, he may take in the spiritual world or space and have cogni- zance of the past, present and future in his mind. Kisliinron tells us that space has no limit, that the worlds are innumerable, that the beings are countless, that Buddhas are numberless. Buddhism aims to turn from the incomplete, superstitious world to the complete enlighten- ment of the world of truth. The complete doctrines of Buddha, who spent fifty years in elab- orating them, were preached precisely and carefully, and their mean- ings are so profound and deep that I cannot explain at this time an infinitesimal part of them. His preaching was a compass to point ^)mpiete out the direction to the bewildering spiritual world. He taught his Baddha. disciples just as the doctor cures his patient, by giving several med- icines according to the different cases. Twelve divisions of sutras and eighty-fourthousand laws, made to meet the different cases ot Buddha's patients in the suffering world, are minute classifications of Buddha's teaching. Why are there so many sects and preachings in Buddhism? Simply because of the differences in human character. His teaching may be divided under tour heads: Thinking about the general state of the world, thinking about the individual character simply, conquering the passions, giving up the life to the sublime first principle There is no room for censure because Buddhism has many sects Ce^su^" '**' which were founded on Buddha's teachings, because Buddha consid- ered it best to preach according to the spiritual needs of his hearers, and leave to them the choice of any particular sect. We are not allowed to censure other sects, because the teaching ot each guides us all to the same place at last. The necessity for separating the many sects arose from the fact that the people of different countries were not alike in dispositions, and could not accept the same truths in the same way as others One teaching of Buddha contains many ele- ments which are to be distributed and separated. But as the object, as taught by Buddha, is one, we teach the ignorant according to the conditions that arise through our different sects. If you wish to know about Buddhism thoroughly you must begin the study of it. Those of you who would care to know the outline of Buddhism might read Professor Nanjo's English translation of the " History of the Japanese Buddhist Sects." This will also give you a general idea ot the Bud- dhism of Japan. U c U CQ u 3uddhism and Qhristianity. Paper by H. DHARMAPALA, of India. AX MULLER says: "When a religion j/k . JR„-ip§ has ceased to produce champions, proph- ^» TT ^'^ ^^^ ^"^ martyrs it has ceased to live in Jt . W^ i^j the true sense of the word, and the t km , MM £■ decisive battle for the dominion of the world would have to be fought out among the three missionary religions which are alive: Buddhism, Moham- medanism and Christianity." Sir Will- iam W. Hunter, in his "Indian Empire" (1893), says: "The secret of Buddha's success was that he brought spiritual deliverance to the people. He preached that salvation was equally open to all men, and that it must be earned, not oy propitiating imaginary deities, but by our own conduct. His doctrines thus cut away the religious basis of caste and had the effi- ciency of the sacrificial ritual and assailed the supremacy of the Brahmans (priests) as the mediators between God and man." Buddha taught that sin, sorrow and deliverance, the state of man in this life, in all previous and in all future lives, are the inev- itable results of his own acts (Karma). He thus applied the inexorable law of cause and effect to the soul. What a man sows he must reap. As no evil remains without punishment and no good deed without reward, it follows that neither priest nor God can prevent each act bearing its own consequences. Misery or happiness in this life is the unavoidable result of our conduct in a past life, and our actions here will determine our happiness or misery in the life to come. When any creature dies he is born again, in some higher or lower state of exist- ence, according to his merit or demerit. His merit or demerit — that is, his character — consists of the sum total of his actions in all previous lives. By this great law of Karma Buddha explained the inequalities and apparent injustice of men's estate in this world as the consequence of 413 Resnlts of His Own Acts. 414 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. acts in the past, while Christianity compensates those inequalities by rewards in tne future. A system in which our whole well-being, past, present and to come, depends on ourselves, theoretically leaves little room for the interference, or even existence, of a personal God. But the atheism of Buddha was a philosophical tenet, which, so far from weakening the functions of right and wrong, gave them new strength from the doctrine of Karma, or the metempsychosis of character. To free ourselves from the thraldom of desire and from the fetters of sel- fishness was to attain to the state of the perfect disciple, Arabat, in this life and to the everlasting rest after death. The great practical aim of Buddha's teaching was to subdue the lusts of the flesh and the cravings of self, and this could only be attained by the practice of virtue. In place of rites and sacrifices Buddha pre- scribed a code of practical morality as the means of salvation. The four essential features of that code were: Reverence to spiritual teach- ers and parents, control over self, kindness to other men, and reverence for the life of all creatures. He urged on his disciples that they must not only follow the true path themselves, but that they should teach it to all mankind. The life and teachings of Buddha are also beginning to exercise a new influence on religious thought in Europe and America. Buddhism will stand forth as the embodiment of the eternal verity that as a man sows he will reap, associated with the duties of mastery over self and kindness to all men, and quickened into a popular religion by the example of a noble and beautiful life. Here are some Buddhist teachings as given in the words of Jesus and claimed by Christianity: Whosoever cometh to Me and heareth My sa ings and doeth them, he is like a man which built a house and laid the foundation on a rock. Why call ye me Lord and do not the things which I say? Judge not, condemn not, forgive. Love your enemies and do good, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great. Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it. Be ready, for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not. Sell all that ye have and give it to the poor. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years.take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him: Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then whose shall these things be which thou hast provided ? The life is more than meat and the body more than raiment. Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be My disciple. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful in much. Whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIC IONS. 415 For behold the kingdom of God is within you. There is no man that hath left house or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake who shall not receive •manifold more in this present time. Take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be over- charged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life. Watch ye, therefore, and pray always. Here are some Buddhist teachings for comparison: Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time. Hatred ceases by Com^ai^n/'^ love. This is an ancient law. Let us live happily, not hating those who hate us. Among men who hate us, let us live free from hatred. Let one overcome anger by love. Let him overcome evil by good. Let him overcome the greedy by liberality, let the liar be overcome by truth. As the bee, injuring not the flower, its color or scent, flies away, taking the nectar, so let the wise man dwell upon the earth. Like a beautiful flower, full of color and full of scent, the fine words of him who acts accordingly are full of fruit. Let him speak the truth, let him not yield to anger, let him give when asked, even from the little he has. By these things he will enter heaven. The man who has transgressed one law and speaks lies and denies a future world, there is no sin he could not do. The real treasure is that laid up through charity and piety, temper- ance and self-control; the treasure thus hid is secured, and passes not away. He who controls his tongue, speaks wisely and is not puffed up; who holds up the torch to enlighten the world, his word is sweet. Let his livelihood be kindness, his conduct righteousness. Then in the fullness of gladness he will make an end of grief. He who is tranquil and has completed his course, who sees truth as it really is, but is not partial when there are persons of different faith to be dealt with, who with firm mind overcomes ill will and cov etousness, he is a true disciple. As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let each one cultivate good will without measure among all beings. Nirvana is a state to be realized here on this earth. He who has reached the fourth stage of holiness consciously enjoys the bliss of Nirvana. But it is beyond the reach of him who is selfish, skeptical, realistic, sensual, full of hatred, full of desire, proud, self-righteous and ignorant. When by supreme and unceasing effort he destroys all sel- fishness and realizes the oneness of all beings, is free from all preju- dices and dualism, when he by patient investigation discovers truth, the stage of holiness is reached. Among Buddhist ideals are self-sacrifice for the sake of others, compassion based on wisdom, joy in the hope that there is final bliss for the pure-minded, altruistic individual. The student of Buddha's 416 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Baddhist religion takes the burden of life with sweet contentment; uprightness Ideals. is his delight; he encompasses himself with holiness in word and deed; he sustains his life by means that are quite pure; good is his conduct, guarded the door of his senses, mindful and self possessed, he is alto- gether happy. H. T. Buckle, the author of the "History of Civilization," says: "A knowledge of Buddhism is necessary to the right understanding of Christianity. Buddhism is, besides, a most philosophical creed. Theo- logians should study it." In his inaugural address delivered at the congress of orientals last year Max Miiller remarked: "As to the religion of Buddha being influenced by foreign thought, no true scholar now dreams of that. The religion of Buddha is the daughter of the old Brahman religion and a daughter in many respects more beautiful than the mother. On the contrary, it was through Buddhism that India, for the first time, stepped forth from the isolated position and became an actor in the historical drama of the world." Dr. Hoey, in his preface to Dr. Oldberg's excellent work on Buddha, says: "To thoughtful men who evince an interest in the com- parative study of religious beliefs Buddhism, as the highest effort of pure intellect to solve the problem of being, is attractive. It is not less so to the metaphysician and the sociologist, who study the philos- ophy of the modern German pessimistic school and observe its social tendencies." Dr. Rhys David says that Buddhism is a field of inquiry, in which the only fruit to be gathered is knowledge. R. C. Dutt says: "The moral teachings and precepts of Buddhism have so much in common with those of Christianity that some connec- tion between tlie two systems of religion has long been suspected. Can- did inquirers who have paid attention to the history of India and of the Greek world during the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era, and noted the intrinsic relationship which existed between these countries in scientific, religious and literary ideas, found no difficulty in believing that Buddhist ideas and precepts penetrated into the Greek world before the birth of Christ. The discovery of the Asoka inscription of Hirnar, which tells us that that enlightened emperor of India made peace with five Greek kings and sent Buddhist missionaries to preach his religion in Syria, explains to us the process by which the ideas were communicated. Researches into doctrines of the Therapcuts in Egypt, and of the Essenes in Palestine, leave no doubt, even in the minds of such devout Christian thinkers as Dean Mansel, that the movement which those sects embodied was due to Buddhist mission- aries who visited Egypt and Palestine within two generations of the time of Alexander the Great. A few writers like Benson, Seydal and Lillie maintain that the Christian religion has sprung directly from Buddhism." 27 Buddhist Priest, Ceylon. 3uddha. Paper by ZITSUZEN ASHITSU, S it not, really, a remarkable event in human history that such a large number of the dele- gates of different creeds are come together from every corner of the world, as in a con- cert, to discuss one problem of humanity — universal brotherhood — without the least jeal- ousy? I am so happy in giving an address as a token of my cordial acceptance of the mem- bership of this congress of religions. My subject is Buddha. This subject might be treated in two ways, either absolutely or relatively. But if I were to take an absolute way I am afraid I should not be able to utter even a single word, because, when Buddha is observed at absolute perfection, there is no word in human tongue which is powerful enough to interpret the state of its grand enlightenment. So, meanwhile, I stoop down to the lower stage, that is, to the manner of relativity, in treating this subject, and will explain the highest human enlightenment, which is called Buddha, according to the order of its five attitudes; that is, denomination, personality, principle, function and doctrine. Denomination. Buddha is a Sanskrit word and is translated Kakusha in Chinese language. The word Kaku means enlighten, so one who enlightened his own mind and also enlightened those of others was called Buddha. Buddha has three personalities, namely, Hosshin, Hoshin and Wojin. Now, in Hosshin, Ho means law and Shin means personality, so it is the name given to the personality of the constitution after the Buddha got the highest Buddhahood. This personality is entirely colorless and formless, but, at the same time, it has the nature of eternality, omnipresence, and unchangeableness. Hosshin is called Birushana in Sanskrit and Hen-issai-sho in Chinese, both meaning omnipresence. Then, in Hoshin, Ho means effect, so this is the name given to the personality of the result, which the Buddha attained by refining 419 What the Word Bnddlia means. 420 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. his action. Its Sanskrit name is Rushana, and in Chinese it is Joman, in which Jo means clear and Man means fullness, and when put together it means a state of the mind free from lust and evil desire, but full of enlightened virtues instead. This personality has another designation, which is called Jiyn- shin, meaning an enjoying personality. And it is again subdivided into two classes of Jijiyu and Vajiyo. Jijiyu means to enjoy the Buddha himself, the pleasure of attaining to the highest human virt- ues; while Tajiyu, which is also called world enlightenment, desig- nates the Buddha's benevolent action of imparting his holy pleasure to his fellow beings with his supreme doctrine. In short, the former is to enlighten one's own mind, while the lat- ter is to enlighten those of others. These two make a whole as Hoshin, which is the name given to the personality of the constitution, as I mentioned before, attained by the Buddha by his self-culture. So this personality has a beginning, but no end. Lastly, Wojin is the name given to a personality which spontane- ^itiMin*c^e°' ously appears to all kinds of beings in any state and condition in order to preach and enlighten them equally. In Sanskrit it is called Sha- kammi, and in Chinese, Noninjakumoku. Jakumoku means calmness and Nonin means humanity. He is perfectly calm; therefore he is en- tirely free from life and d^ath. He is perfectly humane; consequently is not content even in his state of Nirvana. These three personalities which I have just briefly mentioned are the attributes of the Buddha's intellectual activity, and at the same time they are the attributes of his one supreme personality. Nay, in the way of explanation, we can say that these three personalities are not the monopoly of the Buddha, but we also are provided with the same attributes. Our constitution is Hosshin, our intellect is Hoshin, while our actions are Wojin. Then what is the difference between the ordinary beings and Buddha, who is most enlightened of all? Noth- ing but that he is developed, by his self-culture, to the highest state, while we ordinary beings are buried in the dust of passions. If we cultivate our minds we can, of course, clear off the clouds of ignorance and reach the same enlightened place with the Buddha. So in my sect of Buddhism we, the ordinary beings, are also called Risoku Buddha, or beings with nature of Buddha. But, as our minds are unfortunately full of lusts and superstition, we cannot be called Kukyosoku Buddha, as Ahaka, or Gautama, is. He is so entitled be- cause he has sprung up to the highest state of mental achievement, and there is no higher attainable. He says, in his sacred Sutra, "Bomino," "I am the Buddha already enlightened hereafter." Personality. The person of Buddha is perfectly free from life and death. (Fusho fumetsu.) We call it Nehan or Nirvana. Nehan is divided into four classes: Honrai Jishoshojo Nehan, Uyo Nehan, Muyo Nehan, Mujusho Nehan. Honrai Jishoshojo Nehan is the name given to the nature of Buddha, which has neither beginning nor end, and is perfectly clear of THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 421 lust like a perfect mirror. But such an excellent nature as I just men- tioned is not the peculiar property of Buddha, but every being in the universe has just the same constitution as Buddha. So it is told in Kcgon Sutra that "There is no slight distinction between Mind, Buddha and Beings." Uyo Nehan is the name given to the state little advanced from the above, when we perceive that our solicitude is fleeting, our lives are inconstant, and even there is no such thing as ego. In this state our mind is quite empty and clear, but there still remains one thing, that is, the body. So it is called Nyo, or "something left." Muyo Nehan is the state which has advanced one step higher than Uyo. In this Nehan our body and intellect come to entire annihila- tion and there nothing is traceable; therefore, this state is called Muyo, or "nothing left." Mujusho Nehan is the highest state of Nirvana. In this state we get a perfect intellectual wisdom; we are no more subject to birth and death. Also, we become perfectly merciful; we are not content with the self-indulging state of highest Nirvana, but we appear to the beings of every class to save them from prevailing pains by imparting the pleasure of Nirvana. These being the principal grand desires of Buddhahood, the four Four Morci- merciful vows accompany them, namely: fuiVows. I hope I can save all the beings in the universe from this igno- rance! I hope I can abstain from my inexhaustible desires of ignorance! I hope I can comprehend the boundless meaning of the doctrine of Buddha! I hope I can attain the highest enlightenment of Buddhaship! Out of these four classes of Nirvana the first and last are called the Nirvana of Mahayana, while the remaining are that of Nina\'ana. Principle. The fundamental principle of Buddha is the mind, which may be compared to a boundless sea into which the thousand rivers of Buddha's doctrines flow; so it is Buddhism comprehends the whole mind. The mind is absolutely so grand and marvelous that even the heaven can never be compared to its highness, while the earth is too short for measuring its thickness. It has shape neither long nor short, neither round nor square. Its existence is neither inside nor outside, nor even in the middle part of bodily structure. It is purely colorless and formless and appears freely and actively in ever}' place through- out the universe. But for the convenience of studying its nature we call it. True Mind of Absolute Unity (Shinnyo). It is told in Sutra that "all figures in the universe are stamped but by the one form." What does that one form mean? It is nothing but another designation of Absolute Unity and that stamps out figures. means the innumerable phenomena before our eyes which are the shadow or appearance of the Absolute Unity. Thus the mind and the figure (or color) reflect each other; so the 422 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. mind cannot be seen without the figure and the figure cannot be seen without the mind. In other words, the figure and mind are standing relatively, so the figure cannot exist without the mind and the mind cannot exist without the figure. It is told in Sutra that "when we see color we .see mind." There is nothing but the absolute mind-unity throughout the universe. Every form of figure such as heaven, earth, mountains, rivers, trees, grasses, even a man, or what else it might be, is nothing but the grand personality of absolute unity. And as this absolute unity is the only object with which Buddha enlightens all kinds of existing beings, so it is clear that the principle of Buddha is the mind. Functfons.*^*^ Function. Three sacred virtues are essential functions of Buddha, which are the sacred wisdom, the graceful humanity, and the sublime courage. Of these the sacred wisdom is also called absolute wisdom. Wisdom in ordinary is a function of mind which has the power of judg- ing. When it is acting relatively to the lusts of mind it is called, in Buddhism, relative wisdom, and when standing alone, without relation to ignorance or superstition, it is called absolute wisdom. The Buddha with his absolute wisdom is called Monju Bosatsu, or Buddha of intel- lectual light (Chiye Kivo Butsu), or Myochi Mutorin (marvelous wis- dom, nothing comparable). The graceful humanity is a production of wisdom. W'hen intel- lectual light shines, penetrating the clouds of ignorant superstition of all beings, they are free from suffering, misery, and endowed with an enlightened pleasure. It is told in Sutra: "The mind of Buddha is so full of humanity that he waits upon every being with an absolutely equal humanity." The object of Buddha's own enlightenment is to endow with pleas- ure and happiness all beings without making a slight distinction among them. So it is told in Hokke Sutra that "Now all these three worlds (which, as a whole, means the universe) are possessed of my hand, all beings upon them are my loving children. These worlds are full of innumerable pains, from which I alone can save them." The word "humanity" in Buddhism is interpreted in two ways. One is to tender and bring something up, while the other to pity and save. Again, the humanity of Buddha is divided into three classes. namely, humanity relating to all kinds of beings, humanity relating to the appearance, and humanity universally common to all things. Now, firstly, humanity relating to all beings is the humanity with which Buddha comprehends the relation of all beings and saves them all alike, just as merciful parents would do their children. Secondly, humanity relating to the appearance is the humanity with which Buddha comprehends all phenomenal appearances which exist in relation to conditions and preserves them on the field of perfect unity, where there are no such distinctions as ego and non-ego, and no difference of beings. Thirdly, humanity which is universally common to all beings, is the humanity with which Buddha, appearing everywhere, saves all the beings according to their different conditions, as naturally as a THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 423 lodestone attracts iron. This is one of the four holy vows of Buddha, that is: "I hope I can save all the beings in the universe from their ignorance." Although the Buddha have these two virtues of wisdom and hu- manity, he could never save a being if he had not another sacred virtue, that is, courage. But he had such wonderful courage as to give up his imperial priesthood, full of luxury and pleasure, simply for the sake of fulfilling his desire of salvation. Not only this, he will not spare any trouble or suffering, hardship or severity, in order to crown himself with spiritual success. So Amita Buddha also said to himself that "firmness of mind will never be daunted amid an extreme of pains and hardships." Truly, nothing can be done without courage. Courage is the mother of success. Courage is the foundation of all requisites for success. It is the same in the saying of Confucius, "a man who has humanity in his mind, has, as a rule, certain courage." Among the disciples of the Buddha, Kwan-on represents humanity, Monju represents wisdom and Sei-shi represents courage; so it is very manifest that these three sacred virtues are essential functions of Buddha. Doctrine. After Shaku Buddha's departure from this world two Doctrinal disciples, Kasho and Suan, collected the dictations of his teachings. Teachings. This is the first appearance of Buddha's book, and it was entitled "The Three Stores of Hinayana (Sanzo)," which means it contains three different classes of doctrine, namely, Kyo, or principle; Ritsu, or law, and Ron, or argument. Now, firstly, Kyo (Sanskrit Sutra) is a Chinese word which means permanent, so that it designates the principle which is permanent and is taken as the origin of the law of the Buddhist. Secondly, Ritsu (Sanskrit Vini) means a law or commandment, so that this portion of the stores contains the commandments founded by the Buddha to stop human evils. Thirdly, Ron (Sanskrit Abidarma) meansargumentor discussion, so this part contains all the arguments or discussions written by his disciples or followers. These three stores being a part of Buddhist works, there is another collection of three stores which is called that of Mahayana, compiled by the disciples of the Buddha Monju Miroku, Anan, etc. Both the Hinayana and Mahayana were prevailing together among the coun- tries of India for a long time after the Buddha's departure. But when several hundred years were passed they were gradually divided into three parts. One of them has been spread toward northern countries such as Thibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, etc. One has been spread east- ward through China, Corca and Japan. Another branch of Buddhism is still remaining in the southern portion of Asiatic countries such as Cey- lon, Siam, etc. These three branches are respectively called Northern Mahayana, Eastern Mahayana and Southern Hinayana, and at present Eastern Mahayana, in Jai)an, is the most powerful of all the liuddliist branches. 424 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The difference between Mahayana and Hinayana is this: The former is to attain an enlightenment by getting hold of the intellectual constitution of Buddha, while the latter teaches how to attain Nirvana by obeying strictly the commandments given by Buddha, But if you would ask which is the principal part of Buddhism, I should say it is, of course, Mahayana, in which is taught how to become Buddha our- selves instead of Hinayana. There have been a great many Europeans and Americans who studied Buddhism with interest, but unfortunately they have never cioBion? ^^^' heard of Mahayana. They too hastily concluded that the true doc- trine of Buddhism is Hinayana, and that so-called Mahayana is noth- ing but a portion of Indian pure philosophy. They are wrong. They have entirely misunderstood. They have only poorly gained, with their scanty knowledge, a smattering of Buddhism. They are entirely ignorant of the boundless sea of Buddha's doctrine rolling just beneath their feet. His preaching is really so great that the famous Chisha- daishi, of ancient China, divided it into five epochs of time and eight teachings. Right after Buddha attained his perfect enlightenment, he preached that all beings have the same natureand wisdom with him. This epoch is called Kegon. Then he preached the Hinayana doctrine of four Agons; that is, Cho Agon, Chu Agon, Zo Agon, Zochi Agon. This doctrine is divided into three classes, namely, Shomon, Engaku, and Bosaku. Buddha preached and taught to the Shomon class of his followers the principle of four glorious doctrines, according to which one can attain Nirvana of Hinayana. Firs':, the world is full of sufferings and miseries; second, superstitions and lusts come one after another and induce us to misconceive birth and death; third, the way of attaining Nirvana is to get rid of pains; fourth, calmness and emptiness is the profound state of Nirvana. Next he preached to his followers of the Engaku class about the doctrine of twelve causes and conditions of human mind, which follow each other continually just like links in a chain — sudden appearance of idea, continuation of idea, intellect, uniting of intellect and body, completion of six organs, feeling, retaining, loving, catching, having birth, old age and death. In this class one is also able to attain Nir- vana by closely pursuing the course of mental culture. Then he taught six glorious behaviors to his followers of the Bosaku class, by which men become Buddha, such as charity, gooti behavior, forbearance, diligence, meditation, comprehension. These three teachings of Agon are what are called the three fundamental principles of Hinayana. After he finished the teaching of Agon he began to preach the principle of Yuima, Shiyaku, Eyoga, Ryogon, etc. This was the means adopted by him to lead the disciples from Hinayana doctrine to Mahayana, and the time is called the Ho-do Epoch. Ne,Nt comes the epoch of Mahavana, or the time when he taught THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF REUGlOMS. 420 the personality of wisdom, that it is perfectly spiritual and entirely colorless and formless. By this teaching he led his higher disciples to comprehend the constitution of the spiritual world. And heat last brought his disciples to the highest summit of his doctrine, where he taught the perfect principle of absolute unity, the perfect enlightenment of true, grand Nirvana. This epoch is called the time of Hokke and Nehan (or Nirvana). The five epochs are so arranged according to the development of the Shaka Buddha's preaching. His intention is simply to lead his followers into the glorious stage of true Nirvana, so he, for the sake of convenience, temporarily showed the truth at the first, and then pro- ceeded step by step to the absolutely highest truth. This is a brief explanation of the five epochs of Buddha's preach- ing. Now let me speak a few words of the so-called eight teachings. First comes Ton, that is, sudden, and it is a teaching for the persons who have a quick perception. Second comes Zen, that is, by j-j^^ Epochs degrees, and it is a teaching for the class of beings who can only of Preaching, develope gradually, step by step. Third comes Himitsu, that is, secret, and it is the teaching which does not correspond to either of Ton or Zen, but which each understand separately. Fourth comes Fujo, that is, unfixed, and it is the teaching which corresponds to both Ton and Zen ; it means that the teaching is not limited to any particular class at all, but sometimes it is for the beings with quick perception, while sometimes it is for the beings of gradual progress, or, in other words, it preaches as the case might demand. Fifth comes Zo, that is, a store, and it is the teaching of three collections of principles, law and argument. Sixth comes Tsu, that is, correspondence, and it is the preaching which corresponds with those three, the fifth, the seventh and the eighth. Seventh comes Beku, that is, difference, and it is a teaching quite different from those with which the last corresponds. Eighth comes En, that is, perfection, and it is the teaching of perfect absoluteness. Of these eight teachings, the first four are called the four kinds of teaching manners, while the last four are called the four kinds of teach- ing principle. These eight teachings are the doorway through which the Buddhists enter the perfect enlightenment. Daizokyo, or " complete work of Shaku Buddha," is really a won- derful store of truth. Most students in Buddhism lose their courage and ambition at the first glance at this inexhaustible fountain of the truth, so profound in meaning. But still the pleasure once felt in digesting its meaning can never he forgotten, and will naturally lead scholars into deeper and deeper parts of the sea of spiritual tranquillity and calmness. They will at once understand that those deep problems are nothing but symbols of grand unity which is perfectly absolute from the human word. So, shortly before closing his eyes, Shaku Buddha said: " I have never spoken a word until now, since I attained to perfect enlightenment." If you understand what Shaku said you can easily see the greatness of Buddha or his attainment. I am not an orator, neither a great talker, myself, but I sincerely Tnitl 426 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. believe that your characteristic quick perception has made you under- stand what I have said hitherto, and that the miscomprehension you had about Buddha or Buddhism has been cleared off. But I hope you will not stay there satisfied with what you have hitherto understood. Go on, my dear brothers and sisters. Keep on, and you will at last succeed in crowning your future with the perfect enlightenment. It is for your own sake. Nay, not only for your own, but also for your neighbors. You occidental nations, working in harmony, have wrought out the civilization of the present century, but who will it be that establishes the spiritual civilization of the twentieth century? It must be you. You know very well that our sun-rising Island of Japan is noted for its beautiful cherry-tree flowers. But don't you know that our Fiowere of native country is also the kingdom where the flowers of truth are blooming in great beauty and profusion at all seasons? Come to Japan. Don't forget to take with you the truth of Buddhism. Ah, hail the glorious spiritual spring day, when the song and odor of truth invite you all out to our country for the search for holy paradise! I do not believe it totally uninteresting to give here a short account of our Indo Busseki Kofuku Society, of Japan. The object of this society is to restore and re-establish the holy places of Buddhism in India and to send out a certain number of Japanese priests to perform devotional services in them, and promote the convenience of pilgrims from Japan. These holy places are Buddha Gaya, where Buddha attained to the perfect enlightenment; Kapila- vastu, where Buddha was born;, the Deer Park, where Buddha first preached, and Kusinagara, where Buddha entered Nirvana. Two thousand nine hundred and twenty years ago — that is, 1,026 years before Christ — the world became honored — Prince Siddhartha was born in the palace of his father, King Suddhodana, in Kapilavastu, the capital of the kingdom Magadha. When he was nineteen years old he began to lament men's inevitable subjection to the various suffer- ings of sickness, old age and death; and, discarding all his precious possessions and the heirship of the kingdom, he went into a mount- ain jungle to seek, by meditation and asceticism, the way of escape from these sufferings. After spending six years there and finding that the way he sought was not in asceticism, he went out from there and retired under the Bodhi tree, of Buddha Gaya, where at last, b\- profound meditation, he attained the supreme wisdom and became Buddha. The light of truth and mercy began to shine from him over the whole world, and the way of perfect emancipation was opened for all human beings, so that everyone can bathe in his blessings and walk in the way of enlightenment. When the ancient King Asoka, of Magadha, was converted to Buddhism, he erected a large and magnificent temple over the spot to show his gratitude to the founder of his new religion. But, sad to say, since the fierce Mohammedans invaded and laid waste the country, there being no Buddhist to guard the temple, its THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 497 possession fell into the hand of a Brahmanist priest, who chanced to come there and seized it. It was early in the spring of 1891 that the Japanese priest, Rev. Shaku Kionen, in company with H. Dharmapala, of Ceylon, visited this holy ground. The great Buddha Gaya temple was carefully re- paired and restored to its former state by the British government, but they could not help being very much grieved to see it subjected to much desecration in the hands of the Brahmanist, Mahant, and com- municated to us their earnest desire to rescue it. With warm sympathy for them and thinking, as Sir Edwin Arnold said, that it is not right for Buddhists to leave the guardianship of the holy center of a Buddhist's religion of grace to the hand of a Brah- Broth^rhmjd.** manist priest, we organized this Indo Busseki Kofuku Society, in Japan, to accomplish the object above mentioned, in co-operation with the Maha Bodhi Society, organized by Mr. H. Dharmapala and other Buddhist brothers in India. ' These are the outlines of the origin arid object of our Indo Busseki Kofuku Society; and I believe our Buddha Gaya movement will bring people of all Buddhist countries into closer connection and be instru- mental in promoting the brotherhood among the people of the whole world. 'Phe Principles of the 3^^f^^o-§omaj. Paper by PROTAP CHUNDER MOZOOMDAR, of CalcutU, India. Mother of R«»- liKlOD. R. PRESIDENT, Representatives of Nations and Relifrions: I told you the other day that India is the mother of religion, the land of evolution. I am going this morning to give you an example, or demonstrate the truth of what I said. The Brahmo-Somaj, of India, which I have the honor to repre- sent, is that example. Our society is a new society; our religion is a new re- ligion; but it comes from far, far antiq- uity, from the very roots of our nation- al life, hundreds of centuries ago. Sixty-three years ago the whole land of India — the whole country of Bengal — was full of a mighty clamor. The great jarring noise of a heterogeneous polytheism rent the stillness of the sky. The cry of widows; nay, far more lamentable, the cr}' of those miserable women who had to be burned on the funeral pyre of their dead husbands, desecrated the holiness of God's earth. We had the Buddhist, goddess of the country, the mother of the people, ten handed, holding in each hand the weapons for the defense of her children. We had the white goddess of learning, playing on her Vena, a stringed instrument of music, the strings of wisdom, be- cause, my friends, all wisdom is musical; wiiere there is a discord there is no deep wisdom. [Applause.] The goddess of good fortune, hold- ing in her arms, not the horn, but the basket of plent)', blessing the nations of India, was there, and the god with the head of an elephant, and the god who rides on a peacock — ^martial men are always fashion- able, you know, and the 33,000,000 of gods and goddesses besides. I have my theory about the mythology of Hinduism, but this is not the time to take it up. Amid the din and clash of this polytheism and so-called evil, amid all the darkness of the times, there arose a man, a Brahman, pure bred and pure born, whose name was Raja Ram Dohan Roy. In his 428 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. A'l\) boyhood he had studied the Arabic and Persian; he had studied San- skrit, and his own mother was a Bengalee. Before he was out of his teens he made a journey to Thibet and learned the wisdom of the Lamas. Before he became a man he wrote a book proving the falsehood of all polytheism and the truth of the existence of the living God. This brought upon his head persecution, nay, even such serious dis- pleasure of his own parents that he had to leave his home for awhile and live the life of a wanderer. In 1830 this man founded a society known as the Brahmo-Somaj; Brahma, as you know, means God. Brahmo means the worshiper of God, and Somaj means society; there- fore Brahmo-Somaj means the society of the worshipers of the one living God. While, on the one hand he established the Brahmo-Somaj, on the other hand he co-operated with the British goxernnient to abolish the barbarous custom of suttee, or the burning of widows with their dead husbands. In 1832 he traveled to England, the very first Hindu who ever went to Europe, and in 1833 he died, and his sacred bones are interred in Brisco, the place where every Hindu pilgrim goes to pay his tribute of honor and reverence. This monotheism, the one true living God— this society in the name of this great God — what were the underlying principles upon which it was established? The principles were those of the old Hin- qijj Himln du Scriptures. The Brahmo-Somaj founded this monotheism upon Scriptures, the inspiration of the Vedas and the Upanishads. When Rajar Ram Dohan Roy died his followers for awhile found it nearly impossible to maintain the infant association. But the spirit of God was there. The movement sprang up in the fullness of time. The seeds of eternal truth were sown in it; how could it die? Hence in the course of time other men sprang up to preserve it and contribute toward its growth. Did I say the spirit of God was there? Did I say the seed of eternal truth was there? There! Where? All societies, all churches, all religious movement have their foundation, not without, but within the depths of the human soul. [Applause.] Where the basis of a church is outside the floods shall rise, the rain shall beat, and tlie s.torm shall blow, and like a heap of sand it will melt into the sea. Where the basis is within the heart, within the soul, the storm shall rise, and the rain shall beat, and the flood shall come, but like a rock it neither wavers nor falls. So that movement of the Brahmo-.Somaj shall never fall. [Applause.] Think for yourselves, my brothers and sisters, upon what foundation your house is laid. In the course of time, as the movement grew the members began to doubt whether the Hindu Scrij)tures were really infallible. In their souls, in the depth of their intelligence, they thought thc\- heard a voice which here and there, at first in feeble accents, contradicted the deliverances of the Vedas and the Upanishads. What shall be our theological principles? Upon what principles shall our religion stand? The small accents in which the question first was asked became louder 430 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. and louder and were more and more echoed in the rising religious society until it became the most practical of all problems — upon what book shall true religion stand? Briefly, they found that it was impossible that the Hindu Script- ures should be the only records of true religion. They found that the spirit was the great source of confirmation, the voice of God was the great judge, the soul of the indweller was the rcvcaler of truth, and, although there were truths in the Hindu Scriptures, they could not recognize them as the only infallible standard of spiritual reality. .So twenty-one years after the foundation of the Brahmo-Somaj the doc- trine of the infallibility of the Hindu Scriptures was given up. Then a further question came. The Hindu Scriptures only not infallible! Are there not other Scriptures also? Did I not tell you the (jther day that on the imperial throne of India Christianity now sat with the Gospel of Peace in one hand and the scepter of civilization Extract from '" ^^^ Other? [Applausc.] Thc Bible had penetrated into India; its all' Scriptures, pagcs wcrc unfoldcd, its truths were read and taught. Thc Bible is the book which mankind shall not ignore. [Applause.] Recognizing, therefore, on the one hand, the great inspiration of thc Hindu .Script- ures, we could not but on the other hand recognize the inspiration and the authority of the Bible. [Applause.] And in 1861 we pub- lished a book in which extracts from all scriptures were given as the book which was to be read in the course of our devotions. Our monotheism, therefore, stands upon all Scriptures. That is our theological principle, and that principle did not emanate from the depths of our own consciousness, as the donkey was delivered out of the depths of the German conscio.usness; it came out as the natural result of the indwelling of God spirit within our fellow believers. No, it was not the Christian missionary that drew our attention to the Bible; it was not the Mohammedan priests who showed us thc excel- lent passages in the Koran; it was no Zoroastrian who preached to us the greatness of his Zend-Avesta; but there was in our hearts the God of infinite reality, the source of inspiration of all the books, of the Bible, of the Koran, of the Zend-Avesta, who drew our attention to His excellencies as rexealed in the record of holy experience every- where. By His leading and by His light it was that we recognized these facts, and upon the rock of everlasting and eternal reality our theological basis was laid. [Loud applause.] What is theology without morality? What is the inspiration of this book or the authority of that prophet without personal holiness — the cleanliness of this God-made temple and the cleanliness of thc deeper temple within? Soon after we had got through our theology the question stared us in the face that we were not good men, pure minded, holy men, and that there were innumerable evils around us. in our houses, in our national usages, in the organization of our societ}-. The Brahmo-Somaj, therefore, next laid its hand upon thc reformation of society. In 1851 thc first intermarriage was celebrated. Intermar- riage in India means the marriage pf persons belonging to different UeforiniUion t)f .Society. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 431 castes. Caste is a sort of Chinese wall that surrounds every household and every little community, and be\ond the limits of which no auda- cious man or woman shall stray. In the Brahmo-.Somaj we asked, ' "Shall this Chinese wall disgrace the freedom of God's children for- ever?" Break it down; down with it, and away. [Cheers.] Next, my honored leader and friend, Keshub Chunder Sen, so ar- ranged that marriage between different castes should take place. The Brahmans were offended. Wiseacres shook their heads; even leaders of the Brahmo-Somaj shrugged up their shoulders and put their hands into their pockets. "These young firebrands," they said, "are going to set fire to the whole of society." VtwX. intermarriage took place, and widow marriage took place. Do you know what the widows of India are? A little girl of ten or twelve years happens to lose her husband before she knows his vvido'ws of i'n- features very well, and from that tender age to her d}ing day she shall *^'* ""'• go through penances and austerities and miseries and loneliness and disgrace which }ou tremble to hear of. I do not approve of or under- stand the conduct of a woman who marries a first time and then a second time and then a third time and a fourth time — who marries as many times as there arc seasons in the year. [Laughter and ap- plause.] I do not understand the conduct of such men and women. But I do think that when a little child of eleven loses what men call her husband, and who has never been a wife for a single day of her life, to put her to the wretchedness of a lifelong widowhood, and in- flict upon her miseries which would disgrace a criminal, is a piece of inhumanity which cannot too soon be done away with. [Applause.] Hence intermarriages and widow marriages. Our hands were thus laid upon the problem of social and domestic improvement, and tlie result of that was that very soon a rupture took place in the Brahmo- .Somaj. We young men had to go — we, with all our social reform — and shift for ourselves as we best might. When these social reforms were partially completed there came another question. We had married the widow; we had prevented the burning of widows; what about her personal purity, the sanctification of our own consciences, the regeneration of our own souls? What about our acceptance before the awful tribunal of the God of infinite justice? .Social reform and the doing of public good is itself only legitimate when it develops into the all-embracing principle of personal purity and the holiness of the soul. My friends, I am often afraid, I confess, when I contemplate the condition of European and American societ)-, when your activities are so manifold, your work is so extensive that you are drowned in it and you have little time to consider the great questions of regeneration, of personal sanctification, of trial and judgment and of acceptance before God. That is the question of all questions. [Applause. J A nglit theological basis may lead to social reform, but a right line of public activity and the doing of good is bound to lead to the salvation of the doer's soul and the regeneration of public men. 432 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, Secret of Per- eonal Holiness. After the end of the work of our social reform wc were therefore led into this great subject, How shall this unregeneratc nature be re- generated; this defiled temple, what waters shall wash it into a new and pure condition? All these motives and desires and evil impulses, the animal inspirations, what will put an end to them all, and make man what he was, the immaculate child of God, as Ciirist was, as all regenerated men were? [Applause.] Theological principle first, moral principle next, and in the third place the spiritual of the Brahmo- Somaj. Devotions, repentance, prayer, praise, faith; throwing ourselves entirely and absolutely upon the spirit of God and upon His saving love. Moral aspirations do not mean holiness; a desire of being good does not mean to be good. The bullock that carries on his back hundred-weights of sugar does not taste a grain of sweetness because of its unbearable load. And all our aspirations, and all our fine wishes, and all our fine dreams and fine sermons, either hearing or speaking them — going to sleep over them or listening to them intently — these will never make a life perfect. Devotion only, prayer, direct percep- tion of God's spirit, communion with Him, absolute self-abasement before His majesty; devotional fervor, devotional excitement, spiritual absorption, living and movmg in God^ — that is the secret of personal holiness [Loud applause.] And in the third stage of our career, therefore, spiritual excite- ment, long devotions, intense fervor, contemplation, endless self- abasement, not merely before God but before man, became the rule of our lives. God is unseen; it does not harm anybody or make him Making Con- appear less respectable if he says to God: "I am a sinner; forgive fessioiiB. me." But to make your confessions before man, to abase yourselves before your brothers and sisters, to take the dust off the feet of holy men, to feel that you are a miserable, wretched object in God's holy congregation— that requires a little self-humiliation, a little moral courage. Our devotional life, therefore, is two-fold, bearing reverence and trust for God and reverence and trust for man, and in our infant and apostolical church we have, therefore, often immersed ourselves into spiritual practices which would seem absurd to you if I were to relate them in your hearing. The last principle I have to take up is the progressiveness of the Brahmo-Somaj. Theology is good; moral resolutions are good; de- votional fervor is good. The problem is, How shall we go on ever and Divine Per- ^^^'" ^'^ '^'^ onward way, in the upper path of progress and approach fection. toward divine perfection? God is infinite; what limit is there in His goodness or His wisdom or His righteousness? All the Scriptures sing His glory; all the prophets in the heaven declare His majesty; all the martyrs have reddened the world with their blood in order that His holmess might be known. God is the one infinite good; and, after we had made our three attempts of theological, moral and spiritual principle, the question came that God is the one eternal and infinite, the inspirer of all human kind. The part of our progress then THE WORLDS CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 433 Precepts Uaimomzed- lay toward allying ourselves, toward affiliating ourselves with the faith and the righteousness and wisdom of all religions and all man- kind. Christianity declares the glory of God; Hinduism speaks about His infinite and eternal excellence; Mohammedanism, with fire and sword, proves the almightiness of His will; Buddhism says how joy- ful and peaceful He is. He is the God of all religions, of all denom- inations, of all lands, of all Scriptures, and our progresis lay in har- monizing these various systems, these various prophecies and devcl- Ood of all opments into one great system. Hence the new system of religion in Religious- the Brahmo-Somaj is called the New Dispensation. The Christian speaks in terms of admiration of Christianity; so does the Hebrew of Judaism; so does the ^Mohammedan of the Koran; so does the Zoroas- trlan of the Zend-Avesta. The Christian admires his principles of spiritual culture; the Hindu does the same; the ^lohammedan does the same. But the Brahmo-Somaj accepts and harmonizes all these precepts, systems, principles, teachings and disciplines and makes them into one system, and that is his religion. For a whole decade, my friend. Keshub Chundler Sen, myself and other apostles of the Brahmo-Somaj have traveled from village to village, from province to province, from continent to continent, declaring this new dispensation and the har- mony of all religious prophecies and systems unto the glory of the one true, living God But we are a subject race; we are uneducated; we are incapable; we have not the resources of money to get men to listen to our message. In the fullness of time you have called this august parliament of religions, and the message that we could not propagate you have taken into your hands to propagate. We have made that the gospel of our very lives, the ideal of our very being. I do not come to the sessions of this parliament as a mere student, not as one who has to justify his own system. I come as a disciple, as a follower, as a brother. May your labors be blessed with prosperity, and not only shall your Christianity and your America be exalted, but the Brahmo-Somaj will feel most exalted; and this poor man who has come such along distance to crave your sympathy and your kindness shall feel himself amply rewarded. May the spread of the New Dispensation rest with you and make you our brothers and sisters. Representatives of all religions, may all your religions merge into the Fatherhood of God and in the brother- hood of man, that Christ's prophecy may be fulfilled, the world's hope may be fulfilled, and mankind may become one kingdom with God, our Father. [Loud cheers.] Comes Brother. i _%j. **> -4 ^ ; ^ ^ *ti.v'v---jrj:».^jsd; ^he Spiritual Jdeas of the B^^hmo-Soi^^^j- Paper by B. NAGARKAR, of Bombay. HE last few days various faiths have been press- ing their claims upon your attention. And it must be a great puzzle and perplexity for you to accept any of these or all of these. But during all these discussions and debates I would earnestly ask you all to keep in mintl one prominent fact — that the essence of all these faiths is one and the same. The truth that lies at the root of them all is unchanged and unchanging. But it requires an impartial and dispassionate consideration to understand and appreciate this truth. One of the poets of our country has said: "When Scriptures differ, and faitiis dis- agree, a man should see truth reflected in his own spirit." This truth cannot be observed unless we are prepared to forget the accident of our nationality. We are all too apt to be carried away for or against a system of religion by our false patriotism, insular nationality and scholarly egotism. This state of the heart is detri- mental to spiritual culture and spiritual development. Self-annihila- tion and self-effacement are the only means of realizing the verities of the spiritual world. The mind of man is like a lake; and just as the clear and crystal image of the evening moon cannot be faithfully reflected on the surface of the lake so long as the waters are disturbed by storms and waves, so in the same way spiritual truths cannot be imaged in the heart of man so long as his mind is disturbed by the storms of false pride and partial prejudice. I stand before you as an humble member of the Brahmo-Somaj, and if the followers of other religions will commend to your attention their own respective creeds, my humble attempt will be to place before you the liberal and cosmopolitan principles of my beloved church. The fundamental, spiritual ideal of the Brahmo-Somaj is belief in the existence of one true God. Now, the expression, belief in the existence of God, is nothing new to you. In a way \ou all i)clic\c in 435 Dftriment to Spiritual Cul- ture. 430 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Livee by Bight. Unity of Troth. God, but to us of the Brahmo-Somaj that belief is a stern reality; it is not a logical idea; it is nothing arrived at after an intellectual process. It must be our aim to feel God, to realize God in our daily spiritual communion with Him. We must be able, as it were, to feel His touch; to feel as if we were shaking hands with Him. This deep, vivid, real and lasting perception of the Supreme Being is the first and fore- most ideal of the theistic faith. You, in the western countries, are too apt to forget this ideal. The ceaseless demand on your time and energy, the constant worry and hurry of your business activity and the artificial conditions of your western civilization are all calculated to make you forgetful of the per- sonal presence of God. You are too apt to be satisfied with a mere belief; perhaps at the best, a notional belief in God. The eastern does not live on such a belief, and such a belief can never form the life of a lifegiving faith. It is said that the way to an Englishman's heart is through his stomach; that is, if you wish to reach his heart you must do so through the medium of that wonderful organ called the stom- ach. The stomach, therefore, is the life of an Englishman, and all his life rests in his stomach. Wherein does the heart of a Hindu lie? It lies in his sight. He is not satisfied unless and until he has seen God. The highest dream of his spiritual life is God-vision — the seeing and feeling in every place and at every time the presence of a Supreme Being. He does not live by bread, but by sight. The second spiritual ideal of the Brahmo-Somaj is the unity of truth. We believe that truth is born in time but not in a place. No nation, no people, or no community has any exclusive monopoly of God's truth. It is a misnomer to speak of truth as Christian truth, Hindu truth, or Mohammedan truth. Truth is the body of God. In His own providence He sends it through tne instrumentality of a nation or a people, but that is no reason why that nation or tnat people should pride themselves for having been the medium of that truth. Thus, we must always be ready to receive the Gospel truth from whatever country and from whatever people it may come to us. We all believe in the principle of free trade or unrestricted exchange of goods. And we eagerly hope and long for the golden day when people of every nation and of every clime will proclaim the principle of free trade in spiritual matters as ardently and as zealously as they are doing in secular affairs or in industrial matters. It appears to me that it is the duty of us all to put together the grand and glorious truths believed in and taught by different nations of the world. This synthesis of truth is a necessary result of the recognition of the principle of the unity of truth. Owing to this character of the Brahmo-Somaj the church of Indian theism has often been called an eclectic church; yes, the religion of the Brahmo-Somaj is the religion of eclecticism — of putting together the spiritual truths oi the entire humanity and of earnestly striving after assimilating them THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 4:J7 with our spiritual bcinj^. The relif^ion o{ the Brahmo-Soniaj is iiichisivc and not exclusive. The third spiritual ideal of the Brahmo-Somaj is the harmony^ of prophets. We believe that the prophets of the world -spiritual teachers such as Vyas and Buddha, Moses and Mohammed, Jesus and Zoroaster, all form a homogeneous whole. Each has to teach man- kind his own message. Every prophet was sent from above with a distinct message, and it is the duty of us who live in these advanced times to put these messages together and thereby harmonize and unify the distinctive teachings of the prophets of the world. It would not do to accept the one and reject all the others, or to accept some and reject even a single one. The general truths taught by these different prophets are nearly the same in their essence; but, in the midst of all these universal truths that they taught, each has a distinctive truth to teach, and it should be our earnest purpose to find out and understand this particular truth. To me Vyas teaches how to understand and apprehend the attributes of Divinity. The Jewish prophets of the Old Testament teach the idea of the sovereignty of God; they speak of God as a king, a monarch, a sovereign who rules over the affairs of mankind as nearly and as closely as an ordinary human king. Moham- med, on the other hand, most emphatically teaches the idea of the Unity of God. He rebelled against the trinitarian doctrine imported into the religion of Christ through Greek and Roman influences. The monotheism of Mohammed is hard and unyielding, aggressive and almost savage. I have no sympathy with the errors or erroneous teachings of Mohammedanism, or of any religion for that matter. In spite of all such errors Mohammed's ideal of the Unity of God stands supreme and unchallenged in his teachings. Buddha, the great teacher of morals and ethics, teaches in Bad dh ism most sublime strains the doctrine of Nirvana, or self-denial and self- dlniah'^'' '^^^ effacement. This principle of extreme self-abnegation means nothing more than the subjugation and conquest of our carnal self. For you know that man is a composite being. In him he has the angelic and the animal; and the spiritual training of our life means no more than subjugation of the animal and the setting free of the angelic. So, also, Christ Jesus of Nazareth taught a sublime truth when he inculcated the noble idea of the Fatherhood of God. He taught many other truths, but the Fatherhood of God stands supreme above them all. The brotherhood of man is a mere corollary, or a conclu- sion, deduced from the idea of the Fatherhood of God. Jesus taught this truth in the most emphatic language, and, therefore, that is the special message that He has brought to fallen humanity. In this wa}-. by means of an honest and earnest study of the lives and teachings of different prophets of the world, we can find out the central truth of each faith. Having done this, itshould be our highest aim to harmon- ize all these and to build up our spiritual nature on them. The religious history of the present century has most clearly shown the need and necessity of the recognition of some universal (:{S THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. truths in religion. For the last several years there has been a cease- YenrninB for less yearning, a deep longing after such a universal religion. The Religion. '^^'^ present parliament of religions, which we have been for the last few days celebrating with so much edification and ennoblement, is the clearest indication of this universal longing, and whatever the prophets of despondency, or the champions of orthodoxy, may say or feel, every individual who has the least spark of spirituality alive in him must feel that this spiritual fellowship that we have enjoyed for the last several days, within the precincts of this noble hall, cannot but be productive of much that leads toward the establishment of universal peace and good will among men and nations of the world. To us of the Brahmo-Somaj this happy consummation, however par- tial and imperfect it may be for the time being, is nothing short of a sure foretaste of the realization of the principle of the harmony of prophets. In politics and in national government it is now an estab- lished fact that in future countries and continents on the surface of the earth will be governed, not by mighty monarchies or aristocratic autoc- racies, but by the system of universal federation. The history of po- litical progress in your own country stands in noble evidence of my statement; and I am one of those who strongly believe that at some future time every country will be governed by itself as an independent unit, though in some respects may be dependent on some brother power or sister kingdom. What is true in politics will also be true in religion; and nations will recognize and realize the truths taught by the universal family of the sainted prophets of the world. In the fourth place, we believe that the religion of the Brahmo- Somaj is a dispensation of this age; it is a message of unity and har- mony; of universal amity and unification, proclaimed from above. We do not believe in the revelation of books and men, of histories and his- torical records. We believe in the infallible revelation of the Spirit — in the message that comes to man, by the touch of human spirit with the supreme spirit. And can we even for a moment ever imagine that the spirit of God has ceased to work in our midst? No, we cannot. Even today God communicates His will to mankind as truly and as really as he did in the days of Christ or Moses, Mohammed or Buddha. The dispensations of the world are not isolated units of truth; but ooDtinuocs viewed at as a whole, and followed out from the earliest to the latest c aino ru s j^^ their historical sequence, they form a continuous chain, and each dispensation is only a link in this chain. It is our bounden duty to read the message of each dispensation in the light that comes from above, and not according to the dead letter that might have been re- corded in the past. The interpretation of letters and words, of books and chapters, is a drag behind on the workings of the spirit. Truly hath it been said that the letter killeth. Therefore, brethren, let us seek the guidance of the Spirit and interpret the message of the Su- preme Spirit by the help of His Holy Spirit. Thus the Brahmo-Somaj seeks to Hinduize Hinduism, Moham- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 439 danize Mohammedism, and Christianize Christianity. And whatever the champions of old Christian orthodoxy may say to the contrary, mere doctrine, mere dogma can never give life to any country or community. We are ready and most willing to receive the truths of <.ef^^f!j^nt,,j, the religion of Christ as truly as the truths of the religions of other prophets, but we shall receive these from the life and teachings of Christ Himself, and not through the medium of any church or the so- called missionary of Christ. If Christian missionaries have in them the meekness and humility, and the earnestness of purpose that Christ lived in His own life, and so pathetically exemplified in His glorious death on the cross, let our missionary friends show it in their lives. We are wearied of hearing the dogmas of Christendom reiterated from Sunday to Sunday, from hundreds of pulpits in India, and evan- gelists and revivalists, of the type of Dr. Pentecost, who go to our country to sing to the same tune only add to the chaos and confusion presented to the natives of India by the dry and cold lives of hundreds and thousands of his Christian brethren. They come to India on a brief sojourn, pass through the country like birds of passage, moving at a whirlwind speed, surrounded by Christian fanatics and dogmatists, and to us it is no matter of wonder that they do not see any good, or having seen it do not recognize it, in any of the ancient or modern re- ligious systems of India. Mere rhetoric is not reason, nor is abuse an argument, unless it be the argument of a want of common sense. And we are not disposed to quarrel with any people if they are inclined to indulge in these two instruments generally used by those who have no truth on their side. For these our only feeling is a feeling of pity — unqualified, unmodified," earnest pity, and we are ready to ask God to forgive them, for they know not what they say. The first ideal of the Brahmo-Somaj is the ideal of the Motherhood of God. I do not possess the powers, nor have I the time to dwell at length on this most sublime ideal of the church of Indian theism. The world has heard of God as the Almighty Creator of the universe, as the Omnipotent Sovereign that rules the entire creation, as the Pro- tector, the Saviour and the Judge of the human race; as the Supreme Being, vivifying and enlivening the whole of the sentient and insen- tient nature. We humbly believe that the world has yet to understand and rea. ize, as it never has in the past, the tender and loving relationship that exists between mankind and their Supreme, Universal, Divine Mother, Oh, what a world of thought and feeling is centered in that one mono- syllabic word ma, which in my language is indicative of the English word mother. Words cannot describe, hearts cannot conceive of the tender and self sacrificing love of a human mother. Of all human re- lations the relation of mother to her children is the most sacred and elevating relation. And yet our frail and fickle human mother is noth- ing in comparison with the Divine Mother of the entire humanity% who is the primal source of all love, of all mercy and all purity. Let us, therefore, realize that God is our Mother, the Mother of 440 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. tnankind, irrespective of the country or the clime in which men and women may be born. The deeper the reaHzation of the Motherhood ({(k1 onr Mo- f>f ^od thc [jrcatcr will be the strength and intensity of our ideas of ^'•f'''- the brotherhood of man and the sisterhood of woman. Once we see and feel tiiat God is our Mother all the intricate problems of theology, all the puzzling quibbles of church government, all the quarrels and wranglings of the so-called religious world will be solved and settled. We, of tlie Brahmo-Somaj family, hold that a vivid realization of the Motherhood of God is the only solution of the intricate problems and differences in the religious world. May the Universal Mother grant us all Her blessings to understand and appreciate Her sweet relationship to the vast family of mankind. Let us approach Her footstool in the spirit of Her humble and obedient children. 5hintoism. Paper by RT. REV. REUCHI SHIBATA, President of the Thikko Sect of Shinto- ism in Japan. ) FEEL very happy to be able to attend this Congress of Religions as a member of the ad- \'isory council and to hear the high reasonings and profound opinions of the gentlemen who come from various countries of the world. As for me it will be my proper task to explain the character of Shintoism, and especially of my Jikko sect. The word Shinto or Kami-no-michi, comes from the two words "Shin" or "Kami," each of which means Deity, and "to" or "michi" (way), and designates the way transmitted to us from our divine ancestors and in which every Jap- anese is bound to walk. Having its foundation ,.i<*. Foonda- , , , . , r -J ■ 1 tion in Ancieut m our oJd history, contorming to our geograpical Historj-. positions and the disposition of our people, this way, as old as Japan itself, came down to us with its original form and will last forever, inseparable from the Eternal Imperial House and the Japanese nationality. According to our ancient scriptures there were a generation of Kami or deities in the beginning who created the heavens and the earth together with all things, including human beings, and became the ancestors of the Japanese. Jimmu-tenno, the grandson of Ninigi-no-Mikoto, was the first of the human emperors. Having brought the whole land under one rule he performed great services to the divine ancestors, cherished his sub- jects and thus discharged his great filial duty, as did all the emperors after him. So also all the subjects were deep in their respect and adoration toward the divine ancestors and the emperors, their descend- ants. Though in the course of time various doctrines and creeds were introduced into the country, Confucianism in the reign of the fifteenth emperor, Ojin, Buddhism in the reign of the twenty-ninth emperor, Kimmei, and Christianity in modern times, the emperors and the sub- jects never neglected the great duty of Shinto. The present forms of 441 442 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. ceremony are come down to us from time immemorial in our history. Of the three divine treasures transmitted from the divine ancestors, the divine gem is still held sacred in the imperial palace, the divine mirror in the great temple of Iso, and the divine sword in the temple of Atsuta, in the province of Ovvari. To this day his majesty, the emperor, performs himself the ceremony of worship to the divine ancestors, and all the subjects perform the same to the deities of temples, which are called, according to the local extent of the ^in"nB "' ond, "The History of the Jains." '^• First. Jainism has two ways of looking at things- -one called Dravyarthekaraya and the other Paryayartheka Noya. 1 shall illus- trate them. The production of a law is the production of something not previously existing, if we think of it from the latter point of view, /. e., as a Paryaya, or modification; while it is not the production of something not previously existing if we look at it from the former point of view, t. e., as a Dravya or substance. According to the Dravyarthekaraya view the universe is without beginning and end, but according to the Paryayartheka view we have creation and destruction at every moment. The Jain canon may be divided into two parts: First, Shrutc Dharma, i. e., philosophy; and second, Chatra Dharma, t. e., ethics. The Shrute Dharma inquiries into the nature of nine principles, six substances, six kinds of living beings and four states of existence — Jiva (sentient beings), Ajiva (non-sentient things), Punya (merit ), Papa (demerit). Of the nine principles, the first is pua (soul). Ac- 445 44C THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. cording to the Jain view, soul is that element which knows, thinks and feels. It is, in fact, the divine element in -the living being. The Jain thinks that the phenomena of knowledge, feeling, thinking and will- ing, are conditioned on something, and that that something must be as real as anything can be. This "soul" is in a certain sense different from knowledge, and in another sense identical with it. So far as one's knowledge is concerned the soul is identical with it, but so far as some one else's knowledge is concerned it is different from it. The true nature of soul is right knowledge, right faith and right conduct. The soul, so long as it is subject to transmigration, is undergoing evo- lution and involution. The second principle is non-soul. It is not simply what we under- Non^sou^.^*' **' stand by matter, but it is more than that. Matter is a term contrary to soul. But non-soul is its contradictory. Whatever is not soul is non-soul. The rest of the nine principles arc but the different states pro- duced by the combination and separation of soul and non-soul. The third principle is Punya (merit), that, on account of which a being is happy, is Punya. The fourth principle is Papa (demerit), that on account of which a being suffers from misery. The fifth is Ashrana, the state which brings in merit and demerit. The seventh is Nirjara, destruction of actions. The eighth is Bardha, bondage of soul with Karwa, actions. The ninth is Moksha, total and permanent freedom of soul from all Karwas (actions). Substance is divided into the sentient, or conscious, matter, stabil- ity, space and time. Six kinds of living beings arc divided into six classes, earth body beings, water body beings, fire body beings, wintl body beings, vegetables, and all of them having one organ of sense, that of touch. These are again divided into four classes of beings having two organs of sense, those of touch and of taste, such as tapeworms, leeches, etc.; beings having three organs of sense, those of touch, taste and smell, such as ants, lice, etc.; beings having four organs of sense, those of touch, taste, smell and sight, such as bees, scorpions, etc.; beings having five organs of sense, those of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. There are human beings, animals, birds, men and gods. All these living beings have four, five or six of the following capacities: Capacity of taking food, capacity of constructing body, capacity of constructing organs, capacity of respiration, capacity of speaking and the capacity of thinking. Beings having one organ of sense, that is, of touch, have the first four capacities. Beings having two, three and four organs of sense, have the first five capacities, while those having five organs have all the six capacities. The Jain canonical book treats very elaborately of the minute divisions of the living beings, and their prophets have long before the discovery of the microscope been able to tell how many organs of sense the minutest animalcule has. I would refer those who are desir- ous of .studying Jain biology, zoology, botany, anatomy and physiology to the many books published by our society. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 447 I shall now refer to the four states of existence. They are naraka, tiryarch, manushyra and deva. Naraka is the lowest state of exist- ence, that of being a denizen of hell; tiryarch is the next, that of hav- states of Ex- ing an earth body, water body, fire body, wind bddy, vegetable, of hav- istoncp. ing two, three or four organs, animal and birds. The third is manu- shyra, of being a man, and the fourth is deva, that of being a denizen of the celestial world. The highest state of existence is the Jain Moksha, the apotheosis in the sense that the mortal being by the destruction of all Karman attains the highest spiritualism, and the soul being severed from all connection with matter regains its purest state and becomes divine. Having briefly stated the principal articles of Jain belief, I come to the grand questions the answers to which are the objects of all religious inquiry and the substance of all creeds. First. What is the origin of the universe? This involves the question of God. Gautama, the Buddha, forbids inquiry into the beginning of things. In the Brahmanical literature bearing on the constitution of cosmos frequent reference is made to the days and nights of Brahma, the periods of Manuantara and the periods of Peroloya. But the Jains, leaving all symbolical expression aside, distinctly reaffirm the view previously promulgated by the previ- ous hierophants, that matter and soul are eternal and cannot be created. You can affirm existence of a thing from one point of view, deny it from another, and affirm both existence and non-existence with reference to it at different times. If you should think of affirm- ing both existence and non-existence at the same time from the same point of view, you must say that the thing cannot be spoken of simi- larly. Under certain circumstances the affirmation of existence is not possible ; of non-existence and also of both. What is meant by these seven modes is that a thing should not be considered as existing everywhere at all times in all ways and in the form of everything. It may exist in one place and not in another at one time. It is not meant by these modes that there is no certainty, or that we have to deal with probabilities only as some scholars have taught. Even the great Vedantist Sankaracharya has possibly erred when he says that the Jains are agnostics. All that is implied is that every assertion which is true is true only under certain conditions of substance, space, time, etc. This is the great merit of the Jain philosophy, that while other philosophies make absolute assertions, the Jain looks at things from all standpoints and adapts itself like a mighty ocean in which the sectarian rivers merge themselves. What is God, then? God, in the sense of an extra cosmic personal creator, has no place in the Jain philosophy. It distinctly denies such creator as illogical and irrelevant in the general scheme of the universe. But it lays down that there is a subtle essence underlying all substances, conscious as well as uncon- scious, which becomes an eternal cause of all modifications and is termed God. But then the advocate of theism, holding that even 448 rilE WORLD'S CONURESS OF RELIC lOXS. aadChanKeable Element in Na tare. primordial matter had its first cause — the God — argues that "every- thing that we know had a cause. How, then, can it be but that the elements had a cause to which they arc indebted for their existence?" That great philosopher, John Stuart Mill, replies: "The fact of experience, however, when correctly expressed, turns out to be, not that everything which we know derives its existence from the cause, but only every event or change. There is in nature a V Permanent permanent element and also a changeable; the changes are always the effects of previous changes; the permanent existences, so far as we know, are not effects at all. It is true we are accustomed to say, not only of events, but of objects, that they are produced by causes, as water by the union of hydrogen and oxygen. But by this we only mean that when they begin to exist their beginning is the effect of a cause. But their beginning to exist is not an object, it is an event. If it be objected that the cause of a thing's beginning to exist may be said with propriety to be the cause of the thing itself I shall not quarrel with the expression. But that which in an object begins to exist is that in it which belongs to the changeable element in nature, the outward form and the properties depending upon mechanical or chemical com- binations of its component parts. There is in every object another and a permanent element, viz., the specific elementary substance or substances of which it consists and their inherent properties. These are not known to us as beginning to exist; within the range of human knowledge they have no beginning, consequently no cause; though they themselves are causes or con-causes of everything that takes place. Experience, therefore, affords no evidences, not even analo- gies, to justify our extending to the apparently immutable a general- ization grounded only on our observation of the changeable. As a fact of experience, then, causation cannot legitimately be ex- tended to the material universe itself, but only to its changeable phe- nomena; of these, indeed, causes may be affirmed without any excep- tion. But what causes? The cause of every change is a prior change, and such it cannot but be, for if there were no new antecedent there would not be a new consequent. If the state of facts which brings the phenomenon into existence had existed always, or for any indef- inite duration, the effect also would have existed always or been pro- duced in indefinite time ago. It is thus a necessary part of the fact of causation, within the sphere of our experience, that the causes, as well as the effects, had a beginning in time and were themselves caused. It would seem, therefore, that our experience, instead of furnishing an argument for the first cause, is repugnant to it, and that the very es- sential of causation as it exists within the limits of our knowledge is incompatible with a first cause." The doctrine of the transmigration of soul or the reincarnation, is another grand idea of the Jain philosophy. Once the whole civilized world embraced this doctrine. Many philosophers have upheld it. Scien- tists like Flammarion, Figuier and Brewster have advocated it. The- ologians like Miiller, Dorner and Edward Beecher have maintained it. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 449 The Bible and sacred literature of the East are full of it, and it is today- accepted by the majority of the world's inhabitants. People are talking of design in nature. But what does the idea of design lead to? Design means contrivance, adaptation of means to an end. But the necessity of contrivance, the need of employing means, is a consequence of thelimitation of power. Who would have recourse to means if to attain this end his mere word was sufficient? But how shall we reconcile God's infinite benevolence and justice with His infinite power, when we look around and see that some of His creatures are born happy and others miserable? Why is He so partial? Where is the moral responsibility of a person having no incentive to lead a virtuous life? The problem of injustice and misery which broods over our world can only be explained by the doctrine of reincarnation and Karma, to which I am presently coming. That the soul is immortal is doubted by very few. It is an old declaration that whatever begins in time must end in time. You can- passageof not say that soul is eternal on one side of its earthly period without theSoui. being so in the other. If the soul sprang into existence specially for this life, why should it continue afterward? The ordinary idea of cre- ation at birth involves the correlative of annihilation at death. More- over, it does not stand to reason that from an infinite history the soul enters this world for its first and all physical existence, and then merges into an endless spiritual eternity. The more reasonable deduction is that it has passed through many lives and will have to pass through many more before it reaches its ultimate goal. But it is objected that we have no memory of past lives. Can anyone recall his childhood? Has anyone a memory of that wonderful epoch — infancy? The companion doctrine of transmigration is the doctrine of Karma. The Sanskrit of the word Karma means action. "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again," and "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" are but the corralaries of that most intricate law of Karman. It solves the problem of the inequality and apparent injustice of the world. The Karman in the Jain philosophy is divided into eight classes: Those which act as an impediment to the knowledge of truth; those which act as an impediment to the right insight of various sorts; those which give one pleasure or pain, and those which produce bewilder- ment. The other four are again divided into other classes, so minutely, that a student of Jain Karman philosophy can trace any effect to a particular Karma. No other Indian philosophy reads so beautifully and so clearly the doctrine of Karmas. Persons who by right faith, right knowledge and right conduct destroy all Karman and thus fully develop the nature of their soul, reach the hiL^host perfection, become divine and are called Jinas. Those J;iKi; \ 'k>, in every age, preach the law and establish the order, arc r;i'i' 1 I ; i.iarkaras. I now come to the Jain ethics. Different philosophers have given different bases for the guidance of conduct. The Jain ethics direct con- duct to be so adapted as to insure the fullest development of the soul — 450 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, the highest happiness, that is, the goal of human conduct, which is Highest Hap- the ultimate end of human action. Jainism teaches to look upon all piness. living beings as upon oneself. What then is the mode of attaining the highest happiness? The sacred books of the Brahmans prescribe Upasona (devotion) and Karma. The Vedanta indicates the path of knowledge as the means to the highest. But Jainism goes a step farther and says that the highest happiness is to be obtained by knowl- edge and religious observances. The five.Maharatas or great for Jain ascetics are: Not to kill, i. e., to protect all life. Not to lie. Not to take that which is not given. To abstain from sexual intercourse. To renounce all interest in wordly things, especially to call nothing one's own. Mohammedan Mother and Children at the Door of the Mosque. 3elief and (geremonies of the pollowers of 2oroaster. Paper by JINANJI JAMSHEDJI MODI, of India. OoMen Truth from a FarHee Standpoint. HE greatest good that a Parliament of Relig- ions, like the present can do is to establish what Professor Max Miiller calls "that great golden dawn of truth ' that there is a religion behind all religions ' " The learned professor very rightly says that " Happy is the man w ho knows that truth in these daj's of materialism and atheism." If this Parliament of Religions does nothing else but spread the knowledge of this golden truth, and thus make a large number of men happy, it will immortalize its name. The object of my paper is to take a little part in the noble efforts of this great gathering, to spread the knowledge of that golden truth from a Parsee point of view. The Parsees of India are the followers of Zoro- astrianism, of the religion of Zoroaster, a religion which was for centvn-ies both the state religion and the national religion of ancient Persia. As Professor Max Miiller says: "There were periods in the history of the world when the worship of Ormuzd threatened to rise triumphant on the ruins of the temples of all other gods. If the battles of Marathon and Salamis had been lost and Greece had succumbed to Persia, the state religion of the empire of Cyrus, which was the worship of Ormuzd, might ha\e become the religion of the whole civilized world. Persia had absorbed the Assyrian and Babylonian empires; Jews were either in Persian captivity or under Persian sway at home; the sacred monuments of P>gypt had been mutilated by the hands of Persian soldiers. The edicts of the king — the king of kings — were sent to India, to Greece, to Scythia and to Egypt, and if 'by the grace of Ahura Mazda' Darius had crushed the liberty of Greece, the purer faith of Zoroaster might easily have superseded the Olympian fables." 452 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 453 With the overthrow of the Persian monarchy under its last Sassanian king^, Yazdagard. at the battle of Nehavand, in A. D. 642, the religion received a check at the hands of the Arabs, who, with sword in one hand and Koran in the other, made the religion of Islam both the state religion and national religion of the country. But many of those who adhered to the faith of their fathers quitted their ancient fatherland for the hospitable shores of India. The modern Parsees of India are the descendants of those early settlers. As a for- mer governor of Bombay said, "Their position is unique — a handful of persons among the teeming millions of India, and yet who not only have preserved their ancient race with the utmost purity, but also their by Contact'^ religion absolutely unimpaired by contact with others." In the words of Rt. Rev. Dr. Meurin, the learned bishop (vicar apostolic) of Bombay, in 1885, the Parsees are "a people who have chosen to relinquish their venerable ancestors' homesteads rather than abandon their ancient religion, the founder of which lived no less than 3,000 years ago, a people who for a thousand years have formed in the midst of the great Hindu people, not unlike an island in the sea, a quite separate and distinct nation, peculiar and remarkable as for its race, so for its religious and social life and customs." Prof. Max Miiller says of the religion of the Parsees: "Though every religion is of real and vital interest in its earliest state only, yet its later development, too. with all its misunderstand- ings, faults and corruptions, offers many an instructive lesson to the thoughtful student of history. Here is a religion, one of the most ancient of the world, once the state religion of the most powerful empire, driven away from its native soil and deprived of j)olitical influ- ence, without even the prestige of a powerful or enlightened priest- hood, and yet professed by a handful of e.xiles— men of wealth, intelli- gence and moral worth in western India — with unhesitating fervor such as is seldom to be found in larger religious communities. It is well worth the earnest endeavor of the philosopher and the divine to dis- cover, if possible, the spell by which this ai)parently effete religion continues to command the attachment of the enlightened Parsees of India and makes. them turn a deaf ear to the allurements of the Brahm- anic worship and the earnest appeals of Christian missionaries." Zoroastrianism or Parseeism, by whatever name the system may be called, is a monotheistic form of religion. It beliexes in the exist- ence of one God, whom it knows under the names of Mazda, Ahura and Ahura-Mazda, the last form being the one that is most commonly met with in the latter writings of the Avesta. The first and the great- est truth that dawns upon the mind of a Zoroastrian is that the great and the infinite universe, of which he is an infinitesimally small part, is the work of a powerful hand— the result of a master mind. The first and the greatest conception of that master mind, Ahura-Mazda, is that, as the name implies, he is the Omniscient Lord, and as such He is the ruler of both the material and the immaterial world, the cor])orcal and the incorporeal world, the visible and the invisible workl. Die regu- 454 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, Harmony and Order Pre- served. (tn«t Prob- lem t3ol7ed. lar movements of the sun and the stars, the periodical waxing and waning of the moon, the regular way in which the sun and the clouds are sustained, the regular flow of waters and the gradual growth of vegetation, the rapid movements of the winds and the regular suc- cession of light and darkness, of day and night, with their accompani- ments of sleep and wakefulness, all these grand and striking phenom- ena of nature point to and bear ample evidence of the existence of an almighty power who is not only the creator, but the preserver of this great universe, who has not only launched that universe into existence with a premeditated plan of completeness, but who, with the con- trolling hand of a father, preserves by certain fixed laws harmony and order here, there and everywhere. As Ahura-Mazda is the ruler of the physical world, so He is the ruler of the spiritual world. His distinguished attributes are good mind, righteousness, desirable control, piety, perfection and immor- tality. He is the Beneficent Spirit from whom emanate all good and all piety. He looks into the hearts of men and sees how much of the good and of the piety that have emanated from Him has made its home there, and thus rewards the virtuous and punishes the vicious. Of course, one sees at times, in the plane of this world, moral disorders and want of harmony, but then the present state is only a part, and that a very small part, of His scheme of moral government. As the ruler of the world, Ahura-Mazda hears the prayers of the ruled. He grants the prayers of those who are pious in thoughts, pious in words and pious in deeds. "He not only rewards the good, but punishes the wicked. All that is created, good or evil, fortune or misfortune, is His work." We have seen that Ahura-Mazda, or God, is, according to Parsee Scriptures, the causer of all causes. He is the creator as well as the destroyer, the increaser as well as the decreaser. He gives birth to different creatures and it is He who brings about their end. How is it, then, that He brings about these two contrary results? In the words of Dr. Haug: "Having arrived at the grand idea of the unity and indivisibility of the Supreme Being, he (Zoroaster) undertook to solve the great problem which has engaged the attention of so many wise men of antiquity and even of modern times, viz: How are the imperfections discoverable in the world, the various kinds of evils, wickedness and baseness, compatible with the goodness, holiness and justice of God? This great thinker of remote antiquity solved this difficult question philosophically by the supposition of two primeval causes, which, though different, were united and produced the world of material things, as well as that of the spirit." These two primeval causes or principles are called in the Avesta the two "Mainyus." This word comes from the ancient Aryan root "man," to "think." It may be properly rendered into English by the word "spirit," meaning "that which can only bcconccived by the mind but not felt by the senses." Of these two spirits or primeval causes or ItB Theology THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 455 principles, one is creative and the other destructive. These two spirits work under the Almighty day and night. They create and destroy, and this they have done ever since the world was created. According to Zoroaster's philosophy, our world is the work of these two hostile principles — Spenta-mainyush, the good principle, and Angro-main- yush, the evil principle, both serving under one God. In the words of that learned orientalist. Professor Darmesteter, "All that is good in the world comes from the former; all that is bad in it comes from the latter. The history of the world is the history of their conflict; how Angra-mainyu invaded the world of Ahura-Mazda and marred it, and how he shall be expelled from it at last. Man is active in the conflict, his duty in it being laid before him in the law revealed by Ahura-Mazda to Zarathushtra. When the appointed time is come * * * An- gro-mainyu and hell will be destroyed, men will rise from the dead, and everlasting happiness will reign over the world." These philosophical notions have led some learned men to mis- understand Zoroastrian theology. Some authors entertain an opinion that Zoroaster preached dualism. But this is a serious misconcep- tion. In the Parsee scriptures the names of God are Mazda, Ahura and Ahura-Mazda, the last word being a compound of the first two. The first two words are common in the earliest writings of the Gatha and the third in the later scriptures. In later times the word Ahura- Mazda, instead of being restricted, like Mazda, the name of God began M^ilun'deT' to be used in a wider sense, and was applied to Spenta-mainyush, the ^'^"*^' creative or the good principle. This being the case, wherever the word Ahura-Mazda was used in opposition to that of Angra-mainyush, later authors took it as the name of God, and not as the name of the creative principle, which it really was. Thus the very fact of Ahura- Mazda's name being employed in opposition to that of Angra-main- yush or Ahriman led to the notion that Zoroastrian scriptures preached dualism. Not only is the charge of dualism as leveled against Zoroastrian- ism, and as ordinarily understood, groundless, but there is a close resemblance between the ideas of the devil among the Christians and those of the Ahriman among the Zoroastrians. Dr. Haug says the same thing in the following words: 'The Zoroastrian idea of the devil and the infernal kingdom coin- cides entirely with the Christian doctrine. The devil is a murderer and father of lies, according to both the Bible and the Zend Avesta." Thus we see that, according to Zoroaster's philosophy, there are two primeval principles that produce our material world. Conse- quently, though the Almighty is the creator of all, a part of the creation is said to be created by the good principle and a part by the evil principle. Thus, for example, the heavenly bodies, the earth, water, fire, horses, dogs and such other objects arc the creation of the good principle, and serpents, ants, locusts, etc., are the creation of the evil principle. In short, those things that conduce to the greatest good of the greatest number of mankind fall under the category of the 456 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. creations of the good principle, and those that lead to the contrary result, under that of the creations of the evil principle. This being the case, it is incumbent upon men to do actions that would support the cause of the good principle and destroy that of the evil one. Therefore, the cultivation of the soil, the rearing of domestic animals, etc., on the one hand and the destruction of wild animals and other noxious creatures on the other, are considered meritorious actions by the Parsees. As there arc two primeval principles under Ahura-Mazda that produce our material world, so there are two principles inherent in the nature of man which encourage him to do good or tempt him to do evil. One asks him to support the cause of the good principle, the other to support that of the evil principle. The first is known by the name of Vohumana or Behemana, i. c, "good mind." The prefix "vohu" or "beh" is the same word as that of which our English "better" is the comparative, Mana is the same as the word "maniyu," and means mind or spirit. The second is known by the name of Aka- mana, *. ^., "bad mind." The prefix "aka" means "bad" and is the same as our English word "ache" in "headache." Now the fifth chapter of the Vcndidad gives, as it were, a short definition of what is morality or piety. There, first of all, the writer says: "Purity is the bestthing for man after birth." This, you may say, is the motto of the Zoroastrian religion Therefore, M. Harlez very properly says that, according to Zoroastrian scriptures, the "notion of the word virtue sums itself up in that of the 'Asha.'" This word is the same as the Sanskrit "rita," which word corresponds to our English "right." It means, therefore, righteousness, piety or purity. Then the writer proceeds to give a short definition of piety. It says that, "the fireservation of good thoughts, good words and good deeds is piety." n these pithy words is summed up, so to say, the whole of the moral philosophy of the Zoroastrian scriptures. It says that, if you want to lead Safp Pilot to a pious and moral life and thus to show a clean bill of spiritual health Seav^"^^' "' to the angel, Meher Daver, who watches the gates of heaven at the Chinvat bridge, practice these three: Think of nothing but the truth, speak nothing but the truth, and do nothing but what is proper. In short, what Zoroastrian moral philosophy teaches is this — that your good thoughts, good deeds and good words alone will be your inter- cessors. Nothing more will be wanted. They alone will serve you as a safe pilot to the harbor of heaven, as a safe guide to the gates of paradise. The late Dr. Haug rightly observed that "the moral philos- ophy of Zoroaster was moving in the triad of 'thought, word and deed.' ' These three words form, as it were, the pivot upon which the moral structure of Zoroastrianism turns. It is the groundwork upon which the whole edifice of Zoroastrian morality rests. The following dialogue in the Pehelvi Padnameh of Buzurge-Meher shows in a succinct form what weight is attached to these three pithy words in the moral code of the Zoroastrians: Question. Who is the most fortunate man in the world? THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 457 Answer. Question. Answer. devil. He who is the most innocent. Who is the most innocent man in the world? He who walks in the path of God and shuns that of the Question. Which is the path of God, and which that of the devil? Answer. Virtue is the path of God, and vice that of the devil. Question. What constitutes virtue, and what vice? Answer. (Humata, hukhta and hvarshta) good thoughts, good words and good deeds constitute virtue, and (dushmata, duzukhta and duzvarshta) evil thoughts, evil words and evil deeds constitute vice. Question. What constitute (humata, hukhta and hvarshta) good thoughts, good words and good deeds, and (dushmata, duzukhta and duzvarshta) evil thoughts, evil words and evil deeds? Answer. Honesty, charity and truthfulness constitute the former, and dishonesty, want of charity and falsehood constitute the latter. From this dialogue it will be seen that a man who acquires (humata, hukhta and hvarshta) good thoughts, good words and good deeds, and thereby practices honesty, charity and truthfulness, is con- sidered to walk in the path of God, and, therefore, to be the most innocent and fortunate man. Herodotus also refers to the third cardinal virtue of truthfulness mentioned above. He says that to speak the truth was one of the three things taught to a Zoroastrian of his time from his very childhood. Zoroastrianism believes in the immortality of the soul. The Avesta writings of Hadokht Nushk, and the nineteenth chapter of the Vendidad, and of the Pehelvi books of Minokherad and Viraf-nameh, treat of the fate of the soul after death. Its notions about heaven and hell correspond, to some extent, to the Christian notions about them. A plant called the Homa-i-saphid, or white Homa, a name correspond- ing to the Indian Soma of the Hindus, is held to be the emblem of the immortality of the soul. According to Dr. Windischmann and Prof. Max Miiller, this plant reminds us of the "Tree of Life" in the garden of Eden. As in the Christian scriptures the way to the tree of life is strictly guarded by the Cherubim, so in the Zoroastrian script- ures the Homa-i-saphid, or the plant which is the emblem of immor- tality, is guarded by innumerable Fravashis, that is, guardian spirits. The number of these guardian spirits, as given in various books, is 99,999. Again, Zoroastrianism believes in heaven and hell. Heaven is called Vahishta-ahu in the Avesta books. It literally means the "best life." This word is afterward contracted, with a slight change, into the Persian word "Hehesht," which is the superlative form of "Veh," jj|ff*" meaning " good," and corresponds exactly with our English word "best." Hell is known by the name of "Achishta-ahu." Heaven is represented as a place of radiance, splendor and glory, and hell as that of gloom, darkness and stench. Between heaven and this world there is supposed to be a bridge, named "Chinvat." This word — from the 30 Moral Code. Believes in and 458 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Aryan root "chi," meaning to pick up, to collect — means the place where a man's soul has to present a collective account of the actions done in the past life. According to the Parsee scriptures, for three days after a man's death his soul remains within the limits of the world under the guidance of the angel Srosh. If the deceased be a pious man, or a man who led a virtuous life, his soul utters the words *' Ushta-ahmai yahmai ushta- kahmai-chit," /. e., " Well is he by whom that which is his benefit be- comes the benefit of any one else." If he be a wicked man, or one who led an evil life, his soul utters these.plaintive words: " Kam nemoi zam? Kuthra nemo ayeni? i. c, " To which land shall I turn? Whither shall I go?" On the dawn of the third night the departed souls appear at the " Chinvat bridge." This bridge is guarded by the angel Meher Daver, i. e., Meher, the judge. He presides there as a judge, assisted by the angels Rashne and Astad, the former representing justice and the latter truth. At this bridge, and before this angel Meher, the soul of every man has to give an account of its doings in the past life. Meher Daver, the judge, weighs a man's actions by a scale-pan. If a man's good actions outweigh his evil ones, even by a small particle, he is allowed to pass from the bridge to the other end to heaven. If his evil actions outweigh his good ones, even by a small weight, he is not allowed to pass over the bridge, but is hurled down into the deep abyss of hell. If his meritorious and evil deeds counterbalance each other, he is sent to a place known as " hamast-gehan," corresponding to the Christian " purgatory " and the Mohammedan " aeraf." His meritorious deeds done in the past life would prevent hmi from going to hell, and his evil actions would not let him go to heaven. Again, Zoroastrian books say that the meritoriousness of good deeds and the sin of evil ones increase with the growth of time. As B^k8*8ay *^* capital increases with interest, so good and bad actions done by a man in his life increase, as it were, with interest in their effects. Thus, a meritorious deed done in young age is more effective than that very deed done in advanced age. A man must begin practicing virtue from his very young age. As in the case of good deeds and their meritori- ousness, so in the case of evil actions and their sins The burden of the sin of an evil action increases, as it were, with interest. A young man has a long time to repent of his evil deeds and to do good deeds that could counteract the effect of his evil deeds. If he does not take advantage of these opportunities the burden of those evil deeds in- creases with time. The Parsee places of worship are known as fire temples. The very name fire temple would strike a non-Zoroastrian as an unusual form of worship. The Parsees do not worship fire as God.' They merely re- gard fire as an emblem of refulgence, glory and light as the most per- fect symbol of God, and as the best and noblest representative of His divinity. "In the eyes of a Parsee his (fire's) brightness, activity, purity and incorruptibility bear the most perfect resemblance to the THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 459 nature and perfection of the Deity." A Parsee looks upon fire " as the most perfect symbol of the Deity on account of its purity, brightness, activity, subtilty, purity and incorruptibility." Again, one must rcmcndicr that it is the several symbolic cere- monies that add to the reverence entertained by a Parsee for the fire burning in his fire temples. A new clement of purity is added to the fire burning in the fire temples of the Parsees by the religious ceremo- nies accompanied with prayers that are performed over it, before it is installed in its place on a vase on an exalted stand in a chamber set apart The sacred fire burning there is not the ordinary fire burning in our hearths. It has undergone several ceremonies, and it is these cer- emonies, full of meaning, that render the fire more sacred in the eyes of a Parsee. We will briefly recount the process here: In establishing a fire temple fires from various places of manu- facture are brought and kept in different vases. Great efforts are also made to obtain fire caused by lightning. Over one of these fires a perforated metallic flat tray with a handle attached is held. On this pire Temples, tray are placed small chips and dust of fragrant sandalwood. These chips and dust are ignited by the heat of the fire below, care being taken that the perforated tray does not touch the fire. Thus a new fire is created out of the first fire. Then from this new fire another is again produced, and so on, until the process is repeated nine times. The fire thus prepared after the ninth process is considered pure. The fires brought from other places of manufacture are treated in a similar manner. These purified fires arc all collected together upon a large vase, which is then put in its proper place in a separate cham- ber. Now w'hat does a fire so prepared signify to a Parsee? He thinks to himself: "When this fire on this vase before me, though pure in itself, though the noblest of the creations of God, and though the best symbol of the Divinity, had to undergo certain processes of purifica- tion, had to draw out, as it were, its essence — nay, its quintessence — of purity to enable itself to be worthy of occupying this exalted posi- tion, how much more necessary, more essential and more important it is for me - a poor mortal who is liable to commit sins and crimes, and who comes into contact with hundreds of evils, both physical and mental — to undergo the process of purity and piety by making my thougnts, words and actions pass, as it were, through a sieve of piety and purity, virtue and morality, and to separate by that means my good thoughts, good words and good actions from bad thoughts, bad words and bad actions, so that I may, in my turn, be enabled to acquire an exalted position in the next world." Again,' the fires put together as above are collected from the houses of men of different grades in society. This reminds a Parsee that, as all these fires from tlie houses of men of different grades have all, by the process of purification, equally acquired the exalted place in the vase, so before God, all men, no matter to what grades of society they belong, are equal, provided they pass through the pro- 460 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIC IONS. cess of purification, i.e., provided they preserve purity of thoughts, purity of words and purity of deeds. Again, when a. Parsee goes before the sacred fire, which is kept all day and night burning in the fire temple, the ofificiating priest pre- sents before him the ashes of a part of the consumed fire. The Parsee Dust to Dust applies it to his forehead just as a Christian applies the consecrated water in his church and thinks to himself: " Dust to dust. The fire, all brilliant, shining and resplendent, has spread the fragrance of the sweet-smelling sandal and frankincense round about, but is at last reduced to dust. So it is destined for me. After all I am to be re- duced to dust and have to depart from this transient life. Let me do my best to spread, like this fire, before my death, the fragrance of charity and good deeds, and lead the light of righteousness and knowledge before others." In short, the sacred fire burning in a fire temple serves as a per- petual monitor to a Parsee standing before it to preserve piety, purity, humility and brotherhood. As we said above, evidence from nature is the surest evidence that leads a Parsee to the belief in the existence of the Deity From nature he is led to nature's God. P'rom this point of view, then, he is not restricted to any particular place for the recital of his prayers. P'or a visitor to Bombay, which is the headquarters of the Parsees, it is therefore not unusual to see a number of Parsees saying their prayers, morning and evening, in the open space, turning their faces to the ris- ing or the setting sun, before the glowing moon or the foaming sea. Turning to these grand objects, the best and sublimest of his creations, they address their prayers to the Almighty. All Parsee prayers begin with an assurance to do acts that would please the Almighty God. The assurance is followed by an expression Parse© Pray- °^ regret for past evil thoughts, words or deeds if any. Man is liable ere. to err, and so, if during the interval any errors of commission or omis- sion are committed, a Parsee in the beginning of his prayers repents for those errors. He says: O, Omniscient Lord! I repent of all my sins. I repent of all evil thoughts that I might have entertained in my mind, of all the evil words that I might have spoken, of all the evil actions that 1 might have committed. O, Omniscient Lord! I repent of all the faults that might have originated with me, whether they refer to thoughts, words or deeds, whether they appertain to my body or soul, whether they be in connection with the material world or spiritual. To educate their children is a spiritual duty of Zoroastrian par- ents. Education is necessary, not only for the material good of the children and the parents, but also for their spiritual good. Accord- ing to the Parsee books, the parents participate in tlie meritorious- ness of the good acts performed by their children as the result of the good education imparted to them. On the other hand, if the parents neglect the education of their children, and if, as the result of this neglect, they do wrongful acts or evil deeds, the parents have a spirit- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 461 ual responsibility for such acts. In proportion to the malignity or evilness of these acts the parents arc responsible to God for their neglect of the education of their children. It is, as it were, a spirit- ual self-interest that must prompt a Parsee to look to the good edu- cation of his children at an early age. Thus, from a religious point of view, education is a great question with the Parsees. The proper age recommended by religious Parsee books for or- dinary education is seven. Before that age children should have home education with their parents, especially with the mother. At the age of seven, after a little religious education, a Parsee child is invested with Sudreh and Kusti, i. e., the sacred shirt and thread. This cere- mony of investiture corresponds to the confirmation ceremony of the Christians. A Parsee may put on the dress of any nationality he likes, but under that dress he must always wear the sacred shirt and thread. These are the symbols of his being a Zoroastrian. These symbols are full of meaning and act as perpetual monitors advising the wearer to lead a life of purity — of physical and spiritual purity. A Parsee is enjoinecl to remove, and put on again immediately, the sacred thread several times during the day, saying a very short prayer during the process. He has to do so early in the morning on rising from bed, before meals and after ablutions The putting on of the symbolic thread and the accompanying short prayer remind him to be in a state of repentance for misdeeds, if any, and to preserve good thoughts, good words and good deeds, the triad in which the moral philosophy of Zoroaster moved. It is after this investiture with the sacred shirt and thread that the general education of a child generally begins. The Parsee books speak when Gener- o*f the necessity of educating all children, whether male or female. ^ .Edac^tion Thus female education claims as much attention among the Parsees as male education. Physical education is as much spoken of in the Zoroastrian books as mental and moral education. The health of the body is considered as the first requisite for the health of the soul. That the physical education of the ancient Persians, the ancestors of the modern Parsees, was a subject of admiration among the ancient Greeks and Romans, is too well known. In all the blessings invoked upon one in the religious prayers, the strength of body occupies the first and the most prominent place. Analyzing the Bombay census of 1 88 1, Dr. Weir, the health officer, said: "Examining education according to faith or class, we find that education is most extended among the Parsee people; female educa- tion is more diffused among the Parsee population than any other class. * * * Contrasting these results with education at an early age among Parsees, we find 12.2 per cent Parsee male and 8.84 per cent female children under si.x years of age, under instruction; between six and fifteen the number of Parsee male and female children under in- struction IS much larger than in any other class. Over fifteen years of age, the smallest proportion of illiterate, either male or female, is found in the Parsee population." 462 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. The religious books of tl>e Parsees say that the education of Zoro- astrian youths should teach them perfect discipline, obedience to their teachers, obedience to their parents, obedience to their elders in society, and obedience to the constitutional forms of government should be one of the practical results of their education. So a Zoroastrian child is asked to be affectionate toward and submissive to his teachers. A Parsee mother prays for a son that could take an intelligent part in the deliberations of the councils of his community and government; so a regard for the regular forms of government was necessary. Of all the practical questions, the one most affected by the religious precepts of Zoroastrianism is that of the observation of san- itary rules and principles. Several chapters of the Vendidad form, as it were, the sanitary code of the Parsees. Most of the injunctions will stand the test of sanitary science for ages together. Of the different Asiatic communities inhabiting Bombay, the Parsees have the lowest death rate. One can safely say that that is, to a great extent, due to the Zoroastrian ideas of sanitation, segregation, purification and clean- liness. A Parsee is enjoined not to drink from the same cup or glass from which another man has drunk, lest he catch by contagion the disease from which the other may be suffering. He is, under no cir- cumstances, to touch the body of a person a short time after death, San itary ^^^^ ^^ Spread the disease, if contagious, of the deceased. If he acci- Huieeand Prin- dentally or unavoidably does, he has to purify himself by a certain process of washing before he mixes with others in societx'. A passing fly, or even a blowing wind, is supposed to spread disease by conta- gion. So he is enjoined to perform ablutions several times during the day, as before saying his prayers, before meals, and after answering the calls of nature. If his hand comes into contact with the saliva of his own mouth or with that of somebody else, he has to wash it. He has to keep himself aloof from corpse-bearers, lest he spread any disease through them. If accidentally he comes into contact with these people, he has to bathe himself before mixing in society. A breach of these and various other sanitary rules is, as it were, helping the cause of the evil principle. Again, Zoroastrianism asks its disciples to keep the earth pure, to keep the air pure, and to keep the water pure. It considers the sun as the greatest purifier. In places where the rays of the sun do not enter, fire over which fragrant wood is burned is the next purifier. It is a great sin to pollute water by decomposing matter. Not only is the commission of a fault of this kind a sin, but also the omission, when one sees such a pollution, of taking proper means to remove it. A Zoroastrian, when he happens to see, while passing in his way, a run- ning stream of drinking water polluted by some decomposing matter, such as a corpse, is enjoined to wait and try his best to go into the stream and to remove the putrifying matter, lest its continuation may spoil the water and affect the health of the people using it. An omission to do this act is a sin from a Zoroastrian point of view. At the bottom of a Parsce's custom of disposing of the dead, and at the ciples. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 463 bottom of all the strict religious ceremonies enjoined therewith, lies the one main principle, viz., that, preserving all possible respect for the dead, the body, after its separation from the immortal soul, should be disposed of in a way the least harmful and the least injurious to the living. The homely proverb of "cleanliness is godliness" is nowhere more recommended than in the Parsee religious books, which teach that the cleanliness of body will lead to and help the cleanliness of mind. We now come to the question of wealth, poverty and labor. As Herodotus said, a Parsee, before praying for himself, prays for his sovereign and for his community, for he is himself included in the community. His religious precepts teach him to drown his individu- Weaitii. Pov- ality in the common interests of his community. He is to consider erty and Labor, himself as a part and parcel of the whole community. The good of the whole will be the good — and that a solid good — of the parts. In the twelfth chapter of the Yasna, which contains, as it were, Zoroastrian articles of faith, a Zoroastrian promises to preserve a perfect brother- hood. He promises, even at the risk of his life, to protect the life and the property of all the members of his community and to help in the cause that would bring about their prosperity and welfare. It is with these good feelings of brotherhood and charity that the Parsee com- munity has endowed large funds for benevolent and charitable pur- poses. If the rich Parsees of the future generations were to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors of the past and present generations in the matter of giving liberal donations for the good of the deserving poor of their community, one can say that there would be very little cause for the socialists to complain from a poor man's point of view. It is these notions of charity and brotherhood that have urged them to start public funds for the general good of the whole community. Men of all grades in society contribute to these funds on various occasions. The rich contribute on occasions both of joy and grief. On grand occasions, like those of weddings in their families, they con- tribute large sums in charity to commemorate those events. Again, on the death of their dear ones, the rich and the poor all pay various sums, according to their means, in charity. These sums are announced on the occasion of the Oothumna, or the ceremony on the third day after death. The rich pay large sums on these occasions to com- memorate the names of their dear ones. In the Vendidad three kinds of charitable deeds are especially mentioned as meritorious — to help the poor; to help a man to marry, and thus to enable him to lead a virtuous and honorable life, and to give education to those who are in search of it. If one were to look to the long list of Parsee charities, headed by that of that prince of Parsee charity, the first Parsee baronet, he will find these three kinds of charity especially attended to. The religious training of a Parsee does not restrict his ideas of brotherhood and charity to his own community alone. He extends his charity to non-Zoroastrians as well. The qualifications of a good husband, from a Zoroastrian point Husband. 464 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. of view, are that he must be (i) young and handsome; (2) strong, brave and healthy; (3) diligent and industrious, so as to maintain his wife and children; (4) truthful, as would prove true to herself, and Quaiifica- ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Others with whom he would come in contact, and is wise tionsof aGood and educated. A wise, intelligent and educated husband is compared to a fertile piece of land which gives a plentiful crop, whatever kind of seeds are sown in it. The qualifications of a good wife are that she be wise and educated, modest and courteous, obedient and chaste. Obedience to her husband is the first duty of a Zoroastrian wife. It is a great virtue, deserving all praise and reward. Disobedience is a great sin, punishable after death. According to the Sad-dar, a wife that expressed a desire to her husband three times a day — in the morning, afternoon and evening — to be one with him in thoughts, words and deeds, i. e., to sympathize with him in all his noble aspirations, pursuits and desires, performed as meritorious an act as that of saying her prayers three times a day. She must wish to be of the same view with him in all his noble pur- suits and ask him every day: "What are your thoughts, so that I may be one with you in those thoughts? What are your words, so that I may be one with you in your speech ? What are your deeds, so that I may be one with you in deeds?" A Zoroastrian wife so affectionate and obedient to her husband was held in great respect, not only by the husband and the household, but in society as well. As Dr. West says, though a Zoroastrian wife was asked to be very obedient to her husband, she held a more respectable position in society than that enjoined by any other Oriental religion. As Sir John Malcolm says, the ordinance of Zoroaster secured for Zoroastrian women an equal rank with the male creation. The progress of the ancient Persians in civil- ization was partly due to this cause. "The great respect in which the female sex was held was, no doubt, the principal cause of the progress they had made in civilization. These were at once the cause of gener- ous enterprise and its reward." The advance of the modern Parsis, the descendants of the ancient Persians, in the path of civilization is greatly due to this cause. As Dr. Haug says, the religious books of the Parsis hold women on a level with men. " They are always mentioned as a necessary part of the religious community. They have the same re- ligious rites as men; the spirits of deceased women are invoked as well as those of men." Parsee books attach as much importance to female education as to male education. Marriage is an institution which is greatly encouraged by the spirit of the Parsee religion. It is especially recommended in the Parsee scriptures on the ground that a married life is more likely to be happy than an unmarried one; that a married person is more likely to be able to withstand physical and mental afflictions than an unmarried person, and that a married man is more likely to lead a religious and virtuous life than an unmarried one. The following verse in the Gatba conveys this meaning: "I say (these) words to you marrying brides and to yoM bride- THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 465 grooms. Impress them in your mind. May you two enjoy the life of good mind by following the laws of religion. Let each one of you clothe the other with righteousness, because then assuredly there will be a happy life for you." An unmarried person is represented to feel as unhappy as a fertile piece of ground that is carelessly allowed to lie uncultivated by its owner (Vend, iii., 24). The fertile piece, when cultivated, not only adds to the beauty of the spot, but lends nourishment and food to Maniage a many others round about. So a married couple not only add to their Jon. ^ ^ own beauty, grace and happiness, but by their righteousness and good conduct are in a position to spread the blessings of help and happi- ness among their neighbors. Marriage being thus considered a good institution, and being recommended by the religious scriptures, it is considered a very meritorious act for a Parsee to help his co-religion- ists to lead a married life (Vend, iv, 44). Several rich Parsees have, with this charitable view, founded endowment funds, from which young deserving brides are given small sums on the occasion of their mar- riage for the preliminary expenses of starting in married life. Fifteen is the minimum marriageable age spoken of by the Parsee books. The parents.have a voice of sanction or approval in the selec- tion of wives and husbands. Mutual friends of parents or marrying parties may bring about a good selection. Marriages with non- Zoroastrians are not recommended, as they are likely to bring about quarrels and dissensions owing to a difference of manners, customs and habits. We said above that the Parsee religion has made its disciples tolerant about the faiths and beliefs of others. It has as well made them sociable with the other sister communities of the country. They mix freely with members of other faiths and take a part in the rejoic- ings of their holidays. They also sympathize with them in their griefs and afflictions, and in case of sudden calamities, such as fire, floods, etc., they subscribe liberally to alleviate their misery. From a con- sideration of all kinds of moral and charitable notions inculcated in the Zoroastrian scriptures, P^rances Power Cobbe, in her "Studies, New and Old, of Ethical and Social Subjects," says of the founder of the religion: Had Zoroaf>t. "Should we in a future world be permitted to hold high converse ilted!*^^"^ ^*' with the great departed, it may chance that in the Bactrian sage, who lived and taught almost before the dawn of history, we may find the spiritual patriarch, to whose lessons we have owed such a portion of our intellectual inheritance that we might hardly conceive what human belief would be now, had Zoroaster never existed." ^^J^ Mohammedans of Damascus. Spirit and ]V\ission of the Apo^tolic Qhurch of A rmenia. Paper by OHANNES CHATSCHUMGAN, of Armenia. CCORDING to the general testimony of histo- rians, Christianity was introduced into Arme- nia in the first century. In the year 34 A. D. the Apostle Thaddeus went to this country, and in the year 60 A. D. Bartholomew fol- lowed. They preached the Gospel and were martyred. These apostles were, therefore, the founders of the Armenian church. Besides them two others, Simeon and Judah, preached in Armenia. But Christianity did not become the established religion until the year 302 A. D., although during this interval thousands of Arme- nians became martyrs for Christianity. In that year Saint Gregory Illuminator enlightened the entire Armenian nation, and Christianity became the religion of the king as well as of the people. In the Armenian lan- guage to " enlighten " means to " Christianize." Whether, therefore, we date the establishment of Christianity from the first cent- ury or at the beginning of the fourth, the Armenian church remains the oldest Christian church in the world. Because of its past it has a peculiar place among other churches. While the church is only one element in the lives of other nations — an element sometimes strong, sometimes less strong — in Armenia it embraces the whole life of the nation. There are not two different ideals, one for Christianity, the other for nationality. These two ideals are united. The Armenians love their country because they love Chri-stianity. Church and fatherland have been almost synony- mous in their tongues. The construction of the Armenian church is simple and apos- tolic. It is independent and national. The head is called the Patri- arch Catholicos of all Armenians in whatev^er part of the world they may be. He is elected by the representatives of the nation and clergy 467 OJdest Chrii*- tian Church iu the World. 468 ' THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. in Etchmiadzin, at the foot of Mount Ararat. Any Armenian, even a layman, can become head of the church if the general assembly finds him worthy of this high office. Since Armenia has been di\'ided among the three powers — Turkey, Russia and Persia — the election of the Catholicos is confirmed by the Russian emperor. The bishops are elected by the people of each province and are anointed by the Catholicos. The ordinary clergy arc elected by each parish. The parish is free in its election, and neither bishop nor Catholicos can assign a priest to a parish against its wish. Each church being free in its home work, they are all bound with one another and so form a unity. The people share largely in the work of the church. All assem- blies which have to decide general questions, even dogmatic matters, are gathered from both people and clergy. The clergy exists for the people and not the people for the clergy. The Armeni- ^\^c Armenian clergy have always been pioneers in the educa- an Clergy. tional advancement of the nation. They have been the bringers in of European civilization to their people. Erom the fifth century to this very day young men intended for the priesthood are sent to the Occident to study in order that Christianity and civilization may go hand in hand. The country owes everything to its clergy. They hav^e been first in danger and first in civilization. The spirit of the Armenian church is tolerant. A characteristic feature of Armenians, even while they were heathen, was that they were cosmopolitan in religious matters. Armenia, in early ages, was an America for the oppressed of other lands. Erom Assyria, as we read in the Bible, in the Book of Kings, Adramelech and Anamelech escaped to Armenia. Erom China, Hindustan and Palestine they went thither, carrying their religious thoughts and their idols, which they worshiped side by side with the Armenian gods. Christianity has entirely changed the political and moral life of Armenia, but the tolerant spirit has ever remained. P'or more than fifteen hundred years she has been persecuted for her faith and for conscience' sake, and yet she has never been a religious persecutor. She calls no church heterodox. The last Catholicos, ^lakar the P^irst, said once to me: "My son, do not call any church hetert)dox. All churches are equal, and everybody is saved by his own faith." Plvery day in our churches prayers are offered for all those who call on the name of The Most High insincerity. The Armenian church does not like religious disputes. She has defended the ideals of Christianity more with the red blood of her children than with big volumes of controversies. She has always insisted on the brotherhood of all Christians. Nerces, archbishop of Zanbron, Cilicia, who was called the second Apostle Paul, in the twelfth century defended and practiced the very ideals and equality of all churches and the brotherhood of all men which the most liberal clergy- men of this century believe in. The Armenian church has a great literature, especially in sacred Women i n THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS 469 lyrics, which has had a vast influence over the people. But the purify- ing influence of our church appears chiefly in the family. In no land is the family life purer. For an Armenian the family is sacred. Eth- nologists ask with reason: "How can we explain the continued exist- ence of the Armenian nation through the fire and sword of four thousand years?" The solution of this riddle is in the pure family life. This is the anchor by which the stormbeaten has been held. It is a singular fact that Armenia never had, even in her heathen time, either polygamy or slavery, although always surrounded by nations who followed these evil practices. Women in Armenia hav^e always had a distinguished place in the church. The first Christian martyr among women in the whole world Armenhi" was an Armenian girl, Sandooct, the beautiful daughter of the King Sanstreek. In the fifth century, as says the historian, Equishe, the songs of the Armenian women were the psalms and their daily read- ings the Gospel. Geographically, Armenia is the bridge between Asia and Europe. All the nations of Asia have traveled over this bridge. One cannot show a single year in the long past through which she has enjoyed peace. Every one of her stones has been baptized many times with the sacred blood of martyrs. Her rivers have flowed, not with water, but with blood and tears of the Armenian nation. Surrounded by non-Christian and anti-Chiristian peoples, she has kept her Christianity and her independent national church. Through the darkness of the ages she has been a bright torch in the Orient of Christianity and civilization. All her neighbors have passed away — the Assyrians, the Babylon- ians, the Parthians, and the Persian fire worshipers. Armenia, herself, has lost everything; crown andscepter are gone; peace and happiness have departed; to her remains only the cross, the sign of martyrdom. Yet the Armenian church still lives. Why? To fulfill the work she was called to do; to spread civilization among the peoples of this part of Asia, and she has still vitality enough to fulfill this mission. For this struggling and aspiring church we crave your sympathy. To help the Armenian church is to help humanity. Bedouin Sheik (Mohammedan). Prize ^ssay on Qonfucianism. By KUNG HSIEN HO, of Shanghai, China. HE most important thing in the superior man's learning is to fear disobeying heaven's will. Therefore in our Confucian religion the most important thing is to follow the will of heaven. The book of Yih King says, "In the changes of the world there is a great Supreme which pro- duces two principles, and these two principles are Yin and Yang. By Supreme is meant the spring of all activity. Our sages regard Yin and Yang and the five elements as acting and reacting on each other without ceasing, and this doctrine is all important, like as the hinge of a door. The incessant production of all things depends on this, as the tree does on the root. Even all human affairs and all good are also dependent on it; therefore, it is called the Supreme, just as we speak of the extreme points of the earth as the north and south poles. By Great .Supreme is meant that there is nothing above it. But heaven is without sound or smell, therefore, the ancients spoke of the infinite and the great supreme. The great supreme producing Yin and Yang is law-producing forces. When Yang and Yin unite they produce water, fire, wood, metal, earth. When these fi\e forces oper- ate in harmony the four seasons come to pass. The essences of the infinite, of Yin and Yang, and of the five elements combine, and the heavenly become male, and the earthly become female. When these powers acton each other all things are produced and reproduced and developed without end. As to man, he is the best and most intelligent of all This is what is meant in the book of Chung Yong when it says that what heaven has given is the spiritual nature. This nature is law. All men are thus born and have this law. Therefore it is Mencius says that all children love the parents, and when grown up all respect their elder brethren. If men only followed the natural bent of this nature, then all would go the right way; hence, the Chung Yung says, "To follow nature is the right way." 471 Spiritual Nat ure iH Law. 472 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF REUGIOMS. The choicest product of Ying Yang and the five elements in the world is man, the rest are refuse products. The choicest among the choice ones are the sages and worthies, and the refuse among them are the foolish and the bad. And as man's body comes from the Yin and man's soul from the Yang he cannot be perfect. This is what the Lung philosophers called the material nature. Although all men have at birth a nature for goodness, still, if there is nothing to fix it, then de- sires arise and passions rule, and men are not far from being like The Material beasts; hence, Confucius says: "Men's nature is originally alike, but in Nature. practice men become very different." The sages, knowing this, sought to fix the nature with the principles of moderation, uprightness, benev- olence and righteousness. Heaven appointed rulers and teachers, who in turn established worship and music to improve men's disposition and set up governments and penalties in order to check men's wicked- ness. The best among the people are taken into schools where they study wisdom, virtue, benevolence and righteousness, so that they may know before hand how to conduct themselves as rulers or ruled. And lest after many generations, there should be degeneration and difficulty in finding the truth, the principles of heaven and earth, of men and of all things, have been recorded in the Book of Odes for the use of after generations. The Chung Yung calls the practice of wisdom religion. Our religion well knows heaven's will; it looks on all under heaven as one family, great rulers as elder branches in their parent's clan, great ministers as chief officers of this clan and people at large as brothers of the same parents; and it holds that all things should be enjoyed in common, because it regards heaven and earth as the parents of all alike. And the commandment of the Confucian is "Fear greatly lest you offend against heaven." But what Confucians lay great stress on is human affairs. What are these? These are the five relations and the five constants. What are the five relations? They are those of sovereign and minister, father and son, elder and younger brother, husband and wife, and that between friend and friend. Now, the ruler is the Son of heaven, to streseonHu- ^^ honored above all others; therefore, in serving Him there has to be man.^ffairs. loyalty. The parents' gooducss to their children is boundless; there- fore, the parents should be served filialy Brothers arc branches from the same root; therefore, mutual respect is important. The marriage relation is the origin of all human relations; therefore, mutual gentle- ness is important. As to friends, though as if strangers to our homes, it is important to be very affectionate. When one desires to make progress in the practice of virtue as ruler or minister, as parent or child, as elder or younger brother, or as husband and wife; if anyone wishes to be perfect in any relation, how can it be done without a friend to exhort one to good and check one in evil? Therefore, one should seek to increase his friends. Among the five relations there are also the three hands. The ruler is the hand of the minister, the father is that of the son, and the husband is that of the wife. And the book of the Ta Hsioh says: "From the THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 473 emperor down to the common people the fundamental thing for all to do is to cultivate virtue." If this fundamental foundation is not laid, then there cannot be order in the world. Therefore, great responsibility lies on the leaders This is what Confucius means when he says: "When a ruler is upright he is obeyed without com- mands." Now, to cause the doctrine of the five relations to be carried out everywhere by all under heaven, the ruler must be intelligent and the minister good, then the government will be just; the father must be loving and the son filial, the elder brother friendly, the younger brother respectful, the husband kind and the wife obedient, then the home will be right; in our relation with our friends there must be confidence, then customs will be reformed and order will not be difficult for the whole world, simply because the rulers lay the foundation for it in virtue. What are the five constants? Benevolence, righteousness, wor- ship, wisdom, faithfulness. Benevolence is love, righteousness is fit- ness, worship is principle, wisdom is thorough knowledge, faithfulness is what one can depend on. He who is able to restore the original good nature and to hold fast to it is called a worthy. He who has got influence of hold of the spiritual nature and is at peace and rest is called a sage, stants!'* He who sends forth unseen and infinite influences throughout all things is called divine The influence of the five constants is very great and all living things are subject to them. Mencius says: "He who has no pity is not a man; he who has no sense of shame for wrong is not a man; he who has no yielding dispo- sition is not a man, and he who has not the sense of right and wrong is not a man. The sense of pity is the beginning of benevolence, the sense of shame for wrong is the beginning of righteousness, a yielding disposition is the beginning of religion, the sense of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Faithfulness is not spoken of, as it is what makes the other four real; like the earth element among the five elements, without it the other four manifestly cannot be placed. The Chung Yung says: "Sincerity or reality is the beginning and the end of things There is no such thing as supreme sincerity with- out action. This is the use of faithfulness " As to benevolence, it also includes righteousness, religion and wisdom, therefore, the sages consider that the most important thing is to get benevolence. The idea of benevolence is gentleness and liberal mindedness, that of righteousness is clear duty, that of religion is showing forth, that of wisdom is to gather silently. When there is gentleness, clear duty, showing forth and silent gathering constantly going on, then everything naturally falls to its proper place, just like the four seasons; e. g.: the spring influences are gentle and liberal and are life-giving ones; in summer life-giving things grow; in autumn these show themselves in harvest and in winter they are stored up. If there were no spring the other three seasons would have nothing; so it is said the benevolent man is the hie. Extend and develop this 474 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. benevolence and all under heaven may be benefited thereby. This is how to observe human relation. As to the doctrine of future life. Confucianism speaks of it most 'minutely. Cheng Tsze says the spirits are the forces or servants of heaven and earth and signs of creative power. Chu Fu Tsze says: "Speaking of two powers, the demons are the intelligent ones of Yin, the gods arc the intelligent ones of Yang; speaking of one power, the supreme and originating is called God, the reverse and the returning is demon." Confucius, replying to Tsai Wo, says: "When flesh and bones die below the dust the material Yin becomes dust, but the immaterial rises above the grave in great light, has odor and is very pitiable. This is the immaterial essence." The Chung Yung, quoting Confu- cius, says: "The power of the spirits is very great! You look and cannot sec them, you listen and cannot hear them, but they are em- bodied in all things without missing any, causing all men to reverence them and be purified, and be well adorned in order to sacrifice unto them." All things are alive, as if the gods were right above our heads or on our right hand or on the left. Yih King makes much of divin- ing to get decisions from the gods, knowing that the gods are the forces of heaven and earth in operation. Although unseen, still they influence; if difficult to prove, yet easily known. The great sages and great worthies, the loyal ministers, the righteous scholars, filial sons, the pure women of the world having received the purest influ- ences of the divinest forces of heaven and earth, when on earth were heroes, when dead are the gods. Their influences continue for many generations to affect the world for good, therefore many venerate and sacrifice unto them. As to evil men, they arise from the evil forces of nature; when dead, they also influence for evil, and we must get holy influences to destroy evil ones. As to rewards and punishments the ancient sages also spoke of them. The great Yu, B. C. 2255, said: "Follow what is right and you Rewards and ^^'^^ t)e fortunatc; do not follow it and you will be unfortunate; the Paniehmente. results are only shadows and echoes of our acts." Tang, B. C. 1766, says: " Heaven's way is to bless the good and bring calamity on the evil." His minister, Yi Yin, said: " It ds only God who is perfectly just; good actions are blessed with a hundred favors; evil actions are cursed with a hundred evils." Confucius, speaking of the "Book of Changes" (Yih King), said: " Those who multiply good deeds will have joys to overflowing; those who multiply evil deeds will have calami- ties running over." But this is very different from Taoism, which says that there are angels from heaven examining into men's good and evil deeds, and from Buddhism, which says that there is a purgatory or hell according to one's deeds. Rewards and punishments arise from our different actions just as water flows to the ocean and as fire seizes what is dry; without expecting certain consequences they come inevitabh-. When THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 475 these consequences do not appear they are like cold in summer or heat in winter, or like both happening the same day; but this we say is unnatural. Therefore, it is said, sincerity is the way of heaven. If we say that the gods serve heaven exactly as mandarins do on earth, bring- ing quick retribution on every little thing, this is really to make them appear very slow. At present men say, "Thunder killed the bad man." But it is not so, either. The Han philosopher, Tung Chung Shu (sec- ond century B. C), says: "Vapors, when they clash above, make rain; when they clash below make fog; wind is nature's breathing. Thunder is the sound of clouds clashmg against each other. Lightning is light emitted by their collision. Thus we see that when a man is killed it is by the collision of these clouds." As to becoming genii and transmigration of souls, these are still more beside the mark. If we became like genii, then we would live on without dying; how could the world hold so many? If we transmi- grate, then so many would transmigrate from the human life and ghosts would be numerous. Besides when the lamp goes out and is lit again it is not the former flame that is lit. When the cloud has a rainbow it rains, but it is not the same rainbow as when the rainbow appeared before. From this we know also that these doctrines of transmigra- tion should not be believed in. So much on the virtue of the unseen and hereafter. As to the great aim and broad basis of Confucianism, we say it searches into things, it extends knowledge, it has a sincere aim, i.e., to have a right heart, a virtuous life, so as to regulate the home, to govern the nation and to give peace to all under heaven. The book of "Great Learning," Ja Hsigh, has already clearly spoken of these. The founda- a sincere tion is laid in illustrating vntue, for our religion in discussing govern- ^i™- ment regards virtue as the foundation, and wealth as the superstructure. Mencius says: "When the rulers and ministers are only seeking gain the nation is in danger" He also says: "There is no benevolent man who neglects his parents, there is no righteous man who helps himself before nis ruler." From this it is apparent what is most important. Not that we do not speak of gain; the "Great Learning" says: "There is a right way to get gain. Let the producers be many and the consumers few. Let there be activity in production and economy in the expenditure. Then the wealth will always be sufficient. But it is important that the high and low should share it alike." As to how to govern the country and give peace to all under heaven the nine paths are most important. The nine paths are: Cul- tivate a good character, honor the good, love your parents, respect great oflfices, carry out the wishes of the ruler and ministers, regard the common people as your children, invite all kinds of skillful work- men, be kind to strangers, have consideration for all the feudal chiefs. These are the great principles. Their origin and history may also be stated. Far up in mythical ancient times, before literature was known, F'u Hi arose and drew the eight diagrams in order to understand the superhuman powers and 476 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. the nature of all things. At the time of Tang Yao (B, C. 2356) they were able to illustrate noble virtue. Nine generations lived together in one home in love and peace, and the people were firm and intelli- gent. Yao handed down to Shun a saying, "Sincerely hold fast to the 'mean'." Shun transmitted it to Yu, and said: "The mind of man is restless, prone to err; its affinity for the right way is small. Be dis- criminating; be undivided that you may sincerely hold fast to the mean." Yu transmitted this to Tang, of the Siang dynasty (B. C. 1766), Tang transmitted it to Kings Wen and Wu, of the Chow dynasty (B. C. 1 122). These transmitted it to Duke Kung. And these were all able to observe this rule of the heart by which they held fast to the " mean." The Chow dynasty later degenerated; then there arose Confucius, who transmitted the doctrines of Yao and Shun as if they had been his ancestors, elegantly displayed the doctrines of Wen and Wu, edited Whcnionfu- ^^^ odcs and the history, reformed religion, made notes on the "Book ciu8 Arose. of Changes," wrote the annals of spring and autumn, and spoke of governing the nation, saying: " Treat matters seriously and be faith- ful; be temperate and love men; employ men according to proper times, and in teaching your pupils you must do so with love " He said to Yen Tsze: "Self-sacrifice and truth is benevolence. If you can for one whole day entirely sacrifice self and be true, then all under heaven will become benevolent." Speaking of being able to put away selfishness and attaining to the truth of heaven, everything is possible to such a heart, Alas! He was not able to get his virtues put into practice, but his disciples recorded his words and deeds and wrote the Confucian Ana- lects. His disciple, Jscng Tsze, composed the Great Learning. His proud son, Tsze Sze, composed the Doctrine of the Mean (Chung Yung). When the contending states were quarreling, Mencius, with a loving heart that could not endure wrong, arose to save the times. The rulers of the time would not use him; so he composed a book in seven chapters. After this, although the ages changed this, religion flourished. In the Han dynasty, Tung Chung Shu (twentieth century B, C); in the .Sui dynasty, Wang Tung (A. D. 583-617); in the Tang dynasty Han Yo (A. D, 768-824), each made some part of this doc- trine better known In the Sung dynasty (960-1260) these were the disciples of the philosophers Cheng, Chow and Chang, searching into the spiritual nature of man, and Chu Fu-Tsze collected their works and this religion shone with great brightness. Our present dynasty, respecting scholarship and considering truth important, placed the philosopher Cho in Confucian temples to be reverenced and sacrificed to. Confucianists all follow Chu Fu-Tsze's comments. From ancient times till now those who followed the doctrines of Confucius were able to govern the country; whenever these were not followed there was disorder. On looking at it down the ages there is also clear evidence of re- sults in governing the country and its superiority to other religions. THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. m There is a prosperity of Tang Yis, of the dynasties Hsia Siang and Chow (B. C. 2356, B. C. 255), when virtue and good government flour- ished. It is needless to enlarge upon them. At the time of the con- fending states there arose theorists, and all under heaven became dis- ordered. The Tsin dynasty (of Tsin She-Hwang fame) burned the books and buried the Confucianists and did many other heartless things, and also went to seek the art of becoming immortal (Taoism), and the empire was soon lost. Then the Han dynasty arose (B, C. 206-A. D. 220). Although it leaned toward Taoism, the people, after having suffered so long from the cruelties of the Tsin, were easily governed. Although the religious rites of the Shu Sun-tung do not command our confidence, the elucidation of the ancient classics and books we owe mostly to the Confucianists of the Han period. Although the emperor, the emperor VVu, of the western (early) Han dynasty, was fond of genii (Taoism), he knew how to select worthy ministers. Although the emperor Ming, of the eastern (later) Han dynasty, introduced Buddhism, he was able to respect the Confucian doctrines. Since so many followed Confucianism, good mandarins were very abundant under the eastern and western Han dynasties, and the dynasty lasted very long. Passing on to the epoch of the three kingdoms and the Tsin dynasty (A. D. 221-419) the people then leaned toward Taoism and neglected the country. Afterward the north and south quarreled and Emperor Laing Wu reigned the longest, but lost all by believing in Buddhism and going into the monastery at Tsing Tai, where he died of starvation at Tai Ching. When Yuen Ti came to the throne (A D. 552) the soldiers of Wei arrived while the teaching of Taoism was still going on, and the country was ruined. It is not worth while to speak of the Sui dynasty. The first emperor of the Tang dynasty (618-907) greatly sought out famous Confucianists and increased the demand for scholars, so that the country was ruled almost equal to Cheng and Kang,of ancient times. Although there was the affair of Empress Woo and Lu Shan, the dynasty flourished long Its fall was because the emperor Huen Tsung was fond of Taoism and Buddhism, and was put to death by taking wrong medicine. The emperor Mu Tsung also believed in Taoism, but got ill by eating immortality pills. After this the emperor Wu Tsung was fond of Taoism and reigned only a short time. The emperor Tsung followed Buddhism and the dynasty fell into a precarious condition. Passing by the five dynasties (907-960) on to the first emperor of the Sung dynasty (960-1360) who, cherishing the people and having good government, step by step prospered — when Jen Tsung ruled he reverenced heaven and cared for the people; he reformed the punish- ment and lightened the taxes, and was assisted by such scholars as Han Ki, Fan Chung Yen, Foo Pih, Ou Yang Sui, Wen Yen Poh and Chas Pien. They established the government at the mountain Pas Sang and raised the people to the state of peace which is still in everv home. Such government may be called benevolent. Resnlts i n Goveraing the Country. Benevolpnt Qovernuient. 478 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Afterward there arose the troubles of Kin, when the good minis- ters were destroyed by cliques and the Sang dynasty moved to the south of China. When the Mongol dynasty (A. D. 1260-1368) arose, it believed in and employed Confucian methods, and all under heaven was in order. In the time of Jen Chung the names of the philosophers. Chow and Cheng (of the Sung dynasty), were placed in the Confucian temples to be sacrificed to. They carried out the system of examinations and sent commissioners to travel throughout the land to inquire into the sufferings of the people. The empress served the emperor dowager with filial piety and treated all his relations with honor, and he may be called one of our noble rulers, but the death of Shunti was owing to his passion for pleas- ure. He practiced the methods of western priests (Buddhists) to reg- ulate the health and had no heart for matters of state. When the first emperor of the Ming dynasty (A. D. 1368-1644) arose and reformed the religion and ritual of the empire, he called it the great, peaceful dynasty. The pity was that he selected Buddhist priests to attend on the princes of the empire, and the priest Tao Yen corrupted the Pekin prince, and a rebellious spirit sprung up, which was a great mistake. Then Yen Tsung, too, employed Yen Sung, who only occupied himself in worship. Hi Tsung employed Ni Ngan, who defamed the loyal and the good, and the dynasty failed. These are the evidences of the value of Confucianism in every age. But in our present dynasty worship and religion have been wisely regulated, and the government is in fine order; noble ministers and able oflficers have followed in succession down all these centuries. That is what has caused Confucianism to be transmitted from the oldest times till now, and wherein it constitutes its superiority to other religions is that it does not encourage mysteries and strange things or marvels. It is impartial and upright. It is a doctrine of great im- partiality and strict uprightness, which one may body forth in one's person and carry out with vigor in one's life; therefore, we say, when the sun and moon come forth (as in Confucianism), then the light of candles can be dispensed with. a ft u a > OS u (d U (Confucianism. Paper by HON. PUNG KWANG YU, First Secretary of the Chinese Legation, Washington, D. C. LL Chinese reformers of ancient and modern times have either exercised supreme authority as political heads of the nation or filled high posts as ministers of state. The only notable exception is Confucius. "Man," says Con- fucius in the Book of Rites, "is the product of heaven and earth, the union of the active and passive principles, the conjunction of the soul and spirit, and the ethereal essence of the five elements." Again he says: "Man is the heart of heaven and earth, and the nucleus of the five elements, formed by assimilating food, by distinguishing sounds and by the action of light." Now, the heaven and earth, the active and passive principles, and the soul and spirit are dualisms resulting from unities. The product of heaven and earth, the union of the active and passive principles, the conjunction of the soul and spirit, are unities resulting from dualisms. Man, MantheHeart b^ing the Connecting link between unities and dualisms, is, therefore, ofHeaven und called the heart of heaven and earth. By reason of his being the heart of heaven and earth humanity is his natural faculty and love his con- trolling emotion. "Humanity," says Confucius, "is the characteristic of man." On this account humanity stands at the head of the five fac- ulties, or the innate qualities of the soul, namely, humanity, rectitude, propriety, understanding and truthfulness. Humanity must have the social relations for its sphere of action. Love must begin at home. What are the social relations? They are the sovereign and sub- ject, parent and child, husband and wife, elder and young brothers and friends. These are called the five relations or natural relations. As the relation of husband and wife must have been recognized before that of sovereign or subject, or that of parent and child, the relation of husband and wife is, therefore, the first of the social relations. The relation of husband and wife bears a certain analogy to that of "kien" and "kium." The word kien may be taken in the sense of heaven, 480 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS CF RELIGIONS. 481 sovereign, parent or husband. As the earth is subservient to heaven* , so is the subject subservient to the sovereign, the child to the parent and the wife to the husband. These three mainstays of the social -structure have their origin in the law of nature, and do not owe their existence to the invention of men. The emotions are but the manifestations of the soul's faculties when acted upon by external objects. There are seven emotions, namely, joy, anger, grief, fear, love, hate and desire. The faculties of the soul derive their origin from nature, and are, therefore, called natural faculties; the emotions emanate from man, and are, therefore, called human emotions. Humanity sums up the virtues of the five natural faculties. Filial duty lies at the foundation of humanity. The sense of propriety serves to regulate the emotions. The recognition of the relation of husband and wife is the first step in the cultivation and development of humanity. The principles that direct human progress are sincerity and charity, and the principles that carry it forward are devotion and honor. "Do not unto others," says Confucius, ""whatsoever ye would not that others should do unto you." Again, he says: "A noble-minded man has four rules to regulate his conduct: To serve one's parents in such a manner as is required of a son; to serve one's sovereign in such a manner as is required of a subject; to serve one's elder brother in such a manner as is required of a younger brother; to set an example of dealing with one's friends in such a manner as is required of friends." This succinct statement puts in a nutshell all the requirements of sincerity, charity, devotion and honor; in other words, of humanity au the Re- itself. Therefore, all natural virtues and established doctrines that gnJremenie of , t 1 • r • I • 1 • 1 . • Hamanity. relate to the duties of man m his relations to society must have their origin in humanity. On the other hand, the principle that regulates the actions and conduct of men, from beginning to end, can be no other than propriety. What are the rules of propriety? The "Book of Rites" treats of such as relate to ceremonies on attaining majority, marriages, funerals, sac- rifices, court receptions, banquets, the worship of heaven, the observ- ance of stated feasts, the sphere of woman and the education of youth. The rules of propriety are based on rectitude and should be carried out with understanding, so as to show their truth, to the end that humanity may appear in its full splendor. The aim is to enable the five innate qualities of the soul to have full and free play, and yet to enable each in its action to promote the action of the rest. If we were to go into details on this subject and enlarge on the various lines of thought as they present themselves we should find that myriads of words and thousands of paragraphs would not suffice, for then we should have to deal with such problems as relate to the observation of facts, the sys- tematization of knowledge, the establishment of right principles, the rectification of the heart, the disciplining of self, the regulation of the family, the government of the nation and the pacification of the world. 482 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. Such are the elements of instruction and self-education which Confu- eianists consider as essential to make man what he ought to be. Now, man is only a species of naked animal. fTe was naturally stricken with fear and went so far as to worship animals against which . he was helpless. To this may be traced the origin of religious wor- liftioua'* Vorl ship. It was ouly man, however, that nature had endowed with intel- •^p- ligence. On this account he could take advantage of the natural ele- ments, and his primary object was to increase the comforts and remove the dangers of life. As he passed from a savage to a civilized state he initiated movements for the education of the rising generation by defining the relations and duties of society and by laying special emphasis on the disciplining of self. Therefore, man is called the "nucleus of the five elements and the ethereal essence of the five ele- ments formed by assimilating food, by distinguishing sounds and by the action of light." Herein lies the dignity of human nature Herein we recognize the chief characteristic that distinguishes man from ani- mals. The various tribes of feathered, haired, scaled, or shelled animals, to be sure, are not entirely incapable of emotion. As emotions are only phenomena of the soul's different faculties, animals may be said to possess, to a limited degree, faculties similar to the faculties of man, and are, therefore, entirely devoid of the pure essence of nature. From the beginning of the creation the intelligence of animals has remained the same, and will doubtless remain the same until the end of time. They are incapable of improvement or progress. This shows that the substance of their organization must be derived from the im- perfect and gross elements of the earth, so that when it unites with the ethereal elements to form the faculties, the spiritual qualities can- not gain full play, as in the case of man. "In the evolution of the animated creation," says Confucius, in connection with this subject, "nature can only act upon the substance of each organized being, and bring out its innate qualities. She, therefore, furnishes proper nour- ishment to those individuals that stand erect and trample upon those individuals that lie prostrate." The idea is that nature has no fixed purpose. As for man, he also has natural imperfections. This is what Con- fucianists call essential imperfections in the constitution. The reason is that the organizations which different individuals have received p^wtions.^™' from the earth are very diverse in character. It is but natural that the faculties of different individuals should develop abilities and capabili- ties which are equally diverse in degrees and kinds. It is not that different individuals have received from nature different measures of intelligence. Man only can remove the imperfections inherent in the substance of his organization by directing his mind to intellectual pursuits, by abiding in virtue, by following the dictates of humanity, by subduing anger, and by restraining the appetites. Lovers of mankind, who have the regeneration of the world at heart, would doubtless consider it THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS, 483 desirable to have some moral panacea which could completely remove all the imperfections from the organic substance of the human species, so that the whole race might be reformed with ease and ex- pedition. But such a method of procedure does not seem to be the way in which nature works. She only brings out the innate qualities of every substance. Still it is worth while to cherish such a desire on account of its tendency to elevate human nature, though we know it to be impossible of fulfillment, owing to the limitations of the human organization. Man is then endowed with the faculties of the highest dignity. Yet there are those who so far degrade their manhood as to give themselves up to the unlimited indulgence of those appetites which they have in common with birds, beasts and fishes, to the utter loss of their moral sense without being sensible of their degradation, perhaps. Faculties of In case they have really become insensible then even heaven cannot ^' y- possibly do anything with them. But if they, at any time, become sensible of their condition, they must be stricken with a sense of shame, not unmingled, perhaps, with fear and trembling If, after experiencing a sense of shame, mingled with fear and trembling, they repent of their evil doings, then they become men again with their humanity restored. This is a doctrine maintained by all the schools of Confucianists. "Reason," says Confucius in his notes to the " Book of Changes," "consists in the proper union of the active and passive principles of nature" Again, he says: "What is called spirit is the inscrutable state of 'yin' and 'yang,' or the passive and active principles of nature." Now, "yang" is heaven, or ether. Whenever ether, by condensation, paeeiye* Piiita assumes a substantive form and remains suspended in the heavens, c>pi««' there is an admixture of the active and passive principles of nature, with the active principle predominating. "Yin," or the passive prin- ciple of nature, is earth or substance. Whenever a substance which has the property of absorbing ether is attracted to the earth there is an admixture of the active and passive principles of nature, with the passive principle predominating. As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, its going and coming making one day, so the quantity of ether which the earth holds varies from time to time. Exhalation follows absorption; sys- tole succeeds diastole. It is these small changes that produce day and night. As the sun travels also from north to south and makes a complete revolution in one year, so the quantity of ether which the earth holds varies from time to time. Exhalation follows absorp- tion; systole succeeds diastole. It is these great changes that produce heat and cold. The movements of the active and passive principles of the universe bear a certain resemblance to the movements of the sun. There are periods of rest, periods of activity, periods of expan- sion, and periods of contraction. The two principles may sometimes repel each other but can never go beyond each other's influences. They may also attract each other, but do not by this means spend their 484 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. force. They seem to permeate all things from beginning to end. They are invisible and inaudible, yet it cannot be said for this reason they do not exist. This is what is meant by inscrutability, and this is what Confucius calls spirit. Still it is necessary to guard against confounding this conception of spirit with that of nature. Nature is an entirely active element and must needs have a passion element to operate upon in order to bring out its energy. On the other hand, it is also an error to confound spirit with matter. Matter is entirely passive and must needs have some active element to act upon it in order to concentrate its virtues. It is to the action and reaction, as well as to the mutual sustentation of iveEi™men^*^ the essences of the active and passive principles, that the spirit of any- thing owes its being. In case there is no union of the active and pas- sive principles, the ethereal and substantive elements lie separate, and the influences of the heavens and the earth cannot come into conjunc- tion. This being the case, whence can spirits derive their substance? Thus the influences of the heavens and material objects must act and react upon each other, and enter into the composition of each other, in order to enable every material object to incorporate a due propor- tion of energy with its virtues. Each object is then able to assume its proper form, whether large or small, and acquire the properties pecu- liar to its constitution, to the end that it may fulfill its functions in the economy of nature. For example, the spirits of mountains, hills, rivers and marshes are invisible; we see only the manifestations of their power in winds, clouds, thunders and rains. Th,e spirits of birds, quadrupeds, insects and fishes are invisible; we see only the manifestations of their power in flying, running, burrowing and swimming. The spirits of terrestrial and aquatic plants are invisible; we see only the manifestations of their power in flowers, fruits and the various tissues. The spirit of man is invisible; yet when we consider that the eyes can see, the ears can hear, the mouth can distinguish flavors, the nose can smell and the mind can grasp what is most minute as well as what is most remote, how can we account for all this? In the case of man, the spirit is in a more concentrated and better disciplined state than the spirits of the rest of the created things. On this account the spirit of man after death, though separated from the body, is still able to retain its essential virtues and does not become easily dissipated. This is the ghost or disembodied spirit. The followers of Taoism and Buddhism often speak of immortality and everlasting life. Accordingly they subject themselves to a course of discipline, in the hope that they may by this means attain to that happy Buddhistic or Taoistic existence. They aim merely to free the spirit from the limitations of the body. Taoist and Buddhist priests often speak of the rolls of spirits and the records of souls, and make frequent mention of heaven and hell. They seek to inculcate that the good will receive their due reward and the wicked will suffer eternal punishment. They mean to convey the idea, of course, that rewards THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. 485 and punishments will be dealt out to the spirts of men after death according to their deserts. Such beliefs doubtless had their origin in attempts to influence the actions of men by appealing to their likes and dislikes. The purpose of inducing men to do good and forsake evil by presenting in striking contrast a hereafter to be striven for and a hereafter to be avoided is laudable enough in some respects. But it is the perpetuation of falsehood by slavishly clinging to errors that deserve condemnation. For this reason Confucianists do not accept such doctrines, though they make no attempt to suppress them. "We cannot as yet," says Confucius, "perform our duties to men; how can we perform our duties to spirits?" Again, he says: "We know not as yet about life; how can we know about death?" "From this time on," says Tsang-tze,"I know that I am saved." "Let my consistent actions remain," says Chang-tze,"and I shall die in peace." It will be seen that the wise and good men of China have never thought it advisable to give up teaching the duties of life and turn to speculations on the conditions of souls and spirits after death. But from various passages, in the "Book of Changes," it may be inferred that the souls of men after death are in the same state as they were before birth. Why is it that Confucianists apply the word "ti" to heaven and not to spirits? The reason is that there is but one "ti," or Supreme Ruler, the governor of all subordinate spirits, who cannot be said to be propitious or unpropitious, beneficent or maleficent. Inferior spirits, on the other hand, owe their existence to material substances. As substances have noxious or useful properties, so some spirits may be propitious, others unpropitious, and some benevolent, others malev- olent. Man is part of the material universe; the spirit of man, a spe- cies of spirits. All created things can be distributed into groups, and individuals of the same species are generally found together. A man, therefore, q^P^ irit^' whose heart is good, must have a good spirit. By reason of the influ- ence exerted by one spirit upon another, a good spirit naturally tends to attract all other propitious and good spirits. This is happiness. Now, if every individual has a good heart, then from the action and reaction of spirit upon spirit, only propitious and good influences can flow. The country is blessed with prosperity; the government fulfills its purpose. What happiness can be compared with this? On the other hand, when a man has an evil heart his spirit cannot but be likewise evil. On account of the influence exerted by one spirit upon another, the call of this spirit naturally meets with ready responses from all other unpropitious and evil spirits. This is misery. If every individual harbors an evil heart, then a responsive chord is struck in all unpropitious and evil spirits. Evil influences are scattered over the country. Misfortunes and calamities overtake the land. There is an end of good government. What misery can be compared with this? Thus, in the administration of public affairs, a wise legislator 486 THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS. always takes into consideration the spirit of the times in devising means for the advancement and promotion of civilization. He puts his reliance on ceremonies and music to carry on the good work, and makes use of punishments and the sword as a last resort, in accord- ance with the good or bad tendency of the age. His aim is to restore the human heart to its pristine innocence by establishing a standard of goodness and by pointing out a way of salvation to every creature. The right principles of action can only be discovered by studying the waxing and waning of the active and passive elements of nature, as set forth in the"Bookof Changes, "and surely cannot be understood by those who believe in what priests call the dispensations of Provi- dence. Human affairs are made up of thousands of acts of individuals. What, therefore, constitutes a good action, and what a bad action? What is done for the sake of others is disinterested; a disinterested action is good and may be called beneficial. What is done for the sake of one's self is selfish; a selfish action is bad and naturally springs from avarice. Suppose there is a man who has never entertained a good thought and never done a good deed, does it stand to reason that such a wretch can, by means of sacrifices and prayers, attain to the blessings of life? Let us take the opposite case and suppose that there is a man who has never Jiarbored a bad thought and never done a bad deed, does it stand to reason that there is no escape for such a man from adverse fortune except through prayers and sacrifices? " My prayers," says Confucius, " were offered up long ago." The meaning he wishes to convey is that he considers his prayers to consist in liv- ing a virtuous life and in constantly obeying the dictates of con- science. He, therefore, looks upon prayers as of no avail to deliver any one of from sickness. "He who sins against heaven," again he says, "has no place to pray." What he means is that even spirits have no power to bestow blessings on those who have sinned against the decrees of heaven. The wise and the good, however, make use of offerings and sacrifices simply as a means of purifying themselves from the contam- ination of the world, so that they become susceptible of spiritual influences and be in sympathetic touch with the invisible world, to the end that calamities may be averted and blessings secured thereby. Still, sacrifices cannot be offered by all persons without distinction. Only the emperor can offer sacrifices to heaven. Only governors of provinces can offer sacrifices to the spirits of mountains and rivers, land and agriculture. Lower officers of the government can offer sac- rifices only to their ancestors of the five preceding generations, but are not allowed to offer sacrifices to heaven. The common people, of course, are likewise denied this privilege. They can offer sacrifices only to their ancestors. All persons, from the emperor down to the common people, are THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OE REIJCWXS. 487 strictly required to observe the worship of ancestors. The only way in which a virtuous man and a dutiful son can show his sense of obli