Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/129

 ASSEMBLING AND WELCOMING. 1 01 to me ; I may almost venture to call him a friend: but that makes me all the more sad that he is absent on this occasion. But, as the Chairman has just told you, you must not therefore think that the Church of England, as a whole, is out of sympathy with you. One of the greatest and best men the Church of England has ever had, the late Dean of Westminster, would, if he were alive to-day, have been with us, and I believe, too, he would have succeeded in bringing with him the Archbishop of Canterbury. There are others of the departed — men like Arnold of Rugby ; P>ederick Robertson of Brighton ; Frederick Maurice, who was one of my predecessors at Kings College — all these men would have been here ; and further, I personally know that a large number of the English clergy and a still larger number of the English laity are in sympathy with your Congress to-day. So that in spite of the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury is away, it still remains true that all the churches of the world are in sympathy with you and taking part in the Congress this week. Then the third, the last thing which I Vv'ish to state, is that I feel and shall always feel the profoundest thanks to the President, to Dr. Barrows, and to all who have helped them in bringing about this great and glorious result. Of all the studies of the present day the most serious, interesting and important is the study of comparative religion, and I believe that this object lesson, which it is the glory of America to have provided for the world, will do far more than any private study in the seclusion of the student's own home. The report of our proceedings, which will be telegraphed all over the world, will help men by thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands to realize the truth of those grand old Bible words that God has never left himself without witness. It cannot be — I say it cannot be — that the New Commandment was inspired when uttered by Christ and was not inspired when uttered, as it was uttered, by Confucius and by Hillel. The fact is, all religions are fundamentally more or less true and all religions are superficially more or less false. 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 Tennyson, words which were quoted in that magnificent address which thrilled us this morning : "the whole world is everywhere Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." Swami Vivekananda, of Bombay, India, was next intro- duced. When Mr. Vivekananda addressed the audience as " sisters and brothers of America," there arose a peal of applause that lasted for several minutes. He spoke as fol- lows :