Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/202

174 But we all felt when the trumpet in our ritual announced the birth of a new religious year, that here blazoned forth at that very moment the clearer blast heralding for all humanity the dawn of a new era.

None could appreciate the deeper significance of this Parliament more fully than we, the heirs of a past spanning the millenia, and the motive of whose achievements and fortitude was and is the confident hope of the ultimate break of the millennium. Millions of my co-religionists hoped that this convocation of the modern great synagogue would sound the death- knell of hatred and prejudice under which they have pined and are still suffering; and their hope has not been disappointed. Of old, Palestine's hills were every month aglow with firebrands announcing the rise of a new month.

So here was kindled the cheering fires telling the whole world that a new period of time had been consecrated. We Jews came hither to give and to receive. For what little we could bring, we have been richly rewarded in the precious things we received in turn.

According to an old rabbinical practice friends among us never part without first discussing some problem of religious life. Our whole Parliament has been devoted to such discussion, and we take hence with us in parting the richest treasures of religious instruction ever laid before man. Thus the old Talmudic promise will be verified in us that when even three come together to study God's law his Shekhinah abides with them.

Then let me bid you godspeed in the old Jewish salutation of peace. When one is carried to his resting place we Jews will bid him go in peace; but when one who is still in the land of the living turns from us to go to his daily task we greet him with the phrase, " Go thou toward peace." Let me then speed you on your way toward peace. For the Parliament is not the gateway to death. It is a new portal to a new life ; for all of us a life of greater love for and greater trust in one another. Peace will not yet come but is to come. It will come when the seed here planted shall sprout up to blossom and fruitage ; when no longer we see through a blurred glass, but, like Moses of old, through a translucent medium. May God, then, bless you, Brother Chairman, whose loyalty and zeal have led us safely through the night of doubt to this bright hour of a happy and glorious consummation.

"There are 5,000,000 of Methodists in the United States," said Mr. Bonney, "and the Rev. Dr. Frank Bristol will tell us what the Methodists think of the Parliament of Religions." Dr. Bristol began his speech with the following quotation :

Since this Parliament opened, all thoughtful, serious men must have