Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/87

 THE WORLD'S RESPONSE. 59 But as the difficulties thickened, the labors of the General Committee were augmented. The Christian people of Amer- ica were kept continually informed of the plans and purposes of the Parliament, and, indeed, the whole world, so far as it would listen, was made to understand the spirit and objects of the undertaking which has been crowned with such wonderful triumph and has become the most important event of the Col- umbian Year. For thirty months nearly all the railroads and steamship lines of the world were unconsciously working for the Parliament of Religions. The post-office clerks at Chicago handled great bundles of letters which had previously passed through the brown fingers of the postal clerks in Madras, Bombay and Tokyo. The Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and the great Pacific lines to Australia and China, were going on errands for the General Committee. The steamers to Iceland and New Zealand were turned into post- horses for the World's Religious Parliament. Letters were sent out to thirty different countries, and replies came back in English, French, German, Norwegian, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Greek, Armenian, Bohemian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, and Hindustani. The whole world became interested in the approach of the historic Convention, whose importance was to eclipse the expectations of the most hopeful. No other gather- ing ever assembled was awaited with such universal interest. It was looked forward to with ardent hope and eager curiosity by thoughtful men everywhere. It was talked over among the monastic brotherhoods of India and in the cloisters of Japan ; it entered the councils of the Catholic hierarchy and into the scholastic retreats of the British and German Univer- sities. Prize essays on Confucianism and Taoism, for which more than sixty Chinese scholars competed, had been prepared and sent to the Chairman of the General Committee. The Imperial Government of the Celestial Empire had commis- sioned the Secretary of the Legation at Washington to attend the Parliament which had been the theme of editorials in Lon- don, Athens, Constantinople, Berlin, Melbourne, Tokyo, Shang- hai, Calcutta, Madras, Mexico, Budapest, New York, Bos-