Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/96

 68 HISTORY OF THE PARLIAMENT. worthiest of mankind, who would gladly join us here if that were in their power, this day lift their hearts to the Supreme Being in earnest 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 worshij) 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 individual ojnnions of the divine nature and attributes will differ. But, 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 must behold him through the colored glasses 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 inexorable law that with what judgment it judges it shall itself be judged. The religious faiths of the world have most seriously misunderstood and misjudged each other from the use of words in meanings radically dif- ferent from those which they were intended to bear, and from a disregard of the distinctions between appearances and facts ; between signs and sym- bols 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 relig- ion 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 opportunity to come into fraternal rela- tions 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 Congresses of 1893, there came with that idea a profound conviction that their 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