World Parliament of Religions Scrapbook 003

              #003 World Parliament of Religions Scrapbook, p. 077

of the great Parliament of Religions which
for almost three weeks has been the center of
religious interest and has commanded the at -
tention of thinkers from almost every part of 
the world. The demand for seats for the 
evening session was as great as on the day 
preceding, and Hall 2 was thronged at an 
early hour with people possessing the white 
badge or the metal button, all anxious to se -
cure the card which was to be the "open ses -
ame" to the evening meeting, which was to
close the greatest gathering of religious faiths
the world has ever known.
Dr. Barrows, the Chairman of the General
Committee on Religious Congresses, who has
so successfully piloted the great parliament
to a successful close, presided at yesterday's
sessions.
Although physically tired out he still main -
tained the enthusiasm evinced by him at the
opening day of the parliament, and intro- 
duced the distinguished speakers with intro -
ductory remarks which were as well received
as were his utterances seventeen days ago.
Truly yesterday was a great closing day of
a great event in history. The Parliament of
Religions, a conception of which great men
had dreamed for centuries had become a re -
alized fact and is now a part of history.
Intense interest has been manifested from
the opening day of the parliament until its
close, and speakers as distinguished and inter -
esting as those who held the attention of thou -
sands of listeners in the first day were present
to express their views on the great religious
topics yesterday. In the morning the first
speaker was T. W. N. Hugenholts of Grand
Rapids, Mich., who spoke a few words as 
representative of a Holland Protestant asso -
ciation. W. L. Totnlins followed in an ad Ê
dress which dealt with the subject of "Relig -
ion and Music." Following him came Rabbi
Emil G. Hirsch, who talked eloquently of the
"Elements of Universal Religion." The Rev.
L. P. Mercer of Chicago was the next speaker
and talked of "Swedenborg and the Harmony
of Religions." "The Only Possible Method
of Religious Unification" was the subject of
the discourse by the Rev. William R. Alger of
New York; then the Rev. Dr. D. McFadden
spoke of "The Brethren Church." The Rev.
Frank E. Bristol was introduced and present -
ed the paper prepared by Prof. Henry Drummond
of Scotland, whose paper was entitled
"Christianity and Evolution."
At the afternoon session three speakers of
international reputation delighted the audi -
ence with their eloquence and interest in dis -
cussions of the subjects assigned them. They
were the Rev. George C. Lorimer of Boston,
who took for his subject "The Baptists in
History;" the Rt.-Rev. John J. Keane of
Washington, who discussed the "Center and
Character of the Ultimate Religion;" and the
Rev. George Dana Boardman of Philadelphia,
whose subject was "Christ the Unifier of Man- 
kind." All of these speakers were received 
with tumultuous applause and were frequently 
interrupted by loud expressions of approval.
Dr. Lorimer spoke for fifty minutes, being  
given the greatest amount of time accorded
any speaker since the parliament has opened.
     HOPE FOR A UNIVERSAL RELIGION.
  Addresses in the Morning from Dr. Hirsch,
     Prof. Drummond, and Others.
In the morning session after the universal
prayer had been recited by Dr. McGilvary, 
missionary in Siam, Dr. Barrows addressed
the parliament, saying:
The morning of the seventeenth day of this
historic assembly has come, and I wish to express
the feeling of thankfulness which I have in my
heart to Almighty God for his goodness that has
been shown to us so continuously. And I wish to
express my appreciation of the fidelity of the
friends who have cooperated in making this par -
liament what it has been. I learned this morn -
ing from Prof. Menaz Tcheraz, the grand Armen -
ian Christian, that although he had been in our
city over twenty days he has been so constantly
in attendance on this parliament that he has seen
the White City only once in the daytime and once 
in the evening. I have noticed the same faces 
here day after day of thoughtful ministers, lay- 
men and women, who have been here drinking in
the truth that has been given to us and enjoy -
ing what has made this series of meetings
so remarkable and ennobling. And now
that the last day has dawned I wish in these few
words to express my gratitude to the friends who
have worked with me for their patience and to
the newspaper press, which has done so much to
spread abroad the proceedings of this parlia -
ment. This evidence of enterprise on the part of
the press, this evidence of its appreciation of the
significance of this parliament, is so noteworthy
that it has been frequently spoken of by many of
those who have come to us from other lands.
This morning we have a rich and noble program.
I shall need to ask as heretofore your patience,
your constant attention, your observance of the
rules of the parliament. We are first to have a
few words from the representative of a Holland
Protestant Association, T. W. N. Hugenholtz of
Grand Rapids, Mich.
       Brings Greeting of Dutchmen. 
Dr. Hugenholtz was warmly received and 
spoke as follows: 
Amid those who have prepared the way for this
parliament I may point with pride at this Hol- 
land Confederation of Protestants, whose single 
aim, according to its constitution, is and already 
has been for more than twenty years to promote 
the free development "of the religious life within  
the churches and beyond" without any other
dogmatic or denominational addition. Our Pro- 
testanten bond therefore must hail with enthusi -
asm this fullness of the times. Its delegate must
feel at home amid these thousands, all of them
members of the same confederation, all of them,
or nearly all of them, promoters of the free
development of the religious life.
And now, how shall this aim be reached? What
will, what must be the result of the parliament?
I trust it will be this, that henceforth there shall
be put a stop to the mutual rivalry of the various
religions in order to show that our religion, if
not the only good and true one, still must be
considered as the best of all. Religion is in such
a way influenced by climate, race, and tradition
that what is the best for one cannot at the same 
degree satisfy the wants of another. 
No, there is better rivalry promising greater 
and surer success. Let all of us rival in this
way, who of us can best and soonest live up to
the highest demands of his religion, who of us
first can overcome the sad differences between
creed and deed, between his professed and his
applied religion?
And whenever we discover as in these days
we could many times whenever we discover in
each other's religion something that is lacking or
less developed in ours, let us try to also aim that
precious good is thus to enrich our own religion
with the spiritual pleasures found elsewhere.
This indeed will be to promote the free, the un -
prejudiced development of the religious life, by
which, if all of us are thus advancing along our
different lines, at the end we will meet each other
on the heights, when the consciousness of being
near to God will fill all his children with ever -
lasting joy.
       Musical Art and Religion.
W. L. Tomlins of Chicago was next intro -
duced by Dr. Barrows. He said:
In my professional experience I have had to ex -
amine thousands of adult voices, and I have been
struck with the large proportion that were
spoiled, in some cases ruined, by habits which
could have been corrected in childhood. So I
started children's classes in order that I, at least,
might help the coming generation. I started out
simply to harmonize the action of the mouth and
the throat and the lungs, to get a harmonious
physical action of the vocal machinery, but soon
it was carried past first intentions. I found that 
directly the machinery was well ordered the 
highest emotions, one by one, would come down 
and govern that machinery, and I was led by the 
force of my own teaching up into the realms of 
emotional singing. I found as I harmonized the
various emotions and made them into a brother -
hood, as previously I had harmonized the vocal
machinery with the brotherhood of emotions,
there came the development of the spiritual nat -
ure which before had refused to govern or con -
trol either the emotions or the machinery when
they were out of order.
You will imagine I have a bell; it is easy to
imagine that. If I strike that bell the vibrations
pass entirely round and it gives out its tone; it
says to you in sound, "I am a bell." I take up
another round thing and on striking that it says,
"I am a gong." It speaks out for itself. If,
however, I shorten the vibrations, holding the
bed with my hand so that the vibration is not a
complete circle, it does not say "I am a bell"
nor "I am a gong," but it gives a little dull chink
like a piece of dead scrap iron. It is a dead tone.
It is just so with a child. When the child has
made a complete circle of the machinery of the
voice and the attributes of the child nature the
individuality comes out. Not only does it say "I
am a child," but "I am a child of God and there
is none other made like me in the universe."
It is when you develop that in the child, when
the voice is in complete harmony with this, you
have real singing. Music is not to know about 
scales and flats and sharps and clefs. Singing is
not the fireworks agility of the voice, to be able
to run up and down, to sing long and short and
slow and soft and loud and quick. Singing is the
utterance of the soul through the machinery of
the voice. So far as the bell is concerned it al-
ways is the same. It may be a sad-toned bell or
a bright toned bell; it may give out a different
sound as I strike it harder or softer, but it always
says the same thing.
The boy, however, has a capacity to change,
and in that capacity is the power of his develop -
ment and growth. The boy can change so that
he may be sorrowful or sad, or commanding, en -
treating or rejoicing. There are lots of things
the boy can change to. When the boy is complet -
ed into the circle that is the completion of his
manhood. Previous to that he has thought, per -
haps, simply of mending himself.
The boy, when he is complete with his voice,
wants to go out and sing and tell you all about
it; and when he is complete in that way there
comes a governing center and that center is an
emotional one, and with that emotion coming to
the center he feels vitalized : he takes a breath
to complete that vitalization and the voice goes
right up from the boy to his brethren. The boy
joys in his heart. Then the machinery expresses
that and joy goes forth ; the boy sorrows, com-
mands, entreats, all these things in turn. Then,
there is a change. At first he joys selfishly. The
little fellows in my class think everything is sun -
shine, and they sing like the lark in sunshine;
they sing simply from companionship, not for
love of their brothers. But soon another change
comes. Instead of commanding for the love of
commanding the boy commands me out of love
for me for my good. Instead of entreating be -
cause he is helpless ho entreats me with a king -
ly courtesy ; instead of joying in his own success
selfishly, with that joy is a sympathy with those
who have not haa the same advantages as him -
self ; and instead of sorrowing with an utter sor-
row he has a hopefulness that will come in the
morrow.
So you see there are in these emotional centers
several things that may combine joy and sorrow,
command and entreaty, and these are on a spirit -
ual plane because directly you put the brother- 
hood into an orderly development from the high- 
est plane come down spiritual influences to gov -
ern it.
       Singing to Workingmen.
The society which will sing for you tonight,
the Apollo club, four years ago started some
workingmen's concerts. The club has a large
fashionable subscription in this city and an in -
come and surplus. We went into the factories
and workshops and said, "You are our brothers;
pay us 10 cents to save your own self-respect and
hear us sing." We spent thousands of dollars
last year on the concerts we gave. At first the
poor people looked on them as charity and were
inclined to repudiate them. Very soon, however,
they saw the projects were based on love and
brotherhood and there were 22,000 applications
for seats at the first concert this year, and in four
years we have sang to 70,000 of these people.
But still we had the best of it; they received, we
gave, and the blessing was ours.
Now. I shall take the blessing to them. I will
tell you what I am going to do, and please ab -
solve me from anything like boastfulness in this
matter. I have gone to a lot of those men and
women and said: "God has given you voices and
taught you to develop them. Why not sing and
help your companions and neighbors?" So they
are going to give to others and then they will
have the best of it, and thus in that line of work
of helping others to still further help them -
selves. That is a religious thought as well as a
musical one. It is my desire to show you that in
art as in religion the lines all lead upwards.
        Man Alone Builds Altars.
"The leading thought of today," remarked
Dr. Barrows, "is ultimate and universal re -
ligion, and surely if any one has a right to
speak of that it is a representative of the He -
brew race, Dr. Emil Hirsch of Chicago, who
calls himself, and he is, a thorough Ameri -
can. He represents a people whose contri -
butions to the religion of the world are cer -
tainly greater than those of any other nation,
and I have great pleasure in introducing Dr.
Hirsch to this parliament." Dr. Hirsch was
received with loud applause and spoke in part 
as follows: 
The domain of religion is coextensive with the 
confines of humanity. For man is by nature not 
only, as Aristotle puts the case, the political; he 
is 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 dis -
tinct from mere animal life. To this proposition
ethnology and sociology both give abundant and
indisputable testimony. Man alone in the wide
sweep of creation builds altars. And wherever
man may tent there will curve upward the burning
incense of his sacrifice or the sweeter perfume of
his aspirations after the better, the diviner light.
However rude the form of his social organization,
or however refined and complex, religion will al -
ways be found among the decisive influences
which, rounding out individual existence, lift it
into significance for and under the stronger cur -
rent of social relations. Climatic and historical
accidents may modify the action of this energy.
But it is vital under every sky and quick under
all temporal conjunctures. A man without re -
ligion is not normal.
Religion may in very truth be said to be uni -
versal. Nevertheless time has not yet evolved
the universal religion. This is still one of the
blessings to come. There are religious systems
which pretend to universality. And who would
deny that Buddhism, Christianity, and Islamism
present some of the characteristic elements of the
universal faith that is to rise? In its ideas and
ideals the religion of the prophets, notably those
of the Babylonian exile, must also be credited
with the larger possibilities.
Religion universal will be a potent factor in
redeeming society from the bondage of selfish -
ness. For it is this religion which teaches that
every man is every man's brother. "As you have
done for the least among these you have done for
me" will become a guiding principle of human
conduct in all the relations of life. Then
men will learn to appreciate the hideousness
of Cain's plea, "Am I my
brother's keeper?" No longer will be tol -
erated the double standard of morality, one for
the church and Sunday and another for business
and weekdays. Not as now will be heard the
cynic insistence that business is business, as
something with which the Decalogue or the Ser -
mon on the Mount stands in no direct relation.
Religion will on the contrary penetrate into all
the relations of society. No longer will men be
rated as so many dead hands to be bought at the
lowest possible cost in accordance with the law
of supply and demand that cannot stop to take
into account the humanity of the possessor of
those hands.
What about death and the life hereafter? The
religion universal will not dim the hope which
has been man's since the first days of his stay on
earth. But it will be most emphatic in winning
men to the conviction that a life worthily spent
here on earth is the best preparation for meeting
our maker in the next.
The universal religion of the future will be im -
patient of those men who claim the right to be
saved for some act of theirs or a faith which
makes them anxious alone for their individual
salvation while they do not stir a foot or lift a
hand to save the rest of humanity from hunger
and wretchedness in the cool assurance that this 
life is a free race of untrammeled competitors in
which by some mysterious will of providence the
devil takes the hindmost--whose creed in other
words is that to get there first is the sum total of
a truly religious life.