The Hindoos believe that their Veda contains all wisdom in regard to gods and men the Parsees believe that the Avesta alone is the true revelation from Heaven, But to the Confucisnist their views are only the foolish opinions of ignorant barbarians, To him the Yih King, which came out of the Yellow River, contains the secret of all wisdom in Heaven and Earth, By his oide the Taoist sits in quiet meditation and regards nothing of comparable value to the mmy''eries revealed in the Tao Teh Ching. The Budchist pute on his pri es luo head, teaves hi try, and destares everywhere that ug io equal to Fu King, xs these alone wive true light on the origi' and end of a evil.
While.he Aryang and the Turanians were inlawing idols of thei sacred Scriptures, the human mind was going Unough a very similar process elsewhere. The Semites collected their Hebrew Scriptures into the Bible and the Koran which are the authoritative teaching of God to 1 To ws who have now an easy access to all the Sacred Booka of the world their Protentions xt first sight appear almost ridiculous. There is, however, beneath the surface an important truth we should not mnisa, viz., that, at the times when these Sucred Books became generally followed in their respective countries, they were the best that. were known to them so far as they could judge. Nor can we possibly act better in our day than follow the best we know.
Since those dark ages of non-intercourse of nations and little knowledge of exch other's literature, a gigantic stride has been made. The best leaslers of thought in all countries always make use-of every fresh Tight they get. It is only the orthodox party igions—which simply means the msjority—whn had got to believe that they possessed absolute truth, in face of ample evidence to the contrary in their own oxered writin.s, and they in their ignorance denounced every Sacred Book but their own as false or of the devil, and therefore treason to God or dangerous to themselves to look at for a moment.
our days, our Professors—profoundest in scholarship and devoutest in life and spirit—are doing for the whole world what the framers of the canons of the various religions did for their respective nationali ties. They study comparative religion im order to find out what is truest and best mall, and in this way they mean to "¢prove all things and hold fast that which is good." On analysis they find that what in the dark ages sume had regarded xs enemies are after all mostly friends, At nny rate that, in spite of many imperfections, they teach much that is common to all, though some with greater and others with lees clearness, Among other truths in common, all teach that there isan Aluighty, Allwise, Suprenie Mind, over all and in all the universe. All teach that Ly union with this great Supreme Mind man reaches his highest development, All teach that virtue is absolutely essential to ensure the highest rewards of that sin, like disease in the body, endangers every thi And these truths are acknowledged by the best qualified teachers of nil religions to be among their fundamental truths. On these universal "truths exch religion builds its own peculiar superstructure. Whichever will elevate man nearest the Divine and bring about most good to his fellow-men is the one which will command the most universal homage; and whichever religionists will despise other religions which also teach righteousness, and peace, Inve and mercy, can burdly complain if they are classified with proud Pharisees and not with Him which "light-oth every man that cometh into the world." When therefore a Committee of Christian men, loving truth and fairness and zood-ness, and regarding them as of inGuitely moore greater value than any' doxy,"" decided to have a Parliament of Religions at Chicigo, we may justly congratulate them on achieving one of the greatest triumphs of modern religion
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.