Religious Interest at the World’s Fair
This Religious Age.—But how religious? or what religion? is well worth asking. The Chicago World’s Fair was well attended, immensely so when railroads reduced their fares; and it would have been immensely attended on Sundays if half of the exhibits had not been covered on that day. It is safe to say that Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show received its best patronage on Sunday. The Parliament of Religions, another great show, was well attended. One correspondent to the New York Observer, of October 19, and whom that paper pronounces accurate in statement and observation, said that the Buddhists, the Mahommedans, and the Theosophists attracted the greatest crowds, and, “with smooth, glib tongues, made their false religions appear to be on a level with Christianity.” And why not? Were they not called here as Buddhists, Theosophists, etc., to meet Christianity on a level, in the one common “brotherhood”? On the other hand, when the Christian Alliance put forth its best men, they could not get a hearing. The same writer, a friend of the Alliance, said that the “Alliance meetings were lamentably small, two hundred or three hundred of an evening, and the sectional meetings abandoned, and others very small. One speaker had three and spoke well, another only one for an audience.” Certainly the people are not interested in devotional, practical Christianity, or that which approximates it most closely. Some noted men might draw, but it is the men, not the message. The great Congress of Religions, judged by such conditions as the above, present, as the Observer says, “a very sorry picture.” But will not the Congress and Parliament have their effect?—Most certainly; they are a mighty step towards the last great confederacy of religions under the Sunday banner. And thus have the prophets presented it.