WHAT IS THIS BUT SPIRITUALISM?
By Editor
HERE are a few sentences from the closing part of the opening address at the Parliament of Religions, by Dr. John Henry Barrows. After bidding “thrice welcome” the representatives of the various faiths he said:— It seems to me that the spirits of just and good men hover over this assembly. I believe the spirit of Paul is here, the zealous missionary of Christ, whose courtesy, wisdom, and unbounded tact were manifest when he preached Jesus and the resurrection beneath the shadows of the Parthenon. I believe the spirit of the wise and humane Buddha is here, and of Socrates, the searcher after truth, and of Jeremy Taylor, and John Milton, and Roger Williams, and Lessing, the great apostle of toleration. I believe that the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, who sought for a church founded on love to God and man, is not far from us, and the spirits of Tennyson and Whittier and Phillips Brooks, who looked forward to this Parliament as the realization of a noble idea. And in all this we suppose there was sweet accord; but in those pleasing sentiments lay the very foundation of the false religions of the world and the very dethronement of Christ and his truth.