My thanks, also, to some of
the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the
Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the
honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to
belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal
acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all
religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the
persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I
am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant
of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the
very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman
tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is
still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to
you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated
from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human
beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different paths
which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear,
crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."
The present convention,
which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a
vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached
in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I
reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to
me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have
long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with
violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed
civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these
horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now.
But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this
morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all
fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all
uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.
ADDRESS AT THE
FINAL SESSION
Chicago, September 27, 1893
The World's Parliament of
Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has
helped those who laboured to bring it into existence, and crowned with
success their most unselfish labour.
My thanks to those noble
souls whose large hearts and love of truth first dreamed this wonderful
dream and then realized it. My thanks to the shower of liberal sentiments
that has overflowed this platform. My thanks to this enlightened audience
for their uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation of every thought
that tends to smooth the friction of religions. A few jarring notes were
heard from time to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them, for they
have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter.
Much has been said of the
common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own
theory. But if any one here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph
of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say,
"Brother, yours is an impossible hope." Do I wish that the Christian would
become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become
Christian? God forbid.
The seed is put in the
ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed
become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant. It
develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth,
and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.
Similar is the case with
religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu
or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of
the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own
law of growth.
If the Parliament of
Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the
world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of
any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of
the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams
of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the
others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that
upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of
resistance: "Help and not fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction,"
"Harmony and Peace and not Dissension."
