CHAPTER XII.

THE HISTORY OF RELIGION AND CIVIL SOCIETY.

THE

HE Zhikko Shinto representative of Japan, Rev. Reuchi Shibata, in a third-day paper, declared his earnest wish that, in accordance with the Divine will that all the children of one Heavenly Father should enjoy peace and comfort in one accord, there should be formed some plan for uniting the armies and navies of all nations on the earth to guard the world as a whole, and thus prevent preposterous wars of one nation with another, all matters of difference between nation and nation being settled by a supreme court of all nations established to determine international justice.

The aspirations of Judaism for social order were set forth in a fourth-day paper by Rabbi Pereira Mendes. In an age of despotism and of war Isaiah and Micah announced an ideal of universal peace or settlement of national disputes by arbitration. Human brotherhood was conceived as the law of human society, and the happiness of all under one common Father made the ideal of all effort, that "from the greatest to the least" one level of blessing might lie on all the sons of men, not alone the brother and neighbor and friend, but the stranger and alien and enemy. Judaism to-day anticipates the future establishment of a court of supreme arbitration for a settlement of the disputes of nations, that the way may be prepared for God's mercy to wipe out the record of man's strayings and errors, the sad story of unbrotherly actions.

The prize essay on Confucianism, presented on the fifth day, set forth as the doctrine of the five relations to be carried out everywhere by all under heaven, that the ruler must be intelligent and the minister good in order to just government; that the father must be loving and the son filial; the elder brother must be friendly and the younger brother respectful ; that the husband must be kind and the wife obedient; and that

in our relation with our friends there must be confidence. If these relations are duly maintained, customs will be reformed and order will not be difficult for the whole world. It was upon human affairs especially that Confucius laid great stress. To have order in the world it is necessary that from the emperor down to the common people the fundamental thing for all to do shall be to cultivate virtue. To govern and to give peace to all under heaven these nine paths are most important: to cultivate a good character, to honor the good, to love parents, to respect great offices, to carry out the wishes of the ruler and his ministers, to regard the common people as your children, to invite all kinds of skillful workmen, to be kind to strangers, and to have respect for all the feudal chiefs. B. Yatsubuchi, of Japan, in a sixth-day paper, remarked that the present state of the world's civilization is limited always to the near material world, and it has not yet set forth the best, most beautiful and most truthful spiritual world, because every religion neglects its duty of universal love and brotherhood. Buddhism aims to turn from the incomplete, superstitious world to the complete enlightenment of the world of truth. The heart of my country, the power of my country, and the light of my country, is Buddhism. That Buddhism, the real Buddhism, is not known to the world.

A Buddhist believer in universal peace and brotherhood, Shaku Soyen of Japan, on the sixteenth day, presented a plan for social peace, social order, undisturbed by wars and rumors of wars, and no longer distressed by costly preparations of the nations for fighting each other by sea or by land.

The fourteenth day address by Dr. S. L. Baldwin on International Justice and Amity, and Dr. Martin's paper the same day on America's Duty to China were important contributions to this general topic, as was also Dr. Jessup's paper on the Religious Mission of the English Speaking Nations.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE RELATION OF RELIGION AND THE LOVE OF MAN.

I'

KIND.

N AN eleventh-day paper Rev. Z. Ashitsu pointed out that three sacred virtues are essential functions of Buddha: the sacred wisdom, the graceful humanity, and the sublime courage. It is told in a Sutra that the mind of Buddha is so full of humanity that he waits upon every being with an absolutely equal humanity. The object of Buddha's enlightenment was to endow with pleasure and happiness all beings without making any least distinction among them. One of the four holy vows of Buddha is, "I hope I can save all the beings in the universe from their ignorance." But although the Buddha has these two virtues of wisdom and humanity, he could never save a being if he had not another sacred virtue, that is courage. But he had such wonderful courage as to give up his imperial priesthood, full of luxury and pleasure, simply for the sake of fulfilling his desire of salvation. Not only this, he will not spare any trouble or suffering, hardship or severity, in order to crown himself with spiritual success. Buddha himself said that "firmness of mind will never be daunted amid an extreme of pains and hardships." Truly nothing can be done without courage. Courage is the mother of success. It is the same in the saying of Confucius, "A man who has humanity in his mind has, as a rule, certain courage."

In a thirteenth-day address Hon. J. W. Hoyt raised these questions: How far the several religions of the world can actually meet the needs of man; how far the vital religious truths found in all of them have been so obscured by useless thories and forms as to have been lost sight of and made of none effect; and whether religious faiths, no longer made conflicting creeds, may not be so harmonized upon the great essential truths recognized by all as to bring all into one for the redemp

tion of man from sin and his advancement to the glory of the ideal man made in the image of God. The religion that the world needs, and will at last have, is one that shall make for the rescue and elevation of mankind in every realm and to the highest possible degree; one in which lofty ideas of the most perfect living here and of endless progress toward perfection hereafter shall leave no thought for the profitless theories which at present dominate the faiths. Substantial and valuable expressions of it made by Moses, Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, and Mohammed, yet leave the first full and complete expression of it to the teaching of Christ, the message of peace on earth, good-will towards men.

In a thirteenth-day paper, Prince Wolkonsky, of Russia, drew attention to the failure of our civilization and of our religion to always and everywhere recognize man as man, to accept the brotherhood of man as a divinely established fact, and to let love of mankind, love of the brother man in the largest sense, come into operation always and everywhere.

What Christianity teaches, through Christ, of the love of mankind, was eloquently set forth by Dr. Boardman in the closing paper of the Parliament. Rev. B. Fay Mills, in his address on Christ the Saviour of the World, declared that if Christians had been obedient to the teachings of Christ, mankind would already have been brought into union in Christ, and the Parliament of Religions would never have been held.

CHAPTER XIV.

WHAT WAS SAID OF THE PRESENT RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF CHRISTENDOM.

Na tenth-day paper Rev. James Brand, speaking of Chris

can Christianity, urged two great essentials in correction of evils connected with popular evangelism: (1) A higher and wiser conception of the place of a local church, its membership and its ministry, as the agency most important to be depended upon and to be employed in evangelization of so much of the world as it reaches; and (2) a ministry of new evangelistic type, men in the pulpit impressed with the infinitely practical reach of their work, and both able and wise to master those views of God and of man and of life here and hereafter, which are the inspiration and the means of effective evangelistic work. Perhaps the supreme suggestion for this rushing, conceited, self-asserting, money-grasping, law-defying, Sabbath-desecrating, contract-breaking, rationalistic age is that we return to the profound preaching of the sovereignty of God.

In speaking on the tenth day of the religious state of Germany, Count A. Bernstorff said that a struggle with mighty adversaries is on. The socialistic movement spreads utter atheism among the working classes. Perhaps it has never before been uttered with such emphasis that there is no God. This is especially the case among the neglected masses of the large cities. There are those, also, in the so-called ethical movement, who want to form a new religion, or a moral society without customary religion, but the actual adherents are few. The advocacy of negative beliefs meets at first with loud applause, but very few join actively. A new critical school of theology, to which Christ is only a man in whom divine life has come to its highest development, has commanded great attention,