PREFACE.
Religion is the greatest fact of History.
This book will show that it is one of the most picturesque and interesting. These volumes are enriched with views of Eastern Temples, painted and tiled Pagodas, superb and stately Mosques, humble meeting-houses and all the beautiful forms of Christian architecture in Europe and America.
How these efforts of Man to embody his thoughts of God and of worship give a celestial gleam and glory to his struggling and sorrowing life!
The human soul, with its upward look, catching the reflection of Heaven, transfigures the sombre annals of Time.
This book records a grand event, the most important incident of the greatest of World Expositions. In preparing for it, the editor of these volumes has been brought into friendly and delightful relations with Catholic Archbishops, Greek Priests, Jewish Rabbis, disciples of the gentle Buddha and followers of the gravely-wise Confucius. Pleasant friendships have been formed with men of a score of Christian denominations. Contact with the learned minds of India has inspired a new reverence for the thought of the Orient. He has seen in imagination Milton's
" Dusk faces, with white silken turbans wreathed."
And, in the disciples of Zoroaster and of the Prophet of Islam, he has found the spirit of the truest human brotherhood.
Paradise was not perfect without woman. The Home, the Church and the State find their purity and light in her. The Parliament of Religions gratefully recognized the supreme and splendid offices which woman has performed in the history of humanity's holiest development.
The gracious ladv, who is so worthy of her place in the
