Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/113

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ASSEMBLING AND WELCOME. 85 of religion and learning as fast as men advance railroads. I wish our friends would take pains to notice what we are doing here. 1 should like them to see the fine churches of this and other great cities ; I should like them to go into the country communities and see our missionary churches and country schools. I wish they would let me be their guide. I would take them to the place on our own Atlantic seaboard where they can see men manufac- turing a republic — taking the black material of humanity and building it up into noble men and women ; taking the red material, wild with every savage instinct, and making it into respectable men. I do not think America has anything better or more hopeful to show than the work of Gen. Armstrong at Hampton. We have not built cathe- drals yet, but we have built log schoolhouses, and if you visit them you will see in the cracks between the logs the eternal light streaming in. And for the work we are doing a log school house is better than a cathedral. RESPONSES TO THE ADDRESSES OF WELCOME. SPEECH OF ARCHBISHOP DIONYSIOS LATAS. The Most Rev. Dionysios Latas, Archbishop of Zante, Greece, was introduced as a representative of the Greek Church. Reverend Ministers, Most Honorable Gentlemen, the Superi- ors OF THIS Congress, and Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen— I consider myself very happy in having set my feet on this platform to take part in the congress of the different nations and peoples. I thank the great American nation, and especially the superiors of this Congress, for the high manner in which they have honored me by inviting me to take part, and I thank the ministers of divinity of the different nations and peoples for the record which, for the first time, will be written in the history of the world. I thank them still more because this invitation gave me the opportunity to satisfy a desire which I have had for a long time to visit this famous and most glorious country. I sat long time at Athens, the capital of Greece, and there had the opportunity to become acquainted with many American gentlemen, ministers, professors and others who came there for the sake of learning the new Greek, and travelers who visited that classic place, the place of the antiquities. By conversing with those gentlemen I heard and learned many things about America, and I admired from afar the greatness of the country. My desire has always been to visit and see this nation, and now, thanks to Almighty God, I am here in America within the precincts of the city which is showing the great progress and the wonderful achieve- ments of the human mind. My voice, as representing the little kingdom of Greece, may appear of little importance as compared with the voices of you who represent great and powerful states, extensive cities and numerous