Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/155

THE CHRONICLE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 12/ mc : "Do you know this is the first day of Ramadan — that of the Moham- medan Lent ? They are more earnest in their religion than we are in ours. They are more devoted in prayer. The poor camel-driver on the desert has no watch to tell him the hour ; he dismounts from his camel and stands with his back to the sun, and the shadow cast on the sand tells him it is mid- afternoon and the hour of prayer." Shall I say that such men are beyond the pale of every religion, and that they are not regarded by the great Father as his children? So in Bombay I felt a great respect when I saw the Parsees, at the rising and setting of the sun, uncovering their heads in homage to the great Source of life and light. So in the other religions of the East, underneath all we find reverence for the great supreme Power, a desire to love and worship and honor him. On the defects of these relig- ions I will not speak. There are enough people to talk of them : but this I do say, here and in this presence, that I have found that " God has not left himself without witness " in any of the dark climes or in any of the dark religions of this world. Christian Evangelization as One of the Working Forces of Our American Christianity ; by the Rev. James Brand, D.D., of Obeiiin, Ohio. The Religious State of Germany; by Count A. Bernstorff, of Berlin. The Spirit of Islam ; by Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb. The reading of this paper was an exceptional event in the proceedings of the Parliament, for the fact that it was attended with strong and even violent and impatient expressions of dis- approval on the part of the hearers. At the outset of the paper (which may be found in full in its place in Part III.), these demonstrations, in the form of hisses and cries of "Shame!" were so emphatic that the speaker seemed deterred from pursuing the line of discourse on which he had entered. Concerning this solitary incident of the kind in the whole seventeen days, three remarks require to be made : 1. It was a sudden, unpremeditated outburst of feeling, which the conductors of the Parliament exerted themselves not in vain to repress. 2. It was occasioned, not by any doctrinal statement, but by what was taken for an attack on a fundamental principle of social morality.