Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/198

170 HISTORY OF THE PARLIAMENT. dices, and teaching a doctrine which has made Asia mild. By the patient and laborious researches of the men of science you are given to enjoy the fruits of material civilization, but this civilization by itself finds no praise at the hands of the great naturalists of the day. Learn to think without prejudice, love all beings for love's sake, express your convictions fearlessly, lead a life of purity, and the sunlight of truth will illuminate you. If theology and dogma stand in your way in the search of truth, put them aside. Be earnest and work out your own salva- tion with diligence ; and the fruits of holiness will be yours. Swami Vivekananda, having been presented, made his final address as follows : The World's Parliament of Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has helped those who labored to bring it into exist- ence and crowned with success their most unselfish labor. 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 appre- ciation 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 the 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 anyone here hopes that this unity would come by the triumph of any one of these 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 pl^nt substance and grows 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 others and yet preserve its individuality and grow according to its 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