Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/82

54 HISTORY OF THE PARLIAMENT. The Chairman deeply regretted his inability to secure a paper for the Parliament from the venerable James Martineau, who wrote as follows : Were I competent to occupy the honorable place which your proposal assigns to me, I would do my best to send you something in character with the second day's deliberations. But it has been a weakness with me through life, that I could never write at will, or for occasions, on subjects of deepest MICHEL DE ZMIGRODSKI. interest to me. Only as the unsought tide came in could I get lifted from the sands ; and with every effort the ebb set in to warn me that the waters were not at my command, and to leave me stranded. Moreover, one who has said his say, as I have, on the great topics of the second day, is bound, in all reverence, to hold his peace, till he has something to add or to retract in order to be simply true. Else he incurs the just reproach of "vain repeti- tions" worthy of "the heathens." I feel it therefore incumbent on me, as a worn-out veteran, to leave the field to fresh and more capable men. One of the most earnest friends of the Parliament was the scholarly Michel de Zmigrodski, of Cracrovie in Austria, who