Cashmere, the designers of Kensington, the lace weavers of Brussels and the Indian tribes of South America, the cannon founders of Germany, the silver miners of Mexico, the shipmakers of the Clyde and the canoe builders of the Mackenzie river toil with the eyes of their minds daily turned toward the Columbian Exposition. Over the ample site on the shore of Lake Michigan, which has been transformed into a scene of more than Venetian loveliness, fall the shadows from the Alps and the Pyrenees, from the white crags of the Himalayas, and the snowy cone of the sacred mount of Japan. The buildings, planned by the leading American architects, which are to shelter not only the riches of the soil, the sea, and the mine, but also the industries and machineries and inventions of the world, which are to be crowded with the jeweled and silken marvels of Europe and Asia and the floral wonders of the Amazon, which are to be made still more beautiful by the pomp of the decorator's art and by the triumphs of the sculptor's genius, are more imposing and magnificent than any which adorned the great and brilliant expositions of London, Paris, Philadelphia, and Vienna. But it was said long ago, on divine authority, that "man does not live by bread alone," "by things material and visible," and I am happily confident that the Columbian Exposition is to provide more amply than any previous world's fair for the higher things of the spirit. It will be an education to every thoughtful young man and woman to become a student at this world's university, and we should be diligently eager in preparing for it. The discovery of the New World was a chief event in the social and in the spiritual progress of humanity, and the pulpits and schools of America have an unequaled opportunity of showing the providential aspects of our history, of indicating what God has wrought through the four marvelous centuries since Columbus sighted the West Indian Island from the deck of the Spanish caravel. The Exposition will not only furnish an unparalleled spectacle to the eye, it will also provide for the mind an unequaled feast. It is well known that a series of world conventions, repreVOL. IX.-NO. 56. 34 senting the chief departments of human knowledge and effort, will be contemporaneous with the continuance of the Exposition. And the chief of all these, in the importance of the themes to be treated and of the interests involved and in the period of time allotted them, will be the congresses of religion, extending from the closing days of August through the entire month of September. Halls and churches that will accommodate thirty thousand people will be found ready for this series of conventions. It is expected by many of us that Sunday will be made in certain higher respects the chief day of the Fair from the very beginning. An association has been formed to provide for great meetings on every Lord's day, to be addressed by some of the leaders of mankind. Noble Christian music will add its attractions and its inspirations to that day which Emerson has called the "core of our civilization." The American churches and Sunday-schools, whose work constitutes the nobler part of our history, will be on exhibition before the thousands who will flock to us from every peopled shore. The gospel will be preached by returned missionaries and others in Turkish, Armenian, Arabic, Spanish, Greek, Italian, Chinese, and in many other of the chief languages of the world. Not only on the Lord's day, but through the week there will be tent preaching and open-air preaching near the gates of the Exposition. I have no doubt that the eminently worthy enterprise, the Hotel Endeavor, with its great convention hall and daily meetings, that the Sunday-school headquarters and Women's Temperance Unions, and the rooms of the Young Men's and Women's Christian Associations, and the Tract and Bible societies will be the centers and agencies of daily Christian activity, by means of which the Gospel of our Lord will be proclaimed to the representatives of every nation. There will also be, for the first time in any world's fair, a material exhibit, in the splendid Liberal Arts Building, of the work of religion, as shown by models, maps, pictures, statistics, and selected publications of the Bible, missionary, tract, denominational and interdenominational societies, for which exhibit an area of twenty thousand square feet has been reserved. President Clark, as he carries the Gospel of Christian Endeavor around the world, will make known the fact that the World's Fair is not to be a mere glorification of material achievements. More than a year ago a committee, representing fifteen denominations, was appointed under the direction of the Exposition authorities to arrange and provide plans for a proper exhibition by means of congresses of the religious forces now shaping human history. Their plans have been published far and wide in modern European languages, and also in Oriental tongues, whose alphabets the committee cannot read. For more than thirty days the great halls will be thronged with the representatives of our Christian churches and of the nonChristian faiths coming from the six continents. The socalled denominational congresses will occupy a week or more. The Catholics and the Lutherans and others have already planned for conventions on an immense scale. A week has been assigned to the Evangelical Alliance, whose meetings will be of commanding importance; three days will be given to the Sunday Rest Congresses, which will discuss one of the most vital themes of our times. Special days here and there will be set apart for interdenominational conventions, like those of the Christian Endeavor and other societies. The Mission Congresses, covering the entire field of city, domestic, and foreign missions, will occupy eight days or more, and it is the earnest desire of those having these meetings in charge to secure the presence of one active missionary from each society and of at least one native helper, a representative of Christian conquest from every foreign land, and of one official representative of every leading missionary organization in the world. Here is an immense opportunity of showing, not only to the people of Christian lands but to the representatives of non-Christian nations, the splendid vitality and vigor of the missionary spirit, which is the grandest feature of this grandest century since Jesus commissioned His disciples to evangelize the world. But the General Committee have provided also for the most unique, interesting, and important feature of the Columbian : Exposition, in a ten days' Parliament of Religions, at which, for the first time in history, the representatives of the leading historic faiths will meet, in fraternal conference, over the great things of human life and destiny. This parliament will be held because the committee perceived that the time was ripe for it and the opportunity golden, and because such a host of God's noblest men and women have cordially approved it. There is a general unanimity of applause to the proposition that religion shall in some conspicuous way, in this age of materialistic pride, assert its kingship over human life. Since religion has been one of the chief forces of progress; since faith in a Divine Power to whom men believe that they owe service and worship, has been, like the sun, a life-giving and fructifying potency in man's intellectual and moral development; since religion lies back of Greek and Hindu literature, European art, and American liberty, and since it is clear as the light that the religion of Christ has led to the chief and noblest developments of modern civilization, why should religion any more than education, charities, art, or electricity, be omitted from a World's Exposition? The reply which comes to many minds is this, that religion is an element of perpetual discord, and should not be thrust in amid the magnificent harmonies of this fraternal assembly of the nations. And doubtless the animosities of the religious world have embittered much of man's past history. The event which the Columbian anniversary celebrates carries us back to an era of persecutions and of abyssmal separations between Christian and non-Christian peoples. But of late years there has been a happy drawing toward each other of the Christian churches, as this society so grandly illustrates, and the disciples of Jesus have been able to study the nonChristian faiths with a desire to do full justice to all the good that is in them. I cannot give you any adequate review of the inspiring words that have come to us from such men as Gladstone, the poets Whittier and Tennyson, from Bishops Huntington, Brooks, Whipple, and others of the Protestant Episcopal Church, from Bishops Vincent, Andrews, Foss, and others of the Methodist Episcopal Church, from the presidents of our leading colleges and universities, the editors of our leading Christian journals, great preachers like Dr. Boardman, Dr. R. S. Storrs, Dr. Burrell, Dr. Behrends, the secretaries of our missionary societies, and the eminent professors in our seminaries. In Great Britain we have the co-operation of men like the Rev. Hugh Price-Hughes of London, William T. Stead of the Review of Reviews, Professor Bruce of Glasgow, Professor Drummond of world-wide fame, Prof. James Bryce, Principal Fairbairn, and many others. On the Continent we are aided by men like Dr. McAll of Paris, Dr. Godet of Switzerland, Dr. Prochet of Rome, the Court Preacher, Dr. Frommel, and Dr. Stückenberg of Berlin, and Dr. Washburn of Constantinople. In Canada, we have the assistance of such men as Dr. Withrow of Toronto, Principal Grant of Kingston, Bishop Sullivan, Dr. Macrae of New Brunswick, and others. In Syria, India, and China and the Pacific Islands we have the hearty good-will of many leading missionaries, and in the sunrise empire, Japan, the list of those who are favorably interested has become too long to be repeated. The Parliament of Religions is not to be a mass-meeting, but rather an orderly school of comparative theology, where those who worthily represent the great historic faiths will be invited to report what they believe and why they believe it. The programme will be determined and carefully arranged by the general committee, most of whom are evangelical Christians, assisted by an able committee of women, and by the wisdom of the advisory council, numbering already more than two hundred of the leaders of religious thought. The greatest and wisest of the Mogul emperors, Akbar, who built the Taj Mahal, loveliest of all buildings, is said to have planned such a parliament in the sixteenth century. He was himself willing to learn from Christian missionaries and Moslem teachers, from Hindu scholars and Parsee Scriptures. But the religion which he personally adopted had no dynamic force within it, and the parliament of which he dreamed was |