utes to what is as enduring as the soul itself. The Exposition will promote intelligence and refinement; it will give glimpses of beauty to starved souls. It will promote the humanities; it will lift the average intelligence of the people; it will do much to promote international fellowship; it will stimulate a noble patriotism; it will make us feel prouder of our government, of our people, of our toilers, inventors, soldiers, mechanics, farmers. It will make what woman has done so conspicuous that hundreds of thousands of young women will be inspired with better ideals and filled with worthier ambitions.

The educational influences of the Fair are to be such that they will be felt half a century hence, and the educational influence will come largely from things said as well as the things seen. I am sure many of the congresses, these conventions which are to continue to the end of the Exposition, and the world-wide fraternities of scholars, historians, statesmen, reformers, physicians, teachers, divines, which will yet be held, are to give an enduring lustre and significance to the Columbian anniversary and to this golden year. By providing a series of world conventions the Exposition is meeting a large demand on the part of eager-minded, intelligent men and women. I judge from my own correspondence that the religious congresses of September and October, and they alone, will furnish attractions sufficient to draw many busy men to our city.

What are the objects of the World's Parliament of Religions? To furnish a great school of comparative religion, to bring the different faiths into contact and conference, to deepen the spirit of brotherhood, to bring out the distinctive truths of each religion, to show why men believe in God and in future life, to bridge the chasms of separation between Christians of different names and religious men of all names, to induce good men to work together to common ends and to promote the cause of international peace.

What are the forces back of the Parliament of Religions? They are the mightiest and most varied which have ever contributed to any great moral movement in the history of humanity. Scholars of India are back of it, of all faiths; princes of the Orient are back of i; the Chinese govern

ment, which has commissioned a Confucian representative, is back of it; the universi. ties and priesthoods of Japan are behind it; the archbishops of the Catholic Church in this country have indorsed it; leaders of the Greek, Armenian, and Bulgarian churches are favoring it; fifty college presidents of America, scores of Jewish rabbis, a hundred missionaries from all lands, a host of bishops of the leading American churches, some of the most eminent men of Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Syria, Canada, Australia, are behind it.

I believe that the congresses of September and October will be the best theological school which ministers and men can attend, and that it will furnish what no seminaries are able to do,-the opportunity of hearing the various faiths presented by their own disciples and teachers. I am not surprised that some good men at the beginning were doubtful of the propriety of inviting the representatives of various non-Christian faiths to sit down in conference with the believers of the gospel of Jesus Christ; but, having the co-operation of the most eminent Christian missionaries, having realized that those who are confronting the non-Christian relig ions in foreign fields are among our strongest friends, I have not been surprised that the adverse Christian sentiment has been greatly lessened. We who believe that Christianity is to supplant all other religions, not only because it contains all the truth that is in them, but because it contains much beside that centres in a redeeming God, ought to be the first to welcome the opportunity of brotherly conference with all those for whom Christ died. Dr. Scovel, of the University of Wooster, writes, "Fair opportunities there will doubtless be for statement of all that Christianity is and has done." That is enough.

"Who questions if the sun be light, Perceiving that it lightens ?"

Now, there is no good reason under heaven why those who could hold that Christianity is a kingdom of heaven begun on earth should not be glad to meet as brethren all those who need the consolation of such a faith. As any wise missionary in Bombay or Madras would be glad to gather beneath the shelter of his roof the scholarly and

sincere representatives of the Hindu religions, so Christian America invites to the shelter of her hospitable roof, at her grand festival of peace, the spiritual leaders of mankind for brotherly conference over the deepest problems of human existence. While the apostle Paul denounced an idolworship, which was devil-worship, he fully recognized that all heathen religion was not of that malign quality. He instructed the Athenians that he and they adored the sa'ne God of whom all were the offspring, they in ignorance of God's full nature, and he in the blessed knowledge which Christ had given him. Religion is the greatest fact in history, being at the foundation of Hindu literature, Greek philosophy, European art, American liberty.

The Parliament, which is to be perhaps the most important of the greatest of world's expositions, has been a blessing to those who have promoted it; for it has brought them into friendly and delightful relations with Catholic archbishops, Greek priests, Jewish rabbis, disciples of the gentle Buddha, the followers of the gravely wise Confucius, learners in the schools of Zoroaster and of the prophet of Islam. The Parliament will bring before your gaze and hearing a varied and stately procession of living scholars, reformers, missionaries, and moral heroes, delvers in the mines of the soul, seekers after truth, toilers for humanity. It is believed that those who take part in the opening day of welcome and fellowship will represent twelve millions of the dwellers of this planet. Surely, that will be a great moment in the annals of time.

For the first time in all the centuries the wonders of art and science and the wonders of faith and thought will be exhibited side by side. This I call the higher meaning, the supreme significance, of the World's Fair. The Western city which was deemed the home of the crudest materialism has placed a golden milestone in man's pathway toward a spiritual millennium. Striking

the noble chord of universal brotherhood, the promoters of the world's first Parlia ment of Religions have evoked the music which will help to drown the miserable discords of the past.

And, if many years shall need to roll away before the ideas of the Parliament shall be actualized, let us not forget that all greatest

things have, at first, been a dream, an inspiration, a hope. It is a great thing to fling an idea into the air, to throw an ideal, like a glance of light, into the future. It is an idea of a great peaceful empire, we are told, which has held China together through thirty centuries. It is an idea which Jesus flung upon the breezes of Palestine to become the joy of the ages, the idea of universal brotherhood beneath the mild supremacy of a heavenly King that is now in the minds of men, and will yet, in God's good time, be enthroned over all the high places of bigotry and alienation, of ignorance and oppression. It is the one thing given to you and me that is worth toiling for: it is that which will lend its lasting glory to this memorable year.

IS GOD UNLIKE MAN?

It is a fatal lesson of infidelity the age has taught that God is absolutely unlike man. The Infinite is beyond knowledge, beyond thought, beyond everything we can love, honor, admire, obey, or imitate. So teaches false philosophy; such is the verdict of the unbelieving. And hence religious men are afraid of what is called "anthropomorphism," as children are afraid of the hobgoblin. We declare it to be the motto of all genuine religion that God is profoundly like unto the spirit of man, and man is made in the image of God.

The best and holiest men are most like him, and himself most like what is purest, sweetest, and most beautiful in us. Of this fact Jesus Christ is the all-sufficient evidence, if other evidences of the same kind were wanting; and herein is his universal position in the economy of earthly religion assured. There is an unspeakable humanity in God which comes out to us in strange sympathy, as our deepest nature goes out to him yearning in prayer. His infinite fulness is not exhausted by his similarity unto man. He is human, and inconceivably more than human. We are in him, enfolded in his spiritual likeness; and neither time nor eternity can set a limit to our progress of becoming more and more like our Father! But even as we now are, with the darkness and misery of our imperfections on our head, we cannot mistake a wonderful glimpse of his nature in the expressions of our face.

Of course, God is not material: the properties of matter do not represent him, though, certainly, they suggest him. The expanse of sea and sky has the Divine in it; the magnitudes and smallnesses of creation have the gift of the Infinite in them; the colors and shades of light, brilliant, deep, or penetrating; the fragrances and exhilarations of the forest or mountain breeze; the returning seasons, and the harmonies of heavenly bodies, all carry a thousand divine messages to thousand minds. We cannot always comprehend them, we cannot utter them; yet we cannot choose but hear them or accept them. But nothing so well expresses his essence as the crowning fact of personality in man. "Our wills are ours, we know not how; our wills are ours," to know his will and make us like himself. Touched by the light of this self-consciousness, intelligence discovers wisdom, love finds love, conscience discovers the omnipresence of moral law, personality finds personality,-we are startled by an awful likeness between ourselves and our God. Shut it out, smother it as we may, the mysterious person flits across our darkened consciousness,- -across the surfaces of our veiled perception in unguarded moments. If we drown our faith, as the overclever among us will sometimes do, imagination will usurp its place; and, instead of believing in the One True God, we will foolishly put our trust in strange deities of our own imagining. But trust we shall, anyhow, -trust, and adore, and pray; for, surely, we cannot unmake the divine in man. Man shall not only eschew atheism and know nothingism, but he shall outgrow deism or the religion of abstractions. He shall forsake the idols of his intellect and imagination.

He shall believe in none but the true God of Humanity, "our Father in heaven," who is infinitely human and living, as we are human and living. The greater, the purer, the more universal our type of humanity, the more of the essence of "the Very God" is in it.

much of himself he is able to impart into us, even in this life. Everything truly good in us is his,-nay, is himself. He is our very life. Everything evil in us is our own miserable making: it is vanity, it is death. He is nearest to us from the side of our goodness: we perceive that every day. He is remotest from us, and most unlike our nature, from the side of our wickedness, unreality, and hatred. When in devotions or acts of self-sacrifice, we are full of the light of his presence, and our minds are most at one with him: then we are most human, because then we are most divine. We are not afraid of anthropomorphism, we who address him as our Father and Mother, because we do not impute our weakness and limitations to him. We impute his righteousness, his blessed nature, to those among us who are most like him, and in a measure to every man who comes to the world. His chosen sons, the great and good in every land, represent him to our view. We dare not drag his awful divinity to the level of our poor, crawling, helpless humanity. He draws up our humanity to the sublime level of his own nature, and fills us with himself. Being of one mind with his spirit, being of one mind with his elect, trusting in the saving dispensations of his providence, we behold in our hearts our God marvellously human in his relations, yet infinitely beyond humanity in his eternal perfections. He is like man, yet strangely unlike. Neither our faith nor wisdom nor imagination can sound the depths of his heart. Everything that is noblest in us and best is in him, and infinitely more besides, which we shall know the more we are like him. He is eminently natural, yet he is mysteriously supernatural. No one can set a limit to the possibilities of his power. He penetrates us and covers us the shadow of his being falls upon us like a protecting mantle. Let us trust him wholly, with every sorrow and every secret. Only, if we are pure-hearted and loving, the revelations of God's likeness and relationship to our deepest heart will every day fill us with adoring wonder and unspeakable peace.

India.

P. C. MOZOOMDAR.

If hearing the truth is our food, speaking

AN IDEAL FAITH IS AN IDEAL LIFE.

"Sketch for me," said a friend, "the ideal faith, and let your words be few." "An ideal faith is an ideal life," I replied. "My words shall be few."

A youth not passed in servile fear of God or man, but developing naturally in the love of both God and man. A youth of healthy inental and physical activity. An education calculated to strengthen the best powers of mind and heart, and inspire the soul with lofty ideas of truth and duty. Religious instruction that reveals God, not as a bundle of conflicting attributes, neither as impersonal force, but as a living and loving Father and Friend. Science revealing, not concealing, the laws God has written in the kingdom of mind and matter. Thus educated, our boy stands on the threshold of life. The world confronts him, asking sternly the question, What can you do? He is manly. He is patient. Calmly choosing his work, he begins the culture of his powers in the actual battle of life. But he is something more than a workaday machine. Born of affection, reared in a home where love reigned, he seeks and finds the companionship his soul craves. He, too, rears a home. It is his castle, his fortress, his haven from the storms of life's hard struggle. At length he feels ambition's spell, and dares to win a crown from willing hands. He stands within the current of his time a man where men are found. His is a stainless record. Honesty marks his path. Frank, modest, generous, real, a right noble man. And so, honored by his fellows, loved by his own, cheered by the presence of children's children, he is hastening to his rest. But is this all? Is this ideal manhood? Do love and ambition and benevolent morality fill up the topmost measure of human privilege and duty? Not so. The teachings of youth have never been forgotten. Without cant, without hypocrisy, with no unreal boast of saintliness, this man has trusted in his God. A man of humble faith and earnest prayer. Sometimes faith was sorely tried, and prayer did seem as wasted breath. And sometimes, too, the Father drew very near his child, and filled the temple of his soul with light and peace. Years have confirmed the faith his mother taught him, and

of late his only answer to infidelity's shallow speech has been, "I know Him whom I have believed." But now a useful life is drawing to its close. The last hour has come. Many times, as the spirit has awakened from death's weakening slumber, the old man has faintly said, as though the words filled all the horizon of his thought, "I know Him whom I have believed." But he has been these many hours silent. The end is very near. Will he speak again? We listen, for there's a subtile charm in these last words. We watch the faintest movement of those pale lips. Once more, thank God, the spirit conquers. The strength of youth is in that voice, the light of heaven in those eyes. "I am going, but I know Him whom I have believed."

All is over now. Dust and ashes are before us. The freed spirit is with God. W. D. SIMONDS.

REV. BROOKE HERFORD, D.D.

We offer our readers this month the por. trait of one well known to the Unitarians of two continents. It is nearly twenty years since Dr. Herford appeared in the United States. Being settled over the Church of the Messiah at Chicago, he at once took a leading part in the development of Unitarianism in the West. "Conservative without apology," he was soon recognized as a leader among those who believed that, as a form of Christianity, Unitarianism had a great part to play in the religious reconstruction of society.

About ten years ago he was called to Boston, where, at the Arlington Street Church, he was fourth in the line in which his predecessors were Channing, Gannett, and Ware. It was a difficult place to fill; but, by exercise of uncommon acquirements of kindness, courtesy, and common sense. together with a rare power of simplicity in statement and vigor of thought, he made for himself a large place in Boston. His sturdy presence, his genial optimism, and sympathy with the common hopes of the people made him a preacher whom the people liked to hear.

At Harvard University, where he became one of the "college preachers," he secured the confidence of teachers and students, and

was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. His speech at the dinner of the alumni, acknowledging the honor, was a model of eloquent common sense. He challenged and condemned in the most unsparing terms the religious indifference of those who had honored him, and won their applause for doing it.

When called away to England, he left with the regret of good citizens of all denominations. It was believed that he was in the right place where he was, and that he could not be spared from Boston.

His success in the United States was due in part, at least, to his capacity for continuous exertion, his unflagging industry, his concentration of effort on the business he set out to do, and to the simplicity and directness of his appeal to the common heart. He was set to be a Unitarian minister. He accepted that commission as important enough to take all the manhood that was in him. Honoring his own calling, the people honored him. In Manchester, Chicago, Boston, and London, he has had as wide an acquaintance with human nature and the problems of society as ever falls to the lot of one man. May he long live to help all good things on both sides of the ocean!

RELIGIOUS ART IN THE WORLD'S FAIR.

I did a "sum" in addition the other day, while resting in the east gallery, and found that the entire number of works in the Art Building, as set down in the catalogue, is nine thousand one hundred and sixty-one. It will be seen, then, how impossible it is to do anything in the way of description except as we take it in sections or by topics; and, as I have been especially interested in the relation of modern art to the old religious themes, let us talk a bit about that.

Bear in mind that we have here a larger collection of modern paintings than we are likely to see again in a long time, if ever. Then, remembering the changes that science and criticism have wrought in belief, let us see how these have affected the world of art. That gospel of the Natural which we have learned to trust in things spiritual is, in its application to art, called Realism,—a term filled with vague alarms to the timid mind, which still retains a preference for a relig

ion that will do all one's thinking, and an art that makes no demands on the intellect, that is agreeable and pleasing only. Such minds will insist that the medievalist knew best how to treat the subjects of New Testament history, they will emphasize the word "classic," and protest against that irrever ence to the old masters which they fancy is conveyed in every word of praise bestowed on later methods and more assured knowledge. They will tell us that actual knowledge has nothing to do with art, which is based on the emotional nature, and makes its appeal to feeling and sentiment alone. They know religion only through the types and symbols presented in the credulous faith of nearly two thousand years ago: they want a Mary and a Christ fashioned after the patterns of Dante and Fra Angelico, not after Munkacsy or Verestchagin. Neither of these innovators is here represented, but scattered through the galleries are productions of other artists working on the same general ideas, presenting the rationalist's thought on the painter's canvas. We shall find plenty of medieval inauities, too; for the phrase is none too strong for the productions of that artist of to-day who persists in following the methods of that far-off time, which, taken in its own setting, has imperishable models of truth and beauty, but which can no more be transplanted to our own day than the effete religious customs and beliefs which it in the main represents.

To begin our quest, then, we find little of "modernity," as the new term is coming into use, in the Southern nations, still bound with Roman Catholic traditions,-Spain, Italy, and lands of lesser fame, like Mexico and Brazil. Here the Christs, Madonnas, Annunciations, and Resurrections are after the well-known types of Middle-Age theology, and whatever we find expressing the real life of to-day must be sought on secular grounds. France is realistic enough; but, as yet in her art, as in her literature, realism stands for a frank, merciless portrayal of the worst forms of social evil and distress, and the forces of human craft and ignorance producing them. It is the realism of the dissecting-room and the laboratory, of the Morgue and the Jardin Mabille. And until the wonderful mental agility, grace, aud technical skill thus shown are wedded to a little Saxon sturdiness of temper and con