The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1893-10-18
THE SYMPATHY OF RELIGION.
[col. Thomas w. IIgginson's address before the
Parliment of Religion.

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Parliment of Religion.
1t is interesting to think, as a result Of
his great labors and your sympathy that
all over this land probably hundreds Of
pulpits were making this Parliment Of
Religions their topic for discussion yes.
terday. All over this land there were
discussions varying in range only to be
equaled by the range Of the Pertinent
itself. Some OF those discussions had a
breadth and grasp, no doubt, worthy OF
their subject; others among those dis.
cussions had a concentrated narrowness
and pettiness which could only be illus
trated by what Washington lady said
about the English statesman, Mr.. Cham
berlain, after HE residence there. "He is
a nice man." she said, "but he doesn't
know how to dance. He takes steps so
small that you'd think he had practiced
on postage stamp" [Laughter] Amid
all that range Of discussion how few
there probably were who recognized
that this is, after ALL not the first Amer
lean Parliment of Religions, but that the
first Pertinent was coincident with the
very foundations ofthis Government and
was accepted in illustration Of its work.
ings.
FOUNDED ON RELIGIOUS ToLERATIoN.
When in 1888 the Constitution OF the
United States was adopted and com
memorative procession of 5000 people
took place in Philadelphia, then the
seat OF government, a place in the tri-
umphal march was assigned to the
clergy, and the Jewish rabbi of the city
walked between two Christian ministers,
to show that the new republic was
founded on religious liberation. 1t
seems strange that no historical painter,
up to this time, has selected for his
theme that fine incident. 1t should
have been perpetuated in art, like the
landing OF the Pilgrims or Washington
crossing the Delaware. And side by
side with it might well be painted the
twin event which occurred nearly 100
years later, in a Mohammedon country,
when in 1875 Ismael Pacha, then Kne-
dive Of Egypt, celebrated by a process
ion of 100000 people the obsequies of
his beloved and only daughter,
placed the Mohammedon priests and
Christian missionaries together in the
procession, on the avowed ground that
they served the same God, and that he
desired for his daughters soul the pray
ers of all.
During the interval between these two
great symbolic acts, the world Of thought
was revolutionized, by modern science,
and the very fact OF religion, the very
existence of divine power, was for a
time questioned. Science rose, like the
Gagged Afreet in the Arabian story, and
filed the sky. Then, more powerful
than the Afreet, it accepted its own linn
itations, and achieved its greatest
triumph in voluntarily reducing its
claims. Supposed by many to have de-
throned religion forever, it now offers to
dethrone itself and to yield place to
imaginative aspiration-a world outside
of science-as its superior. This was
done most conolusively when Prof. Tyn-
dali, at the close of his Belfast address,
uttered that fine statement, by which he
will perhaps be longest remembered,
that religion belongs not to the knowing
powersof man, but to his creative powers.
It was an epoch-making sentence.
NO MIDDLE GROUND.
If knowing is to be the only religious
standard, there is no middle ground be-
tween the spiritual despair of the mere
agnostic and the utter merging of ones
individual reason in some great organ
lied church-the Roman Catholic, the
Greek Catholic, the Mohammedon, the
Buddhist. But if human aspiration, or,
in other words, mans creative imagina-
ton is to be the standard, the humblest
individual thinker may retain the es-
sence OF religion, and may, moreover,
have not only one of these vast faiths,
but all Of them at his side. Each Of
them alone is partial, limited unsatis-
tying. iat
Among all these vast structures of
spiritual organization there is sympathy.
1t lies not in what they know, for they
are alike, in scientific sense, in know
ing nothing. Their point of sympathy
lies in what they have sublimely created
through longing imagination. In all
these faiths is the same alloy of human
superstition, the same fables of miracle
and prophesy; the same signs and won
ders; the same perpetual births and res
directions. In point of knowledge all are
helpless, in point of credulity all puerile;
in point of aspiration all sublime. All
seek after God, if haply they might find
him. All, moreover, look round for
some human life more exalted than the
rest which may be taken as Gods high
est reflection. Terror leads them Ia
imagine demons, hungry to destroy but
hope creates for them redeemers mighty
to save. Buddha, the prince, steps from
his station; Jesus, the carpenters son,
from his, and both give their lives to the
service OF man. That the good thus
prevails above the evil is what makes
religion--even the conventional and es-