Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1893-09-28
GOD. MANANDM NATTER
BRETHREN ALL, YET THEY INDUCED
IN SHARP WORDS.

Shouters of the Midway Plaisance.
Breezy Letter From the Fair.
WORLDS FAIR, Sept. Especial. THE
parliament Of religions reached a point
where sharp acerbities develop. The thin
veil of courtesy was maintained, Of course,
but behind it was i'll feeling. Rev. Joseph
Cook criticised the Hindoossharply and was
more sharply criticised in turn. He said
that to speak Of a universe that was not
created is almost objectionable nonsense,
and the Asiatics retorted that q universe |
which had a beginning is a self evident alb
surdity. Bishop j. p. Newman, firing at
long range from the banks of the Ohio, de-
clared that the orientals nave insulted all
the Christians of the United States by their
Misrepresentation of the missionaries, and
the orientals. with their provokingly calm
and supercilious smile. replied that this
was simply the bishou's Ignorance.
IN response TO the question direct, three
: learned Buddhists gave us in remarkably
plain and beautiful language their bed
rock belief about God, man and matter.
The first they ignore, the second they re-
gard as a link in an endless chain, and the
third they consider-well, the only word /
can think of to fit their idea is unmanage-
able. The common people, they admit, be-
lieve of such philosophy only SO much or so
little as they can comprehend. The adj
vanced Buddhists hold as follows, and l con-
dense now from the statements of all three:
Good and evil are not from an omnipotent
will, but inhere in matter and are deter
mined solely by results. Happiness and
misery are results, not punishments. The
universe has no center or outside, and no
beginning or ending either in time or space.
There never was a creation; there never
will be a destruction. Man cannot know
an infinite; his entire duty is to know man
and improve his own character. Happiness
is possible by continued improvement, but
not at all certain; and whether happiness
be ~attainable or not, the duty of man is
| just the same"
Being pressed to define the distinction
between this and what is called atheism in
this country, II. Dharmapala of Ceylon
said: One has to be an atheist in the sense
employed by Max Muller. Without that
atheism no new religion, no reform, no re-
suscitatiop, would ever nave been possible.
Without hat atheism no new life is pos
sible for any one of us. y = = In the
sense of n Supreme Creator, Buddha says
that there is no such being, accepting the
| doctrine of evolution as the only true one
with the corollary, the law Of cause and
effect, he condemns the idea of q Creator.
The supreme god of the Brahman and
minor gods are accepted, but they are sub
ject to the law of cause and effect He
went on to demonstrate that this is the
only faith by which it is possible for man
to get rid of all prejudice, become supreme
ly unselfish, recognize a brotherhood with
all living things, develop his psychic pow
ers till past. present and future are equally
clear To him, and finally become absolutely
free from evil and Tapped in thef felicity of
infinite repose. His peroration was AZ pref
ty a thing as "A Chicago audience ever heard.
Demosthenes never exceeded it.
Ca~ntankerous Remarks.
Swami ~Vivekananda, the Hindoo monk,
was not so fortunate. He was out of hui
NOR, or soon became so, apparently. He
wore an orange robe and a pale yellow tur-
ban and dashed at once into a savage at
tack ON Christian nations i'm these words:
I'VE who have come from the east nave
sat here day after day and have been told
in a p~atronizing way that we ought "a ac-
cept Christianity because Christian nations
are the most prosperous. We look about
us I'M wa see England the most prosper
Gus Christian nation in the world, with
her foot on the neck of $50, zoe, 200 of Asiat-
les. We look back into history and see that
the prosperity Of Christian Europe began
with Spain. SPANS prosperity began with
the invasion of Mexico. Christianity wins
its prosperity by cutting the threats Of its
fellow men. AT such a price the Hindoo
will not have prosperity"
And SO they went on. each succeeding
speaker getting more c~antankerous, rs it
/ UQra Evan nrlnnar fba Y,nsf .pli,,htapu.i
Christians some very queer things We're
said. Thus DIR. Paul Carus of Chicago
said, 'The ancient patriarchs preached the
love Of enemies" which astonished many
who thought they had read all the Bible.
DIR. H.. X. Haweis of London argued that
mans capacity for music is a proof or dem
onstration of the immortality of the soul.
1t is an odd, perhaps amusing, fact that
most OF the peculiar things were said on
the day when only British Christians
talked. Some i'll natured people say there
will be "A row yet, but of course there will
not, for Christians, Buddhists, Brahmans
and all the rest are gentlemen. Rev. Jo-
seph Cook said, II am in n condition of
fear and trembling regarding its outcome
and then proceeded to attack the Roman
Catholic church for its position ON the
school question. This was at the meeting
of Methodist ministers.
Trouble at the P~laisancc.
While the orientals in the Art institute
gave MS Christians divers sly digs in their
provokingly smooth way, their congeners
ON the Midway plaisance are out of one
trouble only TO get into another and are
in a new sort of hot water every week.
Little by little they are being reformed
out of all resemblance to their original
conditions, aud the street is now far more
quiet and ccnventionally decorous than the
Bowery. Alvisa Tskender Khan Coroy-
anty and Archague Khan Coroyanty, COM
missioners here for the shah of Persia, after
trying all sorts of protests with the mana
gers, sent an ultimatum To Secretary Gresh-
am demanding that the Persian flag and
all Persian emblems be removed from the
so called Persian theater. They allege that
there are no theaters in Persia and that this
thing is "A disgrace and u misrepresenta-
ton just the same, IL has secured an in
junction from the circuit court, and until
that is disposed of the commissioners can
not interfere with it, but it is far more
decent han it WAS.
A general order was then issued for all
the shouters To shut up. They paid no MT.