Milford chronicle., 1906-05-04
PRAYER OF A "HEATHEN"
An Incident of the Chicago Parlia-
ment of Religions.

ment of Religions.
The recent death Of Protap Chunde
: Mozoomdar brings to mind an inciden
! occurring at the parliament of religions
! in Chicago twelve years ago. whicl
a more than anything else I have seer
or heard Of him manifested his won
derful spiritual power In the forma
, exercises of the parliament care wa:
! taken to exclude all criticism Of the SC
called heather religions and all efforts
to proselyte their adherents, though
now and then such speakers as Joseph
Cook and George Pentecost could not
resist the temptation to violate all cour-
tesies and "go for them face to face
on the common platform.
But bes,-es the formal meetings OF
the parliament. presided over by its
officers, multitude Of subsidiary gath
erlng3 were held by the different Chris
tian denominations, among them morn
ing prayer meetings. over which the
general officers had no control. At one
of these prayer meetings, quite numer-
Ously attended by representatives Of
the mont CHRISTIAN faiths, the spirit of
proselytsm was let loose. The new
comers were prayed for rs souls lost in
pagan darkness and eXh0rted by speak
er after speaker to forsake their hea-
| then superstitions. come to Jesus and
be saved from eternal death by being
washed in the blood of a crucified Re.
deemer. It was all doubtless well in
tended but an exhibition of the mis-
siOnary zeal of Christianity in its worst
form, and some Of us wearing the
Christian name could not but be pain
ed and ashamed at its occurrence.
Near the close of the meeting, after
a specially denunciatory harangue, Mo
zoomdar arose simply to offer prayer,
and with the first half dozen words tho |
entire atmosphere was changed There |
was no allusion to anything which had
been said, no petitions in behalf Of |
narrow minded Christian brethren
and some of US have had experience Of
the wounds that can be inflicted by
prayers in our behalf-no use Of Jesus
words on his cross, Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they
do" but simply a great spiritual ma
ture lifting the whole assembly above
all narrow, dividing, controversial diff
ferences into the very presence of the
Eternal One himself. No art could have
devised a more effectual answer to
what had been said against heather
religion, no wit or logic has put its
defenders more to shame or more pal
Dably in the wrong, but the best of it
was the feeling 1t produced that there (
was no art about it, nothing but the {
natural outpOuring Of the man, and {
that its hearers were made to forget to
be ashamed, and we, sympathizers with /
him, made to forget any exultation I
over them-forget everything but that /
we were being lifted into the joy of a G
worship and into the beauty Of a world |
such as the most Christian of US had {
lever experienced before and never till S
hen known to exist. 4
The prayer was very short, and when c
was ended there was no hymn sung, c
10 benediction pronounced, no other
'oice that could break into the unutter- t
BILE peace it left on all souls, and {
Without even the usual buzz of CONVEX t
alton, but with shining eyes, the meet t
ng dissolved into the outside world q
IN orthodox lady who was present said v
hat hitherto she had always attended c
lonthly missionary meetings and put q
er quarter Of a dollar into the contri- 6
utiOn box to send religion to the hea- h
1en, but hereafter she should devote Z
er money to getting some heather to u
ONE here and show us Christians u
hat religion really is.-John c. Kim p
all in Christian Register. o