revival
of it, has brought into the church, not peace, but division. When next
some divine breathing of spiritual influence shall be wafted over the
land, can any man forbid the hope that from village to village the
members of the disintegrated and enfeebled church of Christ may be
gathered together "with one accord in one place" not for the transient
fervors of the revival only, but for permanent fellowship in work and
worship? A few examples of this would spread their influence through the
American church "until the whole was leavened."

The record of important events in the annals of American Christianity
may well end with that wholly unprecedented gathering at Chicago in
connection with the magnificent celebration of the four hundredth
anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus--I mean, of course,
the Parliament of Religions. In a land which bears among the nations the
reproach of being wholly absorbed in devotion to material interests, and
in which the church, unsupported and barely recognized by the state, and
unregulated by any secular authority, scatters itself into what seem to
be hopelessly discordant fragments, a bold enterprise was undertaken in
the name of American Christianity, such as the church in no other land
of Christendom would have had the power or the courage to venture on.
With large hospitality, representatives of all the religions of the
world were invited to visit Chicago, free of cost, as guests of the
Parliament. For seventeen days the Christianity of America, and of
Christendom, and of Christian missions in heathen lands, sat
confronted--no, not confronted, but side by side on the same
platform--with the non-Christian religions represented by their priests,
prelates, and teachers. Of all the diversities of Christian opinion and
organization in America nothing important was unrepresented, from the
authoritative dogmatic system and the solid organization of the Catholic
Church (present in the person of its highest official dignitaries) to
the broadest liberalism and the most unrestrained individualism. There
were those who stood aloof and prophesied that nothing could come of
such an assemblage but a hopeless jangle of discordant opinions. The
forebodings were disappointed. The diverse opinions were there, and were
uttered with entire unreserve. But the jangle of discord was not there.
It was seen and felt that the American church, in the presence of the
unchristian and antichristian