It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and
cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most
ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother
of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu
people of all classes and sects.
My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who,
referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men
from far-off nations
may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration.
I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance
and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but
we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has
sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations
of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the
purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge
with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces
by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered
and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will
quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated
from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human
beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different paths
which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked
or straight, all lead to Thee."
The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies
ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the
wonderful doctrine
preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form,
I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to
me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have
long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence,
drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent
whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human
society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come;
and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this
convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with
the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons
wending their way to the same goal.
ADDRESS AT THE FINAL SESSION
Chicago, September 27, 1893
The World's Parliament of Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the
merciful Father has helped those who laboured to bring it into existence, and
crowned with success their most unselfish labour.
My thanks to those noble souls whose large hearts and love of truth first
dreamed this wonderful dream and then realized it. My thanks to the shower
of liberal sentiments that has overflowed this platform. My thanks to this
enlightened audience for their uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation
of every thought that tends to smooth the friction of religions. A few jarring
notes were heard from time to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them,
for they have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter.
Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity.
I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if any one here hopes
that this unity
will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of
the others, to him I say, "Brother, yours is an impossible hope." Do
I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the
Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid.
The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around
it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes
a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air,
the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into
a plant.
Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu
or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must
assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and
grow according to his own law of growth.
If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world,
it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity
are not the exclusive
possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced
men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence,
if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction
of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him
that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: "Help
and not fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony
and Peace and not Dissension."
