religion, both in Europe and in this country during the last half century, especially during the last quarter of a century. A thousand agencies have combined to produce these results. Each religious organization now in sympathy with advanced liberal thought makes large claims as to having brought about this state in the public mind, making a Parliament of Religions possible. The Unitarians give themselves great credit; the Universalists trace the results largely to their denominational efforts; the Free Religious Association need not be behind any of the religious bodies in ascribing much of the increase of liberality to its own efforts. Indeed all these organizations are entitled to much credit for what they have done but they are only so many little rivulets that have helped to produce the great river.

Agencies which are not included in any of the religious work have perhaps done more than all the religious agitation of the century. For instance, Charles Darwin produced a work which revolutionized not only the science of zoology, but though indirectly, very radically and extensively, the religious thought of the civilized world. In so far as evolution has been accepted or partially accepted by religious leaders, they have had to abandon or in some way greatly to modify the doctrine of the fall of man; but this doctrine is connected with salvation through Christ and the falsity. of one implies the falsity of the other. This is true logically, but it is not by any means seen by the great mass of people who give their assent to evolution. Inconsistency is one of the characteristics of transitional periods. Men outgrow a portion of their old faith and accept new ideas which are inconsistent with portions of the old creed that still remain. They do not see the inconsistency and they do not want to see it, and time is required to outgrow all these assumptions of the past which conflict with the newly acquired truth. Probably the extension of the doctrine of evolution, due in a very large degree to the work of Darwin, Spencer and other advocates of this doctrine, has done more to produce modification of the creeds than any other agency that can be named, but with all the modification of religious beliefs, there still remain certain errors which are really anomalies in the religious condition of today.

Many of the speakers at the Parliament of Religions very properly emphasize the fact that the different religions are fundamentally alike but superficially different, and every person, Catholic or Protestant, Mohammedan or Confucian, who has attempted to

explain this fact has referred directly or indirectly, definitely or indefinitely, to a primeval religion and a primeval revelation. There has been a tacit acknowledgment of a golden age, of a perfect humanity and of special communion with God, such as is not vouchsafed to men in the later and more corrupt ages. So far as I have notice there has been no criticism of this fundamental erroneous assumption; even the speakers of the Free Religious Association do not combat it and do not affirm the modern doctrine of the evolution of religion, that is in any distinct and reasoned manner, which directs attention to the subject, or makes any impression upon the audiences.

If evolution be true and that it is, is now acknowledged by the thinkers of the world, then religion as well as government, language, etc., has gradually been developed from simpler into more complex conditions. If man ages ago was a savage and not a being with physical, intellectual and moral qualities perfect, then the religion must have corresponded with the savage mind. The idea of a primeval condition of human perfection and of a special supernatural revelation is absolutely, unqualifiedly contradicted by the whole doctrine of evolution, and the idea can exist in enlightened minds that have given attention to evolution only as a survival. The fact that it has been repeated again and again without any contradiction during the Parliament of Religions, at least up to this moment, shows the need of education in the doctrine of evolution, especially in its bearing on religion, not only among the illiterate, but among the educated religious minds, which are dominated by theological methods instead of scientific habits of thought. If the doctrine of evolution has any validity whatever in any province of thought, it certainly must apply to religion. We know that it does so far as history speaks on the subject. Monotheism has grown out of polytheism and all these complex systems of religion, such as Buddhism and Christianity, are known to have grown out of pre-existing faiths.

Evolution, I have often said, is along the line of the existing order. Religious progress must not be looked for merely outside of the religious organizations, but inside of them, and there its effects will be the most permanent. The Free Religious Association will do its work and disappear. It has no roots to give it any enduring power beyond a few years. Unitarianism and Universalism will last longer, but the acceptance of their leading ideas by the larger and older denominations will render their existence unnecessary

and they will disappear. All the forms of Protestanism will have become merely a part of history when the Catholic church will still exist and exert a powerful influence over the minds of men. These Protestant forms of Christianity are but mere offshoots, and owing to the peculiar circumstances under which they appeared and the soil in which they have grown, their existence has been prolonged through centuries and may exist a few centuries more; but they have no abiding strength. The Roman Catholic church, though it will endure many centuries, will also some day be a thing of the past, and Buddhism, Brahminism, Shintoism, Confucianism, old systems that run back into the hoary mists of antiquity, will also disappear; but the universal elements of religion common to all these religions will remain when every ecclesiastical organization on the face of the earth shall have taken its place among the outgrown institutions of the past. Other organizations growing out of them may persist through the centuries that shall follow and serve a purpose in the history of men. We can confidently hope that they will be more universal, more liberal, more rational and more adapted to the requirements of the enlightened mind than are any of the organizations which now exist.

With these facts and probabilities in mind, it will be seen that there is work for the Free Religious Association, for Unitarians, for Universalists, for Spiritualists, and all other earnest and advanced thinkers. Their work will not ultimate in a separate organization likely to have any permanency, but in the modification of public sentiment and thereby in the advancement of all the existing organizations in liberal thought, until the sectarian distinctions shall disappear and mankind can unite in common religious work on a common religious basis, without the necessity of subscribing to any dogma, and in which character and not creed shall be a true test of worth and the condition of fellowship.

THE PRESIDENT: Now, shall we have the closing address of this Convention session from our friend, Rev. Jenkin Llloyd Jones of Chicago?

MR. JONES: It was understood at the outset that Chicago people should keep their mouths shut, and it soon became equally well understood that some of the Chicago people would have to use

their heels to see the thing through. Now, my heels have been active in the interests of this Parliament since it convened, as many of you know, and that has necessarily vacated the head.

I am glad, though, of the privilege of standing here just a minute to pay my respects to the Free Religious Association, to welcome it to Chicago, and to say that I believe that when it has come to Chicago it has come to its own. It has been a sorry reflection, un

true and really too often cast upon this Association, that it has been a Boston Association, and that it could not thrive out of sight of the dome of the Boston State House, whereas, the truth of it is, this Association was probably the spiritual seed that more than anything else gave rise to this great harvest field you call the Parliament of Religions. You do not belong to Boston, and you belie Boston. You would be untrue to your own opportunity and false to the destiny that awaits you, if you do not succeed in persuading yourselves of what we are fully persuaded of, that you belong to the world, and that the world hath need of you today, more than any other organization I know of in a religious way, under the sun.

This Parliament has been dealing in the commonplaces of your platform, but it has shamed this platform because these commonplaces have been dealt in by men who have been trying to embody these ideas, and who will go forth from this place to try to incarnate the central thought of this Association.

This Association has been very fearful that it might do something that somebody in the far-off future might have to undo. This Association has been painfully conscious of the dangers and the misfortunes of denominationalism, and of activities generally. Now then, it is time that this Association was taught a lesson from the shipbuilder. Does he say, " Come now, boys, let us quit, for just as sure as we build this ship and set it afloat, it will begin to get watersoaked, and just as soon as we set it going it will become barnacled, and just like these other ships of mine, it will be run into the dry dock and will have to be scraped off and become unseaworthy." No, the shipmaster says,-"I will get the good service out of this boat before the barnacles begin to bother." And so this Free Relig ious Association has a work to do, has a work to give, has a power to influence, which it ought to do, and let the next generation take care of the barnacles that may bother. People are so afraid that they may not be conserving all that there is in existing denominations; so fearful that something may be done that will harm something that

already exists, and that is as if the housewife should say: "I cannot afford to spoil this egg by putting it under the hen; it is a good egg now and I want to keep it." But the egg has got to be spoiled in order to get the chicken.

I have just come from the counsels of a few in another room which deprived me of the privilege of hearing your words, Mr. Chairman and associates, because I was discussing this very prob. lem, and I say here as I said there,-I believe that the last Unitarian church as such, or under that label, is organized in the Mississippi. Valley as a local work, as the natural outcome of the people who live in the town which make it. I do not say but what the A. U. A. representatives and agents may come and persuade some churchless people in some Mississippi town that they need a Unitarian church, and if they do so and so, they will pay some money, and we will have another Unitarian church, but this is true of the Unitarian, it is true of the Universalist, -the last Unitarian Church has, I believe, been built as such under that label, as a native out-growth of the energies of local citizens. Well, why? Because there is something in our Mississippi Valley towns that is larger and better and bigger than either of these names. Not bigger and larger and better than these names may represent in their idealized forms, if we go into the etymology, into the history of it, you can qualify that, but the truth of it is, these words are loaded down with theological propositions; they are weighted down with mere superficialities. There is a spirit in every town of the Mississippi Valley that is too much in sympathy with this Parliament of Religions. We want the Free Religious spirit that recognizes the universality of the spirit that is larger and more enthusiastic than the universality of any theological doctrine whatsoever. And this Free Religious Association must help us to emphasize this fact, that the spirit of helpfulness, that the struggle for excellence, that the high demands for justice, are the forces around which and under which the coming church will be organized, and the coming church will triumph, and without these there can be no place for a church other than those that are already existing. We want to face this fact, that Christianity has got to take care of itself, that the Almighty is able to take care of himself, that he is not going to leave us out if we do not pass a resolution of compliments to him whenever we come together. We must recognize the fact, that however he may be left out of human thought, he does not leave human thought out of his economy and out of his forces, and