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Impressions of America
and the religious condition of the American nation. I will ask you again to consider what I may say as the expression of impressions which, I have received, subject always to revision and correction, and in no sense spoken in a spirit of criticism. The opinion which I had formed from contact with Western civilization in my own country, and with missionaries and missionary methods among my people, was not of a nature to contribute to the emotion of admiration of what may be called your religion." Upon coming to this country and viewing you from a higher and closer point of view, my first impression was in the nature of an agreeable surprise, I as a heathen, so-called, was received at the great Parliament of Religions, yours included, and by you especially in the spirit of that brotherly love which is one of the fundamental principles of the universal religion.
This great welcoming spirit of brotherly love, of absolute tolerance, of illimitable fraternity, is the real expression of your national religion, in my impression, and differs in nothing from the spirit of may own religion, and therefore, I wonder why this spirit does not control in all directions. The spirit is true, it is universal, but its expression in dogmas and creeds and contending churches, seems in conflict with itself. How can narrowness, and bigotry, and limitations, and worldliness, and worship of mammon, and oppression and extortion, and enmity, and unbrotherly attitude and conduct, be natural expressions of the universal holy spirit of brotherly love? Can you tell me, since I cannot enlighten myself? If you say these expressions or outward signs mean nothing, I answer: Whence do they come; whither do they tend, why do they have place; why have they not been banished? If they mean nothing, they can have no mission, and are not the influences and children, and powers and reflections of that great spirit of goodness which is, love to all living beings. I do not claim superiority, t do not arrogate to myself or to my people the right to judge or to criticize. But you say to me, you are our brother, and some
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