ld be more tragic to see a world
of souls fascinated into a fatal repose and renouncing their destiny
of motion.

And as with individuals, so with communities. The great historic
religions of the world are not so many stranded hulks left to perish.
The best of them are all in motion. All over the world the divine
influence moves men. There is a sympathy in religions, and this
sympathy is shown alike in their origin, their records, and their
progress. Men are ceasing to disbelieve, and learning to believe more.
I have worshiped in an Evangelical church when thousands rose to their
feet at the motion of one hand. I have worshiped in a Roman Catholic
church when the lifting of one finger broke the motionless multitude
into twinkling motion, till the magic sign was made, and all was still
once more. But I never for an instant have supposed that this
concentrated moment of devotion was more holy or more beautiful than
when one cry from a minaret hushes a Mohammedan city to prayer, or
when, at sunset, the low invocation, "Oh! the gem in the lotus--oh!
the gem in the lotus," goes murmuring, like the cooing of many doves,
across the vast surface of Thibet. True, "the gem in the lotus" means
nothing to us, but it means as much to the angels as "the Lamb of
God," for it is a symbol of aspiration.

Every year brings new knowledge of the religions of the world, and
every step in knowledge brings out the sympathy between them. They all
show the same aim, the same symbols, the same forms, the same
weaknesses, the same aspirations. Looking at these points of unity, we
might say there is but one religion under many forms, whose essential
creed is the Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of Man,--disguised
by corruptions, symbolized by mythologies, ennobled by virtues,
degraded by vices, but still the same. Or if, passing to a closer
analysis, we observe the shades of difference, we shall find in these
varying faiths the several instruments which perform what Cudworth
calls "the Symphony of Religions." And though some may stir like
drums, and others soothe like flutes, and others like violins command
the whole range of softness and of strength, yet they are all alike
instruments, and nothing in any one of them is so wondrous as the
great laws of sound which equally control them all.

"Amid so much war and contest and variety of opinion," said Maximus
Tyrius, "you will find one consenting conviction in every land, that
there is one