The Open Court
\ The Open Court A MONTHLY MAGAZINE Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea. COPYRIGHT BY OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 1931 Volume XLYI (No. 3) MARCH, 1931 Number 898 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT GREENACRE BY ROBERT P. RICHARDSON ON THE THIRD day of July, 1894, there gathered in the little town of Eliot, Maine, a group of men and women resolved to form a center where might be continued each summer the work so auspiciously begun at the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893, when thinkers of the most opposite schools had freely expressed their views on religion, ethics, philosophy and sociology, and had amicably listened to the other side of each question. In the call for the Chicago Congresses their purposes had been stated as to "review the progress already achieved in the world, state the living problems now awaiting solution, and suggest the means of farther progress." Quoting this and reaffirming it as the purpose of the summer meet- ings at Eliot, the program of the first season promised "a series of lectures and courses on topics which shall quicken and energize the spiritual, mental and moral natures, and give the surest and serenest physical rest." It had been determined "to form a center at the Greenacre Inn where thinking men and women, reaching out to help their fellows through means tried and untried, might find an audience recognizing not alone revealed truth, but truth in the pro- cess of revelation. It was believed that for those of different faiths, different nationalities, different .training, the points of contact might be found, the great underlying principles—the oneness of truth, the brotherhood of man ; that to the individual this spot might mean the opening door to freedom, the tearing down of walls of prejudice and superstition." The place selected for this work had been well chosen.
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