CONGRES INTERNATIONAL D’HISTOIRE DES RELIGIONS. 23 
to be in the possession of the true road to everlasting life, 
and some of them showing, as was to be expected, a certain 
amount of intolerance, or at least of the spirit of self- 
righteousness, as when the Japanese Kinza Hirai denounced 
the iniquities of Christian nations amid wild applause from 
those assembled, and the Rey. Jenkin-Jones, accepting the 
situation, “flung his arm around him, in the fervour of the 
moment.” It was to all appearance a happy family which 
had assembled there. In our little Congress for the study of 
the history of religion held at Paris, however, the members 
were principally laymen, who had come together to study, 
calmly and dispassionately, the great subject of the origin, 
development, and the infinitely varied form of religious 
belief, both the old and the new, the refined and the coarse, 
monotheism and polytheism, in every land, and age, and 
nation. The idea was excellent; the members ror the 
Congress threw themselves into the work with «a will, and 
the result was a beginning such as must have gratified the 
originators of the Congress as it did the members, showing 
that a real want in this branch of science had been met. 
To all appearance it was felt that here was an opportunity 
to take part in something very analogous to the great 
religious parliament of Chicago without any of the possible 
disputes which the statement of personal and _ sectarian 
religious opinions and beliefs would necessarily entail, for 
nothing could be pleasanter to the student and the scholar 
who interested himself in the thoughts and opinions of 
others as to the origin and nature of the Deity, and the 
way in which He had been and should be wor shipped, than 
this, in which every kind of theological discussion was 
rigorously excluded, and disputes, other than purely 
scientific ones, were utterly impossible. It was an 
assemblage in which scientifically provable facts were 
discussed, and theories and opinions set aside, and the 
feeling of brotherhood, upon which so much stress had 
been laid in speaking of the Chicago religious parliament, 
was present in much greater reality than, probably, ever 
before. 
The Congress was divided into eight sections, as follows :— 
A. The Religions of non-civilized peoples and of pre- 
Columbian America. 
B. The Religions of the Far East. 
C. The Religions of Egypt. 
