CONGRES INTERNATIONAL D’AISTOIRE DES RELIGIONS. 33 
city, the formation of a national committee which should 
organize the same, 
The fifth and last General Meeting of the Congress was 
held at the Exhibition, in the Congress-Hall, on the 8th of 
September. On that occasion Mr. Carus read a notice sent 
by Professor Bonney upon the Parliament of Religions held 
at Chicago on the occasion of the International Exhibition 
held there in 1893, to which reference has already been 
made. In this communication the great value of such a 
reunion as that at Chicago was emphasized, forming an apt 
illustration of what Count Goblet d@Alviella had said in his 
paper upon the historical relations between religion and 
morals. In this “ Parliament” a Roman Catholic Cardinal 
took a leading part, and the meetings were closed with the 
Lord’s Prayer, led on one occasion by Rabbi Dr. Hirsch, 
and on another by Mr. Mozoomdar, of the Brahmo-Somaj. 
It must be admitted that Dr. Bonney has good reason to be 
satisfied with the great assembly over which he presided, for 
out of the “ Parliament of Religions” the Congress for the 
History of Religions of this and future years has undoubtedly 
e@vown. 
After this, Count Angelo de Gubernatis spoke at great 
length, in French, upon the future of the science of religion. 
He rendered homage to what France and French historians 
had done in this work, and referred to the Révue de I Histoire 
des Religions, in its forty volumes. He showed how study 
renders all religions worthy of respect. He referred to the 
part of popular inspiration in the various religions, that of 
artists and poets, who have made them live, and emphasized 
the fact that, to understand them well, it is needful not only 
to analyze and dissect them, but to have, at the same time, 
such religious feeling as will permit one to seize and to 
reconstruct them as they were when they had a living 
reality. It is, it is true, possible at the present time to 
approach the study of the comparative history of religion, 
but this comparison can only be of use for the popular and 
spontaneous elements of the subject. The ritual element 
instituted by the churches, and the moral elements furnished 
in general by individuals, are tvo diversified to be easily 
made the subject of fruitful comparison. He insisted upon 
the importance of folklore seriously studied as an aid to the 
comparative study of religions, and strongly recommended 
his colleagues to work quietly and to seize the inherent logic 
of religious history, which is a popular logic. 
D 
