the past and to march onward to an endless victory and to an unceasing
praise. Who, looking upon that processional, filing through the ages of
the years of man, would say that there may be a parliament of religions?
A parliament of boasts and pomps, of good precepts and queries, of
misuses and half-truths, of superstitions and infinite idolatries, no
doubt; but there is but one religion, though it be perverted in many
ways and rightly revealed at divers times; and there is but one God,
infinite, true, holy, just, loving, and eternal. Where now are the gods
of Hamath and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Bow thy head,
O Buddha! and do thou, O Zoroaster! hang thy head. Isis and Osiris grow
dim; Jove nods in heaven; the pipe of Pan is dumb; Thor is silent in the
northern Aurora; the tree of Igdrasil waves in midnight; Confucius is
pale; Muhammad is dust. Darkness is over the skirts of the gods of the
past--gloom receives them, Erebus holds outstretched arms. But the Lord
God, Jehovah, the Ancient of Days, encanopied in space and glory, leads
onward to the end of years His people in a mighty train, to a rule and
kingdom which shall know no end. May thou and I, dear friend-soul, in
whatsoever land thou be, may thou and I be numbered in that throng!




IV. THE WORLD-MARCH: OF KINGS

[DIE WACHT AM RHEIN]

_Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Doth his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.