THE CLEANSING OF THE RED RIGHT HAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3776, 29 October 1907, Page 4

THE CLEANSING OF THE RED RIGHT HAND.

At the Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in connection with the Columbian Exposition, an incident occurred that thrilled every listener. Each of the Oriental religions had been represented by a polished, fluent speaker, who had spoken of the beauties of his own faith. Joseph Cook, of Boston, to represent the Christian •teligion. Advancing to the front, he said : "Here is Eady Macbeth. See how she rubs her hands, as she asks, ‘ Will these hands ne’er be clean?” What religion can wash Eady Macbeth’s right hand. That is a question I propose to the four continents and all the isles of the sea. I put to infidels the question, ‘ Can you wash our red right hands ?’ All that scepticism or average liberalism says, or has ever .said, in answer to this supreme inquiry is . . . insufficient to meet man’s deepest spiritual necessities. ... I turn to

Muhammadanism, ‘ Can you wash our red right hands ?’ I turn to Confucianism and Buddhism and Brahmanism, ‘Can you wash our red right hands ?’ I ask it in the name of what I hold to be an absolutely self-evident truth, that unless a man is washed from the love of sin and the guilt of sin, he cannot be at peace in the presence of Infinite Holiness. . . It is a certainty, and a strategic certainty, that, except Christianity, ' there is no religion known to man that effectively provides tor the soul the double deliverance from the love of sin and the guilt of it.” —Rev. W. S. Abernethy.