Excerpt from The Great Refusal, and Other Sermons While I was writing my sermon yesterday morning (October 7) there came to me a letter from Dr. Furness, now in his ninety-second year, in which, with many bright and pleasant things, he told me how he had been preaching in a Quaker meeting-house older than himself, and how a Presbyterian minister was ready to invite him to preach for him when his people would let him, and then added: "I am more thankful than I can tell that I have come clearly to see the kingdom of heaven coming independently of all diverse symbols, modes of thought, etc. Is it not evident? Are not you and I one in the faith that the one religion pure and perfect is fidelity to all the relations in which we are placed to one another and the world around, these relations being God's religious institutions?" When you have heard my sermon, I think you will agree with me that these words of my dear friend, in whom "Old experience doth attain To something of prophetic strain," furnish my sermon with as good a text as I could find. Some of you have been more fortunate than I in being able to attend the meetings of the Parliament of Religions which has recently been held in Chicago, in connection with the great Exposition. Some of you, I know, were much impressed by those meetings; and other friends have done their best to make me unhappy by writing me how much I lost. But I have not lost so much as they imagine. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.