1893 - Religion

Religion

Religious leader Phillips Brooks dies at Boston January 23 at age 57. He was consecrated bishop of Massachusetts 2 years ago after 22 years as rector of Trinity Church.

Anti-Semitism mounts in France as investors blame Jews for the collapse in 1889 of the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique (Panama Canal Co.), whose bankruptcy has cost so many people their savings (see 1889). An international group of dubious character controlled the company; many of its directors were Jewish, including Baron de Reinach and Cornelius Herz; and although the elderly Ferdinand de Lesseps and his associates are sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment in February, only de Lesseps's son Charles, now 43, serves time, and an appeals court reverses its decision against him in June (see Dreyfus, 1894).

Calcutta-born Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda, 30, takes the podium at the World's Parliament of Religions outside Chicago September 11, addresses his "Sisters and brothers in America," and tells the interfaith gathering that the faith he follows emphasizes toleration and accepts all religions as true. Wearing a saffron turban and flowing coat, the handsome Vivekananda made a spiritual search in his 20s and was led to the late Sri Ramarkrishna, a mystic and a priest of the goddess Kali, who once had a vision of the Madonna and Child. Ramarkrishna died 7 years ago, having taught that all religions led to God, and his disciple Narendranath Datta changed his name to Swami Vivekananda, assumed leadership of Ramarkrishna's group, and wandered about India with a begging bowl, a staff, a water pot, and two books—the Bhagavad Gita and the 1424 work De Imitatione Christi (Imitation of Christ) by Thomas à Kempis. The swami makes a great impression at Chicago and receives invitations to lecture all over America (see 1895).