闭幕式致辞
本译文由人工智能辅助工具生成，可能存在不准确之处。如需查阅权威文本，请参考英文原文。
AI-translated. May contain errors. For accurate text, refer to the original English.
中文
世界宗教议会已成为一项既成的事实，仁慈的天父扶持了那些为使其得以存在而辛勤劳作的人们，并以成功为他们最无私的努力加冕。
我向那些崇高的灵魂致谢，他们宽广的胸怀与对真理的热爱，首先梦想了这一奇妙的梦想，继而将其实现。我向倾洒于这讲台上的自由宽容情怀的涌流致谢。我向这群开明的听众致谢，感谢他们对我始终如一的善待，以及他们对每一种有助于消弭宗教摩擦的思想所给予的赞赏。这和谐之音中，不时传来几个不谐和的音符。我要特别感谢那些音符，因为正是凭借它们鲜明的对比，才使整体的和谐变得更加美妙。
关于宗教统一的共同基础，已有许多话被说到。我现在并不打算贸然提出我自己的理论。但若有人在此希望，这种统一将通过某一种宗教的胜利与其他宗教的毁灭而实现，我要对他说："兄弟，你的希望是不可能实现的。"我是否希望基督徒变成印度教徒？但愿不会。我是否希望印度教徒或佛教徒变成基督徒？但愿不会。
种子被播入土中，泥土、空气与水分围绕着它。种子会变成泥土吗？会变成空气，或者水吗？不会。它成为一株植物，依照自身生长的规律而发展，吸收空气、泥土与水分，将其转化为植物的组成物质，生长成为一株植物。
宗教的情形与此相似。基督徒不必变成印度教徒或佛教徒，印度教徒或佛教徒也不必变成基督徒。但各方都必须吸收其他各方的精神，同时保持自身的个性，依照各自生长的规律而成长。
若说宗教议会向世界展示了什么，那便是：神圣、纯洁与慈爱并非世界上任何一个教会的独有财产，每一个体系都孕育了品格最为高尚的男男女女。面对这一事实，若有人仍梦想着本宗教的独享存续与其他宗教的毁灭，我从心底同情他，并向他指出：尽管会有阻力，每一种宗教的旗帜上即将书写的，都将是："扶助而非争斗"，"融合而非毁灭"，"和谐与和平而非纷争"。
English
The World's Parliament of Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has helped those who laboured to bring it into existence, and crowned with success their most unselfish labour.
My thanks to those noble souls whose large hearts and love of truth first dreamed this wonderful dream and then realised it. My thanks to the shower of liberal sentiments that has overflowed this platform. My thanks to his enlightened audience for their uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation of every thought that tends to smooth the friction of religions. A few jarring notes were heard from time to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them, for they have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter.
Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if any one here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, “Brother, yours is an impossible hope.” Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid.
The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth; or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.
Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.
If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: "Help and not Fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension."
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。