Life of Ahmad — Page 467
as CONFERENCE OF RELIGIONS 467 the different corners of the country to one place within hours or, at best, days; the institution of the telegraph and post offices, to facilitate communication. Even in things of everyday use one has the better of his brethren of the past generation. He has handy steel pens and has no more to spend time in making and mending them. He has no more to be labouring in polishing paper, as the best paper is available at small prices. He has watches to regulate time and all modern discoveries in sanitation and medicine to preserve him in good health. All these facilities seem to have been furnished by Providence for a special end. Besides the facility we enjoy for holding communication with our co-religionists living in different parts of the world, for calling together in one assembly the learned men of the East and West, and for having easy access even to those books of certain religions which were regarded as too sacred in former days for strangers’ eyes, the study of the various languages has removed, to a large extent, the insurmountable barriers in our way to universal brotherhood. Moreover, when we see the deep interest universally taken in religious movements nowadays by people of all creeds, an intense struggle and contest amongst the foremost religions of the world for supremacy and a natural bent of the minds of people to investigate religious questions,