John Henry Barrows, a Presbyterian minister, was chairman of the General Committee on the World’s Parliament of Religions, which convened in Chicago on September 11, 1893. In his “Words of Welcome” to the Parliament, Barrows said,

“If anything great and worthy is to be the outcome of this Parliament, the glory is wholly due to Him who inspired it, and who, in the Scriptures which most of us cherish as the Word of God, has taught the blessed truths of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood.”

 The Daily Inter Ocean of September 12, 1893, in reporting on the gathering of religionists from disparate countries and traditions, referred to “a medley of universal brotherhood. The fair sex were there, too, and they were not neglected. But sisterhood in such a gathering was superfluous. The air was full of brotherhood, and it was the generic kind, such as fits both sexes."