Several years ago my much esteemed friend, Sir Francis Younghusband, asked me to join the Council of the World Congress of Faiths. I reluctantly refused to do so, because although I sympathized greatly with his noble motives in forming the Congress I could not help regarding such well-intentioned efforts as being unlikely to lead to any practical result. Tolerance between the members of different faiths is something greatly needed in the world today as much as it ever has been. However, I believe it is a purely personal matter which can only come with the development of individual character and not by any organized efforts as such. I am disinclined to give active support to the World Congress of Faiths and the Fellowship of Faiths partly because it will never be more than a drop in the ocean, so far as effectiveness is concerned, and partly because the old religions have had their chance and decayed. A mere mixture of such decaying religions will not renew their vitality or render them more serviceable to mankind. It is wiser for me to devote energies to a new faith, which will have the vigour of youthfulness and do something, than to support a stew of stale faiths.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 1 : Origin, Purpose of Religions > # 196
