John Ashcroft, the president-elect's nominee for U.S. attorney general, dropped in on an overflowing interracial and interfaith inaugural prayer luncheon yesterday and brought down the house of 1,700 religious and political figures with a tale of amazing grace.

"This is a country worth praying for," Mr. Ashcroft said, and told how he was drawn the other day to the poignant wail of a street musician's trumpet playing the notes of the hymn "Amazing Grace."

"He stopped in midnote," Mr. Ashcroft said, "and put out his hand with a cry, 'Senator Ashcroft, I'm for you, man.'"

As he walked down the street on his way to his office, Mr. Ashcroft said, he heard the trumpeter's notes of another hymn, "Love Lifted Me."

"I'm sure not going to forget 'Love Lifted Me,'" said Mr. Ashcroft, who had just completed four days of contentious hearings on his nomination, in which he had been roughly questioned by Senate Democrats about his views on racism, abortion and homosexual rights.

When he stepped from the platform, in the ballroom of the Hyatt at the foot of Capitol Hill, he was embraced by a swarm of well-wishers, many of them black clergymen.

The prayer event, "America Come Together," was one of the largest and most diverse inaugural religious gatherings of clergy and lawmakers in memory.

Amidst a three-hour program of prayers by Christian preachers, a rabbi, a Muslim imam and a Franciscan layman, Rep. Danny K. Davis, an Illinois Democrat and member of the Congressional Black Caucus, read a resolution that he and Rep. Philip M. Crane of Illinois, a Republican, will introduce next week in Congress calling on the nation to "dwell in unity and one accord."

"There ought to be more that unites us . . . than drives us apart," said Mr. Davis.

The prayer luncheon was sponsored by The Washington Times Foundation, a nonprofit educational group, which is separate from the newspaper, and organized by a committee that included Doug Wead, who worked in the first Bush White House, and the Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church and a former D.C. delegate to Congress.

Martin Luther King, evangelist Billy Graham, and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon were honored by an ecumenical group of clergymen. The Rev. Moon received an award for his work in support of traditional family values.

The world's faiths arose to cultivate the human spirit, and "that is why religions tell us to fast, to serve others, to be sacrificial," said Rev. Moon, who described the family as the school of peace and God's love.

"It is possible for humankind to receive a great blessing through the rededication of marriage ceremony centered upon God's ideal of family," he said.

Mr. Fauntroy introduced several men and women who were White House liaisons to religious groups going back to the Ford administration, two U.S. senators and 12 members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Rev. James Merritt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, gave the tribute to Mr. Graham who, if not for a doctor's advice to rest, would today have prayed at his 10th inaugural since 1953 with President Eisenhower. He is believed to have preached to more people than any man in history. "In the life of Billy Graham, there has not been one hint of scandal," Mr. Merritt said.

Mr. Wead, who had been religion liaison in the Bush administration from 1989 to 1993, also introduced what he called "seven of the top 10 television evangelists in America today." They included Paul Crouch, founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and Kenneth Copeland, both of whom made brief remarks. "We are here, in a larger sense, to honor an office, an office God has used to bless our nation and virtually every nation on Earth," said Mr. Crouch, speaking of the presidency.

Rabbi David Ben-Ami, chairman of the American Forum for Jewish-Christian Cooperation, spoke of the common Jewish and Christian heritage. "The Torah is my and your holy Scriptures," he said, reading from the Old Testament on God, nations and leadership. "This noon, this is my congregation."

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., brought greetings from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, with whom he spoke late Thursday about his acknowledgment of a 20-month-old daughter he had fathered with an aide in the Washington office of his Rainbow-PUSH Coalition.

"He asks your prayers," said Mr. Falwell. "He apologizes, he takes responsibility and makes no excuses, points no fingers at anyone else, and that's all a man can do. It's not a time to put our foot on the neck of anyone who is down." His remarks were greeted with scattered "amens" and emphatic assertions of "that's right."

Many of the religious figures spoke of the size and ecumenical nature of the prayer luncheon. "There's always something like this at a church," said the Rev. Robert Maddox, who worked in the Carter administration. "It's a gargantuan thing to bring off, and this is bigger than usual."

The Rev. Jack Hayford, who will give the benediction at the 54th Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service at the National Cathedral tomorrow, looked over yesterday's event and said it represented a new mood of interreligious and interracial cooperation. "This is something that's been a process in the past five years," Mr. Hayford said in an interview. He cited the Southern Baptist apology for slavery in 1995, the Promise Keepers' apologies to women for abuse by men, and the interracial reconciliation summits of Pentecostals, of which he was a leader as pastor of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, Calif.

Hundreds of the participants also were in Washington for the American Leadership Conference (ALC), which holds inspirational and training events for clergy and state legislators. Dr. William Anderson, a Howard University graduate who brought his wife and daughter to the ALC event and inaugural, said that some of the old civil rights rhetoric must give way to constructive proposals. "I brought my daughter here to show her it's not the color of your skin, but the content of your character," said Dr. Anderson, a Baptist deacon whose wife, Janette, is Roman Catholic.

The Rev. Robert Schuller, pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., and host of the popular "Hour of Power" telecast, marveled at the "myriad" of different religious groups praying in the same room and complimented each for its own "spiritual pilgrimage."

"Many of you had reason not to accept this invitation because of, 'Who else will be there?' " Mr. Schuller said. "And yet there is an overriding unity. And the only way I can explain it in my theology is the Holy Spirit [and that] Jesus Christ has really diversified His investment portfolio."

Singer Pat Boone, a member of the evangelical denomination Churches of Christ, noted the "wonderful feeling" at the prayer event, encompassing Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, which overflowed into adjoining smaller ballrooms. "We love you, we cherish you, we respect you," said Mr. Boone. He also sang. Other performers included singer John Michael Talbot, a Franciscan with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, and trumpeter Phil Driscoll.

A few political matters were touched on besides the standing ovation for Mr. Ashcroft, who did not mention the confirmation hearings.

The Bush campaign's chief domestic policy adviser, Stephen Goldsmith, a Jewish leader and former mayor of Indianapolis, said the new Republican administration wants to give religious ministries more freedom to solve social problems. "All of us here want the government to no longer be hostile" to religious groups, said Mr. Goldsmith. "This is an administration that will clear out the regulation problems, clear out the legal problems."

Imam Hassan Qazwini, director of the Islamic Center of America, said that "all praise is due to Allah" and urged prayers for "children in Palestine," or the West Bank, and Iraq, against which the United States continues its economic embargo.