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in all Religions—and not any longer set up one as true and try to pull down all the others as false. What is now demanded is an acknowledgment, on all hands, that there are "Lords many" and that all forms of Religions are equally authentic and divine; or better still perhaps that all put together make the True Religion-the Universal Religion.

A famous essayist of this free-thinking sort (Thomas Wentworth Higginson), in a well known essay entitled "The Sympathy of Religions," has written this: "The main difference between the various Religions of the World is, that each fills some blank space in its creed with the name of a different teacher. The Parsee, for instance, wears a pure white garment bound around with a certain knot; and whenever this knot is undone, at morning or night, he repeats the four main parts of his creed, which are: 'To believe in one God and hope for mercy from Him only; to believe in a future state of existence; to do as you would be done by.' Thus he keeps on the universal ground of Religion. Then he drops into the language of sectarianism and adds 'to believe in Zoroaster as a supreme teacher.' The creed [he continues] thus furnishes a formula for all Faiths. It might be printed in blank like a circular, leaving only the closing name to be filled in. For Zoroaster write Christ and you have Christianity; write Buddha and you have Buddhism; write Mohammed and you have Mohammedanism. Each of these is true Religion plus an individual name. It is by insisting on this plus that each Religion stops short of being universal the World over." So say all "free thinkers." To claim that there is one Superior Religion-that any one of the Religions is essentially superior to the others, is narrowness, sectarianism, bigotry. It is time, they say, for a Universal Religion, and a Universal Religion must be the residuum of all the great Religions of the World fused into one. This is what some thought the Parliament of Religions meant, or would come to mean. But it proved otherwise. Every representative was cordially received, and equal civilities and rights of speech were

granted to all. They were simply invited to come and compare their Religions-not so much as to their original teachings as in their actual historic results. It thus became a study-a most interesting, important, and timely study-in Comparative Religion. It was indeed a World's Exhibition of Religion-not of religious theories but religious results. What has your religion accomplished? Show us its superior fruits and we will then believe in its superior worth.

XXVII. THE AGE OF COMPARISON, AND ITS TEST.

Happily we are now living in an age of the World in which the test, which Jesus himself gave, can be applied, and is being applied, in its most impartial and universal sense, the test I mean, "By their fruits shall ye know them."

Our age is an age of Comparisons. All our World's International and National Exhibitions are exhibitions of comparative values. All our literature and ever advancing civilization means a sifting of values and an exhibition of superior worth by means of the comparative method. Which of several pieces of machinery shall have the medal? Place them side by side and see how they work. Which of various theories of Political Economy, of National Government, of Science, of Sociology, of Ethics, is worthy of ultimate or of exclusive adoption? Place them side by side, compare their practical workings, and, after a reasonably prolonged and impartial witnessing of results, judge as to superiority. So the whole civilized World is doing to-day. We have entered upon the age and the ages of Comparisons. "By their fruits shall ye know them."

This test is being applied, whether we know it or not, first of all, among the various denominations of our own Christianity. Men are beginning to look about them and inquire for the Christian body or name that can show, not the most, but the best fruit; not Antiquity, Creeds, Cathedrals, Sum Totals, but real fruit-souls saved, characters

regenerated, society uplifted, the world advanced. Mankind, here and now, are beginning to listen to the teachings which are enunciated, not by the most oracular or pretentious theologians or ecclesiastics, but by those who are most like the Divine Master-simple, loving, and wise. The Christian World is beginning to believe not in the institutions which talk most, but in those which do most, and do it most effectively. Christian "orthodoxy" is no longer tested by creeds, but the creeds themselves are being tested by their results. Those interpretations of the Bible which are found to have the greatest power over-not the tongues or professions, but-the consciences and lives of men, are beginning to be received as the true interpretations, and that form of Christianity which, after the test of centuries, has shown its superior power to refine and elevate and purify, is being accepted-must henceforth be accepted-as superior. This is what is going on among the various Christian communities. The same is the test, and the only real test of Christianity as against the other great Religions of the World. By their fruits shall ye know them."

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XXVIII.-RELIGIONS JUDGED BY THEIR FRUITS.

Christianity must stand or fall, must be ranked as superior or inferior-now after this lapse of nineteen centuries, simply on the ground of comparative merit, or of relative worth. It is no longer as it once was and doubtless had to be--a question of Antiquity, Prophecy, or Supernatural Sanctions, chiefly or exclusively. It is no longer a question, as it used to be, of Numerical Strength, or of Institutional Grandeur, or of Political Domain. All these are broken earthworks, decayed fortifications of the Past, which modern culture, and wisdom, and purity, and humanity are forcing us to abandon. The question of to-day and of the future is, not what are the Sanctions or Accessories of this or that religion, but what is it? What has it done? What is it doing and what does it promise to do? We as Christians will no longer permit other Religions to reckon up the Antiquity of

their Faiths, figure up their Prophecies, add their Miracles, count their Adherents-as they have always been doing,and thrust their sum-totals in our face, or in the faces of one another, as final evidences that they are superior or divine. We will no longer permit this. Neither must we permit ourselves to do the same to them. If we do, we shall continue to find that almost every other great Religion can thrust back a sum-total of these very boasts or claims at least equal to our own; while infidels will meanwhile stand by and scoff to see us worsted with the weapons of our continued choice. Neither may we claim, as some have claimed, that Divine Truth has been revealed to us alone, in the sense that God has deigned to send Prophets to us only. For, studious research has already drawn forth many a golden treasure from those "rubbish heaps of superstition,”—the Sacred Books of the Ethnic Religions. Impartial criticism is more and more proving the truth of our own blessed Bible, that "God is no respecter of persons," and that He has "never left Himself without witness among any people, but has from time to time raised up prophets among them all such as they were able to hear."

None of these methods of the past are to be continued as the methods of to-day or of the future. Rather, now and hereafter, must be adopted the New Testament method"By their fruits shall ye know them." Recognizing gladly all that is good, or beautiful, or true, in other Religions; conceding to their great teachers all the authority which they can, rightfully, claim; we are to place them side by side with the Religion of Jesus; and, by witnessing their practical workings—their relative civilizing, regenerating, ennobling, and purifying influences and results-are thus to determine, in these "latter ages of the world," which is the best Religion, which is truest, and-as a reasonable inference-which is most divine. This henceforth is the only tenable as well as the only truly Biblical ground upon which we may base our claim for the great superiority of the Christian Religion. Prophecy, Miracles, Inspiration, Martyrdoms-all of these, as many and as great are claimed by the other Religions.

Of course we may believe that ours are true and theirs mistaken or false. But however much we may believe this, we have no adequate method of demonstrating it except by pointing to the unique, the transcendent power of Christianity, as seen in its incomparable triumphs, as a co-operating agency at least, in regenerating and civilizing the World.

And now, for the first time in History, we are able to demonstrate this with a great and ever increasing power of demonstration. Till quite recently the Sacred Books of the various Religions of the World were sealed to our view. Within the past twenty-five years they have been unsealed and are now open to us all. Till now, too, the true history and the real progress of civilization among the so-called Pagan nations of the World has been hidden from us. Inaccessible, shut in and shut out each from the other, and from all the rest of the World, how could they be known or how could any right comparison be instituted? But Christian Missions first, Christian Commerce second, Christian Education, Invention, and Enterprise third, have battered down all partition walls, have demanded and secured "open sesame" to every corner of the world, have piled upon our book shelves and placed before our eyes the materials for an adequate and just comparison. China, India, Persia, and the Islands of the Sea, with their inhabitants, customs, institutions, laws, and grades of civilization-their past progress and future promises are now definitely placed before us. Railroad, and inter-oceanic and telegraphic and telephonic communication have made us next door neighbors to every tribe and people of the earth. Hence to all who read, study, and observe, with intelligence and candor, the Argument from Comparisons has become cumulative. So overwhelmingly is it on the side of Christianity that it seems well-nigh absurd even to re-state the claim. This is what our World's Exhibitions, held, every one of them, in Christian lands, originated and sustained by Christian intelligence, industry, and enterprise, have meant. Providentially they all have been Epiphanies of Christianity. Japan, China, India, Persia, Africa, and the Islands of the Sea have

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