of this feeling in its different forms, and examined the effects and tried to judge of the value of the different religions, I have come to look upon them as so many progressive steps in the development of the religious idea—that is, of the religious feeling in the human race ; as so many steps in the development upwards, of which it is by no means certain that the highest has yet been reached.
If, then, we can argue, from the universality of the religious idea in man, that religion is essential to the human race ; if we can trust the universal feeling that there is some Spirit—call that Spirit what we will—ruling the Universe and guiding the development of the human race ;—then it is only reasonable to believe that, as the race grows older and accumulates experience, and as other faculties develop, so this religious feeling will develop also, and the conception of the Deity and of the relations of man to the Deity enlarge itself. The traveller through strange countries sees that the various forms of religion professed by separate peoples only differ in degree of truth, that none are wholly false, and that all have the same foundation of belief in a Power governing and influencing all men.
He can no longer believe that the Christian religion is so far superior to the Buddhist or the Mohammedan religion ; that the Christian is to go to heaven, while the " heathen " is to go to hell. He cannot help recognizing that there is something in the Christian religion vastly superior to others, but he sees that these latter have much that is good and true in them also. The feeling, then, that is begotten from reflecting on all this, is that those who desire to be leaders in a religion, and to gain adherents to it, must study in a sympathetic manner the religions of others. They must do this, and it cannot be doubted that cultured men, living true and noble lives, must be able to influence those around them. Be they professed missionaries or be they simple Christian men and
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