§ 1. Object of the present Work.
§ 2. Comparative Theology; its Nature, Value, and present Position.
§ 3. Ethnic Religions. Injustice often done to them by Christian
Apologists.
§ 4. How Ethnic Religions were regarded by Christ and his Apostles.
§ 5. Comparative Theology will furnish a new Class of Evidences in
Support of Christianity.
§ 6. It will show that, while most of the Religions of the World are
Ethnic, or the Religions of Races, Christianity is Catholic, or
adapted to become the Religion of all Races.
§ 7. It will show that Ethnic Religions are Partial, Christianity
Universal.
§ 8. It will show that Ethnic Religions are arrested, but that
Christianity is steadily progressive.



§ 1. Object of the present Work.


The present work is what the Germans call a _Versuch_, and the English an
Essay, or attempt. It is an attempt to compare the great religions of the
world with each other. When completed, this comparison ought to show what
each is, what it contains, wherein it resembles the others, wherein it
differs from the others; its origin and development, its place in
universal history; its positive and negative qualities, its truths and
errors, and its influence, past, present, or future, on the welfare of
mankind. For everything becomes more clear by comparison We can never
understand the nature of a phenomenon when we contemplate it by itself, as