the people, as an esoteric system in the hands of priests, that of Greece,
in which there was no priesthood as an order, came to an end because the
gods ceased to be objects of respect at all.

* * * * *

We see, from these examples, how each of the great ethnic religions tends
to a disproportionate and excessive, because one-sided, statement of some
divine truth or law. The question then emerges at this point: "Is
Christianity also one-sided, or does it contain in itself _all_ these
truths?" Is it _teres atque rotundus_, so as to be able to meet every
natural religion with a kindred truth, and thus to supply the defects of
each from its own fulness? If it can be shown to possess this amplitude,
it at once is placed by itself in an order of its own. It is not to be
classified with the other religions, since it does not share their one
family fault. In every other instance we can touch with our finger the
weak place, the empty side. Is there any such weak side in Christianity?
It is the office of Comparative Theology to answer.

The positive side of Brahmanism we saw to be its sense of spiritual
realities. That is also fully present in Christianity. Not merely does
this appear in such New Testament texts as these: "God is spirit," "The
letter killeth, the spirit giveth life": not only does the New Testament
just graze and escape Pantheism in such passages as "From whom, and
through whom, and to whom are all things," "Who is above all, and through
all, and in us all," "In him we live and move and have our being," but the
whole history of Christianity is the record of a spiritualism almost too
excessive. It has appeared in the worship of the Church, the hymns of the
Church, the tendencies to asceticism, the depreciation of earth and man.
Christianity, therefore, fully meets Brahmanism on its positive side,