and local éclat, and worldly advantages of these false religions, will
give the Church at home greater patience and faith in the great work of
evangelizing the nations."[6]

A specific reason for the study of the non-Christian religions is found
in the changes which our intercourse with Eastern nations has already
wrought. With our present means of intercommunication we are brought
face to face with them, and the contact of our higher vitality has
aroused them from the comparative slumber of ages. Even our missionary
efforts have given new vigor to the resistance which must be
encountered. We have trained up a generation of men to a higher
intellectual activity, and to a more earnest spirit of inquiry, and they
are by no means all won over to the Christian faith. And there are
thousands in India whom a Government education has left with no real
faith of any kind, but whose pride of race and venerable customs is
raised to a higher degree than ever. They have learned something of
Christianity; they have also studied their own national systems; they
have become especially familiar with all that our own sceptics have
written against Christianity; still further, they have added to their
intellectual equipment all that Western apologists have said of the
superiority of the Oriental faiths. They are thus armed at every point,
and they are using our own English tongue and all our facilities for
publication. How is the young missionary, who knows nothing of their
systems or the real points of comparison, to deal with such men? It is
very true that not all ranks of Hindus are educated; there are millions
who know nothing of any religion beyond the lowest forms of
superstition, and to these we owe the duty of a simple and plain
presentation of Christ and Him crucified; but in every community where
the missionary is likely to live there are men of the higher class just
named; and besides, professional critics and opposers are now employed