likeness and image; but the science of Comparative Religion is the
direct offspring of the religion of Jesus. It is a distinctively
Christian science. "It is so because it is a product of Christian
civilization, and because it finds its impulse in that freedom of
inquiry which Christianity fosters."[2] Christian scholars began the
investigations, formulated the principles, collected the materials and
reared the already splendid fabric of the science of Comparative
Religion, because the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify
this. Jesus bade his disciples search, inquire, discern and compare.
Paul, the greatest of the apostolic Christian college, taught: "Prove
all things; hold fast that which is good." In our day one of Christ's
loving followers[3] expressed the spirit of her Master in her favorite
motto, "Truth for authority, not authority for truth." Well says Dr.
James Legge, a prince among scholars, and translator of the Chinese
classics, who has added several portly volumes to Professor Max Müller's
series of the "Sacred Books of the East," whose face to-day is bronzed
and whose hair is whitened by fifty years of service in southern China
where with his own hands he baptized six hundred Chinamen:[4]

The more that a man possesses the Christian spirit, and is
governed by Christian principle, the more anxious will he be to
do justice to every other system of religion, and to hold his
own without taint or fetter of bigotry.[5]

It was Christianity that, in a country where the religion of Jesus has
fullest liberty, called the Parliament of Religions, and this for
reasons clearly manifest. Only Christians had and have the requisites of
success, viz.: sufficient interest in other men and religions; the
necessary unity of faith and purpose; and above all, the brave and bold
disregard of the consequences. Christianity calls the Parliament of