But the church in modern life is learning to see this whole matter in a different light.  Our best modern missionaries decline to take this attitude in dealing with men of other religions.  They do not regard the heathen as outside the pale of the divine compassion; they seek for points of sympathy between their own beliefs and those of the people to whom they are sent.  From no other sources have come stronger testimonies to the sympathy of religions.  We must not, these veteran missionaries insist, assume that our religion is the only true religion, while all the others are false religions.  We may well assume that all human forms of faith are more or less imperfect—­our own as well as theirs, and invite them to a candid comparison of the differing systems.  If our own is really superior, if it meets universal human needs more perfectly, we ought not to fear such a candid comparison.  But we must be ready to see and approve the good that is theirs, if we wish them to accept the good that is ours.

This is not admitting that there is no difference—­that one religion is as good as another; we should stultify ourselves by making any such admission.  But it is a willingness to recognize truth and goodness everywhere, and to rejoice in them.  And we must show that we are not afraid to take from the many truth which has been revealed to them more clearly than to us.  If we believe in the universal fatherhood and the omnipresence of the Holy Spirit, we must expect to find, in every form of faith, some elements that our Christianity needs.  In fact Christianity, through all its history, has been appropriating truth which it has found in the systems with which it has come in contact, and it is one of the glories of Christianity that it has the power to do this.

A great Christian scholar has just published a book entitled “The Growth of Christianity,” in which he shows how this has been done.  He finds that “just as Jewish morality was ennobled and beautified by the teaching of Christ and yet made an essential element of that teaching, so the philosophy of Greece, the mysticism of Asia, and the civic virtues of Rome were taken up by the Christian religion, which, while remaining Christian, was modified by their influence.  This process cannot fairly be called degeneration, but growth, such growth and development as is the privilege of every truly living institution."[8]

It is true, as one critic suggests, that in taking in these foreign elements Christianity not only made some important gains, but also suffered some serious losses.  Greek philosophy and Asian mysticism and Roman legalism are responsible for certain perversions of Christianity, as well as for enlargement of its content.  We have great need to be careful in these assimilations; some kinds of food are rich but not easily digested.  But it is, as I have said, a chief glory of Christianity that it possesses this assimilative power.  It is the natural fruit of faith in the divine fatherhood.  We ought to be able to believe that God has some revelations to make to us through our brethren in other lands, as well as to them through us.  It is the possession of this power which fits Christianity to be the universal religion.