Now it is manifest that religions which do not expect to be universal are not likely to exceed their own expectations.  “According to your faith be it unto you” is as true of systems as of men.  And none of us is likely to be strongly drawn to a faith which has really no invitation for us, no matter how stoutly it may maintain its own superiority.  No religion which has only a tribal or racial significance can make any effective appeal to our credence.  The note of universality must be struck by any religion which claims our suffrages.

There are certain great living religions which make this claim of universality.  Judaism and Parseeism have both entertained this expectation, but the fewness of their adherents at the present time indicates that the expectation is but feebly held.  The three living faiths which aspire to universal dominion are Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity.[10] Each of these hopes to possess the earth.  Each of these is strong enough to enforce its claim with some measure of confidence.

Recent estimates give to Buddhism 148,000,000 of followers, to Mohammedanism 177,000,000, and to Christianity 477,000,000.  Mohammedanism has been rapidly extending its sway in Africa during recent years; Buddhism is not, probably, making great gains at the present time.

If any form of religion is to become universal in the earth it would appear that it must be one of these three.  If any of us wishes to exchange the religion of his fathers for another faith, his choice will be apt to lie between Buddhism and Mohammedanism.  What claims to our credence and allegiance could either of them set up?

It would not, for most of us, be an easy thing to turn from the faith of our fathers to any other form of faith.  The ideas and usages to which we have been accustomed all our lives are not readily exchanged for those which are wholly unfamiliar.  Rites and ceremonies and customs of other religions, which may be intrinsically as reasonable and reverent as our own, strike upon our minds unpleasantly because they are unwonted.  It would, therefore, be somewhat difficult for us to put ourselves into a mental attitude before either of these great religions, in which we should be able to do full justice to its claims upon our credence.

Yet if we could gain the breadth of view to which the disciples of Christ ought to attain, we should be compelled to admit that each of these great religions has rendered some important service to mankind.

What those services have been can only be hinted at in this chapter.  Of Islamism, Bishop Boyd Carpenter testifies that it “has been, and still is, a great power in the world.  There is much in it that is calculated to purify and elevate mankind at a certain stage of history.  It has the power of redeeming the slaves of a degraded polytheism from their low groveling conception of God to conceptions which are higher; it has set an example of sobriety to the world and has shielded its followers from the drink plague which destroys the strength of nations.  And, in so far as it has done this, it has performed a work which entitles it to the attention of man and no doubt has been a factor in God’s education of the world."[11]