Rev. Martyn Clark, D.D., Missionary of the Church Missionary Society at Umritsur, India, has given thorough study to the Sanscrit, and has thereby been enabled to expose the fallacies and misrepresentations which the Arya Somaj, in its bitter controversy with the Gospel, has put forth as to the real character of the Vedic literature.  No man is better able to judge of the importance of a correct understanding of the errors of the non-Christian systems than he.  In a letter accepting an honorary membership of the above-named Society he says:  “The object of the Society is one in which I am deeply interested, and I shall at all times do what I can to further its aims.  I am convinced that there is much that is helpful to the cause of Christ to be learned in this field of research.”

Rev. H. Blodgett, D.D., veteran Missionary of the American Board in Peking, in accepting a similar honor, says:  “My interest in these studies has been deep and growing.  It is high time that such a society as you represent should be formed.  The study of Comparative Religion has long enough been in the hands of those who hold all religions to be the outcome of the natural powers of the human mind, unaided by a revelation from God.  It is time that those who believe in the revelation from God in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament founded upon the Old, should study the great ethnic religions in the light derived from the Bible.”

Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D., long a Missionary of the Presbyterian Mission in Beyrout, Syria, says in the same connection:  “The great missionary movement of our age has brought us face to face with problems and conflicts which are far more deep and serious than those which confront evangelistic efforts in our own land, and it is of the highest importance that the Church at home should know as fully as possible the peculiar and profound difficulties of work in foreign fields.  These ancient religions of the East are behind intrenchments, and they are prepared to make a desperate resistance.  Those who have never come into close contact with their adherents, and discovered by experience the difficulty of dislodging them and convincing them of the truth of the Gospel, may very properly misunderstand the work of the foreign missionary and wonder at his apparent failure, or at least his slow progress.  But I wonder at the success attained in the foreign field, and consider it far more glorious and remarkable than it is generally accounted to be.  A fuller acquaintance with the strength, and resources, and local eclat, 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]