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 Religions, following out the Divine audacity of Him who, so often, confronting worldly wisdom and priestly cunning, said to his disciples, “Think not, be not anxious, take no heed, be careful for nothing—­only for love and truth.  I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”

Of all places therefore, the study of comparative religion is most appropriate in a Christian theological seminary.  We must know how our fellow-men think and believe, in order to help them.  It is our duty to discover the pathways of approach to their minds and hearts.  We must show them, as our brethren and children of the same Heavenly Father, the common ground on which we all stand.  We must point them to the greater truth in the Bible and in Christ Jesus, and demonstrate wherein both the divinely inspired library and the truth written in a divine-human life fulfil that which is lacking in their books and masters.

To know just how to do this is knowledge to be coveted as a most excellent gift.  An understanding of the religion of our fellow-men is good, both for him who goes as a missionary and for him who at home prays, “Thy kingdom come.”

The theological seminary, which begins the systematic and sympathetic study of Comparative Religion and fills the chair with a professor who has a vital as well as academic interest in the welfare of his fellow-men who as yet know not Jesus as Christ and Lord, is sure to lead in effective missionary work.  The students thus equipped will be furnished as none others are, to begin at once the campaign of help and warfare of love.

It may be that insight into and sympathy with the struggles of men who are groping after God, if haply they may find him, will shorten the polemic sword of the professional converter whose only purpose is destructive hostility without tactics or strategy, or whose chief idea of missionary success is in statistics, in blackening the character of “the heathen,” in sensational letters for home consumption and reports properly cooked and served for the secretarial and sectarian palates.  Yet, if true in history, Greek, Roman, Japanese, it is also true in the missionary wars, that “the race that shortens its weapons lengthens its boundaries."[6]