MUSEUMS AND RELIGION. The last generations of the twentieth century saw a huge increase in the number of museums worldwide; one estimate suggests ten thousand in 1950 and ten times that number fifty years later. In the more developed countries of the world they took on a dramatic new importance and public recognition. In many of the new museums the emphasis has been on attracting new visitors and offering them both entertainment and education rather than on scholarship and on their collections. So far, though, most have shown little interest in religion.

The first two great modern museums were perhaps the British Museum in London and the Museé du Louvre in Paris. The first was formed in 1759 from the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, who described it as "tending many ways to the manifestation of the glory of God [and] the confutation of atheism and...