THE number of religions which have attained stability and permanence in the history of the world is very small. If we leave out of consideration those vague and varying forms of faith and worship which we find among uncivilised and unsettled races, among races ignorant of reading and writing, who have neither a literature, nor laws, nor even hymns and prayers handed down by oral teaching from father to son, from mother to daughter, we see that the number of the real historical religions of mankind amounts to no more than eight. The Semitic races have produced three: the Jewish, the Christian, the Mohammedan; the Aryan, or Indo-European races, an equal number-the Brahman, the Buddhist, and the Parsi. Add to these the two religious systems of China, that of Confucius and Lao-tse, and you have beNEW SERIES. -VOL. XIX., No. 3

fore you what may be called the eight distinct languages or utterances of the faith of mankind from the beginning of the world to the present day; you have before you in broad outlines the religious map of the whole world.

All these religions, however, have a history, a history more deeply interesting than the history of language, of literature, of art, or politics. Religions are not unchangeable; on the contrary, they are always growing and changing; and if they cease to grow and cease to change, they cease to live. Some of these religions stand by themselves, totally independent of all the rest; others are closely united or have influenced each other during various stages of their growth and decay. They must therefore be studied together, if we wish to understand their real character,

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their growth, their decay, and their resuscitations. Thus, Mohammedanism would be unintelligible without Christianity; Christianity without Judaism: and there are similar bonds that hold together the great religions of India and Persia-the faith of the Brahman, the Buddhist, and the Parsi. After a careful study of the origin and growth of these religions, and after a critical examination of the sacred books on which all of them profess to be founded, it has become possible to subject them all to a scientific classification, in the same manner as languages, apparently unconnected and mutually unintelligible, have been scientifically arranged and classified; and by a comparison of those points which all or some of them share in common, as well as by a determination of those which are peculiar to each, a new science has been called into life, a science which concerns us all, and in which all who truly care for religion must sooner or later take their part-the Science of Religion.

Among the various classifications* which have been applied to the religions of the world, there is one that interests us more immediately to-night, I mean the division into Non-Missionary and Missionary religions. This is by no means, as might be supposed, a classification based on an unimportant or merely accidental characteristic; on the contrary, it rests on what is the very heart-blood in every system of hu man faith. Among the six religions of the Aryan and Semitic world, there are three that are opposed to all Missionary enterprise-Judaism, Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism; and three that have a Missionary character from their very beginning-Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity.

The Jews, particularly in ancient times, never thought of spreading their religion. Their religion was to them a treasure, a privilege, a blessing, something to distinguish them, as the chosen people of God, from all the rest of the world. A Jew must be of the seed of Abraham: and when in later times, owing chiefly to political circumstances, the Jews had to admit strangers to some of the privileges of their theocracy, they

* Different systems of classification applied to the religions of the world are discussed in my Introduction to the Science of Religion,' pp. 122

143.

looked upon them, not as souls that had been gained, saved, born again into a new brotherhood, but as strangers, as Proselytes; which means men who have come to them as aliens, not to be trusted, as their saying was, until the twenty-fourth generation.*

A very similar feeling prevented the Brahmans from ever attempting to proselytise those who did not by birth belong to the spiritual aristocracy of their country. Their wish was rather to keep the light to themselves, to repel intruders; they went so far as to punish those who happened to be near enough to hear even the sound of their prayers, or to witness their sacrifices.†

The Parsi, too, does not wish for converts to his religion; he is proud of his faith, as of his blood; and though he believes in the final victory of truth and light, though he says to every man, Be bright as the sun, pure as the moon,' he himself does very little to drive away spiritual darkness from the face of the earth, by letting the light that is within him shine before the world.

But now let us look at the other cluster of religions, at Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. However they may differ from each other in some of their most essential doctrines, this they share in common-they all have faith in themselves, they all have life and vigor, they want to convince, they mean to conquer. From the very earliest dawn of their existence these three religions wer、 missionary: their very founders, or their first apostles, recognised the new duty of spreading the truth, of refuting error, of bringing the whole world to acknowledge the paramount, if not the divine, authority of their doctrines. That is what gives to them all a common expression, and lifts them high above the level of the other religions of the world.

Let us begin with Buddhism. We know, indeed, very little of its origin and earliest growth, for the earliest beginnings

*Proselyto ne fidas usque ad vigesimam quartam generationem.' Jalkut Ruth, f. 163, d. ; Danz, in Meuschen, Nov. Test. ex Talm. illustr.' p. 651.

India, Progress and Condition,' Blue Book presented to Parliament, 1873, p. 99. It is as serted (but the assertion must be taken with reserve), that it is a mistake to suppose that the Hindu religion is not proselytising. Any number of outsiders, so long as they do not interfere with established castes, can form a new caste, and call themselves Hindus, and the Brahmans are always ready to receive all who submit to and pay them.'

of all religions withdraw themselves by necessity from the eye of the historian. But we have something like contemporary evidence of the Great Council, held at Pataliputra, 246 B.C., in which the sacred canon of the Buddhist scriptures was settled, and at the end of which missionaries were chosen and sent forth to preach the new doctrine, not only in India, but far beyond the frontiers of that vast country.* We possess inscriptions containing the edicts of the King who was to Buddhism what Constantine was to Christianity, who broke with the traditions of the old religion of the Brahmans, and recognised the doctrines of Buddha as the state religion of India. We possess the description of that Buddhist Council, which was to India what the Council of Nicæa, 570 years later, was to Europe; and we can still read there the simple story, how the chief Elder who had presided over the Council, an old man, too weak to travel by land, and carried from his hermitage to the Council in a boat --how that man, when the Council was over, began to reflect on the future, and found that the time had come to establish the religion of Buddha in foreign countries. He therefore dispatched some of the most eminent priests to Cashmere, Cabul, and farther west, to the colonies founded by the Greeks in Bactria, to Alexandria on the Caucasus, and other cities. He sent others Northward to Nepaul, and to the inhabited portions of the Himalayan mountains. Another mission proceeded to the Dekhan, to the people of Mysore, to the Mahrattas, perhaps to Goa; nay, even Birma and Ceylon are mentioned as among the earliest missionary stations of Buddhist priests. We still possess accounts of their manner of preaching. When threatened by infuriated crowds, one of those Buddhist missionaries said calmly, 'Even if the Gods were united with men, they would not frighten me away.' And when he had brought the people to listen, he dismissed them with the simple prayer, 'Do not hereafter give way to pride and anger; care for the happiness of all living beings, and abstain from violence. Extend your goodwill to all mankind; let there be peace among the dwellers on

earth.'

No doubt, the accounts of the successes

Cf. Mahavanso, cap. 5. Cf. Mahavanso, cap. 12.

achieved by those early missionaries are exaggerated, and their fights with snakes and dragons and evil spirits remind us sometimes of the legendary accounts of the achievements of such men as St. Patrick in Ireland, or St. Boniface in Germany. But the fact that missionaries were sent out to convert the world seems beyond the reach of doubt;* and this fact represents to us at that time a new thought, new, not only in the history of India, but in the history of the whole world. The recognition of a duty to preach the truth to every man, woman, and child, was an idea opposed to the deepest instincts of Brahmanism; and when, at the end of the chapter on the first missions, we read the simple words of the old chronicler, Who would demur, if the salvation of the world is at stake?' we feel at once that we move in a new world, we see the dawn of a new day, the opening of vaster horizons-we feel, for the first time in the history of the world, the beating of the great heart of humanity.

The Korán breathes a different spirit; it does not invite, it rather compels the world to come in. Yet there are passages, particularly in the earlier portions, which show that Mohammed, too, had realised the idea of humanity, and of a religion of humanity; nay, that at first he wished to unite his own religion with that of the Jews and Christians, comprehending all under the common name of Islām. Islām meant originally humility or devotion; and all who humbled themselves before God, and were filled with real reverence, were called Moslim. The Islām,' says Mohammed, 'is the true worship of God. When men dispute with you say, "I am a Moslim." Ask those who have sacred books, and ask the heathen: “Are you a Moslim ?" If they are, they are on the right path; but if they turn away, then you have no other task but to deliver the message, to preach to them the Islām.'†

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* In some of the places mentioned by the Chronicle' as among the earliest stations of Buddhist missions, relics have been discovered

containing the names of the very missionaries mentioned by the Chronicle.' See Koeppen, 'Die Religion des Buddha,' p. 188.

Islam is the verbal noun, and Moslim the participle of the same root which also yields Salām, peace, and salim and salym, whole, honest. Islam means, therefore, to satisfy or pacify by forbearance; it also means simply subjection.' Sprenger, Mohammad,' i. p. 69; iii. 486.

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As to our own religion, its very soul is missionary, progressive, world-embracing; it would cease to exist if it ceased to be missionary-if it disregarded the parting words of its Founder: Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things I have commanded; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.'

It is this missionary character, peculiar to these three religions, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, which binds them together, and lifts them to a higher sphere. Their differences, no doubt, are great; on some points they are opposed to each other like day and night. But they could not be what they are, they could not have achieved what they have achieved, unless the spirit of truth and the spirit of love had been alive in the hearts of their founders, their first messengers, and missionaries.

The spirit of truth is the life-spring of all religion, and where it exists it must manifest itself, it must plead, it must persuade, it must convince and convert. Missionary work, however, in the usual sense of the word, is only one manifestation of that spirit; for the same spirit which fills the heart of the missionary with daring abroad, gives courage also to the preacher at home, bearing witness to the truth that is within him. The religions which can boast of missionaries who left the old home of their childhood, and parted with parents and friends-never to meet again in this life-who went into the wilderness, willing to spend a life of toil among strangers, ready, if need be, to lay down their life as witnesses to the truth, as martyrs for the glory of God-the same religions are rich also in those honest and intrepid inquirers who, at the bidding of the same spirit of truth, were ready to leave behind them the cherished creed of their childhood, to separate from the friends they loved best, to stand alone among men that shrug their shoulders, and ask 'What is truth?' and to bear in silence a martyrdom more galling often than death itself. There are men who say that, if they held the whole truth in their hand, they would not open one finger. Such men know little of the working of the spirit of truth, of the true missionary spirit. As long as there is doubt and darkness and anxiety in the

soul of an inquirer, reticence may be his natural attitude. But when once doubt has yielded to certainty, darkness to light, anxiety to joy, the rays of truth will burst forth; and to close our hand or to shut our lips, would be as impossible as for the petals of a flower to shut themselves against the summons of the sun of spring.

What is there in this short life that should seal our lips? What should we wait for, if we are not to speak here and now? There is missionary work at home as much as abroad; there are thousands waiting to listen, if one man will but speak the truth, and nothing but the truth; there are thousands starving, because they cannot find that food which is convenient for them.

And even if the spirit of truth might be chained down by fear or prudence, the spirit of love would never yield. Once recognise the common brotherhood of mankind, not as a name or a theory, but as a real bond, as a bond more binding, more lasting than the bonds of family, caste, and race, and the questions, Why should I open my hand? why should I open my heart? why should I speak to my brother? will never be asked again. Is it not far better to speak than to walk through life silent, unknown, unknowing? Has any one of us ever spoken to his friend, and opened to him his inmost soul, and been answered with harshness or repelled with scorn? Has any one of us, be he priest or layman, ever listened to the honest questionings of a truth-loving soul, without feeling his own soul filled with love? aye, without feeling humbled by the very honesty of a brother's confession?

If we would but confess, friend to friend, if we would be but honest, man to man, we should not want confessors or confessionals.

If our doubts and difficulties are selfmade, if they can be removed by wiser and better men, why not give to our brother the opportunity of helping us? But if our difficulties are not self-made, if they are not due either to ignorance or presumption, is it not even then better for us to know that we are all carrying the same burden, the common burden of humanity, if haply we may find, that for the heavy laden there is but one who can give them rest?

There may be times when silence is gold, and speech silver but there are