Another distinction between ethnic and catholic religions is the greater morality and humanity in the latter. In ethnic religions there is very little connection between the service of God and that of man. Religion, in them, is divorced from morality. But in the catholic religions the opposite tendency is very apparent, though in different degrees, some of them showing much more of it than others.

Thus in the mythology of Greece, as found in its poets, there is no evidence that the gods required or expected righteousness and mercy from their votaries. Not possessing these qualities themselves, they could hardly demand them of others. Capricious, willful, jealous, envious, revengeful, licentious, as they are represented to be by the poets, having their favorites in whom they take an interest, but indifferent to the general welfare of mankind; interfering only occasionally in human affairs, usually from some personal motive, there is little moral influence to be derived from their worship.

The religion of Rome was essentially a state religion, concerning itself very slightly with the virtues of private life. That of Scandinavia made salvation to depend on courage: the brave soldier would go to Valhalla, and the rest of the world to Nifelheim, or the under world. Of the essentially moral defects of Brahmanism, and the

exceptional moral merits in this regard of the religion of ancient Egypt, we will speak hereafter. It is certain, however, that religion and morality are much more closely united in the prophetic or catholic religions than in the ethnic. Moses and the Prophets, Mohammed, Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius, all inculcate a serious personal law of goodness. This connection reaches its full harmony in Christ's placing together in one formula the duty of love to God and love to man, making these two forms of the same essential love.

All of these systems have their roots, however, in humanity and its needs; all have contributed to the education of man, and all, as we may hope, are finally to be reconciled and harmonized in that ultimate synthesis of faith, the universal religion. It will be one object of this work to endeavor to see how this universal religion shall arrive; whether by a further evolution of existing religions till they meet on a common plane, or by the substitution of some new faith wholly different from them all.

I shall accomplish what I wish to do in this book if I can bring myself and my readers into fuller sympathy with all forms of human nature and all shades of human belief. Without losing sight of the difference between Truth and Error, we may sympathize with all our fellow-men who

are feeling after God. We shall have the spirit described by the poet when he speaks of the

"Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,

But looks through Nature up to Nature's God;
Pursues that chain which links the immense design,
Joins Heaven and Earth, joins Mortal and Divine.
Sees that no being any bliss can know

But touches some above, and some below;

And knows where Faith, Law, Morals, all began,

All end, in love to God and love to man.

For him alone, Hope leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on the soul.

Grasps the whole world of Reason, Life, and Sense
In one close system of Benevolence.

Wide and more wide, the o'erflowing of the mind
Takes every creature in, of every kind.
Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest,
And heaven beholds its image in his breast."

CHAPTER II.

SPECIAL TYPES. -LAW OF DEVELOPMENT.

§ 1. Every Religion has its own Special Type. Two false Theories. § 2. Race and Nationality. § 3. Increased knowledge of Ethnic Religions during the last Century. § 4. Unity and Persistence of Type in Each Religion. § 5. The Typical ideas of Brahmanism, Buddhism, the Zend-Avesta, and the Religion of Egypt. § 6. Corruptions and Degradations of each Religion foreign to its original Type. § 7. Affirmations true; Negations false. § 8. Simplistic Systems are Short-Lived. Coördinated antagonisms necessary for continued Development.

§1. Each Religion has its own Special Type. Two false

THE

Theories.

HE subject of this chapter will be the special character, or type of each religion; that which distinguishes it from every other, and enables it to do a special work, different from every other; that which constitutes its power and its weakness, makes it acceptable to some and distasteful to others, develops a polar force which attracts or repels; its one special note which allots it a place in the great harmony of the coming universal religion of mankind.

I wish to show that each religion has this type of its own, to which it adheres as long as it lives and acts effectually, and also how we determine what this type is.

Each religion has a type of its own, to which it adheres during its whole growth and development.

Two views are opposed to this: (1.) The old Christian theological division, which put in one category all gentile or ethnic religions, calling them pagan, heathen, idolatries, superstitions. Because of this view no attempt was made to discover the character of each, as they were accounted equally false and worthy only of contempt. They were regarded, not as natural growths of the religious nature, but as monstrous deformities, proceeding from sin, and containing only error. (2.) In the reaction from this extreme some minds have gone to the opposite extreme. The reaction from the view which made all systems of faith outside of Christendom equally false, has produced the doctrine that they are all equally true. Similarities and resemblances have been found, and diversities ignored. The ethnic scriptures have been searched for parallels; these have been put side by side, and the conclusion has been easily drawn that all these faiths are essentially one,possibly some a little better than others, but all teaching the same essential truths concerning God and nature, man