Sec. 1.  General Results of this Survey.

We have now examined, as fully as our limits would allow, ten of the chief religions which have enlisted the faith of mankind.  We are prepared to ask, in conclusion, what they teach us in regard to the prospects of Christianity, and the religious future of our race.

First, this survey must have impressed on every mind the fact that man is eminently a religious being.  We have found religion to be his supreme and engrossing interest on every continent, in every millennium of historic time, and in every stage of human civilization.  In some periods men are found as hunters, as shepherds, as nomads, in others they are living associated in cities, but in all these conditions they have their religion.  The tendency to worship some superhuman power is universal.

The opinion of the positivist school, that man passes from a theological stage to one of metaphysics, and from that to one of science, from which later and higher epoch both theology and philosophy are excluded, is not in accordance with the facts we have been observing.  Science and art, in Egypt, went hand in hand with theology, during thousands of years.  Science in Greece preceded the latest forms of metaphysics, and both Greek science and Greek philosophy were the preparation for Christian faith.  In India the Sankhya philosophy was the preparation for the Buddhist religion.  Theology and religion to-day, instead of disappearing in science, are as vigorous as ever.  Science, philosophy, and theology are all advancing together, a noble sisterhood of thought.  And, looking at facts, we may ask, In what age or time was religion more of a living force, acting on human affairs, than it is at present?  To believe in things not seen, to worship a power above visible nature, to look forward to an unknown future, this is natural to man.

In the United States there is no established religion, yet in no country in the world is more interest taken in religion than with us.  In the Protestant denominations it has dispensed with the gorgeous and imposing ritual, which is so attractive to the common mind, and depends mainly on the interest of the word of truth.  Yet the Protestant denominations make converts, build churches, and support their clergy with an ardor seemingly undiminished by the progress of science.  There are no symptoms that man is losing his interest in religion in consequence of his increasing knowledge of nature and its laws.

Secondly, we have seen that these religions vary exceedingly from each other in their substance and in their forms.  They have a great deal in common, but a great deal that is different.  Mr. Wentworth Higginson,[403] in an excellent lecture, much of which has our cordial assent, says, “Every race believes in a Creator and Governor of the world, in whom devout souls recognize a Father also.”  But Buddhism, the most extensive religion on the surface of the earth, explicitly denies