In considering some of the reasons which may be urged for the study of false systems, we will first proceed from the standpoint of the candidate for the work of missions.  And here there is a broad and general reason which seems too obvious to require much argument.  The skilful general or the civil engineer is supposed, of course, to survey the field of contemplated operations ere he enters upon his work.  The late Dr. Duff, in urging the importance of a thorough understanding of the systems which a missionary expects to encounter, illustrated his point by a reference to the great Akbar, who before entering upon the conquest of India, twice visited the country in disguise, that he might gain a complete knowledge of its topography, its strongholds, and its points of weakness, and the best methods of attack.

While all religious teachers must understand their tasks, the need of special preparation is particularly urgent in the foreign missionary, owing to his change of environment.  Many ideas and methods to which he has been trained, and which would serve him well among a people of his own race, might be wholly out of place in India or China, Ram Chandra Bose, M.A.—­himself a converted Brahman—­has treated with great discrimination the argument frequently used, that the missionary “need only to proclaim the Glad Tidings.”  He says:  “That the simple story of Christ and him crucified is, after all, the truth on which the regeneration of the Christian and the non-Christian lands must hang, no one will deny.  This story, ever fresh, is inherently fitted to touch the dead heart into life, and to infuse vitality into effete nationalities and dead civilizations.  But a great deal of rubbish has to be removed in heathen lands, ere its legitimate consequences can be realized.  And a patient, persistent study of the false religions, and the complicated systems of philosophy associated with them, enables the missionary to throw out of the way those heaps of prejudices and errors which make it impossible for the story of the cross to reach and influence the heart."[3] It has been very wisely said that “any fragment of truth which lies in a heathen mind unacknowledged is an insuperable barrier against conviction:  recognized and used, it might prove a help; neglected and ignored, it is insurmountable."[4]

The late Dr. Mullens learned by careful observation, that the intellectual power of the Hindus had been so warped by false reasoning, that “they could scarcely understand how, when two principles are contradictory, one must be given up as false.  They are prepared to receive both sides of a contradiction as true, and they feel at liberty to adopt that which seems the most comfortable.  And nothing but a full exposure of evil, with a clear statement of the antagonistic truth, will suffice to awaken so perverted an intellect."[5]