The Religions of Japan | Page 7

investigations, formulated the principles, collected the materials and
reared the already splendid fabric of the science of Comparative
Religion, because the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify this.
Jesus bade his disciples search, inquire, discern and compare. Paul, the
greatest of the apostolic Christian college, taught: "Prove all things;
hold fast that which is good." In our day one of Christ's loving
followers[3] expressed the spirit of her Master in her favorite motto,
"Truth for authority, not authority for truth." Well says Dr. James
Legge, a prince among scholars, and translator of the Chinese classics,
who has added several portly volumes to Professor Max Müller's series
of the "Sacred Books of the East," whose face to-day is bronzed and
whose hair is whitened by fifty years of service in southern China
where with his own hands he baptized six hundred Chinamen:[4]
The more that a man possesses the Christian spirit, and is governed by
Christian principle, the more anxious will he be to do justice to every
other system of religion, and to hold his own without taint or fetter of
bigotry.[5]
It was Christianity that, in a country where the religion of Jesus has
fullest liberty, called the Parliament of Religions, and this for reasons

clearly manifest. Only Christians had and have the requisites of success,
viz.: sufficient interest in other men and religions; the necessary unity
of faith and purpose; and above all, the brave and bold disregard of the
consequences. Christianity calls the Parliament of Religions, following
out the Divine audacity of Him who, so often, confronting worldly
wisdom and priestly cunning, said to his disciples, "Think not, be not
anxious, take no heed, be careful for nothing--only for love and truth. I
am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
Of all places therefore, the study of comparative religion is most
appropriate in a Christian theological seminary. We must know how
our fellow-men think and believe, in order to help them. It is our duty
to discover the pathways of approach to their minds and hearts. We
must show them, as our brethren and children of the same Heavenly
Father, the common ground on which we all stand. We must point them
to the greater truth in the Bible and in Christ Jesus, and demonstrate
wherein both the divinely inspired library and the truth written in a
divine-human life fulfil that which is lacking in their books and
masters.
To know just how to do this is knowledge to be coveted as a most
excellent gift. An understanding of the religion of our fellow-men is
good, both for him who goes as a missionary and for him who at home
prays, "Thy kingdom come."
The theological seminary, which begins the systematic and sympathetic
study of Comparative Religion and fills the chair with a professor who
has a vital as well as academic interest in the welfare of his fellow-men
who as yet know not Jesus as Christ and Lord, is sure to lead in
effective missionary work. The students thus equipped will be
furnished as none others are, to begin at once the campaign of help and
warfare of love.
It may be that insight into and sympathy with the struggles of men who
are groping after God, if haply they may find him, will shorten the
polemic sword of the professional converter whose only purpose is
destructive hostility without tactics or strategy, or whose chief idea of
missionary success is in statistics, in blackening the character of "the

heathen," in sensational letters for home consumption and reports
properly cooked and served for the secretarial and sectarian palates. Yet,
if true in history, Greek, Roman, Japanese, it is also true in the
missionary wars, that "the race that shortens its weapons lengthens its
boundaries."[6]
Apart from the wit or the measure of truth in this sentence quoted, it is
a matter of truth in the generalizations of fact that the figure of the
"sword of the spirit, which is the word of God," used by Paul, and also
the figure of the "word of God, living and active, sharper than any
two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of the soul and
spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and
intents of the heart," of the writer to the Hebrews, had for their original
in iron the victorious gladium of the Roman legionary--a weapon both
short and sharp. We may learn from this substance of fact behind the
shadow of the figure a lesson for our instant application. The
disciplined Romans scorned the long blades of the barbarians, whose
valor so often impetuous was also impotent against discipline. The
Romans measured their blades by inches, not by feet. For ages the
Japanese sword has been famed for its temper