is redemptive work of God, turned
suddenly to her neighbor and said, "Didn't I tell you that there ought
to be a God like that?"

We shall look in vain through the scriptures of the other religions for
any such conception of the relation of God to men. Men must save
themselves by their own endeavors; they must obey or they will suffer;
perchance by their own suffering they may be purified: but that God
should stoop to earth and stand by the side of sinning and suffering
man, and save him by suffering with him, is a truth to which none of
them has risen.

3. Christianity, above all other faiths, is the religion of hope. It
not only kindles in our hearts the hope of overcoming the sin which is
our worst enemy, but it conquers in our hearts the fear of death and
opens up to us the prospect of unending and glorious future life, in the
society of those most dear to us.

Mohammedanism also permits us to hope for future blessedness, albeit its
representations of the life to come are not always such as to purify and
elevate our thoughts. Buddhism, on the contrary, though it tells us that
we may be reborn many times, assures us that each reappearance in this
world will be attended with suffering and struggle; from which, if we
continue to walk in the true path, striving more and more to conquer our
desires, we may at length hope to be delivered; but the blessedness
which comes at the end of all this struggle is simply forgetfulness: we
shall lose our identity and be remerged in that fount of Being from
which at first we came. Existence is the primal evil: to get rid of
ourselves is what we are to strive for; salvation is our disappearance
out of life, our absorption in the ocean of unconsciousness. This is the
best that Buddhism has to offer us. Not many of us, I dare say, will
wish to exchange for this the Christian hope.

There are many other characteristics of the Christian faith on which it
would be interesting to reflect, but these three great elements are
sufficient to enable us to form our judgment as to its comparative
value. No religion which in these particulars is inferior can ever draw
the world away from the leadership of Jesus Christ. And it ought to be
clear to all who can comprehend the needs of human nature that while
these other faiths, in view of the great services they have rendered to
mankind, are not to be despised; and while it is probable that the
world, until the end of it, will be indebted to them f