differences of which are
at least as conspicuous as their similarity. In Italy Christianity
appears to be a system of local deities, each village worshipping its
own Madonna or saint. In Holland worship consists almost entirely of
preaching. In other countries the ritual and the intellectual
elements of religion are blended in varying proportions; and the
former heathenism of each land is also to be traced in many a popular
observance and belief. So great is the variety of the religions of
Europe, not to mention that of the negroes or the Shakers of America,
that many have doubted whether they ought all to be considered as
branches of one faith, or whether they would not more fitly be
regarded as so many national religions which have all alike connected
themselves with Christianity. Against this there is to be urged in
the first place that as a matter of history they are all undoubtedly
offshoots of the religion of Jesus. It may also be urged that
wherever the name of Jesus is named, his ideas must to some extent be
present, however much they are obscured and prevented from operating
by lower modes of view. The Christianity of no country ought to be
judged by the attitude of its most ignorant or even of its average
adherents; and in every land where Christianity prevails, an
influence connected with religion is at work, which makes for the
emancipation and elevation of the human person, and for the awakening
of the manifold energies of human nature. This, as we saw, is the
immediate and native tendency of the religion of Jesus; it opens the
prison doors to them that are bound; it communicates by its inner
encouragement an energy which makes the infirm forget their
weaknesses, it fills the heart with hope and opens up new views of
what man can do and can become. It is this that makes it the one
truly universal religion. Islam, it is true, has also proved its
power to live in many lands, and Buddhism has spread over half of
Asia. But Buddhism is not a full religion, it does not tend to action
but to passivity, and affords no help to progress. Islam, on the
other hand, is a yoke rather than an inspiration; it is inwardly
hostile to freedom, and is incapable of aiding in higher moral
development. Christianity has a message to which men become always
more willing to respond as they rise in the scale of civilisation; it
has proved its power to enter into the lives of various nations, and
to adapt itself to their circumstance