forgiveness,
nor patience, nor peace, nor equality, nor education, nor missionary
effort, nor prayer, nor honesty, nor the sentiment of brotherhood, nor
reverence for woman, nor the spirit of humility, nor the fact of
martyrdom, nor any other good thing, is monopolized by any one or any
half dozen forms of faith. All religions recognize, more or less
distinctly, these principles; all do something to exemplify, something
to dishonor them. Travelers find virtue in a seeming minority in all
other countries, and forget that they have left it in a minority at
home. A Hindoo girl, astonished at the humanity of a British officer
toward her father, declared her surprise that any one could display so
much kindness who did not believe in the god Vishnu. Gladwin, in his
"Persian Classics," narrates a scene which occurred in his presence
between a Jew and a Mohammedan. The Mohammedan said in wrath, "If this
deed of conveyance is not authentic, may God cause me to die a Jew."
The Jew said, "I make my oath on the Pentateuch, and if I swear
falsely I am a Mohammedan like you."

What religion stands highest in moral results if not Christianity? Yet
the slave-trader belongs to Christendom as well as the saint. If we
say that Christendom was not truly represented by the slaves in the
hold of John Newton's slave-ship, but only by the prayers which he
read every day, as he narrates, in the cabin,--then we must admit that
Buddhism is not to be judged merely by the prostrations before Fo, but
by the learning of its lamaseries and the beneficence of its people.
The reformed Brahmoes of India complain that Christian nations force
alcoholic drinks on their nation, despite their efforts; and the
greater humanity of Hindoos towards animals has been, according to Dr.
Hedge, a serious embarrassment to our missionaries. So men interrupt
the missionaries in China, according to Coffin's late book, by asking
them why, if their doctrines be true, Christian nations forced opium
on an unwilling emperor, who refused to the last to receive money from
the traffic? What a history has been our treatment of the American
Indians? "Instead of virtues," said Cadwallader Colden, writing as
early as 1727, "we have taught them vices that they were entirely free
from before that time." The delegation from the Society of Friends
reported last year that an Indian chief brought a young Indian before
a white commissioner to give evidence, and the commissioner hesitated