th, which is the Redeemer and Savior, the Messiah and
the King of Glory."[O]

It is our happiness to live in a time when all religions are at last
outgrowing their mythologies, and emancipated men are stretching out
their hands to share together "the luxury of a religion that does not
degrade." The progressive Brahmoes of India, the Jewish leaders in
America, the Free Religious Association among ourselves, are teaching
essentially the same principles, seeking the same ends. The Jewish
congregations in Baltimore were the first to contribute for the
education of the freedmen; the Buddhist Temple, in San Francisco, was
the first edifice of that city draped in mourning after the murder of
President Lincoln; the Parsees of the East sent contributions to the
Sanitary Commission. The great religions of the world are but larger
sects; they come together, like the lesser sects, for works of
benevolence; they share the same aspirations, and every step in the
progress of each brings it nearer to all the rest. For us, the door
out of superstition and sin may be called Christianity; that is an
historical name only, the accident of a birthplace. But other nations
find other outlets; they must pass through their own doors, not
through ours; and all will come at last upon the broad ground of God's
providing, which bears no man's name. The reign of heaven on earth
will not be called the Kingdom of Christ nor of Buddha,--it will be
called the Church of God, or the Commonwealth of Man. I do not wish to
belong to a religion only, but to _the_ religion; it must not include
less than the piety of the world.

If one insists on being exclusive, where shall he find a home? What
hold has any Protestant sect among us on a thoughtful mind? They are
too little, too new, too inconsistent, too feeble. What are these
children of a day compared with that magnificent Church of Rome, which
counts its years by centuries, and its votaries by millions, and its
martyrs by myriads; with kings for confessors and nations for
converts; carrying to all the earth one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
and claiming for itself no less title than the Catholic, the
Universal? Yet in conversing with Catholics one is again repelled by
the extreme juvenility, and modernness, and scanty numbers of their
church. It is the superb elder brother of our little sects, doubtless,
and seems to have most of the family fortune. But the whole fortune
is so small! and even the elder bro