lete, a constancy as firm, a magnanimity as sublime, a loyalty as
uncompromising, as those which bore witness to the character of that
immortal band which stands identified with this Divine Revelation--this
latest and most compelling manifestation of the love and the omnipotence
of the Almighty!

Contrast with Religions of the Past

We may vainly search in the records of the earliest beginnings of any of
the recognized religions of the past for episodes as thrilling in their
details, or as far-reaching in their consequences, as those that illumine
the pages of the history of this Faith. The almost incredible
circumstances attending the martyrdom of that youthful Prince of Glory;
the forces of barbaric repression which this tragedy subsequently
released; the manifestations of unsurpassed heroism to which it gave rise;
the exhortations and warnings which have streamed from the pen of the
Divine Prisoner in His Epistles to the potentates of the Church and the
monarchs and rulers of the world; the undaunted loyalty with which our
brethren are battling in Muslim countries with the forces of religious
orthodoxy--these may be reckoned as the most outstanding features of what
the world will come to recognize as the greatest drama in the world's
spiritual history.

I need not recall, in this connection, the unfortunate episodes that have,
admittedly, and to a very great extent, marred the early history of both
Judaism and Islam. Nor is it necessary to stress the damaging effect of
the excesses, the rivalries and divisions, the fanatical outbursts and
acts of ingratitude that are associated with the early development of the
people of Israel and with the militant career of the ruthless pioneers of
the Faith of Muhammad.

It would be sufficient for my purpose to call attention to the great
number of those who, in the first two centuries of the Christian era,
"purchased an ignominious life by betraying the holy Scriptures into the
hands of the infidels," the scandalous conduct of those bishops who were
thereby branded as traitors, the discord of the African Church, the
gradual infiltration into Christian doctrine of the principles of the
Mithraic cult, of the Alexandrian school of thought, of the precepts of
Zoroastrianism and of Grecian philosophy, and the adoption by the churches
of Greece and of Asia of the institutions of provincial synods of a model
which they borrowed from the representative councils of their respec