8. It will show that Ethnic Religions are arrested, but that
Christianity is steadily progressive.

Sec. 1. Object of the present Work.

The present work is what the Germans call a _Versuch_, and the English an
Essay, or attempt. It is an attempt to compare the great religions of the
world with each other. When completed, this comparison ought to show what
each is, what it contains, wherein it resembles the others, wherein it
differs from the others; its origin and development, its place in
universal history; its positive and negative qualities, its truths and
errors, and its influence, past, present, or future, on the welfare of
mankind. For everything becomes more clear by comparison We can never
understand the nature of a phenomenon when we contemplate it by itself, as
well as when we look at it in its relations to other phenomena of the same
kind. The qualities of each become more clear in contrast with those of
the others. By comparing together, therefore, the religions of mankind,
to see wherein they agree and wherein they differ, we are able to perceive
with greater accuracy what each is. The first problem in Comparative
Theology is therefore analytical, being to distinguish each religion from
the rest. We compare them to see wherein they agree and wherein they
differ. But the next problem in Comparative Theology is synthetical, and
considers the adaptation of each system to every other, to determine its
place, use, and value, in reference to universal or absolute religion. It
must, therefore, examine the different religions to find wherein each is
complete or defective, true or false; how each may supply the defects of
the other or prepare the way for a better; how each religion acts on the
race which receives it, is adapted to that race, and to the region of the
earth which it inhabits. In this department, therefore, it connects itself
with Comparative Geography, with universal history, and with ethics.
Finally, this department of Comparative Theology shows the relation of
each partial religion to human civilization, and observes how each
religion of the world is a step in the progress of humanity. It shows that
both the positive and negative side of a religion make it a preparation
for a higher religion, and that the universal religion must root itself in
the decaying soil of partial religions. And in this sense Comparative
Theology becomes the science of missions.

Such a work as this is evid