that, while they are
ethnic or local, Christianity is catholic or universal; that, while they
are defective, possessing some truths and wanting others, Christianity
possesses all; and that, while they are stationary, Christianity is
progressive; it will not then be necessary to discuss in what sense it is
a supernatural religion. Such a survey will show that it is adapted to the
nature of man. When we see adaptation we naturally infer design. If
Christianity appears, after a full comparison with other religions, to be
the one and only religion which is perfectly adapted to man, it will be
impossible to doubt that it was designed by God to be the religion of our
race; that it is the providential religion sent by God to man, its truth
God's truth its way the way to God and to heaven.

Sec. 6. It will show that, while most of the Religions of the World are
Ethnic, or the Religions of Races, Christianity is Catholic, or adapted to
become the Religion of all Races.

By ethnic religions we mean those religions, each of which has always been
confined within the boundaries of a particular race or family of mankind,
and has never made proselytes or converts, except accidentally, outside of
it. By catholic religions we mean those which have shown the desire and
power of passing over these limits, and becoming the religion of a
considerable number of persons belonging to different races.

Now we are met at once with the striking and obvious fact, that most of
the religions of the world are evidently religions limited in some way to
particular races or nations. They are, as we have said, _ethnic_. We use
this Greek word rather than its Latin equivalent, _gentile_, because
_gentile_, though meaning literally "of, or belonging to, a race," has
acquired a special sense from its New Testament use as meaning all who are
not Jews. The word "ethnic" remains pure from any such secondary or
acquired meaning, and signifies simply _that which belongs to a race_.

The science of ethnology is a modern one, and is still in the process of
formation. Some of its conclusions, however, may be considered as
established. It has forever set aside Blumenbach's old classification of
mankind into the Caucasian and four other varieties, and has given us,
instead, a division of the largest part of mankind into Indo-European,
Semitic, and Turanian families, leaving a considerable penumbra outside as
yet unclassified.

That mankind is so divided int