RELIGIONS OF THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS.
ALL false religions are more or less defective in the following respects: They ignore morals as an essential part of religion, as in the rude polytheisms of Africa and Asia; or they depreciate them to a secondary or inferior position by the prominence given to ritual or ceremony, as in Hinduism; or they give them a high place in sentiment, and ignore them in practise, from various causes, as in Buddhism; or they adopt a partial code of morals, and weaken even it by false principles and sentiments, as in Mohammedanism. The poverty, unrest, and suffering prevalent in every non-Christian country are indescribable.—E. Storrow. Mohammedanism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, and Confucianism are the principal false faiths with which Christianity has to contend. They have many characteristics in common, the most prominent of which is that they offer their followers salvation by works alone. They are all alike religions of fear. They are only to a slight degree ethical. They are destitute of the missionary spirit. They do not furnish a sufficient basis of general integrity and public confidence for the carrying out of extended schemes, benevolent or financial, or for the administration of justice. They make on their followers large demands of time and money, and give them back practically nothing. They have fallen far below the standard which they themselves set up in the beginning. The best forms of heathen religion, as they now stand, are lifeless and impotent.—Christian Missions.