THE ORIGINS OF PROTESTANTISM 



religions and only one sauce, I should answer : 

 By all means let us have twenty religions, even 

 if we can have but one sauce. In comparison 

 with the inscrutable realities which religion pos- 

 tulates, our most elaborate attempts at theology 

 are so feeble that it is not likely that any given 

 set of opinions can represent more than the 

 tiniest segment of the truth : 



" Our little systems have their day ; 



They have their day and cease to be ; 



They are but broken lights of Thee, 



And Thou, O Lord, art more than they." 



In view of this weakness of reason, when con- 

 fronted with the mighty problems of religion, it 

 behooves each one of us to greet his neighbour's 

 opinions as, perhaps, containing a glimpse of 

 truth which his own have lacked ; not to scoff 

 or frown at them as " different " from his own. 

 If "religious unity" is ever to have any value, 

 it can only be when it is reached as the outcome 

 of the free untrammelled working of countless 

 individual minds. Until it is reached in this 

 way, " religious unity " can mean nothing but 

 " intellectual torpidity where religious questions 

 are concerned ; " and, meanwhile, diversity of 

 opinion is the best guarantee we can have that 

 a healthy intellectual activity is going on. 



In the present paper, however, I propose to 

 examine the desire to enforce " religious unity " 

 by the light of the comparative method ; let us 

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