1 80 E VOL UTION AND NA TUEAL THEOL G Y. 



the excellences of all others, and respond to 

 the varying religious instincts and needs of 

 all men a religion pure and philanthropic as 

 Christianity or Buddhism, as profound as Brah- 

 manism, as fervent as Islam, and as lovely as the 

 Grecian faith ; and which, so far from being 

 opposed to Science, shall rest upon foundations 

 in part at least accessible to scientific demon- 

 stration. The time may not be yet, but it will 

 surely come ; and the highest intelligence of all 

 civilised nations is already slowly and surely 

 converging towards this point. 



It has been well said that an argument is 

 not answered till answered at its best ; and 

 in highly civilised countries like India, the 

 missionaries rarely came in contact with the real 

 principles of the religions which they would 

 controvert, but merely with exoteric corrup- 

 tions, which lead them to denounce the religions 

 themselves as hopelessly corrupt. The know- 

 ledge of the real doctrines of religions which 

 are professed in countries where only the higher 

 classes are educated, is frequently confined to 

 these, being sometimes unavoidably, and some- 

 times purposely concealed from all but the 

 initiated. In such cases, it is obvious that con- 



