Science Christianity and Modern Civilisation 339 



The case of religion appears to me to be parallel to those of 

 science and of polity. I remember being much struck nearly 

 twenty years ago by the confirmation of this view afforded by 

 an article contributed to the Hibbert Journal of 1905 by a dis- 

 tinguished Japanese, Mr. Anesaki, who, though not himself a 

 Christian, admitted that the religion of the future must be Christian, 

 even though, having been profoundly modified by the accession 

 of the Buddhist tradition, it might be in consequence very different 

 from the Christianity of to-day. Probably even among those who 

 look forward to the evolution of a universal religion which, owing 

 to the abandonment of the distinctive dogmas of traditional 

 Christianity, might seem no more like it than like others of the 

 great historical religions at present existing, many would, notwith- 

 standing, allow that they would expect this religion of the future 

 to be, as an institution, and also in its modes of Worship and 

 in the general framework of its theology, continuous rather 

 with Christianity than with any of the faiths which are now 

 its rivals. 



3. The Historical Element in Christianity 



Now this prerogative position among the world's religions, as 

 their historical centre, Christianity owes in great part to the peculiar 

 imp6rtance attached by Christians, as compared with followers of 

 other faiths, to the historical element in its doctrines. At the same 

 time, to the very same characteristic of Christianity is due the fact 

 that it is less readily universalised, not only than Hinduism with 

 its characteristic indifference to history as mere appearance, but 

 than Buddhism, which, despite its attachment to a historical per- 

 sonality, is rooted in the same unhistorical view of the world, and 

 even than the faiths more closely akin by descent to itself; than 

 Judaism, the more conservative offspring of its own parent religion, 

 and than the more remotely related system of Islam. For, if 

 Judaism can pass the bounds of the sacred people, it must also be 

 able to dispense with the ritual law ; and its historical element 

 would be reduced to the acknowledgment (in which Christians 

 could join) that Israel has been, in the words of Athanasius, " a 

 school of the knowledge of God to all nations." In Islam, indeed, 

 the personality of Mohammed takes a more important place than 

 that of any human teacher in Judaism ; but not comparable to that 



