THE SUPREMACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



261 



the wide world over. Heathens are not now to be destroyed, but the 

 Gospel of God's love was taken to them. 



Mr. Maunder felt that the subject did not lend itself for 

 discussion ; they had come to be instructed and edified by the 

 Bishop, not to criticize him. He had been especially glad that the 

 Bishop had pointed out so clearly that he was not taking up the 

 subject of " comparative religions," to use a current phrase, but 

 was claiming that Christianity was supreme, not as the first among 

 equals, but as being unique. For himself, he much disliked the 

 expression " comparative religions." St. Augustine had said that 

 " God was One," not in contrast to many gods, but because He 

 " escaped numeration." Religion meant the binding of men to God. 

 So it was only where One God, the Creator of heaven and earth, 

 W8.S recognized and adored that we could properly apply the term 

 "religion" at all. And there were three faiths that answered to 

 that definition, and these corresponded to the three stages in God's 

 revelation of Himself. ^Mohammedanism was a far-off and corrupt 

 echo of the patriarchal religion ; then came Judaism ; and lastly, in 

 Christianity, God revealed Himself in His Son. 



Mr. E. J. Sewell wished to comment upon a single point. To 

 deal with a subject like that of the present lecture, we ought to 

 endeavour to put ourselves in the position of men who had been 

 brought up in other religions, and had met Christianity for the first 

 time. But since we ourselves had been brought up in Christianity, 

 it was impossible for us to take this standpoint. But at the great 

 missionary conference, held in Edinburgh in 1910, there were not 

 only gathered together men who had studied other religions deeply 

 and without prejudice, but they had the testimony of men who had 

 been born and brought up in other religions, and who had been 

 converted to Christianity. Other religions could, and did, point out 

 the difference between the characteristics of spiritual health and 

 disease in men, but it was Christianity alone that supplied the 

 effective power by which the diseased could be restored to health. 

 Xo other religion opens to man a road by which he can pass from a 

 state of sin to that of holiness. 



The Meeting adjourned at oAb. 



