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RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD.

INTRODUCTION.

IN good faith, and with great earnestnessin the hope, moreover, of being able to accomplish much good, I have written and compiled the following account of the RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. I believe the book to be as thoroughly impartial as any book on such a subject can be. A bigoted sectarian would be satisfied with nothing less than pronouncing his sect right, and every other wrong. A more philosophical course would be to consider all creeds and forms as different manifestations of the religious sentiment.

But it is not as a philosopher seeking for truth, nor as a critic trying to point out error, that I have written. My only claim is that of being an honest historian. Despite the prejudices of education, I have endeavored to do the same justice to Catholic and Protestant, Jew, Mohammedan, and Buddhist. All are looked at from the same standpoint of impartial recognition and friendly feeling.

In the arrangement of the work, I have followed what seemed a natural order. I have given first an account of the most ancient and wide-spread religious systems and opinions, and such as have prevailed or still prevail in that largest portion of the world, usually termed uncivilized and heathen. I have next given an account of Christian sects, from the commencement of the Christian era to the present time. Lastly, I have given some notice of the most recent sects, opinions, and religious phenomena. He that sees the whole must be better capable of judging than he that sees only a part. It is only by becoming acquainted with all creeds that we can form any just opinion of their relative merits. Those who are the most ignorant of the beliefs of others are the most bigoted to their own. The contests and persecutions of religious sectarians, one would suppose, must be as offensive to God as they are disgraceful to man. Religious liberty must become more than a name before men can unite in social harmony. The first step toward making men friends, is to make them acquainted. The first step to religious charity is religious intelligence.

I may seem to make high claims in respect

to the intention and use of this work, but I advance none on the score of its literary merits. A number of the accounts of Christian sects are copied almost verbatim from Hayward and other standard authorities; the rest of the matter has been gathered from works of ecclesiastical history, mythology, voyages, travels, and sources too numerous to particularize.

Our country, in its Federal and State constitutions, has everywhere asserted the_great principle of Religious Liberty. The Reformation demanded, as against the Roman Church, "the right of private judgment in matters of faith." We have embodied that principle in our political constitutions; but it is often forgotten in our laws and usages. In theory, every man in this country has a right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, or not to worship him. But practically, the Jew, Mohammedan, or Sabbatarian is obliged to keep the Christian Sabbath. A Jewish boy who presumes to play at marbles on Sunday, is arrested by the police, and his father must close his shop and stop his labor. Men are taxed for chaplains in Congress, Legislatures, Army, and Navy. Infidels suffer legal disabilities; in some States men are imprisoned for blasphemy; unpopular sectarians are denied political rights, and often subjected to persecution.

Our pretence of religious liberty, therefore, is often a sham; and we have very imperfect notions of human rights in religious matters, as in many others.

This work, by presenting a broad and impartial view of all forms of religious development and manifestation, may be of service, it is hoped, to the great cause of human emancipation from the errors and bigotries of the past and present eras.

The facts presented are very striking. We shall observe that of the thousand millions of the human race, more than three-fifths are Pagans; one-tenth are Mohammedans; but one-fourth nominally Christians; and the inconsiderable number of seventy millions Protestants. Christianity is of comparatively recent origin. Even Judaism, the despised creed from which Christianity sprung, is of

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modern origin, when compared with the religions of Egypt, India, China, and Japan. These facts should make people who respect the rule of majorities, tolerant, at least.

ple. The State stands by itself. It recognizes no religious creed, no sect, no Sabbath. A Mohammedan, a Jew, or a Pagan, is as eligible to the highest offices of the government as a Christian. The rights of all are

But the constitution of the human mind furnishes the best argument in favor of re-equally protected. The Presidents of the ligious liberty.

Belief is an involuntary act of the mind, not depending at all upon the will of the individual, but upon the nature of his faculties, the cultivation of his reason, and the bias of his education.

United States have been Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Unitarians, and Deists. One of the justices of the Supreme Court is a Roman Catholic.

But though a toleration so complete is incorporated in the constitution and governA man with one kind of mind will believe ment of the country, we still unfortunately in one God, or in twenty; another, with a find too much religious persecution in society. different mental organization, is incapable of The Presbyterian despises the Universalist; believing in any sort of spiritual existence. the Unitarian is shocked at the bigotry of the Most men believe what they are taught, and Calvinist; and the Methodist looks with a continue to believe what they are taught ear- kind of horror upon the Roman Catholic, liest. It cannot have escaped the slightest without reflecting upon the causes which have observation, that in nearly all cases the par-made them of different creeds, and that, with tizans of any faith have been born such. a simple change in the circumstances of birth Conversions from one faith to another have and education, each would find himself of been rare. Great religious changes, when the other's opinion. they have occurred, have generally been by the exercise of arbitrary power.

Do we wonder that the truth, being somewhere, is not found by its diligent seekers, so Difference of mental constitution will go that all men shall be of one opinion? Such far towards accounting for the different creeds a thing is as difficult as it is to find two men and sects into which most religions are divid- of precisely the same mental constitution. ed. Men of great benevolence are inclined We cannot find two leaves or two blades of to be Universalists, while Calvinists are gen- grass precisely alike-much less two human erally of a more stern and implacable disposi-intellects. Every man's idea of a Supreme tion. These creeds react again upon the minds Intelligence is founded upon his own temper of those who are educated to believe them. and disposition; and as men worship their Thus we shall find that every creed is mod-own idea or conception of God, no two men can ified by the dispositions of its professors, and worship precisely the same being, or have exvery good as well as very bad men may be actly the same idea of his nature and attributes. found among the sincere believers of every creed in the world. It is a great mistake to suppose that honesty, virtue, and benevolence are confined to any one religion, or that they may not exist without any religion whatever. We have had thousands of examples of the highest probity, the purest benevolence, the truest patriotism, among men of no sect.

This is no argument against religion, nor against any particular creed; but it is an argument in favor of that universal toleration which should belong to our institutions.

How charitable, then, ought we to be! How foolish in us to find fault with the religious belief of others, when they are also laughing` at our own! How ridiculous, for the insignificant creatures of this insignificant grain of the universe, to be quarreling with each other about our notions of the Creator. In religion as in all other matters, there seems no way but to recognize the right of every man to do as he pleases, with the limitation that he do not in any way interfere with the equal right of every other.

Since, then, no man is accountable for the This seems to be the true doctrine of not accident of his birth, nor can avoid the influ- only religious liberty, but of all freedom and ences of his early education; since no man right. The man who assumes to govern anocan, by any effort of his will, believe or dis-ther, further than is needful to protect himbelieve anything whatever; since, whatever self, or some one who has a right to his prohis belief or disbelief, he may be a good man tection, exercises a despotism, whether he and a good citizen; since a man's religious governs by opinion, majority, “ Divine right," belief is, besides being involuntary, quite a or the bayonet.

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private affair of his own, and one for which Liberty, political, social, or religious, exno human being can properly hold him ac-ists only in name; little in idea; scarcely at countable, it follows that the freest toleration all in reality. A majority in Western New and the most perfect religious liberty should everywhere prevail, and that everything like persecution for opinion's sake should be banished from the political and social institutions of the world.

Our country, in the theory of its political institutions, has set the world a noble exam

York can impose a law upon the Empire City, against the wishes of its entire population.

That this work may help to enlighten the public mind, and so prepare the way for a true idea of freedom, and more charity of opinion and practice, is the earnest desire of THE AUTHOR.

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