The use of any science lies in its application to practical purposes.
For Christianity, the use of the science of religion consists in
applying it to show that Christianity is the highest manifestation of
the religious spirit. To make this use of the science of religion, we
must fully and frankly accept the facts it furnishes, and must
recognise that others are at liberty to use them for any opposite
purpose. But we must also insist that the science of religion is
limited to the establishment of facts and is excluded from passing
judgment on the religious value of those facts. The science of
religion as a historical science is concerned with the chronological
order, and not with the religious value, of its facts; and the order of
those facts does not determine their value any more in the case of
religion than in the case of literature or art. But if their value is
a question on which the science refuses to enter, it does not follow
that the question is one which does not admit of a truthful answer:
science has no monopoly of truth. The value of anything always implies
a reference to the future: to be of value a thing must be of use for
some purpose, and what is purposed is in the future. Things have
value, or have not, according as they are useful or not for our
purposes. The conviction that we can attain our purposes and ideals,
the conviction without which we should not even attempt to attain them
is faith; and it is in faith and by faith that the man of religion
proposes to {x} conquer the world. It is by faith in Christianity that
the missionary undertakes to convert men to Christianity. The
comparative value of different religions can only be ascertained by
comparison of those religions; and the missionary, of all men, ought to
know what is to be learnt from such comparison. It is sometimes
supposed (wrongly) that to admit that all religions are comparable is
to admit that all are identical; but, in truth, it is only because they
differ that it is possible to compare them. For the purpose of
comparison both the differences and the resemblances must be assumed to
exist; and even for the purposes of the science of religion there is
nothing to compel us to postulate a period in which either the
differences or the resemblances were non-existent. But though there is
nothing to compel us to assume that the lowest form in which religion
is found was necessarily the earliest to exist, it is convenient for us
to start from the lowest forms. For the practical purposes of the
missionary it is desirable where possible to discover any points of
resemblance or traits of connection between the lower form with which
his hearers are familiar and the higher form to which he proposes to
lead them. It is therefore proper for him and reasonable in itself to
look upon the long history of religion as man's search for God, and to
regard it as the function of the missionary to keep others in that
search . . . 1-33