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Updated: May 2, 2025
II. The declaration of the Unknown God has been prepared for, and now follows, and with it is bound up a polemic against idolatry. Conciliation is not to be carried so far as to hide the antagonism between the truth and error. We may give non-Christian systems of religion credit for all the good in them, but we are not to blink their contrariety to the true religion.
An easy explanation for the miracles and marvels that occurred in connection with non-Christian beliefs was that they were the work of demons. The Christian felt himself to be fighting not so much human antagonists as so many embodiments of satanic power.
Once she reported that at a time when the financial outlook was unusually discouraging, an unknown non-Christian Chinese sent a messenger several hundred li with a gift of money to relieve the situation. Patients who cannot afford to pay anything, but who can use their hands, are given sewing to do, and in this way make some contribution toward the expenses of the work.
Harder has become the world, fiercer the battle in which he is engaged, lower burn the fires of life; enthusiasm has faded as grey hairs have come. These are the perilous years. There is one thing the preacher must never forget: That the men and women before him go in constant peril from temptation. Not of the avowedly non-Christian only is this true, but of all.
I believe that a candid and outspoken avowal of a belief in a process of purification beyond death would go a long way in solving the whole difficulty. For sensible working men see very clearly that such a process of purification is necessary for all, whether they are Christian or non-Christian.
This would fully account for the atmosphere of awe and reverence which even under distinctly non-Christian conditions never fails to surround the Grail, It may act simply as a feeding vessel, It is none the less toute sainte cose; and also for the presence in the tale of distinctly popular, and Folk-lore, elements.
Missionaries say that this part of the Sudan, as well as Egypt, was once Christian; that discrimination is being shown in favour of Islam even to the extent of making pagans become Moslem on joining the Egyptian Army; that Gordon College is being run on non-Christian lines and that Islam is getting ahead of them in the race to convert pagans in this part of the world.
And sure I am that the history of non-Christian attempts to promote the brotherhood of man, and to diffuse a wide and operative love of mankind, teaches us, on the one side, that the emotion is not strong enough to last, and to work, unless it is based on God's love in Jesus Christ.
Even the best of non-Christian religions must always prove a failure. It cannot be denied that many of the highest virtues are enjoined in the writings of heathen philosophers. How could it be otherwise? Morality is universal as humanity, and it is only to be expected that here and there some thinker should pierce beyond the average and read deeper into the foundation-truths of ethics.
This odd effect of the great agnostics in arousing doubts deeper than their own might be illustrated in many ways. I take only one. As I read and re-read all the non-Christian or anti-Christian accounts of the faith, from Huxley to Bradlaugh, a slow and awful impression grew gradually but graphically upon my mind the impression that Christianity must be a most extraordinary thing.
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