O that Christians, and particularly missionaries, would lay to heart the words of a missionary Bishop![20] “I have for years thought,” writes Bishop Patteson, “that we seek in our missions a great deal too much to make _English_ Christians. . . . . Evidently the heathen man is not treated fairly, if we encumber our message with unnecessary requirements. The ancient Church had its ‘selection of fundamentals.’ . . . . Any one can see what mistakes we have made in India. . . . Few men think themselves into the state of the Eastern mind. . . . We seek to denationalize these races, as far as I can see; whereas we ought surely to change as little as possible--only what is clearly incompatible with the simplest form of Christian teaching and practice. I do not mean that we are to compromise truth . . . . but do we not overlay it a good deal with human traditions!” If we had many such missionaries as Bishop Patteson and Bishop Cotton, if Christianity were not only preached, but lived in that spirit, it would then prove itself what it is--the religion of humanity at large, large enough itself to take in all shades and diversities of character and race. And more than that--if this true missionary spirit, this spirit of truth and love, of forbearance, of trust, of toleration, of humility, were once to kindle the hearts of all those chivalrous ambassadors of Christ, the message of the Gospel which they have to deliver would then become as great a blessing to the giver as to the receiver. Even now, missionary work unites, both at home and abroad, those who are widely separated by the barriers of theological sects.[21] It might do so far more still. When we stand before a common enemy, we soon forget our own small feuds. But why? Often, I fear, from motives of prudence only and selfishness. Can we not, then, if we stand in spirit before a common friend--can we not, before the face of God, forget our small feuds, for very shame? If missionaries admit to their fold converts who can hardly understand the equivocal abstractions of our creeds and formulas, is it necessary to exclude those who understand them but too well to submit the wings of their free spirit to such galling chains! When we try to think of the majesty of God, what are all those formulas but the stammerings of children, which only a loving father can interpret and understand! The fundamentals of our religion are not in these poor creeds; true Christianity lives, not in our belief, but in our love--_in our love of God, and in our love of man, founded on our love of God_. That is the whole Law and the Prophets, that is the religion to be preached to the whole world, that is the Gospel which will conquer all other religions--even Buddhism and Mohammedanism--which will win the hearts of all men.