Orthodoxy has erred, as it would seem, in placing too great a gulf between Christianity and all other religions. Christianity is sufficiently distinguished from all other religions by being regarded as the perfect, and therefore universal, religion of mankind. It is to all preceding religions what man is to all previous races. These are separated from man by various indelible characters; yet they are his fellow-creatures, proceeding from the same creative mind, according to one creative plan. So the previous religions of our race—Fetichism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, the religion of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Egypt, of Scandinavia, of Judea, of Greece and Rome—are distinguished from Christianity by indelible characters; but they, too, proceeded from the same creative mind, according to one creative plan. Christianity should regard these humanely, as its fellow-creatures. The other animals prepared man’s way on the earth, and since man’s arrival we have seen no subsequent creation. So the ethnic religions prepared the way for Christianity, and since Christianity came no new religion has appeared; for Mohammedanism is only a _mélange_ drawn from the Old and New Testaments, and may therefore be considered as an outlying Christian sect. So, too, the gigantic abstractions of Gnosticism were hybrid systems, formed of the union between Oriental thought and Christian life. The analogy may be traced still farther. Man is the only animal who possesses the whole earth. Every other race has its habitat in some geographical centre, from which it may emigrate, indeed, to some extent, but where only it thrives. To man, only, the whole earth belongs. So the primitive religions are all _ethnic_; that is, religions of races. The religion of Confucius belongs to China, that of Brahmanism to India, that of Zoroaster to the Persians; the religion of Egypt is only for the Egyptians. Exceptions to this law (like that of Buddhism, for example) are only apparent. The rule is invariable. Christianity alone is a cosmic or universal religion. It only has passed the boundaries of race, so inflexible to all other religions. Born a Semitic religion, it soon took possession of the Indo-European races, converting Romans, Greeks, Teutons, Kelts, and Sclaves. It finds the African mind docile to its influence. Its missionaries have made believers from among the races of America, India, China, and the Pacific Islands. It is evidently destined to be the religion of humanity.