We have merely suggested some of the results to which the study of Comparative Theology may lead us. They will appear more fully as we proceed in our examination of the religions, and subsequently in their comparison. This introductory chapter has been designed as a sketch of the course which the work will take. When we have completed our survey, the results to which we hope to arrive will be these, if we succeed in what we have undertaken:-- 1. All the great religions of the world, except Christianity and Mohammedanism, are ethnic religions, or religions limited to a single nation or race. Christianity alone (including Mohammedanism and Judaism, which are its temporary and local forms) is the religion of all races. 2. Every ethnic religion has its positive and negative side. Its positive side is that which holds some vital truth; its negative side is the absence of some other essential truth. Every such religion is true and providential, but each limited and imperfect. 3. Christianity alone is a πλήρωμα, or a fulness of truth, not coming to destroy but to fulfil the previous religions; but being capable of replacing them by teaching all the truth they have taught, and supplying that which they have omitted. 4. Christianity, being not a system but a life, not a creed or a form, but a spirit, is able to meet all the changing wants of an advancing civilization by new developments and adaptations, constantly feeding the life of man at its roots by fresh supplies of faith in God and faith in man. Chapter II. Confucius and the Chinese, or the Prose of Asia. § 1. Peculiarities of Chinese Civilization. § 2. Chinese Government based on Education. Civil-Service Examinations. § 3. Life and Character of Confucius. § 4. Philosophy and subsequent Development of Confucianism. § 5. Lao-tse and Tao-ism. § 6. Religious Character of the "Kings." § 7. Confucius and Christianity. Character of the Chinese. § 8. The Tae-ping Insurrection. NOTE. The Nestorian Inscription in China of the Eighth Century. § 1. Peculiarities of Chinese Civilization.