President Eliot spoke on "Racial Religions" before members of the Graduate Schools in the Parlor of Phillips Brooks House last night.
Regarding religion as a great determining cause of many differences between races, President Eliot vividly traced the various religious elements, doctrines, and practices found in India, China, and Japan. He briefly pointed out some of the effects that a true religion can have on the people that accept it. Two of our doctrines so great in the development of the human mind are those of fraternity and of the conception of the Deity as a god to be worshipped in spirit. Neither of these conceptions generally exists in India, China, or Japan. The Eastern races have no conception of the brotherhood of man. For instance, if a woman in Canton were to fall in a river before the eyes of a hundred men, they would let her drown. Nor have these foreign peoples any spiritual conception of the Deity. Christianity has before it the task of carrying the spiritual conception of the Deity into foreign lands. With it will go the consecration of the affections of the family. The most striking difference between Christian and Eastern religions lies in the conceptions of activity, of doing things for the benefit of others. The work for the welfare of all is a Christian gift to mankind.
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