इतिहास ने हमारे लिए कम से कम इस अवशेष को सुरक्षित रखा है ताकि हम यह सीख सकें कि यदि मनुष्य के पास स्वर्ग को नर्क बना सकने की अनोखी कला न होती तो दृश्यों से… - Friedrich Max Müller

देवता मूलत: परात्पर, अदृश्य, अज्ञेय, दृश्य विश्व से परे, इस अपूर्ण विश्व में सर्वथा परिपूर्ण एवं सर्वांग-सम्पूर्ण इस प्राकृतिक जगत् में अतिमानवीय, दिव्य तथा सर्वशक्तिमान और सर्वव्यापी की अभिव्यक्ति करने के लिए बना था। जो सदैव से ही अवर्णनीय होना था उसे वे अभिव्यक्त करने में असफल रहे। लेकिन वह अवर्णननीयता स्वयं विद्यमान रही और इन सभी असफलताओं के बावजूद वह समाप्त नहीं हुई और प्राचीन चिन्तकों और कवियों के मस्तिष्क से लुप्त नहीं हुई। वे अपने प्रयत्न में हताश नहीं हुए और इसीलिए वे सदैव उसे नए और बेहतर नाम देते रहे। और तब तक उन्हें इस प्रकार सम्बोधित किया जाता रहेगा जब तक इस पृथ्वी पर मानव का अस्तित्व बना रहेगा।

The worship of Shiva, Vishnu, and other popular deities was of the same and in many cases of a more degraded and savage character than the worship of Jupiter, Apollo or Minerva. ... A religion may linger on for a long time, it may be accepted by large masses of the people, because it is there, and there is nothing better. But when a religion has ceased to produce defenders of the faith, prophets, champions, martyrs, it has ceased to live, in the true sense of the word; and in that sense the old orthodox Brahmanism has ceased to live for more than a thousand years.

It is necessary that we too should see the beam in our own eyes, and learn to distinguish between the Christianity of the nineteenth century and the religion of Christ. If we find that the Christianity of the nineteenth century does not win as many hearts in India and China as it ought, let us remember that it was the Christianity of the first century in all its dogmatic simplicity, but with its overpowering love of God and man, that conquered the worId and superseded religions and philosophies, more difficult to conquer than the religious and philosophical systems of Hindus and Buddhists. If we can teach something to the Brahmans in reading with them their sacred hymns, they too can teach us something when reading with us the gospel of Christ. Never shall I forget the deep despondency of a Hindu convert, a real martyr to his faith, who had pictured to himself from the pages of the New Testament what a Christian country must be, and who when he came to Europe found everything so different from what he had imagined in his lonely meditations at Benares!