Faiths of the World

The main design of the present Work is, as its title indicates, to exhibit an accurate, comprehensive, and impartial view of the “Faiths of the World.” These are in themselves so numerous, intricate, and often obscure, that fully and satisfactorily to set forth their peculiar doctrines and principles, as well as their rites, ceremonies and customs, has been a task of extreme difficulty, requiring much laborious investigation and careful discrimination. Still, the tendencies of the present age seemed imperatively to demand that some attempt should be made to supply what has often been recognized as one of the felt wants of the day. For more than half-a-century past the attention of many thoughtful minds has been turned towards the numerous and diversified aspects in which religion has presented itself among the various nations and tribes of men on the face of the earth. It has been the aim of the Author to depict the great leading systems of religion, not in their main features only, but in their particular and even minute details. For this purpose the form of a Dictionary was obviously the best adapted, as affording an opportunity, under different articles, of calling the attention of the reader to prominent points, whether doctrinal or practical, which might happen to be omitted in a general view of the system. In addition to the great religions of the world, the work includes a view of the numerous religious sects into which the leading systems have from time to time branched out, and a full explanation of the peculiarities, whether in doctrines or ceremonies, by which they have been or still are specially characterized. In this important part of the undertaking it has been the earnest desire of the Author to be scrupulously accurate, and accordingly no pains have been spared, both by the careful perusal of the authoritative standards of the different religious denominations as well as by correspondence with leading men connected with each of them, to impart to these volumes a thoroughly trustworthy character, and thereby secure the confidence of the various sections of the religious world. The description also of the rites and ceremonies connected with the several forms and modifications of religious sentiment have been drawn from sources on which the Author feels he can safely and conscientiously rely.