If, sooner or later, every soul is to look for truth with its own eyes, the first thing is to recognize that no presumption in favor of any particular belief arises from the fact of our inheriting it.
Otherwise you would not give the Mahometan a fair chance to become a convert to a better religion.
The second thing would be to depolarize every fixed religious idea in the mind by changing the word which stands for it.
-- I don't know what you mean by "depolarizing" an idea,--said the divinity-student.
I will tell you,--I said .-- -When a given symbol which represents a thought has lain for a certain length of time in the mind, it undergoes a change like that which rest in a certain position gives to iron.

It becomes magnetic in its relations,--it is traversed by strange forces which did not belong to it.

The word, and consequently the idea it represents, is polarized.
The religious currency of mankind, in thought, in speech, and in print, consists entirely of polarized words.

Borrow one of these from another language and religion, and you will find it leaves all its magnetism behind it.

Take that famous word, O'm, of the Hindoo mythology.