These lectures are upon the Morse[1] foundation which has these specifications written out by the founder: The general subject of the lectures I desire to be: "The Relation of the Bible to any of the Sciences, as Geography, Geology, History, and Ethnology, ...

and the relation of the facts and truths contained in the Word of God, to the principles, methods, and aims of any of the sciences." Now, among the sciences which we must call to our aid are those of geography and geology, by which are conditioned history and ethnology of which we must largely treat; and, most of all, the science of Comparative Religion.
This last is Christianity's own child.

Other sciences, such as geography and astronomy, may have been born among lands and nations outside of and even before Christendom.

Other sciences, such as geology, may have had their rise in Christian time and in Christian lands, their foundation lines laid and their main processes illustrated by Christian men, which yet cannot be claimed by Christianity as her children bearing her own likeness and image; but the science of Comparative Religion is the direct offspring of the religion of Jesus.

It is a distinctively Christian science.