In this book, the outstanding religious historian Joachim Wach offers a profound - investigation into the nature of religious experience. The result of a lifetime of scholarship and reflection, the book represents Professor Wach's efforts to develop and articulate a general framework in which scholars of different disciplines interested in religions, as well as adherents of diverse religious faiths, could understand each other. To construct this framework, he analyzes religious expression in thought (myth, doctrine, and dogma), practice devotion and service), and fellowship (the religious community). ‘The Comparative Study of Religions’ reflects Professor Wach's deep belief that the distance separating East from West, and Christian from Jew and Moslem, could be lessened through a scientific study of religion or, Religionwissenshaft. Professor Wach taught the history of religions throughout his academic career of thirty years at the University of Leipzig, Brown University, and the University of Chicago. At the time of his death in 1952, he was preparing this manuscript. His sister, Frau Susi Heigl Wach, and Professor Joseph M. Kitagawa, with whom Professor Wach was closely associated at the Federated Theological Faculty of the University of Chicago, decided to retain the style and content of the book as much as possible . Professor Kitagawa presents, in the introduction, a brief account of the life and thought of Joach Wach.