Herder is a very strong proponent of religious toleration. The Letters for the Advancement of Humanity state his position on this point succinctly: “From childhood on nothing has been more abhorrent to me than the persecution or personal denigration of a person over his religion. Whom does this concern, but himself and God?” (LAH, 291). We might recall that Herder's otherwise largely negative portrait of China in the Ideas nonetheless praises the nation for this one thing, religious toleration, claiming that, in China, “no subject is compelled to any religion, and no religion that does not attack the state is persecuted” (Ideas, 432). This is a virtue Herder attributes to Hindus as well, of whom he writes: “Hindus do not persecute; they allow to each his religion, form of life, and wisdom; why should one not allow the same to them and consider them to be, in the errors of their inherited tradition, at least good people who are deceived?” (Ideas, 455). As in the case of his position on morality, Herder's reference to error in this context indicates that, whatever might be the basis for his advocacy of religious toleration, it cannot be such as to exclude the possibility of evaluative judgements, including cross-cultural ones, about the content of religious traditions. Barnard's assertion that “Herder's approach to religion, as to any other facet of human endeavour, is strictly relativist” (Barnard 1965, 96) would then at least need some clarification.