Robert Ernest Hume was born on March 20, 1877 in Ahmednagar, India, to missionary parents Robert Allen Hume and Abbie Burgess. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University, and received his B.D. from Union Theological Seminary in 1904. A year later he was ordained a Congregationalist minister. In 1907, he married Laura Caswell and traveled to India to serve as a missionary under the American Board of Congregational Foreign Missions. Hume served on the faculty of Ahmednagar Theological Seminary in India for two years before becoming the editor of Bombay's bilingual weekly, Dhyanodaya, in 1909. During his seven years as editor he also taught at Williams College, helped to organize the Social Service League in Bombay, and lectured at universities across India. Hume returned to the United States in 1914 and was inaugurated that same year as the Marcellus Hartley Professor of the Philosophy and History of Religion and Missions at Union Theological Seminary. After four years he was transferred to the Charles Butler Chair of History of Religions, a position which he held until his retirement in 1944. His book entitled The World's Living Religions was widely circulated; it was the only religious book other than the Bible to be included in the time capsule at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Hume also served as president of the American Theological Society in 1939, and was a member of the American Association of the Advancement of Science. Hume passed away on June 14, 1948 in New York City.