humility, or the mutual dependencies which are the bonds
of love? He who made us with this infinite variety in our
intellectual and physical constitution must have foreseen,
and foreseeing, must have intended, a corresponding dis-
similarity in the opinions of his creatures on all questions
submitted to their judgment and proposed for their ac-
ceptance. For truth is his law; and if all will profess to
think alike, all must live in the habitual violation of it.

"Zeal for uniformity attests the latent distrusts, not
the firm convictions of the zealot. In proportion to the
strength of our self-reliance is our indifference to the
multiplication of suffrages in favor of our own judgment.
Our minds are steeped in imagery; and where the visible
form is not, the impalpable spirit escapes the notice of the
unreflecting multitude. In common hands analysis stops
at the species or the genus, and cannot rise to the order
or the class. To distinguish birds from fishes, beasts from
insects, limits the efforts of the vulgar observer of the face
of nature. But Cuvier could trace the sublime unity, the
universal type, the fontal Idea existing in the creative In-
telligence, which connects as one the mammoth and the
snail. So, common observers can distinguish from each
other the different varieties of religious society, and can
rise no higher. Where one assembly worships with har-
monies of music, fumes of incense, ancient liturgies, and
a gorgeous ceremonial, and another listens to the unaided
voice of a single pastor, they can perceive and record the
differences; but the hidden ties which unite them both
escape such observation. All appears as contrast, and all
ministers to antipathy and discord. It is our belief that
these things may be rightly viewed in a different aspect,
and yet with the most severe conformity to the Divine
will, whether as intimated by natural religion, or as re-
vealed in Holy Scripture. We believe, that, in the judg-
ment of an enlightened charity, many Christian societies
who are accustomed to denounce each other's errors will
at length come to be regarded as members in common of
the one great and comprehensive church, in which diver-
sities of forms are harmonized by an all-pervading unity
of spirit. For ourselves, at least, we should deeply re-
gret to conclude that we are aliens from that great Chris-
tian commonwealth of which the nuns and recluses of the
valley of Port-Royal were members, and members assured-
ly of no common excellence."

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