a person was so pressed by the crowd that he was brought hard against a window whose opaque glass hid the great object of attraction from him. He shattered the glass and had a fine view. As determined an effort would give us the sight of Jesus where he is hidden by the glass which sectarianism has ground.

Yet, looking at all the diversities of Christian action in his day, Paul saw one thing wherein he would rejoice and no man should forbid him. He saw Christ preached. The glorious reality that Christ had lived; that he was, in the preeminent sense, the Son of God; that he taught the sublimest truths that ever dropped on human hearing concerning the fatherhood and personal love of God; that he attested the divinity of his mission and the divinity of his spirit and the preeminence of his official relations to humanity, by stupendous and beautiful and tender miracles; that he died, in some sense, a sacrifice for mankind; that he rose from the dead as God's demonstration to man of immortality; and that he ascended to the throne of mediation to exercise a redeeming influence on the destinies of the whole race, and is the vitality of his religion as "the way, the truth, and the life; these things were preached by all who preached Christ, and because these things were preached, Paul could not but rejoice. He beheld these truths as vitalizing forces; they were spirit and they were life; and passing the contentions, the unworthy motives that impelled the preachers, he rejoiced that on the world's ear was poured the richness of truths so divine. And it may be that he had penetration to see that, back of this spirit of contention and of all modifying passions, there was a real love of Christ that would, in due time, come forth into supremacy; and that by preaching to others, the preacher would find the noblest spirit himself.

The courage, the hope, the endurance of Paul was fed and strengthened by this comprehensiveness. He owned all just alliances. He shook off the viper, but no hand, though barbarian; and generously spake, no doubt, what Luke records, that the rude Islanders showed no little kindness to the shipwrecked party. And shall churches that deem professors of other creeds as shipwrecked in faith and thrown upon their little island of Truth for safety, VOL. X. 32

while

treat them with less kindness? Too often it is so, a more generous spirit would prompt them to change their opinion, as the Islanders changed their opinion of Paul,-first regarding him as a murderer, and then becoming ready to worship him as a God.

Is it not possible for us to cherish Apostolic Comprehensiveness? The spirit that rules in it was commended by our Master. He enjoined a regard for whatever was good in the Samaritan; he praised the faith of the Centurion; and when one was forbidden to work, because he followed not the twelve, Jesus said, "Forbid him not." More and more the question presses upon us, and it is a great question of our times,-Is there no possible union of a decisive, strong, and enduring denominationalism, with a just respect, a noble candor, and a manly love for every branch of the Christian church? It is a question of great importance. Where rightful liberty is enjoyed, thought ranges for itself. It penetrates beyond the common thoroughfare. It catches the sound of a distant waterfall, and strikes into the thicket to behold something of nature untrammeled by art. It beholds great wonders, and sees beauty which books have never published, nor poets sung. A power of soul is awakened that cannot be made to sleep; and by and by it has wrought out a new theory, it has developed a new principle, and the soul feels it is not presumptuous in calling to the judgement-seat of truth the world of theories. Thus new ideas are broached. They are propagated. Those who cherish them have fellowship for each other; and as naturally as the coral island is built up in the sea, the fraternity of sympathizing thinkers becomes a sect or a denomination. Then, though living, they become monumental. They are the symbols of ideas; their flag is owned upon the seas of free thought, and intelligence cannot pause at their name without penetrating to the thing named.

A comprehensive mind looks after the thing which has prompted a new name; and it owns intellectual and moral affinities similar to those affinities which grow out of the love of kindred, and which create the peculiar relations of the family, of consanguinity. Party feeling, within its proper sphere, is just as natural, spontaneous, and commendable as family feeling. It has equally its

root in the best developement of the whole man. It is not mere intellect which is concerned in opinions, convictions, faith; for no higher sacrifices have ever been made for the family than have been made for ideas. Such an estimate of faith was required by our Master when he declared that to prefer father or mother before him was sin in the sight of God. His religion contained a life that was given for the world; and only by individual fidelity could that life be communicated. Inevitably a sect was formed -a new body of religionists stood before the notice of the world. When Jesus was no longer a common centre, by his personal ministry, the wholeness branched off into divisions; and I cannot but recognize as a great providence, not only that on the day of Pentecost the gift of tongues was imparted, but that then varieties of sects sprung up from the differences of apprehending the same truths, consequent upon the different habits of thought and degrees or quality of culture. We know how these divisions acted as checks on each other, preserving the records of a common religion; and we know but little of human nature if we are not able to see how emulation could be excited and be made to promote the moral good of the churches, from the comparisons instituted in reference to the relative power of disputed points in promoting holiness and zeal. More zeal and true spiritual life is given many times to a church by a secession of members than by a revival; and a deeper tenderness for the peril led truth, and a heartier willingness to labor for it, are more felt under such circumstances, than when the whole force of wind and current is prosperous. Call it what you will, it is this spirit of adherence to what is deemed the advance party, that has kept rallying points of progress before the world, and given it the means of imitating Apostolic Comprehensiveness.

That there is, and has been, a spirit of exaggeration in connection with denominationalism, I admit; but where will you go to get rid of exaggeration, especially in this country? Will you take the stand-point of those who commend to us life, to the abandonment of doctrine, and who so laud charity that it becomes a mere indifference to opinions? Will you call that comprehensiveness which makes silence the security of peace, and cannot talk of

denominations and sects without representing them as dogs trained only to hunt, or soldiers schooled only to kill?

It is the easiest thing in the world to take one-sided views of the great passions that sway masses of men; to see and describe only the evil in parties and sects; to call reverence for greatness and genius idolatry; and to go abroad wishing to smite parties and sects as King Hezekiah did the brazen serpent, when he dashed it to pieces and gave it a name of contempt. That image had a sacred memory attached to it. As a memorial it was all very well to possess it. But it became an abject of idolatrous homage, and he whose mission it was to cleanse the sanctuary and to restore purity to religion, smote it into atoms and gave it a name of contempt. But a sect that has some great truth to maintain and propagate, is not to be thus treated. It is no brazen serpent-save as Moses lifted the serpent of brass at God's command. Whatever of the idolatry of denominationalism there may be, is to be rebuked and avoided; so is all foolish and vain and bombastic exaggeration, and depreciation also; but whatever of organic life there is to be communicated, should be fostered. Surely every sect has such life if the sectarism springs from a great idea-an idea essential to the comprehensive view of Christianity as a history, a theory, and a life. It is not, indeed, the things in which we differ that make the Christian, but the things in which we agree; yet it may be that the thing in which one sect differs from all other sects is essential to the best and most comprehensive view of the gospel, the nourishing of some grace, the perfecting of some virtue; and it is this view of denominationalism which vindicates, and must ever vindicate, the decision of those who devotedly adhere to their sect, and which gives them a right to live.

Every denomination is bound, by its Christian position, to do two things: First, to maintain its own spiritual life; and, second, to contribute to the spiritual life of the church and the world. Both of these duties are well symbolized by the devotee who built his sanctuary where the light he kept constantly and purely burning, not only lit his own temple but threw its beams out through the glass above the door upon the dangerous road, and also upon the

broad sea through the window above the altars opposite. The primitive Christians remembered they were to be lights, and they labored to be trimmed and burning. They also remembered they were to be the lights of the world, and they were careful to have and to maintain an appropriate position towards the world, that their light might be diffusive. It is as wrong for a man to be in the church and not to think of the world, as for one to be in world and not to think of the church. Nay, it is more wrong; for the man of the world makes no pretension that he lives for more than himself, but this will not do for the Christian. It was because of this that Jesus was cautious to infuse into his disciples a love that began with the church and flowed out to the world. He prayed for his disciples, and for those who should believe on Him through their word, that the world might believe that he was the sent of God. And when he was gone from their sight, and Peter and Paul taught in his name, a grand comprehensiveness was at length apparent, when they were fully instructed, so that instead of an indiscriminate denouncing of sects, they strove to induce the Christians everywhere to recognize in the different adminstrations the same Lord, and in the diversities of operations the working of the one God, who worketh in all. So diffusively did Paul extend this principle of judgement, that we find him rejoicing in every way in which Christ was preached, even though it was in the contentious spirit. of rivalry with himself.

The ministry of liberal Christianity has this great work to do to make goodness respected, whatever its name; to exalt sincerity as more than conformity; to make church-life more than raiment, and the soul more than the creed. It is a ministry that is to liberalize thought and judgement; that is to impel men to take broad views, to be hopeful, energetic, and humane. It is a ministry that is to unite religion with every-day life, and to show how great principles can magnify small duties, so that "whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we may do it all to the glory of God." It is a ministry that is to carry from the broad field of moral effort where all good men meet, the same principles of action into the church, or sect, or party, marking nothing as Christian