from one to another.

So far from such exchanges between sects being wrong, they ought to
happen a great deal oftener than they do. All the larger bodies of
Christians should be constantly exchanging members. All men are born
with conservative or aggressive tendencies: they belong naturally with
the idol-worshippers or the idol-breakers. Some wear their fathers' old
clothes, and some will have a new suit. One class of men must have their
faith hammered in like a nail, by authority; another class must have it
worked in like a screw, by argument. Members of one of these classes
often find themselves fixed by circumstances in the other. The late
Orestes A. Brownson used to preach at one time to a little handful of
persons, in a small upper room, where some of them got from him their
first lesson about the substitution of reverence for idolatry, in dealing
with the books they hold sacred. But after a time Mr. Brownson found he
had mistaken his church, and went over to the Roman Catholic
establishment, of which he became and remained to his dying day one of
the most stalwart champions. Nature is prolific and ambidextrous. While
this strong convert was trying to carry us back to the ancient faith,
another of her sturdy children, Theodore Parker, was trying just as hard
to provide a new church for the future. One was driving the sheep into
the ancient fold, while the other was taking down the bars that kept them
out of the new pasture. Neither of these powerful men could do the
other's work, and each had to find the task for which he was destined.

The "old gospel ship," as the Methodist song calls it, carries many who
would steer by the wake of their vessel. But there are many others who
do not trouble themselves to look over the stern, having their eyes fixed
on the light-house in the distance before them. In less figurative
language, there are multitudes of persons who are perfectly contented
with the old formulae of the church with which they and their fathers
before them have been and are connected, for the simple reason that they
fit, like old shoes, because they have been worn so long, and mingled
with these, in the most conservative religious body, are here and there
those who are restless in the fetters of a confession of faith to which
they have pledged themselves without believing in it. This has been true
of the Athanasian creed, in the Anglican Church, for two centuries more
or less, unless the Archb