way,
as he said, to sign a sentence of excommunication against an unruly
presbyter, who had much disturbed the harmony of the church, of late, by
an attempt to introduce a schism that he called "piety."

The brigadier and myself discussed the subject of religion at some
length, when the illustrious prelate had taken his leave. I was told
that the monikin world was pretty nearly equally divided into two parts,
the old and the new. The latter had remained uninhabited, until within a
few generations, when certain monikins, who were too good to live in the
old world, emigrated in a body, and set up for themselves in the new.
This, the brigadier admitted, was the Leaplow account of the matter;
the inhabitants of the old countries, on the other hand, invariably
maintaining that they had peopled the new countries by sending all those
of their own communities there, who were not fit to stay at home. This
little obscurity in the history of the new world, he considers of no
great moment, as such trifling discrepancies must always depend on the
character of the historian. Leaphigh was by no means the only country in
the elder monikin region. There were among others, for instance,
Leapup and Leapdown; Leapover and Leapthrough; Leaplong and Leapshort;
Leapround and Leapunder. Each of these countries had a religious
establishment, though Leaplow, being founded on a new social principle,
had none. The brigadier thought, himself, on the whole, that the chief
consequences of the two systems were, that the countries which had
establishments had a great reputation for possessing religion, and those
that had no establishments were well enough off in the article itself,
though but indifferently supplied on the score of reputation.

I inquired of the brigadier if he did not think an establishment had the
beneficial effect of sustaining truth, by suppressing heresies, limiting
and curtailing prurient theological fancies, and otherwise setting
limits to innovations. My friend did not absolutely agree with me in all
these particulars; though he very frankly allowed that it had the effect
of keeping TWO truths from falling out, by separating them. Thus, Leapup
maintained one set of religious dogmas under its establishment, and
Leapdown maintained their converse. By keeping these truths apart, no
doubt, religious harmony was promoted, and the several ministers of
the gospel were enabled to turn all their attention to the sins of the
community, i