th all in
all.

(1) _The very conception of unity involves variety._--You take me out
into a piece of waste land, and pointing to a heap of bricks say,
"There is a unity." I at once rebut your assertion; there is
uniformity undoubtedly, but not unity. Unity requires that a variety
of _different_ things should be combined to form one structure and
carry out one idea. A collection of bricks is not a unity, but a house
is. A pole is not a unity, but a hop-plant is. A snow atom is not a
unity, but a snow crystal is. And when our Lord spoke of His disciples
as one, He not only expected that there would be varieties amongst
them, in character, mind, and ecclesiastical preference; but by the
very choice of His words He meant us to infer that it would be so. The
unity on which He set His heart was not a uniformity.

(2) _But with variety there may be the truest unity._--There is variety
in the human body--from eyelash to foot, from heart to blood-disc, from
brain to quivering nerve-fibre; yet, in all this variety, each one is
conscious of an indivisible unity. There is variety in the tree: the
giant arms that wrestle with the storm, the far-spreading roots that
moor it to the soil, the myriad leaves in which the wind makes music,
the cones or nuts which it flings upon the forest floor; yet for all
this it is one. There is a variety in the Bible: variety of
authorship--king, prophet, priest, herdsman, and fisherman, scholar,
sage, and saint; variety of style--prose, poetry, psalmody, argument,
appeal; variety of age--from the days of Moses to those of John, the
beloved apostle, writing amid the persecutions of the empire; yet for
all this there is a oneness in the Bible which no mere binding could
give. So with the Church of Christ: there may be, there must be
infinite varieties and shades of thought and work. Some will prefer
the methods of Wesley, others the freedom of Congregationalism. Some
will pray most naturally through the venerable words of a Liturgy,
others in the deep silence of a Friends' Meeting. Some will thrive
best beneath the crozier of the Bishop, others in the plain barracks of
the Salvation Army; but, notwithstanding all this variety, there may be
a deep spiritual unity. Many folds, but one flock; many regiments, but
one army; many stones, but one breast-plate. "There is one body, and
one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and