at we may of such a system, we must avow,
at least, that it implies a profound respect for sacred things; nothing
can less resemble that indolent and formal assent which we give, in
conformity with custom, and without binding ourselves, in earnest, to
the religion that prevails among us.

Hence arises something valiant in American convictions. Hence arises
also, it may be said, that dispersion of sects, the picture of which is
so often drawn for us. I am far from loving the spirit of sectarianism,
and I am careful not to present the American churches as the beau ideal
in religious matters. The sectarian spirit, the fundamental trait of
which is to confound unity with uniformity, to transform divergencies
into separations, to refuse to admit into the bosom of the church the
element of diversity and of liberty; to exact the signing of a
theological formula, and the formal adhesion as a whole to a collection
of dogmas and practices, without tolerating the slightest shade of
difference--the sectarian spirit, with its narrowness, with its
traditions of men, with its exaggeration of little things, with its
separate denominations, is certainly not worthy of admiration. I reject
it in America as elsewhere, but I think it well to state that the
religious disruption produced by it has been much exaggerated. We must
greatly abbreviate the formidable list of churches furnished us by
travellers. Putting aside those which have no value, either as to
influence or numbers, we reduce the numbers of denominations existing in
the United States, outside the Roman Catholic church, to five, (and
these are too many;) namely: Methodist, Baptist, Congregational,
Episcopal, and Presbyterian. The remainder is composed of small
eccentric congregations which spring up and die, and of which no one
takes heed, except a few tourists, who are always willing to note down
extraordinary facts.

We will add that the sectarian spirit is now attacked in America, and
that the essential unity which binds the members of the five
denominations together, in spite of some external differences, is
manifesting itself forcibly. Not only does the evangelical alliance
prove to the most sceptical that this unity is real, but a fact peculiar
to the United States, the great awakening produced by the crisis of
1857, has given evidence of the perfect harmony of convictions. In the
innumerable meetings caused to spring up by this awakening from one end
of the country to th