lt great concern,
as that dispute went on, about the result. I was in hopes that the
difference of opinion might be adjusted, because I looked upon that
religious denomination as one of the great props of religion and morals
throughout the whole country, from Maine to Georgia, and westward to our
utmost western boundary. The result was against my wishes and against my
hopes. I have read all their proceedings and all their arguments; but I
have never yet been able to come to the conclusion that there was any
real ground for that separation; in other words, that any good could be
produced by that separation. I must say I think there was some want of
candor and charity. Sir, when a question of this kind seizes on the
religious sentiments of mankind, and comes to be discussed in religious
assemblies of the clergy and laity, there is always to be expected, or
always to be feared, a great degree of excitement. It is in the nature
of man, manifested by his whole history, that religious disputes are apt
to become warm in proportion to the strength of the convictions which
men entertain of the magnitude of the questions at issue. In all such
disputes, there will sometimes be found men with whom every thing is
absolute; absolutely wrong, or absolutely right. They see the right
clearly; they think others ought so to see it, and they are disposed to
establish a broad line, of distinction between what is right and what is
wrong. They are not seldom willing to establish that line upon their own
convictions of truth and justice; and are ready to mark and guard it by
placing along it a series of dogmas, as lines of boundary on the earth's
surface are marked by posts and stones. There are men who, with clear
perceptions, as they think, of their own duty, do not see how too eager
a pursuit of one duty may involve them in the violation of others, or
how too warm an embracement of one truth may lead to a disregard of
other truths equally important. As I heard it stated strongly, not many
days ago, these persons are disposed to mount upon some particular duty,
as upon a war-horse, and to drive furiously on and upon and over all
other duties that may stand in the way. There are men who, in reference
to disputes of that sort, are of opinion that human duties may be
ascertained with the exactness of mathematics. They deal with morals as
with mathematics; and they think what is right may be distinguished from
what is wrong with the precision of a