, retain in its purity the system of Calvin. The unbelief of the
clergy lays the Church open to the attacks of a Caesaro-papistic
democracy. A Swiss Protestant divine said recently: "Only a Church with
a Catholic organisation could have maintained itself without a most
extraordinary descent of the Holy Spirit against the assaults of
Rationalism." "What we want," says another, "in order to have a free
Church, is pastors and flocks; dogs and wolves there are in plenty."

In America it is rare to find people who are openly irreligious. Except
some of the Germans, all Protestants generally admit the truth of
Christianity and the authority of Scripture. But above half of the
American population belongs to no particular sect, and performs no
religious functions. This is the result of the voluntary principle, of
the dominion of the sects, and of the absence of an established Church,
to receive each individual from his birth, to adopt him by baptism, and
to bring him up in the atmosphere of a religious life. The majority of
men will naturally take refuge in indifference and neutrality from the
conflict of opinions, and will persuade themselves that where there are
so many competitors, none can be the lawful spouse. Yet there is a
blessing on everything that is Christian, which can never be entirely
effaced or converted into a curse. Whatever the imperfections of the
form in which it exists, the errors mixed up with it, or the degrading
influence of human passion, Christianity never ceases to work
immeasurable social good. But the great theological characteristic of
American Protestantism is the absence of the notion of the Church. The
prevailing belief is, that in times past there was always a war of
opinions and of parties, that there never was one unbroken vessel, and
that it is necessary, therefore, to put up with fragments, one of which
is nearly as good as another. Sectarianism, it is vaguely supposed, is
the normal condition of religion. Now a sect is, by its very nature,
instinctively adverse to a scientific theology; it feels that it is
short-lived, without a history, and unconnected with the main stream of
ecclesiastical progress, and it is inspired with hatred and with
contempt for the past, for its teaching and its writings. Practically,
sectaries hold that a tradition is the more surely to be rejected the
older it is, and the more valuable in proportion to the lateness of its
origin. As a consequence of the want of r