ior in numerical strength and popular influence to the Methodists
and Baptists combined--if they _were_ combined.

And there is no doubt that this comminution of the church is frankly
accepted, for reasons assigned, not only as an inevitable drawback to
the blessings of religious freedom, but as a good thing in itself. A
weighty sentence of James Madison undoubtedly expresses the prevailing
sentiment among Americans who contemplate the subject merely from the
political side: "In a free government the security for civil rights must
be the same as that for religious rights. It consists, in the one case,
in the multiplicity of interests, and, in the other, in the multiplicity
of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number
of interests and sects."[402:1] And no student of history can deny that
there is much to justify the jealousy with which the lovers of civil
liberty watch the climbing of any sect, no matter how purely spiritual
its constitution, toward a position of command in popular influence. The
influence of the leaders of such a sect may be nothing more than the
legitimate and well-deserved influence of men of superior wisdom and
virtue; but when reinforced by the weight of official religious
character, and backed by a majority, or even a formidable minority, of
voters organized in a religious communion, the feeling is sure to gain
ground that such power is too great to be trusted to the hands even of
the best of men. Whatever sectarian advantage such a body may achieve in
the state by preponderance of number will be more than offset by the
public suspicion and the watchful jealousy of rival sects; and the
weakening of it by division, or the subordination of it by the
overgrowth of a rival, is sure to be regarded with general complacency.

It is not altogether a pleasing object of contemplation--the citizen and
the statesman looking with contentment on the schism of the church as
averting a danger to the state. It is hardly more gratifying when we
find ministers of the church themselves accepting the condition of
schism as being, on the whole, a very good condition for the church of
Christ, if not, indeed, the best possible. It is quite unreservedly
argued that the principle, "Competition is the life of business," is
applicable to spiritual as well as secular concerns; and the
"emulations" reprobated by the Apostle Paul as "works of the flesh" are
frankly appealed to for promoting the works