y of men; and
that, supposing the grace of God, all men had the means of salvation
within their reach. If your system were true, all efforts of man to save
himself would be useless, and all your pulpits and sermons would be
worse than useless; for they would be a gross imposition, and a loss of
time."

"There is where you are in error, Murty," said the parson. "Churches,
pulpits, Bibles, and ministers are the machinery the Lord makes use of
to secure the perseverance of the elect."

"That talk appears to me silly," rejoined Murty. "The elect are to be
saved, or they are not; if they are to be saved by the decree of God,
then there is no use of you and your machinery; if they can lose their
'election,' and become reprobate, then your theory is contradictory,
absurd, and grossly perversive of the gospel. Take your choice of the
horns of the dilemma."

The parson here entered into a very unintelligible explanation of a
subject which constitutes, in defiance of common sense and of the
plainest teaching of the gospel, the leading dogma of Presbyterianism;
namely, foreordination, or the eternal decree of every man's election or
reprobation, irrespective of free will, good works, or even the
all-saving merits of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"How contradictory the tenets of sectarianism!" said Murty. "You, that
accuse Catholicity of teaching absurd and incredible doctrines, are
yourselves enslaved by the most incredible and contradictory creeds. It
is the same in every sect. Take the Methodists, and they are the very
contrary of what their name signifies. Instead of following any _method_
in their mad orgies, they would seem to be, _intellectually_, the
successors of the ancient bacchanalians. They would carry man back to
his primitive _woods_, and, by the medium of plenty of 'straw,' would
annihilate the distinctions between the sexes, by introducing a
promiscuous intercourse, and legalizing, by custom, the most indecent
practices."

"You have been at a camp meeting then, I see," said the parson, glad
that attention was turned from his own sect to one that was a rival of
it.

"Yes, sir, I have, I regret to be obliged to confess," said Murty; "and
I must say that the Methodists, by their conduct there, showed
themselves more ingenious in inventing the means of election than those
of the church of Calvin."

"How so, Murty? In what do they exceed the Presbyterians?"

"Why, in this, that they have beat you hollow in securing