mise, in a large sense of the word, is the first principle
of combination; and any one who insists on enjoying his rights to the
full, and his opinions without toleration for his neighbour's, and his own
way in all things, will soon have all things altogether to himself, and no
one to share them with him. But most true as this confessedly is, still
there is an obvious limit, on the other hand, to these compromises,
however necessary they be; and this is found in the _proviso_, that the
differences surrendered should be _but_ "minor," or that there should be
no sacrifice of the main object of the combination, in the concessions
which are mutually made. Any sacrifice which compromises that object is
destructive of the principle of the combination, and no one who would be
consistent can be a party to it.

Thus, for instance, if men of various religious denominations join
together for the dissemination of what are called "evangelical" tracts, it
is under the belief, that, the object of their uniting, as recognized on
all hands, being the spiritual benefit of their neighbours, no religious
exhortations, whatever be their character, can essentially interfere with
that benefit, which faithfully insist upon the Lutheran doctrine of
Justification. If, again, they agree together in printing and circulating
the Protestant Bible, it is because they, one and all, hold to the
principle, that, however serious be their differences of religious
sentiment, such differences fade away before the one great principle,
which that circulation symbolizes--that the Bible, the whole Bible, and
nothing but the Bible, is the religion of Protestants. On the contrary, if
the committee of some such association inserted tracts into the copies of
the said Bible which they sold, and tracts in recommendation of the
Athanasian Creed or the merit of good works, I conceive any subscribing
member would have a just right to complain of a proceeding, which
compromised the principle of Private Judgment as the one true interpreter
of Scripture. These instances are sufficient to illustrate my general
position, that coalitions and comprehensions for an object, have their
life in the prosecution of that object, and cease to have any meaning as
soon as that object is compromised or disparaged.

When, then, a number of persons come forward, not as politicians, not as
diplomatists, lawyers, traders, or speculators, but with the one object of
advancing Universal Knowled