ecide or even to discuss the points at issue.
Uninitiated laymen may perhaps be pardoned for hearing in all this din
of battle but the echo of the Schoolmen's guns. Whether the two-year-old
baby who dashes his bread-and-butter on the floor, in wrath at the lack
of marmalade, does it because of a prevailing effectual tendency in his
nature, or in consequence of his federal alliance with Adam, or from a
previous surfeit of plum-cake, is a question which seems to bear a
general family likeness to the inquiry, whether there is such a thing as
generic bread-and-butter, or only such specific slices as arouse infant
ire and nourish infant tissue. But around both classes of questions
strife has waxed hot. Both have called out the utmost strength of the
ablest minds, and both, however finespun they may seem to the
uninstructed eye, have contributed in no small measure to the mental and
moral health of the world. But while we would not make so great a
mistake as to look with a supercilious smile either upon the conflict
between Nominalism and Realism or on that between the Old and the New
School theology, (notwithstanding we might find countenance in Dr. Pond
of Bangor, who writes to Dr. Beecher, "In Maine we do not sympathize
very deeply in your Presbyterian squabbles, except to look on and laugh
at you all!") it may be permitted us as laymen to confess a greater
interest in the phenomena than in the event of the struggle. We leave
it, therefore, to our ecclesiastical contemporaries to descend into the
arena and fight their battles o'er again, content ourselves to stand
without and give thanks for the Divine voice that rises above the clash
of contending creeds, saying alike to wise and foolish, "God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Spite of all the truculence of his language, and through all his
strenuous thrust and parry, Dr. Beecher's sincerity, integrity, and
piety shine forth unclouded. Looking at this memorial in one aspect, he
seems to have assumed a charge which Mr. Lincoln has professed himself
unable to undertake, namely, to "run the churches." He evidently
believed that the Lord had committed to the clergy, of whom he was
chief, the building up of a great ecclesiastical edifice, whose
foundation should be laid in New England, but whose wings should
presently cover the whole land. Individual churches were the pillars of