Each denomination is trained to regard itself as “the church of God” and to labor for its increase as a service to God’s cause, while the extension of other sects is not so regarded. Although few intelligent Protestants now believe that any forms or rites are indispensable to salvation, each sect regards its own peculiarity as of very great importance. And as all the large sects are divided only on modes of baptism or of church organization there is a constant tendency to magnify these points of difference. Were it not for this, in small places and in new settlements, all would unite in one large, harmonious church, that could not only support its own ordinances, but send of its surplus to supply the destitute. Instead of this, the feuds, envies, jealousies and bickerings between small and struggling churches, of from four to twenty diverse sects, are an occasion of reproach and contempt to the world, and of mortification to all honorable and pious minds. So in regard to education, each sect is now acting _as a sect_, in starting new colleges and seminaries, or in endowing those already started, and this often with little reference to the supply provided by other sects. For example, in Ohio there are _twenty‐six_ endowed colleges, in Indiana there are _eleven_, and thus at the same rate in other new States. Besides endowments to support professors, vast sums have been spent in buildings, many of them unused for want of pupils. After each sect has thus gained its colleges, it must struggle to find pupils, and thus multitudes of young boys are pressed into a Latin and Greek course, not at all demanded in their future pursuits, and often forsaken before the college is ever reached. The waste of educational benefactions in these ways is enormous. These expenditures are all to be met by the laity, and the more the nature of these sectarian divisions is understood, the more distrustful are the people in regard to these profuse expenditures to keep up such divisions. Multitudes of intelligent laymen contribute simply because their clergymen urge it, and entirely without intelligent approval of these things. To their own view, Christianity, as exhibited by contending sects, is a source of more evil feeling, contention and needless expense than of compensating benefits, and distrust and misgiving increase and abound. In such a position of the organized church, one of the most remarkable indications to be noted is the occurrence of a “revival” among all sects, in which _the __ people_ take the lead, and theologians and pastors willingly resign their wonted place. All badges of sect are dropped, and the dogmas of Augustine, from which they originated, are thrown aside. The system of common sense is recognized, and its intelligent and harmonizing influence secures, for the first time, the respectful attention of worldly men toward religious developments, which in all past time have been regarded by them with suspicion or scorn.