"The existence and development of the church," he said, "rests not upon the acceptance of any system of opinion or tradition or interpretation, but upon the acknowledgment of Jesus as Redeemer and Messiah. 'Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,' was the reply of Jesus to Peter's confession, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' This is the one basic truth upon which rests all the testimony of prophet and apostle. This is the one sure foundation upon which the whole superstructure of the Christian life must be built. It is the one inspired creed and summary of the entire purpose and plan of the gospel. "Since the foundation of our faith," he continued, "is not a set of doctrinal tenets or a system of theological opinions, but a divine personality, it follows that the spirit of Christian unity must be as liberal and as broadly catholic as the spirit of Christ; and if we, the scattered hosts of the Lord's people, are ever to be brought together into one common bond of fellowship, we must each first learn to magnify our points of agreement upon all matters of Scriptural interpretation and exegesis, and to minimize our points of difference. Let us bear in mind that whether our own particular system of theology be based upon Calvin's predominating doctrine, the sovereignty of God and the unchangeableness of his decrees; or whether we, like Arminius, lay greater stress upon the doctrine of the freedom of the human will and man's individual responsibility; whether we be Calvinist or Arminian, Presbyterian or Methodist, Baptist or Quaker--we all worship the same God, and through the same Mediator. Therefore, laying aside all malice and envying and evil speaking and sectarian strife, let us preserve the 'unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.'" Thus the stranger reasoned, and ere he had finished, Hiram Gilcrest, stripped of the armor under which he had so long battled for his stern creed, was left helpless and wounded; and the sharpest item of his defeat was this, that the Wellington of this Waterloo was proclaiming substantially the same doctrine as that of the hated Stone.