The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches have had their experiences in the agitation of these questions involving the acceptance or rejection of the leading points of theology held by them in the past. But the freest and boldest utterances on this subject seem to have come from the Congregationalist Churches. Members of the Beecher family have been quite conspicuous in their allusions to the old and abhorrent doctrines of Calvinism; as for instance, Mrs. Stowe, in her "Minister's Wooing" and "Old Town Folks;" her sister Catherine, in her emphatic saying, that, as this theology is set forth, "there must be an awful mistake somewhere;" Dr. Edward Beecher, in his "Conflict of Ages" (a work ably reviewed by Rev. Moses Ballou); and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who has just now affirmed that he will never more preach the horrible doctrine of endless punishment. After repeating a statement he had made, that the dogma of endless suffering is the cause of increasing infidelity, Dr. Edward Beecher says, that "Universalism is no longer restricted within denominational lines, but is now diffused more widely than some suspect," that "the preaching of the doctrine is largely neutralized by a latent Universalism within the walls of evangelical churches," that some of the clergy "dare not investigate the dogma (endless suffering) in an impartial, scientific method, lest they bring themselves into conflict with the creed they are expected to defend;" and closes thus: "Meanwhile the creed-doctrine of an endless punishment is seldom discussed from the pulpit, and never willingly heard by the pews." Significant indeed is the closing of his volume on the "Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution:" "Even admitting that the doctrine of eternal punishment is the word of God, it seems to be forgotten that allegations may be attached to it that shall make it to be not the word of God, but the greatest falsehood in the Universe." At the Congregationalist Convention in Boston in 1865 the difficult problem came up to be solved, "how they could state what they themselves had come to believe, without appearing to deny what the fathers believed." Assembled at the old Burial Hill of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, they affirmed their adherence to the "substance of the Westminster and Saybrook Confessions of Faith." To clothe this "substance" in verbal forms, making it a true statement of the old theology of Puritanism, and at the same time a living thing of to-day, would seem to be an undertaking resulting in as great a confusion of tongues as in any instance recorded in the history of the past. To keep intact the theology of the past in their churches is an impossibility.