What is a creed? Let us "begin at the beginning,"--the dictionary. Creed comes from the Latin _credo_, and signifies to believe. It is "a summary of Christian belief, or of the articles of faith. Any profession of that which is believed; a statement of the articles of belief, as the _creeds_ of political parties." All religionists have creeds of some kind; from the most liberal to the most exclusive of them. Take the most radical "free religionist" you can find, and ask him, immediately after you have heard him berating creeds and adjudging all as bigots who would be bound by them, what he believes, and as surely as he says anything, he will state to you _what_. And this is his creed, whether he calls it so or not. He might as well deny that he has a head by calling it something else, or by not allowing it to have any name. A creed he has, if he believes anything. The same of all men. What, then, is the objection to creeds? Why, that the Church has been full of bad creeds, narrow creeds, unreasonable creeds, contradictory creeds, creeds dishonorable to God and to humanity. There is no doubt of this; and the evil still abounds. But what then? Away with all creeds? You cannot do it. A creed you will have, at last, after all you have thought and said and done against having one. It is inevitable. Most of the creeds of the Church, for centuries past, have contained doctrines revolting to the common sense and to the holiest affections of mankind. The Church and the world are outgrowing them, and they must be put away. There will be no rest nor peace for those who hold and defend them until they are put away. But what more? Will there be nothing instead of these falsehoods, in the forms of human creeds? Are there no TRUTHS to take the place of them? Every reasonable mind concludes that there are. Better views of God and man will be taken, more reasonable and scriptural doctrines will be accepted, and these will go to make up the new creeds. If these new creeds have errors in them, then there will be new siftings in the controversies that will be continued on the old apostolic principle, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Notice; _to be continually questioning_ is not the great object of Christian investigation. There is something _to be held fast_. It is that truth which will commend itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. This will constitute the perfected Christian creed at last, just as surely as that "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."