Men do not struggle long to maintain and propagate that which was peculiar to their former social life, but will contend forever for that which is peculiarly distinctive in their religious belief. That which men hold lightly and esteem of little value to them elsewhere assumes an importance and a value in the West, and will not be surrendered tamely. Religious ideas which in Massachusetts and South Carolina existed in the mind crudely or loosely; exerting no influence upon the life, would in Missouri take a permanent shape, seek affinities, and ultimately grow into churches struggling for a place in the great moral agencies of the State. Men whose religious habits were scarcely formed, and whose lives had not assumed any positive ecclesiastical type in the older States, on coming to Missouri became positive, decided, unequivocal, sectarian partisans, and often uncharitable bigots. Men who would contend fairly for their distinctive tenets elsewhere contend fiercely here, and very few live long in this State without espousing, to some extent, the cause of some religious sect. There are causes for this state of things. Society is, to a great extent, in a formative state. In very few places, if any, has society settled down into grooves, and channels, and circles, and social and church castes, as in the older States; and then society exists in a great variety of unassimilated elements, Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western; English, French, German, Scotch, Irish, with a hundred different shades of social and domestic life, which are too distinct to become homogeneous, and which seek in church creeds and church associations their social as, well as religious affinities. The result is that, perhaps, no other State can furnish as great a variety of distinct sects, or denominations of Christians, with the religious population so liberally distributed amongst them. There may be more sects in States that have a much larger population, but in proportion to the population, no State has a greater variety of churches which accommodate such a diversity of belief, each of which has so large a hold upon the public mind. It would, indeed, be anomalous if all of these sects could exist together in peace. Missouri can not claim such exceptional distinction. In, perhaps, no State or country has denominational contention and strife been more general and uncompromising.