There existed many places of worship in the country, which were at first used indiscriminately by Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Quakers, and a host of other sects whose varied religious beliefs were so perplexing and confusing, and provocative of so many quarrels and discussions, that sectarianism was soon recognized as the rock upon which the nation was likely to founder, unless prompt legislation was brought to bear upon the situation. Some believed in a Trinity of Gods, some in a Unity. Others looked forward to the coming of a Redeemer, others worshipped Jesus Christ, as the Redeemer of souls. Some denied a God altogether, and asserted that all the higher forms of life were the outcome of evolution. Others, again, worshipped a goddess called Humanity, and all were more or less in fear of a mythical Being to whom all the untold millions born into the world were supposed to be turned over for everlasting punishment in the event of their not having been fortunate enough to meet with all the requirements of creeds formulated by men. Thus, one portion of the community had been taught that tiny babes, dying before they had been sprinkled with water by a priest, and had a certain formula of words uttered over them, would be consigned to everlasting perdition, and debarred from all the joys of a future life. Others would have been brought up to believe that all the untold millions of people who had, by force of circumstances, over which they had not the slightest control, never had Christianity preached to them, would also be delivered into the hands of Satan! Could anything be more blasphemously opposed to the character of a merciful Creative Being, than to suppose it capable of producing myriads of human beings, simply that they might be consigned to never-ending torture such as only fiends could sanction? Bigotry, Sectarianism, and Dogmatic Obstinacy had taken the place of a true and simple worship of the Creator. So rank did the strife become that certain sects actually maintained it to be wicked to enter a place of worship patronised by a rival sect. So truly religious were the majority of Christians that they only used the various churches as a means of advancing their temporal power, and statistics from all the world will prove that more lives have been lost, and more crimes committed, in the name of Religion, than from any other cause. Strange that what should be regarded as the greatest bond of unity upon earth should be so abused as to become one of its greatest powers for evil! Yet so it was when our forerunners peopled this land, and they were compelled to adopt stringent methods of grappling with the most serious evil in their midst.