“So is every one who is born of the Spirit.” Get out your Catechism, my Orthodox friend; establish, dear Methodist brother, your experience to determine whether one is converted or no. Settle for yourself, excellent formalist, the signs of the true Church, out of which there is no salvation; and when you have got all your fences arranged, and your gates built to your satisfaction, you are obliged to throw them all down with your own hands, to let THE CHURCH OF THE LEAVEN pass through. “Nobody can be saved,” says Dogmatic Christianity, “who does not believe in the Trinity and the Atonement.” “Nobody can be saved,” says Sentimental Christianity, “who has not had a conscious change of heart.” “ Nobody can be saved,” says Formal Christianity, “who is out of the true Church and its sacraments.” Here are the three fences of the Church of the Mustard-seed. But see! here comes an innumerable multitude of little children, who have never believed in Trinity or Atonement; have never been baptized at all; have never been converted. Yet neither Dogmatist, Sentimentalist, nor Formalist dares to exclude them from heaven. Logic steps aside; good feeling opens the three gates; and the little ones all walk quietly to the good Shepherd, who says, “Let them come to me, and forbid them not;” gathering the lambs in his arms, carrying them in his bosom, and tenderly leading them in the green pastures beside the still waters. The little children must be allowed to go through; consistency requires them to be damned; but consistency must take care of itself; so much the worse for consistency. But who comes next? Here are all the heathen, who have not heard of Christ. Must they be damned? According to the creeds, yes; but modern Orthodoxy has its doubts; its heart has grown tender. Somehow or other we think that we shall have to let them pass, before a great while. Then here are all the people whom we have known and loved. They did not believe as they should. They were never converted, so far as we know; they were not members of any Church, true or false. But we loved them. Cannot the three fences be put aside again, just to let these friends of ours pass by. What kind-hearted Orthodox man or woman was ever wanting in an excuse for letting his heretical friends into heaven. “He changed his views very essentially before he died. He used very Orthodox language, to my certain knowledge. He said he relied on the merits of Christ; or, at least, he said he believed in Christ.” And so all the good and kind dead people must follow all the little children, and pass the triple fence. They do not belong to the Church of the Mustard-seed; but they belong to the Church of the Leaven. These fences are like the flaming wall in Tasso; they seem impassable, but as soon as one comes up to them they are found to be nothing. Blessed be God that common sense is stronger than logic; that humanity is stronger than forms; and that large, kind