The Protestant clergyman holds fast by his doctrine of faith as by divine appointment. His chief tenets must not be submitted to doubt. Whatever he may reject, there remains something he is not tempted to resign--namely, the presence of the Holy Spirit in his creed. Reason may carry the outworks--ceremonies, ordinances, incidental points of belief,--but the citadel is removed from assault. The world-spirit may hover around him, envious, expectant, watchful, applauding his boldness, cheering his progress towards negations, glad to see the gulf betwixt him and the age gradually diminishing, and pressing into every vacant position; society may claim interest in him more and more; but there are points he must not yield, and which he merely wishes to bring into prominence in surrendering others which he regards as secondary. So much may be necessary, but religion must practically take its place among the ideal pursuits of men and be exposed, as they are, to the full examination of the mind before any fair account of it can be given. And this cannot be so long as a region, however small, is shut off from investigation by supernatural powers. Moreover, it is the common impression that the office of the ministry is detrimental to the best interest of humanity, because it establishes another caste and thus destroys the unity that is so important in the integrity of the world. By it the priest is a person set apart, hedged about by the laws, held in peculiar reverence, habited in special garments. Some kinds of entertainments, such as dancing, the drama, are commonly forbidden to him. His presence on festive occasions used to be regarded as a gracious intrusion. He was not expected to take part in gayeties or to have any share in frivolities, which were much more hilarious when he was absent and the restraint of his presence was removed. He was thought to be somehow at war with nature, and his looking on at merrymaking was regarded by the polite as a piece of condescension on his part, an evidence of unusual liberality of sentiment. It was but the other day that a young physician, belonging to a Unitarian family, and himself an enthusiastic student of science, praised a minister for excusing his continual absence from church on the ground of his being so well employed. This was regarded as a long step in the direction of indulgence towards natural inclination. Even among rationalists, a symptom of the old idea appears in an expression of the face, the manner of address, the walk, or the general bearing. It is thought a great stretch of charity if he is kind to the atheist, the materialist, the infidel; and to take in the tempted child of nature, the drunkard, the victim of lust, avarice, is extreme good-will, benevolence amounting to saintliness. To abolish from it the pretension of superiority in the form of pity, as the high look upon the low, the good upon the bad, the moral upon the immoral, the virtuous upon the