Unfortunately, there was something worse in the Church than false philosophy, unless this book very grievously falsifies facts. Her bitterest foe would hardly dare charge upon Zion such iniquity as the friendly unbosoming in these pages reveals. Wily intrigue, reckless perversion of language, rule or ruin, such things as we regret to see even in a political caucus, are to be found in abundance in the counsels of men who profess to be working only for the glory of God and the good of souls. Insinuations of craft and cowardice are set on foot, where direct charges fail for want of evidence. Rumor is made to do the work which reason cannot accomplish. Private letters are surreptitiously published, the publication defended as done with the permission of the writer, and testimony to the contrary refused a hearing. Extracts are taken out of their connection and made to carry a different meaning from that which they originally bore. What cannot be put down by evidence is to be put down by odium. There is a "cool and deliberate determination on the part of one half the Presbyterian Church to inflict upon the other half all the injury possible." Dr. Beecher's son, himself a prominent clergyman, is forced to confess, that, "for a combination of meanness and guilt and demoralising power in equal degrees of intensity, I have never known anything to exceed the conspiracy in New England and in the Presbyterian Church to crush by open falsehood and secret whisperings my father and others, whom they have in vain tried to silence by argument or to condemn in the courts of the Church." And yet, as Dr. Beecher stands forth in this biography, in native honor clad, so, undoubtedly, does Brother Nettleton stand forth in his biography, and Brother Woods in his, and Brother Wilson in his, and all the brethren in theirs,--all honorable men. We venture to say that not one of these reverend traducers and mischief-makers was "dealt with" by his church for his evil-doing. We make no doubt he went through life without loss of prestige or diminution of sanctity, and was bewailed at his death by the sons of the prophets in tenderest phrase, "My father! my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." We do not attribute these shameful proceedings to Orthodoxy, still less to Christianity. "Perhaps it is a fact of our fallen nature, as Dr. Beecher asserted, that "Adam and grace will do twice as much as grace alone." But surely all these things happened unto them for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition. Seeing how unlovely is the spectacle of bickering and bitterness, let Christians of every name look well to their steps, saying often one to another, and especially repeating in concert, at the opening of every council, conference, synod, and assembly,-- "Let dogs delight to bark and bite, For God hath made them so; Let bears and lions growl and fight, For 't is their nature, too.