Dr. Spring has done a great deal of theological fighting in his day; but his foes have been chiefly those of his own household. Now and then he has carried the war into foreign countries, as at the time of the famous School Question in New York, when he had a tilt with Bishop Hughes before the Common Council, and got decidedly the worst of it; but for the most part he has devoted himself to intestine feuds. The controversy between Hopkinsians {133} and Calvinists in the Presbyterian denomination; the disputes in the American Bible Society; the schism in the Young Men's Missionary Society of New York; the effort to create a division in the American Home Missionary Society; the controversies about the New Haven school of theology and the exscinding acts of the General Assembly;--these and many other religious quarrels took up a great deal of the doctor's time, and he still writes about them with no little acrimony and personal feeling. We subjoin a few extracts: "The wrath of the Philadelphia Synod is praising the Lord. We shall have a battle in the spring, and lay a heavy hand upon that report. I shall not hesitate to take my life in my hand if Providence allows me to go to the Assembly."--_vol. i., p._70. "The Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely had published his celebrated work, entitled 'The Contrast,' the object of which is to show the points of difference between the views of Hopkinsian and Calvinistic theology. It was addressed to prejudice and ignorance, and was aimed at the youthful pastor of the Brick church."--_Vol. i., p._ 129. "I find my heart strangely _suspicious_. Sometimes I am resolved to withdraw from the Missionary and Education cause, because I foresee they will be scenes of contention. But then, again, I know they are exposed to evils, and the church is exposed to evils, through the mismanagement of these excellent institutions, which perhaps I may prevent."--_Vol ii., p_. 78. We doubt whether Dr. Spring's clerical brethren like the following passage; but anyhow, there is a great deal of truth in it: