In the first place, no such thing exists. Let us adhere to the case in point. Mr. Smyth, who is styled “reverend,” is the chaplain of the society we are examining. What is the meaning of the word chaplain? A clergyman appointed to perform certain clerical duties. Mr. Smyth is a clergyman of some denomination or other, we care not what. He is not a self-appointed “reverend.” He must have been brought up in some denomination and educated in some theological school. There is no such thing as a “reverend” of no church, of a non-sectarian church. Every clergyman has been educated in some theological school, or at least according to some special form of doctrine and belief, and has entered the ministry as a teacher and preacher of that special form of belief and doctrine. If he leaves it, he leaves it either for infidelity--in which case he renounces his title as a clergyman--or for some other form of doctrine and belief to which he turns, and of which, so long as he remains in the ministry, he is the teacher, propagator, and upholder. If he is not this, he is a humbug. To say that he is or can be non-sectarian--that is, pledged to preach no particular form of doctrine, or a form of doctrine equally available for all kinds of believers or non-believers--is to talk the sheerest nonsense. In all cases a clergyman is, by virtue of his office and profession and belief, pledged to some form of doctrine and faith, which unless he teaches, he is either a coward or a humbug. Anything resembling a “non-sectarian” clergyman would be exactly like a soldier who bound himself by oath to a certain government, yet held himself free not to defend that government, or, when he saw it attacked, to be particularly careful not to do anything that might possibly offend or oppose the foe. The world and his own government would stamp such a man as the vilest of beings--a traitor. The union of such diametrically opposite professions is a sheer impossibility.