The precise count is not important in this place. The Catholics and Methodists are large bodies of American Christians, and they have some common features as well as some striking contrasts. Both communions owe their success (if we take worldly measurement) to their vigorous management and subordination of their clergy for the good of the common cause. A Methodist itinerant and a Catholic priest resemble each other very little, but they are alike in being men who are “sent,” and who “obey orders.” Their personal choices and well-being are subordinated to a service and devotion. They alike resign at the doors of the temple their rights to serve and please themselves. It may be said that all Christians should do this; but this self-surrender is to the priest and the itinerants _objective_ as well as _subjective_. It means that they go where they are sent by a human authority which they identify with the divine will. They are sacrificed to the general good; they suffer that others may rejoice—always under an external and visible authority. Another point of resemblance is the _practical_ liberty of laymen in both churches. Theoretically the Catholic and the Methodist laymen are both bound to considerable service and duties. Methodism began in a rigor of religious duties which makes one wonder how John Wesley missed founding a new Catholic order of world-renouncing priests and lay brothers. Catholicism is theoretically even more rigorous. In the progress of this century, both laities have achieved more liberty than is good for them; the priest and the itinerant serve and sacrifice for all. A bright-eyed Methodist editor called attention some years ago to the fact that his church tolerates no heresy in ministers and pays little attention to the doctrinal vagaries of its laymen. It is doubtless true of both Catholics and Methodists; though neither church is prepared to make any admission of the sort or ever will be. The theory in each case calls for sound believing; and it is probably a just judgment which says that liberty is the atmosphere required for the growth of sound faith.