Another effect of this rebellion of the national mind against the Puritan theories is seen in the almost yearly inauguration of some new sect in religion, in a land which is already so crowded with diverse and antagonistic religious organizations that it might be termed the land of sects. However right or wrong in a religious point of view, the Puritans committed the great _social_ mistake of establishing a new church, instead of working earnestly to reform the old in those respects in which it seemed to them to have fallen into error, thereby destroying the unity of the Christian world. Had the movement stopped here, less harm would have been done; but it was not of the nature of things that it should be so. The establishment of the principle that purity of worship and of belief was to be sought, and diversity of religious opinion to be gratified in separation and the erection of new organizations, rather than in the endeavor to purify the old and established form, at once threw wide open the door of schism, and with it, in the end, that of scepticism. The movement once begun could neither be checked nor controlled by any human effort. Others claimed the right which they themselves had exercised, and the result was soon seen in the separation of one after another denomination from the Puritan Church, each, in its turn, to be divided into a score of sects, according as circumstances should alter religious views. Were the principles of true religion in themselves progressive, were the teachings, of the gospel inadequate to or unfitting for all possible stages of human progress, or were they capable of development, the world might then have been the gainer. Or, again, were reason infallible, the separation of the churches would be an incalculable blessing, by securing to all minds a free investigation upon religious subjects. But infidelity desires no more powerful coadjutor than human reason in its freest exercise, because it is so liable to be led away by sophistry, and its invariable tendency is to reject as myths and fables all things which it cannot comprehend or for which it cannot see a material cause. Perfect reason is the twin brother and strongest supporter of faith; but reason as it exists in the present development of humanity is its most deadly antagonist. The age of reason has fallen upon us, and its result is seen in a practical scepticism pervading the whole of our society, which in its extent and its injurious effects put to the blush the wildest speculations of the most radical German metaphysicians. Every day we see around us men of no religious profession, and little if any religious feeling, calmly facing death without a tremor, without a thought of the awful beyond. And though the application of the term infidel to such a man would not fail to arouse his fiercest indignation, his indifference to the events and the fate of the great hereafter can arise from nothing else than an utter disbelief in the teachings of Holy