Sectarianism still has its defenders, however. In the midst of the rising tide of spiritual fellowship and love, there are those who bring forward a few sickly apologies for sects, apologies which generally impress the earnest student of the Scriptures with the thought that the apologist has a hard case to make out. The excuse most commonly advanced is that the sect system is a useful arrangement for accommodating the variety of tastes and feelings found among Christian people. It is assumed that some are natural-born Episcopalians, with an innate fondness for formal liturgies and ecclesiastical vestments, and that others are so constituted by nature as to require certain other particular forms of worship. [Sidenote: Diversity of taste and culture] If there is any such fundamental demand in human nature for a variety of sects, as different climates are required to suit different orders of life on our planet, it is strange indeed that the apostles overlooked such an important point and failed to provide for it. Why was not the primitive church constructed so as to bring into existence at once a variety of human sects to accommodate the different classes of people then existing? From the modern point of view they had an excellent excuse for starting with at least two churches--one for the Jews and another for the Gentiles; and if these had not been sufficient, before the end of their personal ministry they could have brought into existence a whole brood of sects. Now, the student of the Scriptures knows that the apostles proceeded exactly in the opposite direction. They labored earnestly to bring all classes into love and fellowship _in one body_. This course was not in accordance with the wisdom of the world, but the twentieth century is beginning to see that it was "the wisdom of God." The reason why men have a liking for formal liturgies, stately ceremonies, and ecclesiastical vestments is because of environment. They have been trained that way. Here again we see the natural tendency of sects to make sectarians and thus reproduce their kind. When particular forms and ceremonies, which are not required by Scripture, are enforced upon men by a self-constituted, self-perpetuating ecclesiastical authority, the inevitable result is to stamp the same principles upon succeeding generations and thus perpetuate the sect system exercising such authority. [Sidenote: The sect spirit]