If we drew our presumptions from history, we should assume that, in every area of church life, what is now going on is partly valid and partly not; and believers in the _status quo_ and disbelievers in it would discuss each question upon a plane of friendly equality. But they do not meet as equals; the freedom to repeat our thoughts is, so to say, greater than the freedom to do fresh thinking. Note how many liberals strive, as far as honesty permits, to make it appear that they are not radical nor anything more than progressively orthodox. That is to say, it is taken for granted that something has the precedence of real freedom. Churchmen have no such fear of their past as the facts warrant; their fears always prick up ears towards anything that is in any significant way novel. Was ever a minister brought to trial for backwardness of mind, or for obstructing the freedom of others? And did the acceptance or rejection of any candidate for the ministry ever hinge upon whether he was sufficiently liberty-loving to guard the guarantees of freedom in the church constitution? The fears are on the other side, and there the defenders of the faith patrol their beat. As for individual ministers who believe in real freedom yet submit to the informal censorship of church opinion, it is by no means necessary to suppose that they sell their silence for place or salary, though the spiritual peril here is immeasureable. Some of them, without doubt, by their really large and just-permitted variations from the ordinary, are helping to keep alive the tradition of freedom. On the other hand, what shall be said of those who, though they believe in freedom in the abstract, are convinced that, if it is not actually a subordinate interest of the spirit, at least it can better afford postponement than other interests? It is fair to say that they lay it away in a napkin. I should not like to have these remarks add force to the common opinion that religious institutions are inherently more repressive than others. This opinion is at least a grave exaggeration. It forgets the glorious chapters in religious history that record the identification of faith with the bursting of bonds--ecclesiastical, political, social, intellectual, ethical. It forgets, too, the character of our secular institutions. Let us look at a few of them.