division, indeed, has been carried so far in America that it would be a difficult task to find the religious body so small as, in the judgment of some, to be incapable of further division. [Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE (PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL) UNDER PROCESS OF ERECTION IN NEW YORK.] It is to be observed, however, that the differences of the one hundred and forty-three denominations into which our religious population is divided are, in many instances, so slight that, should consolidation be attempted, the one hundred and forty-three could easily be reduced to a comparatively small number, and this with but little change in doctrine, polity, or usage. Consolidation into organic union, however, is hardly likely to occur in the near future, even were such consolidation desirable. In the first place such a result would be contrary to the genius of Protestantism, based, as it is, on the absolute right of private judgment with respect to matters of faith and morals, and, in the second place, it would be contrary to human experience. “Religious controversies,” as Gladstone says, “do not, like bodily wounds, heal by the genial forces of nature. If they do not proceed to gangrene and mortification, at least they tend to harden into fixed facts, to incorporate themselves into laws, character, and tradition, nay, even into language; so that at last they take rank among the data and presuppositions of common life, and are thought as inexorable as the rocks of an iron-bound coast.” In religion, when men separate, the severance is like the severance of the two early friends of whom the poet speaks:— “They parted, ne’er to meet again, But neither ever found another To free the hollow heart from paining. They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which have been rent asunder, A dreary sea now rolls between.” [Illustration: FATHER DAMIEN, MISSIONARY TO HAWAIIAN LEPER COLONY.] If, however, the diversities are great—increasing rather than diminishing—the “unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace” with respect to all essentials of doctrine is as remarkable as the diversity in the outward form. Never, indeed, since the dawn of Christianity, were the members of the diversified bodies of the general church of Christ in such thorough accord, in such closeness of attachment, with such generous recognition of all that is good in each of the several bodies, as now. Even the Roman Catholic Church, intolerant in all lands where its sway is practically undisputed, in the United States, at least, has caught something of the broader toleration of Protestants, giving to its millions of communicants a better and truer gospel than in those countries where it does not come into contact with Protestantism, while freely coöperating with other churches in various works of philanthropy and reform.