§ 2. Temperamental dislike is another obstacle to Christian fellowship to be conquered. It is something found wherever human nature is. And men commonly excuse quarrelsomeness, rudeness and other unchristian conduct on this score, though the excuse is by no means valid. Probably all of us are afflicted with a natural antipathy to certain kinds of temperament, but at least we need not humour it. It was part of God's design, that human society should be enriched by variety of disposition. That is a poor garden which contains but one kind of flower, beautiful as its blossom may be. True beauty consists in variety; and monotony is the height of ugliness. It is a reason for thankfulness that human nature is so wonderfully diversified that no two human beings are exactly alike, and that there is a whole gamut of temperamental difference in the race. Now it is a part of the work of Christianity, to reconcile dispositions that are naturally antipathetic and jarring. And the process by which this is brought to pass, is probably one of the most beneficial disciplines to which men are subjected. The Church is a great mixing bowl, in which all this vast variety is brought into close touch and blended together into a harmonious whole. "The very purpose of the one Church for all the men of faith in Jesus is that the necessity for belonging to one body--a necessity grounded on divine appointment--shall force together into a unity men of all sorts and different kinds; and the forces of the new life which they share in common are to overcome their natural repugnance and antipathies, and to make the forbearance and love and mutual helpfulness which corporate life requires, if not easy, at least possible for them."[16] That society is at once the most beautiful and the most powerful which is composed of the largest variety of temperaments, exercising their various faculties in unity and mutual helpfulness. Some persons imagine that the most desirable parochial life is where all the parishioners are of one stripe, instead of that in which there is a finely disciplined diversity. A parish of dead uniformity would be comfortable but not educative, quiet but colourless and insipid.