Never perhaps was there a time when the great disadvantages of disunion were so pressed in a practical form on the notice of the churches as at the present. It formed the complaint of one of our better English writers considerably more than a century ago, that we had religion enough to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another. At that time, however, sects, to employ one of Bacon's striking phrases, 'had not so grown to equality' as now; and storms in the moral world, as in the natural 'at the equinoxia,' when night and day are equal, are commonly greatest, adds the philosopher, 'when things do grow to equality.' The unestablished Protestant denominations formed in the times of Queen Anne a mere feeble moiety, that could raise no efficient voice against the established religion; and Popery, newly thrust under feet, after a formidable struggle, that threatened to overturn the constitution of the country, had no voice at all. Matters are very different now: things have grown to an equality; night and day, as 'at the equinoxia,' have become nearly equal; and society can scarce take one step for the general benefit, without experiencing, as a thwarting and arresting influence, the effects of religious difference. Do we regret that the Government of a country such as ours should be practically irreligious in its character? Alas! were every Government functionary in the empire a thoroughly religious man, Government could not act otherwise than it does in not a few instances, just in consequence of our religious differences. Are there millions of the people sinking into brutality and ignorance, and do our rulers originate a scheme of education in their behalf?--our religious differences straightway step in to arrest and cripple the design. Are there whole districts of country subjected to famine, and are we roused, both as Britons and as Christians, to contribute of our substance for their relief?--our religious differences immediately interfere; and a Church greatly more identified by membership with the sufferers than any other, has to fight a hard battle ere she can be permitted to co-operate in the general cause. Is there a ragged-school scheme originated in the capital, to rescue the neglected perishing young among us from out the very jaws of destruction?--forthwith rival institutions start up, on the ground of religious differences, to dwarf one another into inefficiency, like starveling shrubs in a nursery run wild; and projected exertions in the cause of degraded and suffering humanity degenerate into an attack on a benevolent Presbyterian minister, who refuses to accept, from conscientious motives, of a directorship in a Popish institution. This is surely a sad state of things,--a state grown very general, and which threatens to become more so; and in a due sense of the weakness for all good which it creates, and of the palpable state of disorganization and decomposition favourable to