It has been the misery and the disgrace of the church, that
too many theologians who have held the truth, and have
ield it, too, in its best forms, have held it, like the hea-
then in unrighteousness ; have held it in narrowness and
hJiotry. They have difliired in a hard, dry, ungenial
iay They have forgotten that the rich man can aflord
4 he liberal ; that the strong man need not be constantly
iexious ; that a scientific and rigorous orthodoxy should
ever look out of a beaming, and not a sullen, eye.
Let us be thankful that some ages in the history ot the
church furnish examples that cheer and instruct. Look
back at that most interesting period, the period of the
Reformation, and contemplate the profound agreement
upon essentials and the genial disagreement upon non-
essentials, that prevailed among the leaders then. Mar-
tin Luther and John Calvin were two theologians who
diB'ered as greatly in mental stmoture, and m their spon-
taneous mode of contemplating and constiucting doc-
trines, as is possible for two minds upon the same sule
of the great controversy between orthodoxy and heresy.
