Now, I do not disown creeds—­provided they are my own!  Well, you smile; but that is the way it has been since the world began.  No denomination believes in any creed except its own.  I do not say that men’s knowledge on moral subjects may not be formulated.  I criticize the formulation of beliefs from time to time, in this:  that they are very partial; that they are formed upon the knowledge of a past age, and that that knowledge perishes while higher and nobler knowledge comes in; that there ought to be higher and better forms; and that while their power is relatively small, the power of the spirit of humanity is relatively great.  When I examine a church, I do not so much care whether its worship is to the one God or to the triune God.  I do not chiefly care for the catechism, nor for the confession of faith, although they are both interesting.  I do not even look to see whether it is a synagogue or a Christian church—­I do not care whether it has a cross over the top of it or is Quaker plain.  I do not care whether it is Protestant, Catholic, or anything else.  Let me read the living—–­ the living book!  What is the spirit of the people?  How do they feel among each other?  How do they feel toward the community?  What is their life and conduct in regard to the great prime moral duty of man, “Love the Lord thy God and thy neighbor as thyself,” whether he be obscure or whether he be smiling in the very plenitude of wealth and refinement?  Have you a heart for humanity?  Have you a soul that goes out for men?  Are you Christ-like?  Will you spend yourself for the sake of elevating men who need to be lifted up?  That is orthodox.  I do not care what the creed is.  If a church has a good creed, that is all the more felicitous; and if it has a bad creed, a good life cures the bad creed.

One of the dangers of our civilization may be seen in the light of these considerations.  We are developing so much strength founded on popular intelligence, and this intelligence and the incitements to it are developing such large property interests, that if the principle of elective affinity shall sort men out and classify them, we are steering to the not very remote danger of the disintegration of human society.  I can tell you that the classes of men who by their knowledge, refinement, and wealth think they are justified in separating themselves, and in making a great void between them and the myriads of men below them, are courting their own destruction.  I look with very great interest on the process of change going on in Great Britain, where the top of society had all the “blood,” but the circulation is growing larger and larger, and a change is gradually taking place in their institutions.  The old nobility of Great Britain is the lordliest of aristocracies existing in the world.  Happily, on the whole, a very noble class of men occupy the high positions:  but the spirit of suffrage, this angel of God that so many hate, is coming in on them; and when every