time Mr. Brownson found he had mistaken his church, and went over to the Roman Catholic establishment, of which he became and remained to his dying day one of the most stalwart champions.  Nature is prolific and ambidextrous.  While this strong convert was trying to carry us back to the ancient faith, another of her sturdy children, Theodore Parker, was trying just as hard to provide a new church for the future.  One was driving the sheep into the ancient fold, while the other was taking down the bars that kept them out of the new pasture.  Neither of these powerful men could do the other’s work, and each had to find the task for which he was destined.

The “old gospel ship,” as the Methodist song calls it, carries many who would steer by the wake of their vessel.  But there are many others who do not trouble themselves to look over the stern, having their eyes fixed on the light-house in the distance before them.  In less figurative language, there are multitudes of persons who are perfectly contented with the old formulae of the church with which they and their fathers before them have been and are connected, for the simple reason that they fit, like old shoes, because they have been worn so long, and mingled with these, in the most conservative religious body, are here and there those who are restless in the fetters of a confession of faith to which they have pledged themselves without believing in it.  This has been true of the Athanasian creed, in the Anglican Church, for two centuries more or less, unless the Archbishop of Canterbury, Tillotson, stood alone in wishing the church were well rid of it.  In fact, it has happened to the present writer to hear the Thirty-nine Articles summarily disposed of by one of the most zealous members of the American branch of that communion, in a verb of one syllable, more familiar to the ears of the forecastle than to those of the vestry.

But on the other hand, it is far from uncommon to meet with persons among the so-called “liberal” denominations who are uneasy for want of a more definite ritual and a more formal organization than they find in their own body.  Now, the rector or the minister must be well aware that there are such cases, and each of them must be aware that there are individuals under his guidance whom he cannot satisfy by argument, and who really belong by all their instincts to another communion.  It seems as if a thoroughly honest, straight-collared clergyman would say frankly to his restless parishioner:  “You do not believe the central doctrines of the church which you are in the habit of attending.  You belong properly to Brother A.’s or Brother B.’s fold, and it will be more manly and probably more profitable for you to go there than to stay with us.”  And, again, the rolling-collared clergyman might be expected to say to this or that uneasy listener:  “You are longing for a church which will settle your beliefs for you, and relieve you to a great extent from the task, to which you seem to be unequal, of working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.  Go over the way to Brother C.’s or Brother D.’s; your spine is weak, and they will furnish you a back-board which will keep you straight and make you comfortable.”  Patients are not the property of their physicians, nor parishioners of their ministers.