is the National, is erroneous; and consequently all arguments based upon it are erroneous. With what sort of plausibility can it be contended that these varied forms of human progress shall be made to conform to one species of government, one set of laws, one religion?

Human institutions can never be made to keep even pace nor be in perfect harmony with the natural laws of progress, and must ever be to an extent incongruous. But as the only complete remedy for this would be the entire abrogation of permanent government, while it is conceded that large portions of society still, and for a long time yet, require permanent government; it follows that the more limited the duration, the territorial extent, and the jurisdiction of certain institutions are made, the better it must prove to be. For society being thus enabled to divide its endless phases into the smallest possible aggregations, each with its set of laws, its customs and its forms of religion most suitable to itself, it follows that a larger proportion of satisfaction will be produced than under any other arrangement. We see this in the disposition which human institutions make of themselves, when left perfectly free from governmental influence. While Catholicism is bound by its central authority to the observance of certain dogmas, and the unity of the church is by this means maintained inviolate, Protestantism, restricted by no ecclesiastical ruler, divides itself into a thousand sects, each including a batch of men who choose to seek their spiritual happiness by roads of their own making.

Even in the customs and in the dresses of men, we see that when left to themselves they exhibit the utmost possible diversity. One man eats his beef raw, another likes it cooked. The Cossack stuffs himself with mutton tallow; the Frenchman gorges himself with confectionery. The Tartar lives on horseback; the African burrows in the earth. The Zealander lives in the water; the Laplander sits on a stove. The Algerine dresses in blue; the Tyrolean in green; the Morisco in yellow; and the American in black. And in this, they but follow that example of infinite diversity which nature repeats in all her works. If the freedom to adopt what dresses, cus

toms, laws, religions, etc., men may chose for themselves, is productive of the greatest happiness, as undoubtedly it is, then, next to absolute freedom in these matters, is the privilege to join whatever little knot of men exists who believe as we do, and among whom we can preach and practise those things which we believe: and the Constitution of the United States evidently regards this natural tendency to localization as a right belonging to the people. This at once disarms every argument in favor of enlarged empire, extensive jurisdiction of laws, National systems, etc.

What may be good for Delaware may not suit California. What may enrich Maine may not benefit Texas. What may exactly meet the requirements of Oregon may prove to be very ill adapted to Florida.

The State Banking systems, whatever their faults may have been, possessed this great advantage: they harmonized with the local institutions by which they were surrounded, and they probably to a great extent reflected in each particular locality the state of general social progress at which it had arrived.

Instead of laying across the land as the National Banking system does, like a huge plank, over which insolvency seems shortly destined to walk-resting on the shoulders of some, not touching others, unbending, unyielding, unaccommodating to local peculiarities-the State systems extended across the land, like a vast chain-a chain which bound the interests of the various parts in closer unity, a chain which in the suppleness and free play of its constituent links fitted itself to all but the minutest inequalities of every locality. To be perfect, even a chain is too unbending, for what was wanting was that entire freedom which in its action can only be likened to the elasticity of fluids. But next to a free banking system the State Banks were probably the best which could have been made to adapt themselves to the wants and the conditions of the people of the various States. And they possessed this striking advantage over any other system whatever: that they stood ready at any time to be further improved when occasion called for such improvement. The Suffolk Bank system in New England was the nearest approach to an absolutely free system

which any part of this country ever possessed, and fairly reflected the superior education of the people among whom it flourished. The Clearing House system of this State was almost as perfect as the New England system, and fairly accorded with the public intelligence prevailing in New York. In Louisiana the State system was a very good one. So it was in Pennsylvania; and they, too, undoubtedly reflected the social progress which had been attained in the two great commercial cities within their borders; while the lax systems in vogue in the North-Western States were but the natural product of that backwardness which resulted from the influx of ignorant immigrants from abroad. The national system rubs all this out. It does not raise Iowa to the level of New York, but it lowers New York to the level of Iowa. It is a bed of Procrustes to which all statures are trimmed-the tall by having their legs cut off, the short by being racked to a proper degree of tenuity.

* Union in the sense of harmony is perfectly possible, and is drawing nigh. Union in the sense of identity of belief, and faith, and government, and usage, is not only not near, but is, I am happy to say, further off than ever. You do not want it. The very thing that men have prayed for, and that the church has striven after, is just the thing that would curse the world.

The efforts for union have proceeded mainly upon a notion which is radically wrong and impossible; for the union sought after would have been a mischief, and not a benefit. It has been supposed that union required identity of belief; that it created a necessity for all men to believe the same things, and to believe them alike. They do not need to believe the same things, nor to believe them alike.

It has been supposed that union required that there should be oneness and universality of government; that it necessitated the having of one church, under one name, with one mode of worship, and one line of ordinances, and one system of administration. It would be a positive nuisance to have any such thing. I would not have the sects swallowed up and dissolved into one gigantic whale-sect if I could.

It has been supposed that there must be identity of service and religious offering, in order to make that which Christ desiderated, and which his disciples have been foolishly laboring for by mistake. This is a part of that illusion that has filled the world on almost every other subject. The whole race, it has been supposed, should be like a brigade of soldiers in line, uniformed, with one band of music at their head, all stepping together to one tune, and in exactly the same time. This is the picture that has been given to our religious fancy. Men have painted how blessed this world would be when there was not a sect left, and there was one great brotherhood called by one name, believing just the same things, following just the same way, and having just the same ordinances and usages, so that when the Sabbath morning came, all the successive latitudes should echo just the same worship, till the whole globe should be one vast unison. This may be pictorially and poetically beautiful, but practically it is one of the most consummate mistakes that ever could be brought to pass. We do not want men to think just alike; we do not want men to have just the same church governments; we do not want men to follow just the same rules and regulations. We would not thank any man who

We have now to consider the National Banking system as a currency measure. That credit is a blessing per se we deny. That it is beneficial when it arises naturally from

should attempt to do by heaven what men think that they are serving God and man by attempting to do by the church on earth. For, as it will appear, God made men according to different thoughts and patterns, and in attempting to rub out the divine creative idea you introduce confusion. Who would thank you, if you had the power to confine the fields to just one single product? Who would thank you to make every day just like every other day, so that there should be no checkered weather? Who would thank you to bring all the trees of the forest to one tree, and all their leaves to one leaf? Who would thank you to convert all flowers into one flower, no matter how gorgeous it might be? It is diversity that we want, and that God has provided for. It is so in the physical world, it is so in the commercial world, it is so in the political world, it is so in the social world, and, thank God, it is so in the moral world; and this great creative law has resisted every false and mistaken endeavor which has been made to bring about identity and call it union; to efface particularity, specialty, individuality, diversity, and difference, and put in their stead one great stupid unison.

The very efforts that have been put forth for union, then, have hindered it, because they have been in a wrong direction. They have sought a thing that not only was not union, but that was subversive of the only union that can ever take place according to the laws of our being.

Therefore we do not want, and cannot have, a union which sacrifices diversity and difference.

*

A pretty unity you would have if the legislature told you every day just when you should wash, how many pieces, and the manner in which you should do it; just when you should bake, how many loaves, and of what material they should be; just when you should go out, and when you should come in; just when you should spread your table, in the morning, at noonday, and in the evening, and what you should put on it; just when you should pray, and when you should not; just when you should undress your children and put them to bed, and when you should take them up; when you should flagellate them, and how much! If the whole procedure of our families was regulated by law, how discordant they would be! what scenes of conflict would be enacted in them! how like Babel let loose would they seem! And yet, how is it that the church has tried to secure unity? By giving up reason, and individuality, and peculiarity, and liberty. But churches can be harmonious just as families can. How? By letting every church think as it has a mind to, and by accepting every church into a neighborhood fellowship, provided the average of its doing is one that makes for virtue, and religion, and peace. Of this more in the sequel.

This attempt to unitize the human mind is a part of that universal blundering which has been undertaken upon theory in every department of society. In earlier periods, governments have tried to harmonize nations and empires by as far as possible reducing men to the kind of union which I have described. Earlier centuries have sought for identity in civil affairs by cutting off criticism, by discouraging debate, by denying large liberty, and by bringing men within the compass of laws and statutes. And the result of the experiment, it seems to me, has been such as to lead the church to imitate the example.

The same thing has been tried in the realm of commerce. There have been periods, in the wisest nations, when it was supposed that the public good required that commerce and manufacturing and husbandry should be held under legal restrictions and compressed to uniformity. But the progress of the development of civilization has taught men that the best way to promote the general welfare was to let industry alone. There are certain great bounds beyond which it is essential that commerce should not be allowed to go; but always commerce untrammelled by law is healthier than commerce meddled with and compressed and unitized by any fanciful or theoretic decree.

a certain state of things, we affirm. But the credit mobilized by means of the National Banks is an exotic credit, not a natural credit. It is brought into existence, not by the cheerful influences of honesty and trust, but by the artificial fertilizer, which in the shape of United States stocks is planted at its roots. The limited circulation of the State Banks was one of their best recommendations; for circulation if left to itself will never exceed the due wants of society; while circulation when artificially encouraged will not only exceed those wants, but, to the extent of such excess, will produce disorder and loss. The immense aggregate amount of services performed by the comparatively small circulation of the State banks, say from $60,000,000 in 1843 to $200,000,000 in 1860, was so great, that the people who employed this circulation during those seventeen years of active commerce, could afterward have afforded to lose every penny of it; yet during all this period. the losses through bank insolvencies did not probably exceed one fiftieth part of that sum. After actively working a packhorse for seventeen years, we can certainly afford to lose something in his price when we sell him; and so with the State Bank notes.

In attacking this feature of forced circulation created by the quasi legal-tender character of the National Bank notes, we know we are making a point out of a feature which it is agreed on all hands should be at once abolished; yet we think this feature of so much importance to the permanence of the National system, that we doubt if it ever will be repealed until

God has inspired the universe with diversity. He meant that difference should be a part of the sovereign beauty of the world and of human life. Foolish men have sought to eradicate this principle; but nature, still immortal and omnipotent, rises over each assault, and will to the end.

The

It has been just this that has been sought in morals and in religion. Not only has there been a real spirit of despotism in using the sanctions of religion, and the supposed authority which it confers; but the whole despotic power has sought to do an unnatural and impossible thing-a thing as impossible and unnatural in morals and religion as it has been proved to be in politics and in commerce. worst thing that could have happened to the world would have been the fulfilment of that bright and beautiful dream of fools-the establishment of identity of belief, identity of church government, and identity of worship; but instead of these there have been variations in belief, variations in church government, and variations in worship. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administration, but the same Lord." Even so it is; but when will men learn it? (Henry Ward Beecher.)