What have this multitude of ministers to show?--how much knowledge
given, what wise guidance, what inspiration of humanity? Let the best
men answer.

This ministerial army may be separated into three divisions. First, the
Church Militant, the Fighting Church, as the ecclesiastical dictionaries
define it. Reverend men serve devoutly in its ranks. Their work is
negative, oppositional. Under various banners, with diverse, and
discordant war-cries, trumpets braying a certain or uncertain sound, and
weapons of strange pattern, though made of trusty steel, they do battle
against the enemy. What shots from antique pistols, matchlocks, from
crossbows and catapults, are let fly at the foe! Now the champion
attacks "New Views," "Ultraism," "Neology," "Innovation," "Discontent,"
"Carnal Reason"; then he lays lance in rest, and rides valiantly
upon "Unitarianism," "Popery," "Infidelity," "Atheism," "Deism,"
"Spiritualism"; and though one by one he runs them through, yet he never
quite slays the Evil One;--the severed limbs unite again, and a new
monster takes the old one's place. It is serious men who make up the
Church Militant,--grim, earnest, valiant. If mustered in the ninth
century, there had been no better soldiers nor elder.

Next is the Church Termagant. They are the Scolds of the Church-hold,
terrible from the beginning hitherto. Their work is denouncing; they
have always a burden against something. _Obsta decisis_ is their
motto,--"Hate all that is agreed upon." When the "contrary-minded" are
called for, the Church Termagant holds up its hand. A turbulent people,
and a troublesome, are these sons of thunder,--a brotherhood of
universal come-outers. Their only concord is disagreement. It is not
often, perhaps, that they have better thoughts than the rest of men,
but a superior aptitude to find fault; their growling proves, "not
that themselves are wise, but others weak." So their pulpit is a
brawling-tub, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." They have a
deal of thunder, and much lightning, but no light, nor any continuous
warmth, only spasms of heat. _Odi presentem laudare absentem_,--the
Latin tells their story. They come down and trouble every Bethesda in
the world, but heal none of the impotent folk. To them,

"Of old things, all are over old,
Of new things, none is new enough."

They have a rage for fault-finding, and betake themselves to the pulpit
as others are sent to Bedlam. Men of all denominati