ople Orthodox from their cradles,
(and probably only from their cradles, certainly not from their
brains,) who think it is something pretty to become Unitarianistic.
They don't become Unitarians, as they never were Orthodox, because they
have not thought enough or sense enough to become or to be anything;
but they like to make a stir and attract attention. They seem to think
it indicates great liberality of character, and great breadth of view,
to be continually flinging out against their own faith, ridiculing
this, that, and the other point held by their Church, and shocking
devout and simple-minded Orthodox by their quasi-profanity. Now for
good Orthodox Christians I have a great respect; and for good Unitarian
Christians I have a great respect; and for sincere, sad seekers, who
can find no rest for the sole of their foot, I have a great respect;
but for these Border State men, who are neither here nor there, on whom
you never can lay your hand, because they are twittering everywhere, I
have a profound contempt. I wish people to be either one thing or
another. I desire them to believe something, and know what it is, and
stick to it. I have no patience with this modern outcry against
creeds. You hear people inveigh against them, without for a moment
thinking what they are. They talk as if creeds were the head and front
of human offending, the infallible sign of bigotry and hypocrisy,
incompatible alike with piety and wisdom. Do not these wise men know
that the thinkers and doers of the earth, in overwhelming majority,
have been creed men? Creeds may exist without religion, but neither
religion, nor philosophy, nor politics, nor society, can exist without
creeds. There must be a creed in the head, or there cannot be religion
in the heart. You must believe that Deity exists, before you can
reverence Deity. You must believe in the fact of humanity, or you
cannot love your fellows. A creed is but the concentration, the
crystallization, of belief. Truth is of but little worth till it is so
crystallized. Truth lying dissolved in oceans of error and nonsense
and ignorance makes but a feeble diluent. It swashes everywhere, but
to deluge, not to benefit. Precipitate it, and you have the salt of
the earth. Political opposition, inorganic, is but a blind, cumbrous,
awkward, inefficient thing; but construct a platform, and immediately
it becomes lithe, efficient, powerful. Even before they set foot on
these rude sho