our planet, it is strange indeed that the apostles
overlooked such an important point and failed to provide for it. Why
was not the primitive church constructed so as to bring into existence
at once a variety of human sects to accommodate the different classes
of people then existing? From the modern point of view they had an
excellent excuse for starting with at least two churches--one for
the Jews and another for the Gentiles; and if these had not been
sufficient, before the end of their personal ministry they could have
brought into existence a whole brood of sects.

Now, the student of the Scriptures knows that the apostles proceeded
exactly in the opposite direction. They labored earnestly to bring all
classes into love and fellowship _in one body_. This course was not in
accordance with the wisdom of the world, but the twentieth century is
beginning to see that it was "the wisdom of God."

The reason why men have a liking for formal liturgies, stately
ceremonies, and ecclesiastical vestments is because of environment.
They have been trained that way. Here again we see the natural
tendency of sects to make sectarians and thus reproduce their kind.
When particular forms and ceremonies, which are not required
by Scripture, are enforced upon men by a self-constituted,
self-perpetuating ecclesiastical authority, the inevitable result
is to stamp the same principles upon succeeding generations and thus
perpetuate the sect system exercising such authority.

[Sidenote: The sect spirit]

In a final effort to lessen the odium attaching to what is now widely
recognized as an evil, some assert that the cause of mischief is the
sect spirit. This statement contains truth, but it does not tell the
whole truth. One of the worst evils of human slavery was the extreme
tyranny which some slave-masters exercised. But the real fact was that
the system itself tended to convert good men and women into tyrants.
The special manifestation of evil was both effect and cause. It
was the natural tendency of the system to make tyrants, and tyrants
perpetuated the system. So also with sectarianism. Though all can
realize a theoretical difference between the sect spirit and simple
denominationalism, yet the very tendency of the system itself is
to create party interests and to introduce party rivalries, which
naturally foster the sect spirit. Without that devotion to party and
party interests--a devotion almost equal to their devotion to the