But beyond these open foes to one's faith, who has not met with zealous enthusiasts who urge upon his acceptance under penalty of the worst for all eternity if refused, any amount of strange isms,--Plymouth, Southcote, Swedenborg, Irving, Mormon,--and of the other 272 sects which affect (perhaps more truly infect) religion in this free land?
I have had many of these attacking me by word or letter on the excuse of my books.

Who, if he once weakly gives way to their urgent advice to "search and see for himself," will not soon be addled and muddled by all sorts of sophistical and controversial botherations, if even he is not tempted to accept--for lucre if not godliness--the office of bishop, or apostle, or prophet, or anything else too freely offered by zealots to new converts, if of notoriety enough to exalt or enrich a sect; such sect in every case proclaiming itself the one only true Church, all other sects being nothing but impostors?
We have all encountered such spiritual perils,--and happy may we feel that with whatever faults and failings, there is an orthodox and established form of religion amongst us in the land.

For my own part, I go freely to any house of prayer, national or nonconformist, where the Gospel is preached and the preacher is capable: all I want is a good man for the good word and work--and if he has the true Spirit in him, I care next to nothing for his orders: though to many less independent minds human authorisation may be a necessity.

From cradle hymns to the more serious prayings of senility, my own religion in two words is crystallised as "Abba, Father;" my only priest being my Divine Brother; and my Friend and Guide through this life and beyond it the Holy Spirit, who unites all the family of God.

May I die, as I have lived, in this simple faith of childhood.
My "Probabilities" has, amongst others apposite, this sentence about the origin of evil, and the usefulness of temptation: "To our understanding, at least, there was no possible method of illustrating the amiabilities of Goodness and the contrivances of Wisdom but by the infused permission of some physical and moral evils; mercy, benevolence, design would in a universe of Best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow stagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God's excellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten.