When I was a student in the Princeton Seminary, a classmate from Kentucky gave me a little hymn-book used at the camp meetings in the frontier settlements of his native region.

In that book was a hymn, one verse of which contains these sweet and irenic lines: "When I was blind, and could not see, The Calvinists deceived me." Just imagine the incense of devout praise ascending heavenward in such a thick smoke of sectarian contentions! All the denominations were more or less afflicted with this controversial malady; and I will venture to say that in Kentucky and Ohio and other new regions, the Presbyterians were often a fair match for their Methodist neighbors in these theological pugilistics.

I might multiply illustrations of these unhappy clashings and controversies that have often disfigured even the most evangelical branches of Christendom.

What a blessed change for the better have I witnessed in my old days! Among the foremost efforts of denominational fellowship was the organization of the American Bible Society, the American Tract Society, and the American Sunday School Union.

Later on in the same century came those two splendid spiritual inventions--The Young Men's Christian Association, and the Society of Christian Endeavor.