The terms “religion” and “asceticism” represent separable realms of experience. Asceticism may occur where a Stoic philosopher, from purely ethical considerations, denies all indulgence to the appetites of the body, that “gaol and shackle of the soul.” It is today employed, in Egypt and in India, in the strategy of political causes. The athlete or the actor, the scholar or the merchant, may adopt an ascetic type of behavior for the sake of efficiency on a non-religious level. On the other hand feasting may be as religious as fasting, jubilation as holy as penance.

The history of the Plan of Union has been written largely under the influence of denominational zeal, jealousy, and antipathy. Underlying much of the writing have been the assumptions that a main object of religious endeavor is to build up denominational organizations and enlarge the statistics, that denominations ought to be kept “pure,” that movements of individuals or churches from one to another are not altogether creditable and justify suspicion of inferior motives on the part of somebody. For example, the Rev. James H. Dill, in an article on “Congregationalism in Western New York” in the Congregational Quarterly in 1859, which has recently been cited as an authority, refers to churches “which have been spirited away from Congregationalism”; and Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, in an article on “Congregationalism in Eastern New York” in the same periodical in 1860, says “The Black River Association … had increased to seventeen churches when in 1817, it was induced to unite with the Watertown Presbytery. … After some years, some of the Congregational churches withdrew from this entanglement, and re-organized in an Association.” On the other side, Dr. Samuel J. Baird in 1868 said in A History of the New School, “The multiplication of Congregational ministers, in the Presbyterian Church, was no increase of strength; but the introduction of an element of weakness, division and heresy.”

Presbyterians are fond of pointing out that their General Assembly was organized in the year which witnessed the adoption of our Federal Constitution, and that the republican organization of their central government corresponds in many respects to that of the “more perfect Union” which the people of the United States decided in 1788 to set up. Michigan Presbyterians may with reason cite a parallel coincidence in dates of establishment: the Synod of Michigan was founded in September, 1834, only about six months before the people of the territory elected delegates to draw up a state constitution. From this common chronological beginning, both Michigan organizations developed rapidly, and naturally their histories were closely related.

During the closing years of Pius IX's pontificate the relations between church and state in Italy were marred by incessant and acrimonious strife. The occupation of Rome on September 20, 1870 had widened the breach between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The subsequent course of this feud brought no attenuation of existing animosities. The implacable hostility of the Vatican to the new order of things in the peninsula spurred the Italian government to take drastic measures against the church and its recalcitrant hierarchy. Decisive too in the launching of this concerted offensive was the eagerness of the country's rulers to accelerate the secularization of Italian life. To these recurrent assaults the Holy See invariably replied with a barrage of protests and denunciations which reverberated throughout the Catholic world. Each fresh crisis was accompanied by recriminations which threw into sharp relief the formidable barriers to an understanding between these seemingly irreconcilable foes.