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 troversies and contests. None were more contentious or more self-assertive than the various small Ultra-Calvinistic bodies. In particular, the Unmitigated Calvinists, as from a lofty pinnacle of faith, looked down in contempt, even upon such seemingly near kindred as the Mitigated and Reason-Reconciliation Calvinists; and as for the Use-of-means Calvinists, these Unmitigateds would not, spiritually speaking, even touch them with the tongs. These Unmitigated Calvinists claimed to be always equal to the uttermost extremity of their principles, scorning to shirk, in their ultra-elective doctrine, even the original chance-medley of the divine dice. The more they slapped mere human reason in the face, and the more unhesitatingly they accepted the slaps, the more were they assured of inclusion in the small number of the elect.

The Unmitigated Calvinists had special strife at times with the Reason-Reconciliation Calvinists, which, according, at least, to the record of the latter, were not always a success. The Reason-Reconciliation Calvinists have recorded the following triumph over their opponents. The latter had sought to pose the other with the following problem: Supposing Scripture to assert that a circle was a square, in what way was the revealed fact to be taken? The Unmitigateds had no sooner delivered their question, than they rushed the ground, by anticipation, with what seemed to them the only possible answer, namely, that the Scripture fact was to be believed simply as given. But the Reason-Reconciliationists entirely opposed this conclusion. "How," said they, "could a thing be what, in the very terms of the proposition, it was