as officers of State, and without a religion established and supported by law. We must have some reason to give for this great departure from the beaten path of human experience, extending through all ages.

If, therefore, the testimony of history proves that human society cannot exist without government and laws, it equally proves that civil government cannot exist without religion co-operating with the civil authority. Her lessons teach us, not only that man is by nature a religious being, but that religion is the law of his being; that it is as necessary to the development of his organic national life, as to the wants of his spiritual nature. Not only can no instance of a civilized people without a religion be found, but the degree and perfection of civilization has been uniformly graduated by religion. It is agreeable to the universal sentiment of mankind to confide in the integrity and the patriotism of religious men; to believe that those who hold God and sacred things in highest reverence, would be just and faithful in things secular. So deeply settled is this belief in the human mind, that neither the sneers of atheists, nor centuries of gross priestly misrule and ghostly oppression have been sufficient to overthrow it. What was more natural than that civil and religious functions should be united?

The

But in the face of all these facts, the Constitution of the United States makes even no mention of God, nor of the duty of men to worship Him, nor of any order of men who are to be received as the expounders of His will. It does not require that men elevated to offices of trust and honor shall be of any specified religion, or even have any religion at all. It is impossible to tell, from the instrument itself, whether the people of the United States are Christians or Pagans, Jews or Mahometans, Buddhists or Atheists. only passage which refers in any way to religion is in the first article of amendments, in a few words, as general and negative as possible, thus: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Which is only saying that Congress shall not undertake to make the people religious by law-and there is certainly very little danger of their doing it by examplenor shall they restrain them by law from practising any sort of religion to any extent they choose.

The Constitution of Massachusetts recognizes, in the most solemn manner, the authority of God, the benefits of public worship, and of instruction in piety, morality, and religion; provides for freedom in religious worship, guaranties the right

of all religious societies to elect their own teachers, and forbids. the subordination of one sect to another by law. The laws provide that wherever a minister of the gospel is settled and ordained to the ministry, he acquires a legal settlement in the town, a provision which appears to be very wise as well as merciful, since their migratory habits are such that if they should become subjects of legal charity it might cost much trouble to fix their citizenship. They are excused from military duty, and from serving as constables or jurors, and they are authorized by law to solemnize marriages, and to have access to prisoners in jails and houses of correction, to assist in their reformation; and they are required to use their endeavors to induce youth to attend the public schools. Beyond these few and simple references to ministers of the gospel, as matters of municipal regulation, the statutes of the Puritan State contain no recognition of the existence of such a profession or class of men. The policy of the other States of the Union is, in all essential features, entirely similar.

The civic customs of the United States, and of the individual States, are conformed to this policy. It is customary for both Houses of Congress to elect a minister of the gospel to serve them during the session as chaplain, whose duties are to offer prayer at the opening of each daily session, and to preach once on each Sabbath in the Capitol. A similar custom has prevailed in the State Legislatures, most, if not all of which, have their sessions opened with prayer. In our municipal celebrations it is customary to invite some clergyman to offer prayer, and in the arrangement of civic processions it is customary to assign a place for the "Reverend Clergy." In all other respects the ministers of the gospel are regarded as citizens merely, neither gaining nor losing in civil rank or privilege, by being ministers of Christ.

How great the contrast between our condition and that of the apostles and early Christians! In the eye of the law, they preached a religio illicita; and to the people they appeared to be setters forth of strange gods. It was their lot to be the leaders of the greatest religious revolution recorded in the world's history; and religious revolutions are of all others incomparably the most difficult and surprising. Historically and philosophically speaking, no event is more improbable than that a people will change their national and patriarchal religion. "For pass over the isles of Chittim and see; and send unto Kedar and consider diligently if there be such a thing: hath a nation changed their gods?" Although Paul possessed the far-famed privilege of a free-born Roman

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citizen, he could not give utterance to his deep religious convictions without continual danger of lawless violence, imprisonment, and degrading corporeal infliction. With what feelings should we listen to an American citizen, of blameless life, extensive learning, polished manners, and noble eloquence, as he narrated his travels through our country, and gave an account of his preaching, to hear him say: "Five times received I forty stripes save one, thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned; I was in stripes above measure, in prisons frequent. . . . Being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat." We should forget that our missionaries at the West ever slept in log-houses, and we are inclined to think, should not bear it quite so patiently as did Paul. Yet he was neither ignorant of his rights, nor destitute of spirit to maintain them. With an ardent love of liberty, and a native freedom of soul which was keenly sensitive to any indignity, a moderate share of religious feeling infusing its energies into such a temperament as his, would have made him a political revolutionist. Instead of meekly saying, "I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death," his voice would have been heard at the head of battle, animating his followers to vindicate their rights; or, at least, on the platform of some anti-oppression society, advocating resolutions, and thundering out philippics against tyrannical laws. With the touching eloquence of a lion soul sensible of the civil wrongs which he suffered, yet subdued and gentle, willing to suffer even without the credit of suffering, he says, "Whether we be beside ourselves it is to God, or whether we be sober it is for your cause; for the love of Christ constraineth us: . . . giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed, but in all things approving ourselves the ministers of God, in much patience, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults." Despoiled of all rights of earthly citizenship, he consoles himself and his brethren with the assurance that "our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ ;" and he cheerfully renounces all earthly privileges for the hope of becoming a fellow-citizen with the saints.

How different is the relation which ministers in the United States sustain to the civil power. The hearers of the apostles lived under a government which they had no agency in cre ating. They are addressed as the subjects of government existing without their agency; not as the citizens of an elective democratic State. The political maxims of the apostles are therefore brief but comprehensive. "Let every soul be

subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." And this subjection is required, "not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake." To this rule the apostles made no exception by precept, but by example they refused obedience to the magistrate when obedience to him would be disobedience to God. But as soon as Christianity became a popular religion, it was seized upon by crafty and ambitious rulers as one of the engines of State policy. As such, it has been made use of by the governments of Europe, as paganism was before it, to the present day.*

The Reformation of the fifteenth century was the commencement of a new era, not only in respect to religious doctrines and modes of worship, to the progress of learning and philosophy, but to the social and civil rights of man, to religious liberty, and to church polity. While the Germans, as usual, took up the department of speculative thought, the more practical, liberty-loving Anglo-Saxons, applied the glorious principles of the German Reformers to man's practical life.

With notions of civil and religious liberty derived from the best lights which England and Germany afforded, this country was colonized. But the entire separation of Church and State was not contemplated by the first settlers generally. During the existence of the colonial system, the union of Church and State, under different forms, was nearly as perfect as in Eng

* That this statement may not appear too strong, take one of the mildest examples; that of the English Church Establishment, for illustration. According to a statute passed in the reign of Henry VIII., "The king, his heirs, &c., shall be taken, accepted, and reputed, the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England. He shall have power, from time to time, to visit, repress, reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offenses, &c., which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction, may be lawfully reformed.”

By another act, it is declared, "Your Majesty hath full power to exercise all manner of jurisdiction, commonly called ecclesiastical jurisdiction," and that "archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical persons, have no manner of jurisdiction ecclesiastical, but by and from your royal Majesty "! No one can be admitted to the ministry in the Established Church, except he first subscribe to the declaration that the king is the only supreme governor of the realm, in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things, as temporal; and if any one denies the king's supremacy in religious matters, he is liable to excommunication.

Says the Rev. B. W. Noel, "The Establishment can neither amend one of the articles of its creed if erroneous, nor add to their number if the creed be defective, without the assent of the State. Without the concurrence of the State, it cannot meet to enact a canon, nor enact a canon when met, nor execute a canon when enacted. It cannot execute discipline upon offending clergymen, or others, except in courts of which the State appoints the judge, and from which the State receives appeals. And, lastly, the State both nominates its prelates, and determines by law the appointment of all its pastors."

land. Their complete separation after independence was secured, and the national and State governments were established, was chiefly the result of unforeseen circumstances and events, rather than of any far-reaching doctrine or policy. New-England was settled by the Puritans, who fully intended to make theirs the established religion; New-York by the Lutheran Dutch, with similar principles and purposes; Pennsylvania by the Quakers; Maryland by Roman Catholics made liberal by Episcopal oppression in Old England; Virginia by adventurers and impoverished English cavaliers, who retained a bigoted attachment to their Episcopal forms, and gave them the strongest supports of law; in Georgia, the Wesleys and others had given to Methodism a leading influence in the colony.

When these colonies, smarting under a sense of their common wrongs, took up arms against the British Government, they forgot for the time their differences of religious opinion. After the struggle was over and independence was secured, and a new form of government was to be framed, it was apparent to all that the tenets of no one sect could be the established religion of the country. It could not be Romanism, for that faith prevailed in only one inconsiderable State; it could not be English Episcopacy, for although one State, proudly styling herself the "Old Dominion," had early established and rigidly upheld it by law, yet so unseemly had it behaved itself, that her own people were already casting it indignantly away; it could not be Puritanism, bearded and terrified in her chosen stronghold by the indomitable Roger Williams, humbled too and conscience-smitten by the thricetold tale of her disgraceful superstitions and cruelties; it could not be Lutheranism, nor Methodism, nor Quakerism, on account of their feebleness; and Baptists had, from the beginning, strongly advocated the entire separation of the religious from the civil concerns of the country. Great was

the odium which they incurred by advocating a doctrine stigmatized as atheistic, subversive of all religion, virtue, and government. But the framers of our national and State Constitutions soon found themselves compelled, either to leave religious concerns to the voluntary action of the people, according to this very Baptist doctrine, and confine the civil authority to temporal matters, or to abandon all prospect of a peaceable and happy national Union, and split up these infant States, weakened by a grievous war, into sectional and sectarian cantons, with the prospect of endless quarrels about creeds, and dogmas, and forms of religion, to the end of time.