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FINAL SETTLEMENTS

The circumstances and constituents of the national government necessitated limitations of its law of liberty. Its provisions applied only in the federal sphere and had no force of law against a religious establishment in any of the states. The constitution conferred on the general government the right and duty to maintain in every state a republican form of government, but it bestowed no right of interference with the institutions of a religious character which any state might choose to establish, so long as the moral safety and the integrity of the nation were not involved. If, for example, one of the states should set aside its present form of government and set up a monarchy, the national government under the constitution would be required to prevent such action. But if one of the states, even to-day, should change its own constitution and set up a State-Church, with the peculiar perquisites and power of an establishment, and should put such Church upon the public treasury for support, the general government has no power to prevent it.

For this reason, the adoption of the federal constitution did not abolish the various restrictions and establishments which obtained in different states. Each state was free to do as it willed in regard to Church, individual liberty of worship, establishment, religious taxation, and religious tests. They carried over into their future statehood the special institutions obtaining in 1789, and used their own time and method of making what changes they desired. For this cause, though full freedom was the law of the nation, yet in some parts of the union illiberal and oppressive restrictions obtained for

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many years, attended by more or less of struggle, until the last vestige of old distinctions was swept away: if, indeed, it can be said that they are all gone, even yet.¹ Some of those struggles should here be noted.

In Virginia, notwithstanding the broad terms of the “Bill of Rights” and the “Act for Religious Freedom,” there were two sources of trouble. The first was an apparent inability of lawmakers to altogether emancipate themselves from past customs. Bills were passed for incorporating the Episcopal Church as a denomination, which was considered by some of the people as an indication of state preference. Occasional legislation referring to “dissenters” and vestries caused the same comment. To end the debate thence arising the legislature of 1798-1799 passed an act for the repeal of every law in seeming contravention of the bill of rights, the constitution, and the act for establishing religious freedom, on the ground that “the several acts presently recited do admit the Church established under the regal government to have continued so subsequently to the constitution.”² This gave the establishment the final coup de grace, and was in keeping with a decision of the Virginia Court of Appeals (Kemper vs. Hawkins, 1793) that the bill of rights was a part of the constitution, and that all laws contrary to it were null and void.

The other source of trouble in Church affairs was the glebe land. The glebes had been given to the Church of England established in Virginia. After disestablishment the Episcopal Church, rightly considering itself as the successor and heir of the Church of England, laid claim to the lands. Had the Virginia convention of 1776 been as wise in this matter as the men of Maryland and South Carolina, the justice of the claim would have been acknowledged in law. But that body said nothing on the subject, leaving the question open for the contentions of cupidity and sectarian jealousy. In the absence of any legal definition of ownership, the claim of the Episcopal

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Church was not quietly acquiesced in. Every year brought to the legislature memorials from rival Churches, contending that possession of the glebes by the Episcopal Church constituted a legal advantage of one denomination over others. Finally the legislature of 1802 passed an act to sell those glebe lands which were vacant, but not to disturb any incumbents. The proceeds of the sale were to be applied to the payment of parish debts, and the remainder to be distributed to the poor. This act was contested by the Episcopal Church in the chancellor’s court, and there sustained. In the court of appeals the bench was equally divided, and the chancellor’s decision stood. The law came up again in the court of appeals in 1840, when the act was unanimously sustained by the five judges. “Not until then,” says Howison, “was the divorce between Church and State in Virginia complete.”¹

The established Church of Connecticut² existed for a full quarter century after the national constitution was adopted, and its continuance and claims entered largely into political differences and struggles. In both this state and Massachusetts the Federalists espoused the cause of the establishment, which thus became a special object of hatred by the Republicans. The conservatives were tenacious of the privileges of the State-Church and unwilling to extend the liberties of dissenters. In 1791 Connecticut even narrowed those liberties by the requirement that the dissenters must file certificates of dissent and membership in a dissenting Church, in order to be exempt from the state tithe. During the next twenty years the feeling in the opposing parties became exceedingly bitter. The Federalists confounded liberty with Jeffersonism, and Jeffersonism with infidelity and all the horrors of the French Revolution, which would be repeated in Connecticut, if the Church were overthrown. But the tide was too strong

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for them, and, in order to save themselves, they passed an act in 1816 to repeal the penalty for non-attendance upon Church, a very small concession to the party which had vowed death to the establishment. In 1817 the conservatives fell from power. Oliver Wolcott was chosen governor by a coalition of all opponents to the State-Church.¹ All the dissenting Churches made common cause with the Republicans against the conservative dynasty. The legislature of that year passed an act that any person of any Christian denomination should have full power to change his Church relations at will, and that every Christian society should have power to tax its own members only.

The legislature also called a convention to frame a constitution. This body met in 1818, framed a constitution to take the place of the old colonial charter, and set in that fundamental law provisions which destroyed all religious establishment. It ordained “that the exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without distinction, shall be forever free to all persons in this state. No preference shall be given by any law to any Christian sect or mode of worship.” No person should be compelled to join or support any Church, society, or religious association. Each and all should enjoy equal rights, powers, and privileges. These provisions were intended to establish full liberty, but as the clause touching preference mentioned the Christian religion and might give rise to the construction that the freedom intended was designed only for Christian Churches, an after legislature expressly construed the benefits of this freedom as including Jews.

The change seemed to many of the conservatives as the beginning of the day of doom. The venerable Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, deprecated it until his death. It involved much readjustment of affairs, attended by more or less of trouble, but in a few years the wisdom and righteousness of the new system justified themselves

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to even those who had been stanchest in defence of the establishment.

The struggle in Massachusetts was more protracted. There was the same political adoption of the Church question as in Connecticut, perhaps with a shade less of bitterness, while to this was added another element which threatened the very existence of the old Puritan Church.¹ The strife began promptly on the adoption of the constitution of 1780, which some of the dissenters construed as exempting them from filing certificates of dissent and from payment of tithes. To test the claim a Mr. Balkom of Attleboro, in 1781, refused to pay and, the tax having been collected by levy, brought suit for its recovery. The case went against him in the justice’s court, but on appeal to the county court the sentence was reversed. This should have settled the question for the State, but it did not, and the old custom still generally obtained.

Some years afterward, a Mr. Murray, a Universalist minister, brought suit for recovery of tithes paid by his parishioners. In defence the State’s attorney argued that “a minister, who denied the eternal punishment of the wicked, was not a teacher of piety, religion, and morality,” within the meaning of the constitution! But the court gave decision for Murray, and in 1799 the legislature passed an act allowing such suits for recovery, from which act a later decision of the supreme court took much of its life by deciding that ministers of unincorporated societies were not public teachers, and therefore could not claim the privileges of the law.

Meanwhile the Unitarian defection was gathering force and under the law had an immense advantage, so soon as it could persuade a majority of citizens to its views. The law made the Church a town institution, and gave the choice of minister to the town meeting. It was thus easily possible for the town meeting to override the orthodox portion of the community. This danger made itself evident in the great

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Dedham case, the issue of which was so momentous for the Church of Massachusetts.

The majority of the Dedham Church were orthodox, while the majority of the town were of Unitarian proclivities. In 1818 the minister of the Church resigned, and the town chose a Unitarian as his successor. The Church refused to assent to this choice, and the case was carried to the supreme court, which decided that the constitution “gives to towns, not to Churches, the right to elect the minister in the last resort.” This decision gave the Church perquisites and property to the Unitarians, and the Orthodox were forced to make a new Church for themselves on the voluntary system. A like result followed in very many places, and the old Puritan Church found itself turned out of house and home by the very powers it had contrived to give it lasting security. This was the death-blow to the long-moribund theocracy. The constitutional convention of 1820, following the erection of the State of Maine, attempted to meet the religious question, but through the opposition of the conservative element succeeded only in the abolition of religious tests for office. In 1833 the Church was finally disestablished. Tithes were abolished, the voluntary system made universal in the state, and the towns discharged from all concern and power for Church affairs.

After the national settlement the attitude of Pennsylvania toward religious liberty was marked by both enlargement and restriction.¹ The constitution of 1790 abolished the religious test for office. This was a great advance. But a backward step was taken, when to “acknowledgment of Almighty God” there was added the belief in “a future state of rewards and punishments,” as a prerequisite to the freedom of religion conceded by the state. This was repeated in the constitution of 1837, and remains in the fundamental law to-day.

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The state has never repealed the law of 1700, which imposed a penalty upon any who should “wilfully, premeditatedly, and despitefully blaspheme, or speak lightly or profanely of Almighty God, Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or the Scriptures of Truth.” The decision of the supreme court, in 1824, in the celebrated case of Updegraph vs. the Commonwealth — a case arising from words spoken in public debate — declared that the law was still in force.

Before the eighteenth century ended New Hampshire abolished the religious qualification for the office of governor, but it continued to “authorize the towns to provide for the support of Protestant teachers.” This archaic authorization has long been idle and absurd. No town, as such, has acted upon it within this century, but it still remains in the bill of rights, one of the few surviving relics in the United States of the idea of a state establishment of religion. The same section (6) of the bill of rights contains the words: “Every denomination of Protestant Christians, demeaning themselves quietly and as good subjects of the state, shall be equally under the protection of the law.” Thus the constitution distinguished against the Roman Catholic, and, on strict construction, put a Jewish congregation outside of the protection of the law. Repeated efforts have been made to strike out the words Protestant and Christian, but unsuccessfully. They still remain in the revised constitution of 1889. The proposed change seemed to many as though its adoption would be a “repeal of the Protestant Christian religion,” and make the state unchristian So the illiberal technicality remains to misrepresent the true spirit of the state, which in the use of such restriction is alone in the union.¹ New Hampshire, indeed, was slow in recognizing the rights of dissenters. Separate acts of legislation in 1792, 1804, 1805, and 1817 gave exemptions to Episcopalians, Baptists, Universalists, and Methodists, providing that each should be

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“considered as a distinct denomination, with privileges as such.” Finally, a “toleration act” was passed in 1819, which gave freedom to all Christian sects.

Delaware¹ soon abandoned its demand for belief in the Trinity, and by its constitution of 1831 abolished religious tests. The South Carolina constitution of 1790 put aside its elaborate provisions as to Churches, ministers, and a Protestant establishment. By this action it enfranchised Roman Catholics, and in set terms provided for religious freedom, “without distinction or preference.” But it still maintained the exclusion of clergymen from public office.²

The first state to be admitted to the Union, after the original thirteen, was Vermont, the settlers of which had shared the prevailing sentiments of New England. Because of this the state life began with civil prescriptions for religion. The law of 1783 had already put the Church on the town care and tax, with some relief for dissenters. A law of 1801 ordained that every person of adult age and a legal voter should be considered as of the religious opinion represented in the town Church, and as such should be liable to taxation for the Church support, unless he should deliver in writing a declaration that he did not agree in religious opinion with the majority of the inhabitants of the town. This caused much opposition, and in 1807 the system was abandoned, the care of the Church taken from the town, tithes abolished, and religion and worship made entirely voluntary.

It is not necessary to pursue our study into the details of later changes in state constitutions, or to reproduce the religious sections adopted by the many commonwealths which now make up the American Union. The states added to the union of the original thirteen largely copied the models set before them in these earlier constitutions, especially following in preamble and bill of rights the exact

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verbiage of the older instruments. A comparison of their provisions on certain lines will fully meet the need of the question here.

As one illustration of similarity it may be noted that thirty-one constitutions use in their preambles the phrase “grateful to Almighty God.” Three of them, Virginia, Louisiana, and Texas, substitute for this the words “invoking the favor and guidance — or the blessing — of Almighty God.” All the constitutions have the name of God in some place, either the preamble or the section on religious worship, with the exception of Michigan and West Virginia. The constitutions of these two states have neither preamble, nor mention of God anywhere in the instrument, but the freedom of conscience and worship is emphatically decreed. No constitution contains the name of Christ. It will be noted that neither God nor Christ is named in the constitution of the United States.

¹ In regard to the expression of liberty all the states are at one in decreeing its full exercise, but there are interesting differences and similarities of statement. Twenty-six states declare that it is the privilege of “every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.” Eleven say that “the free enjoyment of religious sentiments and forms of worship shall ever be held sacred.” Five assert a “duty of the legislature to pass laws for the protection” of religious freedom. Nineteen declare that “no human authority ought to control, or interfere with, the rights of conscience.” Nine ordain that “no person may be molested in person or estate on account of religion.”

In qualification of this liberty, thirteen states define that it is “not to excuse licentiousness or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety” of society; seven say that it is “not to excuse disturbance of the public”; three, that it is “not to justify practices inconsistent with the

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rights of others”; and three require that “no person may disturb others in worship.”

With respect to the relation of individuals to the Church and of the Church to the civil law, twenty-four states forbid compulsory attendance or support of any Church; one (New Hampshire) says that “no person of one sect may be compelled to support a minister of another; and one (New Jersey) forbids compulsion of any person to attend worship “contrary to his own faith.” Five states forbid “an established Church”; twenty-nine forbid the civil government to show any “preference” “for any one sect, and three, any “subordination” of one sect to another. Two states, Delaware and Vermont, have it in their constitutions that “every sect ought to observe the Lord’s day and keep up some sort of religious worship.”

In the matter of support fourteen states forbid the appropriation of money from the state treasury for the support of sectarian institutions. Seven include municipal treasuries in the prohibition. Six apply the prohibition to any property of the state; and four, to any property of any municipality. Two states, Michigan and Oregon, carry this Principle so far as to forbid the appropriation of public money to pay for the services of chaplains to the legislature.

In one thing a sharp contrast is notable. New Hampshire says that the legislature may authorize towns and parishes to provide for the support of religious teachers; Massachusetts and Missouri confine this authorization to parishes; the Maine constitution gives this power to “religious societies,” without the intervention of the legislature; while Virginia and West Virginia forbid the legislature to take any such action. Religious tests are generally forbidden. Twenty-seven states declare that no religious test shall be required for office; eighteen add to this “for any public trust.” Four states include voting as exempt from tests. Six forbid religious test for jury duty, and seventeen for witnesses, while two (Oregon and Wyoming) forbid the questioning of a witness

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in court as to his religious belief. Eleven states declare that no man can “be deprived of any civil right on account of religious sentiments.”

Finally, there are to be observed a few exceptions and limitations. In five states, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, and the two Carolinas, no person can hold office “who denies the being of Almighty God or the existence of a Supreme Being.” Arkansas also makes such a denier of God incompetent as a witness. Pennsylvania and Tennessee restrict office to such as “believe in God and a future state of reward and punishment.” Maryland requires this belief in a juror or witness, but for the office-holder demands only a belief in God. Of these eight states thus requiring some religious qualification, Mississippi and Tennessee, by a curious inconsistency, forbid all religious tests as qualifications for office.

Maryland is the only state in the union which still requires the sanction of the Church, or a religious service, to create the status of marriage.

The points on which all the state constitutions are at one are as follows: —

1. No legislature can pass a law establishing religion, or a Church. To effect such purpose a change in the constitution would be required.
2. No person can be compelled by law to attend any form of religious service; or, —
3. To contribute to the support of any such service or Church.
4. No restraint can be put by law on the free exercise of religion; or, —
5. On the free expression and promulgation of religious belief. Provided always, that this freedom “shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or to justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the State.”

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Such was the progress, and such are the results of nearly three hundred years of endeavor. So far as affected individual liberty, most of the colonies had either conceded full freedom of religion or allowed its enjoyment without legal enactment, long before the Revolution, though several of them maintained some of the features of a State-Church. The political upheaval of 1776 brought the overthrow of the colonial establishments, save as the Church rates still continued for thirty, forty, and fifty years in New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. With the abolition of these, in the last century, but few vestiges were left in America of that old idea of union between Church and State, which had ruled Christendom from the time of Constantine, and is yet regnant in almost every country of Europe.

Thus it is the peculiar merit and glory of this American people that they were the first, and as yet the only one, among the nations to embody the principle of Religious Liberty in the fundamental law. Not toleration, but equality, puts all religions in the same relation to the law, under which there can be no preferences of one before another. The only relation between the Church and state is that of mutual respect. Over the Church the state does “not profess to have any jurisdiction whatever, except so far as is necessary to protect the civil rights of others, and to preserve the public peace. . . . Equity will not determine questions of faith, doctrine, or schism, unless necessarily involved in the enforcement of ascertained trusts.”¹ Over the state, the Church affects no authority to exercise dictation. Its influence is solely moral; free to express opinion in regard to any matters of civic interest and to apply thereto the principles of God’s word, it is yet destitute of all constraining power, save such as arises from the persuasion of the individual mind and the creation of that public opinion, which in America is the court of last resort.

The few limitations that yet remain in some of the state

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constitutions — such as the requirement of belief in God, and the retention of the word “Protestant” in the constitution of New Hampshire — are practically devoid of force, lifeless as the fossils in the rock, monuments simply of a system which has passed. The rejection of a witness solely on account of his belief in religious matters would be nowhere in the land possible to-day. Nor could a governor of Pennsylvania be unseated, if he should fall into unbelief in God and a future state of rewards and punishment. Nor yet could a Hebrew congregation fail of “protection under the law” in New Hampshire, though the constitution does not concede it. Practically, religious liberty is complete, involving, to the individual, no curtailment of civil right or privilege; to the Church, no interference with its faith, order, or spiritual function; and to the various Churches, no discrimination or preference by law of one before another.

This American religious liberty has been assailed from two standpoints. One opponent objects that it is not complete, the other that it is unchristian. A few brief remarks on both these objections may fitly close this treatise.

The former objection of incompleteness finds its reasons in such things as, the exemption of Church property from taxation; laws for the protection of the sabbath and against blasphemy; proclamation for days of thanksgiving and fast; and anti-Mormon legislation. Any lengthened discussion of these reasons is here impossible, and it is alone needful to note that the justification of all such legislative action resides, not in the demands of religion nor in the competition of one form of religion with another, but solely in the demands of social order, safety, and prosperity.

If there be any truths clearly demonstrated by the history of nations, among them is the fact that irreligion is the sure precursor of social decay and ruin. A godless community is doomed. A town without a Church is the chosen home of vice and crime. A society that recognizes no divine relation is rotten to the core. Hence, the law recognizes the

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existence and influence of the Church as a social institution, necessary to the safety of society itself, and for the same reason that it lays no taxes on its schools and charitable foundations, it exempts the Churches from taxation. It is true that in some instances this principle has been abused, and that it would be well to make general the limitation, obtaining in some states, which exempts only such Church property as is in actual use for religious service, and not a source of income.

But the principle is just, and the argument that this exemption adds to the taxes of those who have no relation to the Church, and is thus an invasion of their religious liberty, is in reality futile. It would be true, were the exemption made for the Church’s sake. It loses all force when the exemption is made for the good of society. In this view the objector has no more reason for opposition than a childless man would have against the school tax, or a man would have against a tax for building a bridge, on the ground that he did not want to cross the stream or could row himself over.

In like manner the experience of mankind has demonstrated that the institutions of morality are essential to the preservation of social safety, and that no requirement of liberty demands that the lust and licentiousness of men shall be given free rein. Men are not to be allowed “under pretence of religion” to indulge in riot and wantonness; to offend the general religious sentiment of mankind by their blasphemous speech or their vicious life; to disturb others in their religious worship by unseemly uproar; to undermine the foundations of social morality; or to poison by immorality the fountain of youth. Liberty is never license, and all liberty is only free when it is regulated by law. When there shall be “no king in Israel, and every man shall do what is right in his own eyes,” then will society go to pieces.

Says Judge Cooley:¹ “While thus careful to establish, protect, and defend religious freedom and equality, the American

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constitutions contain no provisions which prohibit the authorities from such solemn recognition of a superintending Providence in public transactions and exercises as the general religious sentiment of mankind inspires. . . . (They regard), without discrimination, religious worship and religious institutions as conservators of the public morals, and valuable, if not indispensable, assistants in the preservation of the public order. . . . Profane and blasphemous things are properly punished as crimes against society, since they are offences to the general public sense, and have a direct tendency to undermine the moral support of the laws.”

This then is the central principle which must govern all legislation touching religion or morality: that its specific aim must be for the general good of society. The state has no call to make men religious or moral, but its highest duty is to take care that society shall not be disintegrated by irreligion and immorality. While the American principle declares religious freedom, it yet does not put irreligion in the place of power.

And this brings to view the second objection, that the American constitutions are unchristian. This founds itself on the absence from the constitution of the United States of the names of God and Christ, as also from some of the state constitutions. As already noted, all but two of the latter contain the name of God, while the constitution of New Hampshire contains also the words “Protestant” and “Christian.” According to the argument of the objector, New Hampshire must be the only Christian state in the Union.

The argument is specious, appealing only to a superficial religious sentiment, and the long-sustained effort to obtain a religious amendment of the federal constitution has been alike idle and unnecessary. The religious quality of a people is not determinable by phrases of law, but by the spirit and life. If the American people should insert the divine names in the constitution, that would not keep them from turning to infidelity, or make them a Christian nation after such

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perversion. New Hampshire is no more Protestant or Christian, with those terms in her constitution, than is Massachusetts without them. Michigan, which excludes the name of Deity from her fundamental law, is no less religious than New York, which is “grateful to Almighty God.”

If we would seek the religion of the American nation, we must look into their life, custom, and institutions. Looking on these things — the innumerable Christian temples and institutions of Christian charity, the days of annual thanksgiving, the prayers in legislative halls, the Bible in the courts, the constant resort in legislation and judicature to religious and Christian principles — we may safely declare that, if the American people be not a Christian nation, there is none upon the earth. Sixty years ago wrote De Tocqueville: “There is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America. By regulating domestic life it regulates the state. Religion is the foremost of the institutions of the country. I am certain that the Americans hold religion to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions.” On this opinion of the acute Frenchman, the Swiss Schaff commented, fifty years later: “I fully agree with De Tocqueville. I came to the same conclusion shortly after my immigration to America in 1844, and I have been confirmed in it by an experience of forty-three years and a dozen visits to Europe.”¹

This opinion has been shared by every statesman and every jurist who has discoursed on the subject. Marshall, Webster, Waite, and a host of others could all join in the language of Cooley, “In a certain sense and for certain purposes it is true that Christianity is part of the law of the land.”² It is impossible to fix the stigma of unchristian on the American nation.

Furthermore, it may be successfully maintained that, far

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from being unchristian, this principle of American religious liberty is of the nature of pure Christianity, and represents the most Christian attitude that a civil government can take with reference to the religion of the people. At the first glance, indeed, and to the eye which chiefly regards externals, this statement seems untrue. In such view, it will be asked, “Is not confession of Christ more Christian than silence? To such mind there seems a positive gain for righteousness when the governmental expression and action put on the outward forms of religion. This judgment would hold that England, with its legally recognized religious establishment, is a more Christian nation than America.

Of which judgment it may be truly said that it confounds national duties with individual. For the individual the confession of Christ is certainly more Christian than silence. But from this proposition we may not conclude that the same thing is true for a nation. The personal confession affects only the individual who makes it. The constituency is simple, without the possibility of a divided mind. With a nation it is otherwise. There may be a constituency of millions, for whose variety no single confession of faith can speak. Though a majority might be Christian, there yet would be a minority, for whom such confession would be false.

The difficulty is not overcome by the principle of majority rule, for, while that is a wise and just principle for the conduct of civil affairs, it can have no place in the decision of faith. There may be a general consensus of opinion, which only a very small minority of the people oppose; but so long as this small minority do oppose it, the governmental confession of it involves for them a misrepresentation and injustice. It is thus practically impossible for a government to make a confession of faith which shall be at once true and just to all its subjects, who are equally entitled to its protection, and a respect for whose rights in the smallest particular is of the essence of Christian morality.

We need not here dwell on the distinction of Roger Williams—

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noted in the first chapter — between the totally different aims of the civil state and the Church. “Civility and Religion” are entirely distinct, and not to be confounded. Nor shall one interfere with the other, save as religious conviction in the mind of the citizen may decide his action in regard to civil duties. This underlies the conception of religious liberty, and it is distinctly Christian. Only so far forth as the individual citizens shall be actuated by religious or Christian motives can the government be religious or Christian. No mere form of words put into the fundamental law can alter that condition, and no legal constraint can make that Christian which is not such.

Finally, this American principle, by which the government abstains from all religious function, leaving the utmost liberty of religion and worship to the people, is in perfect harmony with the utterances of the great Founder of Christianity. The things of God and of Cæsar are diverse. The fear of God urges to honor the king, but the king’s command cannot constrain to the fear and service of God. The kingdom of God is within the heart, and is neither conditioned nor sustained by civil enactments. These cannot introduce a man into that kingdom, nor make him fit for entrance. Christ Himself declared, “My kingdom is not of this world,” not patterned after the fashion of this world’s kingdoms, not built on their foundations, nor defended by their arms. With the existence, the spread and the support of this kingdom of Christ, therefore, the governments of earth have nothing to do, save as they refuse to interfere with its freedom, and as they guide their own conduct by its principles of divine righteousness. Into that kingdom of Christ men enter as individuals, not as nations, in all the freedom of personal action, unconstrained by external force and subject only to the influence of spiritual motives reaching to mind and heart. It is impossible to imagine a distinction more radical or broader than that between things of this spiritual nature and the functions of civil government. To God alone is the man

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responsible for his religious views and practice. Under God only the man is ruler in his own mind and soul. This autonomy of the soul even God Himself recognizes and respects, not compelling by external force, but appealing to reason, conscience, and affection. Herein is the divine foundation for Religious Liberty. Its enactment by the American constitutions is but a recognition of a law of God written in the nature of truth and of man. As such it is to be reckoned as their echo of the divine will, and fully as Christian an utterance as ever fell from the lips of government.