27000 Add taxes and debt together, for they constitute the amount of private wealth that is converted into public means, and it. makes 634 per cent. This sixfold increase is, in figures, the augmentation of misgovernment among us, because universal qualification for office has been the basis of making the public offices public spoils. It represents the quantity of peril there is to the public peace. It has made so many advocates of the doctrine that "that government is best which governs least," which is the opposite of Pope's couplet "That which is best administered is best." Neither doctrine, taken as a standard, is correct. In fact, neither social nor political public life can be brought within a single rule. It is too varied to admit of any such generalization. Society, reduce it as we may, must have some public authority; it cannot exist without it; and in republics we are all, whether we like it or not, both private as well as public persons, and in both relations interested in a good administration of public affairs. For this reason, we ought all to be in favor of good legislation, sagacious executive action, and wise and just judicial decisions. We have seen how the best-intended government was set aside in the United States to make room for the very worst possible. This we regret, but shall we despair? No! Society and its political authorities are ever in flow, and as they became worse, so may they become better. America is no longer in a state of isolation, as it was, when the Indian possessed its vast forests. It is in daily and hourly contact with other civilized nations, and even if no part of American public life had been freed from party yoke, still we should hope for a change from necessity. But the good sense still left, in the exceptions noted, gives us an abiding faith, that as the public eye is now upon the mischief, it will never rest until the wrong is reformed. CHAPTER XIX. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. "The thing that should have been done a thousand years ago, and now still undone, is to liberate both church and state from hierarchical petrifaction; to adjust matters upon common principles of liberty and love; thus to socialize both and to construct the universal realm of culture, harmony, and peace." -Gregorovius in his History of "Rome in the Middle Ages." AMERICA is generally supposed to have consummated a disjunction of religion and politics, and to have become thereby the pioneer in religious and political liberty. But is a separation of church and state, that amounts to no more than a refusal of the state to support churches by taxes, really a forward step? It was an advance, so far as it operated against churches that promulgated a religion condemned by the natural, social, and political sciences; but it is not such, so far as it precludes society from developing its own religion. And we have no hesitancy in saying, that it is a backward step if it means, that this better religion, when it shall be developed, is not to be enforced by the political authorities, and that it shall not be the guide of public conduct. We think that true religion and true politics should mutually fructify each other; that neither can advance by negations of each other; that, on the contrary, progress in one, rests on progress in the other, and vice versa. And, if the figure of speech be allowable, we would say: Theological philosophy is the maternal, political philosophy the paternal medium of all new healthy developments. To isolate one from the other (were it possible) would doom both to barrenness, and it always produces this to the extent to which the two are separated. The "petrifaction," Gregorovius speaks of in the above extract, is the product of every one-sided exclusive position; all require for their healthful existence the criticism and the correction of others. The mischief of the conjunction of church and state, effected between Pope Leo III. and Charles the Great A.D. 800, was not in their conjunction, but in the self-deceptions of both as to the other's position. Each of the contracting parties thought to gain a servant in the other, when each meant to be the master. And the conjunction led, for that reason, to struggles for power; when, if it had been a true measure, it would have led to a permanent co-operation in the service of society. The attempted disjunction of our age does not and cannot work out the beneficial results expected of it, because it is a disjunction, or rather an attempt at it. What was wanted was a better-understood conjunction. It is essential that we should realize to ourselves how it came, that modern society fell into supposing, that a state indifferent to religion, and churches indifferent to politics, would amount to religious and political liberty. It was because society was self-deceived, both as to its real condition as well as in reference to the real nature of the measure it inaugurated. It had, beside much false religion and politics, a large amount of true religion and politics, but it was unable to distinguish between the two or to determine philosophically and morally, which it would retain and which it would eliminate and reject. The state was not prepared to order the right church, and the church was in no condition to prescribe good politics. All that could be done under these circumstances was to have a nominal separation, and to reunite, when society shall have dropped the more obnoxious obsolete formula in both. Society gained time in this way to forget some old errors and to learn new truths, so as to prepare itself for the unity in morals and law, which everybody felt to be the great future want of mankind. It was not indifference to religion itself, nor a settled conviction, that it was not necessary to proper public and private conduct, that induced the severance; on the contrary, it was agreed to, because it was believed that a state-free church would evolve better religion, and a church-free state better laws. Many a time human society would be told that the right basis for the true ethical development had been reached; but it ever turned out again to have retained too much of the old dross, and that further progress was evidently indispensable. The Fathers of American republicanism formulated this in the words of the Ordinance of 1787 as follows: "Religion, morality, and knowledge being essentially necessary to the government and happiness of mankind, schools and the means of instruction shall for ever be encouraged by legislative provision not inconsistent with the rights of conscience." The sons construed this sentence to apply only to schools for the youth of the land; but we think that the teaching of adults may well be considered included therein. What did the authors mean by "rights of conscience"? Was it the child's conscience? or that of the parents? or of anybody to be instructed? The church was originally called a school, and adding the words "means of instruction" does not take this sense of the verbiage away. We think, therefore, that we must either conclude, that the education of adults was included, and that the provision looked to a future re-union of religion, morality, and knowledge in the state and its legislation; or that the writers of the clause were still in the indefinite as to their ideas on the subject. Who will say that American society is for ever precluded from unity in its ethical developments? that, what Moses did for Israel, Confucius for China, Zoroaster for Central Asia, Socrates for Athens, Christ for mankind, and what Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli meant to do, and partly did, for modern society, was never to be attempted for America? Let those who answer in the affirmative then realize, that this would mean that there never shall be the fullest and best political work in these States, and that they shall be debarred from doing what is the first and last duty of all human organic development. It would prohibit instruction in intelligence, virtue, and wisdom, the triune foundations of all civilization. We cannot think that the Fathers purposed such an end of the separation of church and state, and therefore prefer to believe, that they were not entirely clear in their ideas on the subject. It has been asserted that the framers of our Constitutions were anti-church men, and that they expected churches to die out, when no longer supported by the state from taxes or tithe. We will neither deny nor accept this view of their action; for it is plain by this time, that if that was their object, it has failed entirely. The churches are to-day, in the United States, without exception, stronger than those of Europe. Their ministers and priests are better paid, and more money is expended for church edifices, than in any other part of the world. Take in addition the various book concerns, and we would ask: Where else is as much spent for religious books and papers as by them? We have made some computations, and as near as we can find, the average annual expenditure for churches and church service, including religious instruction, is in Europe about thirty cents per head, while in America it is at least $1.10 per head. The Catholic Church has richer revenues in the United States than in Spain. Compare now the power, the influence, the distinction, the incomes, and the treatment generally of the advance thinkers of the two countries, such as Darwin, Huxley, Renan, Strauss, Vogt, and Haeckel in Europe, with such as Draper, Winans, and Ingersol in America, and it will show, that in the society whose schools, churches, and governments have unity of ethical development, the laborers for future enlightenment stand free-er and better supported, than they do in the country where church and state are nominally separate. We may learn the extent to which America has abnegated the control of the state over the churches by bringing before us a few judicial proceedings. The Chief Justice of Kentucky decided, and his decision is endorsed by the Supreme Court of the United States: "Courts, having no ecclesiastical jurisdiction, cannot revise or question ordinary acts of church discipline. The judicial eye cannot penetrate the veil of the church for the forbidden purpose of vindicating the alleged wrongs of excised members." In the Court of Appeals of South Carolina it was held: "It belongs not to the civil power to enter into or to review the proceedings of a spiritual court." The British Quarterly Review remarks hereon: "The one great country in the world which has no established church-no church with a jurisdiction conferred upon it by the state, is the country whose jurisprudence acknowledges all churches as having a jurisdiction conferred upon them by the conscience of their members, a jurisdiction, in its own sphere, exclusive of the law of the land." What state in Europe would admit as much for its church? No pope ever received from any emperor as complete a surrender of the individuals of their country to ecclesiastical jurisdiction Under these decisions men have been denied burial in graveyards, paid for by their money, because they wanted to be buried without the regular church ceremonial. Think of it! In the United States, the several states, the municipalities, and the corporations need constitutions, laws, or charters to have legal existence. Churches do not-they exist per se! But while the courts deny themselves, and the state, jurisdiction for the protection of members against unjust amotion or other injuries to reputation, honors, or emoluments, they change their decisions, when it comes to protect the churches against attacks on their property, or in cases where individuals refuse to comply with subscriptions, or where their endowments are questioned. In such and similar cases courts will often inquire into doctrines, into orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and award property to this or that side according to its opinions on such litigated points. The courts will maintain all express trusts, upon the plea that the suits are not properly and primarily about church affairs, but about questions of property and rights, that can be measured in money. The presumptions are all in favor of church action, and it takes some positive written statutory exception to justify civil authorities to act on their own law and to set aside church ruling. Questions of property |