state." But this prohibition has recently been legally removed or ceased to be enforced even in strictly Lutheran countries. In the United States it has no meaning.

The Baptists and Quakers have always protested against the union of church and state, and against all kinds of religious intolerance.

The independence of the church from the state is universally adopted, and religious persecution is universally condemned, even by the most orthodox and bigoted of the American churches.

THE NATION AND CHRISTIANITY.

The separation of church and state as it exists in this country is not a separation of the nation from Christianity. This seems paradoxical and impossible to all who entertain an absolutist or utopian idea of the state, and identify it either with the government, as did Louis XIV. (according to his maxim: L'état c'est moi), or with the realization of the moral idea, as Hegel' and Rothe, or with the nation, as Bluntschli, and Mulford."

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1"Anabaptiste . . . talem doctrinam profitentur quæ neque in Ecclesia neque in politia [Germ. ed.: noch in der Polizei und weltlichem Regiment], neque in aconomia [Haushaltung] tolerari potest."-Epitome, Art. XII. See Schaff, 1. c., iii. 173.

* This corresponds to the Roman Catholic idea that the clergy or hierarchy are the church; while the laity are doomed to passive obedience. Pope Pius IX. said during the Vatican Council: "I am the tradition."

3 44

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Philosophie des Rechts." Hegel calls the state "die Wirklichkeit der sittlichen Idee," die selbstbewusste Vernünftigkeit und Sittlichkeit," "das System der sittlichen Welt." ("Works," vol. viii. p. 340 sqq.)

4 Richard Rothe, in his "Anfänge der christlichen Kirche," (Wittenberg, 1837, pp. 1-138), teaches the ultimate absorption of religion into morals, and of the church into an ideal state, which he identifies with the kingdom of God (the βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ). But the ultimate state is a theocracy where God shall be all in all. (1 Cor. xv. 28.)

5 "Lehre vom modernen Staat." Engl. translation: "Theory of the Modern State," Oxford, 1885.

6"The Nation: The Foundations of Civil and Political Life in the United States," Boston, 1870, 9th edition, 1884. This work grew out of the enthusiasm for the nation enkindled by the civil war for its salvation. It is a profound study of speculative politics, with the main ideas borrowed from Bluntschli, and Hegel. Mulford wrote afterwards a theological treatise under the title, "The Republic of God," Boston, 9th ed., 1886.

The tendency of modern times is to limit the powers of the government, and to raise the liberty of the people. The government is for the people, and not the people for the government. In ancient Greece and Rome the free man was lost in the citizen, and the majority of the people were slaves. Plato carried this idea to the extent of community of property, wives, and children, in his utopian republic. Against this Aristotle protested with his strong realistic sense, and defended in his "Politics" the rights of property and the dignity of the family. The American ideal of the state is a republic of self-governing freemen who are a law to themselves. "That government is best which governs least."

The state can never be indifferent to the morals of the people; it can never prosper without education and public virtue. Nevertheless its direct and chief concern in our country is with the political, civil, and secular affairs; while the literary, moral, and religious interests are left to the vol untary agency of individuals, societies, and churches, under the protection of the laws. In Europe the people look to the government for taking the initiative; in America they help themselves and go ahead.

The nation is much broader and deeper than the state, and the deepest thing in the nation's heart is its religion.

If we speak of a Christian nation we must take the word in the qualified sense of the prevailing religious sentiment and profession; for in any nation and under any relation of church and state, there are multitudes of unbelievers, misbelievers, and hypocrites. Moreover, we must not measure the Christian character of a people by outward signs, such as crosses, crucifixes, pictures, processions, clerical coats, and monastic cowls, all of which abound in Roman Catholic countries and in Russia, on the streets and in public places, but are seldom seen in the United States. We must go to the churches and Sunday-schools, visit the houses and family altars, attend the numerous meetings of synods, conferences, conventions, observe the sacred stillness of the Lord's Day, converse with leading men of all professions and grades of culture, study the religious literature and periodical press

with its accounts of the daily thoughts, words, and deeds of the people. A foreigner may at first get bewildered by the seeming confusion of ideas, and be repelled by strange novelties or eccentricities; but he will gradually be impressed with the unity and strength of the national sentiment on all vital questions of religion and morals.

With this understanding we may boldly assert that the American nation is as religious and as Christian as any nation. on earth, and in some respects even more so, for the very reason that the profession and support of religion are left entirely free. State-churchism is apt to breed hypocrisy and infidelity, while free-churchism favors the growth of religion. Alexis de Tocqueville, the most philosophic foreign observer of American institutions, says:

"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, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth. . . . In the United States religion exercises but little influence upon the laws and upon the details of public opinion, but it directs the manners of the community, and by regulating domestic life, it regulates the state. . . . Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must, nevertheless, be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country, for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions. I am certain that the Americans hold religion to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society."

This judgment of the celebrated French scholar and statesman is extremely important, and worthy of being seriously considered by all our educators and politicians, in opposition to infidels and anarchists, foreign and domestic, who are zealous in spreading the seed of atheism and irreligion, and are undermining the very foundations of our republic. I fully agree with De Tocqueville. I came to the same conclusion soon 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. In Roman Catholic

1 “Democracy in America,” translated by Henry Reeve, New York, 1838, vol. i. pp. 285, 286 sq.

countries and in Russia there is more outward show, in Protestant countries more inward substance, of religion. There the common people are devout and churchy, but ignorant and superstitious; while the educated classes are skeptical or indifferent. In Protestant countries there is more information and intelligent faith, but also a vast amount of rationalism and unbelief. In Great Britain Christianity has a stronger hold on all classes of society than on the Continent, and this is partly due to the fact that it is allowed more freedom.

Religious Activity.

The Christian character of the American nation is apparent from the following facts:

1. The United States equal and even surpass most Christian countries in religious energy and activity of every kind. The rapid multiplication of churches, Sunday-schools, Young Men's Christian Associations, religious and charitable institutions all over the country, by voluntary contributions, without any aid from the government, has no parallel in history. Nowhere are churches better attended, the Lord's Day more strictly observed, the Bible more revered and studied, the clerical profession more respected, than in North America.

It is so often asserted by the advocates of state-churchism that the clergy are made servants of the congregation from which they draw their support. In reply we say, that they ought to be servants of the people in the best sense of the word, as Christ came to serve, and washed his disciples' feet; that American ministers are esteemed in proportion to the fidelity and fearlessness with which they discharge their duty to God and men ; and that the congregation feel more attached to a pastor whom they choose and support, than to a pastor who is set over them by the government whether he suits them or not. A congregation is not a flock of sheep.

We may quote here a just and noble tribute which a statesman, Daniel Webster, the American Demosthenes, paid to the American clergy, in his famous speech on the Girard will case ':

"Works of Daniel Webster," vol. vi. pp. 140, 141. Tenth ed., Boston, 1857

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"I take it upon myself to say, that in no country in the world, upon either continent, can there be found a body of ministers of the gospel who perform so much service to man, in such a full spirit of self-denial, under so little encouragement from government of any kind, and under circumstances almost always much straitened and often distressed, as the ministers of the gospel in the United States, of all denominations. They form no part of any established order of religion; they constitute no hierarchy; they enjoy no peculiar privileges. In some of the States they are even shut out from all participation in the political rights and privileges enjoyed by their fellow-citizens. They enjoy no tithes, no public provision of any kind. Except here and there, in large cities, where a wealthy individual occasionally makes a donation for the support of public worship, what have they to depend upon? They have to depend entirely on the voluntary contributions of those who hear them.

"And this body of clergymen has shown, to the honor of their own country and to the astonishment of the hierarchies of the Old World, that it is practicable in free governments to raise and sustain by voluntary contributions alone a body of clergymen, which, for devotedness to their sacred calling, for purity of life and character, for learning, intelligence, piety, and that wisdom which cometh from above, is inferior to none, and superior to most others.

"I hope that our learned men have done something for the honor of our literature abroad. I hope that the courts of justice and members of the bar of this country have done something to elevate the character of the profession of the law. I hope that the discussions above (in Congress) have done something to meliorate the condition of the human race, to secure and extend the great charter of human rights, and to strengthen and advance the great principles of human liberty. But I contend that no literary efforts, no adjudications, no constitutional discussions, nothing that has been done or said in favor of the great interests of universal man, has done this country more credit, at home or abroad, than the establishment of our body of clergymen, their support by voluntary contributions, and the general excellence of their character for piety and learning.

“The great_truth has thus been proclaimed and proved, a truth which I believe will in time to come shake all the hierarchies of Europe, that the voluntary support of such a ministry, under free institutions, is a practicable idea."

Christian Legislation.

2. Our laws recognize Christianity, protect church property, and decide cases of litigation according to the creed and constitution of the denomination to which the property belongs.

The Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Watson vs. Jones, concerning a disputed Presbyterian church property in Louisville, Kentucky, decided (December, 1871) that :