had,-Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Choate, Everett were all defending our glorious American Union. A few despised men were saying, What of the four millions of black men, women and children ground under a tyranny worse than Roman tyranny? Webster, Clay, Everett, Choate, Calhoun, all of them, eulogized our glorious Union; yet it had this stain, and the old Union did not become glorious until that stain was wiped out in fire and blood. Nothing is glorious that does not tend to human welfare. Nothing can stand that does not further human progress; and by this test every condition and tendency of civilization must be judged.

VIII.

SUNDAY AND THE STATE.

II.

THE MODERN CIVIC REST-DAY.

[ADDRESS TO SUNDAY CONGREGATION, MAY 15, 1892. STENOGRAPHIC REPORT.]

IN

view of the interests involved in

the question before us, and in most of the questions that it falls to the lot of the public teacher of morals and religion to discuss, we might pray to be delivered from that man who does not feel the responsibility of such a task and duty. As public teachers of morality and religion we are called upon to discuss the gravest questions that affect human interest or can occupy the human mind. The very least we can do is to study every question thoroughly, accepting every ray of light that comes, no matter from what quarter; and having so studied, give to the last syllable

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our honest thought. And I am glad to believe that what you wish of me this hour is my honest thought. Many of you may not like this discourse, and if you do not, perhaps, it will not be out of place to reflect that the discourses you like least when delivered, are those often-times that serve you most. Whenever you hear a man speak your own convictions from first to last, you are only hearing yourself as by proxy, and doubtless you are pleased to hear yourself publicly expressed; but you gain nothing new, either in fact or feeling. But when you hear what you do not believe, and listen to facts that to you ar new, then there is both the possibility and probability, if you deal honestly with those facts and arguments, that good will result. And there is an obligation on your part, as well as on mine. When you hear that with which you fully concur, you are at liberty to listen. carelessly, and if your attention wanders, what matters it? But if you listen to that with which you are not in accord,

it is at least your duty to listen carefully, and hear the thing that is said as it is said.

So much by way of preface, and now, by way of introduction, for this address needs both a preface and an introduction.

I am committed as thoroughly as any man in this city, or out of it, to the demand for an absolute separation of Church and State. I am opposed to religious legislation, opposed to anything that even points definitely in that direc tion. The world gives us a record of many bad governments; of aristocracies that have been cruel; of kings that have been tyrannical; of republics that have been hot beds of vice and corruption; but of all bad governments that have cursed the world, the politico-ecclesiastical is the worst. The government that attempts to force to any degree upon the people religious observance, is the worst government of which we can conceive; for if it is successful, it makes men either martyrs or hypocrites. The few will

be brave enough to defy the government and die; the many will be obsequious enough to bow to the government, and live as hypocrites.

Gen. Grant said, "Keep the Church and the State forever separate;" and every true son of liberty repeats that demand, and says to any church, that would impose upon citizens its dogmas and practices, "Hands off; we are free men, the first in this particular the world has seen." We are all in favor of an absolute separation of Church and State. Any other course or creed means bad politics and worse religion, an unholy combination that has in its favor neither truth, nor justice, nor common

sense.

One thing more, I shall speak this morning from the standpoint of a citizen, not as a minister. I surrender freely any advantage that might come from discussing this question from a religious standpoint. I shall speak as a citizen, and admit that I am just as liable to error as you good people in the