is, in respect to the taxpayers, a coerced support of religion. Among the "things which are not lawful under any of the American constitutions," Judge Cooley, in his " Constitutional Limitations," p. 469, specifies "compulsory support, by taxation or otherwise, of religious instruction." He immediately adds: “Not only is no one denomination to be favored at the expense of the rest, but all support of religious instruction must be entirely voluntary." This principle is clearly violated by the state if it makes such instruction a part of its public school system. The support is then not voluntary, because the taxpayer has no option whether to render it or

not.

Judge Welch, of the Supreme Court of Ohio, in delivering the opinion of the Court in the case of The Board of Education of Cincinnati vs. Minor and others (23 Ohio State Reports, Granger, p. 250), said that the teaching of the Christian religion in the public schools "violates the spirit of our constitutional guaranties and is a state religion in embryo; that if we have no right to tax him [the citizen] to support worship, we have no right to tax him to support religious instruction; that to tax a man to put down his own religion is of the very essence of tyranny: that, however small the tax, it is a first step in the direction of an establishment of religion; and I should add that the first step in that direction is the fatal step, because it logically involves the last step."

Mr. Horace Mann in his twelfth report on the schools in Massachusetts, says: "But if a man is taxed to support a school where religious doctrines are inculcated which he believes to be false and which he believes that God condemns, then he is excluded from the school by the Divine law, at the same time that he is compelled to support it by the human law. This is a double wrong. It is politically wrong, because, if such a man educates his children at all, he must educate them elsewhere, and thus pay two taxes, while some of his neighbors pay less than their due proportion of one ;- and it is religiously wrong, because he is constrained by human power to promote what he believes the Divine Power forbids. The principle involved in such a course is pregnant with all tyrannical consequences. It is broad enough to sustain any claim of ecclesiastical domination ever made in the darkest ages of the world." The only escape from the adoption of this principle is for the state to abandon its school system altogether, or to exclude religious instruction from that system, on the ground that such instruction does not come within the proper jurisdiction of civil government. The latter, and not the former, is the course we advocate. It is the only course possible in a State school system supported by compulsory taxation that is consistent with the religious rights of the people.

No man has a right to say that his religion, in distinction from that of his neighbor, shall be

taught in a school for the support of which both are taxed in common. What the State should say is that the religion of neither shall be taught, and that the support of religion, whether it be true or false, shall not anywhere or to any extent be made a charge upon its public treasury. This is fair and just to all. Any other ground assumes a jurisdiction in the State which cannot exist in consistency with the rights of conscience, and which, if it be conceded at all, logically covers the whole ground of a State religion.

ment.

X.

STATE THEOLOGY.

The term State means any distinct and independent body of persons occupying a given territory and united together under some form of civil governThe governmental organization of a State for the purpose of enacting and administering law, is practically the State itself. It is such as the agent of its legal operations. By the term theology is meant the science of God, embracing what is assumed to be known in regard to him and consisting subjectively in human beliefs with reference to the Supreme Being. What men thus believe is their theology; and if they believe in the doctrine of God at all the natural sequel is some form of reli

gious worship. The combination of the ideas indicated by these terms gives a state theology, or a government in which the State asserts a legal doctrine or creed in regard to God and stamps the same with its own authority. The State, then, is a theological State. Its opinions, whether in respect to God himself or the duty and mode of religious worship, form a part of its laws: and this distinguishes them from individual beliefs or convictions that rest merely on private judgment, and, hence admit of no coercive enforcement.

The natural and, as a most ample experience shows, the sure result of State theology is either such an identification of Church and State that the two are practically the same thing, or such an intimate legal union of the two that they mutually act through each other. In the one case the State is the Church and the Church is the State; and in the other, though formally distinct as organisms, they are, nevertheless, blended in a common set of functions in respect to religion. In both cases we have the union of ecclesiastical and civil powers, and in both we have religion with the sanction of human law impressed upon it.

Every State theology must necessarily have some specific character; and as to what it shall bewhether Pagan or Christian, and, if the latter, whether Catholic or Protestant—the State itself must be the judge. Its opinion on this subject it expresses through the edict of a king or the vote of

a legislative assembly. It does the work of a theological professor, adding thereto the power of the civil arm. It teaches by command. Its dogmas are laws. All the reasons which demand or justify a State theology at all equally demand that it should be put into effective action. If it be the right and duty of the State to have a theology, then it is its duty to be governed by it and to govern the people by it. The least that it can do is to devise the ways and means of asserting, perpetuating, and enforcing it. If it is worth anything it deserves this tribute. State patronage, State disabilities or penalties for dissenters and State administration are the logical corollaries. To this there can be no just objection, since if the State ought to have a theology, then it ought to use the necessary means to maintain and administer it. It should see to it that not only the children in the public schools, but also the adult population-indeed, all the peopleenjoy the benefits thereof. That would be very queer theology which the State first adopts and legalizes and then leaves to shirk for itself. We hold it to be the duty of the State to sustain its own theology, provided always that theology comes within its proper sphere.

This, moreover, would be practically an easy task if all the people thought exactly alike and their common thoughts were faithfully represented by the theology of the State. Such, however, does not happen to be the case.