a principle would forbid two men to unite their strength in lifting a stone, which neither alone could lift, unless a religious creed was stamped on the process. There are many lawful associations of men in which the alternative does not lie between religion and positive irreligion, so that it must be one or the other; and to assume that this is the alternative in respect to these associations, and then proceed to denounce them as atheistical and irreligious because they are not positively religious in their objects, may be a wonderful display of zeal, yet it is zeal at the expense of common

sense.

How, then, is it with that particular organization, association, or union of persons that we call a State or body politic? Must it be positively religious in its objects in order not to be positively irreligious? Take for example, the people who in adopting the Constitution and providing thereby for the establishment of a civil government, styled themselves" the people of the United States." By this instrument they organized a great national association, whose objects, as set forth in the preamble, were “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The whole Constitution is limited to these confessedly temporal objects. It neither affirms nor denies any doctrine in respect to God or

any duty of human beings toward him. It expressly declares that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." An atheist is, hence, just as eligible to any national office as the most devout Christian. And to put the purpose of the people beyond the possibility of dispute or doubt the First Amendment to the Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Here, then, is a constitution, and here a civil government provided for by it, and here a great national State organized under it, with no affirmation or denial touching religion in the fundamental law.

Whether the people are Pagans or Mohammedans, Atheists or Christians, does not appear in the law. No matter what they are, considered religiously, the objects specified are such as are of common concern and importance to them all. Now, is this Constitution opposed to God and atheistical in the evil sense because it does not embrace any doctrine of God in its provisions and does confine itself and the government which its authorizes exclusively to the temporal objects named in the preamble? Is the nation a community of atheists because God and religion are not found in its organic law? We might as well say that the Constitution is opposed to the Copernican theory of astronomy, because it contains no doctrine on the subject of astronomy.

It is neither a theistic nor an anti-theistic constitu tion; but republican in its theory of government and absolutely secular in its ends. The State established under it, existing as a body politic and doing its work through the agency of a government, is not a theological State, any more than it is a geological or astronomical State. It is a republican organism, for purposes that relate purely to the temporal interests of men; and, as such, it has no opinions to express or enforce in regard to religion. And in this attitude of simple omission there is no opposition to God or to Christianity, and certainly no express or implied avowal of atheism as a creed.

It is true, in all cases in which affirmation is a duty, that negatives, not in the sense of positive denials, but in that of not affirming, are equivalent to positive denials. But where affirmation is not a duty, there silence is not an offense. If one is not bound to speak, there is no sin in not speaking. Let it then be shown that States, as such, and civil governments, as such, are bound to have a theology, and assert it by legal provisions, and we shall concede their sinfulness if they fail to comply with the obligation. Let us have the Scriptures, or the intuitions, or the experience on which this proposition rests. The theory of State personality furnishes no such proof, since it is nothing but a mere fiction of the brain. History shows that for governments, as such, to assume that religion is one of their proper ends, and then act upon the assump

tion, is among the gravest mistakes that can be made in human society. Out of this one mistake have arisen the politico religious despotisms that have cursed the race, and to a large extent the religious corruptions that have dishonored God and injured the interests of truth. There is no lesson more clearly taught by history than that civil governments are not well fitted to be creed-makers or creed-administrators in religious matters.

This being the fact, then these governments, surely, are not to be regarded as atheistical and hostile to God if they simply do not do what they are not fitted to do and what nolaw of God, in the Bible or out of it, requires them to do. They are not to be indicted as offenders because they limit themselves to their proper business. Well would it be for the world if all governments and States had been guilty of this kind of offence.

But should not those who enact and administer laws discharge their religious duties to God by acts of homage and obedience to his will? Undoubtedly they should; not because they are kings or rulers, but because, like all other human beings, they are personal subjects of the divine government. It so happens, however, that the duties which they owe to God do not extend to their official character as civil rulers in any sense that confers on them the right to prescribe the religious duties of those subject to their authority. They are not prophets of the Lord and not delegated to expound or execute

the divine will. Simply as rulers, exercising govern. mental power, they have no right to have any religion, and cannot have any without being usurpers in theory and almost always oppressors in practice. It is quite enough for them to perform their own personal duties to God, and then concede precisely the same privilege to all others, without any hindrance or constraint. Their official responsibility has nothing to do with the enactment and enforcement of laws to regulate the religion of the people. Here they have no rightful jurisdiction and, hence, no duty to discharge to God or man.

All this clamor about atheism and positive irreligion being the necessary corollary of no religion in the State organism is either a mere play upon words or a gross blunder of the intellect. It invests the State, in distinction from the people composing it, with personal attributes, and then assumes that its duties in the matter of religion are identical with those of real persons. The individual must have a theology in his head and his heart, and, therefore, the State must have the same in its head and heart, not as an individual, but as that mysterious entity or something known as a State. Unfortunately for the theory, this something has neither a head nor a heart: neither a body nor a soul. the existence which it has or can have is simply that of certain relations which individuals hold to each other and on account of which they are, taken in the aggregate, called a State. And to our dull

All