duty. They deal with the temporal rights and obligations of citizenship, without any reference to the question whether the citizen is a religionist or not. His religious faith is no part of his citizenship and no criterion of his rights. It confers upon him no immunities and imposes no disabilities. It is a matter between himself and his God, and with it the civil authority does not concern itself. He is not forbidden to be an atheist and not commanded to be a Christian. He forfeits no rights by being the one and gains none by being the other; and as between these two extremes of opinion, the State does not undertake to decide which is the true and which is the false opinion. Such is the great American principle in respect to the sphere of civil government. This principle, being the exact antipodes of State theology, admits of no reconciliation with it.

We submit this summary of thoughts in regard to State theology for the consideration of those who insist that the public school system of this country shall be made the instrument of religious education. Catholics, in respect to their own children, desire that the education should be thoroughly religious in the sense of teaching the Catholic faith; and to this there is no objection if they will give it at their own charges and not ask the State to be a party thereto, either by remitting taxes in their favor or appropriating public money for the purpose. A very considerable number of Protest

ants who are agreed in being opposed to any teaching of Catholicism by the State also desire that the amount and kind of religious education in the public school should be equal to that naturally furnished by reading King James's version of the Sacred Scriptures in these schools, either with or without the supplement of prayer and religious singing. Both classes, while widely at variance as to what the religious teaching shall be, nevertheless, want the teaching by the authority of the State and at the expense of the general public.

The practical meaning of this demand is that an American State shall in its public school adopt the principle of State theology. Have those who make the demand well considered the fact that they logically ally themselves with all the religious despotisms that have ever existed among men? They in effect accept and advocate a principle which has in all ages been the enemy of religious liberty, against which heroes have fought, on whose cruel altars martyrs have bled, and whose historic enormities are sufficient to startle the world. They assume that an American State has a theology to teach and support; and in this one assumption they pass the Rubicon, and grant what never did anything for Christianity but to corrupt and weaken it as a moral and spiritual power.

The question of Bible reading and other religious exercises in the public school, when sifted to its bottom, is really a question of State theology. It

If

It

comes to this at last. And, to say nothing now about the conflicts of opinion as to what the theology shall be and the utter impossibility of satisfying all the parties with any theology, we are opposed to the whole underlying theory, anywhere and everywhere, whether applied to men, women, or children, in a school system or a church system. the State will simply take care of the citizen in his rights as a human being and a member of the body politic, the religionist will have all the care that he needs and certainly all to which he is entitled. cannot connect its authority with the religionist or his faith as such without exceeding its own proper jurisdiction and without immensely more mischief than benefit. In order to be a democratic State, governed by the rule of equal and impartial justice, it must leave the religionist and his creed to take care of themselves, concerning itself only with the citizen. The moment the State abandons this ground the elementary law of a democratic government is gone.

XI.

CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

It is of the utmost importance to society that human rights as to person and property should be defined and protected by the authority of law; that the public peace should be preserved; that crime

should be punished; that controversies among individuals should admit of settlement by legal arbitration, and that the people should be defended against encroachments by foreign enemies. For these and similar temporal purposes, civil government in some form is a necessity, in the sense that either they cannot be secured at all or cannot be so well secured without it. Though not absolutely perfect and though capable of great abuses, it is, nevertheless, the best machinery for these ends that human wisdom. can employ. No other can take its place or do its work. No government was ever so oppressive that it was not far better than anarchy. The total absence of all government would be the very extreme of the savage condition.

The purposes of government, as thus specified, are moral in kind, since they relate to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They are also temporal in their scope, since they have no reference to what may or may not await us after death. The present advantages of civil government are sufficient to vindicate its propriety, even if no other and higher interests were attached to human nature. The atheist ought to believe in its necessity and wisdom. The things of time do not cease to be real and do not lose their value while they last because they are limited to this life.

And yet, if we concede the doctrine of a personal God, to whom we owe duties, and that of a future state, to which death consigns us, then what

are called things spiritual, in distinction from things temporal, form immeasurably the largest and most important field of human thought. Our chiefest interests must lie in the former. It has, hence, been inferred that civil government, being so necessary and useful in the sphere of things temporal, should extend its regulative agency and supervision into the higher sphere of our spiritual relations, and, in so doing, define, teach, and enforce religious duties. State religion-namely, religion allied with and sustained by the civil power-is the formal expression of this idea. Those who demand that our public school-system—a system which is purely governmental, because ordained, established, and conducted by State authority—should be the instrument of religious as well as of secular education, in logical effect, commit themselves to this doctrine. They ask the State to be the minister and propagator of religion in the public school, and thus grant the principle that the civil power may and should extend its action into the sphere of things spiritual. Their argument is essentially the one which has in all ages been urged in behalf of State religion. We object to both the argument and the conclusion, whether applied to a public school system or anywhere else.

The fact that civil government is the best possible agency to attain certain temporal ends does not prove that it is equally well adapted to spiritual and religious ends, or that it is at all adapted to the latter purpose. To show that a thing is good in