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apprehension if these individuals, each for himself, including rulers and subjects, do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, they will in the most effectual way acknowledge and honor him. They do not need, in order not to be opposed to God, to write their religious creed in their governmental constitution or make it one of the objects for which they are associated as a body politic.

George Washington, surely, was not an atheist. The men who framed the Constitution of the United States were not atheists. The people who placed their seal upon this instrument were not atheists. They believed in God and large numbers of them were devout worshippers; and yet they adopted a constitution of government from which they excluded—not by accident, but with deliberate purpose-all distinctively religious ends and ideas. No other example of atheism and hostility to God, according to the theory we have been considering, so openly enunciated and so long continued, can be found in all the annals of mankind. The logic of this theory turns this Constitution into organized atheism of the most frightful character. Think of it! Not a word about God, or about Christ, or about the plan of salvation, or about Heaven or Hell in any part of this instrument! Forty millions of people, millions of whom are Christians, living under such an atheistical Constitution! A civil government created, and year after year conducted for now almost a century, and no religion in it!

and Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and various other religi ous sects parties to this enormity! The reader need feel no alarm. The enormity is the wisest, the best, the most reasonable plan for a civil government upon which the light of day ever dawned.

XIV.

STATE CONSCIENCE TOWARD GOD.

The advocates of religious instruction and worship in the public school, whether by the simple reading of the Bible, or with the addition of other exercises, insist that the State ought to have a conscience toward God. This conscience should embrace and affirm some definite system of religious belief; and this is the system to be taught in the public schools at the general expense. Not to have such a conscience and not thus to express it makes the State an offender against God. The central point of this argument is furnished by the word conscience, considered as an attribute of the State. The conscience in question is that of the State and the relation had in view is the one which it holds toward God. It is not only a State conscience, but it is a State conscience toward God. The duty to God which in this case it imposes is that of religious instruction and

worship in the public school, organized and governed by the State and supported by compulsory taxation. Such is the argument. What is it worth?

In order to answer this question, we need in the outset to explain the term conscience. The term denotes any one or all of the following facts in the constitution and operations of the human mind: 1. The intuitive perception or idea of right and wrong as opposite moral categories. 2. A rational judgment applying this idea to specific actions, either done or to be done, and pronouncing them either right or wrong. 3. The authoritative sense of obligation to do or forbear according to the decisions of this judgment. 4. The moral emotion, either of approbation or disapprobation, when an act being done, is regarded as right or wrong. 5. The sense of merit or demerit, according to the view which the mind takes of the act, instinctively disposing virtue to expect reward and vice to anticipate punishment.

All these facts exist in human nature. Universal consciousness attests their reality and all languages have words for their expression. Whether the general term conscience in any particular use of it embraces all of them collectively, or simply refers to one or more of them, we always decide by the connections in which it is employed. The facts themselves, though intimately related to each other, are distinct, and, taken as a whole, they constitute an essential part of our moral nature.

The fundamental condition of a conscience

toward God is some idea of God, of what he is, and of our relations to him. This idea connects itself naturally with that of obligation to him, and with this is associated the direct and authorative sense of duty toward God. Coupled with this is the emotion of approval or disapproval, accordingly as we judge ourselves to be right or wrong in this relation. This emotion leads to the sense of good or ill desert, as the effect of our moral attitude toward the Supreme Being. Thus all the elementary facts which are comprehensively grouped under the generic term conscience appear in human consciousness when the subjective in man is engaged with the objective in God. They are not the fancies of hair-splitting metaphysics; but realties, ranking among the most important elements of our spiritual being. Conscience in man is always conscience toward God when the latter enters the field of vision. God seen and thought of brings conscience into action. Man in this respect is not a stone or a brute; but a moral being, so constructed as to be impressed with the idea of God.

All the facts of conscience, whether they relate to God or man, are personal facts, existing solely and only in individual minds. There may be millions of consciences, either concurrent or divergent in what they affirm; yet every one of them belongs to some specific person. There is no such thing as an impersonal or general conscience not analyzable into individual ones. Wherever we find a con.

science toward God there we find a moral being for its home. Its individuality is as obvious as our mental identity. Dispossessed of this feature, it instantly ceases to have any existence.

The individuals in whom a conscience toward God exists may, for the purposes of this article, be arranged into two classes-the first embracing all persons who are simply private citizens, and are, hence, invested with no official functions in the management of government; the second embracing the officers of law, or those who wield the authority and coercive power of government. All persons, in every community and under every form of government, belong to one or the other of these classes. The body politic is made up of rulers and the ruled.

As to the first class, there is no doubt that every member of it ought to have a conscience toward God for himself and to act according to its dictates. It is the highest authority that can be established in his soul for the government of his own conduct. It is the supreme law of his inner nature. It is, however, quite enough for him to place his own actions under the control of his own conscience, and leave all others to do the same thing. He may approve or condemn the conduct of others; he may extend or withhold his personal favors according to his own sense of duty; he may seek to enlighten those whom he deems to be in error; he may remonstrate against wrong; he may exercise all his pow

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