Christianity and the State, 
 
 ^ SEr^MOTV, 
 
 ¥*reached in the "College Plall," 
 
 DKC. 38, 1H73. 
 
 WM@M^& M» MMI^J^MMr 
 
 Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, of Cincinnati, Ohio 
 
 % HIBHAfiY Of PRINCETON SSf * 
 
 —mtt'm 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 
 Elm Stuket Printing Company, 176 & 173 Klm Strk.i'.t. 
 1873. 
 
BV631 .S512 1873 
 
 Skinner, Thomas H. (Thomas 
 
 Harvey), 1791-1871. 
 
 Christianity and the state 
 
 a 
 
 sermon preached in the 
 
 "College Hall," Dec. 28, 
 
 1873. 
 
Christianity and the State. 
 
 A. SER^MCOIV. 
 
 "Preaclied in the "College Hall, 
 
 DEC. 28, 1873. 
 
 Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, of Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 
 Elm Stkebt Printing Company, 17G & 178 Elm Strekt. 
 1873. 
 
Cincinnati, December 29, 1873. 
 Rev. Thomas H. Skinner, D. D. 
 Deal' Sir: — 
 
 With feelings and convictions similar to 
 those we expressed to you in our request for a copy of your sermon 
 on Christianity and Sectarianism, we would earnestly ask that the 
 discourse you preached yesterday morning, on Christianity and the 
 State, may be placed at our disposal for publication. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 John Shillito, 
 George Wilshire, 
 S. J. Broadwell, 
 Hugh McBirney, 
 Richard Smith, 
 Wm. H Neff. 
 
 Messrs. John Shillito, Geo. Wilshire, and others. 
 Gentlemen : — 
 
 Assured by your confidence and 
 good opinion, I cheerfully comply with your request. 
 
 Very respectfully yours. 
 
 THOMAS H. SKINNER. 
 Cincinnati, Decemher 30, 1873. 
 
Happtj is that people, that is in such a case : gea, 
 
 happtj is that people, whose Sod is the 
 
 Jaord. Fsaim cxliu. l^. 
 
 I HAVE a large theme and a limited time. I must omit 
 many things, and condense much, and forego illustrations 
 that would give interest and emphasis to my subject ; and 
 even as it is, I am afraid I shall greatly weary your pa- 
 tience. 
 
 I am to speak to-day of Christianity and the State, their 
 inter-relations, and inter-dependencies, and mutual obli- 
 gations. Our subject is not the Church and the State. 
 Call to mind what was said in my former discourse con- 
 cerning the Church, and you will readily perceive the 
 difference. There is one visible Catholic Church of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, consisting of all those who throughout 
 the world profess the true religion. Now, of course, the 
 relations of this widespread, universal Church to the 
 State of Ohio, for example, are not before us. No nation, 
 no State, can have any formal dealings with this vast body. 
 Her Head and King is on high, and has instituted no 
 medium of intercourse with the " powers tiiat be " in the 
 world. 
 
 Then there are the particular churches or denominations 
 that compose this Catholic Church. In our land we have 
 established, as a vital principle of the organic national 
 
law, the separation of the State from them all. Each and 
 every denomination is left, in its distinctiveness, to pro- 
 mote and extend its own influence. The State can take 
 no part in this work. The State can not patronize or sup- 
 port any branch of the Church universal, that may be 
 found within its borders. This is, we trust, the settled and 
 unchangeable policy of our nation. For while these de- 
 nominations all agree in the common Christianity, and 
 thus are vital members of the one. great Church and king- 
 dom of God, they each hold to their own special methods 
 and modes of internal government, arrangements, and 
 worship, and in many cases to some divergent though un- 
 essential doctrines. They have different terms of church 
 fellowship, different views of ministerial qualifications. 
 A.nd, owing to the infirmities of human nature, it has come 
 to pass that these distinguishing peculiarities are held to 
 be so important that assumptions of superiority, rivalries, 
 and jealousies exist, and make it not only inexpedient, 
 but impossible, for the State to interpose, with safety to 
 itself, and decide these difi"erences in favor of one against 
 the rest. As of old, Ephraim envied Judah and Judah 
 vexed Ephraim. So it is now. None are perfect. All 
 have errors and mistakes in difi'ering degrees. The larger 
 and stronger denominations often have an undue spirit of 
 self-assertion, and do not behave themselves with true 
 catholicity toward the weaker and smaller. 
 
 These imperfect denominations, made up of imperfect 
 Christians, are all, notwithstanding their defects, aiming at 
 the same blessed end, the salvation and renovation of the 
 world; they all preach the same gospel; they are all pro- 
 moting the common Christianity. Little by little they will 
 purge off the baser metal, as, blessed be God, they are 
 
gradually doing. And wliile^they are~dra\ving nearer to 
 each other because they are ^drawing nearer to Christ, the 
 common, life-giving, world-renewing Christianity is, by the 
 separation of the State from its denominations, left free to 
 assert itself as never before in human history. It is the 
 supreme advantage of Christianity among us that she pre- 
 sents herself to the State in her own majesty, and beauty, 
 and fair proportions ; not as seen in the varying and diver- 
 gent aspects of the denomination; not as Episcopacy or 
 Lutheranism ; not as Presbyterianism or Romanism; not as 
 Methodism or Quakerism, may present her through tiie 
 medium of their peculiarities, but as she shines in her na- 
 tive luster, clear as the sun, fair as the moon, comely as 
 Jerusalem, beautiful as Tirzah, the common center, light, 
 and life of all the individual churches. Would to God that 
 civil authority would open its eyes to the bright vision! 
 
 It is this undenominational, cosmopolitan,^ divine relig- 
 ion that, though much obscured and misrepresented, has 
 been working its way in the world for eighteen centuries, 
 until she has become, faG'ile princeps the leader in civili- 
 zation, culture, education, morality,^ humanity, "philan- 
 thropy. Christianity, sectarian, bigoted, limited ! As I 
 said on a previous occasion,nothing is so expansive, so far- 
 reaching, so wisely conservative, so generous, so high- 
 minded, so full of charity. ^^ It Js^Heaven's mercy to a lost 
 world. Its commission is, " Go ye into^all_[the^world and 
 preach my gospel to every creature." Its purpose and 
 promise are new heavens and a new earth, in^which^right- 
 eousness shall flourish universally. It aims and seeks, 
 with all its powers, to infuse its 'benignant spirit into all 
 the forms of human life, the State, society, business, the 
 family, the innermost recesses of the soul. The denomin- 
 
— 6 — 
 
 ations that profess it are to be more and more unified and 
 13urified, till they all see, eye to eye, and the State will be 
 in full harmony with the perfected Church, they being one 
 in spirit, one in purpose, one in extent; the Church, through 
 Christianity, having brought kings to be her nursing fathers, 
 and queens her nursing mothers; and the nations of them 
 that are saved shall bring their glory and their honor unto 
 her. Such is the issue, the eventual consummation toward 
 which things are slowly, but surely, advancing, and for 
 this every loyal disciple of Christ will hope, and pray, and 
 labor, and consecrate all his energies. 
 
 And this brings us to our main subject: What has the 
 State to do with Christianity, and what has Christianity to 
 do with the State ? 
 
 According to the Christian religion the State is not an arti- 
 ficial iabric of human formation, but is a divine institution 
 under the special and constant control of the providence 
 of God, How strong and significant is its language: "Let 
 every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is 
 no power but of God : the powers that be are ordained of 
 God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power resisteth 
 the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive 
 unto themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to 
 good works, but to the evil. They are the ministers 
 of God for good to the obedient, but revengers to execute 
 wrath upon them that do evil." 
 
 All the sanctions of Christianity gather about the State. 
 Whatever its form — imperial, monarchical, republican — 
 obedience thereto, whenever it does not conflict wifh the 
 law of Cod; honor to kings, governors, magistrates, has 
 been for eighteen hundred years the solemn teaching and 
 enforcement of Christianity on the consciences of men. 
 
In this respect the State owes an incalcuhxble debt of 
 gratitude^ if nothing more, to our religion. 
 
 Then, (lie historic connection of Christianity with the 
 State is close and vital. The States of Christendom, and 
 pre-eminently the United States, are not, so to speak, in a 
 state of nature. The American nation has sprung from 
 Christendom — her latest born, strongest child. The fibers 
 of her life twine, not about atheism, or rationalism, or 
 natural religion, but about distinct, historic Christianity. 
 An enormous influence, gathered from the past ages of our 
 advancing religion, has been brought to bear upon the 
 foundations, the springs and sources of our national life. 
 Constitution, laws, regulations, civic customs, judicial pro- 
 cesses, have been, if not created, inspired and toned by 
 the religion of the Crucified One. It has broken up the 
 morality, or, rather, the immorality, of ancient jurispru- 
 dence. Greece and Rome, tolerated, and even legalized, 
 practices that could not be named in America. To Chris- 
 tianity is due, and to nothing else, the amelioration, ele- 
 vation, and widespread influence of woman. To Christi- 
 anity is due the love and sacredness and elementary care of 
 little children, who have been neglected by all unchristian 
 States, degraded, as a class, exposed by myriads, and, some- 
 times, murdered by wholesale. The words of her King, 
 " Sufier the little ones to come unto me," have ennobled and 
 blessed them. Marriage is sanctified by her as by no re- 
 ligion, no State in history. She has given a day of rest to 
 the people, a day of worship to the pious. She has broken 
 the bonds of the captive and the slave. She has opened 
 the prison doors of the innocent victims of arbitrary pow- 
 er. She has revolutionized the penal codes of the nations, 
 and throughout our land has substituted minor punish- 
 
— 8 — 
 
 ments for that of death, in the cases of scores of offenses. 
 By the doctrine of the unity in one blood of the race, by 
 the sacrifice of Calvary for each and every human being, 
 by the fraternity of the Son of God with the sons of men, 
 she has given a name and a worth, a right and opportu- 
 nity to the lowest and loftiest of the species, never dreamt 
 of outside her religion. By her word and power all men 
 have become equal before the law of the State and the 
 tribunal of God. She has made the principle, " Do as you 
 would be done by," an axiom in morals. Ah, yes ! Chris- 
 tianity underlies and is the inspiration of too much that is 
 good and valuable in the State of Ohio and all our other 
 States, to be sneered at, or denied her place and rights in 
 the Commonwealth. The enemies of Christianity could 
 not, if they would, exorcise her spirit from the laws, insti- 
 tutions, customs, and social and civil life of America. And 
 if the American State is to liave a progressive develop- 
 ment, that development must be in the spirit and direction 
 of the original germ of its natural life. To cast off Chris- 
 tianity by law and adapt itself to a merely natural relig- 
 ion — which no mortal has yet satisfactorily defined — or to 
 atheism or human reason, or anything beside, would be 
 national death. The leaven of Christianity is the leaven 
 that must still work in the lump. The salt of Christianity 
 must be more and more scattered through the masses of 
 the people, and give savor and strength and life to our in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 What, then, is the duty of the State in respect to Chris- 
 tianity ? . To answer this question we must first look at the 
 proper province or sphere of the State as such. The func- 
 tions of the State, through her legal authority, are few and 
 simple. With us the national defense belongs to the Gen- 
 
— 9 — 
 
 eral Government. In the individual State the repression 
 of vice and wrong doing, so far as these are injurious to 
 the community and the protection of the persons, rights, 
 liberties and property of all citizens, comprise substantially 
 its duties. The character of the laws by which these ends 
 are secured is largely dependent upon the condition, views 
 and sentiments of the people. Practically, the laws are 
 the creation of the people, properly represented. The 
 people govern ; the people make and unmake constitu- 
 tions and statutes. They do this by the expression of their 
 will through majorities. A majority is stronger — if not 
 wiser — than a minority, and a wise minority must succumb 
 to an unwise majority. This is fundamental with us. The 
 minority may regret it, may lament it, but if they are 
 loyal citizens, loyal Christians, they will submit; and then 
 by all fair and right methods do their best to turn the 
 scale. 
 
 If, now, the prevention and repression of crimes, and 
 the security of the persons, liberties, and property of the 
 inhabitants, are the chief ends of the State authority, the 
 question, how far may the State enter into the domain of 
 education, morality, and religion to promote these ends, 
 becomes one of great importance. The matter of educa- 
 tion 1 will not now discuss. 
 
 As to morality^ it is surely the interest of the State to 
 see to it that honesty, truth, justice, temperance, self-re- 
 spect, regard for the rights of others, and the like, are in- 
 culcated in the youthful minds of its population. To en- 
 graft morals on education, to some reasonable extent, is 
 the dictate of National and State self-interest. As to relig- 
 ion, the question is difficult in a free Commonwealth govern- 
 ed by majorities, as a few words will evince. "We may divide 
 
— 10 — 
 
 religion into first, natural, so-called, and second, revealed, 
 the Christian. As to the former, men greatly differ about 
 its character, sanctions and motives. Some would consider 
 idolatry, and Buddhism, and deism, forms of natural relig- 
 ion. Others would include all styles of infidelity and ma- 
 terialism — indeed, all man-made religions, of whatever 
 kind — under this designation; and the State would find it 
 an exceedingly difficult thing to know what to teach, in at- 
 tempting to teach natural religion. As to revealed relig- 
 ion, Christianity claims for itself an exclusive place, as 
 supernatural, immutable, divinely attested and authenti- 
 cated. She will admit into her fellowship no paganism, 
 nor Mohammedanism, nor superstition, nor any humanly 
 devised religious system whatever, and, therefore, whether 
 the State shall teach Christianity, either in its distinctive 
 morality or in its supernal truths, must be, to some extent, 
 a matter of public opinion — of majorities and minorities. 
 Only, let me here say, that if Christians should command 
 a majority in the State, it is contrary to the genius of their 
 religion to force itself, by the employment of legal author- 
 ity, of State power, upon the people. Christians hold that 
 men can be made really good and holy, only by a super- 
 natural influence working through the supernatural truths 
 she teaches. And one thing is sure, that American Chris- 
 tians do not consider the State, as the State now is, and 
 for a long time will be, a very competent instructor in her 
 high and sacred verities. They prefer to select, and edu- 
 cate, and appoint, and oversee the teachers of the blessed 
 gospel of the Son of God, for themselves. If, through the 
 force of their numbers and character, they can have the 
 Bible read in the schools ; if they can have prayer in the 
 name of Christ appropriately ofiered ; if they can have a 
 
-11 — 
 
 measure of the morality of Christianity ; supreme love to 
 God, and love to man as to one's self; forgiveness of ene- 
 mies and injuries, and the like, taught; if they can have a 
 civil Sabbath appointed, and the Bible, as far as may be, 
 made its oath book; and if they can have men and women 
 imbued with her spirit and faithful to the doctrines and the 
 morality of Christianity, in place and power in the hospit- 
 als, and asylums, and alms houses, and reformatories, and 
 prisons of the State, they will rejoice that they have so 
 far molded public sentiment as to command such results, 
 and they will do what they can to maintain the ground 
 they have secured amid the varying ebb and flow of politi- 
 cal opinion and power. 
 
 A word as to the Bible in our common schools. If the 
 question were the introduction of the Bible into these 
 schools ; if it were presented to us as a new problem to 
 be settled by public wisdom ; in view of the ciiaracter, 
 opinions, and votes of large numbers of foreign born citi- 
 zens, as well as of other influences that unite with them 
 in opposition to the Bible, the question might be canvassed 
 in full and free discussion. But when the question is, not 
 the putting in, but the thrusting out of that book, the case 
 is immensely different. Even a spelling-book, an algebra, 
 a history, or a geography, can not be put out of a school 
 without an implied condemnation of those books as in- 
 ferior or unworthy. And, assuredly, no Christian should 
 ever vote to exclude the book he claims to be divine, when 
 once it has obtained place in the education of the State. 
 No Christian should even seem to be willing to put a 
 stigma or a slight upon the volume of life and salvation. 
 Let others cast it out, if they will, from the schools of the 
 
— 12 — 
 
 Commonwealth, but let not the disciples of Jesus Christ 
 share in that solemn responsibility. 
 
 As, then, the State can not enact Christianity as the 
 religion of its citizens; as it can not attempt to enforce 
 obedience to her supernal morality ; as it can not appoint 
 her sacraments and ordinances as the worship of the peo- 
 ple, it would appear that the simple and comprehensive 
 duty of the State to Christianity is to leave her free — 
 absolutely free, and to protect her in that freedom. Chris- 
 tians claim thus much under the fundamental charter of 
 the nation, independent of majorities and minorities; and 
 if this is, not only in name, but in reality granted, thej'- 
 ask little more. 
 
 And just here Christianity is at a great disadvantage. 
 We are all well aware that she is not, and never has been, 
 popular in the world; as for instance, Mohammedanism 
 is in Arabia, or the religion of Confucius in China. The 
 reasons for this are partly inherent in her very nature, 
 and partly arise from the abuses and oppressions and per- 
 versions that have been practiced in her name. Chris- 
 tianity is no inert, torpid, quiet thing, no formal external 
 religion, but a vital, earnest, urgent, aggressive power that 
 will make itself felt wherever her voice can be heard, or 
 the pressure of her spiritual energies can be brought to 
 bear. She makes for herself the bitterest enemies and the 
 warmest friends. The nearer she comes, the dearer or the 
 deadlier does she appear. She confronts all the pride and 
 vanity — the covetousness and envy, the dishonesty and 
 wrong — the licentiousness, vice, and intemperance, the 
 godlessness and selfishness of men, and goes about to turn 
 the world upside down. She condemns an evil glance of 
 the eye, as adultery; a feeling of enmity, as murder. She 
 
— 13 — 
 
 drives a plowshare through human nature. Men oppose 
 Christianity not because her Founder, her morals, her doc- 
 trines, her purposes, her fruits, are bad, but because they 
 themselves are bad. Her ethereal sword pierces, unvails, 
 and exposes the depths of the human heart, and men will 
 blunt its edge, parry its thrusts, and wrest it from the 
 hands of Christians if they can. The very depravity which 
 the State is forced to recognize as the ground of its func- 
 tions, which creates the necessity for restraining and re- 
 pressing crime, the necessity for protecting the persons 
 and property and rights of the people themselves, is the 
 basis on which the faith and facts and morality of Chris- 
 tianity are reared. And as Christianity intensifies this and 
 traces it to its fontal sources, and pronounces man degen- 
 erate and corrupt, his heart a fountain of evils, of all the 
 evil in the world, and makes regeneration by the Holy 
 Ghost an essential prelude and condition of righteousness 
 and goodness, it is not surprising that men will do all they 
 can to set her aside, and break her power wherever it 
 exists. And then, as the faith and facts and book of Chris- 
 tianity are out of the order of nature, as they teem with 
 miracles and signs and wonders, as they reach into the un- 
 seen and spiritual worlds, and reveal a triune personal 
 God, acting by unexampled methods of sacrifice and sub- 
 stitution and efficacious power exerted in ways utterly in- 
 comprehensible by the finite mind, it is not at all strange 
 that the pride of philosophy and science, the powers of 
 rationalism and materialism, should rise in their might 
 against her. She is a stumbling-block to some and foolish- 
 ness to others, an unceasing offense to unrenewed human 
 nature. These are broad, patent, unquestioned facts about 
 our religion ; the basis of what is, by many, considered 
 
— 14 — 
 
 an irreconcilable hostility, which nothing but the ex- 
 termination of Christianity can bring to an end. 
 
 Now, my friends, in these circumstances the danger is 
 not a fanciful one, especially in cities and States where 
 Christians and their friends are in a minority, that the 
 organic law of the nation and of the State, which secures 
 their religious rights and liberties, may be ignored, under- 
 mined, or overridden. Romanism and unbelief have al- 
 ready, in some instances, secured municipal and State 
 patronage at the expense of Christianity. Therefore it is 
 that we seek to hold the civil authority strictly to its funda- 
 mental, though sometimes, perhaps, difficult duty, of the 
 protection of all the rights of this long hated, bitterly per- 
 secuted and despised, but now conquering and mighty re- 
 ligion. Her enemies have reason to tremble in view of 
 her advances; but no lawful power exists in this land that 
 can arrest her progress without treason to the rights of 
 conscience, liberty of thought, and freedom of speech 
 guaranteed in our magna charta. She anticipates no sud- 
 den revolution in the hostile opinion of the world concern- 
 ing her. She expects opposition ; she expects to be tra- 
 duced and ridiculed and misrepresented and argued against- 
 She makes no objection to all this; it can do little harm 
 except to those who falsify and contemn her. Give her 
 the freedom which the State in America is bound to give 
 her, and she fears nothing from foes without or foes within. 
 Never since the crucifixion of her Founder has she had 
 such an opportunity as she now has over this broad land — 
 this rising, expanding, vast Republic. If the Christians of 
 the first ages, without protection from the State for their 
 persons or property or religion, in constant peril of confis- 
 cation, exile, torture, and death, without culture or schools 
 
— 15 — 
 
 or social standing, without chapels or churches for three 
 long centuries, if they, by the simple force of their super- 
 nal religion, conquered and supplanted paganism sustained 
 by the power of ancient liome, and sowed the seeds from 
 which have grown modern civilization and Christendom, 
 what, in a free Commonwealth, with full protection, with 
 State and National institutions already impregnated and 
 largely molded by her influence, with immense wealth and 
 high position and great moral power, with a strong hold on 
 the people through her seminaries and academies and col- 
 leges, through her culture and literature, her churches, her 
 Sabbath-schools and her vast benevolent and i)hilanthropic 
 institutions, with her roots struck deep everywhere — 
 what, under these circumstances with her King in heaven 
 ruling and overruling all things for her, and the Holy 
 Spirit on earth with His subtle, secret, and omnipotent 
 energy working through her, and blessed prophecies and 
 promises as sure to come to pass as the sun is to rise to- 
 morrow morning, what may not a free Christianity in a free 
 State accomplish ? 
 
 For, though there is what may be considered a hard side, 
 a repulsive aspect m Christianity to human nature as it is, 
 there are, notwithstanding, elements of surpassing attrac- 
 tiveness and power and blessedness in her, which all can 
 see and feel. The world may be very selfish and godless 
 and arrogant, but the world confessedly is full of mistakes 
 and failures, of variance and turbulence, of sickness and 
 sadness and tears, of deep longings for something Heaven 
 only can give. And Christianity has done more to rectify 
 and reform and beautify and comfort and elevate and ad- 
 vance the race than all other things put together. From 
 the deeps of the human soul the cry comes up, all over 
 
— 16 — 
 
 the earth, for relief and renovation and liberty and right. 
 Just what Christianity proffers and promises, man wants 
 and man must have: not only freedom from all oppression, 
 liberty, equal rights, advancement, elevation, universal 
 peace, and general prosperity, but, also, a reconciled God 
 and Father in heaven, pardon, acceptance, goodness, guid- 
 ance, consolation, hope in the life that now is, and fruition 
 in the life that is to come. Verily, Jesus Christ is, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, ''The Desire of all nations.'^ 
 Christianity is not a cold, offensive dogma, an imprac- 
 ticable morality; but take her all in all, she is a life and a 
 power adapted to men and affairs and circumstances 
 throughout the world. She has the human conscience on 
 her side with the hopes and fears of our immortal nature 
 and divine relations, and she exists and toils only to make 
 men righteous and honorable, and happy and good for 
 time and eternity. Thus she blends her supernatural 
 revelations with a blessed, useful and self-denying life, and 
 no criticism, no dialectics, no science, no philosophy, no 
 infidelity can refute a religion which, in a world of sin and 
 selfishness, and wrong and sorrow and sickness, makes 
 men holy, cheerful, upright, just, God-fearing and man- 
 loving; yea, which transforms the king of terrors into a 
 messenger of mercy, and the grave into a resting-place 
 for their dust, till the trump of God shall awaken the dead 
 and introduce them into the glories of an unending heaven. 
 Christianity in the most unfavorable circumstances, now 
 oppressed and crushed by the State, and now in an unhal- 
 lowed alliance with the State — now manacled and forbid- 
 den to lift her banner among the nations, and now turned 
 into an instrument of tyranny and oppression, her super- 
 natural revelations used for human ambition and avarice — 
 
— 17 — 
 
 has wrought a vast and blessed work, notwithstanding all. 
 And in these last times she has crossed the ocean and taken 
 up her abode on our soil; and here, as we. have seen, she 
 appears, when unvailed, in her normal, gracious and glo- 
 rious character. Separated from the State, and indepen- 
 dent of denominational peculiarities, she occupies an 
 immeasurably superior position to any she has held in her 
 antecedent history. 
 
 Leave her free, do not trammel, do not shackle her ; give 
 her room and scope. If she gains victories, let no civil 
 power take them away. She is obedient to law and up- 
 holds the State, as does nothing else. She is merciful to 
 her foes, for in opposing her, like the murderers of her 
 King, " they know not what they do," She takes no un- 
 due, unfair advantage of any one. The weapons of her 
 warfare are not carnal, earthly, philosophical, or even 
 moral. Not by civil enactments; not by force of arms; 
 not bj^ legal authority, human or divine ; not by natural 
 religion, but by her sheer celestial force does she advance : 
 thus and thus only is she mighty through Grod to the pull- 
 ing down of the strongholds of sin and Satan. And stand- 
 ing in this j)ulpit, as a minister of Christ, in the name of 
 my Supreme Master, I tell this generation of statesmen, 
 lawyers, legislators, constitution makers, judges, magis- 
 trates, civil officers, and voters, that it is at the peril of 
 the common weal, yea, of every interest dear to the indi- 
 vidual, the family, and the State, that they attempt to re- 
 press her energies or trample upon her benignant spirit, or 
 buffet her, while she is building them up into greatness 
 and glory. 
 
 JMacaulay, in his essay on Milton, applying a beautiful 
 fable Ariosto narrates, tells us that the spirit of liberty 
 
— 18 — 
 
 was condemned at times to appear in the form of a foul 
 and poisonous snake. Those who traduced her, while 
 wearing this form, were forever excluded from participa- 
 tion in her blessings. But to those who beheld, beneath 
 this disguise, her true character, and honored and protected 
 her, she afterward revealed herself in the fullness of her 
 native beauty, accompanied their steps, granted them all 
 their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them 
 happy in love, and victorious in war. Such, says he, is the 
 spirit of liberty. More pertinent yet is the application of 
 this fable to the spirit and genius of Christianity. By an 
 inevitable law in history, she has been compelled to as- 
 sume a form utterly foreign to her l^enign quality. The 
 most odious garments of despotism have been woven 
 around her, and the instruments of cruelty have been 
 placed in her hand. At other times she has been con- 
 demned to appear a hateful superstition, or a crouching 
 slave. Woe to the people, who in the hour of her invol- 
 untary humiliation, have added insult to her dishonor, and, 
 spurning her from their presence, have failed to recognize 
 in her a celestial form, even though corrupted by man. 
 Exclusion from a share in the riches of her benefactions 
 has been their mournful fate. But to those, who, beneath 
 the disguise, detect her comeliness, and stripping olf the 
 vestments she abhors, discern a form of heavenly beauty 
 and a countenance radiant with celestial grace, she, too, 
 will not only accompany their steps and grant them their 
 wishes, but she will fill their houses with a wealth un- 
 speakable, make them happy in a love that is divine, and 
 victorious in a war against the combined powers of dark- 
 ness and of sin. 
 
 The Christian Church is determined, with God's bless- 
 
— 19- 
 
 ing, to preserve America a Christian State, and to continue 
 its development in the line of its origin, until, as the grain 
 of mustard seed, it shall grow to a mighty tree, overshad- 
 owing the earth, and under whose branches all people 
 shall find a safe habitation. This supernatural religion, 
 descended from the opened heavens, is to unite itself with 
 all that is natural, and with the individual, the State, the 
 nation, and the world; and God and man, heaven and 
 earth, be made one in a new heaven and a new earth, 
 where righteousness shall dwell forever, and sin and self- 
 ishness, sorrow and sickness, death and the grave, be no 
 more ; and the golden age, when gods and men should 
 exist in loving fellowship, of which ancient poetry and 
 philosophy dreamed, shall be more than realized, in the 
 reconciliation of divine faith and human reason, of reve- 
 lation and science, of the cross and philosophy, and the 
 true, the beautiful, and the good, in all things, be irradiated 
 with celestial light and glory. 
 
 For lo 1 the days are hastening on, 
 
 By prophet bards foretold, 
 
 When with the ever-circling years 
 
 Comes round the age of gold; 
 
 When peace shall over all the earth 
 
 Its ancient splendors fling, 
 
 And the whole world send back the song 
 
 Which now the angels sing — 
 
 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good 
 will to men!" 
 
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