manner the fearful question of slavery was dealt with; and in this manner also the momentous question of religion.

Politically speaking, however, the United States count themselves a Christian nation; and the courts maintain that Christianity is part and parcel of the law of the land. Of the eighteen states which have been added to the union since its formation, no one has ventured to renew the experiment of an ecclesiastical establishment.*

Dr. Baird complains, and not altogether without reason, that the statement is continually made in Europe, that the principle of ecclesiastical establishments was repudiated by the American government, and that they had a great advantage in having a clear field for the experiment; whereas he affirms, with an almost piteous earnestness, that the federal government had nothing to do with it, and that the change was, in fact, obstructed by very formidable and all but insuperable obstacles. Even recent travellers, however, little versed in American history, follow the old track. Thus Dr. Dixon observes :

"It can be no matter of surprise that the American people, being favoured with the opportunity, the soil being clear, and no old institutions standing in the way, should be disposed to adopt a new principle, and, discarding all authoritative church organization, try the effect of Christianity itself, in its own native grandeur and divine simplicity. This they have done. We have seen that the people is the state; and the state, in this sense-namely, through the people-has, with the exception of the infidels among them, adopted Christianity; only, instead of being an hierarchical government, it is that of the Holy Scriptures, the Bible itself being the governing light, the decisive authority, the court of final appeal. All the interests of society converge to this point;-religion is its life, its power, its beauty. It is like the substrata of the world, on

* Reed and Matheson's Narrative, p. 493.

which all the soils whence the vegetable productions spring, repose in security."*

And thus also Mr. Mackay:

"Whilst education is universally promoted in America by the state, . . . religion is left to itself, not as a matter in which the state has no interest, but as being of such high individual concern, that it is thought better for the state to keep aloof, and leave it to the care of the individual. Moreover, the experience of other nations had taught the Americans, ere they framed their constitution, that religion and politics were not the most compatible of elements, and that political systems had the best chance of working smoothly towards their object when least encumbered by alliances with the church. If there was one thing more than another on which they were agreed, in preparing a political framework for the union, it was the propriety and necessity, if they would not mar their own work, of divorcing the state from the church. The Americans were fortunate, in determining and arranging their system, in having a clear field before them. In settling it, they were at liberty to base it upon their convictions, untrammelled by inconvenient precedents. They therefore wisely determined to leave out of their plan a feature which, as it seemed to them, had added neither strength nor harmony to the political systems of others. They not only divorced the state from the church in a strictly political sense, but, in so doing, refused to allow the church a separate maintenance.Ӡ

Such are the romances of travellers; and we do not wonder that foreigners, Americans especially, complain of them. Would not transatlantic voyagers who mean to write, do well to prepare themselves, by a little attention to the history of the climes they visit?

* Methodism in America, p. 147.

+ Mackay's Western World, vol. iii. pp. 249, 250.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ARGUMENT FROM ITS ABOLITION.

THE history of the abolition of the compulsory principle in the United States having been given, we might now proceed to consider the effects produced by this measure, and to trace the operation of the voluntary principle as thus brought into full play; but, before we do so, we may profitably employ ourselves for a few moments in drawing an inference from the materials which are already before us.

We have here a great fact, one both striking and significant; namely, the abolition of the compulsory, and the introduction of the voluntary principle, in these two great portions of the United States. The following things are remarkable in it :

1. That it was a social change of great magnitude; not partial or local, but affecting the whole community, and affecting them very powerfully.

2. That it was a change on the most important of all subjects; not commerce, not politics, but religion. Religion may often be treated with indifference; but when the mind is alive to it at all, it is felt to involve the deepest of all interests, and to be the most momentous of all concerns.

3. That it was a change of a principle; not a matter of detail or of practice merely, but a leading sentiment, a ruling power. It was not the question of the greater or

less predominance of an ecclesiastical system. It was not a decision between rival systems. It was not an affirmation of toleration for nonconformists. It was the question of the principle of religious establishments universally. It asked, Any establishment, or none? It went to the very foundations of the social religious system, and necessarily wrought a change in the whole.

4. That it was a change effected intentionally. In this respect, the introduction of the voluntary principle into the United States differed widely from that of the compulsory principle. In the former case it was purpose; in the latter, accident. The mercantile settlers of Virginia, and the fugitives of New Plymouth, equally brought the principle of church establishments with them, and the germ naturally developed itself in the new world, as it had long been prevalent in the old. The principle of absolute religious liberty, however, as a fundamental element of society, and a rule of law, was generated amidst the wilds. It was an absolute creation of the new world, and was to the communities in which it grew up as strange as the soil they won from the waste. They adopted it, not because they had been educated in it, but because they saw its truth, and because they felt its identity with their dearest interests. They made a church dominant because they had been accustomed to it; they destroyed ecclesiastical domination because their eyes had been opened, and their judgment changed.

5. That it was a change effected after long experience. There was nothing about it indicating mere versatility, or love of change. It was not easily done, on the instant of acquiring release from the mother country. On the contrary, nothing could apparently be more fixed and substantial than the ecclesiastical systems. They had been born with the colonies, and were growing old with them. Like the Siamese twins, the church and the state seemed connected together by a vital bond. So things continued in

Virginia for more than a hundred and fifty years, and in Massachusetts for nearly two hundred. Either was time enough to test the system. And all this while were the colonies rapidly increasing, not in population only, but in all the elements of social strength, working out a solution of the most important problems, and preparing to constitute one of the greatest nations of the world.

What was likely to be the character of a great change, amounting to a total alteration in one of the leading principles of government, under such circumstances? If after from one to two hundred years' experience of its operation, the compulsory principle in religion was repudiated, is it likely that the communities who repudiated it were mistaken in their judgment of it? If a decided preference was thus given to the voluntary principle, and a preference so decided as to be secured at the certainty of suffering temporarily many inconveniences, and at the risk of many more, is there not a strong probability that the principle is, as they must have thought it to be, both right and beneficial? We should scarcely go too far, if we were to assert that such a rejection of the compulsory principle constitutes its sufficient condemnation. Not to be precipitate, however, let us wait a little, and see what has been the practical effect of so great a change.