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Aliens and exiles are welcome to our shores; we will share our birthright with them, and inscribe their names on the great roll of free citizens; but they must come as men, and as free men, not at priest's men, and it is no empty form, no meaningless oath which compels them, before they can become citizens, to renounce all allegiance to any foreign power whatever, to all power but the laws. There is a voice of warning, too, which the priests must submit to hear, a voice which is already rising in low mutterings, far and wide over the land-a warning which, unless they hold back their audacious hands, will gather and swell until it breaks in thunder above their heads. It is now only the little cloud seen afar off over the sea no bigger than a man's hand, but it will widen and roll on until it becomes a storm and a whirlwind, which no power can control or withstand.

I speak, then, to the emigrant and the foreigner, whom we welcome to our shores. I desire to show to them and to all who hear me that the use of the Bible in our schools-the teaching of the Commandments-the recital of the Lord's Prayer from it, are consistent with the true principles of religious liberty and toleration. I do not speak of casuistry, or of scruples more intolerant than intolerance itself, or of subtle and specious doubts. I speak of religious liberty in a land of law, and liberty of conscience in a government of freemen.

Let us go back for a moment to first principles; let us endeavor to get clear ideas, and examine briefly what is the meaning of these noble words-a government of freemenfreedom of conscience-liberty under the laws. The truth is that our people are so wholly free that we hardly realize or appreciate what is meant by government and law. Our consciences are so untrammelled that we are unaccustomed to reason or reflect upon what freedom of conscience is, and in what it consists. We forget that the very essence and foundation of all government is religion, and yet the truth exists as old as the primal stars, that a government without religion is as impossible as a universe without a God. We must remember that we are not dealing now with questions of fleeting opinion, nor with transitory laws, which change and vary as society changes, suiting themselves to the necessities and wants

of social progress and social change. We are reasoning upon those elder and fundamental truths which lie at the very basis of all society, all governments. We are studying the deep bases of the everlasting hills. We are questioning those primeval rocks, more enduring than the mountains which soar above them; which time, nor seasons, nor changes, nor decays, can alter or wear away.

The first great truth, then, which we must reflect upon and appreciate, is this: that religion is the essential foundation of all government, the source and sanction of all power. This is the united voice of all true philosophy, of all true statesmanship-it is the lesson and warning of history, and the universal experience of the civilized world. Need I remind you, sir, of the latest, the darkest lesson of the eternal truth-that a government without religion is a hopeless impossibility? Need I remind you of that government without religion, founded only upon pure reason, based upon the laws of man-that government inaugurated with more than bridal pomp and festivity, with songs, and feasts, and dances, when the Goddess of Reason was the symbol and the representative of a new era, and in triumph led on the choral dance, which ended in the red dance of death-in the fearful night and darkness of the "Reign of Terror."

May it please your Honor, our government is based upon religion, upon the Christian religion, and it is a vital and essential part of the law of the land.

Not the Christianity of any particular sect or creed, but the broad, pure, living Christianity of the Bible;—we cannot open our statutes without meeting with the proof of it. The Bill of Rights, to which the prosecution appeal, commences with a solemn appeal to the Christian's God-the observance of the Christian Sabbath is enjoined, and profanation of it is forbidden by numerous statutes. Blasphemy against God and our Saviour are crimes punished by law. The oaths which are the protection of property, recognize it, and all our laws flow from it, and are consistent with it. I might quote from our law books; I might read Blackstone and Story. I might show that all great jurists recognize this grand truth; I might show that all writers upon municipal law acknowledge it; but I have a higher authority to which I wish to refer. Let me ask you, Sir, to

hear a voice from the dead, the fittest Oracle of this great living truth. I desire to read the profound and eloquent words of that great statesman, who sleeps well after his long labors, with the solemn voice of the ocean he loved, as his requiemon the lonely shores of Marshfield :

There is nothing that we look for with more certainty than this general principle, that Christianity is part of the law of the land. This was the case among the Puritans of New England, the Episcopalians of the Southern States, the Pennsylvania Quakers, the Baptists, the mass of the followers of Whitfield and Wesley, and the Presbyterians; all brought and all adopted this great truth, and all have sustained it. And where there there is any religious sentiment amongst men at all, this sentiment incorporates itself with the law. Every thing declares it. The massive Cathedral of the Catholic; the Episcopalian Church, with its lofty spire pointing heavenward; the plain Temple of the Quaker; the log Church of the hardy pioneer of the wilderness; the mementos and memorials around and about us; the consecrated graveyards, their tombstones and epitaphs, their silent vaults, their mouldering contents-all attest it. The dead prove it as well as the living.

The generations that are gone before speak to it, and pronounce it from the tomb. We feel it. All, all proclaim that Christianity, general, tolerant Christianity, Christianity independent of sects and parties, that Christianity to which the sword and the fagot are unknown, general, tolerant Christianity, is the law of the land.

And now, with this lamp to guide our feet, let us inquire what is the meaning of liberty of conscience under the law? Our Constitution declares that "It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being, the great creator and preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience, or for his religious profession or sentiments, provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship."

What is the meaning of those noble words, in a land of liberty, in a country where Christianity is a part of the law of the land? Does it mean that nothing shall be tolerated by law, nothing shall be sanctioned by the law, nothing shall be

paid for by taxation, nothing shall be submitted to, and obeyed by the citizen, excepting what satisfies the scruples of his own conscience? The Jew reviles Christianity and the New Testament, and teaches his children that our Saviour was but an impostor. And yet he is taxed for the support and execution of the laws which will punish him with a felon's cell if he dares to reproach the name of Christ, or blaspheme the Holy Scriptures. Nay more, although the Christian Sabbath is a stumbling block, and an offence to him, although every Christian Church is hateful to his sight-he is obliged, with certain exceptions, to respect the laws for the observance of the Sabbath, and is obliged to pay taxes for the support and maintenance of that government, of which Christianity is a vital and essential part.

Need I multiply instances? the Hindoo and the Mahomedan, the Pagan and the Atheist, all can be citizens, all are entitled to freedom of conscience; and yet in every transaction of life, in every function of government, in every act of obedience to the laws, they are obliged to submit to and obey the rules of that Christianity which is an offence to their conscience. Is there any inconsistency in this? Is this inconsistent with true religious toleration? By no means. The answer to the question lies plainly before us. Every man may worship God according to his own conscience; for his religious belief or disbelief he is not accountable to any human tribunal. The laws impose no form of faith upon his conscience, he is to subscribe to no articles of belief, he is to surrender his faith to no creed, he is to join no sect. Atheist or Pagan, Catholic or Protestant, he is free to believe or disbelieve according to his conscience; and for his faith or his infidelity there is equal toleration. But apart from this, and beyond this, he must submit to the general laws of the land, and just in the same manner that while we declare that every citizen, although free, must submit to numerous laws which do interfere with and infringe upon his liberty; so does every citizen find in the operation of general rules, in the compromises of life, in the necessary concessions of a society regulated by general laws, much that is offensive to the scruples of his conscience, much that he must submit to and obey, although no laws compel him to believe.

Many good and virtuous citizens look upon war as a crime against God, and religion, and yet they are taxed by their country to supply the very sinews of that war, which they believe to be unholy. Atheists believe that the observance of the "Lord's Day" is an idolatrous superstition, injurious and offensive to morality; yet the disciples of Paine and Volney, however it offends their consciences, must cease from labor, and, in all but worship, must observe and keep it.

I repeat, that it is idle and in vain to say that liberty of conscience in one citizen means the submission to his scruples on the part of all others. It is in vain to say that in a country of free but divided opinions, nothing shall exist which is not offensive to the consciences of many.

And here let me pause to say, that the danger to our country to-day does not lie in intolerance, nor in disregard of the liberty of conscience. It lies in an unreflecting and timid fear of intolerance. We forget our watchword, that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." We do not study nor reflect upon those essential principles upon which our free government is founded. We are so much in fear of intolerance to Catholicism, that we become intolerant of that pure and true religion which is the sole safeguard of our liberties, without which our loved and cherished republic will vanish away-a beautiful but fleeting dream.

But I must not dwell too long upon the examination of these general principles, which demand more ample illustration than the present discussion will allow. I wish to come more closely to the particular question which is to be decided by the light of these general principles.

My first proposition has been that the Christian religion is a part of the law of our ancient Commonwealth.

My second proposition was that true liberty of conscience and true toleration of all forms of belief can exist consistently with that law.

My third proposition is, that piety and morality are to be taught as a part of education, and that this is not inconsistent with religious toleration, or entire liberty of conscience.

This is a question which involves a wide range of discussion, much wider than can be entered upon here, where it must be

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