e sacrilegious violation of the moral
laws of Christ, nobody ever stirred to claim the fulfilment of the
duties of Christian morality toward nations. There is much speaking
about the separation of Church and State, and yet, on close examination,
we shall see that there was, and there is, scarcely one single
government entirely free from the direct or indirect influence of one or
other religious denominations; scarcely one which would not at least
bear a predilection, if not countenance with favour, one or another
creed--but creed, and always creed. The mysteries of dogmatism, and the
manner of worship, enter into these considerations; they enter even into
the politics, and turn the scales of hatred and affection; but certainly
there is not one single nation, not one single government, the policy of
which would ever have been regulated by that law of morality which our
Saviour has promulgated as the eternal law of God, which shall be obeyed
in all the relations of men to men. But you say, of the direct or
indirect amalgamation of Church and State, proved to be dangerous to
nations in Christian and for Christian times, because it affected the
individual rights of men, and among them, the dearest of all, the
liberty of conscience and the freedom of thought. Well, of this danger,
at least, the future of your country is free; because here, at least, in
this, your happy land, religious liberty exists. Your institutions left
no power to your government to interfere with the religion of your
citizens. Here every man is free to worship God as he chooses to do.

And that is true, and it is a great glory of your country that it is
true. It is a fact which entitles to the hope that your nation will
revive the law of Christ, even on earth. However, the guarantee which
your Constitution affords to religious liberty is but a negative part of
a Christian government. There are, besides that, positive duties to be
fulfilled. He who does no violence to the conscience of man, has but the
negative merit of a man doing no wrong; but as he who does not murder,
does not steal, and does not covet what his neighbour's is, but by not
stealing, not murdering, not coveting what our neighbour's is, we did
yet no positive good; a man who does not murder has not yet occasion to
the title of virtuous man. And here is precisely the infinite merit of
the Christian religion. While Moses, in the name of the Almighty God,
ordered but negative degrees toward