The principal topics on which the difference was
most decided were the ecclesiastical and the financial relations of the
Government. Although the constitution provides for the perfect freedom
of the church from the state, the union still existed, and indeed still
exists. The House of Delegates attempted to induce the Government to
carry out this provision of the constitution. There is no doubt that the
motive of many of these attempts to divide church and state is a
positive hostility to Christianity. The partial success which has
followed them, viz., the securing of charter rights for other religious
denominations than the Evangelical Church (_i.e._, the Union Church,
consisting of what were formerly Lutheran and Reformed churches, but in
1817 united, and forming now together the established church), has given
some prominence to the so-called _Freiegemeinden_, organizations of
freethinkers, who, though so destitute of positive religious belief that
in one case, when an attempt was made to adopt a creed, an insuperable
obstacle was met in discussing the first article, viz., on the existence
of God, yet meet periodically and call themselves religious
congregations. There are, moreover, many others, regular members of the
established church, who have no interest in religious matters, and would
for that reason like to be freed from the fetters which now hold them.
There are, however, many among the best and most discreet Christians
who, for the good of the church, wish to see it weaned from the breast
of the state. But the great majority of the clergy, especially of the
consistories (the members of which are appointed by the Government,
mediately, however, now, through the _Oberkirchenrath_), are decidedly
opposed to the separation; and, as they speak for the churches, the
provision of the constitution allowing the separation is a dead letter.
There is no denying that, if it were now to be fully carried out, the
consequences to the church might be, for a time at least, disastrous.
The people have always been used to the present system; they would
hardly know how to act on any other. Moreover, a large majority of the
church members are destitute of active piety; to put the interests of
religion into the hands of such men would seem to be a dangerous
experiment. Especially is it true of the mercantile classes, of those
who are pecuniarily best able to maintain religious institutions, that
they are in general indifferent to rel