ities, on the construction of government, or the characters or
conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving
their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and
giving them, instead it, what they did not want, or if wanted, would
rather seek from better sources in that particular art or science. In
choosing our pastor we look to his religious qualifications, without
inquiring into his physical or political dogmas, with which we mean to
have nothing to do. I am aware that arguments may be found, which may
twist a thread of politics into the cord of religious duties. So may
they for every other branch of human art or science. Thus, for example,
it is a religious duty to obey the laws of our country: the teacher of
religion, therefore, must instruct us in those laws, that we may know
how to obey them. It is a religious duty to assist our sick neighbors:
the preacher must, therefore, teach us medicine, that we may do it
understandingly. It is a religious duty to preserve our own health: our
religious teacher, then, must tell us what dishes are wholesome, and
give us recipes in cookery, that we may learn how to prepare them. And
so ingenuity, by generalizing more and more, may amalgamate all the
branches of science into any one of them, and the physician who is
paid to visit the sick, may give a sermon instead of medicine; and
the merchant to whom money is sent for a hat, may send a handkerchief
instead of it. But not withstanding this possible confusion of all
sciences into one, common sense draws lines between them sufficiently
distinct for the general purposes of life, and no one is at a loss to
understand that a recipe in medicine or cookery, or a demonstration in
geometry, is not a lesson in religion. I do not deny that a congregation
may, if they please, agree with their preacher that he shall instruct
them in Medicine also, or Law, or Politics. Then, lectures in these,
from the pulpit, become not only a matter of right, but of duty also.
But this must be with the consent of every individual; because the
association being voluntary, the mere majority has no right to apply the
contributions of the minority to purposes unspecified in the agreement
of the congregation. I agree, too, that on all other occasions the
preacher has the right, equally with every other citizen, to express his
sentiments, in speaking or writing, on the subjects of Medicine, Law,
Politics, he, his leisur