their attempts to separate religion from the State, in the manner thereof, have only given it a more independent position, and endowed it with higher and more uncontrollable political powers.

CHAPTER VI.

THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF AMERICAN

RELIGION.

We have given some reasons, in the last chapter, to show, that religion is a potent element of society, and that it has a political character. In no country of Christendom, in our view, has religion so much vitality as in America, and in none does it wield so much political power. The political influence of religion, in any country, is measured by its power over the public mind, if the people are free; if the people are not free, it may be greater or less. Where religion has a great ascendency in a State not free, and is used by the government merely to increase its power, its political influence may be greater than the power of religion over the minds of the people. For, in such a case, the machinery of State is constructed for the purpose of securing this end, and the less of vitality there is in the religion of the people, so much the stronger will be this religiosopolitical sway. Witness the Papal States, and those over which the Church of Rome still maintains ascendency; but where the Papal power has been

broken down, as in France, and there is little vital religion, there is also little of the political influence of religion.

When we say that religion in America has great political power, we assert it in connexion with the consent and will of the people, for the people are free; and for this very reason—the more religious they are, the more do they consider themselves entitled and bound to make their religion influential over society and in the State.

The political character of American religion, in its own peculiar type, is to be traced to the character of the first settlers of the country, particularly of New England. The Pilgrim Fathers, so called, and the community which they founded, were strictly a religious body, and all their politics were religious, except, perhaps, "the keeping of their powder dry." The first organization of this society was in the form of a Christian church-puritanical. They designed their body politic to be religious, and to be governed by religious laws. One of their leading legislative acts was the singular summing up, "that the laws of the Bible should be the laws of the Commonwealth." The Church, of course, was to be the Court; and if anybody knew, they were supposed competent to settle all questions that might arise out of the administration of such a code.

Religion was at the bottom and top, in the deep soul, and pervaded the whole body of this primi

tively-modelled community. It was a "Church in the Wilderness," that is certain-and by some reverently supposed to be the woman of the Apocalypse, that was persecuted by the Dragon, and to whom were given " two wings of a great Eagle,” the two ships that transported the Plymouth Colony, "that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, to be nourished there." Without attempting to determine the propriety of this application of holy writ, we are more concerned with the question, how American religion became so political in its character, and so bold in taking political matters into its hands, in spite of the jealousies and rude hints of a profane democracy? And the end of our inquiry results, not in the, How it became so?-but rather in, How much less it is so than it was originally?

It is not difficult to see how the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England should deem themselves entitled to a political influence, or how they should hardly be able to keep their hands off from political affairs, in the management of their religious concerns. They came by it legitimately by a moral necessity. Their fathers prayed, expounded the Bible, sung psalms, made and administered the laws, and punished delinquents, political and religious, in the same primary assemblies. And they did all this with their armour on, and went forth from these assemblies to do battle with the heathen round about them. Practically, they

made no distinction between a law of the Commonwealth and a law of God. They were religious men-a religious State-religious in everything; and they set up society in America under the theory and purpose of making everything conform to religion, and bend to its authority.

And withal, they were democrats of the most radical cut, excepting only the accidental ascendency of their chief men, political sages, and ministers of the gospel-a very important exception, as no other set of men were probably ever clothed with higher authority, or wielded a more absolute sway. Such, we have suggested in another place, is the natural result of democratic rule. Nevertheless, their theory of society was, for the people to govern- for all power to come up from primary popular assemblies.

But times have altered. When the American people first set up a government of their own, they saw fit to decree a divorce of the Church from the State, to prescribe to Religion her offices and sphere, and to the State hers. The reasons were of a character which made the State jealous of any symptoms of trespass on the part of the Church. Yet, it was no easy task for those who had been so long accustomed to blend these two departments of society to keep them asunder. Indeed, they were

never entirely put asunder in New England, till within a few years; and even now the moral connexion is strong; and the political, partial.