of its sovereign power, instead of degrading the ends and duties of the state. It is too lamentably true that governments are ever misunderstanding the extent of their duties: but is the remedy to be found in unduly exalting one at the cost of the rest? Should it not rather be the business of the philosopher to enlighten the state, and to supply it with higher and truer notions of its policy and its duty? The annals of Christian governments are disgraced by the records of intolerance and persecution. But what then? Is the religion of the people on that account a matter that does not concern society at all? Has it no influence on the order and welfare of a state? Nay, is it possible by any device to exclude it from the mind and councils of the legislature?

"Government," it is said, " is not an institution for the propagation of religion, any more than St. George's Hospital " is an institution for the propagation of religion." Nothing is truer than this, when directed against views like Mr. Gladstone's, who maintains that it is the duty of a governor to use all the power at his disposal to propagate in every possible way the creed that he holds to be true. Government is no more fitted to propagate theological doctrine as such, to frame a detailed exposition of its belief, and to inculcate it on its subjects by encouragement and coercion, than to have an opinion about homoeopathy or the best kind of food, and compel its adoption by force. But the real question to be decided is, what is the duty of the state with respect to religion, as one, and that the most powerful, element of society; as the mainspring of every man, as the centre of his thoughts and principles, as the most commanding ruler of his public and private conduct. The state cannot give up all control over this without a real dereliction of its duty; for, first, it is a mighty social power, influencing beyond every other the course and character of civilization, and as such it falls within the jurisdiction of the sovereign power. In the next place, the state cannot discharge some of its most important functions without the aid of religion. The general education of the people is one of the most imperative duties of society; and for the mass of men, education can exist only in the shape of religion.

Further, the state is a moral association; for otherwise

it would be no state; it would be an assemblage of men held together by no binding tie. There could be no national life, no national spirit, no feeling of an historical and real national unity. In such a society, men would lead a purely animal, not a really human life. But indeed the essentially moral character of state is generally allowed; yet the whole question of religion is conceded in the word moral. Moral and religious are but two different words for the same thing under different aspects, and the notions of morality inculcated by the different religions vary very widely. Either therefore the state must cease to be moral, or else it must be in some measure religious. And, finally, the doctrine that the state ought to have no direct connexion with religion. proceeds from a false notion of religion; for religion, having no isolated sphere of its own, introduces itself into all human conduct, and refers the whole of man's being to God. It cannot help struggling to destroy all that is irreligious; it will hold itself bound to use every means for the attainment of its ends. The statesman cannot part with it at the threshold of the senate; the municipal officer cannot leave it at his own home: power it will command, and power it will exercise. The sole problem left to the decision of the lawgiver is how to fix the conditions which shall regulate its public acts. And how are these to be determined?-by the principles we have unfolded above. The line of conduct which a governor ought to pursue must depend, like all other moral duties, on the wisdom with which he is able to perceive what is practically possible for the furtherance of the general good. He must, on the one side, impose no restraints on freedom of belief but such as are fully justified, not by his own creed nor by that of a large party, but by a comprehensive view of the necessities of the state; but, on the other, he is also bound to diffuse the blessings of morality and religion, as the first constituent elements of civilization. For this, the moral and religious condition of the population must be his basis; for upon no other would the relation between the government and its subjects be a truly moral one. The position of a governor, who held that his own conscience must be that also of the state, and resolved to enforce his own creed on a nation that thought it to be irreligious, would be shock

ing and immoral, and would found for ever the right and duty of persecution. As a practical rule, we are content to abide by that of the reviewer:-"That the ruler ought in his "public capacity to patronize that instruction from which he, "in his conscience, believes that the people will learn most "good with the smallest mixture of evil. And thus it is not "necessarily his own religion that he will select." This rule satisfactorily disposes of the cases of Scotland, Ireland, India, and the like; it recognizes the duty attached to the government of promoting religious instruction. In modern Europe this must be exclusively Christian, for the character of the state is exclusively Christian.

Here we are brought into collision with the Archbishop of Dublin. He denies that the profession of Christianity ought to be made a condition of the full rights of citizenship; in other words, he virtually denies that the state ought to know anything of the religion of its officers. This is truly a very startling proposition, opposed to the whole course of history, and, if fairly carried out, requiring the constitution of England to be entirely remodelled. But indeed the Archbishop himself seems to recoil from the consequences of his own theory; for he assumes, most gratuitously, that those who oppose it must of necessity advocate the membership of one national church as the test of citizenship. He has doubtless an easy task in proving, that to be a full citizen and to be a member of the national church ought not to be always convertible terms; but has he shown, can he show, that the profession of Christianity in the public life of a citizen can mean nothing else but a declaration of his belonging to the national church?

"It will be observed," he says, "that in the present argument I have all along spoken of the proposed bond and test of citizenship as consisting inconformity to one and the same national church;' using this phrase, as being more precise, in preference to that of profession of Christianity,' which evidently must be meant to convey, in the theory alluded to, the very same sense; for it is plain that this is the only sense in which the profession of Christianity' could tend to secure the very object proposed, of establishing that agreement in religion and morals' which is to be made the test of citizenship. Nothing, it is evident, would be gained as to this point, by merely establishing the requisition that all the citizens should bear the mere title of Christians, while they were left to be Christians of distinct churches, totally independent of the state and of each other. The thing

proposed therefore manifestly is, that some national church should be esta blished, so comprehensive as to comprise as nearly as possible all Christians; and that all who refused to join this church, whether Christians, Jews, or of any other denomination, should be excluded from civil privileges." -Essays on Dangers to the Christian Faith,

p. 207.

Where has the Archbishop learnt, that those who desire a comprehensive national church propose manifestly to exclude from civil privileges Christians of every other denomination? By the present law of England, none but Christians can have a seat in parliament. Do the churchmen, roman catholics, methodists, etc. who compose that body, propose manifestly to set up one national church, and make conformity to it a condition of eligibility to parliament? We heartily wish that they did both Christianity and the state would have far brighter prospects before them than they have now. If the Archbishop's object was only to point out the injustice, amidst the present division of religious opinions, of imposing so narrow a restriction on full citizenship, there was no need to have recourse to a theory that would utterly heathenize the state, and produce the most disastrous confusion of moral principles in its administration. A comprehensive national church would be an incalculable good; but is it nothing to have the New Testament for a positive and definite standard of morality? Is it nothing to declare that no practices or institutions which should violate the principles of morals there laid down, can, by the fundamental law of the state, be tolerated in the land? Is it nothing to have a system of education framed and supported by the state, that shall stand on the basis of the common truths admitted by all Christians? Is it nothing to have religious teachers appointed to every parish, whether of one denomination or several? Is it nothing to keep awake in the minds of all the consciousness that we are a Christian people, and that it is the duty of each several one of us to labour to realize this idea in our public institutions? Is it inconsistent to value, as most precious, these lesser advantages, because we think that still higher ones should be the aim of our efforts?

All that the Archbishop then urges, against conformity to one national church being made the condition of full civil privileges, is irrelevant to the question whether the profession

of Christianity should be required of the state. But, says the Archbishop, "we must understand Christ's description of "his kingdom as not of this world, in the plain simple sense, "as debarring all Christians from any claim to monopolize "political power to themselves, either as Christians or as “members of a particular church." This is pushing conclusions from this remarkable declaration far beyond what can be shown to be legitimately derivable from it. It was, most certainly, a denial of the charge of treason; it was a distinct disavowal by our Lord of his coming to set up a temporal kingdom in opposition to the rule of the Roman emperor. He was a king in the sense of neither Jews nor Roinans. Such was the meaning of the declaration, negatively, in reply to the charge of treason; and, as addressed to Pilate, it had none other but this negative meaning. But we allow that the form of the expression has also a positive sense: it declares Christ's kingdom positively to be not of this world; that is, the society established by Christ is not a political one. Christians are no organized body, deliberately aiming at temporal rule as an avowed and legitimate end. Christ's servants were not to fight, either to prevent his being delivered to the Jews, or that they might, like the Mahommedans, set themselves up as temporal rulers by the sword. This, and this alone, is all that the passage, by itself, can be fairly interpreted to mean; and, in conformity with the principle thus laid down by their master, the apostles disavowed all political designs. They did not seek the overthrow of Cæsar's government, nor the conversion of Cæsar, as the means of making their faith predominant, nor the separating themselves into an independent temporal society. They obeyed the great rule of rendering to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, except where obedience was incompatible with the allegiance they owed to their Spiritual Head. They did not seek to get the upper hand in the political world, as an instrument whereby to spread religion by oppressing their fellow-citizens. Had they done so, they would have acted against the spirit of their Lord's declaration. But to press it into a peremptory interdiction of all mixing up of Christianity with secular affairs, is, exegetically, arbitrary and unfounded,― confounds two essentially distinct things, the establishment