The writer was asked to speak upon "The Relations of the Church to the State" at a "Silver Banquet" given at the Knutsford Hotel in May, 1895. The Utah State Constitutional Convention had recently adjourned; and a very widely attended Convention in the interest of the free and unlimited coinage of silver by the government of the United States had just come to a close; the banquet at which the writer's remarks were made was given in honor of the members of that Convention.

There were present, among many other notable guests, Governor Rickards, of Montana, Ex-Governor Alva Adams, of Colorado, Senator Clark of Wyoming, Governor McConnell of Idaho, Ex-Congressman Bartine of Nevada, General Thomas J. Clunie of California, General Penrose, then in command at Fort Douglas, Utah, Governor Prince of New Mexico, Hon. Wharton Barker of Pennsylvania. Among the gentlemen of note from Utah were Governor Caleb B. West, Mayor Baskin, then Congressman, afterwards Senator, Joseph L. Rawlins, and Judge C. C. Goodwin, toast-master.

The question of the relations of the Church and the State had lung been debated in Utah, and now that Utah was upon the eve of beginning her career as a sovereign state in the American Union, the subject was of considerable interest, locally, largely because it had been very generally charged that in Utah there was grave danger, if not of a union of Church and State, then of state domination by the Mormon Church, and doubtless the subject and speaker were chosen for these reasons.

I.

"The Relation of the Church to the State."

The speaker was introduced by Judge Goodwin, Toast-Master, who said:

"The committee that prepared this programme, having an idea that something would be needed to bring men back to sober thoughts, after Governor McConnell's speech, ["Is There Any Light?" was Governor McConnell's subject] made the next sentiment, "Church and State," and they put down as the speaker Utah's most eloquent son. It gives me extreme pleasure to introduce to you the Hon. B. H. Roberts."

Mr. Roberts spoke as follows:

Honorable Toast-Master and Gentlemen—I think for the first time in my life I appreciate the feelings of the young shepherd, David, when Israel's proud king placed upon him his own plated armor; gave him a shield and a great spear with which to fight Goliath. David said: "I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them." He appeared before his antagonist in the simple garb of the shepherd, with his sling and a few smooth stones. And so, after the very flattering introduction that has been given me by the honorable toast-master of the evening, I feel myself unworthy to bear the honored title that he has given me. I disclaim it altogether and say in simple truth, I am not an orator, I am not eloquent, but, as you all know, "a plain, blunt man," capable only of speaking those things that you already know. I therefore most humbly beg to disclaim the proud place that the introduction of the toast-master would assign me.

When I was informed that I would be expected to speak upon this staid, and I may say threadbare subject, "Church and State," it appeared to me that the committee who had arranged this programme had gone somewhat out of the way in selecting such a subject; but I defer to their judgement and am willing to say it is all right, but ask that you gentlemen of the banquet will not hold me responsible for inviting your "sober" consideration to such a theme in the midst of such temptations to be otherwise than sober.

There are three relations which the church and the state may sustain to each other. First, the state may dominate the church; second, the church may dominate the state; and, third, church and state may occupy separate spheres, and be absolutely divorced the one from the other. Those who argue for the rightfulness of the first relationship will tell you that the state is not within the church, but the church is within the state; they will tell you that it is the state which rules the land, that wages war, that levies taxes and governs at least the external destinies of the citizen, and that whenever the religious creeds cease to be individual and result in associations, those organizations come within the proper cognizance and authority of the state; and that the state has a right to draw the lines of ecclesiastical policy, and to fix the constitution of the church as knowing what is best for the general society.

Those who contend for the second relationship—that the church should dictate to the state—argue that the church, as the representative of the divine authority, is also the superior authority; that indeed the state itself is but an outgrowth of that superior authority; that as the moon but reflects the light of the sun, so the state borrows whatsoever of authority it possesses from the spiritual authority—the church. Furthermore, they insist that in the matter of chronological order itself, the church antedates the state; it is the first society, primitive and eternal, and hence has the true sovereignty; that the state is properly but the instrument of the church to execute the divine decrees.

Those who contend that the church and state should exist separately, recognize the great truth that the church and the state have independent and different spheres. There is no proper connection between the two, and no necessity exists for interference one with the other. They contend that the church should exist unnoticed by the state; that religious creeds should approximate or separate according to the inclinations of the church members.

Mankind by the test of experience, has learned the relative value of these several relationships which may exist between the church and the state, and now, in the light of that experience, let me consider the virtues and vices of each. For the purpose of illustration I need go no further back than the time when Constantine became the patron of the Christian religion and elevated the sect from the condition of a persecuted society to the state religion of the great empire. He invited the Christian ministers to his court, gave them a seat at his table in the palace, loaded them with honors and riches, but was careful himself to draw the line of ecclesiastical policy and pattern the church organization very much after the constitution of the civil government of Rome. As a reward for these favors the ministry of the church stood in humble attitude at the foot of the throne. They overlooked the shortcomings of their great patron, guilty of putting to death without just cause a wife, a son, and in violation of his plighted faith, his brother-in-law.

There is another period in church history where the state becomes the patron of the church and dominated it. That occurred during the great "reformation" of the sixteenth century when Henry VIII, displeased because the pope of Rome refused to sever the bond of marriage between himself and the faithful Catherine of Aragon, took affairs ecclesiastical within his own realm into his own hands and founded a state church. In this period of history we find repeated just what was done in the case of Constantine. Notwithstanding the cruelties, the debauchees and the murders of Henry the ministers of Christ still awarded to him the title, "Defender of the Faith."

I mention these circumstances because they exhibit the vice of the state dominating a church. That vice consists in this, that such a relationship bridles the tongues of God's ministers, who are commanded to reprove sin in high places and demand the same moral standard of the prince that is demanded of the pauper. Whenever the ministry of a church stands in dread of the temporal power, when by it they may be unfrocked, it will be a rare thing indeed to find men of sufficient moral courage to be true to the divine commandment in preaching and executing the word of God; hence the mischief of state domination of the church.

One of the wise men of the east, Aesop, tells the story of a camel who in the midst of a terrible storm on the desert, begged his Arabian master to allow him the privilege of putting his head within the tent out of the storm. The indulgent master granted his request, but no sooner did the camel get his head into the tern than he crowded in his shoulders also, and then the whole huge bulk of his body, and, turning about, he kicked his master out of the tent into the storm. So did the Christian ecclesiastical power with the civil power in the Roman empire. Papal Rome rose upon the ruins of pagan Rome, and for centuries ruled the nations with a rod of iron. The evils growing out of the church dictating the state are to be read in that period of darkness which covered our earth from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries.

It is not necessary for me in detail to point out those evils. It will be sufficient if I call your attention in a general way to the vice arising from this relationship. That vice consists in this—that such a relationship between church and state tends to debase and weaken the ministry of Christ. All ministers of the gospel are not equal to the virtue of their great Master. When the evil prince of this world stood before the Lamb of God and, with a master hand, drew aside the curtain which covered the glory of the nations and pointed to them in all their splendor and wealth, and said, "All these will I give thee, only fall down and worship me;" the divine man could look the tempter in the face and say: "Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." The ministers of the church today are not tempted to this extent. The arch-enemy of men's souls knows too well that it is not necessary. From the back door of the parsonage our ministers may see enough to seduce them from the work of the Divine Master; yea, so much of the yellow gold of this earth as may be clutched thus in the hand may sometimes be sufficient for their seduction.

When you make it possible for the state to dominate the church, such is the glamor and sheen of temporal power that men are willing and do forget the glories of eternity that they may revel in the pleasures and powers of this world for a season. Hence it becomes necessary to preserve the integrity of God's ministry that you separate the church so far from the state as to make the dictation of the latter by the former impossible, and thus lessen the temptation of the ministry to neglect the things of heaven in order to dabble in the affairs of state.

I have already said that those who contend for the separation of church and state recognize separate spheres for those two powers to operate in. This idea, I may say, had its second birth in the great revolution of the sixteenth century, sometimes called the "Reformation." John Calvin was a leader in that doctrine in his day. John Knox followed him, and there was a hot contest in the old world for the maintenance of this doctrine—not for the good of the state so much as for the good of the church—for these champions held that in order for the ministers of God to perform well and faithfully their duties they must be removed from fear of interference of kings and potentates.

But the most interesting period of the struggle for the separation of church and state is to be found in the history of the founding of our own great nation. After the war of the American revolution the statesmen of that period were confronted with the work of forming a government for our country. There were men who contended that God ought to be put in the Constitution, and an establishment of religion instituted. But the revolutionary fathers looked over the whole land and found that the people were divided beyond the hope of union into one great and united church; and that to make a state church out of any one of the sects would be an act of injustice to all the rest—a thing they were unwilling to perpetrate; and they solved the problem by crystallizing this doctrine of separation of church and state in that declaration written in the constitution of our land, which says:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

And thus we travel the circle of human experience and come back at last to stand face to face with the grand doctrine taught by the great founder of the Christian church, who, on the occasion of men seeking to embroil him in a conflict with the civil powers of this world, said:

"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's."

That declaration, falling from the lips of him who spoke as never man spake, and that declaration in the American constitution, have as their source the same inspiration.

In years that are past, in the hearts of many, there existed a fear that here in Utah we should be confronted with this question of the relation of church and state; and to state it frankly I may say that the fear that there would be a violation of this American principle respecting the separation of church and state has been one of the causes which has delayed so long the act of justice to the people of Utah—her admission into the American Union.

I want to say to these honored guests of ours, so soon to separate from us and go back to their homes, that you may tell your people that here in Utah we have solved the problem; and that which we have written in our state constitution, and which we mean to keep inviolate, is in harmony with what is written in the great national Constitution of our country.

There is one phase of this question which I think sometimes is not sufficiently considered; and that is that it is not always the fault of the church that there is a union of church and state or ecclesiastical interference in political and civil affairs. There are politicians and political parties who are not above fawning and crawling at the feet of ecclesiastical influence. Somehow or other the calamities attendant upon ecclesiastical interference in politics never appear to them until that influence is exercised in behalf of the "other fellow" or the other political party. Let our politicians stand erect, let our political parties resent ecclesiastical influence when exerted in their behalf as they would resent it when exercised against them, and I promise you that in the new state of Utah we shall have no difficulty growing out of ecclesiastical domination of our political affairs.

You are extremely patient with me in these rather extended remarks of mine, but I am done with my subject proper. If, however, you will still be patient with me, there are a few words that I wish to say to the gentlemen who constitute the Silver Convention, that has now so happily, and as I believe so effectually, accomplished the purposes for which it was convened. I know not, gentlemen, whether ever before you have felt the inspiration that comes from contemplation of a missionary enterprise; but it seems to me that if a cause righteous and just is necessary to give true inspiration to men, then, indeed, how that inspiration ought to shine forth from you in word and in action. To labor in the interests of the toiling masses is worthy of laudable Ambition's highest aspirations.

And now may I not say for you, though but a layman, and looking upon you and your work from the ranks of the people, may I not invoke the power divine for you, saying, What in them is dark, illumine; what is low, raise and support; that to the height of this great argument they may assert the patriotism of their intentions, and justify the demand that we all make, that silver shall be restored to its place in the monetary system of the United States.

Judge Goodwin (toast-master)—A few of you who read the Bible (laughter) will remember that when David said that the work set before him was too great for him to perform, he still had the sling under his sheepskin, with which he slew Goliath, and when my friend, in his native and honest modesty, said that too much had been perhaps expected of him, I knew he had the sling.

FOREWORD.

The following remarks were prepared for a Jefferson dinner, at the Commercial Club rooms in Salt Lake City, in April, 1907; and afterwards published in the Salt Lake Herald, of May 14th.

The question of the relations of church and state, or rather the question of the domination of the state by the church, was still agitated in Utah. The Mormon Church at its Annual Conference in April of the above year had issued an "Address to the World" in which its attitude on the question was once more stated, and stated with greater clearness and emphasis than ever before.

It was in the expectation that some reference would be made to this local question that the subject of the following address was selected. In order that the attitude of the Mormon Church with reference to the relations of the church and the state may be present to the readers' mind, while considering the following paper. I quote that part of the aforesaid Address upon the subject:

"In answer to the charge of disloyalty, founded upon alleged secret obligations against our government, we declare to all men that there is nothing treasonable or disloyal in any ordinance, ceremony, or ritual of the Church.

"The overthrow of earthly governments; the union of church and state; domination of the state by the church; ecclesiastical interference with the political freedom and rights of the citizen,—all such things are contrary to the principles and policy of the Church, and directly at variance with the oft-repeated declarations of its chief presiding authorities and of the Church itself, speaking through its general conferences. The doctrine of the Church on the subject of government, stands as follows:

"We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates, in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law."

Such is our acknowledgement of duty to civil governments. Again:

"We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same, and that such as will administer law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people (if a republic), or the will of the sovereign.

"We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government; whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied."

With reference to the laws of the Church, it is expressly said:

"Be subject to the powers that be until he comes whose right it is to reign, and subdues all enemies under his feet.

"'Behold, the laws which ye have received from my hand are the laws of the Church, and in this light ye shall hold them forth."

That is to say, no law or rule enacted, or revelation received by the Church, has been promulgated for the State. Such laws and revelations as have been given are solely for the government of the Church.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds to the doctrine of the separation of church and state; the non-interference of church authority in political matters; and the absolute freedom and independence of the individual in the performance of his political duties. If, at any time, there has been conduct at variance with this doctrine, it has been in violation of the well settled principles and policy of the Church.

We declare that from principle and policy, we favor:

The absolute separation of church and state;

No domination of the state by the church;

No church interference with the functions of the state;

No state interference with the functions of the church, or with the free exercise of religion;

The absolute freedom of the individual from the domination of ecclesiastical authority in political affairs;

The equality of all churches before the law.

The reaffirmation of this doctrine and policy, however, is predicated upon the express understanding that politics in the states where our people reside, shall be conducted as in other parts of the Union; that there shall be no interference by the State with the Church, nor with the free exercise of religion. Should political parties make war upon the Church, or menace the civil, political, or religious rights of its members as such,—against a policy of that kind, by any political party of set of men whatsoever, we assert the inherent right of self-preservation for the Church, and her right and duty to call upon her children, and upon all who love justice, and desire the perpetuation of religious liberty, to come to her aid, to stand with her until the danger shall have passed. And this, openly, submitting the justice of our cause to the enlightened judgement of our fellow men, should such an issue unhappily arise. We desire to live in peace and confidence with our fellow citizens of all political parties and of all religions.

II.

Jefferson's Contribution to Religious Liberty in America.

On the plain headstone that marks the grave of Thomas Jefferson, after his name are these words:

Author
of the Declaration of
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE,
of
The Statute of Virginia
For Religious Freedom, and
Father of the University
of Virginia.

This inscription Mr. Jefferson himself wrote out. It evidently indicates what he regarded as the three most worthy achievements of his life; and when it is seen that next to being the author of the Declaration of American Independence, he prides himself on being the author of this "Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom," your committee may be pardoned, I think, for placing on the program for this evening the subject I am all too briefly to discuss—Jefferson's contribution to religious freedom in America.

Men in their less serious moods may jest as they please at religion, but after all it is the most serious business of life. No really great mind is dead to its influence. And at some time or other in their experience, men who are great of soul seek to understand the truths religion teaches, and seldom are they disappointed in her lessons. Disappointed, indeed, would we have been had Jefferson taken no interest in so great a subject: one which so nearly concerns human happiness, and so largely affects the peace and well being of society. Both the texture of Jefferson's mind and his environment, however, were such as to make the subject one of profound interest to him. When he appeared at William and Mary college at 17 years of age, we are told that he possessed the three essential qualities of the successful student, namely, "perfect health, good habits and an inquiring mind." Fortunately for him, Dr. William Small was professor of mathematics in the college, and for a time he also filled the chair of philosophy. In his capacity of teacher and outside college companion of Jefferson, Professor Small doubtless did much that influenced the development of the future statesman's mind. He is described as a man of enlightened understanding, but it is also said that he was "not too orthodox in his opinions." But that is a circumstance scarcely to be regretted when the orthodoxy of that day is taken into account, for I am inclined to think that the further one was removed from that orthodoxy the nearer he might be to God.

There are two acts in the life of Jefferson to which I shall allude, and which I think will sufficiently demonstrate the profound interest he had in the subject of religion. The first is the writing of a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, on the subject of that young man's religious studies. He urges him to a thorough and candid investigation of the subject of religion without regard to consequences. If young Carr's investigation ended in the conviction that there was no God, Jefferson was of opinion that his young relative would still find incentives to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness of its practice, and in the love of others it would procure for him. If on the other hand he should find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that he was acting under the divine approval—and I think the idea which follows has never been sufficiently emphasized—the fact of that divine approval would be "a vast additional incitement" to the practice of virtue. If he should find that Jesus was also a God, the student would derive comfort by the belief in his aid and love. Reason was the only oracle given him of heaven, and he was not responsible for the "rightness" of his decision, but he would be responsible for the "uprightness" of it.

The other incident alluded to is Jefferson's complication of the four-fold text of the "Life and Morals of Jesus," consisting of selected texts from the four evangelists. I mean by "four-fold compilation" that he cut the passages respectively from Greek, Latin, French and English copies of the New Testament. For the "teachings of Jesus" he selected "only those passages whose style and spirit proved them genuine, and his own." This compilation was his own effort to "knock down the artificial scaffolding reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus." And of the teaching of Jesus thus set forth, he said:

"A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

I am not claiming that the Christianity of Jefferson was orthodox. His correspondence with Dr. Priestly, and his open admiration for the teaching of Dr. Channing fix the nature of his belief in the founder of Christianity. I refer to these matters merely to show that to the mind of this remarkable man religion was a subject of profound interest and respect; and also to suggest that it was really the religious nature of the man that prompted the part he took in securing religious freedom in the commonwealth of Virginia, and through that circumstance, with another to be mentioned later, aided mightily in securing religious freedom in America.

Chiefly upon New England has been fixed the odium of religious intolerance in our country; but human nature in the eighteenth century was pretty much of the same sort of stuff throughout the British colonies; at least the difference was not so very great between New England and Virginia so far as it found expression in religious intolerance; for if in New England the people could be fined, whipped or put in the stocks for not going to church—in Virginia they could be punished for going to the wrong one, while Baptists, Presbyterians and Quakers were compelled to pay tithes to a church they did not attend. If in New England the people could be compelled to stay awake and refrain from smiling while in church, no matter how tedious or ridiculous the sermons were—in Virginia justices of the peace were committing Quakers to the pillory for keeping their hats on in church. If in Massachusetts, at one time it was a capital offense to celebrate mass—in Virginia heresy was punishable by burning at the stake. If in Massachusetts the Church of England services could not be performed, nor baptism administered by immersion, nor a company of men pray with their hats on—in Virginia denial of the doctrine of the Trinity was punishable by three years imprisonment, and Unitarians were legally deprived of the custody of their children on the ground that people holding to the belief in the unity of God were unfit to be intrusted with the rearing of their own children! If in New England the spirit of religious intolerance was more severe—in Virginia it endured longer; for while in the former place the fight for religious freedom was won by the middle of the eighteenth century, it was not until nearly the close of that century that it was won in the latter. Religious freedom was not established in Virginia until the final adoption, in 1786, of Jefferson's statute for that purpose. The statute was presented in the house of burgesses in 1776, and the main clause was as follows:

"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, ministry, or place whatsoever; nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods; nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion; and the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

Such an enactment as is here proposed seems now so reasonable to us, so commonplace in its justice, that we marvel that it was not unanimously and immediately passed by the house of burgesses. But after twenty-five days of debate, which Jefferson himself characterized as "desperate contests," the utmost of achievement at that time was the repeal of the statute which imposed penalties for going to the wrong church and compelling dissenters to pay tithes. Not until nine years more had passed—years of bitterness and strife and noble effort on the part of Jefferson and his liberal associates, could Virginia be brought to a settlement of her religious problems by the adoption of the foregoing proposed enactment.

This statute, so far as in him lay the power, Jefferson tried to make a sort of English bill of rights. At least I judge so from the nature of one of the paragraphs of the statute, and which is well worth the trouble to read.

"And though we well know that this assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with power equal to our own, and that, therefore, to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind; and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right."

Of course, as Mr. Jefferson himself realized, the state legislature could not bind succeeding legislatures from altering or amending this statute, but undoubtedly there was a moral force that went with what was there set down in the statute. At any rate the passing of this act was a final settlement of the question. Never since those days has it been disturbed, and finally those principles were adopted in every state of the American union.

The principle upon which Jefferson acted in securing religious freedom in Virginia—though expressed in language used some years after the conflict in Virginia had closed—is set forth as follows:

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself to resist invasions of it in the case of others, or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."

The arguments by which Jefferson sustained the justice of the Virginia statute, though commonplace to us now, are worth repeating in part, since occasional reference to fundamental principles is beneficial. Opinion, he declared to be something with which government had nothing to do; government was no more competent to prescribe beliefs than medicine, and constraint made hypocrites, not converts. Error alone needed support of government; truth could stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion, and you make fallible men, governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons, your inquisitors, and even if desirable, uniformity is unattainable.

"Millions of innocent men, women and children," he said, "since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people; that these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion; that ours is but one of that thousand; that if there be but one right, and ours that one, we would wish to see the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it, while we refuse it ourselves."

Jefferson's contribution to religious freedom in America was not limited to the drafting and finally securing the passage of the Virginia statute on the subject. Although it must be admitted that his further contribution to religious freedom in America resulted from indirect, rather than from direct means. After the war of independence closed, and the founders of the great republic met in convention to form a more perfect union and a more efficient government, this principle of religious freedom was finally included among the provisions of that constitution, under which we have now had one hundred and twenty years of national life. It expressly provides that

"No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Also that

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Jefferson was in France during the formation of the Constitution, and therefore could have had but little to do directly with its formation, but it must be remembered that some years before—1776—he had written what will always be regarded as the preface to our Constitution, namely, the immortal Declaration of Independence. When in that instrument Jefferson declared as self-evident truth that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with an inalienable right to live, to be free, and to pursue happiness; and that to secure these rights governments were instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed—he set in order the foundation principles of all our liberties, religious as well as civil. After the adoption of that declaration and its maintenance by a successful appeal to the dreadful arbitrament of war, it was inevitable that the religious liberties now secured by constitutional provision in every state of the union, and in the national constitution as well, should come. That Jefferson contributed to this general result more, perhaps, than any other American statesman, as well as being the leading factor in the establishment of religious freedom in Virginia, will not be disputed.

This American religious liberty which sets the church free from the interference of the civil authority, carries with it as a corollary the freedom of the state from the interference of ecclesiastical authority—it results in the absolute separation of the church and the state. Great as religious freedom is, and in my estimation above all price, yet the other half of our American system—the freedom of the state from ecclesiastical domination, is of equal value, and equally necessary to our peace and the security of both church and state. It is claimed by high authority that one-half of the wars of Europe and half the troubles that have vexed European states from the early centuries of the Christian era down to the nineteenth century, have arisen from theological differences or from the rival claims of church and state. Thank God, the United States under the national Constitution has no part in such a record as that! The comparative peace and freedom from religious strife that has obtained in our own country, through more than a century of religious freedom, vindicates the wisdom of our system, which has led to the happiest results. A few years ago—1891—these results were described by a gentleman of commanding influence, both in literature and in the civil affairs of his own country, and who now holds the exalted station of British ambassador to our government at Washington, Mr. James Bryce. Listen to his words:

"There are no quarrels of churches and sects. Judah does not vex Ephraim, nor Ephraim envy Judah. No established church looks down scornfully upon dissenters from the height of its titles and endowments, and talks of them as hindrances in the way of its work. No dissenters pursue an established church in a spirit of watchful jealousy, nor agitate for its overthrow. One is not offended by the contrast between the theory and the practice of a religion of peace, between professions of universal affection in pulpit addresses and forms of prayer, and the acrimony of clerical controversialists. Still less, of course, is there that sharp opposition and antagonism of Christians and anti-Christians which lacerates the private as well as public life of France. Rivalry between sects appears only in the innocent form of the planting of new churches and raising of funds for missionary objects, while most of the Protestant denominations, including the four most numerous, constantly fraternize in charitable work. Between Roman Catholics and Protestants there is little hostility, and sometimes co-operation for a philanthropic purpose. The skeptic is no longer under a social ban, and discussions on the essentials of Christianity and of theism are conducted with good temper. There is not a country in the world where Frederick the Great's principle, that everyone should be allowed to go to heaven in his own way, is so fully applied. This sense of religious peace as well as religious freedom all around one, is soothing to the weary European, and contributes not a little to sweeten the lives of ordinary people."

I am aware, ladies and gentlemen, that I am trespassing on your valuable time, but bear with me while I make brief reference to local conditions. It may be said that in Utah we have not participated in this peace and tranquility described as characteristic of America by Mr. Bryce. That here there has been to some extent church domination of the state; ecclesiastical interference in civil affairs; and I am not prepared to make unqualified denial of those charges. But I do feel free to say that it is my conviction that we have entered upon a period in our experience in Utah, when we shall fully participate in the general peace that results from the American doctrine of religious and political freedom, and the separation of church and state. The recent authoritative utterances of the dominant Church in Utah is the fact on which I base this hope of mine. Full acquiescence in this American system of the relations of church and state are set forth in that utterance with greater emphasis than ever before. It commits the dominant Church irrevocably to the doctrine of "non-interference of church authority in political matters; the absolute freedom and independence of the individual in the performance of his political duties." And then it makes this emphatic declaration that "if at any time there has been conduct at variance with this doctrine, it has been in violation of the well settled principles and policy of the Church." Of course I know there are those who doubt the good faith of this late official utterance of the Church, but it is preposterous to assume that this religious organization would dare, before the world and its own people, to enter upon such a system of deliberate deception and hypocrisy as it would be involved in if its late official utterance be not honest.

But even if it were conceivable that duplicity was the deliberate intention of the church or its chief authorities, I should still be hopeful of the outcome, and that the outcome would be hastened by this last official utterance. And these are my reasons: The questions of religious freedom, and the relations of church and state are settled once for all in this country. The right of the individual to be politically free is crystallized into accomplished fact; and so dear to the individual is that right, so jealously is it guarded by the political community as a condition fundamental to the preservation of the American spirit of manhood, and national well-being that it stands absolutely in no danger of being sacrificed, either to the cunning of priests or the influence of a church, however powerful. If the dominant Church, so emphatically committed to the support of this American system, should attempt to play double—it would, and could only, mean ruin and disruption to the Church. As an organization it might survive every opposing force, but it could not survive the double dealing in which it would be involved if its last official utterance on the subject of non-interference in politics is not put forth in good faith. Should its leaders chicane in this matter it would mean severest censure of public opinion; bitterness and resentment and rebellion in its own membership; loss of respect and influence of all kinds, both in the Church and in the state; in a word, such a course would spell disaster. Intelligent men must know these things; and, giving the Church leaders, and the Church membership credit for at least ordinary intelligence, one must believe them honest as to what they have committed themselves to in their last official utterance. And by an honest adherence to the principles in that utterance, I feel confident that in Utah we shall share in the tranquility which in respect to these questions obtains everywhere else in America.