And this brings to view the second objection, that the American constitutions are unchristian. This founds itself on the absence from the constitution of the United States of the names of God and Christ, as also from some of the state constitutions. As already noted, all but two of the latter contain the name of God, while the constitution of New Hampshire contains also the words "Protestant" and "Christian." According to the argument of the objector, New Hampshire must be the only Christian state in the Union.

The argument is specious, appealing only to a superficial religious sentiment, and the long-sustained effort to obtain a religious amendment of the federal constitution has been alike idle and unnecessary. The religious quality of a people is not determinable by phrases of law, but by the spirit and life. If the American people should insert the divine names in the constitution, that would not keep them from turning to infidelity, or make them a Christian nation after such perversion. New Hampshire is no more Protestant or Christian, with those terms in her constitution, than is Massachusetts without them. Michigan, which excludes the name of Deity from her fundamental law, is no less religious than New York, which is "grateful to Almighty God."

If we would seek the religion of the American nation, we must look into their life, custom, and institutions. Looking on these things - the innumerable Christian temples and institutions of Christian charity, the days of annual thanksgiving, the prayers in legislative halls, the Bible in the courts, the constant resort in legislation and judicature to religious and Christian principles - we may safely declare that, if the American people be not a Christian nation, there is none upon the earth. Sixty years ago wrote De Tocqueville: "There is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America. By regulating domestic life it regulates the state. Religion is the foremost of the institutions of the country. I am certain that the Americans hold religion to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions." On this opinion of the acute Frenchman, the Swiss Schaff commented, fifty years later: "I fully agree with De Tocqueville. I came to the same conclusion shortly after my immigration to America in 1844, and I have been confirmed in it by an experience of forty-three years and a dozen visits to Europe."

This opinion has been shared by every statesman and every jurist who has discoursed on the subject. Marshall, Webster, Waite, and a host of others could all join in the language of Cooley, "In a certain sense and for certain purposes it is true that Christianity is part of the law of the land." It is impossible to fix the stigma of unchristian on the American nation.

Furthermore, it may be successfully maintained that, far from being unchristian, this principle of American religious liberty is of the nature of pure Christianity, and represents the most Christian attitude that a civil government can take with reference to the religion of the people. At the first glance, indeed, and to the eye which chiefly regards externals, this statement seems untrue. In such view, it will be asked, "Is not confession of Christ more Christian than silence?" To such mind there seems a positive gain for righteousness when the governmental expression and action put on the outward forms of religion. This judgment would hold that England, with its legally recognized religious establishment, is a more Christian nation than America.

Of which judgment it may be truly said that it confounds national duties with individual. For the individual the confession of Christ is certainly more Christian than silence. But from this proposition we may not conclude that the same thing is true for a nation. The personal confession affects only the individual who makes it. The constituency is simple, without the possibility of a divided mind. With a nation it is otherwise. There may be a constituency of millions, for whose variety no single confession of faith can speak. Though a majority might be Christian, there yet would be a minority, for whom such confession would be false.

The difficulty is not overcome by the principle of majority rule, for, while that is a wise and just principle for the conduct of civil affairs, it can have no place in the decision of faith. There may be a general consensus of opinion, which only a very small minority of the people oppose; but so long as this small minority do oppose it, the governmental confession of it involves for them a misrepresentation and injustice. It is thus practically impossible for a government to make a confession of faith which shall be at once true and just to all its subjects, who are equally entitled to its protection, and a respect for whose rights in the smallest particular is of the essence of Christian morality.

We need not here dwell on the distinction of Roger Williams - noted in the first chapter - between the totally different aims of the civil state and the Church. "Civility and Religion" are entirely distinct, and not to be confounded. Nor shall one interfere with the other, save as religious conviction in the mind of the citizen may decide his action in regard to civil duties. This underlies the conception of religious liberty, and it is distinctly Christian. Only so far forth as the individual citizens shall be actuated by religious or Christian motives can the government be religious or Christian. No mere form of words put into the fundamental law can alter that condition, and no legal constraint can make that Christian which is not such.

Finally, this American principle, by which the government abstains from all religious function, leaving the utmost liberty of religion and worship to the people, is in perfect harmony with the utterances of the great Founder of Christianity. The things of God and of Caesar are diverse. The fear of God urges to honor the king, but the king's command cannot constrain to the fear and service of God. The kingdom of God is within the heart, and is neither conditioned nor sustained by civil enactments. These cannot introduce a man into that kingdom, nor make him fit for entrance. Christ Himself declared, "My kingdom is not of this world," not patterned after the fashion of this world's kingdoms, not built on their foundations, nor defended by their arms. With the existence, the spread and the support of this kingdom of Christ, therefore, the governments of earth have nothing to do, save as they refuse to interfere with its freedom, and as they guide their own conduct by its principles of divine righteousness. Into that kingdom of Christ men enter as individuals, not as nations, in all the freedom of personal action, unconstrained by external force and subject only to the influence of spiritual motives reaching to mind and heart. It is impossible to imagine a distinction more radical or broader than that between things of this spiritual nature and the functions of civil government. To God alone is the man responsible for his religious views and practice. Under God only the man is ruler in his own mind and soul. This autonomy of the soul even God Himself recognizes and respects, not compelling by external force, but appealing to reason, conscience, and affection. Herein is the divine foundation for Religious Liberty. Its enactment by the American constitutions is but a recognition of a law of God written in the nature of truth and of man. As such it is to be reckoned as their echo of the divine will, and fully as Christian an utterance as ever fell from the lips of government.