Page:Pastoral Letter Promulgating the Jubilee - Spalding.djvu/20

Rh children, but totally unworthy the attention of strong-minded men! This is surely rather license than liberty; it is infidelity rather than Religion. Every true lover of Christ and of His holy Religion should then cheerfully unite, heart and soul, with the Pontiff, in placing upon such liberty as this the stigma of solemn condemnation. "Oh liberty! How many crimes are not committed in thy name."

To stretch the words of the Pontiff, evidently intended for the stand-point of European radicals and infidels, so as to make them include the state of things established in this country, by our noble Constitution, in regard to the liberty of conscience, of worship, and of the press, were manifestly unfair and unjust. Divided as we were in religious sentiment from the very origin of our government, our fathers acted most prudently and wisely in adopting as an Amendment to the Constitution, the organic law, that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." (Amend 1.) In fact, under the circumstances, they could have adopted no other course, consistently with the principles and even with the very existence of our newly established government.

In adopting this Amendment, they certainly did not intend, like the European radicals, disciples of Tom Paine and of the French Revolution, to pronounce all religions, whether true or false, equal before God, but only to declare them equal before the law; or rather, simply to lay down the sound and equitable principle, that the civil government, adhering strictly to its own appropriate sphere of political duty, pledged itself not to interfere with religious matters, which it rightly viewed as entirely without the bounds of its competency. The founders of our government were, thank God, neither Latitudinarians nor infidels; they were earnest, honest men; and however much some of them may have been personally lukewarm in the matter of Religion, or may have differed in religious opinions, they still professed to