148 THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY.
question be raised in this country, and there is no element
of the opposition that would rise against it that would be
more decided and determined than that represented in this
Convention. We wish no restraint of the rightful liberties
of any man.’
“These utterances are pleasant to read, and doubtless
they, and others like them, have had much to do in en-
listing so strong an interest in favor of the amendment.
And were these sayings, or those of like nature, all that
they had put forth, we should feel constrained to regard
the men and their work in a light somewhat different
from that in which we now view them.
“We come now to examine another class of expres-
sions, of a positive nature. What we have quoted 1s
negative,—a disclaimer, a relation of what they do not
wish to do. Very explicitly have they stated their de-
sires and intentions. True, we cannot reconcile what
they have said under these two heads, and it is this
which so perplexes us in regard to their professions. It
is to be hoped that they will sometime attempt to show
that their statements may be harmonized, or else confine
their avowals to one side of the question, that all may
understand, without study or doubt, just the position
they occupy.
“Dr. Stevenson, Corresponding Secretary of the Na-
tional Association, and editor of the Statesman, in the
opening address at the Convention, said :—
“‘Through the immense largesses it receives from cor-
rupt politicians, the Roman Catholic Church is, practically,
the established church of the city of New York. These fa-
vors are granted under the guise of a seeming friendliness
to religion. We propose to put the substance for the
shadow,—to drive out the counterfeit by the completer sub-
stitution of the true.’
“These words are somewhat ambiguous, but none the
less important, on this subject; for, taken in any possi-
ble way, they are full of meaning. It may be a question
whether this ‘seeming friendliness to religion’ is the
shadow, and real friendliness to religion in politics is the
‘I'HE BEGINNING OF THE END. 149
substance, or whether the Catholic Church is the coun-
terfeit and Protestantism the true; but in either case
the establishment of the church, or a church, or churches,
more completely than at present established, though they
are practically existing now, is the object aimed at in
this paragraph. The latter form, the establishment of
the churches, appears to be the object; for in the next
sentence he says: —
‘““What we propose is nothing of a sectarian character.
It will give no branch of American Christians any advantage
over any other.’
“A remark made by Prof. Blanchard is a comple-
ment to the above. He has given us a definition of
‘union of Church und State’ as opposed by them. Thus
he said :--
“‘But union of Church and State is the selection by the
nation of one church, the endowment of such a church, the
appointment of its officers, and the oversight of its doc-
trines. For such a union none of us plead. To such a
union we are all of us opposed.”
“In reading this, we are reminded of the turn taken
by the spiritualists, when they deny that they ave op-
posed to marriage ; they explain by defining marriage to
be a union of two persons not to be regulated nor
guarded by civil law, which exists only as long as the
parties are agreed thereto, requiring no law to effect a
divorce! To such marriage the most lawless libertine
would not object. We are sorry that the respectable
advocates of the amendment take a position so nearly
parallel to the above-cited position of spiritualists. They
give a definition of union of Church and State such
as no one expects nor fears,—such, in fact, as is not pos-
sible in the existing state of the churches,—and then
loudly proclaim that they are opposed to union of Church
and State! But to a union of Church and State in the
popular sense of the phrase,—a union, not of one church,
but of all the churches recognized as orthodox, or evan-
gelical,—a union not giving the State power to elect
church officers nor to take the oversight of chutch doc-