412 RELATION OF RELIGION TO POLITICS 



weaker kind, are occasionally entertained or awakened, 

 between the laity of the Established and Dissenting sects 

 among us. But in the United States, A has as good a 

 right to his religious opinions as B, and has no cause 

 either to modify or conceal them. The church which 

 each attends has an equal claim to all privileges which 

 the State yields to any religious body, and in an 

 assembly of the clergy, the most distinguished by age, 

 by talent, or by meritorious services, obtains precedence, 

 whatever the name of the sect to which he belongs. It 

 is political and social equality as citizens, therefore, and 

 not, as I have said, either more equable minds or more 

 Christian hearts, which produces and secures the greater 

 apparent and outward harmony among religious denomi 

 nations in the United States. No one ventures to 

 assume above another ; and thus the seeds of personal 

 dissension find no mortified or wounded pride to nourish 

 them. 



It is natural that we in Great Britain, who are of 

 opinion that it is the duty of the State to support true 

 religion and especially such of us as belong to the 

 dominant church of the part of the island we live in 

 should prefer the relation between Church and State 

 which now exists among us. And yet it cannot be 

 denied that there is a simplicity in the relation between 

 religion and politics in the United States between 

 rights civil or political and rights religious which keeps 

 them free not only from private and personal bitternesses, 

 such as those I have above alluded to, but from many 

 causes of confusion and perplexity which beset us at home. 



social consideration is attached, they are systematically passed by. The 

 clergy of the Church are feted with civic banquets, and uniformly 

 toasted at public entertainments ; the non-conformity of the larger 

 half of the people being ignored.&quot; The grievances here detailed seem 

 small, but they are the natural sources, nevertheless, of bitterness 

 and alienation among our different denominations, which are unknown 

 in America. 



