RELIGION IN THE LIFE OF NATION'S. 57 



miu'Ii to grant — but (liov ask the sani;' for jiolitical 

 ideas, lor national morals, in a word, fm* (he lile of lliu 

 country. 



It is no part of my subject to examine in what degree 

 civil legislation ought to connect itself with the exist- 

 ence of God in general or Avitli Christianity in particu- 

 lar. At another time I shall come back to this im- 

 portant and complicated question, so much agitated of 

 late. For the moment, then, I lay aside the subject of 

 laws — a matter which belongs rather to the outward 

 than to the interior structure of a nation. I waive the 

 definite relations of Church and State, and taking 

 things in their freer and profounder aspect, in religious 

 creeds and public morals, I ])ropose to prove that re- 

 ligion is the principle of national existence and pros- 

 perity. 



I shall do tliis in two ways : first, by a general view, 

 showing, not so much by reasoning as by history, how 

 nations are constituted by their soul, and that this soul 

 itself is quickened by religion ; and then, with a more 

 impressive particularity, tracing the action of the reli- 

 gious principle into the midst of the passions of public 

 life, where it wakens and sustains those two forces the 

 loss of wliich nothing else can make good — social justice 

 and patriotic faith. 



Pakt First. — Jxdigioji is ilie Superior Principle of 

 National Life. 



[1. To begin with, Fiitlier Hvaciuthe put the question, What 

 is the true principle of national life?] 



Is it the political organism, the positive laws of the 

 established government ? To see in the constitution of 



