What They Said

""When a religion," says McCosh, "waxes old in a country—when the circumstances which at first favored its formation or introduction have changed—when in an age of reason it is tried and found unreasonable—when in an age of learning it is discovered to be the product of the grossest ignorance—when in an age of levity it is felt to be too stern—then the infidel spirit takes courage, and, with a zeal in which there is a strange mixture of scowling revenge and light-hearted wantonness, of deep-set hatred and laughing levity, it proceeds to level all existing temples and altars, and erects no others in their room."  The void which is created is soon filled with wantonness and violence. The State cannot be restored to order until it settles down upon some form of religion again. As the subjects of a State must have a religion in order to be truly obedient, and as it is the true religion alone which converts obedience into a living principle, it is obvious that a Commonwealth can no more be organized, which shall recognize all religions, than one which shall recognize none. The sanctions of its laws must have a centre of unity somewhere. To combine in the same government contradictory systems of faith, is as hopelessly impossible as to constitute into one State men of different races and languages. The Christian, the Pagan, Mohammedan, Jews, Infidels, and Turks, cannot coalesce as organic elements in one body politic. The State must take its religious typo from the doctrines, the precepts, and the institutions of one or the other of these parties."

James H. Thornwell