Ebook The Footprints of the Jesuits

The civil institutions of the United States could not have been formed without the separation of Church and State, and could not continue to exist if they were again united. Christianity could not maintain its prim itive purity if politics and religious faith were mingled together; nor could the State preserve its capacity to provide for the general welfare if subjected to the do minion of ecclesiastical authority. Our success as a nation is mainly attributable to the fact that these sen timents are deeply imbedded in the American mind. A party pledged to restore to the pope the temporal power which the Italian people have taken away, must necessarily be politico-relz'gious in character, because it proposes to interfere with the temporal affairs of one of the European nations. And if the attempt to do this is justified upon the ground that such restoration in volves religious duty, any one can see that the obliga tion is the same in the United States as in Italy, for the laws of God do not shift to suit the exigencies of human affairs.