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CHRISTIANITY OF AMERICAN COURTS - WASHINGTON'S VIEW OF THEIR IMPORTANCE - CHIEF-JUSTICE HALE - HIS CHRISTIAN CHARACTER - JAY - BUSHROD WASHINGTON - MARSHALL - STORY - MCLEAN - OTHERS - GRIMKÉ'S TRIBUTE TO THE SUPREME JUDGES OF THE UNITED STATES - DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA IN FAVOR OF CHRISTIANITY - OPINION OF THE COURT - DECISION OF JUDGE PARSONS, OF MASSACHUSETTS - DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, IN 1811 - OPINION GIVEN BY CHIEF-JUSTICE KENT - VIEWS OF JUDGE SPENCER IN THE CONVENTION OF NEW YORK, IN 1821 - DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, IN 1861.

THE Constitution, ordained to "establish justice," makes provision for the institution of courts and the appointment of judges. Washington, the first President, was called upon, among his first official duties, to organize the judicial department of the Government. He says, "Regarding the due administration of justice as the strongest cement of good government, I have considered the first organization of the judicial department as essential to the happiness of the people and to the stability of the political system. Under this impression it has been with me an invariable object of anxious solicitude to select the fittest characters to expound the laws and to dispense justice.

"I have always been persuaded that the stability and success of the national Government, and, consequently, the happiness of the people of the United States, would depend in a considerable degree on the interpretation and execution of its laws. In my opinion, it is important that the judiciary system should not only be independent in its operations, but as perfect as possible in its formation."

Under these convictions, Washington, by the appointment of judges, carried into practical execution the provision of the Constitution, and selected the most exalted characters to expound the laws and to dispense justice. In this he gave new evidence of his clear discrimination and sound judgment. They were men of rare judicial integrity and attainments, who, as Christian judges, ornamented the bench of a Christian nation and shed honor and glory on American jurisprudence. James Wilson, who signed the Declaration of Independence and was a member of the Convention that formed the Federal Constitution, was selected by Washington as one of the first judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. He said, in reference to a judge, that "in his heart should be written the words of the law, if the law says-and the law does say that, in all its judgments, justice shall be executed in mercy. On the heart of a judge will this heavenly maxim be deeply engraven. He ought to be a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to them that do well. A judge is the blessing or he is the curse of society. His powers are important. His character and conduct cannot be objects of indifference."

The judiciary of England had an illustrious Christian judge in Matthew Hale. In entering upon his official duties he drew up, for the government of his official life, the following rules: -

"1. That in the administration of justice I am intrusted for God, the king, and the country; and, therefore, 2. That it be upright. 3. Deliberate. 4. Resolutely. That I rest not upon my own understanding or strength, but implore and rest upon the direction and strength of God."

This eminent English judge was a strict observer of the Sabbath.

The incorruptible chief-justice of England, at the time of Cromwell and the Commonwealth, could not be seduced to desecrate the Sabbath by the example of crowned heads or by the influence of learned divines. Neither a Puritan nor a Cavalier, he was an honest Christian man, and an upright jurist. In his instruction to his children Sir Matthew Hale says, -

"I have, by long and sound experience, found that the due observance of the Lord's day, and the duties of it, has been of singular comfort and advantage to me; and I doubt not it will prove so to you. God Almighty is the Lord of our time, and lends it to us; and as it is but just we should consecrate this part of that time to him, so I have found, by a strict and diligent observation, that a due attention to the duty of this day hath ever joined to it a blessing upon the rest of my time, and the week that hath so begun hath been blessed and prospered to me; and, on the other side, when I have been negligent of the duties of this day, the rest of the week hath been unsuccessful and unhappy to my own secular employments; so that I could early make an estimate of my success in my secular engagements the week following, by the manner of my passing of this day; and this I do not write lightly or inconsiderately, but upon a long observation and experience."

"Of all places," said Webster, "there is none which so imperatively demands that he who occupies it should be under the fear of God, and above all other fear, as the situation of a judge."

The judicial history of the American courts corresponds, in its Christian features, to the earlier ages of the republic, in the other departments of the Government. Before recording the decision of the courts of the United States in favor of the Christian religion being the religion of the Government as well as of the nation, it will be instructive to notice the eminent Christian characters of a number of the chief judges.

Eminent on the roll of Christian judges is John Jay. He was the first Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and presided as such with unsurpassed integrity and wisdom. Webster, in alluding to him, said that "when the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay it touched nothing less spotless than itself."

Like Mansfield and Hale, of England, he ever sought "that wisdom that cometh down from above" to guide him in all his official investigations and decisions.

"If the character of this eminent man," says his biographer, "is beautiful in its simplicity and its moral purity, it becomes still more interesting when regarded as a bright example of Christian virtue. The tone of his mind was always serious. He regarded religious meditation and worship as no unimportant duties of life." He was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. "This," says Judge Story, "was the religion of his early education, and became afterwards that of his choice. But he was without the slightest touch of bigotry or intolerance. His benevolence was as wide as Christianity itself. It embraced the human race. He was not only liberal in his feelings and principles, but in his charities. His hands were open on all occasions to succor distress, to encourage enterprise, and to support good institutions."

Associated with Jay on the Supreme Bench were James Wilson, a Christian patriot and judge, - "of great learning, patient industry, and uprightness of character," Cushing of Massachusetts, Blair of Virginia, Iredell of North Carolina, Paterson of New Jersey, and Bushrod Washington, a nephew of President Washington. These were all men distinguished for their legal accomplishments and Christian virtues. Of Judge Washington it was said that "the love of justice was a ruling passion, it was the master-spring of his conduct. He made justice itself, even the most severe, soften into the moderation of mercy."

"There was," said Judge Story, "a daily beauty in his life, which won every heart. He was benevolent, charitable, affectionate, and liberal, in the best sense of the terms. He was a Christian, full of religious sensibility and religious humility. Attached to the Episcopal Church by education and choice, he was one of its most sincere but unostentatious friends. He was as free from bigotry as any man, and, at the same time he claimed the right to think for himself, he admitted without reserve the same right in others. He was, therefore, indulgent even to what he deemed errors in doctrine, and abhorred all persecution for conscience' sake.

"But what made religion most attractive in him, and gave it occasionally even a sublime expression, was its tranquil, cheerful, unobtrusive, meek, and gentle character. There was a mingling of Christian graces in him, which showed that the habit of his thoughts was fashioned for another and a better world."

Among the most eminent of American judges was Chief-Justice Marshall, of Virginia. He will ever be venerated as one of the brightest intellects of the country, and as having shed the most lucid light on the constitutional and legislative jurisprudence of the Government. His logical intellect, severe simplicity of character, legal knowledge, purity of life, and Christian faith, form one of the richest treasures of the American nation. He was, in public and private life, continued to a venerable age, loyal to his God, the Constitution of his country, his own conscience, and the Christian religion.  

"He had," says one, a pure and childlike religious faith. The hard, muscular intellect had not built up its strength on the ruins of the heart. It is related of him that he once chanced to be present at a discussion between two or three young men upon the evidences of the Christian religion. They indulged freely in sneers, and, at the end of their argument, turned indifferently to the chief-justice - whom they took, from his poor and plain costume, for some ignorant rustic - and asked him, jocularly, what he thought of the matter. If, said the narrator of the incident, "a streak of lightning had at that moment crossed the room, their amazement could not have been greater than it was at what followed. The most eloquent and unanswerable appeal was made for nearly an hour, by the old gentleman, that he ever heard. So perfect was his recollection that every argument used by the opponents of the Christian religion was met in the order in which it was presented. Hume's sophistry on the subject of miracles was, if possible, more perfectly answered than it had been done by Campbell. And in the whole lecture there was so much symmetry and energy, pathos and sublimity, that not another word was answered. An attempt to describe it would be an attempt to paint the sunbeam."

This deep-rooted religious faith never wavered. Marshall continued to repeat, night and morning, in his serene old age, the prayer which he had been taught at his mother's knees; and, at a period when skepticism was fashionable among cultivated men, he never uttered a word calculated to throw a doubt on the Divine origin of Christianity. A lesson of the deepest reverence for every thing holy was, on the contrary, taught by his daily life; and he died, as he had lived, trusting in the atonement of Jesus. This great jurist and eminent Christian man regarded it as among the highest honors of his life to be a teacher in the Sabbath-school. Here he was found, for many years of his life, on every Sabbath, with his class, expounding to them the law of God and the sublime truths of the gospel of Christ.

Judge Story, of Massachusetts, for many years Associate Justice on the Supreme Bench of the United States, was eminent for his judicial and literary attainments and his Christian virtues. He speaks thus of the Christian religion: -

"One of the beautiful traits of our municipal jurisprudence is, that Christianity is a part of the common law, from which it seeks its sanction of its rights and by which it endeavors to regulate its doctrine. And, notwithstanding the specious objection of one of our distinguished statesmen, the boast is as true as it is beautiful. There has been a period in which the common law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundation. For many ages it was almost exclusively administered by those who held its ecclesiastical dignities. It now repudiates every act done in violation of its duties of perfect obligation. It pronounces illegal every contract offensive to its morals. It recognizes with profound humility its holydays and festivals, and obeys them as dies non juridici. It still attaches to persons believing in its Divine authority the highest degree of competency as witnesses."

John McLean, of Ohio, adorned the judicial department of the Government, by his eminent talents, learning, and civic virtues, for more than a generation. He became in early life a sincere and humble Christian, and for more than half a century gave a most beautiful illustration of the pure and exalted virtues of the Christian religion both in public and in private life. Not one suspicious breath of corruption ever soiled his fair fame, or diminished the purity and power of his fame and influence. He was in the highest degree a Christian statesman and an upright judge. His views of the need and importance of Christianity to civil government are expressed in the following words: -

"For many years my hope for the perpetuity of our institutions has rested upon Bible morality and the general dissemination of Christian principles. This is an element which did not exist in the ancient republics. It is a basis on which free governments may be maintained through all time.

"It is a truth experienced in all time, that a free government can have no other than a moral basis; and it requires a high degree of intelligence, and virtue in the people to maintain it. Free government is not a self-moving machine. It can only act through agencies. And if its aims be low and selfish, if it addresses itself to the morbid feelings of humanity, its tendencies must be corrupt and weaken the great principles on which it is founded.

"Our mission of freedom is not carried out by brute force, by canon law, or any other law except the moral law and those Christian principles which are found in the Scriptures."

He was for many of the last years of his life President of the American Sunday-School Union, an institution whose beneficent influence has been felt in every department of Church and State.

In accepting the Presidency of the American Sunday-School Union, Judge McLean wrote the following letter: -

CINCINNATI, April 10, 1849.

DEAR SIR: -

Whilst I consider myself honored by the Board of Officers and Managers of the American Sunday-School Union in being placed nominally at their head, I cannot repress a fear that, in accepting the position, I may stand in the way of some one of higher merit and greater usefulness.

The more I reflect upon Sabbath-schools, the more deeply am I impressed with their importance. Education without moral training may increase national knowledge, but it will add nothing to national virtue. By a most intelligent and able report, made some years ago by Guizot, it appeared that in those departments of France where education had been most advanced, crime was most common. And, by later reports, it is shown that in Prussia, Scotland, and England, where the means of education has been greatly increased - especially in Prussia and Scotland - criminal offences have increased. Making due allowance for the growth of population and the aggregation of individuals in carrying on various useful enterprises, the principal cause of this is a want of moral culture.

Knowledge without moral restraint only increases the capacity of an individual for mischief. As a citizen, he is more dangerous to society, and does more to corrupt the public morals, than one without education. So selfish is our nature, and so prone to evil, that we require chains, moral or physical, to curb our propensities and passions.

Early impressions are always the most lasting. All experience conduces to establish this. Who has forgotten the scenes of his boyhood, or the pious instructions of his parents? Who does not carry these with him all along the journey of life? However they may be disregarded and contemned by an abandoned course, yet they cannot be consigned to oblivion. In the darkest hours of revelry, they will light up in the memory and cause remorse. And this feeling will generally, sooner or later, lead to reformation.

Whatever defect there may be of moral culture in our common schools, it is more than supplied in our Sabbath-schools. Here the whole training is of a moral and religious character, entirely free from sectarian influences. The child is instructed in his duty to God and to his fellow-beings, and for which he must answer in the great day of accounts. He becomes familiar with the Scriptures by his Bible lessons, which are fixed in his memory by his answer to questions propounded. Indeed, the whole exercises of the school are eminently calculated to interest and elevate his mind.

Impressions thus made can never be eradicated. The associations of the school make the instruction more impressive than it could be under other circumstances. As a general rule, it may be assumed that the children who attend on Sunday-schools may be distinguished from others at all times, and especially in a regard for the Sabbath and the institutions of religion.

When we consider these schools as the nurseries of society, we cannot too highly appreciate them. The children are taken as tender plants; every noxious branch is cut off, and the ground is so prepared as to impart the utmost vigor and healthfulness. Under such care, the fruit must be good. The mind and heart of a child may be as certainly formed for good works by moral training as the plant may be improved by careful culture.

Who can estimate the influence on society of five millions of children thus educated? And it may not be an extravagant calculation to suppose that, every ten years, five millions of persons who had been Sabbath-school scholars enter into active society. More or less they may be supposed to be influenced by the principles inculcated at those schools. Restrained themselves by moral considerations, their example may have some influence on an equal number of their associates. Here, then, is an element of power which must be salutary on our social and political relations. The good thus done cannot be fully known and appreciated, as the amount of evil which it prevents cannot be measured.

It may be assumed as an axiom that free government can rest on no other basis than moral power. France has a republic which is maintained by bayonets. And there is reason to apprehend that in that country there is not a sufficient moral basis for the maintenance of a free government.

But are our own beloved institutions free from danger? Who has not seen the "yawning chasms" in our own beautiful edifice? Its pillars seem to be moved, its walls and its dome and the contour of the fabric have suffered; and nothing can restore it to its pristine beauty and strength but a united and a continued effort of the intelligent and virtuous citizens of our country. And we must increase the number of these by every possible means. Sabbath-schools must be relied on as a principal agent in this great work. Without their aid, I should look to the future with little hope. But having their co-operation I do not despair. Mere partyism should be discarded for principle; and moral power, founded as it must be on the justice and fitness of things, must be made the ground of action.

When I consider the mighty trust, moral and political, which has been committed to us; when I reflect upon the extent and fertility of our country, its diversified and healthful climates, and its capacity for human enjoyment, I am overwhelmed with the vastness of the subject. Rapidly as we have advanced for the last thirty years in the development of our physical resources and in the arts and sciences, the bow of promise still abides in the future. If faithful to our trust, we may expect to advance in the future more rapidly than we have done in time past.

But a nation may be great in its physical powers and in its mental attainments, without possessing the basis of moral power, which is the only foundation for practical liberty. I have no fears of the concentrated Powers of the world. We could drive them from our shores, without endangering our institutions. But, whilst I have no fear as to the permanency of our Government from influences and powers from without, I am not without apprehension from causes which arise among ourselves. This is, indeed, a strange paradox. Can we not trust our selves? "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?"

There is no security against the enormities of our race, which have so often disgraced the history of the world, but a restraining influence, which sets bounds to human passions. The superior civilization, moderation, and justice of modern times is attributable to the benign influence of Christianity. The ancient republics were destitute of this power. They were united by military prowess, - by the glory which arises from the butchery of our race, and from acts of injustice, rapine, and plunder. Physical force was the arbiter of right and the dispenser of justice. But now there is an element of moral power, which more or less pervades all civilized nations, and which has its foundation in the Bible. No nation can disregard this law with impunity. If it be not embodied in any published code, yet it is not the less powerful. It is written in the hearts and understandings of mankind. It shakes the thrones of despots, who, through a line of ancestry of many centuries, have governed with an absolute power.

To us, as a nation, are committed the great principles of free government; and we are responsible to those who shall come after us, for a faithful discharge of the trust. Now, we must continue to build upon the foundation of our fathers. They were equal to the crisis. Washington, and Hancock, and Adams, and their compatriots, were good men as well as great men. They looked to a superintending Providence, and to the precepts of the Bible. These they observed in their public and private acts, and thereby inculcated the same rule of action upon others.

To reform all abuses and perpetuate our institutions, we need only the force of such examples. There is enough of intelligence and virtue and of honest purpose in the nation, if embodied and made active, to free us from the prevailing corruptions of the day. And there is no agency more efficient to strengthen this state of the public mind than our Sabbath-schools. They are the nurseries of virtue, of an elevated patriotism, and of religion. I do not speak of a narrow or sectarian principle, which admits of no merit or virtue out of its own system, but of a principle which is as expansive, as benevolent, and as glorious as the doctrines of the Saviour.

Who will not sustain the uplifted hands and expanded hearts of those who are engaged in this work? It is connected with all that is lovely and of good report in this world, and all that is glorious in the world to come. It conduces to perpetuate an equality of human rights on the great principles of virtue and immutable justice. And what nobler motive could impel to human action? Compare it with the motives which lead to other lines of action and with their results. The aspiration of the mere politician begins and ends in himself. The benefits (if benefits they may be called) conferred on his supporters have no higher motive than this. The same remark will apply to many who are engaged in the pursuits of commerce, or in the prosecution of enterprises which ordinarily lead to the accumulation of individual and national wealth. They may become great in this respect, and advance the wealth of their country, without being exemplary themselves or increasing the public virtue. And so of professional renown. How empty is that bauble which entwines the brow of the orator in the senate, at the bar, or in the pulpit, whose heart is not full of the kindly feelings of humanity and who does not endeavor to mitigate the sufferings and increase the happiness of his race!

If we desire to make our nation truly great, and to transmit to posterity our institutions in their primitive simplicity and force, we must imbue the minds of our youth with a pure and an elevated morality, which shall influence their whole lives. And I know of no means so well calculated to produce this result as SABBATH-SCHOOLS. Whether we look to the good of our country, or to a future immortality, these schools are recommended by considerations of the deepest importance.

I regret that my public duties will prevent my being present at your annual meeting.

With the greatest respect, I am, dear sir, faithfully yours,

JOHN MCLEAN.

This eminent jurist and Christian died at a ripe and honored age, in 1861, and closed his long life in the same serene Christian hope which ennobled and embellished his whole private and public life. At his funeral, Dr. Clark, editor of the "Ladies' Repository," spoke of the life and character of Judge McLean as follows: -

We come not to-day to utter words of eulogy, but to mourn: yet it is not too much to say that through the long period of his public life - extending over nearly half a century - his character as a public officer, as a man, and as a Christian, has stood out before the world untarnished, - nay, I may say, unsuspected. With equal honesty and ability has he met and fulfilled every trust. The loss of such a man, at such a juncture, is a public calamity.

When humanity, with mighty throes, is yearning for higher developments and for the realization of a nobler destiny, well may we mourn the death of one whose own character was a living embodiment of what- ever is noble in man, and whose influence was wide and powerful to benefit the race.

As fellow-citizens, well may we mourn the death of one whose history linked us to the heroic age of the republic, the purity of whose patriotism had been thoroughly tested, and whose very name was a talismanic charm for the preservation of the Union, and of the constitutional rights and liberties of our whole country, and of all our citizens, the lowest as well as the highest.

When the Christian character and virtues are so rarely illustrated in public life, well may we mourn the loss of the Christian statesman, the beauty of whose ermine was surpassed only by the spotlessness of his Christian life, whose devotion to his country was surpassed only by his fealty to Christ, and whose life and character will ever be pointed to as the means of inspiring the young men of our country with the conviction that there are nobler ends to be attained, even in this life, than the sordid gains of office or the selfishness of human ambition.

As members of the great Christian brotherhood, we have reason to mourn the death of one who has honored the Christian name. A little more than half a century ago, Judge McLean was led to Christ, through the instrumentality of that eminent minister of God, Rev. John Collins. He immediately identified himself with the Methodist Episcopal Church, through whose ministry he had been converted. A man of so noble a mind could not be otherwise than a man of broad views and catholic sympathies with all Christian denominations

He was jealous of the honor of the Christian name; nor did he ever forget-even amid the fascinations of social or public life that by character and act, if not by word, he was called to be a witness for Christ. He was faithful in the least of his Christian duties. In the closet and in the class, as well as in the more public services of the sanctuary, he obtained the spiritual nutriment which gave robustness to his Christian character. To the merely formal professor he could truly say, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of."

Bellamy Storer, a Christian judge of Ohio, who illustrates the beauty and dignity of Christian virtues in union with high legal attainments and civic honors, and who was an intimate friend, at a meeting of the bar of Cincinnati, after the death of Judge McLean, paid the following tribute to his memory: -

A beautiful remark is made by one of the ancients, that we never begin to live until we are dead; and the remark applies with great propriety on the present occasion. For the lamented judge, whose memory we all cherish with so much sincerity, has now received his due; his many virtues are now justly estimated. The integrity of his character, the purity of his principles, the justice of his decisions, his deliberate judgment, all these are now not weighed in the balances of prejudice; but they are valued by their real worth; and when such a man dies, his memory ought to be cherished.

Forty-four years ago in June next, he admitted me to the practice of this bar. He had just taken his seat as Judge of the Supreme Court of this State, and the moment he became acquainted with me he gave me the hand of friendship. To a young man that was an exceedingly cherished token of regard. But, more than that, he gave me his counsel, and although he lived not in our immediate neighborhood, yet I saw him often and knew him well. When, however, he sat as a judge of the United States, I was brought into intimate communion with him. He became my neighbor, and during the years that have followed we have had many delightful interviews. I know his generous nature; I know in private life he was all we could look for as a model, and in public life he justified the highest expectations of the public. There was one feature of his character that was preeminently great: it was that he always preserved an equanimity of temper, - not as applied to his nervous temperament, but to his whole moral nature and all his intellectual powers; for he had so admirably composed them all, that each and every one had its influence upon the others, so that, like a well-tuned instrument, his character was always in harmony. And the great secret of this was, that he did not abide in the strength of his intellect, in his power or genius, but he felt as a magistrate below he was responsible to Him who was King above. He knew that all the authority which he could possibly exert was but an emanation from the powers above, and he always so regulated himself. In the discharge of his duties in the court of justice, he asked himself the question whether he was performing his duty to his God. And this, brethren of the bar, is the great secret of all success, - more especially upon the bench of justice. In the future time, although we may survive a few years, and may remember the prominent characteristics of that great man, yet this, in the history of the day, will stand out as a distinctive feature of his character, that he was a humble and sincere Christian.

The Supreme Court of the United States, and the judges who sat upon its bench in 1827, received a just tribute from Thomas S. Grimké, in a speech he delivered in the Senate of South Carolina, December 17, 1827. He says, -

It is emphatically a court of the whole people and of every State, of the Government of the Union and of the Government of every State. It is as independent of the President and Congress as of the Governor and Legislature of South Carolina. Its members are selected from different States, and its bar gathers within its bounds the talents and learning, the courage, virtue, and patriotism, of the East and the West, of the North and the South. . . . No one, indeed, can possibly read the judgments of this tribunal - equally beneficent and illustrious - and not be deeply impressed with its wisdom and learning, its moral courage and justice, its high sense of duty, its love of peace and order, its independence, dignity, and patriotism. I know not any body of men who are entitled to more enlightened admiration, more sincere gratitude, more profound respect for their talents, learning, virtues, and services. Theirs is indeed a parental guardianship, full of moral dignity and beauty, sustained by the energy of wisdom and adorned by the simplicity of justice and truth.

The brief sketches contained in this volume of some of the eminent men who have adorned the judicial history of the republic and shed such light on the profound and important science of jurisprudence, and who in their private character illustrated so nobly the Christian virtues, were prepared, as they did in the administration of justice and law, to practically believe and carry out that true and admirable exposition of law, as given by the venerable and learned Hooker, of Puritan memory. He says,-

"Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least feel her care, and the greatest are not exempt from her power. Both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in a different sort and name, yet all with one uniform consent admire her as the mother of their peace and joy."

In giving practical form to this sublime eulogy on law and its benignant power and results, the minds of many of the most eminent judges of the State and national Governments were illuminated, through prayer, with wisdom from heaven. They kneeled before the Infinite Judge of the Universe and humbly entreated that in the administration of earthly justice and law they might be inspired and guided of God. This fact is historic in the Christian lives of many American judges.

In the earlier history of the country, it was customary to open the colonial and State courts with prayer. South Carolina practised this Christian usage for many years in her judicial history, as did also the other Southern colonies and States, as well as those of New England. The practice is still maintained by some of the State courts.

The judicial system of the State of Ohio, first-born into the Union under the Christian ordinance of freedom of 1787, was inaugurated, the next year after the enactment of this organic law of the nation, with the solemn service of prayer. The following is a historical description of the scene: -

The first civil court ever held in the Northwest was that of the Court of Common Pleas of Washington county, at Marietta, September 2, 1788, by Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper, presiding justices. The court was opened with pomp. A procession was formed, the sheriff, with a drawn sword, in advance, followed by the citizens, officers of the garrison at Fort Harmer, the members of the bar, the Judges of the Supreme Court, the Governor, and a clergyman, with the Judges of the Common Pleas, in the order in which they are named. Arriving at the hall of the Campus Martius, the whole of the procession was counter-marched into it, and the judges, Putnam and Tupper, took their seats upon the bench. The audience was seated, and after a Divine benediction was invoked by the Rev. Dr. Cutler, the High Sheriff, Ebenezer Sprout, advanced to the door and proclaimed aloud, "Oyez ! Oyez! a court is opened for the administration of even-handed justice to the poor and the rich, to guilty and innocent, without respect of persons; none to be punished without a trial by their peers, and in pursuance of the laws and evidence in the case." Besides the crowds of emigrants and settlers, there were present at the ceremonies hundreds of Indians, who had their encampments in the vicinity for the purpose of entering into a treaty with the Federal Government.

The following opinions of judges in the courts of several of the largest and most influential States of the Union, affirming the great historic fact that the life and character of the civil institutions of the United States, as well as the whole fabric of our freedom and civilization, flow from the Christian religion, will present lucid and grateful views on this subject. They form a rich part of the Christian history of our civil governments, and are eminently worthy to be recorded and studied.

In 1824, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reviewed the subject most thoroughly and extensively, and the decision of the court will repay a thoughtful perusal. The trial was on an indictment for blasphemy, founded on an act of Assembly passed in 1700. The decision may be found in Sergeant & Rawle's Reports, page 394, and is as follows: -

The court said that, even if Christianity was not part of the law of the land, it is the popular religion of the country, an insult on which would be indictable as directly tending to disturb the public peace. Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania; not Christianity founded on particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established Church, and tithes, and spiritual courts; but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men. The first legislative act in the colony was the recognition of the Christian religion, and the establishment of liberty of conscience. It is called "the Great Law," and is as follows: -

"Whereas the glory of Almighty God and the good of mankind is the reason and end of government, and therefore government itself is a venerable ordinance of God, and forasmuch as it is principally devised and intended by the Proprietary and Governor and freemen of Pennsylvania and territories thereunto belonging, to make and establish such laws as shall best preserve true Christian and civil liberty, in opposition to all unchristian, licentious, and unjust practices, whereby God may have his due, Cæsar his due, and the people their due;

"Resolved, therefore, that all persons living in this Province, who confess and acknowledge the one Almighty and Eternal God to be the Creator, upholder, and ruler of the world, and who hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, shall in no wise be molested," &c.

The court, after quoting the whole law at length, further says, -

Thus this wise legislature framed this great body of laws for a Christian country and a Christian people. Infidelity was then rare, and no infidels were among the first colonists. They fled from religious intolerance to a country where all were allowed to worship according to their own understanding. Every one had the right of adopting for himself whatever opinion appeared to be the most rational concerning all matters of religious belief; thus securing by law this inestimable freedom of conscience, one of the highest privileges and greatest interests of the human race. Thus is the Christianity of the common law incorporated into the great law of Pennsylvania; and thus is it irrefragably proved that the laws and institutions of this State are built on the foundation of reverence for Christianity. On this the Constitution of the United States has made no alteration, nor in the great body of the laws, which was an incorporation of the common-law doctrine of Christianity, as suited to the condition of the colony, and without which no free government can long exist. Under the Constitution penalties against cursing and swearing have been enacted. If Christianity was abolished, all false oaths, all tests by oath in common form by the book, would cease to be indictable as perjury. The indictment must state the oath to be on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God.

After reviewing a series of decisions made in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, the court continues thus: - "It has long been firmly settled that blasphemy against the Deity generally, or an attack on the Christian religion indirectly, for the purpose of exposing its doctrines to ridicule and contempt, is indictable and punishable as a temporal offence. The principles and actual decisions are that the publications, whether written or oral, must be malicious, and designed for that end and purpose." After stating that the law gave free permission for the serious and conscientious discussion of all theological and religious topics, the court said, -

A malicious and mischievous intention is, in such a case, the broad boundary between right and wrong, and that it is to be collected from the offensive levity, scurrilous and opprobrious language, and other circumstances, whether the act of the party was malicious; and, since the law has no means of distinguishing between different degrees of evil tendency, if the matter published contains any such evil tendency it is a public wrong. An offence against the public peace may consist either of an actual breach of the peace, or doing that which tends to provoke and excite others to do it. Within the latter description fall all acts and all attempts to produce disorder, by written, printed, or oral communications for the purpose of generally weakening those religious and moral restraints without the aid of which mere legislative provisions would prove ineffectual.

No society can tolerate a wilful and despiteful attempt to subvert its religion any more than it would to break down its laws, - a general, malicious, and deliberate attempt to overthrow Christianity, general Christianity. This is the line of indication where crime commences, and the offences become the subject of penal visitation. The species of offence may be classed under the following heads: -

1. Denying the Being and Providence of God. 2. Contumelious reproaches of Jesus Christ; profane and malevolent scoffing of the Scriptures, or exposing any part of them to contempt and ridicule. 3. Certain immoralities tending to subvert all religion and morality, which are the foundations of all governments. Without these restraints no free governments could long exist. It is liberty run mad to declaim against the punishment of these offences, or to assert that their punishment is hostile to the spirit and genius of our Government. They are far from being the friends to liberty who support this doctrine; and the promulgation of such opinions, and the general receipt of them among the people, would be the sure forerunner of anarchy, and, finally, of despotism. No free government now exists in the world unless where Christianity is acknowledged and is the religion of the country.

Christianity is part of the common law of this State. It is not proclaimed by the commanding voice of any human superior, but ex- pressed in the calm and mild accents of customary law. Its foundations are broad and strong and deep; they are laid in the authority, the interest, the affections of the people. Waiving all questions of hereafter, it is the purest system of morality, the firmest auxiliary and only stable support of all human laws. It is impossible to administer the laws without taking the religion which the defendant in error has scoffed at, that Scripture which he has reviled, as their basis; to lay aside these is at least to weaken the confidence in human veracity, so essential to the purposes of society, and without which no question of property could be decided, and no criminal brought to justice; an oath in the common form on a discredited book would be a most idle ceremony. No preference is given by law to any particular religious persuasion. Protection is given to all by our laws. It is only the malicious reviler of Christianity who is punished.

While our own free Constitution secures liberty of conscience and freedom of religious worship to all, it is not necessary to maintain that any man should have the right publicly to vilify the religion of his neighbors and of the country. These two privileges are directly opposed. It is an open, public vilification of the religion of the country that is punished, not to force conscience by punishment, but to preserve the peace of the country by an outward respect to the religion of the country, and not as a restraint upon the liberty of conscience; but licentiousness, endangering the public peace, when tending to corrupt society, is considered as a breach of the peace, and punishable by indictment. Every immoral act is not indictable; but when it is destructive of morality generally it is, because it weakens the bonds by which society is held together, and government is nothing more than public order.

This is the Christianity which is the law of our land; and (continues the court) I do not think it will be an invasion of any man's right of private judgment, or of the most extended privilege of propagating his sentiments with regard to religion in the manner which he thinks most conclusive. If, from a regard to decency and the good order of society, profane swearing, breach of the Sabbath, and blasphemy, are punishable by civil magistrates, these are not punished as sins or offences against God, but crimes injurious to, and having a malignant influence on, society; for it is certain that by these practices no one pretends to prove any supposed truths, detect any supposed error, or advance any sentiment whatever.

Christianity presents to all men one Supreme Being, the only object of worship, unchangeable, infinite, omniscient, all-wise, all-good, all-powerful, all-merciful, the God of all, and the Father of all. It develops one complete system of duties, fit for all times and all stations, - for the monarch on the throne and the peasant in the cottage. It brings all men to the same level, and measures all by the same standard. It humbles in the dust the proud and the arrogant; it gives no heed to the glory of princes, or conquerors, or nobles. It exalts the lowly virtues, the love of peace, charity, humility, forgiveness, resignation, patience, purity, holiness. It teaches a moral and final accountability for every action. It proposes and sanctions finite precepts of no earthly reach, but such as are infinite, unchangeable, and eternal. Its rewards are the promises of immortal bliss; its punishments, a fearful and overwhelming retribution. It excuses no compromises of principles, and no paltering with sin. It acknowledges no sacrifice but of a broken and contrite spirit; no pardon but by repentance of heart and amendment of life. In its view this life is but the entrance upon existence, - a transitory state of probation and trial, and the grave is the portal to that better world, where "God shall wipe all tears from our eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain."

To minds engrossed with such thoughts, and fixed in such a belief, what could there be seducing or satisfying in the things of this world? It would be impossible for them, for a moment, to put in competition the affairs of time with the dazzling splendors and awful judgments of eternity.

The Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Judge Parsons presiding, gave a similar decision in favor of Christianity. It was a case in which a Christian Church in Falmouth had occasion to vindicate the Third Article of the Constitution of the State, respecting religion and its support. Judge Parsons, who delivered the opinion of the court, was regarded by men of legal learning as the equal of Hale, Holt, Mansfield, Marshall, Kent, and Story. His decision, so luminous and full, in reference to Christianity and its relations to civil government, is, therefore, of the highest authority. The article of the Constitution of Massachusetts, on which the decision is based, is as follows: -

ART. 3. As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend on piety, religion, and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused throughout the community but by the institution of a public worship of God, and of public institutions in piety, religion, and morality; therefore, to promote their happiness, and to secure the good order and preservation of their Government, the people of this Commonwealth have a right to invest their Legislature with power to authorize and require, and the Legislature shall from time to time authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institutions of the public worship of God, and for the support or maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.

The decision made by Judge Parsons is as follows: -

The object of a free government is the promotion and security of its citizens. These effects cannot be produced but by the knowledge and practice of our moral duties, which comprehend all the social and civil obligations of man to man, and the citizen to the state. If the civil magistrate in any state could procure by his regulations an uniform practice of these duties, the Government of that state would be perfect.

To obtain that perfection, it is not enough for the magistrate to define the rights of the several citizens, as they are related to life, liberty, property, and reputation, and to punish those by whom they may be invaded. Wise laws, made to this end, and faithfully executed, may leave the people strangers to many of the enjoyments of civil and social life, without which their happiness will be extremely imperfect. Human laws cannot oblige to the performance of the duties of imperfect obligation; as the duties of charity and hospitality, benevolence, and good neighborhood; as the duties resulting from the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, of man to man as children of a common parent; and of real patriotism, by influencing every citizen to love his country and to obey all its laws. These are moral duties, flowing from the disposition of the heart, and not subject to the control of human legislation.

Neither can the laws prevent by temporal punishment secret offences committed without witness, to gratify malice, revenge, or any other passion, by assailing the most important and most estimable rights of others. For human tribunals cannot proceed against any crimes unless ascertained by evidence; and they are destitute of all power to prevent the commission of offences, unless by the feeble examples exhibited in the punishment of those who may be detected.

Civil government, therefore, availing itself only of its own powers, is extremely defective; and unless it could derive assistance from some superior power, whose laws extend to the temper and disposition of the human heart, and before whom no offence is secret, wretched indeed would be the state of man under a civil constitution of any form.

This most manifest truth has been felt by legislators in all ages; and as man is born not only a social but a religious being, so in the pagan world, false and absurd systems of religion were adopted and patronized by the magistrates, to remedy the defects necessarily existing in a government merely civil.

On these principles, tested by the experience of mankind and by the reflections of reason, the people of Massachusetts, in the frame of their Government, adopted and patronized a religion which, by its benign and energetic influences, might co-operate with human institutions, to promote and secure the happiness of the citizens, so far as might be consistent with the imperfections of man.

In selecting a religion, the people were not exposed to the hazard of choosing a false and defective religious system. Christianity had long been promulgated, its pretensions and excellencies well known, and its Divine authority admitted. This religion was found to rest on the basis of immortal truth; to contain a system of morals adapted to man in all possible ranks and conditions, situations and circumstances, by conforming to which he would be ameliorated and improved in all the relations of human life; and to furnish the most efficacious sanctions, by bringing to light a future state of retribution. And this religion, as understood by Protestants, tending by its effects to make every man submitting to its influences a better husband, parent, child, neighbor, citizen, and magistrate, was, by the people, established as a fundamental and essential part of their Constitution.

The manner in which this establishment was made is liberal, and consistent with the rights of conscience on religious subjects. As religious opinions, and the time and manner of expressing the homage due to the Governor of the universe, are points depending on the sincerity and belief of each individual, and do not concern the public interest, care is taken in the second article of the Declaration of Rights to guard these points from the interference of the civil magistrate; and no man can be hurt, molested, or restrained in his person, liberty, or estate for worshipping God in the manner and season most agree able to the dictates of his own conscience, or for his religious profession or sentiment, provided he does not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship; in which case he is punished, not for his religious opinions or worship, but because he interrupts others in the enjoyment of the rights he claims for himself, or because he has broken the public peace.

Having secured liberty of conscience on the subject of religious opinion and worship for every man, whether Protestant or Catholic, Jew, Mohammedan, or Pagan, the Constitution then provides for the public teaching of the precepts and maxims of the religion of Protestant Christians to all the people. And for this purpose it is made the right and duty of all corporate religious societies to elect and support a public Protestant teacher of piety, religion, and morality; and the election and support of the teacher depend exclusively on the will of a majority of each society incorporated for those purposes. As public instruction requires persons who may be taught, every citizen may be enjoined to attend on some one of those teachers, at times and seasons stated by law, if there be any on whose instructions he can conscientiously attend.

In the election and support of a teacher, every member of the corporation is bound by the will of the majority; but as the great object of this provision was to secure the election and support of public Protestant teachers by corporate societies, and some members of any corporation might be of a sect or denomination of Protestant Christians different from the majority of the members, and might choose to unite with other Protestant Christians of their own sect or denomination in maintaining a public teacher, who by law was entitled to support, and on whose instruction they usually attended, indulgence was granted, that persons thus situated might have the money they contributed to the support of public worship, and of the public teachers aforesaid, appropriated to the support of the teacher on whose instructions they should attend.

Several objections have at times been made to this establishment, which may be reduced to three: that when a man disapproves of any religion, or of any supposed doctrine of any religion, to compel him by law to contribute money for public instruction in such religion, or doctrine, is an infraction of his liberty of conscience; that to compel a man to pay for public religious instructions on which he does not attend, and from which he can, therefore, derive no benefit, is unreasonable and intolerant; and that it is antichristian for any state to avail itself of the precepts and maxims of Christianity to support civil government, because the founder of it has declared that his kingdom is not of this world.

These objections go to the authority of the people to make this Constitution, which is not proper nor competent for us to bring into question. And although we are not able, and have no inclination, to assume the character of theologians, yet it may not be improper to make a few short observations to defend our Constitution from the charges of persecution, intolerance, and impiety.

When it is remembered that no man is compellable to attend on any religious instruction which he conscientiously disapproves, and that he is absolutely protected in the most perfect freedom of conscience in his religious opinions and worship, the first objection seems to mistake a man's conscience for his money, and to deny the State a right of levying and of appropriating the money of the citizens, at the will of the legislature, in which they are all represented. But as every citizen derives the security of his property and the fruits of his industry from the power of the State, so, as the price of his protection, he is bound to contribute, in common with his fellow-citizens, for the public use, so much of his property and for such public uses as the State shall direct. And if any individual can lawfully withhold his contribution because he dislikes the appropriation, the authority of the State to levy taxes would be annihilated; and without money it would soon cease to have any authority. But all moneys raised and appropriated for public uses by any corporation, pursuant to powers derived from the State, are raised and appropriated substantially by the authority of the State. And the people in their Constitution, instead of devolving the support of public teachers on the corporations by whom they should be elected, might have directed their support to be defrayed out of the public treasury, to be reimbursed by the levying and collection of State taxes. And against this mode of support the objection of an individual disapproving of the object of the public taxes would have the same weight it can have against the mode of public support through the medium of corporate taxation. In either case, it can have no weight to maintain a charge of persecution for conscience' sake. The great error lies in not distinguishing between liberty of conscience in religious opinions and worship and the right of appropriating money by the State. The former is an unalienable right, the latter is surrendered to the State as the price of protection.

The second objection is that it is intolerant to compel a man to pay for religious instruction from which, as he does not hear it, he can derive no benefit. This objection is founded wholly in mistake. The object of public religious instruction is to teach and to enforce by suitable arguments the practice of a system of correct morals among the people, and to form and cultivate reasonable and just habits and manners, by which every man's person and property are protected from outrage and his personal and social enjoyments promoted and multiplied. From these effects every man derives the most important benefits, and, whether he be or be not an auditor of any public teacher, he receives more solid and permanent advantages from this public instruction than the administration of justice in courts of law can give him. The like objection may be made by any man to the support of public schools if he have no family who attend; and any man who has no lawsuit may object to the support of judges and jurors on the same ground; when if there were no courts of law he would unfortunately find that causes for lawsuits would sufficiently abound.

The last objection is founded upon the supposed antichristian conduct of the State in availing itself of the precepts and maxims of Christianity for the purposes of a more excellent civil government. It is admitted that the Founder of this religion did not intend to erect a temporal dominion, agreeably to the prejudices of his countrymen, but to reign in the hearts of men by subduing their irregular appetites and propensities, and by moulding their passions to the noblest purposes. And it is one great excellence of his religion, that, not pretending to worldly pomp and power, it is calculated and accommodated to ameliorate the conduct and condition of man under any form of civil government.

The objection goes further, and complains that Christianity is not left for its promulgation and support to the means designed by its author, who requires not the assistance of man to effect his purposes and intentions. Our Constitution certainly provides for the punishment of many breaches of the laws of Christianity; not for the purpose of propping up the Christian religion, but because those breaches are offences against the laws of the State; and it is a civil as well as religious duty of the magistrate not to bear the sword in vain. But there are many precepts of Christianity of which the violation cannot be punished by human laws; and as the obedience to them is beneficial to civil society, the State has wisely taken care that they should be taught and also enforced by explaining their moral and religious sanctions, as they cannot be enforced by temporal punishments. And from the genius and temper of this religion, and from the benevolent character of its Author, we must conclude that it is his intention that man should be benefited by it in his civil and political relations, as well as in his individual capacity. And it remains for the objector to prove that the patronage of Christianity by the civil magistrate, induced by the tendency of its precepts to form good citizens, is not one of the means by which the knowledge of its doctrines was intended to be disseminated and preserved among the human race.

The last branch of the objection rests on the very correct position that the faith and precepts of the Christian religion are so interwoven that they must be taught together; whence it is inferred that the State, by enjoining instruction in its precepts, interferes with its doctrines, and assumes a power not intrusted to any human authority.

If the State claimed the absurd power of directing or controlling the faith of the citizens, there might be some ground for the objection. But no such power is claimed. The authority derived from the Constitution extends no further than to submit to the understandings of the people the evidence of truths deemed of public utility, leaving the weight of the evidence and the tendency of those truths to the conscience of every man.

Indeed, this objection must come from a willing objector; for it extends in its consequences to prohibit the State from providing for public instruction in many branches of useful knowledge which naturally tend to defeat the arguments of infidelity, to illustrate the doctrines of the Christian religion, and to confirm the faith of its professors.

As Christianity has the promise not only of this but of a future life, it cannot be denied that public instruction in piety, religion, and morality by Protestant teachers may have a beneficial effect beyond the present state of existence. And the people are to be applauded, as well for their benevolence as for their wisdom, that in selecting a religion whose precepts and sanctions might supply the defects in civil government, necessarily limited in its power, and supported only by temporal penalties, they adopted a religion founded in truth; which in its tendency will protect our property here, and may secure to us an inheritance in another and a better country.

In the Supreme Court of New York in 1811, in the case of the people against Ruggles for blasphemy, the subject was fully and ably discussed by that eminent and upright judge, Chief-Justice Kent. In delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, Judge Kent declared that

The authorities show that blasphemy against God, and contumelious reproaches and profane ridicule of Christ or the Holy Scriptures, which are equally treated as blasphemy, are offences punishable at common law, whether uttered by words or writings. The consequences may be less extensively pernicious in the one case than in the other; but in both instances the reviling is still an offence, because it tends to corrupt the morals of the people and to destroy good order. Such offences have always been considered independent of any religious establishment or the right of the Church. There is nothing in our manners and institutions which has prevented the application or the necessity of this point of common law. We stand equally in need now as formerly of all that moral discipline and of those principles of virtue which help to bind society together. The people of this State, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity as the rule of their faith and practice; and to scandalize the Author of these doctrines is not only in a religious point of view extremely impious, but even in respect to the obligations due to society is a gross violation of decency and good order. Nothing could be more offensive to the virtuous part of the community, or more injurious to the tender morals of the young, than to declare such profanity lawful. It would go to confound all distinction between things sacred and profane; for, to use the words of one of the greatest oracles of human wisdom, "profane scoffing doth by little and little deface the reverence of religion," and who adds, in another place, "two principal causes have I ever known of atheism, curious controversies and profane scoffing." The very idea of jurisprudence, with the ancient lawgivers and philosophers, embraced the religion of the country.

Though the Constitution has discarded religious establishments, it does not forbid judicial cognizance of those offences against religion and morality which have no reference to any such establishment or to any particular form of government, but are punishable, because they strike at the root of moral obligation and weaken the security of the social ties. The legislative exposition of the Constitution is conformable to this view of it. Christianity in its enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is not unknown to our law. The Statute for preventing immorality ( Laws, Vol. I. p. 224) consecrates the first day of the week as holy time, and considers the violation of it immoral. The Act concerning Oaths ( Laws, Vol. I. p. 405) recognizes the common-law mode of administering an oath, "by laying the hand on and kissing the Gospels." Surely, then, we are bound to conclude that wicked and malicious words, writings, and actions which go to vilify those Gospels continue, as at common law, to be an offence against the public peace and safety. They are inconsistent with the reverence due to the administration of an oath, and, among other evil consequences, they tend to lessen in the public mind its religious sanction.

This decision was concurred in by all the associate judges on the bench with Chief-Justice Kent.

In 1821, a Convention to revise the Constitution of New York met in Albany, and this decision of the Supreme Court of the State was unsparingly denounced by General Root, who said "he wished for freedom of conscience, and that if judges undertake to support religion by the arm of the law it will be brought into abhorrence and contempt."

Chancellor James Kent, the eminent son of the eminent jurist who gave this decision, in defending it, said, -

Such blasphemy was an outrage on public decorum, and if sanctioned by our tribunals would shock the moral sense of the country and degrade our character as a Christian people. The authors of our Constitution never meant to extirpate Christianity, more than they meant to extirpate common decency. It is in a degree recognized by the statutes for the observance of the Lord's day, and for the mode of administering oaths. The court never intended to interfere with any religious creeds or sects, or with religious discussions. They meant to preserve, so far as it came within their cognizance, the morals of the country, which rested on Christianity as the foundation. They meant to apply the principles of common law against blasphemy, which they did not believe the Constitution ever meant to abolish. ARE WE NOT A CHRISTIAN PEOPLE? Do not ninety-nine hundredths of our fellow-citizens hold the general truths of the Bible to be dear and sacred? To attack them with ribaldry and malice, in the presence of these very believers, must and ought to be a serious public offence. It disturbs, and annoys, and offends, and shocks, and corrupts the public taste. The common law, as applied to correct such profanity, is the application of common reason and natural justice to the security of the peace and good order of society.

Mr. Tompkins, who was President of the Convention and Vice-President of the United States, said, -

The court had never undertaken to uphold by the authority of law any particular sect, but they had interposed, and rightfully interposed, as the guardians of the public morals, to suppress those outrages on public opinion and public feeling which would otherwise reduce the community to a state of barbarism, corrupt its purity, and debase the mind. He was not on the bench at the time when the decision alluded to took place, but he fully accorded in the opinions that were advanced, and he could not hear the calumnies that had gone forth against the judiciary on that subject, without regret and reprobation. No man of generous mind, no man who regarded public sentiment, or that delicacy of feeling that lies at the foundation of moral purity, could defend such an outrage on public morals, or say that the decision was unmerited or unjust.

Chancellor Kent never intended to declare Christianity the legal religion of the State, because that would be considering Christianity as the established religion of the State, and making it a civil or political institution. The Constitution had declared that there was to be "no discrimination or preference in religious profession or worship." But Christianity was, in fact, the religion of the people of this State; and that fact was the principle of the decision. The Christian religion was the foundation of all belief and expectation of a future state, and the source and security of moral obligation. To blaspheme the Author of that religion, and to defame it with wantonness and malice, was an offence against public morals, and injured the social ties and moral sense of the country; and in that view it was indictable.

The legislature had repeatedly recognized the Christian religion, not as the religion of the country established by law, but as being in fact the actual religion of the people of this State. The statute directing the administration of an oath referred to the Bible as a sanction to it, and on the ground that the Bible was a volume of Divine inspiration, and the oracle of the most affecting truths that could command the assent or awaken the fears or exercise the hopes of mankind. So the act for the religious observance of the Lord's day equally recognizes the universal belief in Christianity, and the moral obligation and eminent utility of its precepts. In this sense, we may consider the duties and injunctions of the Christian religion as interwoven with the law of the land, and as part and parcel of the common law.

Chief-Justice Spencer, also an eminent jurist, said he was in favor of striking out the words "no particular religion shall ever be declared or adjudged to be the law of the land."

I am opposed to this provision in the Constitution, as it would go to prevent punishment for blasphemy, and thereby endanger the morals of the community. By particular religion he understood it was the Christian religion, distinct from Judaism, Mohammedanism, &c., without regard to any particular sect of the Christian religion. Are we prepared to send forth to the people a provision in our Constitution that shall suffer any man to blaspheme, in the most malicious manner, his God and the religion of the Redeemer of the world? If this provision be sanctioned, it will put it out of the power of any court to punish for the most infamous blasphemy.

Rufus King, a statesman of ripe attainments, and possessing a national reputation, on the same point said, -

I hesitate in agreeing to the legal doctrine now recommended to our acceptance, and which seems to deny to the Christian religion the acknowledgment, protection, and authority to which I have believed it to be by law entitled. The laws of every nation in Christendom have for ages acknowledged the Christian religion, and in virtue of the laws and statutes of England the Christian religion for many centuries has been acknowledged and established in that nation.

While all mankind are by our Constitution tolerated, and free to enjoy religious profession and worship within this State, yet the religious professions of the Pagan, the Mohammedan, and the Christian are not, in the eye of the law, of equal truth and excellence. According to the Christian system, men pass into a future state of existence when the deeds of their life become the subjects of rewards and punishments. The moral law rests upon the truth of this doctrine, without which it has no sufficient sanction. Our laws constantly refer to this revelation, and, by the oath which they prescribe, we appeal to the Supreme Being so to deal with us hereafter as we observe the obligations of our oaths.

The pagan world were and are without the mighty influence of this principle, which is proclaimed in the Christian system; their morals were destitute of its powerful sanction, while their oaths neither awakened the hopes nor the fears which a belief in Christianity inspires.

While the Constitution tolerates the religious professions and worship of all men, it does more in behalf of the religion of the gospel, and by acknowledging, and in a certain sense incorporating its truths into the laws of the land, we are restrained from adopting the proposed amendment whereby the Christian religion may lose that security which every other Christian nation is anxious to afford it.

In 1861, the Supreme Court of New York sustained and repeated the ancient decisions of the courts of that and other States in favor of Christianity.

DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT.

February Term, 1861, - Justices Clarke, Sutherland, and Allen.

In the case of Gustav Lindenmuller, Plaintiff in Error, vs. The People, Defendants in Error, convicted under the act of April, 1860, of giving dramatic representations on Sunday, the opinion of the court was given May 29, 1861. As the test case, and as involving important principles, the following abstract of the views of the court will command deserved attention and general approbation. The full opinion is very elaborate and voluminous. Judge Allen is understood to be its author: -

Christianity is part of the common law of this State, in the qualified sense that it is entitled to respect and protection as the acknowledged religion of the people. The right of unconstrained religious belief, and the proper expression of it, is guaranteed to all; but it must be exercised with strict regard to the equal rights of others; and when belief or unbelief leads to acts which interfere with the rights of conscience of those who represent the religion of the country as established, - not by law, but by immemorial consent and usage, their acts may be restrained by legislation. If Christianity were established by law, it would be a civil or political institution, which it is not. It is, in fact, the religion of the people, and ever has been, and has been so recognized from the first by Constitutional Conventions, legislatures, and courts of justice.

It is not disputed that Christianity is a part of the common law of England. By the Constitution of 1777, the common law as it was then in force, subject to legislative changes, and with specified excерtions, was, and ever has been, a part of the law of this State. The claim that the constitutional guarantees of religious liberty are inconsistent with the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the people, is repelled by the known character and history of the framers of the Constitution. They would not sacrifice their freedom or their religion. They and their forefathers were the friends and champions of both.

In the several Constitutions of 1777, 1821, and 1846, and in the proceedings of the Constitutional Conventions, there are abundant provisions and recitals very clearly recognizing some of the fundamental principles of the Christian religion, embodying the common faith of the community with its ministers and ordinances, existing without the aid of or political connection with the State, but as intimately connected with a good government, and the only sure basis of sound morals. These conventions also opened their meetings with prayer, observed the Christian Sabbath, and excepted that day from the time allowed to the Governor for returning bills to the legislature.

The recognition of different denominations of Christians does not detract from the force of the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the people; but it was intended to prevent the unnatural connection between Church and State. It was believed that Christianity would be purer and more prosperous by leaving the individual conscience free and untrammelled; and "wisdom is justified of her children" in the experiment; which could hardly be said if blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking, and kindred vices were protected by the Constitution. They prohibited a Church establishment, and left every man free to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, or not to worship, as he pleases. But they did not suppose they had abolished the Sabbath as a day of rest for all, and of Christian worship for those who were disposed to engage in it, or deprived themselves of the power to protect religious worshippers from unseemly interruptions. Compulsory worship is prohibited; and religious opinion is beyond the reach of law; but this liberty of conscience is entirely consistent with the existence in fact of the Christian religion, entitled to and enjoying the protection of the law. The public peace and safety are greatly dependent upon the protection of the religion of the country, and the preventing and punishing of offences against it and acts subversive of it. The claim of the defence, carried to its necessary sequence, is that the Bible and religion with all its ordinances, including the Sabbath, are as effectually abolished as they were in the Revolution of France, and so effectually abolished that duties may not be enforced as duties to the State, because they have been heretofore associated with acts of religious worship or connected with religious duties.

The opinion proceeds to cite the decisions in our own and other State courts in support of the views expressed, and shows that in the Constitutional Convention of 1821 the question was intelligently discussed and settled by our most eminent jurists, so as to make the interpretation of Chancellor Kent, in the case of The People vs. Ruggles, that the Christian religion was the law of the land, in the sense that it was preferred over all other religions, and entitled to the recognition and protection of the temporal courts as the common law of the State, the fixed meaning of the Constitution. The Christian Sabbath, as one of the institutions of that religion, may be protected from desecration by such laws as the legislature may deem necessary to secure to the community the privilege of undisturbed worship, and to the day itself that outward respect and observance which may be deemed essential to the peace and good order of society; and this not as a duty to God, but as a duty to society and to the State. Upon this ground the law in question could be sustained; for the legislature are the sole judges of the acts to be prohibited with a view to the public peace, and as obstructing religious worship or bringing into contempt the religious institutions of the people.

CIVIL BASIS OF SUNDAY LAWS.

As a civil and political institution, the establishment and regulation of a Sabbath is within the just power of the civil Government. Older than our Government, the framers of the Constitution did not abolish, alter, or weaken its sanction, but recognized it, as they might otherwise have established it. It is a law of our nature that one day in seven should be observed as a time of relaxation, and experience proves a day of weekly rest to be "of admirable service to a State, considered merely as a civil institution." (4 Bl. Com. 63.) Physical laws accord with the Decalogue. All interests require national uniformity in the day observed, and that its observance should be so far compulsory as to protect those who desire and are entitled to the day.

As a civil institution the sanction of the day is at the option of the legislature; but it is fit that the Christian Sabbath should be observed by a Christian people, and it does not detract from the moral or legal sanction of a statute that it conforms to the law of God, as recognized by the great majority of the people. Existing here by common law, all that the legislature attempts to do is to regulate its observance. The common law recognizes the day; contracts, land-redemption, &c., maturing on Sunday, must be performed on Saturday or Monday. Judicial acts on the Sabbath are mostly illegal. Work done on Sunday cannot be recovered for, &c.

The Christian Sabbath is, then, one of the civil institutions of the State, to which the business and duties of life are by the common law made to conform and adapt themselves. Nor is it a violation of the rights of conscience of any that the Sabbath of the people, immemorially enjoyed, sanctioned by common law, and recognized in the Constitution, should be respected and protected by the law-making power.

The existence of the Sabbath as a civil institution being conceded, as it must be, the right of the legislature to control and regulate it and its observance is a necessary sequence. Precedents are found in the statutes of every Government really or nominally Christian, from the period of Athelstan to the present day. Even the "Book of Sports" of James I., to which our attention has been called, prohibited, as unlawful, certain games and sports on Sunday, "interludes" included: so that Lindenmuller's theatre would have been proscribed even by the Royal "Book of Sports."

Nearly all the States of the Union have passed laws against Sabbath-breaking, and prohibiting secular pursuits on that day; and in none have they been held repugnant to the Constitution, with the exception of California; while in most States the legislature has been upheld by the courts and sustained by well-reasoned opinions. As the Sabbath is older than the Government, and has been legislated upon by colonial and early State authorities, if there were any doubt about the meaning of the Constitution securing freedom in religion, the cotemporaneous and continued acts of the legislature under it would be very good evidence of the intent of its framers, and of the people who adopted it as their fundamental law. From 1788 downward, various statutes have been in force to prevent Sabbath-desecration, and prohibiting acts upon that day which would have been lawful on other days. Early in the history of the State Government, the objections made to the act of 1860 were taken before the Council of Revision to an act which undertook to regulate Sabbath-observance. The Council overruled the objections, and held them not well taken. The act now complained of compels no religious observance, and offences against it are punishable not as sins against God, but as injurious to society. It rests upon the same foundation as a multitude of other statutes, such as those against gambling, lotteries, horse-racing, &c., - laws which do restrain the citizen and deprive him of some of his rights; but the legislature have the right to prohibit acts injurious to the public, subversive of the Government, and which tend to the destruction of the morals of the people and to disturb the peace and good order of society. It is exclusively for the legislature to determine what acts should be prohibited as dangerous to the community. Give every one what are claimed as natural rights, and the list of mala prohibita of every civilized state would disappear, and civil offences would be confined to those acts which are mala in se; and a man may go naked through the streets, establish houses of prostitution, and keep a faro-table on every street-corner. This would be repugnant to every idea of a civilized government. It is the right of the citizen to be protected from offences against decency, and against acts which tend to corrupt the morals and debase the moral sense of the community. It is the right of the citizen that the Sabbath, as a civil institution, should be kept in a way not inconsistent with its purpose and the necessity out of which it grew as a day of rest, rather than as a day of riot and disorder, which would be to overthrow it and render it a curse rather than a blessing.

But it is urged that it is the right of the citizen to regard the Sabbath as a day of innocent recreation and amusement. Who, then, is to judge and decide what amusements and pastimes are innocent, as having no direct or indirect baneful influence upon the community, - as not in any way disturbing the peace and quiet of the public, - as not interfering with the equally sacred rights of conscience of others? May not the legislature, like James I. cited to us as a precedent, declare what recreations are lawful and what are not lawful, as tending to a breach of the peace or a corruption of the morals of the people? That is not innocent which may operate injuriously upon the morals of old or young, which tends to interrupt the quiet worship of the Sabbath, and which grievously offends the moral sense of the community, and thus tends to a breach of the peace. It may well be that the legislature thought that a Sunday theatre, with its drinking-saloons and its usual inducements to licentiousness and other kindred vices, was not consisent with the peace, good order, and safety of the city. They might well be of the opinion that such a place would be "a nursery of vice, a school of preparation to qualify young men for the gallows and young women for the brothel." But, whatever the reason may have been, it was a matter within the legislative discretion and power, and their will must stand as the reason of the law .

We could not, if we would, declare that innocent which they have adjudged baneful and have so prohibited. The act, in substance, declares a Sunday theatre to be a nuisance, and deals with it as such. The Constitution provides for this case, by declaring that the liberty of conscience secured by it "shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the State." The legislature place Sunday theatres in this category, and they are the sole judges. The act is clearly constitutional as dealing with and having respect to the Sabbath as a civil and political institution, and not affecting to interfere with religious belief of worship, faith or practice.

It was conceded upon the argument that the legislature could entirely prohibit theatrical exhibitions. This, I think, yields the whole argument; for, as the whole includes all its parts, the power of total suppression includes the power of regulation and partial suppression.

The conviction was right, and the judgment must be affirmed.

As the solemnity of an oath and its administration more properly belongs to the judges of courts than to any other class of civil officers, we insert in this place the form of an oath prescribed by an act of Congress: -

CHAP. CXXVIII. - An Act to prescribe an Oath of Office, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter every person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the Government of the United States, either in the civil, military, or naval departments of the public service, excepting the President of the United States, shall, before entering upon the duties of such office, and before being entitled to any of the salary or other emoluments thereof, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation: - "I, A B, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended Government, authority, power, or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God;" which said oath, so taken and signed, shall be preserved among the files of the court, House of Congress, or department to which the said office may appertain. And any person who shall falsely take the said oath shall be guilty of perjury, and, on conviction, in addition to the penalties now prescribed for that offence, shall be deprived of his office, and rendered incapable forever after of holding any office or place under the United States.

Approved, July 2, 1862.