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themselves have a half unavowed 425 conviction that they cannot subsist forever as sects, if unsupported by the civil authority. They are free, but do not feel safe in the United States. They know the real church is catholic, and that they themselves are none of them catholic. The most daring among them even pretends to be no more than a "branch" of the catholic church. They know that only the catholic church can withstand the pressure of events and survive the shocks of time, and hence everywhere their movements to get rid of their sectarianism and to gain a catholic character. They hold conventions of delegates from the whole sectarian world, form "unions," "alliances," and "associations;" but, unhappily for their success, the catholic church does not originate in convention, but is founded by the Word made flesh, and sustained by the indwelling Holy Ghost. The most they can do, even with the best dispositions in the world, is to create a confederation, and confederated sects are something very different from a church inherently one and catholic. It is no more the catholic church than the late Southern Confederacy was the American state. The sectarian combinations may do some harm, may injure many souls, and retard, for a time, the progress of civilization; but in a state organized in ac- 426 cordance with catholic principles, and left to themselves, they are powerless against the national destiny, and must soon wither and die as branches severed from the vine.
Such being the case, no sensible Catholic can imagine that the church needs any physical force against the sects, except to repel actual violence, and protect her in that freedom of speech and possession which is the right of all before the state. What are called religious establishments are needed only where either the state is barbarous or the religion is sectarian. Where the state, in its intrinsic constitution, is in accordance with catholic principles, as in the United States, the church has all she needs or can receive. The state can add nothing more to her power or her security in her moral and spiritual warfare with sectarianism, and any attempt to give her more would only weaken her as against the sects, place her in a false light, partially justify their hostility to her, render effective their declamations against her, mix her up unnecessarily with political changes, interests, and passions, and distract the attention of her ministers from their proper work as churchmen, and impose on them the duties of politicians and statesmen. Where there is nothing in the state hostile to the church, 427 where she is free to act according to her own constitution and laws, and exercise her own discipline on her own spiritual subjects, civil enactments in her favor or against the sects may embarrass or impede her operations, but cannot aid her, for she can advance no farther than she wins the heart and convinces the understanding. A spiritual work can, in the nature of things, be effected only by spiritual means. The church wants freedom in relation to the state--nothing more; for all her power comes immediately from God, without any intervention or mediation of the state.
The United States, constituted in accordance with the real order of things, and founded on principles which have their origin and ground in the principles on which the church herself is founded, can never establish any one of the sects as the religion of the state, for that would violate their political constitution, and array all the other sects, as well as the church herself, against the government. They cannot be called upon to establish the church by law, because she is already in their constitution as far as the state has in itself any relation with religion, and because to establish her in any other sense would be to make her one of the civil institutions of the, 428 land, and
Such being the case, no sensible Catholic can imagine that the church needs any physical force against the sects, except to repel actual violence, and protect her in that freedom of speech and possession which is the right of all before the state. What are called religious establishments are needed only where either the state is barbarous or the religion is sectarian. Where the state, in its intrinsic constitution, is in accordance with catholic principles, as in the United States, the church has all she needs or can receive. The state can add nothing more to her power or her security in her moral and spiritual warfare with sectarianism, and any attempt to give her more would only weaken her as against the sects, place her in a false light, partially justify their hostility to her, render effective their declamations against her, mix her up unnecessarily with political changes, interests, and passions, and distract the attention of her ministers from their proper work as churchmen, and impose on them the duties of politicians and statesmen. Where there is nothing in the state hostile to the church, 427 where she is free to act according to her own constitution and laws, and exercise her own discipline on her own spiritual subjects, civil enactments in her favor or against the sects may embarrass or impede her operations, but cannot aid her, for she can advance no farther than she wins the heart and convinces the understanding. A spiritual work can, in the nature of things, be effected only by spiritual means. The church wants freedom in relation to the state--nothing more; for all her power comes immediately from God, without any intervention or mediation of the state.
The United States, constituted in accordance with the real order of things, and founded on principles which have their origin and ground in the principles on which the church herself is founded, can never establish any one of the sects as the religion of the state, for that would violate their political constitution, and array all the other sects, as well as the church herself, against the government. They cannot be called upon to establish the church by law, because she is already in their constitution as far as the state has in itself any relation with religion, and because to establish her in any other sense would be to make her one of the civil institutions of the, 428 land, and