our pastor we look to his religious qualifications, without inquiring into his physical or political dogmas, with which we mean to have nothing to do.  I am aware that arguments may be found, which may twist a thread of politics into the cord of religious duties.  So may they for every other branch of human art or science.  Thus, for example, it is a religious duty to obey the laws of our country:  the teacher of religion, therefore, must instruct us in those laws, that we may know how to obey them.  It is a religious duty to assist our sick neighbors:  the preacher must, therefore, teach us medicine, that we may do it understandingly.  It is a religious duty to preserve our own health:  our religious teacher, then, must tell us what dishes are wholesome, and give us recipes in cookery, that we may learn how to prepare them.  And so ingenuity, by generalizing more and more, may amalgamate all the branches of science into any one of them, and the physician who is paid to visit the sick, may give a sermon instead of medicine; and the merchant to whom money is sent for a hat, may send a handkerchief instead of it.  But not withstanding this possible confusion of all sciences into one, common sense draws lines between them sufficiently distinct for the general purposes of life, and no one is at a loss to understand that a recipe in medicine or cookery, or a demonstration in geometry, is not a lesson in religion.  I do not deny that a congregation may, if they please, agree with their preacher that he shall instruct them in Medicine also, or Law, or Politics.  Then, lectures in these, from the pulpit, become not only a matter of right, but of duty also.  But this must be with the consent of every individual; because the association being voluntary, the mere majority has no right to apply the contributions of the minority to purposes unspecified in the agreement of the congregation.  I agree, too, that on all other occasions the preacher has the right, equally with every other citizen, to express his sentiments, in speaking or writing, on the subjects of Medicine, Law, Politics, he, his leisure time being his own, and his congregation not obliged to listen to his conversation, or to read his writings; and no one would have regretted more than myself, had any scruple as to this right, withheld from us the valuable discourses which have led to the expression of an opinion as to the true limits of the right.  I feel my portion of indebtment to the reverend author, for the distinguished learning, the logic, and the eloquence, with which he had proved that religion, as well as reason, confirms the soundness of those principles on which our government has been founded and its rights asserted.

These are my views of this question.  They are in opposition to those of the highly respected and able preacher, and are therefore the more doubtingly offered.  Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to truth; and that, I am sure, is the ultimate and sincere object of us both.  We both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.