explain to the citizens that it behooved them to worship God—­even under penalties for omission; but that it was at the same time open to them to select any form of worship that they pleased, however that form might differ from the practices of the majority.  In Connecticut it is declared that it is the duty of all men to worship the Supreme Being, the Creator and Preserver of the universe, but that it is their right to render that worship in the mode most consistent with the dictates of their consciences.  And then, a few lines further down, the article skips the great difficulty in a manner somewhat disingenuous, and declares that each and every society of Christians in the State shall have and enjoy the same and equal privileges.  But it does not say whether a Jew shall be divested of those privileges, or, if he be divested, how that treatment of him is to be reconciled with the assurance that it is every man’s right to worship the Supreme Being in the mode most consistent with the dictates of his own conscience.

In Rhode Island they were more honest.  It is there declared that every man shall be free to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and to profess and by argument to maintain his opinion in matters of religion; and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect his civil capacity.  Here it is simply presumed that every man will worship a God, and no allusion is made even to Christianity.

In Massachusetts they are again hardly honest.  “It is the right,” says the constitution, “as well as the duty of all men in society publicly and at stated seasons to worship the supreme Being, the Great Creator and Preserver of the universe.”  And then it goes on to say that every man may do so in what form he pleases; but further down it declares that “every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law.”  But what about those who are not Christians?  In New Hampshire it is exactly the same.  It is enacted that “every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience and reason.”  And that “every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves quietly and as good citizens of the State, shall be equally under the protection of the law.”  From all which it is, I think, manifest that the men who framed these documents, desirous above all things of cutting themselves and their people loose from every kind of trammel, still felt the necessity of enforcing religion—­of making it, to a certain extent, a matter of State duty.  In the first constitution of North Carolina it is enjoined “that no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit.”  But this was altered in the year 1836, and the words “Christian religion” were substituted for “Protestant religion.”