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29 for preventive remedies, if not for the cure. In doing so, it is proper to consider the causes which produce' or which stimulate the disease: and this inquiry will be confined to religion and politics. Happily in this country there is no established church; no connection between Church and State. Religion, however, is not only acknowledged as a natural sentiment, but the Christian religion is sustained by the popular mind, and by popular support. Being indeed a part of the common law of the land, the Christian religion finds support in the law itself, which provides by enactments for the protection of its worship, and the security and regulation of church property. Its Bible is an open one, and its sanctions are invoked in courts of justice, and in the qualification of all the officers of the State. Its ministers, and none other, officiate in all our public assemblies which associate religious services with their daily duties. It is a great paramount good. The various evangelical sects into which the Christian family is divided, are also beneficial, inasmuch as they are better adapted, by a wholesome state of rivalry and emulation among them, to disseminate religious knowledge. At the same time, the religious sentiment, avowing even the christian faith, not unfre- quently runs out into many wild, fanatical, and superstitious opinions and practices, which are oftener fit subjects for the shafts of ridicule, than for opposing argument. Religious zeal alone, even if but one sect