We are justly proud of our liberties; but whence have they come? From an ancestry thoroughly imbued with Christianity, men who shed their blood like water to secure the right to read the Word of God, and to worship Him according to its requirements. "O Liberty, what crimes have been committed in thy name!" said Madame Roland, as from the scaffold she raised her hands to Heaven. Let us remember that these crimes have been committed in the name of infidel liberty-not of a liberty regulated by the law of Christ. The open Bible, Pere Hyacinthe affirms to be the secret of the power and glory of America and Britain. Every step of progress which a nation makes is by taking up some Christian principle into the national life. French communism is the ideal of those who stand in the front ranks of our opponents—a horror which so alarms the French people of to-day that they willingly submit to almost any government which gives them security against its atrocities. The more a nation has of Christianity the freer it becomes, is a fact which admits of no exception since the days of Christ; and yet one would think, to hear certain newspapers talk, that it was of all other things to be dreaded and shunned. A decade will not in all probability pass until it will be seen that this contest is a struggle for civil and religious liberty against atheism and infidelity, those dire foes not only of God, but of man. I do not wish to exaggerate the evils of the hour. A great calamity has fallen upon us. We hang our heads with shame. Is there no remedy? Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Are not the leaves of the tree of life for the healing of this nation? I am aware that men say, "Look at your Christian Statesmen!" That some of those implicated in these recent disgraceful transactions have made some sort of Christian profession is currently reported; that they were among the most trusted of our public men all admit. When I was in Chicago, after the great conflagration, I saw how the apparently strongest and most durable structures had melted like wax in that awful furnace ;-those that remained standing, crumbled and defaced as though smitten by all the storms of ruin for a thousand years. What must have been the intensity of that conflagration in which they perished? When we see men go down like those whose names for very pity we cannot mention, we may infer how great the temptation to which they have been exposed, and find an additional argument for the necessity of applying a radical remedy to the existing state of politics in our country. There is no charm in words, but there is omnipotence in principles. Our amendment would elevate government into the sphere of a high moral duty, and remove it from the domain now occupied by the stock exchange and the speculators' "corner." Its tendency must be to raise up a class of public men influenced by moral considerations, and accepting office as a duty to be discharged, rather than as a door of admission to an opportunity for the accumulation of boundless personal wealth.

What other remedy is proposed that has not again and again been tried and failed? Is it not time to make one earnest and united effort to infuse a new power into government, that may transform politics from a reckless game into a sacred trust?

There are other questions of a more immediately practical character pressing themselves upon us at this very moment, and from which there is no escape. Is President Grant to succeed in his effort to abolish polygamy in Utah? Are we to fold our hands and tamely submit to the expulsion of the Bible from all

our schools? Shall the oath be banished from our courts of justice? Shall we resist and antagonize in all lawful ways the open, determined and diabolical effort now made to destroy every Christian element which yet remains in our Government, and by constitutional enactments secure them to us and our posterity forever, while we lay the foundation for still further progress in the same direction?

Of all questions these are the most practical, as they are the ones which press themselves with the greatest urgency upon our immediate consideration. That we shall succeed in carrying this amendment, does not admit of doubt. The ablest thinkers of the nation are with us. As a question of talent, the weight is upon our side. The great majority of the best people of the nation are with us. They only need to be awakened to the importance of the issues which are made, and they will rise as the waves of the ocean when the storm descends upon it, and whelm beneath the tide of Christian sentiment, the audacious demands of an impious and alien atheism. This place calls up strange recollections. I have stood on this platform when this hall was filled with a raging, howling, blaspheming, pro-slavery mob, whose violence it took one hundred policemen, with the Chief of the Police at their head, to restrain; and in less than two years the streets of this city echoed to the strains of splendid regiments armed against slavery, kindled to the white heat of a burning patriotism, as they sang

"John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave;

His soul is marching on."

God is with us; it is His prerogative to work with many or with few. It is not for us to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power. We will succeed, whether in the near or the distant future. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.

The Rev. Dr. A. M. Milligan, of Pittsburg, was introduced by the President, and spoke as follows:

ADDRESS OF DR. A. M. MILLIGAN.

MR. PRESIDENT: Our attention has been called to a defect of the Constitution-its omission of any express recognition of the authority of God over the nation. Such an omission is certainly a very serious defect in an instrument which proposes to define the relations of the Government to all parties to which it stands related; a defect which all sensible men, who seek to have their government enjoy amicable relations to the Supreme Ruler of the universe, would desire to have speedily remedied. Still, such omission may easily seem to have been an oversight-a thing taken for granted, or so well understood, that it needed no expression in that instrument; that it even now does not need to be inserted, being universally accepted. Hence, what need of this agitation? what need of another amendment?

Permit me, Mr. President, to call attention to something more than a mere defect, or failure to express in the Constitution a recognition of the divine authority over the nation. There is a virtual denial-a principle taught which

is at variance with the doctrine of the divine authority over the nation. There are two opposite theories as to the source or origin of authority and power in government. The first is, that God is its author; that the power to set up and administer government is from Him; that the revealed will of God is the rule by which this divine ordinance should be constituted; that the magistrate · is the minister of God; and that to resist government so constituted and administered is to resist God and incur His wrath. This is the Christian theory, the teaching of the Bible, and accepted by the greatest statesmen and teachers of political science in ancient and modern times.

The other theory was first proclaimed by Hobbes, the celebrated English infidel, accepted by the infidel school of France, and taught in the French Encyclopædia. It proclaims that government is a mere human institution—a social compact-deriving all its authority from the consent of the governed, and having no higher law than the will of the people constitutionally expressed; that the magistrate is the mere servant of the people, having no higher obligation than to fulfill the will of his constituents, and responsible only to them.

This is designated the infidel theory. The one of these is the principle lying at the foundation of a Christian state, the other of an infidel state. This latter theory was boldly enunciated by the French National Assembly, when, at the close of the last century, they set up an infidel republic, emblazoning on their banner the motto." There is no God," and investing with divine honors "REASON" as their goddess.

This same theory of government is obscurely, but really and effectively, taught in our national Constitution. True, that instrument does not declare "There is no God," nor does it declare that human governments are not under divine authority. Such declarations would never have been accepted by the Christian people of this nation. Had such declarations appeared in that instrument, they would have raised such a storm as would have swept out of political existence the men who had offered the insult to our Christianity, and their names would have gone down with that of Thomas Paine to perpetual infamy. No; the infidel element which participated in the framing of that instrument had not the courage to hazard such an experiment.

Come with me to the Constitution, and let us see what it teaches on this question. The first declaration referring to this is in the preamble: "We, the people of the United States," ***" 'do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION." There is here no allusion to any authority above" the people," under whose auspices, by whose permission, for whose glory, or in whatever relation to whom " We, the people," set up, in God's great empire, the Government of the United States. The inference plainly is, that the people create the government of themselves and for themselves, with no relations to any higher power. What would the Government of the United States think if a community of people were to set up a government in one of our territories without ever saying, By your leave?"

One sentence recognizing the Divine authority would free the preamble from this charge; as it is, it may fairly be taken as the expression of the "social compact," or infidel theory of government, and, as a matter of fact, it is by multitudes of Christian people, as well as infidels, construed to mean nothing else.

Add to this the declaration of the Sixth Article, that "this Constitution and.

the laws made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land," and that "all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office;" and what have we? A Constitution ordained by the people without any acknowledgment of the authority of the Almighty; and then, lest some one should plead that still it is to be understood that God is over all, it is added: No religious test shall ever be required; not sectarian, denominational, or ecclesiastical test, but religious test. What does this mean? What is the meaning of religion? Webster's first definition is, "The recognition of God as an object of worship, love and obedience." Let us apply this. No recognition of God as an object of obedience shall be required as a qualification for office, but only an oath to support this Constitution-the expressed will of the people. Add to all this, the fact that the name of God and all reference to His judgment is left out of the oath provided in the Constitution for the President, and administered to all officers, State and national, and we have in the Constitution a complete illustration of the theory of "No God in Government." As I have already stated, this is not openly expressed, but covertly disguised under the flattering idea that all power is in the hands of the people.

Now, the question recurs, granting that this is so: What importance attaches to it? What harm can come from it? To this, I reply:

First.-It places the nation in the attitude of professing a principle that is at variance with the truth, and with the sentiment of the nation. Is that a desirable position in which to stand before the world, proclaiming a falsehood which we know and believe to be such?

Mr. President, this nation believes there is a God, and that He is the Supreme Ruler of nations. The nation has proclaimed this in her Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and in her State Constitutions, and in a thousand other ways; and yet in our Constitution we turn our back upon our history, and by our criminal silence give the lie to all our other professions. Is not this a humiliating attitude for a great Christian nation to occupy? Shall we occupy this position because an infinitesimal minority of the people demand it? Shall the Constitution of the nation express the truth believed by the great Christian majority of the nation, or shall it endorse a falsehood proposed by a handful of infidels in it?

Second. The Constitution is a great educator. Regarded as expressing the combined wisdom of the nation, it is looked up to as authority. Our ideas of right and wrong are largely derived from law. Whatever is law we are inclined to regard as right. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, towering above State laws and constitutions and acts of Congress. It is the test to which all laws must be brought. It is the highest and most authoritative legal teacher in the land. Now, if this instrument teaches that no obedience or subjection is due from the nation or its rulers to God-that the magistrate, as such, is under no obligation to God, and owes no obedience to his law-what must be the consequence? Take away the fear of God, and where will be our honesty, fidelity, incorruptibility?. What restraint is left that cannot easily be evaded? What security has society against the most wholesale robbery, bribery, and every other malfeasance in office? The theory that "politics has nothing to do with religion," is but the echo of the Constitution, and it lies at the bottom of all the corruption that has entered into. our political system.

Men who do not believe the theory will practice according to it so long as it is constitutional and suits their purposes. If, then, we do not wish to educate and raise up a nation of political infidels and atheists, let us amend our textbook, and teach through our Constitution that the nation and its rulers are amenable to God and His law, and let the national conscience be educated in the true principles of national prosperity and security.

Third. It exerts a malign influence upon other nations. The nations of the Old World are struggling up toward republican liberty. They look to this nation as their model and guide. And when they study our institutions to ascertain the secret of our prosperity, they go to our Constitution, and the result is that the Commune of Paris, the Turners of Germany, and the Internationals of Europe, point to us as an infidel nation, prove their assertion by the Constitution, and attribute our liberty and prosperity to our infidelity. What a dangerous mistake! Like a false signal on a stormy, rock-reefed sea! How many nations may make shipwreck, and attribute their ruin to the false light hung out at our mast-head? No one who knows our history, and the secret of our prosperity, can doubt that the mightiest force in our nation, and that which has conduced most to our success, is our Christianity. Take that away, and you leave Hamlet out of the play. Let us tell the struggling nations, when they ask for the way that led us to our present proud position, that it was the covenant made with God in the cabin of the Mayflower, and our fathers' faith in God, that led us hither.

The Fourth evil arising from the present attitude of the Constitution is that it leaves us no legal basis for the Christian features of our Government.

As I have already remarked, Christianity forms an essential element of our nationality, and enters into all the features of our governmental character. Our Christian Sabbath; our chaplains in Congress, army, prisons, etc.; our Bible in the schools; our marriage laws; our fasts and thanksgivings; our judicial oath; our system of morality, are all distinctively Christian. These have grown up with us, and are a part of our national life. But there is no authority for them in the Constitution; on the other hand, they are contrary to the very theory of government of which that instrument is the exponent-the theory which forbids the nation, as such, to have to do with religion. Is it not having to do with religion to place legal restraints upon the desecration of the Christian Sabbath; to teach the Christian's Bible to the nation's children in the public schools; to appoint Christian ministers to preach the gospel to the National Congress, to the army and navy? Is it not having to do with religion to require the magistrate and the witness to qualify by an oath taken in the name of the Christian's God, or on the Gospels; or to call the nation to worship God in exercises of prayer and thanksgiving? Is it not restraining the free exercise of his religion to prevent the Mormon's enjoyment of his polygamy, or arrest him in the administration of the highest censure of his church-the "Blood Atonement "--by the Danite's dagger? In all these, and many other respects, the conduct of the nation is inconsistent with the spirit and letter of its Constitution. This may have been a matter of comparatively little consequence, as long as all were agreed, and there was none to call in question these acts or their constitutionality; but now that an earnest and able body of men have united and organized themselves, with the declared purpose of sweeping every trace of Christianity from our national life—it becomes a matter of the highest consequence on which side of this great controversy the Constitution stands;