Tama County Republican

Church and State.

It is a notable fact, that in some of the eastern States, the clergy are having their meetings and talk of memorializing Congress on subjects of Theology. That while constitutional amendments are being enacted and incorporated into our national constitution, that honorable body politic should pass some kind of a constitutional amendment, recognizing in a peculiar manner, the existence of a God, and to make some provisions relating to religion in a national way. We believe it all right and proper and our national duty to recognize and protect religious sects in the enjoyment of their privileges, and to recognize the Supreme Being. All this our Government already does, and that is enough.

Our Government most assuredly recognizes, in positive terms, such a being as God, the Creator of all things, and from whom we derive all that we are in these words it is done most effectually: "All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Is not that sufficient for our friends of the pulpit?

Our Government not only recognizes God, but it enacts that there shall be no religious tests made. When, however, it comes to combining Church and State, we are not in for any such thing. The very moment this be effected, tyranny and oppression commence their foul work. We think it a wise provision that religion shall not come into our body politic and made a test question. The present state of the churches through the United States has no that high moral tone to it that it formerly had. It used to be that you could tell a Christian by his walk and conversation--now you know members of the church by the show of jewelry and fine and costly apparel which they put on. Dress, aristocracy and pleasure parties take up the most of their time. Visiting the fatherless, the sick in their distress, and "keeping themselves unspotted from the world," seems no part of their creed nowadays.