efforts of time; or at
least it can only be destroyed by another religion. But when religion
clings to the interests of the world, it becomes almost as fragile a
thing as the powers of earth. It is the only one of them all which
can hope for immortality; but if it be connected with their ephemeral
authority, it shares their fortunes, and may fall with those transient
passions which supported them for a day. The alliance which religion
contracts with political powers must needs be onerous to itself; since
it does not require their assistance to live, and by giving them its
assistance to live, and by giving them its assistance it may be exposed
to decay.

The danger which I have just pointed out always exists, but it is
not always equally visible. In some ages governments seem to be
imperishable; in others, the existence of society appears to be more
precarious than the life of man. Some constitutions plunge the
citizens into a lethargic somnolence, and others rouse them to feverish
excitement. When governments appear to be so strong, and laws so stable,
men do not perceive the dangers which may accrue from a union of Church
and State. When governments display so much weakness, and laws so much
inconstancy, the danger is self-evident, but it is no longer possible
to avoid it; to be effectual, measures must be taken to discover its
approach.

In proportion as a nation assumes a democratic condition of society, and
as communities display democratic propensities, it becomes more and more
dangerous to connect religion with political institutions; for the
time is coming when authority will be bandied from hand to hand, when
political theories will succeed each other, and when men, laws, and
constitutions will disappear, or be modified from day to day, and this,
not for a season only, but unceasingly. Agitation and mutability are
inherent in the nature of democratic republics, just as stagnation and
inertness are the law of absolute monarchies.

If the Americans, who change the head of the Government once in
four years, who elect new legislators every two years, and renew the
provincial officers every twelvemonth; if the Americans, who have
abandoned the political world to the attempts of innovators, had not
placed religion beyond their reach, where could it abide in the ebb and
flow of human opinions? where would that respect which belongs to it
be paid, amidst the struggles of faction? and what would become of its
immort