He
granted that government was designed to protect our persons and our
property, but declined to receive the doctrine of paternal government,
until a government be shown that loved its subjects, as a father loves
his child, and was as superior in intelligence to its subjects as a
father was to his children. Lord Macaulay then demonstrated, by
appropriate illustrations, the fallacy of the theory that every society
of individuals with any power whatever, is under obligation as such
society to profess a religion; and that there could be unity of action
in large bodies without unity of religious views. Persecutions would
naturally follow, or be justifiable in an association where Mr.
Gladstone's views were paramount. It would be impossible to conceive of
the circumstances in which it would be right to establish by law, as the
one exclusive religion of the State, the religion of the minority. The
religious teaching which the sovereign ought officially to countenance
and maintain is that from which he, in his conscience, believes that the
people will receive the most benefit with the smallest mixture of evil.
It is not necessarily his own religious belief that he will select. He
may prefer the doctrines of the Church of England to those of the Church
of Scotland, but he would not force the former upon the inhabitants of
Scotland.
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