There can be no _state church_, no _establishment_, under our Constitution. In England the Episcopal Church, and in Scotland the Presbyterian Church, are established by law; and until within the last seventeen years the Church of England was by law established in Ireland; and it is now established in Wales; and in other countries of Europe the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church and the Greek Church are established by law. In countries where there is a national church, it derives more or less of its support from taxing the people, many of whom do not belong to it; but in this land there is no established church; and there never can be, let us hope and believe. Under our form of government we need no _standing army_. We owe this partly to the fact that we are so isolated geographically that we do not need to keep an army. I heard the general of our army say, a short time ago, that the regular army of the United States is a fiction――only 25,000 men. (You saw as many troops a few weeks ago in one day as are in all our army.) “The real army,” he added, “is composed of every able-bodied citizen; for all are ready to volunteer in the face of a common enemy.” Our territory is immensely large already, and it will probably be larger, but it will not again be enlarged as the result of war. When we look at the nations of Europe, and see the immense numbers of men in their standing armies, we can’t help thanking God that we are separated from them by the wide Atlantic, and that we have a republican government, and have no temptation to seek other territory, and are not likely to be attacked for any cause. In the armies of Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Austria, Italy, Turkey, are more than ten millions of men withdrawn from the cultivation of the soil and from the pursuits of commerce and manufactures. In Italy alone the standing army is said to be 750,000 men! The withdrawal of so many men from peaceful occupations makes it necessary to employ women to do work which in our country women are never asked to do. I have seen a woman drawing a boat on a canal, and a man sitting on the deck of that boat smoking his pipe and steering the boat. I have seen a woman with a huge load of fresh hay upon her head and a man walking by her side and carrying his scythe. I have seen women yoked with dogs to carts, carrying the loads that here would be put in a cart and drawn by a horse. I have seen women carrying the hod for masons on their _heads_, filled with stone and mortar. I have seen women carrying huge baskets of manure on their backs to the field, and young girls breaking stone on the highway. Did you ever hear of such things here? See what a difference! The men in the army eat up the substance which the women produce from the soil.