Such changes are the exceptions in human affairs; they occur only at great intervals. In the ordinary course of societies, the governing powers not merely adhere to what is established, but forbid under severe penalties the very suggestion of change. The chronic misery of the race is compatible with unreasoning acquiescence in a state of things once established; incipient reformers are at once immolated _pour encourager les autres_. It is the aim of governments to make themselves superfluously strong; they take precautions against unfavourable ideas no less than against open revolt. In this, they are seconded by the general community, which would make things too hot even for a reforming king. [SEPARATION OF RELIGION FROM POLITICS.] It is said by the evolution or historical school of politicians, that this was all as it should be. The free permission to question the existing institutions, political and religious, would have been incompatible with stability. In early society more especially, religion and morality were a part of civil government; a dissenter in religion was the same thing as a rebel in politics; the distinction between the civil and the religious could not yet be drawn. Without saying whether this was the case or not--for I should not like to commit myself to the position, "Whatever was, was right" at the time--I trust we are now far on the way to being agreed that the civil and the religious are no longer to be identified; that the State, as a state, is not concerned to uphold any one form of religious belief. Modern civilized communities are believed capable of existing without an official religion; the citizens being free to form themselves into self-governed religious bodies, as various as the prevailing modes of religious belief. It may be long ere this goal be fully reached; but even the upholders of the present state religions admit that, supposing these were not in existence, nobody would now propose to institute them. * * * * * The foregoing remarks may appear somewhat desultory, as well as too brief for the extent of the theme. They must be accepted, however, as an introduction to a more limited topic, which presupposes in some measure the general principle of toleration by the state of all forms of religious opinion. Whether with or without established religions, perfect freedom of dissent is now demanded, and, with some hankering reservations, pretty generally conceded. Individuals are allowed to congregate into religious societies, on the most various and opposite creeds.