The Catholic barons of England wrung from King John at Runnymede the famous _Magna Charta_, and the Catholic settlers of Maryland gave the first constitution recognizing equal rights for all men; and the "Church of Rome," as a British Presbyterian writer has said, "has always been an 'independent, distinct, and often opposing power'; and that civil liberty is closely connected with religious liberty--with the church being independent of the state." Every school-boy might and ought to be taught these and other like facts, for history mentions them; and the assailants of the Catholic Church ought to be ashamed to ignore or deny them. And yet such ignorance and such denials are the capital in trade of the bigots and the fanatics who fear and affect to see in the spread of Catholicism a menace to our liberties. On page 5 of this "Document No. 4" we are told that "the moment the state takes under its protection any church, by appropriating public money or property to the uses or support of that church, or the teaching of its peculiar tenets or practices, it in that act, and to that extent, unites church and state. The union of church and state, in all ages and in all countries, has led to oppression and bloodshed." Now, if this is not arrant nonsense, what is? The practice of "appropriating public money or property" to churches, so called, is coeval with our national birth. And in this country church and state have, according to the logic of this statement, been very much united--very much married, like Brigham Young and his multitudinous wives--and yet the "oppression and bloodshed" sure to follow have not yet come upon us--in fact, "churches" and state have always in this country been united, and we did not know it! Through what unknown dangers have we passed! This "Document No. 4" is not honest in this kind of talk--the union of church and state means a form of religion established by law, and pains and penalties inflicted upon dissenters.