WHAT RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION MEANS.
It is incumbent on the authors of persecution previously to reflect whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme. They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish, and it soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the crime, of the offender. The fine which he is unable or unwilling to discharge, exposes his person to the severities of the law, and his contempt of higher penalties suggests the use and propriety of capital punishment.—Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. 37. If the principle is once established that religion or religious observances shall be interwoven with our legislative acts, we must pursue it to its ultimatum.—U. S. Senate Report, 1829.