23–29 March 1846

Why should people make such a matter of leaving this church and going into that? They betray so their want of Faith, or spiritual per- ception. The holy principles discredit and ac- y credit all churches alike. God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and reli- gions. It is not otherwise with social forms. A or B refuses the tax, or some tax, with solemnity, but eats and drinks and wears and perspires tax- ation all day. Let them not hew down the state with axe and gunpowder, but supersede it by irresistible genius ; huddle it aside as ridiculous and obsolete by their quantity of being. Elo- quence needs no constable.