democracy in america I-B: religion
Joel has posted a third item in his series on Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, focusing this time on the relation of religion to liberty and the social order. I haven’t very much to add to Joel’s own post and the comments therein, but this from the text:
Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to the faculties of man and that the political world is a field prepared by the Creator for the efforts of mind. Free and powerful in its own sphere, satisfied with the place reserved for it, religion never more surely establishes its empire than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its native strength.
Liberty regards religion as its companion in all its battles and its triumphs, as the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims. It considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.
Even for someone like myself who is not religious, there is meaning here.
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