RELIGION. Real piety in practice, consisting in the performance of all known duties to God and our fellow men.
2. There are many actions which cannot be regulated by human laws, and many duties are imposed by religion calculated to promote the happiness of society. Besides, there is an infinite number of actions, which though punishable by society, may be concealed from men, and which the magistrate cannot punish. In these cases men are restrained by the knowledge that nothing can be hidden from the eyes of a sovereign intelligent Being; that the soul never dies, that there is a state of future rewards and punishments; in fact that the most secret crimes will be punished. True religion then offers succors to the feeble, consolations to the unfortunate, and fills the wicked with dread.
3. What Montesquieu says of a prince, applies equally to an individual. "A prince," says he, "who loves religion, is a lion, which yields to the hand that caresses him, or to the voice which renders him tame. He who fears religion and bates it, is like a wild beast, which gnaws, the chain which restrains it from falling on those within its reach. He who has no religion is like a terrible animal which feels no liberty except when it devours its victims or tears them in pieces." Esp. des, Lois, liv. 24, c. 1.
4. But religion can be useful to man only when it is pure. The constitution of the United States has, therefore, wisely provided that it should never be united with the state. Art. 6, 3. Vide Christianity; Religious test; Theocracy. --
legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Religion
