No State Church

John Francis Maguire
1868
CHAPTER I (14) start of chapter

It is the opinion of many candid and unbiassed men in Ireland, that the existence of a State Church, and that the church of the small minority of the population, is injurious to the country in many respects, especially in preventing that social fusion and Christian harmony which are among the happy results of complete religious equality. No one who has been in Nova Scotia but must, if not utterly blinded by prejudice, be convinced that the non-existence of a State Church and a dominant religion is attended with the most beneficial consequences to that colony. There is no cause, no legalised cause, of hostility and ill blood, no provocation to anger—no grievance.

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