It was thus against the sovereignty of the State that they protested.

Somewhere, a line must be drawn about its functions that the independence of the Church might be safeguarded.

For its supporters could not be true to their divine mission if the accidental vote of a secular authority was by right to impose its will upon the Church.

The view of it as simply a religious body to which the State had conceded certain rights and dignities, they repudiated with passion.

The life of the Church was not derived from the State; and for the latter to attempt its circumscription was to usurp an authority not rightly its own.
The real difficulty of this attitude lay in the establishment.