Daniel Webster on Religion's Importance to the Nation

"...our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any foundation other than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits... Let the religious element in man's nature be neglected, let him be influenced by no higher motives than low self interest, and subjected to no stronger restraint than the limits of civil authority and he becomes the creature of selfish passion and blind fanaticism... On the other hand, the cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousness... inspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric at the same time that it conducts the human soul upward to the Author of its being."

From The Rebirth of America by Robert Flood
(St Davids, PA: The Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation 1986)