Not only can a group or a nation not hold a collective religious
opinion, but no majority in it, however great, can change the opinion of
a single individual by any form of coercion. It may suppress the outward
manifestation of opinion, and may indirectly present considerations to
the mind of the individual which will lead him ultimately to recast his
views in some respects; but it cannot directly command the humblest
or most docile of its members to change his mode of thinking on
the instant. The pretense of uniformity of faith in a people must,
therefore, be the sheerest humbug. Could belief be collective, and made
to continue so, there would be some pretext for the advocacy of a state
church. Since, however, there is no way of making every individual an
organic part of a believing whole, a real state church is an unqualified
impossibility. A dominant party or number of individuals may by sheer
brute force compel the rest of the community to pay lip-service to a
formal organization labeled a state church; but the total amount of
belief in the dogmas of such an institution will not be increased in the
slightest degree by the false label which seeks to represent it as an
expression of community-belief. A state church cannot become a centre
for collective worship, since no such thing is possible; it can only
bring together for joint outward expression of worship a mass of
individuals, the real believers among whom will engage in actual
worship, while others, under persuasion or coercion, will go through
certain mechanical forms of no value to themselves or to others, in
simulation of the reverence which they do not feel, and without which
their participation in the external rites of religion is meaningless.