Vice President Pence’s decision to drop out of the Republican campaign is a sad moment here at the Sun. We have been among his admirers since before he was tapped for vice president by Donald Trump. We admire his resume as a governor and member of Congress, where his focus was on the budget. We like how he sees a role for religion in public life. All that, and his vice presidency, put him among our front rank for 2024.

Dayenu, we say. Yet on top of all that we admire Mr. Pence for the way in which he comported himself in the run up to and during January 6, 2021. It was a moment in which he was tested like few, if any, American vice presidents, or any other public officials, have been — and he came out with flying colors. The story bears recounting as the courts prepare to present President Trump’s own comportment to various juries.

The best telling of the story is Mr. Pence’s memoir, “So Help Me God.” It’s a wonderful title for a book centering on fidelity to the United States Constitution. The story came to a head on January 5, 2021, the day before Mr. Pence — in his role as president of the Senate — was to do his constitutional duty. It is important to read the plain language of that duty as described in the first section of Article 2 of the Constitution.

Says the parchment: “The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted.” On January 5, Mr. Pence met with President Trump. Mr. Trump asked Mr. Pence to send back votes from contested states. Mr. Pence told the President that the Constitution did not grant him the power to do what Mr. Trump wanted.

A lesser patriot might have been tempted. Had some of the state delegations been rejected, after all, the presidency could have gone to be decided in the House. Each state delegation would have had one vote, and it could logically have gone to the Republicans. Mr. Pence resisted that temptation, though, and hewed to another constitutional principle: The vice president doesn’t report to the president, but stands in his own right.

Mr. Pence, who’d already taken counsel, stood up and exited the Oval Office. He went to his own office, where he sat, alone. His eyes rubbered around the room at the vice presidential portraits, Adams, Jefferson, Calvin Coolidge, Roosevelt. Then Mr. Pence bowed his head, folded his hands, and prayed — right there, we’ve quipped, on government property. The next day he returned to the Capitol to do his duty.

Why Mr. Pence failed to prosper on the hustings will be much discussed. One objection, which shocks us down to the ground, is to his religious sentiments. Those who raise this objection  ignore the prohibition on religious tests. “No religious test,” the Constitution says, “shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” It’s the most emphatic statement in the Constitution. No… Ever… Any.

Mr. Pence announced the suspension of his campaign in Las Vegas at a parley of Jewish Republicans. Mr. Pence gave no hint he would be dropping out. “I came here to say it’s become clear to me this is not my time,” Mr. Pence said. His spokesman told NBC that he chose the NJC convention because “the conflict in Israel is a microcosm” of “what Pence has been evangelizing regarding populism and traditional conservative values.”

All we can say is that we hope that as the GOP charts its course ahead it finds a way to include Mr. Pence in. It needs his values and sense of principle. For all the reasons cited above and because, too, Mr. Pence more than any other candidate evinced an understanding of what George Washington meant when he warned against supposing that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.