The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1874-01-06
A NEW YEARS SERMON.
SOME THOUGHTS WORTH THINNING AND ACT
ING UPON.


ING UPON.
Says the New York Tribune: It is hardly
our province to add to the sermons which
the season calls out. But if politics are
banished from the pulpit and religion from
secular newspapers, where is the relation
ship between them TO be made good? How
can two be agreed unless they sometimes
walk together? Or will our readers tell us
there is and ought to be no kinship between
them? That is the creed upon which the
great mass of our religious population act.
Our neighbor Johnston is not only All honest
but a devout man. He brings up his children
in the fear and admonition of the Lord. He
carries the principles of justice. which the
Savior taught, into his minutsst dealings
with his customers, aud Ills mercy into
every dole or kindly word he gives to the
poor. Into his share Of social life, and study
of science or literature, even into his recrea-
ton, he takes these great truths, and orders
his beliefs and actions by them. But the
moment he approaches his duty as citizen,
Christian principles are thrown aside as ef1ete
and impracticabe. Either he votes or enAl-
neers his party tactics according to the expe
diency of the present moment. or else he
washes his hands of the whole unclean bust
ness. He will sit by the hour bemoaning
that "politics are hopelessly corrupt" that
the city, State or National Government is in
the hands of men ready and willing TO be
bought to favor any iniquitons scheme of
peculation; that the elections in the cities
are carried by fraud, and are virtually con
trolled by the basest class of politicians
and the element Of rufiianism which they
bring to bear on the ballot-box. Yet heand
thousands of his kind decline to interfere.
They are content to sit TRANQUILITY grooming,
day after day, over their newspaper and the
Nl.1e.- Ill
lence is the motive power with most of them
in their inaction. They dread the shame,
the bruit of unearthing corruption. ''Stir
not up muddy water" is their favorite max
i'm. But with many the deterrent cause is
the weight of an Office held by themselves or
their friends. Who ever knew the holder of
an Office to turn against the party which had
given it to him, however corrupt? Why
shonld we Dust any bribe-taker or heap re-
proach on him, when he "spoke kind word
TO get Bill
GIN THE CUSTOM HOUSE."
Or to "send Dave as consul to the South
Sess?" Honesty has weight in public men,
doubtless, yet our own bread and butter on
the other scale make il kick the beam. This
sort of reasoning may do for the poor NOR
tails who profess no religion. But is 1t sulh-
cient for those who ostensibly follow the ex-
ample of Him whose actions will tomorrow
be expounGed in countless pulpits through
out the land? Now if Christianity means
ANYTHING at all it means honesty. 1t means
clean hands. 1t means fearlessness i'm dut,
And if a Christian owes any duty to his
neighbor, it is that he shall choose men 10
make the laws and execute them who have
at least not been branded as thieves, liars
and perjurers. 1t is that he shall use what
little strength and influence he has to keep
our elections from becoming AN exhibition of
the powers of the most brutal mobocracy;
our Judiciary clear of at least open bribery,
and Congress from such disclosures as those
of the last and present sessions. The de-
vout man who keeps himself aloof from
politics and pOli icians, inwardly thank
ing God he Is not as these men, Is In
his place clearly derelict in duty. Eightee N
hundred yeaIs ago this very question was
tried before the Jewish public. Their sur
frages wer 9 asked, as now, whether to choose
as their ruler the embodiment of justice,
honesty and the highest law of humanity,
or to 50 .crifice Him for man publicly brand
ed as felon. Jesus, as king of the Jews.
woui have been just as ineonvenient, just
as o ntagonistic 10 old precedents and old
pref udices, as Jesus controlling in spirit our
pv..r ballot boxes, our courts or congress-. The