The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-27

miSrepresent, by fifty witnesses L shall be shut
out from the ballot box. If man have bet on
the elections he by law is also shut out One |
step further needs to be taken and no one be |
allowed vote who has offered a bride or ac- |
cepted bride for voting whether the bride be |
free drink payment of cash, the suspicious |
cases compelled to put hand on Bible and swear
to their honesty, and so the sacred chest of the
Nations suffrage will be still further redeemed.
God will also help us by aroused moral |
sentiment Morals and minerals have never |
been so canvassed as now in any presidential |
campaign Men who all their lives have been |
stealing from the public crib are denouncing dis
honesty on the part of public officials and |
people with two or three families of their |
own are preaching elegant sermons |
on the seventh commandment. Yes, the great |
subjects of temperance and drunkenness are |
forced upon the public mind, and for the first |
time the temperance question is felt in polit |
ical contest and prohibition, which was joke |
when, four years ago Neal Dow ran for the presi |
dency, is no longer joke, but a tremendous |
question, which fushes the cheek of the Nation |
and agitates the land from Lake Erie to Mobile |
bay, and four years from will decide who |
shall be the President of the United States. |
The long, loud hysterc laugh at fanatical re
formers has caught in the wndppe and turned |
to paroxysm of strangulation, and the stu |
pendOus questions of national sobriety are get |
ting to be heard respectfully and deferentaly at
the bar of State Legislature, at the bar OF
Congress, and at the bar of the United States |
Senate and voice omnipotent is going to be |
the continent and back again, saying to these |
rising tides of drunkenness, which threaten to |
whelm home, and church, and Nation: Thus
far shalt thou CO. and no further and there shall
thy proud wave be stayed" If you would pray
more, and then rub your eyes out of the sleep of
Indifference and wash them in some clear, cool |
water fresh from the we'll of Christian reform. it
would be said to you as Il, the one in the text |
THE Lord opened the eyes of the young man
and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of
horses and carriages of fire round about Elisha
When the soldiers of Antigonus, the warrior
were afraid because their own army was so small
and the army of the enemy was so numerous
and the affrighted soldiers were expressing
their fears to their general, he cried
out with great vehemence: "How
many do you reckon me to BET" And while we
admit that the forces arrayed against our ma
Jional welfare very great, l ask you in max
ing an estimate of the resources of righteous
ness, how many do you reckon the Lord God AL
mighty to bel ''The Lord of Hosts is His name
1.-THE chariots of God are twenty thousand and
the mountains of our faith are full of them.
But am asked whom am going to vote for
That is a matter of but little Importance But
it is a matter of vast interest whom these great
masses of humanity are going to vote for, and
lay before you principles by which all may
make up their mind. Vote for the best men
Vote prayerfully, Vote as Christians. Vote as
you will wish you had voted when you can vote
no more You see without my saying it, that
my chief hope is in Christianity, or, my text
suggests, the upper forces Political parties
come and go, and they may do right and they
may do wrong But God lives, and He has or
dained this Nation for a conqueror that dema-
gogsm can't defeat. hope to live to see in this
country party with two planks in its political
platform-the Ten Commandments and the Ser
mon on the Mount That would sweep the land
like tornado l was about to say. But when L
think it is not to be work of devastation, but
of rescue, | change the figure and say it will
sweep like thousand spice gales from heaven.
American politics will be purified and
made decent by anything less pungent and all
pervading than the Christian religion.
The simple fact is, that we are to have for our
next President either man who has been pic
toriaized and excorated as thief or one vino
is pictorialized and excoriated as lbertine
There has never been such high carnival of defa-
nation. Have what faults they may, they have
all had injustice done them There have been
two great manufactures of lies that turned out
three or four specimens day, all fitted out and
rugged, ready for circulation Democratic man
ufactory and Republican mandatory of lies
And these have had branch houses in all parts of
the country, and their agents going up and down
Lies large and small, lies domestic and lies pub
lic and lies prurient; long limbed lies and lies of
double back action lies cut bias and lies dago-
nal; lies smart and lies stupid lies that some be-
lieve and lies that all believe and lies that no
body believes; lies complimentary and defama
tory lies with humps like cames and scales like |
crocodiles, and necks long as storks, and legs
swift as antelopes and sting sharp as adders;
ular lies and religious lies; lies raw and scol-
loped, and PANIED and stewed; lies with attach
ment screw and beltcoupling and rufler and
braider, and ready-wound bobbins; lies by Chris
tians who tell the truth except just before cleo
ton; lies by people who always lie, but surpass
themselves in the presidential campaign.
Ashamed am l to have foreigners visit this |
country at such tunes. They stand dazed their
hand on their pocket-book and afraid to be out
nights. And what impression must be made on
the hundreds and thousands of foreigners who
have recently come to make America their
HON hat or and CT
them concerning the land of their adoption. The
only solace is that many of them cannot
understand the English language. But l
suppose the German, and Swedish, and French
and Italian newspapers take up the strain of
oboquy and peddle it out to their subscribers
Nothing short of all-pervading Christian sen
timent can stay these floods of indecency. The
time will come when such scenes of falsehood and
billingsgate and low scandal as we have been
going through for the last three months will be
rebuked by that religion which from its one
mountain intones the commando Thou shalt
not bear false witness against thy neighbor," and
from its other mountain pleads for love and kind
ness and blessings rather than cursng
Oh, my friendsl That is what we ought to
have and what we will have-a national religion.
There are two kinds of national religion. The
one is supported by the state and is matter of
human politics, immense worldly patronage men
struggling to get places in it without reference
to their qualifications great churches with large
salaries and no audience at the head of the es-
Enlistment an archbishop with salary of $75 900
year and its cathedrals that would hold thousand
people, and with all the ecclesiastical machinery
of music and canonicals, and an audience of fifty
or hundred attendant upon the services. Such
a national religion would be of no use in Amer
lea. But what we need is such vast multitudes
of converted and evangelical people that they
shall be in majority, and that they shall control
everything secular well as everything relig-
ious. Is that impraetibe and impossiblel
MOI 1t is as certain as that there
is a God and that He wrote the
Bible, and that He is strong enough and honest |
enough to do as He has said. An ancient empe-
ror prided himself in doing that which his coun-
cilors pronounced impossible, and have to tell |
you that mems 'impossibles" are Gods ''easies"
Hath He said and shall He not do it, Hath He
spoken and shall He not bring it to passl" The |
christian religion will VET take nnssession of |