The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-22


The church. then, standing at the heart of our
great temple must be made great, broad -guage.
spiritual, human, good -natured and powerful
organization. When a man comes into our
midst, we must find him and bring him into
contact with pure character and high views, that
1T may not be possible for him to be anything
but good citizen.
When a worker in iron wants to make the best
possible sword he does not content himself with
iron from one mine. He takes some from Eng
land ard some from Russia; some from New
England and some from Pennsylvania, and fusing,
hammering and welding these different
qualities of ore together he gets a steel so fine.
tough and flexible thatit cannot be equaled from
the product of any one mine on the face of the
earth And so, when the great God of nature
would forge that mighty instrument which shall
be his aveng:ng sword on all the tyranny of the
earth lie takes humanity from every nation and
Yields 1t into one.
Our government is that mighty instrument
which God is forging that He may smite all the
tyranny of the world. But the fusing hammer
ing and welding process is absolutely necessary.
1t Is the work of the church and of our educa
catlonal appiances-the press and the school
10 mould this heterogeneous mass of humanity
into one nationality Thoughtful men appreci-
ate this truth more and more. There is no other
way in which to solve the problem
We can further make the civil government the
clean institution it is designed to be, by partci-
pating in all elections with conscientious inter-
est Our forefathers were men of extraordinary
dignity Yet these men of exceptional dignity
manifested practical interest in elections that
puts us all to blush for shame that we have
fallen so far behind them. Whatsoever any of
our citizens stand aloof from primary or general
elections they are actuated by false views of our
civil obligations or by foolish pride. Such men
do not exercise their right by remaining away
from the ballot box. but they resist Almighty
God who has put them into this world to make
it better There is only one time when
Christian man ought TO stay away from his
church prayer-meetlng, and that is when po
litical meeting is held in his ward the same
night. Neither business nor pleasure, nor re-
llglon, nor uncOncern, nor disgust at vulgar pro-
ceedings, nor anything but sickness or death
should keep the citizen away from primary and
general elections. All the vicious and
lawless men in the community attend political
meetings. Not of them remains away.
Upright men must be united and steadfast in
their devotion to the welfare of the state. The
negligence of Strai ghtforward men makes it pos
sible for the baser and smaller part of our popu-
lation to have the direction of civil affairs
1t is our solemn duty, which may not be disre-
garded, to demand that all public officers shall
be men of conscience, men of character, men of
high-bred manners, men that can neither be
bought off, nor reasoned off. nor frightened off,
nor fiattered off from the simple and immutable
right
Suppose you adopt the Sermon the Mount
as the platform of your political party, and then
elect bad men to office on that declaration of
about your beautiful utterances in the platforms
Verify, no! They nothing for good princi-
pies. Carlyle said of his heroes: ''The thoughts
they had were the parents of the actions they
did" This is universal truth The chief ques
ton is: What is in the man? 1t is not matter
of Indifference, but it is matter of much less
Importance to inquire what is in the platform of
his political party. The power of civil govern
ment is chiefly in its personnel.
So we must demand character in mon to
whom we trust the responsibility of civil Office.
We must vote only and always for men who
will approach the trust of civil office with
erence as the high-priest would go intokhe holy
of holes" where the glory of Gods presence
made the place awful
"God give us men! a time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready
hands:
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of Office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and will;
Men who have honor-men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before demagogue
And damn his treacherous batteries without wnking
Tall men, crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking"
God give upright men for all our public trusts
That great Nation S life may be to Thee
One long, glad song of praise! Amen