The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-07-18
Extracts from LOWndeSVille Advertiser
Politics and Religion.

POI1f1cS anu hellS1Oh.
AS a State and nation, we are verg-
ing on a period in our history when
the moral stamina, and the professed
civilization Of our country, will be
thoroughly tested. Nothing brings
out so vividly the exact attachments
of people, as political campaign.
1t is becoming (rightfully so, too) q test
of the solidity of a mans religion.
This is one of the best signs of our
times. There is nothing more absurd
and pernicious in tendency than the
opinion that a mans public admins
trations or acts are entirely discon-
nected from his private life. Itsounds
childish and is the outgrowth of a
false idea, to teach distinction along
this line.
You sometimes hear mon talking
against mans carrying his religious
sentiments into politics, as though
they were to be totally distinct. The
unthinking, and the corrupt politician
always talk that way, but the man of
reason, who knows and feels the worth
of life, and the inseparable relation of
every part of mans character, knows
better, and in spite of all to the con-
trary, he knows that mans political
acts, and religious principles, are con-
iunctive. You cannot separate them.
The one is an index to the other.
A mans political views, and the ex-
ercisetof his right of suffrage, deter.
mine beyond question what he is re-
ligiously, despite all he may profess to
the contrary.
Any individual act determining
public veal or woe, does as much
to fix a mans religious worth, as any
act between man and man. The feel
ings of friendship, or the promise of
combination, or the old secret custom
of "you tickle me and I aOiN tickle
you," cannot palliate the offence of a
man in compromising his religious
convictions, for the sake of political
intrigues. We maintain the ground,
that a mans politics and religion are
inseparably connected, and that what
ever he is in the one, he is in the 9th
er. If he makes his religious convic-
tions first, and those convictions are
intelligent and high, then he will aot
and vote politically in the light of
his religious life, but if he puts poll
tics first and, at least for the time
being, sells out and compromises his
religious convictions, it will only be q
matter of time, when the man will
regulate all of his religious life, upon
the same basis.
Our politics and religion will be in
quality as educating and elevating in
fluences just what we make them by
our personal acts, and individual lives.
Vote as you pray. If a man is a
friend, and there is much about him
you like, and yet you know he is not
what he should be religiously, and that
he is defective in his sympathies and
aspirations concerning certain lines of
action, necessary to the promotion of
the best interests Of the country, then
as Christian, you are duty bound to
look out for some man who will repre-
sent, and take care of this interest, al
though you are not in your social re-
lations half so familiar as with the
other. 1t takes backbone-it takes
CRITIC act upon this high plane, but
it will take the exercise of this to
bring the needed reform, if it ever
comes, and now is the time to act.
Vote for no man who is not known to
be in hearty sympathy with all the
intellectual and moral interests of the
country. If every religious man in
this country will carry his religion
with him into this political campaign,
and to the ballot-boX, then you will
begin to see reform and progress, in
dicative of the pe,me'ace Of o,u' Chris
tan cSviEzation.