Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1889-11-14
THE POLITICAL PREACHER.

Guernsey Times
The election is over The Guernse,
county Democrats and the Prohibition
lists weep mingled tears of sore regre
and mournfully are burying their dead
Together they fought the fight, these
sin-clad knights of earth and thest
armored sons OF heaven, andside by side
in the same deep trench they soon will
lie. They were together IN life and in
death they re;not divided. Preacher and
rum-seller lie wrapped in one red burial
blent. They fought bravely, each striv-
ing to cut the life out of the Republi-
can party which with conjoined hatred
and intensity of purpose each opposes,
each despises. There are some people,
we understand, who think it is hardly
the proper thing for preacher to get
down from the sacred desk and take part
in the acrimonies and discords of poll
tics, but these people are surely wrong.
1t is clearly the right of any American
citizen to be politician and bitter,
abusive politician if he wants to be; and
the trifling fact that an American citi-
zen may happen to be Christian min
lister does not take away that right. OF
course the common herd of unsanctifed
politicians will probably reserve the
rir 70 rriu ha s
icine that he gives them, and if he
throws mud he will run a mighty risk
of getting his clerical vestments spat-
tered unless he takes them off, And
that's something he doesn't usually do;
and he is ordinarily quite paralyzed when
he finds somebody has had the audacity
to pick up little of the mud that he
has been throwing and heave it back at
him,-at him, man of God and Pro-
hibitionistl That's something he does
not like; but he will have to stand it.
Yes, he has right to be very mean in
politics if he wants to be. If his con-
gregation does not object he has right
to spend just as much of his valuable
time as he sees proper in defending his
party's cause on the hustings and abus-
ing the integrity of the very same men
perhaps who compose his congregation
on the holy Sabbath and to whom he has
been sent bearing the gospel of love and
peace. These men may not be able
when they come into church on Sabbath
day for the purpose of hearing him
preach their gospel of love and peace,
to readily divest themselves of the feel
ings of hostility and suspicion with
which they listened to the gospel of
abuse and hate that the same man had
been preaching from the stump all the
week before. But that may not matter
much; the preacher has right to be a
politician all the same, especially if he
be deeply convinced. and declare him
self sufficiently often to be so convinced
that God Almighty has revised his call
to preach and placed this particular par
ty's success above the triumph of the
cause of the meek and lowly Nazarene
1t is of course, true that the congrega-
tion which assemblies on the holy Sab
bath day TO hear This political preacher
preach, may from hearing him preach
politics all the week before have come
to regard his solemn utterances of gos-
pei truth with the same distrust that
they justly regard his utterances on the
stump. They have always been assured
by this prophet, priest and king of theirs
that what he says upon the stump has
Gods own approval and that God speaks
through him; and they have found him
his fellows, distorting the
truth, and actually caught him lying on
the stump. So they may perhaps con-
clude that if Gods called and consecrat-
ed minister will deceive and lie in poll
tics he will do the same thing in religion.
But that does not affect the political
preachers right to advocate the Prohi-
bition party. There are some who ques-
tion the expediency of the undertaking,
but what is the question of expediency
compared to great principle? The Holy
Church may 60 down, but what if it
does? The Holy Party will still be left