Arizona weekly enterprise., 1890-11-22
DIR. DE COSTA SCORES THE PHARI-
 SEES.
The Cnholy Alliance Deserved to Suffer
 Defeat and Humiliation.
New York SUn

New Ofh -iu
 The Rev. c. r. De Costa, in his ser mon at the Church of St. John the Evan gelist, yesterday morning, reviewed the late political campaign and gave hls opinion of the clergymen who lent thelr aid to bolster up sham reform.
 He said that some persons thought he had gone too far when he compared the leaders of the defunct movement with the Scribes and Pharisees of old. The Phar- isees were sincere and meant to be just, he said, but they believed the end lusti- fed the means, and were ready to do evil that good might come. ''The Pharisees," said Dr. De Costa. made what some men would call deal with the opposite po- litical faction known as the Herodians. Both factions were hostile to Christ and they combined to compass his destruction. Christ was an impostor and they must get rid of him. As regards the means they must not be too particular. Hence their motto was: Anything to defeat the Nazarine, called the Christ So said those excellent and respectable people who stood as leaders in society, and whose religious character and reverenhal spirit no one dared to question. What blast these respectable people got when they tried to entangle Christ in his talk. Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites!
 History repeats itself. and last Sunday your attention was called to the fact that we then had before us a choice of evils, for the Pharisees and Herodians are not dead yet. They live on age after age, and come to the front when a bargain is to be struck. Sometimes the alliance succeeds. Last week it failed, and most men are now willing to say why. l refer to this subject not for the purpose of in creasing the modification, for whatever view e may have taken of the subject all good citizens must feel mortified, and the fact that thousands were thoroughly sin cere in their views does not mitigate the present feeling of regret. The encourag- ing fact exists that the eyes of 50,000 or 60.000 voters were opened long before election day, some refusing to register, and 10000 more who did register refusing to go to the polls, rejecting alike the en- treaties of politician and ecclesiastic. No, they said; this is an immoral compact. We refuse the choice of evils This was a silent speech, but it is sounding in the ears of the political clergy in tones of thunder.
 This disagreeable subject has now passed out of politics, and one may refer to it here by way of illustration, because the case is without a parallel among the remarkable events of the nineteenth cen tury. It represents great moral advance. New York City, which we are too ready to decry, under the circumstances may well feel proud of the record. Sixty thousand men refused on moral grounds to take part in the election. It was an l adverse judgment, passed on the prlnci- pies and policy of those who assumed tC be the leaders of purity and morality | You were told last July that what was needed was a reformation of reformers and now these thousands of people have substantially said so. and unceremonious | ly cast them with all their responsibility into the balance and found them wanting And if these 'reformers' desire to be re spected ill the future they will have to bring forth works meet for repentance ol else stand convicted as blind leaders o the blind. There is the redeeming fac that a large body of men had mora sense sufficiently clear to resist all ap peals from political pulpits and to rejec the Herodian policy. l say this withou casting any reflection on men who voted according to their convictions. GoO( men. and plenty of them, voted on bOti sldeS, and It Is no part or the preacher duty to condemn either.
 Let us, however, resolve that in tht future, leaders in both church and stat, shall be held firmly to the highest mora standards, and that we will have none o the preachers who descend from the nor al plane to the political, and who, on tn, low platform of expedieney, seek to in fluence public action. To say that w | arc confined tO nhOioe Of evils is down right blasphemy, and the preacher wh
 says so is the blasphemer The preache must always and everywhere be a preach CT of righteousness, not of expediency though he stand alone"