The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1890-09-06

who saw they are too busy to be %reliaions
They have an idea somehow that religion
will spoil their worldly occupation, that II
will trip the accountants pen, or dull the
carpenters saw, or confuse thelawyer's brief
or disarrange the merchants store-shnlf.
They think religion 10 impairment. They
would like TO have it very well seated beside
them in church on the Sabbath. to find the
place in the psalm | ok, OF TO nudge them
awake when they get sleepy under the
didactic discourse; or they you'd like to
leave it in the pew on Sabbath evening, as
they go out closing the door,aaying Good
night religion; I'll be shack next Snnday!''
But to have religion go right along BY them
all through life, TO have religion looking over
their shoulder when they are making q bar.
gain, to have religion take up a bag of dis.
honest gold and shake it, and say: Hal hal
where did you get that?' They think that
is an impertinent religion. They would like
are sick, and when the shadow OF death
comes over them they would like to have re.
ligion MS o sort of night-key with which to
open the doors Of heaven; but religion under
other circumstances they take to be an i'm
pertinence. Now, my friends, religion never
robbed a man of a dollar. Other thing be-
ing equal. o mason will build a better wall,
q cnbinet-maker will make a better chdr. d
plumber viii make a better pipe. q ldwyer
will make q better plea, a merchant will sell
q better bill of goods.
/ say other things being equal, or cdurse
when religion gives q man a new heah. it
does not propose to give him a new head or
TO inteliectuallze him., or to change a mans
condition when his ordinary statei il an OVER
throw OF the philosophical theory that ato-
tai vacuum is impossible: but the more let
ters you have to write, the more burdens YOU
nave to carry, the more miles you have TO
travel, the more burdens you have to Il t,
The more engagements you have to meet, the
more disputes yon have to settle, the more
opportunity you have of being a Christian.
Ii you have a thousand irons in the fire,
you have a thousand more opportunities OF
serving God than if you had only one iron
In the fire. Who SO busy as Christ? And vet
who 9 mIlllonth part as holy? The busiest
men the best men. All the persons converted
IN Scripture busy at the time OF their being
converted. Matthew attending to his Gus
tom house duties; the prodigal son, feeding
swine; Lydia selling purple; Simon Peter
hauling in the net from the sea; Saul spur
ring his horse toward Damascus, going
down on his law business. Busy! busy! Dam
lei witt all the affairs of state weighing down
upon his soul. and yet three times a day
worshiping the God of Heaven. &s. .
Again: l learn from this subject that a man
may take religion into his politics. Daniel
had oil the affairs of state on hand, yet q
Christian. He could not have kept his ele-
waited position unless he had been a thor
ough politician; and yet all the thrusts of
officials and all the danger of disgrace did
not make him yield one iota of heightened
religious principle, He stood before that
age, he stands before all ages, q specimen OF
q Christian politician, ~ y
So there have been in our day and in the
days of our fathers men as eminent in the
service of God as they have been eminent in
the service of the state. Such was Benjamin
+. Butler, attorney general of New York in
the time of your fathers. Such was John,
Mclean, of Ohio Such was George Briggs,
of Massachusetts,. Such was Theodore
Frelinghuysen, Of New Jersey. Men faithful
to the state, at the same time faithful to
God.
1t is absurd to expect that men who have
been immersed in political wickedness for
80 or 40 years shall come to reformation:
and our hope is in the young men who are
coming up. that they have patriotic princi-
pie and Christian principle side by side
when they come to the ballot box and cast
their first vote, and that they swear allie
glance to the governmental heaven as we'll
as to the government of the United States.
We would have Bunker Hill mean less to
them than Calvary, and Lexington mean less
to them than Bethleham. -" - sc
But because there are bad men around the
ballot box is no reason why Christian men
should retreat from the arena.
The last time you ought to give up your
child or forsake your child is when it is sur.
rounded by a company of C~hoctaws; and
the last time to surrender the ballot box is
when 1t Is by lmpurity and dis
honesty and all sorts oil wickcdness.
Daniel stood on q most unpopular plat
form. DE stood firmly. though the dema-
gogues of the day Missed at him and tried to
overthrow him. We must carry our religion
into our politics. But there are a great
many men who are in favor of taking re-
liglon into national politics who do not see
the Importance OF taking it into city politics,
as though 9 q were intelligent about the
welfare OF his neighborhood, and had no
concern about MS house;
Religion would drive out all base person
alities from politics. You have q right to
discuss mems politics and denounce their
political or receive them, as you
Will; but you have no right to nssaH their
private character, as is lone every autumn.
That ia not carrying religion into politics.
Now you can always tell without asking, in
any contest, what candidate | will vote for.
ed, and most abused. and most spit upon,
and most howled at. YOU have q right to
contest q mans political sentiments; you
have no right for base political purposes to
assail his private moral character.
My subject also impresses me with the fact
that lions cannot hurt q good man. No
man ever got into worse company than
Daniel got into when he was thrown into the
den. Whata rare morsel that fairyoung man
would have been Tor the hungry monstersl If
they had plunged ut him he could not have
climbed into a niche beyond the reach Of
their paw or the snatch of their tooth, They
pleased all about him. as o hunters
bounding to his feet.
YOu need NOT 90 to Numidia TO pet among