The Forrest City times., 1892-01-08
Mean Religion Worse Than Moan
 Politics.

Mean Religion Worse Than Mean
 Politics.
 Dlachhurn's Froe South.
 In the good old days" of the long past, when people were in the habit of chopping off each others heads for little differences of opinion, a woman was brought to the block. Her ene- mles accused her of being a foe to lib- terty. She oxcla:med: 70 Libertyl What wrongs are committed in thy name!' One is constrained to utter the same ejaculation concerning re- ligion, when Ee reads the action of the White River Methodist conference in dispensing with the services of Rev. N. R. Fizer as a member of that body. LIr. Fizer was a candidate for gover- nor of Arkansas on the union-labor ticket in the last campaign, which con stitutes the head and front of his of- lending. No special pleading can make any other showing. and this act of that conference is a disgraceful il- lustratiou of the extent to which igno- rance and prejudice, backed by so- called religion, will go, in it's detesta- ble hatred of person. Mir. Fizer IS a conscientious, able man, who wears good clothes and clean shirt, and 1t may be that some this eccentricity affords grounds of doctrinal objection to him. We opposed him in his politl- cal career, and did as much as any one to defeat him bnt we are not of those who will smother our manhood while his church is endeayoring to disgrace him. nor arc we of those editors who stultify their chivalry by blGckguard- ing him over the attempted humilia- ton. While it may be better for preachers and jealous church people to stay inside of political ranks and let oflice-seekin2 alone, those who fail to do so should not De abused and s!an- dered by their church and the brain-rot press of the state, as MT. Fizer has been. Were it necessary to speak plainly or harshly of churchmen who insist on putting their hands into the political flesh-pots of Arkansas, to the state house is the proper place to go for subjects of discipline. There will be found political managerie and aviary. The governor, Baptist preacher, is a game cock-of- -the-walk, with steel gaffs on bis heels and clear head and steady eye to direct them. A ''pizen" Baptist is Commis- sioner Locke; a superannuated. coarse haired broad-horn, who seems to for get that his fresh-grass and clay-root days have passed--and who, If there ever was a fifth wheel to wagon, forms cue to the state government of Arkansas. And there, too, is the at torney general. who looks like he had been immersed during cold spell and had never recovered from the shock; he is known as the sick didapper of the ornithological collection. Yet these are all good; capable men. and are none the worse for their religious belief-as they are perhaps none the better; by which VIC mean that they are no better than other honest and honorable men who belong to no church at all. Their practices, how ever, prove that their religious faith is better founded, and their habits of life truer to each ether at least than are some of our Methodist brethren toward themselves. But Mir. Flzer is not inferior to any of them, in any re- lation of life. whether morally, soci. ally, or intellectually; and religion was simply brought into disrepute when the White River conference made him a victim of discipline.