People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1895-02-14
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY IA, 1895.
The Pulpit Is Coming.

Rev. Charles N. Sheldon Of the Con-
gregational church at Topeka was
requested to prepare paper on kick
ing" by the ministerial union. He
did so, and it was endorsed by resOlu-
ton. We can't refrain from quoting
a few extracts from it:
"We have a right to object to the
intense partisanship which never sees
any faults in the members of its own
party. The slavery Of
America to-day is partiSanship. And
it is a slavery that ties many men hand
and foot, abject and coyardly. Alas
for the fact! But it is fact and a
deplorable one in our national life to-
day.
1.-THE Republican party, at that
banquet, (LeavenwOrth) the report of
which went out all over the state, en-
cOuraged drinking by having an I'M
limited supply of liquor on the table
and encouraged the enemies Of the
temperance laws to believe that after
all, the demand of the party for tenn
perance was not very StrOng,and more
than that, set the example to every
boy and young man in Kansas Of
drinking liquor. \
"And yet this great Republican
party asks the ministers and church
members to vote for it, and stand by
it as the great moral, law-abiding
savior of the state of Kansas. 1t asks
the decent, virtuous, sober, temperate
fathers and mothers to stand by and
endorse by their presence and their
silence the expenditure of hundreds
of dollars for Intoxicating liquor to do
honor ~ to a United States senator
at a time when hundreds of Kansas
citizens are suffering for lack Of food
and fuel and clothing. and some of
them actually with nothing to eat but
corn, as | know from letter | have
recently received myself from western
Kansas. Brethren, in the name of
Christ's christianity, this may be all
right, but it looks to meas if it was
all wrong.
"We have right to object in gen.
eTal to any condition of our national
life or our religious life or our SCCiaI
life that is not Christian and pro
pagan. The world is full of things
that we have a right to object to
We are false teachers of Christ if WI
do not object to oppression of TIT
poor by the rich, impure examples SCI
by men of wealth and social standing
unjust discrimination in the matte,
of representation at the head of Ou
government. (FOr the time has come
when a poor man can no more become
United States senator than he Cal
fly to Washington on the promises o
pOlitician.) We have a right to OBJ
jeCt to the contempt thrown upon tht
appeal by respectable citizens for bet
ter enforcement Of law by the pOliti
clans and demagOgueS who are IN tn
public Office for the private plumber
"We have a right T.
object to the man or the newspaper 0
the community that objects to the us
Of the pulpit or the sermon for preach
ing a practical Christianity that az
plies to the entire life of a man o.
earth. 1t is the preachers BUSHES
to denOunce the practical vices an
rOttenneSs of municipal fraud an
political chicanery and bribery. A
the present time in the life of tn
world silence on the gigantic wrong
to woman and sewing girls and hun
anity as it grOans under a vast variet
OF injustice, silence on the enOrm0U
selfShneSS of mOnied greed and pOlit
cal ambition, silence in the preSenC
of undiSputed horrors due to whisk
and gambling and lottery combine!
silence in the face of a general civ
decentralization that is too dead
bury decently-I say silence on tn
part of the ChriStendoIn of Christ {
such a time and crisis of the world,
a silence that is like the guilt
bloOdshed."