Owingsville outlook. [volume] (Owingsville, Ky.) 1879-192?, 1897-07-08


are questions that strike your counting
rooms to the center. You may not
throw it oil. In the city of New York
Christian merchants for great while
said: We'll have nothing to do with
the management of public affairs" anI
they allowed everything to go at loose
ends until there rolled up in that city
a debt of nearly $l20.0OO. 900. The mu-
nicipal government became Il kissing
and byword in the whole earth, and
then the Christian merchants saw their
folly, and they went and took posses
sion of the ballot boxes. wish all com
mcrcial men To understand that they
are not independent of the moral char.
actcr of the men who rule over them,
but must he thoroughly, nightly af
fectcd by them.
So also of the educational interests of
a city. DO you know that there are ia
this country about 10000 common
schools, and that there are over 5, OOO,-
600 pupils, and that the ma jority of
those schools and the maiority of those
pupils are in our cities? Now this great
multitude of children will be affected
by the intelligence or ignorance. the
virtue or the vice of boards of education
and boards of control. There are cities
where educational affairs are settled in
the low caucus in the abandoned parts
of the cities 10y men full of ignorance
and rum. II ought not to be so. but in
many cities il is so. hear the tramp of
coming generations. What that great
multitude of youth shall he for this
world and the next will lie affected very
much by the character of your public
schools. You had better multiply thu
moral and religious influences about
he common schools than to subtract
from them. Instead of driving the
Bible out, you had better drive the
l;ible further in. May God defend our
glorious common school system ami
send into rout and confusion all its
sworn enemies.
| have also TO say that the character
OF officials in Il city affects the domestic
circle. In Il city where grogshops have
their own way and gambling bells are
not interfcred with. and for fear of los
ing political influence officials close
their eyes to fostering denominations
in all those cities the home interests
need to make imploration. The family
circles of the city must inevitably be af-
fected 10y the moral character or the i'm
moral character of those who rule over
them.
| will so further aud say that the
religious Interests of IA city are thus af-
fccted. The church to-day has To CON
tend with evils that the civil law ought
to smite, and, while | would not have
the civil government in any wise relax
its energy in the arrest and punishment
of crime, | would have a thousandfold
more energy put forth in the drying up
OF the fountains of iniquity. The church
OF God asks no pencuniary aid from POI
liticial power, but does ASK that in adj
dition to all the evils we must neccssar-
lily contend against we shall not have
to fight also municipal negligence. Oh,
that in all our cities Christian people
would rise up, and that they would put
their hand on the helm before piratical
>ls.magogues Rsve swamped the ship!
slnstead of giving so much time TO ma
tional politics, give some of your atten-
ton TO municipal government.
| demand that the Christian people
who have bcen standing aloof from
public affairs come back, and in the
might of God try to save our cities. If
things are or have been bad, il is be-
cause good people have let them be bad.
That Christian man who merely goes
to the polls and casts his vote does not
do his duty. II is not the ballot box
that decides the election; il is the po-
litical caucus, and if at the primary
meetings of the two political parties un-
fit and bad men are nominated, then the
ballot box has nothing to do save to
| take its choice between two thieves.
In our churches. by rcformatory or
ganization, in every way let us try to
tone up the moral sentiment in these
cities. The rulers are those whom the
people choose, and depend upon il that
in all the cities, as long as pure hearted
men stand aloof from politics because
they depise hot partisanship, just SO
long in many of our cities will rum
make the nominations. and rum control
the ballot box. and rum inaugurate the
officials
take step further in this subject
and ask all those who believe in the
orlnipotence of prayer, day by day and
every day, present your city officials
before God for blessing. If you live
in city presided over by mayor,
pray for him. The chief magistrate of
a city is in position of great RESPONSE
bility. Many of the kings and queens
and emperors of other days had no such
dominion. With the scratch of n pen he
may advance a beneficent institution or
| balk n railway confiscation. By an
pointments he may bless or curse every
hearthstone in the city. If in the Episco-
pal churches, by the authority of the lit
any, and in our nonepiscopate churches
we every Sabbath pray for the president
of the United States, why not, then. be
just as hearty in our supplications for
the chief magistrates of cities, for their
guidance, for their health, for their
| present and their everlasting morality?
But go further. and pray for your
common council. if your city has n
common council. They hold in their
hands power splendid for good or ter
rible for evil. They have many temp
tations. In many of the cities whole
boards of common council men have
gone down i'm the maelstrom of DO
litical corruption. They could not
stand the power of the bride. Corrup-
ton came in and sat beside them, and
sat behind them, and sat before them.
They recklessly voted away the hard
earned moneys of the people. They
were bought out, body, mind and soul,
so that at the end of their term of Of
flee they had not enough of moral re-
mains left to make n decent funeral.
They went into office with the huzza
of the multitude. They came out with