The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-08
POLITICAL WATCHMEN.
SERMON BY REV. VIM. ". M'LANE
 OFPLYMOUTH CHURCH.

True and False Watchmen--They Re-
 fleet the Voters Who Elect Them
 Office Not an Honor, but an OppOrtu-
 nity for service-Necds for Political
 Education.
 The following sermon on the subject of Political Watchman' was delivered by Rev, william W. McLane at Ply mouth church last night:
 For there shall be a day that the watchman upon the hills of Ephriam shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto Jehovah our God."-Jeremiah xxi,
 One of the marked distinctions be- tween an ancient oriental city and a modern western city is the presence of wills in the case of the former and the absence of walls In the case of the lat ter The traveller enters the former through a gateway which exists really for exclusion, and the traveller enters the latter by way of railroad whose entrance is unhindered. The ancient city was always exposed to attack and siege; the modern city lies open every way to the freedom of commerce. You can count of the fingers of one hand every large city In our land which dur ing our entire history has suffered an attack from foreign foe. On the walls of an ancient city watchmen were 1 stationed whose duty 1t was to look for enemies and dangers and to warn the 1 people or to apprlse them if all was well.
 Jeremiah, whose place was Jerusalem, i lived in troublous times. A great army was approaching from the north whose might made resistance vain and the prophet eounseled surrender as the safer course thereby incurring the hat red of officials who claimed to be truer patriots. But Jeremiah saw that cap tivity would be the result of resistance. With the mind of a seer, however, and | the heart of a lover of his people he saw that in due time the people shou.d re- turn to their country and in the heart of tha vision he saw wachmen who from the hill of Ephriam looking to- ward the north from whence the pres 1 ent foe approached would call to the people to return to worship In Zion and to faith in God, For the prophet saw that the real cause of Israel's weakness lay in immortality and that the source of individual and national strength; and watchmen who recognized God and who bid the people conform to His laws are the true guardians of nations safety
 l This is fact to be recognized by men of modern times. There are two classes of men namely, those who practically believe in God and who like the plasm- ist always set God before them and feel their responsibility to him, and those who forget God and like the wicked do | not have God in all their thoughts ! These latter are the men who say, | business is business" and that The l golden rule has no place in politics" The object of these men both in busl- ness and in political life is to gain | something for themselves. The object of the former both in business and in political life, is to obey God and to render service to men. Now as in an- cient times when the latter reign the people are troubled and when tho for mer are in authority the people rejoice The Biblican conception of political leaders and rulers is that they are ser- wants of God appointed to minister to men and that they bear he sword of au- thority for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise and reward of them who do we'll IA very common human opinion of rulers has been that they are a favored class whom the people should serve and who hold high office for their own pleasure and profit. Mod ern democracy has denied the divine right of kings in the sense that cer- tain families are divinely chosen to bear rule; but modern democracy has held, often, practically, to the doctrine that office is for the benefit of the office holder and that places of public ap- lpointment, like the spells of war, are a reward for party services. In democ- racy the private opinions of men be- come the public policy of parties and the official practice of officials. It is unreasonable to suppose that in de- mocracy men chosen to office may tram scend the people who elect them in purpose and in principle; but in rep resentative government the men who hold office will ordinarily represent and reflect the voters who elect them. Here in lies the importance of true political training and of correct ideas in respect of the sphere of government and the duties of officials.
 So long as we, for example, look upon Ipublic office as a position, election to which expresses the appreciation of the electors and the holding of which gives lpublic adornment to some man whom his fellows would honor, we cannot req sonably expect the men who hold office
 to regard it differently They will un- doubtedly look upon office in it's rela.
 ton to themselves as honored in the holding of it rather than In it's rela- tion to the public who should be served
 So long as men may be chosen to the
 presidency as an expression of public Iadmiratl0nt as solqier, llhe bfdhI
 has sometimes be chosen, the true char acter and high responsibility of that of
 flee will be obscured. And So long as
 men are appointed to minor offices as {
 reward for party services and for thell
 own personal gain the real purposes O. such offices will hold a secondary place in the minds of the men who All them | r,l o ,,oli+iaa1 ad,,potion of mir neonl,