The Holly chieftain., 1914-10-09
THE POLITICAL
1PiI:l(H PREACHER
THE PULPIT WARNED AGAINST
THE YELLOW PERIL OF
POLITICS.
= conseerated Ministry Needed for
the Rural Churches.
BY Peter Radford

BY Peter Radford
Lecturer National Farmers Union
The farmers Of this nation have Oh
heir payroll $4,000 preachers and this
number applying themselves diligent
and exclusively to the religious
work at hand is sadly inadequate Ia
properly serve their respective COM
nunities.
Those who put on ecclesiastical
robes are In a measure free to unlock
every door to the human heart and
enter the secret chambers Of reason
and every person should submit their
conduct to review and seek the coun-
'el OF those divinely appointed mes
'engers OF life. but the moment the
minister closes the Bible and opens
the law book. he becomes a menace to
,ocity.
The difficulty of keeping the preach
sr In the pulpit is as old as religion.
Christ encountered 1t in the temple
when he drove the priests from the
bargain counter back to the pulpit.
Dur pilgrim fathers met It when,
through the influence of the clergy, a
witch court was established at Salem,
Mass, In 1892. that precipitated a legal
holocaust threatening to reduce the
population to ashes and which was ex-
inguished by the laymen uniting and
forcing the preachers back to the pull
pit.
The greatest peril to the church to-
lay is politics. The temptation of the
ministry to throw down the cross of
Christ and pick up the club of the
policeman; to substitute the penalties
of the law for the power of the altar
and to legislate religion into human
hearts, never was greater.
The world never needed a religious
ministry more nor political preachers
less than it does today. We need min
listers to teach US how to live; we
know how to vote.
The religious preacher is the most
capable servant and the political
preacher the sorriest master the world
has ever known. Wherever power 10
placed in the hands Of the latter they
Invariably become intolerant, bigoted
and vicious and resort to the whip and
the faggot to enforce their opinion.
Civilization has many times been
compelled to drive incorrigible preach
srs back to the pulpit at the point of
:he bayonet. Many Of the pages of
history are wet with blood shed at the
hands Of political preachers who wrote
avs on the statute books that COM
mitted arson upon mankind, manned
human beings with the hatchet and
sent helpless women to the torture
rack, all because they disagreed with
their views. When in control of gov
srnment the pulpit politicians 'invari-
ably undertake to perform legislative
miracles such as casting out witches
with the fame Of torch, suborning
conscience with shackles and enforc.
ing opinions with the guillotine.
Mixing Politics and Religion.
Politics and religion will not blend.
No free government can long exist OF
the church perform its mission to
society when preachers and politicians
temporarily exchange callings, and a
civilization that will countenance
such conduct will soon decay. Such a
traffic in occupations is as unsound in
principle as the white slave trade is
immoral in practice.
The hand that passes the sacrament
should not collect slush funds for po-
Iitical purposes. The gentle voice that
comforts us in sorrow and pronounces
the last sad rites. upon our departed
loved ones should not rave and rant on
the hustings. do not believe q
preacher can manipulate political ma
chinery and be righteous any more
than he could become a burglar and
be honest. l think it as immoral
Tor a preacher to seek to lobby while
he prays as It would be for him to
gamble while he breaches.
A preacher can no more preach a
political sermon without converting his
pulpit into political rostrum than
he could sell intoxicating liquor from
the altar without converting the
church into bar-room. He can no
more nurifv politics by PLAYING the