Licking Valley courier. [volume] (West Liberty, Ky.) 19??-current, 1917-08-09
GUMPTION, ~
(, Which is plain Common Sense, in United States
language, without Educational Furbelows.
BY L. II. HOVERNIALE.
A Lost Opportunity.

A Lost Opportunity.
The church people lost an opportunity in the few
weeks preceding the primary election When the call
issued to them to stand forth and place themselves openly
against the of whskey and money they refused to re-
spond and the candidates. seeing that the church people
Indifferent took courage and made the primary just
passed If the most couptn the history Of the county,
Some months ago stated in these columns that would
make the fight for clean elections if had to make alone
and it was alone that made it, and failed.
a am not chagrinned the result in the race for
County Attorney All my friends realized that winning
the Office secondary consideration with me- and at
the wind-up went almost wholly for young Williams in
the hope OF eectng sober man, and it almost succeeded
Nevertheless, practically alone in the fight to create
organization to work for clean elections Even the
preachers enthusiastic they might have been
and result witnessed the spectacle of candidates
who made their their record for sobriey flooding
the county with whiskey have infinitely more respect
for the candidate who drinks whisky and elections
than for the candidate who don't drink whisky and yet
in elections The former honest in bis practices
while the latter is surrendering principle for gain
You will notice that have used the word church peo-
pie in the above paragraphs did advsdly as there
is very frequently distinction between church people and
Christians If the church people had been Christians i'll
would have been easy task to have perfected an organ
zaton that would have enforced clean elections But as
the test proved, only small per cent were Christians
don't want to be misunderstood in this statement big
majority of church members are fairly good citizens and
mean well and frequently deceive themselves with the be-
lief that they Christians; yet they wiling to
stand for Christian principles when there may be personal
loss entaied political hopes emperled Even preachers
sometimes minimize their efforts lest some of their congre
cation take ofense or some member stop paying Hence
inch by inch the church is giving ground to the devil until
very few of the biblical sins under the ban noW By
degrees the church has abandoned the pure life of the
early Christians and modenized" religion that about
all that required to hold prominent place in the church
is to pay the assessments But God is not mocked and
millions will be yanked into hell from the back door of the
church who accounted religious leaders by men, The
religion of Jesus Christ the that it was in apostolic
times and is just necessary to literally follow his foot
steps now as it was then.
But am not discouraged about clean elections At
the time when everything looked blue to Elijah and the
good old thought that he alone was steadfas God
showed him that there others and that the battle
was not lost But the battle must be fought upon the
proper battle field Church members must be made into
Christians courageous and aggressive ready always to do
the thing that right without regard to consequences
In other words there must be regeneration in the church
that will make the Christians life stand out in splendid
contrast to the life of the worldly and that state can not
be attained by the who cOdones the of booze and
money in elections. Christian should be- and is ready
to place himself in the forefront of every fight for right
and to demonstrate that his belief means something to
him.
At the time that began the agitation for clean eec-
tons there plenty of time to have effected an organ
zaon that would have prevented the wholesale debauch
cry that characterized the primary If the minis
ters had actively epoused the and worked earnestly
for practical organization instead of depending on the
individual different condition would have attended the
primary and we would have been spared the drunken rev.
els that the election whisky caused
My conception of Christians duty is to fight sin il
whatever guse is found and do not believe that the
mere refranng from participating in an evil excuses one
There must be active opposition to all forms of evil anc
God don't approve of sackers God helping me am de-
tdrmned to do what ever may to further His cause Tt
every man given aptitude fora certain thing-he
given one or ten aentsand along the line of his speca
fitness for certain vocation he should serve his God
Feeling that by proper use of my talent may b.
able to do good, am going to publish for the mex
few weeks series of lay directed to church mem
bers particularly and parents generally And shall
mince words in handling the matter and shall be guided
by truth only If make the truth sting and bum
much the better. | want to get under the skin.