p. 272, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 28, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 34

METHODIST periodicals are discussing the growing tendency of the clergymen of that denomination to make their annual and general conferences scenes of wire-pulling and log-rolling, that turn them into veritable political caucuses and conventions. Commenting upon this fact, a secular paper remarks that “the methods of the brethren at the last conference, when the ballot box was ‘stiffed’ during the exciting race of the various candidates for bishoprics, were ominous of degeneration. On several ballots, the number of votes found by the tellers was in excess of the whole number of legal voters in the conference, much to the scandal of the devout.” But sad as such things are, we may expect them to become more and more common, as the churches become more and more involved in political matters.