p. 381 | Untitled article by W. H. M.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · December 8, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 48

The Gloomiest View Yet.

By W. H. M.

THE Washington Post thinks Mr. Wanamaker should explain something that he has said in one of his recent Sunday-school talks, and in an editorial paragraph, on November 15, has this to say about it:—

In his regular Sabbath afternoon address to Bethany Sunday-school, on the 13th inst., Postmaster General Wanamaker said:—

“The strife between God’s people and his enemies is like that between the two great political parties, a continual and ceaseless wrangle. On the one side are the righteous, on the other the unrighteous. There is no third side. We must choose one or the other. Indifference is fatal. Every man stands either with or against God.”

This is the gloomiest view yet broached as to the significance of last week’s elections. No one hitherto has considered the question in any other than a purely political light, and no one, consequently, has suggested that religion was involved. Ordinary persons supposed merely that the country was tired of Republican theories and policies in government.

Mr. Wanamaker, however, assures his Philadelphia Sunday-school that the late campaign resembles the strife between God’s people and God’s enemies, the righteous being on one side and the wicked on the other. We know, of course, which is the righteous side in the religious strife, because Mr. Wanamaker himself is there in evidence; but he leaves us to guess as regards the political struggle, vouchsafing no tip further than that which the notorious facts of the case contain, viz.: That Mr. Wanamaker’s side was disastrously beaten. Does the Postmaster-General mean to imply that the wicked triumphed on Tuesday last and that the truly good are underneath?

This is an extremely important and interesting proposition of Mr. Wanamaker’s, but it should be put in a little more specific form if its distinguished author expects it to accomplish real good.

Of course Mr. Wanamaker had no intention of talking irreligious politics on Sunday. Indeed he has been known to say—since the election—that he could not discuss the political situation on that day,—with a reporter. But, in the bosom of his Sunday-school, that would be quite another thing. If to Mr. Wanamaker, as to editor Shepard, “politics is religion,” then he could not discuss the sacred subject with an irreverent reporter. Yet, as Mr. Shepard’s and Mr. Wanamaker’s politics is religion, so Mr. Cleveland’s and Mr. Whitney’s politics must be irreligion. The triumph of irreligion over religion, while a very gloomy subject to Mr. Wanamaker and his Sunday-school, would not necessarily be tabooed as between them, indeed it would be a matter of vital interest. But to converse upon the sad and sacred matter on Sunday, too, with a professor of the conquering irreligion, would be, of course, shocking to the feelings, and be at the same time political blasphemy. This is the specific proposition—Mr. Wanamaker and many of his party profess themselves to be the party of political religion and religious politics. To them, their defeat signifies the defeat

of religion. No wonder the words of the distinguished Sunday-school teacher, to the Bethany school, were somewhat pessimistic.

But let Mr. Wanamaker take courage, the incoming party will no doubt develop a religion which he may yet be able to endorse, ex-officially, as it were.

W. H. M.