p. 8 | Bishops Too Soon by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 14, 1882

Bishops Too Soon.

By Editor

When Martin Van Buren was a candidate on the "Free-Soil" ticket, a functionary of the Episcopal Church refused to vote for him on the ground that he was too recently come from the pro-slavery ranks.

"Do you not receive converts just from the ranks of the enemy, into your church?" he was asked.

"Yes;" he replied, "but we do not make bishops of them at once."

We think it would have been well for the "church vote," or those controlling it, to have put some of the politicians and political editors into training before they started them out on a theological campaign. They seem to act awkwardly in the new harness. In a report in the S. F. Alta of a speech of a prominent candidate, wherein he defends the Sunday Law, are the following words:—

"At San Jose, they declared all this to be sumptuary, and, what is worse, they charge it all to Jefferson and Jackson. This is rough on those two old men; for they were both strictly religious, and observed the Sabbath as a divine institution."

In our youthful days we were a great admirer of "Old Hickory," and his frequent use of his favorite strong expression, "By the Eternal," was overlooked in the stout-hearted old soldier. In the latter part of his life he was decidedly of a religious turn.

We were a "Jeffersonian Democrat," too, and thought we understood Jefferson. Previous to 1882, we considered Jefferson an infidel; never once did we hear it hinted that he was "strictly religious." But we yield; we change our mind. We admit that he was as pious as a California politician!