The term “priest” may seem a strange one to be applied, by any man in his senses, to an official of the government; and such it is. Nevertheless it was thus used in all seriousness in a discourse delivered at the late Christian Endeavor convention in Washington, D. C., by one of the leading speakers at that gathering, “Evangelist” B. Fay Mills.
This discourse was given Sunday, July 12. Mr. Mills read from his Bible the words of Rev. 5:6: “And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne . . . a Lamb, as it had been slain,” and proceeded to apply the text after his own fancy to the affairs of civil government. By the aid of his imagination he drew from it the conclusion that the “slain Lamb”—Christ—should be legally recognized299and his will made supreme in the laws of the nation.
From this he proceeded to show that all our great political and social problems—difficulties which threaten the very existence of the body politic—would be easily solved by means of this union of Christianity with the State. And this, he declared, was the only remedy for them.
This brought him to the climax of his discourse, which he reached in these words: “There is something more sacred than the Church—the fellowship of the nation.” This idea he elaborated by saying that the calling of the “Christian” politician is more sacred than that of the gospel minister, in which connection he referred to President Cleveland as “the priest of the White House,” whose position was the most sacred of all!
Whether these remarks of Mr. Mills fell upon sympathetic ears or not, we are not told, though it would be fair to presume from other circumstances that they did; but certain it is that his views coincide exactly with those of numbers of his fellow-clergymen. It is as though Mr. Mills’ discourse was taken by a large number of the clergy as the key-note of the campaign into which they were just about entering.
The calling of the “Christian” politician more sacred than that of the gospel minister—to their belief in this sentiment their actions have emphatically testified. But, as we view it, they have just as emphatically proclaimed the utter unholiness of that same “calling.” By the “mud-slinging” and recrimination which now characterize the Sunday discourse in so many places, the “Christian” politician of our land is giving us a beautiful(?) illustration of Mr. Mills’ theory in operation. The only things lacking to make its beauty complete are a decision by vote that Christ is the nation’s King, and that President Cleveland is its high “priest”!