A SECT IN POLITICS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 9, 1876

A SECT IN POLITICS.

It is in order to say a word on the late Ohio election, though we do not mean to speak of its partisan aspects. But it was almost the first important election in this land in which it was announced beforehand that the vote of one entire church would be given to one party. It is impossible to say how many persons were influenced in their votes by the fact that this church avowed uncompromising opposition to the public school system of the State, but surely some were. But one thing is patent—the vote of the Roman Catholic church is dangerous, and not helpful to the party to which it is given. It may give temporary success, and sometimes in a district where parties are evenly balanced, it may help one side into continuous possession of power, but in the long run its embrace will be death.

The Protestant feeling of this country is hard to rouse; indeed, we often feel that Protestants are singularly apathetic, indifferent to the progress of the enemy, and reckless concerning rights which they should earnestly maintain. And yet this seeming apathy may be readily accounted for. Americans have learned to sink their sectarian differences at the polls. They separate Church and State in their thoughts as they have separated them in their National Constitution. Men go from the same sanctuaries, and from the fellowship which they find in the same forms of worship, and vote on opposite sides of great national or local questions. They return to their places in the house of God next Sabbath, and worship as heartily together as before. They will not carry their party into their church. So also they feel that they cannot carry their church within party lines. They are citizens there, not Baptists, Episcopalians, or Presbyterians. They are not even Protestants, for Protestantism is a form of faith, and not a form of secular polity. They would feel somewhat ashamed of a ballot which had a sectarian taint upon it. They are reluctant to admit that others are less fair and open, or more willing to use their votes for the advantage of their particular sect. They are slow of heart to believe that the priest has been manipulating the men who ought to be free and independent in the exercise of the highest duty which is connected with citizenship.

Occasionally, however, all this is changed. The manipulating hand becomes too clearly visible. The old Protestant feeling begins to stir. Suspicion is roused, and attention is directed to the maneuvering of the enemy. Then, if plotting against any liberty or right of the American citizen, or any principle of the American polity is discovered, woe be to the plotters whose intrigues are unveiled. The latent feeling leaps forth like a flame and burns everything in its way. The carefully constructed platforms of the politicians go up into smoke or down into ashes. Fair speeches wither up before the wrath of the people, and demagogues and priests escape together into their hiding-places until the danger is overpast. It does not last long usually—fortunately for the fugitives from its fierceness; but it does its work effectually, and then it sinks to rest. And it leaves a lesson which the generation then on the stage of action rarely forgets.

By certain infallible signs, as well as by open avowals, it is now known that the Roman Catholic Church has lately made a united and significant movement. It means to destroy the public schools in the United States, unless it can control them, and make them subservient to its own purposes. It has acted upon this principle for centuries past. Whatever would not serve it must perish. Every government, every institution, every individual, that cannot be molded and guided by its hand, must vanish from before its face. It means nothing less than this, and hesitates not to avow it.

In the celebrated Syllabus, issued by the present pope, the papacy arrayed itself against the civilization of the age and the progress of humanity. The outburst of astonishment and indignation with which this arraignment of all modern ideas and institutions was received, did not dishearten the adherents of Rome. They stand by their programme, and will endeavor to give effect to all its provisions. We do not doubt that the late movement, in regard to the public school system of the United States, is part of a general scheme, the outlines of which might be deduced from the Papal Syllabus of 1864. At least, the movement is one which chimes in most admirably with the statements and arguments of that famous document which expressly condemned all schools freed from ecclesiastical authority.

For the present, however, we are glad to know that the papal party in the United States has failed—failed completely and disastrously. The leaders, we believe, have sprung their trap twenty years too soon. They have shown their hand indiscreetly, and the eyes of the people have been turned full upon them. The late election in New Jersey was proof that in that State men were awakening to the peril foreshadowed by the movements of the priests. What influence was exerted in Ohio by this awakened feeling we do not know, but we know that priests were seen at public meetings, and sometimes attempted defenses of their church and its policy. We are inclined to thank them for letting us know so soon what they want, and what they mean to do. It will be our fault now if they succeed. And the men who watch for currents of popular opinion, and construct cunning political platforms, would be wise to note the fact that the Protestant feeling is just beginning to be stirred. It will only require a deepening of its intensity to give it a force by which priests and politicians will be swept away together.—Sel.

It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding it out.—Rochefoucauld.