The Baptists and the City Bribe.
By Editor
The expression of our opinion with regard to the acceptance of that land grant from the city by the Baptist Alms-house Society, seems to have disagreed with our reverend brother of the Examiner and Chronicle. He tells us that our remarks were “flippant and impudent.” Well, that is very sad. Nevertheless, our remarks were true, and time will fully justify every word we said. The acceptance of those lots by the Baptist ladies, who were urged thereto by the editor of their most influential denominational paper, has given the death-blow to all hopes of reform with regard to subsidizing religion. All efforts to stop the flow of public property into sectarian channels are likely to be in vain, now that so conspicuous a precedent has been established. The Methodist ladies are already exercised over this very subject, and a discussion is going on among them as to the acceptance of some lots that have been offered them. Their clergy have given good advice in the matter; but it is not at all likely that good advice will prevent the final and fatal consent being given. This is a matter in which precedent counts for everything; and a fatal precedent has been supplied. The Baptists must take the responsibility of having done more to gratify the Ring, and endow the Roman Catholic church in this city, than had previously been done by any Protestant communion. The little sop thrown to them, and hastily snatched at, closes their mouths against the giving away of whole squares to that church, which, by its votes, virtually controls New York. And the same act will have its mischievous influence upon the other Protestant sects, who hitherto have withstood the blandishments of the city government, and protested against this alienation of city property to sectarian purposes. That the lion’s share will gravitate inevitably and always to the Romanists, while an occasional trifle is thrown to the rest, no one can doubt. And, when after years of this sort of thing, the balance comes to be struck, it will be seen how one-sided the distribution has really been, and how cheaply the Protestant recipients have sold their honor. Rev. Dr. DeWitt, and the most respectable clergymen and laymen who signed the letter printed by us the other day, probed the question to its very quick when they said: “It would certainly be a shrewd device of our rulers to enlist the great Baptist denomination in the defense of their system of religious gifts.” Against the counsels of those to whom we all are accustomed to listen with reverence and respect, and in the face of general public opinion, this “great Baptist denomination” has, by the act and votes of a paltry few of its members, “enlisted itself” on the side of the crafty Ring. It may be “flippant and impudent” in us to say this; but the fact is obvious to every one. We regret that the Baptists have pioneered this reactionary and demoralizing movement; for, considering their grand old record of sturdiness as against the encroachments and seductions of secular power, this sale of their birthright for a mess of pottage is utterly inexcusable. But the deed is done, and there can be but one more discreditable thing behind, and that is the attempt to palliate the wrong-doing, or shirk its responsibility. In spite of the disclaimer of the Examiner and Chronicle, we repeat that we have good reason to know that the body of the Baptist denomination repudiates the action taken by these ladies and their few friends, and not to adduce any other proof of this fact, we ask Rev. Dr. Bright to note that the comments made by Boston and Philadelphia Baptist papers upon this transaction place his paper in a position of solitude in sustaining this scheme of fraternization with the ring.—N. Y. Observer.