SECTARIANISM IN THE ELECTION.
In the State of New York, and especially in New York city and Brooklyn, it is reported that the Catholic clergy have openly and unitedly given their influence to the Democratic party; the parochial societies have been turned into Tilden clubs; and even Cardinal McCloskey is said to have attended the conferences of the Democratic leaders. In the October elections, it is no secret that the Democracy relied upon the united support of the Romish Church, and received it. We have now before us a copy of a circular which is being distributed among faithful Catholics in Indiana. It has stamped upon it the figure of a large cross; below are the names of the Democratic candidates, Tilden and Hendricks; and underneath these is the injunction: “All Catholics are earnestly urged to go to the polls and vote for these candidates. They are friends of the church. Remember the date of the election, Tuesday, Nov. 7.” We submit that if sectionalism in politics is bad, sectarianism is worse. The facts which we have cited go to show that the Democratic managers are counting not only on arraying one section against another, but one religion against another, and that it is finding in the Roman Catholic Church a willing and powerful ally. Not long ago the Catholics attempted to carry an election in New Jersey by a similar alliance with the Democracy, and the indignant sentiment of the people defeated them by an overwhelming majority. It is a mistake to suppose that the church can intrude itself upon national politics with any better success. In a country which designs to keep church and State entirely separate, it is not likely that we are going to submit to the control of a church whose civil despotism, wherever it has gained it, has been of the most crushing and arbitrary sort. Our system of government says to all churches, Catholic and Protestant, Hands off! The time has not come yet when the American people will submit to be governed by priestly machinery, or permit the control of their affairs to be vested in the Church of Rome. Such endeavors to coerce voters by bringing the power of the church to bear upon them can affect only such as are very weak and pliable, while the dangers involved in such churchly domination will stimulate American freemen to show their condemnation of it.—Boston Journal.