CHRISTIAN ENDEAVORS IN POLITICS.
By Editor
It was four years ago and little more that a minister, writing in the Advance of Jan. 2, 1890, marveled at the judiciousness with which the Endeavor movement had been carried on. He said he knew of no movement which had been managed with so few mistakes. It had rejected the temptations to make it partisan in denominationalism, in politics, in morals, and in evangelism. At that time the movement could not be said to have entered the political field, but that can no longer be said of it. In our recent election the Christian Endeavor Union of Alameda County deliberately set forth its purposes in politics, and entered the field with all the vigor and earnestness, if not with the craft, of the Roman Catholic Church. In a circular issued before the election, under the mottoes, "For Christ and the Church. For882Temperance and Good Government," they say [Italics as we find them]:— "The time has come when the Christian people and the respectable element generally must unite their forces in the political arena. Our strength has been scattered too long, and as a consequence the forces of evil, which are never divided, have triumphed almost invariably. At the election to be held Tuesday, November 6, there will be five regular tickets in the field, besides a large number of independent candidates. The liquor element and objectionable class of the community will center their votes on their own candidates, leaving the better class to dissipate their strength on a host of nominees for each office. Realizing the danger which threatens our country at this time, the Christian Endeavor Union appointed a committee, consisting of representative men from each party, to select a list of candidates, which the Christian Endeavorers could support as a body. The committee has taken the entire list of candidates, and, after thorough investigation and advising with our leading Christian citizens, we have erased therefrom the names of those who, we have reason to believe, would lend their influence to the liquor element, or who would not be the proper men for Christian people to support. From the remaining list of acceptable nominees we have chosen a straight reform ticket." This entrance into politics, which they say is for "the first time," has been applauded by the ministers of various churches, and also by the public press, which delights to be flattered. We suppose that the Christian Endeavorers think that it is for Christ and the church, but never was a greater mistake. Jesus said: "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you; but whosoever shall be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant; even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." Here is the principle which underlies the work of all true Christian endeavor, and a departure from that principle, to seek to compel men in the name of Christ and his church, merits the rebuke which our Lord gave to the overzealous disciples of old who desired that those who had rejected their Master should be consumed with fire, even as men had been of old. Jesus said: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them." It has been in just such ways as this that religious tyranny has been developed in all times past. Those professing religion, having lost faith in God and his power, have sought by carnal, earthly weapons to effect that which they have not been able to do by spiritual means. This country was faithfully warned of this as long ago as 1831, when a large number of petitions was presented before Congress to endeavor to induce that body to legislate upon religious and moral questions. The prayer of the petitioners was rejected, and the report of the committee which considered the petitions was adopted. That report was one of the most masterful documents ever written in favor of religious liberty. We quote simply two sentences:— "Extensive religious combinations to effect a political object are, in the opinion of the committee, always dangerous. . . . All religious despotism commences by combination and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country, the civil power soon bends under it; and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequence." We already have had for some time the combination. The Endeavorers are but another element in it. And the political institutions of the country are bending under its influence. What else than catastrophe lies before the nation, and that, too, from its would-be saviours? Again, this action of the Christian Endeavor Union is said to be for temperance and good government. In the quotation above they have emphatically said that they have erased the names of those who would lend their influence to the liquor element. They say still further:— "You who desire to see the cause of temperance and good government succeed may choose whom you will to vote for, but remember that the entire Christian Endeavor vote of this county is going to be cast solid for our nominees, and, that victory over the forces of evil may be assured, we ask you to support our candidates at the coming election." On one side of the sheet containing this appeal is their list of acceptable candidates, drawn from five different parties, as follows: Republican, Democratic, Non-partisan, Populist, and Prohibition, besides several independent candidates for different municipal offices. But, although the Christian Endeavor Union are so strongly desirous of temperance candidates, it is a notable fact that the majority of their candidates were drawn from those parties whose interests have always been turned on the side of the saloon element. Among their forty-eight favorite candidates, which they print in bold-faced type, fifteen are from the Republican nominees, three from the Democratic, eleven from the Populist, fourteen from the Non-partisan, and only two from the Prohibition party. Of course it may be said that these men in the old parties are temperance men, but it is notorious that the parties are not temperance parties. To our mind the facts show, on the face of the thing, that what the Christian Endeavorers are after is government control of religion, and that without respect to temperance. In fact, their whole effort for Sunday closing of the saloons has been in favor of Sunday—the religious day—and not for the principles of temperance. There is no greater danger menacing our land to-day than the action that is being taken in political matters by the Christian Endeavorers and the various religious organizations. It means that when this country fully gives itself over to the class who are seeking to rule it, and who are using all the moral influence they possess to obtain it, it is doomed. It is even now too late to hope for freedom from the chains which they have already forged. But we can, however, and will, so far as our influence lies, warn individuals to beware of the seductive thralldom to which they are inviting the world.